Hi all,



First post. Loving this game so far (about 40 hours in) - possibly will replace SEIV in my xxxx heart.



I'll post the xml a little further down.



The Prador and the Jain have both been taken from the excellent science fiction books by Neal Asher. Respectively "Psychopathic Space Crabs" and "Awoken from Ancient Slumber high tech warriors"



The Ash are my own creation - Dust to Dust and all that





SO many more directions I would like to take these in (specific faction traits, home planet types, new tech etc) but although I have the ideas I don't have the skills unless the devs add more options to the faction builder.



NB Only first drafts attached - I haven't even had time to playtest yet (and unlikely to get ENOUGH time due to bloody RL commitments) so if any kind soul out there can spare the time & give some feedback would be appreciated.

All these are very interesting.

Nice submissions guys! I've updated the main post.

Here's one I made to resemble a pirate/smuggler organization. I don't play this game multiplayer so if someone who does would like to take it for a spin I'd be most interested to hear how you get on. Feedback welcome.



The Syndicate:



Description: "A loose confederation of failed states, cut-throats, and other scum from the lawless fringes of the galaxy, the Eden Syndicate has a hand in almost every dubious enterprise in known space from smuggling to piracy and extortion. Lacking the numbers for all-out conquest and ground invasions the Syndicates chosen tactics are raiding, espionage, and economic warfare."



Amoeba Affinity - The Syndicate's network of operatives and informants is extensive and they have eyes and ears throughout the galaxy.



Advantages:



When one needs to acquire goods or services of a... controversial... nature, all one needs is a Syndicate contact. Whether it be narcotics, illegal tech, slaves, or any other sort of contraband, the Syndicate supplies it in bulk and they don't much care who they supply it to:

Blockade Breakers 1/1: Trade routes work in war/cold war

Merchants 2/2: +2 Trade routes cap on all systems



Aside from their 'business' arrangements the Syndicate is more than happy to take what it wants by force, should the opportunity arise. Ground warfare is messy and expensive but space is full of merchants to plunder, scientists to interrogate, and hapless colonists to enslave. Syndicate fleet commanders roam the galaxy terrorizing the spacelanes, and amass vast wealth while doing so.

Deadly Weapons 3/3: +36% weapon damage

Dust Recyclers 2/2: Earn 20 dust per enemy CP destroyed

Fast Travellers 2/2: +2 string movement speed

Knowledge Gathering 2/2: Earn 40 science per enemy CP destroyed

Snipers 2/3: +10% weapon accuracy



Disadvantages:



Leadership within the Syndicate is mostly based around bullying enough minions into obedience to crew a ship then heading off to the stars to make trouble. Promotion is typically achieved by slitting your leader's throat during the night and tossing him out of the nearest airlock. Fleet co-ordination can be challenging.

Anarchists 2/2: -2 CP cap on Empire



While the clandestine nature of the Syndicate means it takes a long time to completely eradicate their influence from a planetary society, it also means they struggle to amass the armies and equipment necessary to conduct ground warfare on a large scale. Systems change hands very slowly for the Syndicate. Conquering territory outright is a slow and painful process.

Deep Roots 2/2: -80% system ownership change rate on Empire

Feeble Warriors 2/2: -25% Defense on system, -8 Defense per pop



Syndicate warships are extremely powerful, but tend to be heavily focused on offense. Injecting a huge dose of combat stims, screaming "Yarrrr!" at the top of ones voice, and charging the enemy full speed with guns blazing is about as subtle as the average pirate captain gets.

Offense First: 2/3: -10% defenses efficiency







The idea here is to use the Amoeba affinity to grab a few nice outposts around the galaxy in the early game that you can use as bases for repairing and refitting raiding fleets. Once you're established, start attacking border colonies, ganking colony ships, and generally making a nuisance of yourself for fun and profit. You have extremely strong and fast ships but smaller fleet sizes and a big handicap trying to actually conquer space, so you want to focus on blowing up ships. You get bucketloads of trade even if you're at war with everyone, so make contact early, be aggressive and kill as much stuff as you can and you'll overcome your early disadvantages through the rewards you'll earn from combat. When I tried this out on a large map against the AI by around turn 100 I was well ahead on points, at war with pretty much everyone and had a couple of high skilled pilot/adventurers roaming around the galaxy making thousands of dust and hundreds of science per turn just from hunting down and curbstomping AI fleets.



