Zenicetus wrote:
Okay, here's a question for those who think it's a good idea to have alien Heroes available right from the start of the game, before any First Contact:



If you have aliens who are trusted enough, and loyal enough, to serve as System Adminstrators and Fleet Commanders... then why don't they open the map and show you where their home systems are?

I think we are seeing these heroes differently. They are not becoming loyal citizens in your interstellar empire. They are mercenaries. Very very gifted mercenaries, but mercs nonetheless. My government has made contact with these individuals and recognize them as useful assets. In return, they want a steady flow of Dust. I feed their addiction. They propel my empire to greater heights.



Realistically, you do have the option to play the "trust" issue. Just don't hire them yourself.

Zenicetus wrote:
they can serve as system administrators and fleet captains without your own people caring about shoving aliens in charge...

Now that is something I see worth looking into. It would be nice if you got some sort of bonus for using heroes of your race AND/OR a penalty for using alien heroes.

+1

I have to agree with the idea that heroes wouldn't tend to be alien (at least in the beginning). If you are at war with that heroes homeworld I would think that would be a conflict of interest. I like the idea of having other variables involved. If you are a newly borne space empire and an alien (of which your people didn't even know existed) shows up with a powerful ship, I doubt the first thing that happens is they get together and say "hey I have a few dollar bills want to fight for me?" There would be a language barrier to overcome not to mention cultural differences to figure out. Perhaps adding Alien Heroes into the research tree somewhere isn't a terrible idea.

josasa wrote:
There was another thread somewhere talking about heroes, and I posted my idea in there. Figured it should be dropped in here too.



I agree with a lotta people that at the start there shouldn't be foreign heroes available right off the bat. I think that they should only become available after First Contact or something similar -but- I think that there is an interesting game mechanic available here.



It would be cool to have more heroes become available whenever you sign open borders with another faction. Not only would it make sense (the open borders increase the available pool of heroes from which to hire because you can now hire from two empires), but it also adds an incentive to actually be at peace with others, rather than constant warfare. This makes the game more balanced, and adds more to peaceful relations, rather than just the tech trades that are once off or the trade routes that only generate money. The ability to hire more heroes might move people to actually establish relationships with foreign factions.

+10000



This is exactly how I figure it

But at the same time, I think you should be able to hire unloyal members of species you are at war with, for increased upkeep

Animal wrote:
+10000



This is exactly how I figure it

But at the same time, I think you should be able to hire unloyal members of species you are at war with, for increased upkeep

I agree with josasa too, I like the idea, but if the Heroes of the other races were disloyal, why would they wait for Open Borders? They might seek out the other race's government of their own accord after First Contact. Or, one race's spy people do some digging, find out this guy is a likely candidate to get on their side somehow, and entice him to defect. Many of the bio blubs for the Heroes do say that they've been cast out or disowned by their race, or they left of their own accord.



This might be me just thinking too "realistically" though. In terms of game mechanics, I like the idea.

FinalStrigon wrote:
Many of the bio blubs for the Heroes do say that they've been cast out or disowned by their race, or they left of their own accord.

Which begs the question: why must I wait until I officially make First Contact with a race in order to be able to hire one of their kind?

Gavinhawk wrote:
There would be a language barrier to overcome not to mention cultural differences to figure out.

Perhaps all that was dealt with in the years leading up to the hero's appearance? It would explain why it takes all those years for a new hero to become available!

As someone else said, "Hero" doesn't fit. I'd better call them Commanders, or Leaders, something like that. Not Hero.

This certainly baffled me when I started playing yes...



"We're not lone in the universe" is stated whilst a different sentient species to my own is currently heading my fleet that is making first contact with their own.



Might be difficult to segregate them.

And we'd need more artists for the portraits too.

We haven't heard any word from the devs on this, so...Personally, I'm hoping it is something that will be changed in the final version of the game. Because the only real difference between Heroes is their class, it isn't like a player is missing something if they have to start with all Hissho Heroes, as opposed to a random selection from all the races.

Nosferatiel wrote:
I think it is my most cited thread, by now, but here's Slowhand's little explanation of heroes:

(Excerpt):

That is the basic reason why Heroes can come from and work for any faction -- they are almost a race apart in and of themselves. The galaxy is large, distances are great, time moves quickly, and identifying oneself with a particular faction becomes less and less important to a Hero.

If that's the official lore, then it looks like we're stuck with heroes from other races, even from the beginning of the game. I hope it can be changed so that we only get those other racial heroes after First Contact. Otherwise it makes a mockery of the whole idea of First Contact. "Yeah, I know about these guys.... I've got one as a Fleet Commander."

could be interesting, specially if xenophobia is part of your faction negative.

Heroes have been enhanced by Dust. They are mercenaries as often their abilities will make them superior to their kind.

+1

I like the idea. How should people from different factions have even found the homeworld of the.. lets say Hissho.. (!)before they even sent anything into space. (Or before everybody has any ships... its just hardly possible that a sophon arrives at the Hissho homeworld on turn 1).

True, they've been enhanced, but I still find it strange that at the start of a new game (before you've made First Contact) you can hire foreign heroes. That makes no sense to me, personally, and I've restarted games quite a number of times just to see if I can get all three heroes available at the beginning to be the same race I am.



I think games should start with only Heroes of your race available, since the only thing that makes them different is the class. As far as I can tell, Heroes receive no bonus from what race they are.

