I haven't managed to post my second post in time before the competition thread was closed, so I'll just post it here:



Traits:





Poor Bussinessmen: -30% Dust per star system/ +24

The Colonists tend to try not to disrupt the planet's ecosystem, which leads to problems with dust generation.



Poor Merchants: -1 Trade route per star system / -3



Lush World: /+8

The planet's rich ecosystem grants the Garden of Eden.



Small Population: -30 Food per system /-24

The Colonists try not to overcrowd the planet, resulting in low population numbers.



Naturally Curious: +30 Science per system / +45



High-Tech Colonies: Can colonize all planets with 25% penalty /+20



Eco Friendly: +20% industry cost for all improvements and structures / -8



Anti-Militarists: +30% industry cost for building ships / -12



Masters of Warp travel: +2 Warp speed for fleet / +10



Small Fleets -2 CP per fleet / -15



Strong Alloys: +30% max. HP per ship / +20



Optimal Structure: +20% storage per ship / +20



Meticulous Information Analysis: +2 detection radius per fleet / +6



Dust Recyclers: +20 Dust per destroyed CP (allies and foes), if battle is won / +10



Specialized for defense: -15 accuracy per weapon mod; -15% damage per weapon mod; +15% efficiency per defense mod / -10 -10 +15 = -5

The Coalition's ships are geared towards defense and support, lacking the infrastructure and place for some of the equipment used for offense.



Pacifists: -10% damage per weapon mod for each enemy fleet in system / -6



Knowledge Gadhering: +50 research points added per each enemy CP destroyed / +10



Determined Defenders: +2 Ground defense per system / +12



Understanding of Dust: -50% Dust cost for hero abilities / +6



Advanced Medicine: -80% Dust cost for hero healing / +10



All in all 80 points used.





Strategy:

Ideal faction for quick expansion into several systems and for trying to hold them against enemies, while going for non military victory, especially the scientific victory.



Technology:

I would mostly keep the Syphons tech, maybe with some renaming. I can't remember the name, but the tech in diplomacy tree dealing with colonial autonomy would be replaced with either something granting military cohesion (CP), resource generation or improving speed of building of ships/structures.



Also the tech, again in trade tree ("something society"), which has a description of making people's life goal equivalent to the profit of their company would not be fitting the faction lore, so it would have to be replaced by something else.



Symbol:

Seeing as the other faction logos tend to go hand in hand with the faction's design, I would say it could be something sleek, like a "cambered triangle" (something as a dark side symbol from STAR WARS: The Old Republic, but the upper side would be longer than the side ones and it could also have small vertical spaces, like if cut in pieces with a knife.







The first part posted it the competition thread (with some additional info):



Name: Coalition of Independent Planets (C.I.P.)



Race: Humans - splinter group of the United Empire



Homeworld type: Ocean



Alignment: Good







About the faction:



The faction is mainly composed of people originally from the United Empire, who, for various reasons, decided that they don't necessary agree with the Empire's current policies, be it expansionism, little regard for individual lives of its citizens, or regarding the galaxy as one large dust mine. Because, even though they parted ways with the Empire in peace, the Empire wouldn't take kindly to them settling a world in the Empire's own territory, they were forced to look for another homeworld beyond the known space. Eventually, they found it in a lush ocean world and after some effort, the first colony was set up.



However, the colony was located on the edge of Sophon space, a factor unknown to the colonists at the time. The a group of Sophons very soon discovered that the planet, originally not inhabited, is freshly colonized and seeing that the colonists possess a similar drive to explore and to understand the world, they decided to make contact with this new civilization. The first contact was relatively smooth (if any first contact can be called smooth), largely due to the colonists being already aware of some of the other factions' existence (United Empire already had it's first contact with other spacefaring civilization some years before). The Sophon group, after some debating, decided that they'll gift some of their technology to the colonists to help them in obtaining resources from the planet and to aid them in colonizing additional planets.





Graphic:

The Sophon technology is the reason for the shape of Coalition's ships - they don't have angles like the Empire's vessels, instead they have more curves. The color, however, is more black and orange, with a reflective polish, instead of blue and white (it would be similarsimilar to SoaSE's Vorastra titan, just without all those jagged thorns). The shape of ships tends to have a sleak design of a stealth bomber.