Also +1 to making this thread sticky.



xml string:

Im finally back.



Home Planet Type: Ocean

Diplomatic Alignment: Good

Gameplay: Unity, Construction and Space Planes

Main Victory Type: Diplomacy/Wonder/Military



*Tohari* Affinity and appearance



"Strength in the two. Resilience in the two. Survival in the two."

'Tohari' Saying'



Short fluff.



"The “Tohari” is not one species but two, living side by side: long lost Hissho colonists and the reptilian inhabitants calling themselves ‘Draconians’, native to the Ocean world the colonist’s crashed upon. Two cultures became one as the each race accepted and respected the other; the natives were strong and tall compared to the Hissho, who were smaller and more agile than their counterpart. An effective workforce that believes in the strength of the whole rather than the individual and often is it seen, if not usual, for both a lost Hissho colonist working alongside a Draconian, bonded to each other. The Hissho effectively became around a third of the total population in the years to come, replacing the loses the Draconians suffered during a worldwide epidemic that followed a great war, which was stopped with the lucky, if not miraculous, arrival of the colonists who salvaged what technology from what was left of their ship to formulate a cure - which both saved the natives from their fate, but entwined the two together and with the cross induction of the Hissho tech in the natives, accelerated the technological growth on the planet; it was inevitable that it would eventually lead the Hissho back towards the stars."



Xenology

Xenobotany

Dust Lode

Anarchists -

Builders ++

Deep Roots --

Dust Impaired -

Fast Travelers +

Naive +

Militarists ++

Optimal Structure ++

Spendthrifts -

Symbiosis +



It took me a LONG time to find this thread again, im subbing to it so i don't lose it.



Of course here is my official page for my faction, since after coming 2nd in the Automaton competition for ship design i wanted to finnaly get started on my faction: /#/endless-space/forum/38-creations/thread/16469-the-tohari-developement



Ps: Got my signed Artbook today as well because of that competition.

Sophon Singularity

Appearance: Sophon

Affinity: Sophon



+ Scientists 3/3

+ Optimal Defense 3/3

+ Strong Alloys 2/2

- Spendthrift 2/2



A small breakaway faction of the Sophon, these scientists have roughly the same ideals but differ in some key points. Whereas the main faction prioritises research at all costs, the Singularity prefers to make sure they can survive long enough to be able to do research at all. Being pacifists along with that they consider a strong defense paramount - Hiding behind almost impenetrable walls of armor and shields in order to continue their research unfettered, largely preferring to stay at am amicable distance from other factions.



(I may change the spendthrift trait into something diplomacy related...)

xml for (my faves) the Prador

xml for the "Jain"

xml for my "Ash" race

Once I got a fun mood and created a race of Dumbots that collected all negative traits.



They probably got from the place Endless threw all malfunctioning robots . . Nobody knows, as dumbots lost all files of their history long time ago. Now the race of slow and bugging robots attempts to fly through the space and conquere some of the galaxy.



Competing with cravers in nomination "worst first contact ever".



Config:

Nice, ericbrooke !

and thanks for including the xml file

Home Planet Type: Terran

Diplomatic Alignment: Good

Gameplay: Exploration, Research

Main Victory Type: Science/Military



The Valkrin are very curious race who love to experiment and explore. By nature they are optimists, playful and a little impatient. They enjoy meeting new races and conversing. That said they will fight hard to keep their terrority and earlier in their history they were great archers. They favour organic technology and where possible like to establish harmony in their environments.



Early in their history their planet shifted its axis from some cosmic force, removing their naivety they looked to science as their answer. Realizing they needed to work together thus they rid themselves off their nation states to save their planet and their race. Their scientists became their heroes as they succeeded in saving both. The need to understand drives everything about this race. This experience also helped them to drive to space so that their race could find many new places to call home.



Traits



Research:

Sophon Affinity

Scientist x 2

Knowledge Gathering



Recon:

Fast Travellers x2

Meticulous Analysis



Combat:

Snipers

Fearless Warriors



Colonising:

Builders

Optimistic



Strategy

They tend to play well by outstripping other races in terms of technology. Fast explorers they can find the good systems fast. Once they find system they can build defences to hold off other races as you develop combat tech and stronger ships. They favour missiles and lasers to destroy their enemies before they get to close range.



