I feel as through the Cravers' exploitation of worlds isn't represented enough in the affinity currently. The planets instead of simply suffering a FIDS malus, should also eventually transformed into a lower planet type. I.E Terran > Barren > Lava > Asteroids, or perhaps another planet type that's unique to them and almost entirely useless to anyone who would want to claim it.



It would give an incentive to expand more rapidly in order to make up for your now useless worlds, and it fits their description more.

That's an interesting suggestion, both workable and flavourful. The locust points would downgrade the planet within its category, but I think there should always be a possibility to terraform it back up to a better world. The only thing the designers would have to do is make sure that it would cost much more Industry to fix the world than it would to simply run it into the ground with locust points. That way, Craver players couldn't simply terraform periodically to keep the FIDs high.



I think that the Cravers should always have the FIDs bonus as they strip a planet, but that the the devolution of the planet occurs rapidly as a result.

Great idea! It would really add some new strategy to being a craver and some incentive to the other races to fight them : ).

It's a good idea, but I think it some-what hampers the Craver play-style. Aren't they supposed to just be a swarm, conquer everything quickly race, so they don't need to worry about the malus coming in? If it were possible for them to fix their planets and remove their locust points, they're be over-powered, as they could just keep refreshing their best planets in the late game.



And, lore wise, I'm not sure the Cravers would have the mentality to hold on to resources to fix planets with. I'd imagine they would simply consume those resources before they could be put to use terraforming a planet :P

I think if you did make it so craver worlds were effectively useless after a period of being super-productive, you might end up with some real balance problems on your hands. A race that's unbeatable early game and just rushes everyone might well be awesome lore-wise in a Tyranid kind of way, but no fun to actually play as or against.



You need to be careful when designing a race that "everyone is supposed to fight" because there's no way you can balance such a race for two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight player games.



Unless you have some kind of sliding scale, +10% FIDS per enemy at war or something.

This has already been suggested here: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/12143-suggestion-extra-effects-of-craver-locusts

This thread has been linked to the former and is moved to the archives.