VieuxChat wrote:
Heroes have been enhanced by Dust. They are mercenaries as often their abilities will make them superior to their kind.

Fair enough, but I don't see how it's relevant. The Tau would not hire a Space Marine because it's an enhanced human, nor Gondor would hire an Uruk-Hai to lead an army even if it is clearly better than an orc.



Perhaps those examples are hyperboles and not totally fitting in the setting, but what I want to relay is, even if the mercenary is completely devoted to money and willing to work with whomever pays more, without scruples nor racial prejudice, perhaps the population of the empire hiring said mercenary would not be totally content with him. Like hiring (if he was for hiring) Aquilles to lead the defense of Troy during the Song of Ilium.

FinalStrigon wrote:
True, they've been enhanced, but I still find it strange that at the start of a new game (before you've made First Contact) you can hire foreign heroes. That makes no sense to me, personally, and I've restarted games quite a number of times just to see if I can get all three heroes available at the beginning to be the same race I am.

+1



I had the same immediate reaction when I tried my first game. WTF? What are aliens doing on my homeworld? It's even more bizarre if you've set up a game that doesn't include the hero's race at all (not sure that happens?).

I think games should start with only Heroes of your race available, since the only thing that makes them different is the class. As far as I can tell, Heroes receive no bonus from what race they are.

Agreed. You should only find mercenaries from any other faction after first contact with that faction. And maybe a check box option in the game setup for only generating heroes of your own race, so you can role-play a xenophobic faction. It doesn't make sense, if you're trying to cleanse the galaxy of other lifeforms, that you'd hire those lifeforms as your system administrators and fleet captains. At the very least, I would think that would cause a negative to happiness or productivity in that system. Who wants to work for an alien? It just feels odd, with the current setup.



One more thing -- if the game will eventually include a random generator for your AI opponents (and I hope it does), then you don't want the game telegraphing who your opponents are, before you make first contact and discover who you're up against.

Agreed, also I think it would be nice if heroes were more attuned to your races play style. i.e. if you play the scientists, then have it more rare to find heroes with affinity towards fighting and more common to get heroes that are administrative and boost FIDS

I've thought about it for a while but you were faster in making a topic for this. While I'm not sure how this could be implemented as I see a number of problems I agree to the basic ideas here.

But I can say I'm as well not particularly satisfied by the current hero setup. And just because most heroes will be willing to work as mercenaries it's unrealistic to say that straight out all heroes cut all connections to their own species and vice versa "just cause of a bit of Dust". I don't just have problems to see the Cravers hiring other species, I also can hardly imagine all Craver heroes leaving their people to work for other species.

Mrc.Toledo wrote:
I don't think an up starter spacefaring empire should, or would be willing, to hire aliens as heroes/admirals/administrators before even coming into contact with said species and determining it's general posture towards your species. You can argue that perhaps one empire can stumble upon individuals of other species in an early expansion, but in this case I don't think they would be given positions of any significancy beyond "lab experiment".



You could also say that the lore is already established and that all factions acknowledge the existance of all the others, and so when you start a new game you are controlling but a branch of a faction, but this don't change the fact that you still have to develop researches to contact, understand and interact with xeno species.



So, this is how I think it should work, in my humble opinion:



An Empire should start with a view of xenos similar to its lore. As an example, The United Empire should start with a xenophobic view towards other species, Horatio and Hissho perhaps with a condescending view, Sophon and Amoeba perhaps curious and cautious, Cravers outright hostile and so forth.



In this way the possibility to hire xenos as heroes would appear in the same stage for all species, after the first contact with the xeno specie, but would imply in penalties for some ( so the player would have to assess if the advantages of the hero justify its penalties). As an example I don't think a Hissho fleet would be all too happy with a lesser Horatio as its commander, or that human colonists would accept promptly the rule of a Sophon, but a enlighted Amoeba perhaps would be ok to work under a talented human.



Penalties would be aggravated or mitigated depending on researches and on your relations with the other species. While I am aware that individuals may not agree with the politics of its faction, the masses do not care, and it's at least dangerous to have Hissho admirals controlling your fleet while at war with other Hissho ... whom may say where their loyalty really lies ?



Without wanting to extend myself too much, this could also be reflected in a greater control of the "politics" or "aligment" of your empire. Perhaps you want to research "Interstellar Federalism" and "Universal Rights" creating a multicultural, multispecies, startrek/mass effect like empire of happiness, that way you could benefit from diplomatic bonus, xeno heroes, allies and trade. OR perhaps you could research "Anti xeno propaganda" and "Manifest Destiny" and create an Imperium of man like Empire of bigots and fanatics that don't suffer from war exhaustion and have bonus bombarding planets to oblivion.



This way we would have species behaving way differently, with Cravers, for example, unable to hire aliens and research certain branchs of diplomacy/politics whatsoever. While I know this is a balance nightmare, especially for a team striving to implement multiplayer, I thought it would be fun to share my two cents about this subject and perhaps seen it implemented in future expansions, as well as hearing the opinion of my fellow endless spacers.

This has been added to the summary list under Game play > General > Hero > Hero Species in order for the Dev team to consider your suggestion

Another thought:



Heroes that have Corporate and Administrator -OR- Pilot and Commander* are outright superior to the "hybrid" heroes. Unfortunately, hybrid heroes are far more common (I once started a game with three hybrids and promptly quit to the main menu).



*Commander? Adventurer? Are there others?

Cravers start with two Sophon corp/admins and a Horatio pilot/admin my response huh???