The XML File

I see plenty of factions, but not many comments on them .

I, Emperor Ryan of the Subspace Empire come to represent us.



We hail from a different dimension and were inspired by these race's beliefs of a "Endless". Already having a whole dimension, as you can imagine, makes us extremly powerful and not very willing to make friends with such lesser empires...Though the UE interest us and perhaps a relation can be made there...



Amoeba Affinity (Technically we are humanoid figures made of The Subspace itself, but this is how your dimension perceives us.



Blockade Breakers 1/1 (Pfft, you wanna stop us? BWHAHAHAHA!)



Deadly Weapons 3/3 (Hey, we have a whole Dimension you think we took it by trading butterflies!?)



Dust Load 1/1 (Having a whole Empire already established we, of course, are better funded.)



Fast Travelers 1/2 (Better ships to start give us this advantage.)



Snipers 2/3 (Our men are the best shooters in existence!)



Well, that's it, hope you enjoy our empire ;D

Both factions have been added to the list. Sorry for the late response.

Erudites (Author: Kailoss)



Home Planet Type: Terran

Diplomatic Alignment: Neutral

Gameplay: Exploration, Diplomacy

Main Victory Type: Diplomatic/Military



The splinter of a splinter, the Erudites share many of their methods with the Pilgrims. They first claimed independence from the Pilgrims when the others started viewing the Endless in a religious light, they strayed from the great Nomad ship and settled on a terran planet. Heavily influenced by the Sophon people they declared themselves Erudites and use their technological superiority to develop strong defencive fleets. Their goal remains to destroy the corrupt United Empire by whatever means necessary.



Pilgrim Appearance

Sophon Affinity



Positive Traits:

Big Fleets 1/2

Dust Archaeology 1/2

Growth Plan 1/3

Legendary Heroes 2/2

Optimal Structure 1/2

Scientists 2/3

Snipers 2/3

Stellar Guardians 1/2



Negative Traits:

Dust Impaired 2/2

Feeble Warriors 2/2

Offense First 1/3

Sloppy Sawbones 2/2



Additional Gameplay details:

Intended for use with kinetic destroyer swarms, extremely fast and easy to replace glass cannons. With no starting techs things are rather slow going for the first 10-15 turns but they have the potential to catch up, catching up is particularly easy if you get a civil engineer round 1.

The Masalu ~Created by GentleKrabbe

also known as Masalu Hegemony



Their name is their goal, To make equal; All species of the galaxy.



In the distant past the ancestors of the Masalu were a proto-tribal species still making their first steps into the tribal life and developing their first languages.

The first of their kind of rise to full sentience was a small male creature living on the coral covered remains of an endless ship at the bottom of a lagoon.

An Early Pilgrim-Sophon scientific team found a faint endless signature from a small terran world coming out of an ice age.

The unfolding events are contested between the three species but the aftermath was clear.



The first of the Masalu, eponymously named "Masalu" rose to prominence over all other. His goal was the utter destruction of the Ikkibu, Forbidden, Endless.









Traits



Hissho Affinity



Tolerant 2/2



Slow travelers 2/2



Meticulous Analysis 1/2



Strong Alloys 1/2



Fearless Warriors 1/2



Revenge 1/2



Micromanagers 1/2



Optimal Defense 1/3



Builders 1/3



Deep Roots 2/2

Name: Nirvana

Creator: Zazen

Affinity: Sophon



Negative Traits:

Offense First (1)

Micromanagers (3)

Deep Roots (2)

Sloppy Sawbones (2)

Feeble Warriors (2)

Dust Impaired (2)



Positive Traits:



Optimal Structure (1)-Allows me to put an Engine in my colony Ships

Entrepreneurs (1)-This combined with crowded planets helps pay for my fleets as Sophons are usually hard up for cash.

Militarist (3)-Helps early and late with colony ships and fleets

Builders (3)-I like building improvements fast so I can get the nice ones early and go backto ship building quicker.

Optimists (1)-No brainer.

Crowded Planets (1)-Works great with Entrepreneur, +1 pop to Med/Small/Tiny means I don't have to have an ideal starting area to be competitive.





Zazen

I thought I'd quote my own post from a different thread because it fits this one well.



