This is the general design discussion for my custom faction the "Tohari". Its been in the works for a while, in the boiler room of thinking, I've just got spurred on by my successes/fun I've enjoyed during the Automaton design competition so i thought i would get down to business. I will expand this opening point daily - yeah right more like once or twice a week - if possible with either computer images or sketches or writing. This will be the main page for general lore, tech, characters etc. etc. until each becomes big and mature enough to have their own grove.



PS: In accordance to Nightmare90's helpful nitpick the title has changed to Proverb instead of Development. I also believe it fits better. Thanks Nightmare90.



Other sections:

Ship Designs



Other sections will probably expand later on as things blow up.



*Architectural and perhaps armour Influences are taken from the Maya, the Inca and Japan.*

*Ship design is inspired by birds, flying animals, dragons and all the Hissho stuff taken on a spin*

*Armour can be inspired slightly by Sam's armour in Vanquish, or Vanquish in general... damn that's an awesome game; another influence is probably Infinity the Game's miniatures such as the holy orders in the PanO faction*



Toharian Symbol:





Home Planet Type: Ocean

Diplomatic Alignment: Good

Gameplay: Construction, Diplomacy, Dust Aversion and Conversion

Main Victory Type: Military/Diplomatic/Wonder



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

'Tohari' Proverb'





Toharian Cityscape:







*Tohari Affinity*[/B]

*Affinity focus's on construction, cooperation and Resource/industrial Exploitation.



Ideas for Afinity:



Idea behind this is effective cooperation and exploitation.

All strategic resources provide +1 more industry per pop.

All luxury resources provide +1 more per food pop.

All anomalies provide + 1 more dust and science. <- open to suggestions as the faction anomaly might end up yielding +1 pop , +1(2) food, +1(2) industry (and +1 dust and science).



Dust income is heavily penalized but building, hero and ship upkeep is less to compensate for this.

Something like: dust income is cut in half but general upkeep is also cut in half.



Some of these ideas could extent to techs instead.



Hull Specificity (Combat Update)



They have a tonnage reduction to special modules and a passive evasion.



Race Specific Fighter (Combat Update)



------------------------------------------------







*Techs would revolve around Inter-xeno Relations, Diplomacy, Industry and probably a Space Flyer improvement(maybe).



Tech Ideas:



Throughout the tree there would be small FIDS boosts that would eventually stack out to a fair number.



In the Exploration and Expansion tree, replacing Improved Thermodynamics with "NAME", and then replacing Endothermic Structures with Efficient Structures or "NAME" etc. Tech stays where it is.



Replacing +2 opulation: on tiny and +1 opulation: on small - 2 with... something... i'm still considering what is fair, but i want this improvement to be able to effect every system even if it doesn't have tinyees or smallees.

A few ideas in include:



+2 population on tiny, +1 population on small, - 3 dust, +2.5% FIDS on system and +4 approval per populated planet on system.



Faction Tech added in: Intensive Cultivation (Garden Worlds)



A building which provides +1 FIDS per population on system and +5 approval per populated planet on system.



Planetary Construction: Artificial Globes



In the Exploration and Expansion tree



Construction of a Tiny "Construct" world on an empty star system slot (6 planets max per system), per pop the world has 2 food, 2 industry, 2 dust, 2 science and when the construction is complete it can be exploited as usual but it can be upgraded with an additional construction to add an artificial anomaly which can include a artificial moon, non-FIDS boosting anomalies such as a def increase on system maybe even allowing you to screw the anomaly for a dud and grow some luxury resources; anomaly Dust Water cultivation, grants a deposit of Dust-water on the system.



Whitesun Dust Converters



Named after "Kal Whitesun" (Tohari Scientist Hero)



I'm toying with the idea of adding some heavy dust penalties at the beginning of the game to represent the mundane "dust" being used as currency. This tech would add a building or general passive rule which puts dust production back up to normal levels (X% less dust, + X% more after the tech or building) It would also allow you to instead - in the building case - to move the 30% dust conversion to food or industry if you desired.



DXX-172 Defense Grids



Replaces Community Defense in the Positron Containment tech in the Galactic Warfare tree. Working on ideas for this.



Robust Infrastructure



Replacing Optimized Logistics; namely the Colonial Rights tech building with a building which has 15% to all FIDS instead of 10% but costs 250 Industry to construct instead of 200 - everything else stays the same.