Below there's a video in which I talk briefly about some of the factions that I created. Note that the video was made to let my fans choose the faction for me to play as, but I did talk a bit about lore and traits. You can also pause the video and read all there is to read about any faction you desire ^_^







And if you cannot stand my voice and would rather not watch my video, I made a little highlight of those races. Also, the highlight was made for a different thread (as I said) so do not be surprised that I mostly focus on the racial aspect of my factions.



Chantri -- sapient plants, look something like this ^_^ They evolved because of exposure to extreme quantities of Dust, now only need light to survive and thus barely understand the concept of violance.

Sujeong -- sapient crystals created by the Endless (sujeong [수정] is Korean for crystal btw). They feed on non-organic matter so just like the Chantri, they rarely show any negative emotions.

Illuminant -- living energy in its multiple forms. Evolved in space vacuum. Because their bodies are mostly (but not entirely, E=mc2 anyone?) immaterial, the Illuminant show great interest in studying energy flow and entropy.

Templars -- they used to be cravers. But after a bold experiment of the Sujeong, the Templars now show emotions the cravers never did, such as love and compassion. However, since their new homewrold was burned to ashes, they now are emotionally unstable. They want peace and prosperity for the galaxy but they're willing to go to war to achieve this.

Judicators of Lyn -- formerly a judiciary part of United Empire, banished after they accused the emperor of fraud and corruption. A mix of multiple races united by the same goals, so they don't really fit this discussion.

Ophio corporation -- Sapient fungi with limited mind-control abilities. They use their abilities for wealth. After all, mind-controlling is very useful when negotiating a good price, don't you think? ^_^

Planarians -- a protozoa race. They are unique because they assimilate the memories of their prey AND they all have shared emotions (but not thoughts so it's not a hive mind either!) Those two things combined make them a very aggressive race. They are either your best friends or your worst nightmare

Ouroboros consortium -- race of cybrids. They were supposed to be the negotiators of peace during the Endless schism but the project failed. Witnessing the end of the Endless led them to believe they are their successors and now fight to dominate the rest of the galaxy.

Radiants -- made entirely of antimatter. Because the universe is mostly made of regular matter, the Radiants were forced to adapt by focusing on science and research. They are a mysterious race but they show no compassion to anyone who's not one of them.

Siafu -- created by a mad Sophon scientist, this robot race is obsessed with death. Their sole purpose in life is to kill and destroy. And when everything is dead and the universe is no more, then they shall kill themselves.[/QUOTE]

The Alterans



The Alterans are a group of European scientists who colonised a terran planet with Huygens Rings in the Alteran system, in order to study the unique rings orbiting that planet. Due to the enormous distances that separate Alteran from Sol and also because of the unbearable delay for resources coming from Earth to arrive in Alteran, the scientists were forced to become independent and self sufficient, making them develop their skills as excellent administrators, but due to bureaucracy, they suffer from micromanagement. But since they are nothing more than scientists, they don't have skills in constructing buildings, however, they used their excellent scientific potential to develop deadly weapons and powerful engines for their ships. Also, the scientists and the humans that sent them to Alteran still didn't know about the existance of the Dust. The scientists only discovered it on the planet some time after their independence, but they didn't have any in their treasury to use as currency. Gradually, the Dust started to run on the market, officialy making it a currency.





Alteran 1, the planet the scientists colonised. (This image wasn't done by me. I just picked it on the internet)



Home Planet Type: Terran

Diplomatic Alignment: Good

Gameplay: Scientists, Businessmen

Main Victory Type: Scientific/Economic



Some interesting things about them:



1º - One of the motives that I've choosen them to be Europeans is because of Amplitude (Amplitude is a European studio, French, to be more precise, if you didn't know).



2º - The Alterans are actually a faction in Stargate, but this faction I created here has nothing to do with the Alterans from Stargate. I only choosed the name "Alterans" because I find it to be a beatiful name.



Traits:



Scientists 3/3

Businessmen 2/3

Entrepreneurs

Dust Starved

Deadly Weapons 1/3

Huygens Rings

Micromanagers 1/2

Unskilled Builders 1/3



Total: 65 points



Affinity: Sophon



Appearance: Pilgrims



EDIT: I've been making some changes in their traits, because after I played with this faction for the first time, the "Unskilled Builders 2/3" trait was terrible, so I decreased it. Because of this, I added and removed some traits, making some minor alterations in the lore.