This is the current traits i'm using to play the faction in game.



Xenology

Xenobotany

Dust Lode

Anarchists -

Builders ++

Deep Roots --

Dust Impaired -

Fast Travelers +

Naive +

Militarists ++

Optimal Structure ++

Spendthrifts -

Symbiosis +



For the SAVE THE SOWERS mod by Amplitude

Xenology

Xenobotany

Dust Lode

Anarchists -

Builders +++

Deep Roots --

Militarists ++

Naive +

Optimal Structure ++

Spendthrifts -

Symbiosis +



Some of these are temp attributes/traits like Dust Lode, Naive and perhaps Fast travelers; in the case of Dust Lode i would prefer something more exotic and interesting like Hollow Planet etc.



Special Anomaly might be: "NAME" +1 population, +1 industry and +1 food; adding up to 3.

OR the same anomaly adding up to 4, ie. +2 population, +1 industry and +1 food or +10 approval, +1 population, +1 industry and +1 food or +1 population, +1 industry, +1 food and a X% bonus on planet or system.

Anomaly would focus around the "Hollow planet" kind of caves with underground growing fauna that is cultivated.



What i want to do with traits:



Xenology - When two species are living side by side and cooperating, it is hard therefore to avoid becoming reasonably adept with working with completely different lifeforms and getting along.

Xenobotany - While both species were introduced to each others food cultures, - some surviving boxed Hissho foodstuffs and the whole range of plant-life on the Draconians home-world - there is much either can learn; this lead to some breakthroughs through brilliant Draconian engineering in the field crop genetics.

Faction Specific Starting Anomaly - Overgrown Honeycombed Caverns - While the world itself is beautiful and vast overground, even more wonderous sights are beneath the shell. Not only are there a labyrinth of caverns, openings in the ground, crystals and stalagmite waterfalls; the Draconians cultivate a thriving strange underground "fruit" native to this world, growing normally to the size of a hand the sweet smelling "Junia" is both delicious and a ready available protected food source.

Anarchists - - The Draconians prefer to have quality over quantity, but so is the number two sacred to the Tohari; for they are two races living side by side and working together towards a common cause; often do you see teams of two within a greater team structure.

Builders - Construction is easier and cheaper due to the cooperation and structure between the races. Building is a specialty of the Draconians who like to be seen as grand architects and engineers; the Hissho colonists adopted this purpose into their life as well.

Deep Roots -- or a similar buckle down trait that makes you hard to move but hampers taking places by force - Setting up an effective infrastructure both social and physical to allow quick revivification of colonies after an invasion takes time to drone into the inhabitants and to set up; what takes more time is getting the populace to actually cooperate the Toharian way and lose their selfishness.

Tiny Flyer trait - The Draconians, a race capable of gliding and short bursts of flight; while the Hissho, who descend from Avian DNA, see the value in the "birdlike" supporting gunships offering "death by a thousand cuts" to larger prey and smaller prey alike, and the continued building efficiency means that their flyers are by no means under-par but pack a punch like a broadside from a frigate and are very maneuverable.

Diplomacy trait encouraging you to have peace and cooperation with others, bit like naive - Working with others and higher cooperation can be seen as one of the higher goals of the Toharian ideal and often this attitude presents itself at the diplomats table.

Militarists - The eficiency of the Toharian ideal and infrastructure means that parts are cheap, compact, durable and effective leading to ship construction being much easier and cheaper to do.

Optimal Structure - Much Draconian ingenuity lies much in their ability to design an efficient structure while also allowing Hissho artists to design a shape that is aesthetically pleasing... after the engineering teams tinker with the design slightly of course.

Spendthrifts - Profits is not as important to the almost selfless Tohari, much of the money is spent on a loose term of "Public Welfare" that extends out in many branches touching many areas; there is of course a general dislike of using actual dust for general purpose amongst the populace brought on by the Concrete Endless Gardener watching over them.

Cooperation Trait Living with other Xenos is a daily part of life; and building side with nature is as important to the Tohari as an Automaton.



Short fluff//lore until i can write a nice *Automaton* long lore done to some sort of good standard.



"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; guided by the hand of the mysterious concrete Endless "Gardener" or "Grand Architect" who finally was realized from his workshop gained access to the materials from the Hissho and accelerated their growth."



Intro Sequence Stuff

"Strength in the Two" the Tohari say, truly are they the united. Formed by long lost Hissho colonists and Draconian's residing on an ocean world known as "---", observed and protected by a concrete known as "The Gardener". The Tohari seek greater understanding and cooperation with other races outside of themselves but to them dust is not a gift from the divine, it is a curse, the raging fire that divided the Endless and consumed them, leaving a legacy of dust across the stars; they believe they will not repeat their 'mistakes'. But build an Empire greater than that of the Endless...



Draconian leaning over Rail *In progress*







This is going to take sweet time to finish since I'm working with a mouse for now - the head has been worked on the most and Ive re sketched the leg.



Toharian Commander/Administrator hero concept:







Oh look who made it to the party properly now.

I like them. It's good to have fresh ideas such as yours to mix the Hissho with another faction. Keep up the good work!



Oh, and in my opinion, the ship designs of the Tohari looks alot like the Hissho one. But I think you did that exactly because the Hissho where the ones that boosted the Draconians technology.

HumanSpacer wrote:
I like them. It's good to have fresh ideas such as yours to mix the Hissho with another faction. Keep up the good work!



Oh, and in my opinion, the ship designs of the Tohari looks alot like the Hissho one. But I think you did that exactly because the Hissho where the ones that boosted the Draconians technology.

Draconian methods took over Hissho ones while the Hissho art took over their own part of the culture.

Interesting. I created a custom faction named "draconians" just last night (before viewing this thread) and gave them the Hissho style.



I do have one question: Are you just having fun or are you going to make this a full blown faction?

We would have luck if the devs annouced another event to add fan made factions to the game (community faction design contest), just like they did when the community choosed the Automatons.

I agree. Adding two new factions along with the Expansion (one Amplitude-designed, one community-made) would be great.



What affinity are you playing with currently?

I will try them out



As for the ship designs, I like them as long as they are not gold (like the Hissho original ones).

@ Stealth_Hawk



Im doing this for both reasons, it gives me a fun project to do while having to handle pre-exam work at school and it might perhaps serve as a summer project if it manages to carry on for that long (probably will, ill just keep adding content); but because of the amount of work i want to do for it, it also allows a full blown faction to be created if it is desired.



@HumanSpacer



I wouldn't see it as an unusual idea for the devs to do again since the Automaton one was very successful and generated a lot of fun in the process in my opinion. I managed to get my Junior Game Designer badge through the Automaton Ship Design competition so i am always going to be warm towards this kind of idea.



@ Pietrak



Ive been trying out the different affinities:



The UE's affinity helps me have better fleets (like they aren't good enough already) and have the fun strategic resource boosting tech.



The Sophons make almost any custom faction better so they perform quite well with the "Tohari", colonizers are almost 50% cheaper due to militarists and the Sophons 50% off support modules stacking nicely with each other, allowing fast expansion... all the while the science boost is just stupid... coupled with your extra tonnage on ships, creates cheaper, more tech-ed out and all in all better fleets than your opponents if you are playing well.



The Hissho affinity focuses too much on the war tree for what i want to aim at but helps if you want the militarists victory or get extra Fids when you reconquer your lost colony which hopefully has most of its ownership left thanks to deep roots.



The Amoeba affinity allows me to actually focus on Diplomacy and also grants me an Ocean planet start; but i lose 5pts so i have to substitute a -5 in somewhere or take a +5 off.



The Automatons helps me focus on Industry and it synergies well since buildings are cheaper meaning you lose less from your stacked industry... since I'm very good with the Automaton affinity this has a magnified effect which simply puts me in the lead.



I tried the Sowers affinity once and then twice because it focused on industry... it worked "OK" both times but it left me lagging behind in my game more often than not.



I haven't tried the affinities for the Cravers, Pilgrims or the Horatio yet and i will play a few full games using them soon.



As for colours? I haven't settled on anything yet, i thought blues, greens, oranges and different shades of black, grey, white would be nice colours to work around and find a combination, I've tried out these colours on miniatures before and they have worked well together but it has always depended. A light-ish green with whites and greys/light greyish blues would look nice together and be a different colour set compared to the other faction fleets.



Hope that answers your questions.

Digitalhawk96 wrote:
@HumanSpacer



I wouldn't see it as an unusual idea for the devs to do again since the Automaton one was very successful and generated a lot of fun in the process in my opinion. I managed to get my Junior Game Designer badge through the Automaton Ship Design competition so i am always going to be warm towards this kind of idea.

If the devs ever think about doing that again... LERALONS FOR THE WIN! (/#/endless-space/forum/38-creations/thread/16442-the-leralons-faction)

Oh ho ho... competition before the contest even starts! Feisty :P

stasik28 wrote:
Oh ho ho... competition before the contest even starts! Feisty :P

LOL



That's maybe because my competition stincts are very premature.

By the way, im updating the Opening point with information from time to time instead of posting extra posts... until of course... i run out of space.

Digital Hawk



If you wanted, I could take a crack at modeling a few of these (I'm a 3d artist, after all)



Of course, I can't make any promises on UV mapping.

Stealth_Hawk wrote:
Digital Hawk



If you wanted, I could take a crack at modeling a few of these (I'm a 3d artist, after all)



Of course, I can't make any promises on UV mapping.

Maybe, ill 'call you' if i require your services. But by all means if you get bored you can have a crack at my designs if you want to without my permission.

What do you have against UV mapping Stealth_Hawk? And honestly UVW unwrap is the better option

stasik28 wrote:
What do you have against UV mapping Stealth_Hawk? And honestly UVW unwrap is the better option

LOL I do not have anything against UV mapping except I'm no good at it lol



However, I am un-familiar with UVW (at least the acronym)

Digitalhawk96 wrote:
Maybe, ill 'call you' if i require your services. But by all means if you get bored you can have a crack at my designs if you want to without my permission.

Me? Bored? lol

Stealth_Hawk wrote:
LOL I do not have anything against UV mapping except I'm no good at it lol



However, I am un-familiar with UVW (at least the acronym)







Me? Bored? lol

Don't remember if it's UV unwrap or UVW unwarp... IIRC, UV mapping is just changing the size and position of the map... Whereas Unwrap is the little box where you have to export the object and all it's sides (that you want to work on) and put it on something like Photoshop, placing the map(s) correctly on top of the shapes (that represent sides) then import them back in.



That was probably a horrible if slightly incorrect explanation of it....

So far so good DigitalHawk

It will be interesting to see how you picture the Draconians, I mean are they solely reptilian or do they have amphibian characteristics as well, being native to an Oceanic world I mean.

vahouth wrote:
So far so good DigitalHawk

It will be interesting to see how you picture the Draconians, I mean are they solely reptilian or do they have amphibian characteristics as well, being native to an Oceanic world I mean.

Good point with that, totally forgot that amphibians were the water ones... and I imagine Hissho-Reptile (or amphibian) hybrids due to cross... breeding?

Those Ships. I like them.

vahouth wrote:
So far so good DigitalHawk

It will be interesting to see how you picture the Draconians, I mean are they solely reptilian or do they have amphibian characteristics as well, being native to an Oceanic world I mean.

Luckily i can illustrate my point a bit better since Im drawing one leaning on a rail right now, here my slow, clumsy attempts on GIMP using a mouse so far, this is a sketch that will be brought up and properly done. (I swear for my birthday I'm buying a graphics tablet)







Of course some of the proportions are off and a lot of the tone needs worked on, most of this one is armoured apart from the face.



Important Draconian features/characteristics to note that i can list off:



Spiral shaped pair of horns and other bits of 'horn' coming out on chin and various other places, shapes and areas with horn differs per Draconian but the pair of horns always protrudes from just behind the ear



Two blunt pointed ears lined up with eye but just in-front of where the horn starts



Protective dark 'Plates' covering forehead running down the back to the tip of the tail



A reptilian tail that usually is long enough to trail or touch the floor when standing at full height



Average matured height ranges from 7-9ft tall



4 fingered claws; 'thumb', 3 'fingers'



Covered in scales that have a range of colours, common colours are greens and blues



Pair of wings (unusable when wearing heavy armour... obviously, tied down close to body and covered when wearing armoured suits)



Eyes pupils are 'slits'



Somewhat slow movement compared to their Hissho counterparts, made up in brute strength.



Very few are capable of strange 'gifts' including fire-breathing... often a telling sign that they are 'gifted' is unusual scale colour varieties and patterns, suggested dust interference or the species own natural irregularities.