What is everyone's thoughts on unique races? I think that the races should always truly stand out so that they are not feeling like playing the same race, only with slightly different colors. Examples of success: - Starcraft, which had different building build methods, unit production methods - Sword of the Stars - different FTL and ship designs for each races - Star Ruler 2, customizable FTL methods and playstyles I think that each race should have: - Something unique that makes the race stand out - Perhaps different orientation, one might like Titans, while one favors swarming with small ships for example. The Titan race might be late game, while the small ship race might be geared for say, aggressive early expansion or guerrilla warfare.
I can understand this, it seems too many times I am exterminating the lizards, bugs, rocks or space babes, sometimes they exterminate me, as CrazyElf states, only the color changes. I would love to see meaningful races with unique features and hope we see some with this game. Attention must be paid to balance though, too many times the different races available are not well balanced. With that in mind I am all for some diversity but make the races all be a serious threat, I usually giggle when I see some races in Moo2 as I know they are not all that tough. others just have too much an advantage and I strive to cripple them early as it only gets harder later on.
I guess the best thing would be differentiation of races between all of the game mechanics... FTL, production, research (race specific techs besides just increased research), morale. Not that there can't be duplicates. However, the more complicated things get, the longer the game takes to release!
I agree, races should feel different, rather than having just generic bonuses. Every race should have SOME reason to pick them over anyone else. Luckily, the Community Feedback List lists this feature as Very Likely, so we can rest easy. (Of course, I also like races to have unique techs, which the CFL lists as Unlikely. Maybe in a DLC or expansion!) The "some races get bonuses for ships in a certain class" idea was a feature of Stars In Shadow. Another, more common idea is "races thrive better on different types of worlds" was done by SIS, Stellaris, Distant Worlds, the Space Empires series, and probably numerous others. Speaking of Distant Worlds, "each race has unique score/victory conditions" was done by that game and Armada 2525. "Each race has some special ability that you can't buy with points or research with tech"? Probably too many games to count. As you can see, there's no shortage of ideas for race perks that the Space Sector crew could "borrow". The trick, of course, is to only borrow ideas that really fit their vision for the game.
One option may be to have asymmetric balance. An example of that being Endless Legend, which had races that were balanced in very different ways in their advantages. Custom factions could be made very powerful though.
I like the approach taken by PSS so far. Though only three races are present they are each very different. Each race so far has a different type of homeworld and preferred environment, they do not all come from Terran worlds nor do the y all prefer the same gravity. I could see where this would cause some interesting situations to develop in game as you terraform worlds to your own preference only to find out that you just pissed off your neighbors who view it as a hostile act. Add in the different growth rates, morale factors, etc and we already have a nice situation brewing. Can't wait to see what else the Devs have up their sleeve as regards this
Personally, I don't believe that giving each race bespoke custom mechanics is a good idea. As stated above, it is extremely hard to balance, and it is presumably an inefficient use of development time - logically, it is better to have solid and fun gameplay mechanics that will apply to every playthrough, rather than having something utterly asymmetric where you will only use a "gimmick" race once or twice before deciding your favorite. Endless Legend did go heavily down the asymmetric route and, for whatever reason, it didn't seem to 'gel' as an experience for me. There were some fantastic ideas in the game, but ultimately you had one side playing checkers and the other side playing chess and some of the good ideas kind of got lost in practice. I can see the appeal of gimmick races but they do cloud the strategy waters a bit. They also end up "forcing" their own lore onto the players... I liked to see MoO as a custom space opera generator, but if you start in between "gimmick race that always blows up occupied planets" and "gimmick race that has to eat other species as food", there's only one way that game's story is going, and it's not peaceful. For me personally, a great example of faction design is Alpha Centauri. There were quantitative bonuses, rather than qualitative ones, which meant that, although some factions leaned more towards one playstyle than other, they weren't 'locked' into a particular approach and they did all ultimately use the same mechanics. Mixing numerical bonuses with differences in AI behaviour, along with extremely well-written lore, meant that the (theoretically similar) factions felt quite different in practice.
Here are the race ideas i want to see: 1) A race limited to only a single planet, but has bonuses that expand that single planet to be much larger, and it gets extra bonuses from minor civs to expand territory. With this race you could create a Corsucant world from Star Wars - Inspiration is clearly from Endless Legend that has a race just like this. 2) Aquatic race. Needs ocean planets and water filled ships, its ships would be much harder to capture in space combat and its planetary structures would be un-usable by a conquering race of land dwellers since they would be underwater. 3) Gas giant race. Can only inhabit gas giant planets. 4) Nomad race. It inhabits large space ships instead of planets, and you can move the ships from planet to planet to transport the whole colony (entire population and all buildings). These colony ships would have weaker defenses to ground assault so they could be more easily captured, but they can also run away from any invading fleet and avoid capture. These colony ships which are equivalent to a planet with the same weapons could also attack planets directly, so in effective you would have planet vs planet combat. 5) Biological construct race. This race can create any type of biological equivalent to a typical races mechanical constructs. Their ships are not mechanical things inhabited by a crew, but rather biological ships that are sentient and have no crew. Instead of ground tanks for defense, they have other biological creatures that are equivalent. Their race doesn't expand via reproduction in normal sense, but rather purposeful growth of new biological material. They would use food for production instead of mechanical resources. 6) Replicator race (think replicators from Star Gate SG1). Purely mechanical beings not needing food, composed of small units that combine together to form larger things (like legos). They can easily change shape and reform into new things. They would only consume resources to replicate themselves, no need for food. They can not do any research, or research very slowly, but when they encounter new technology they can very easily assimilate it and replicate it. When you play as this race, you get to play the bad guys and be the galactic scourge, but you could play them peacefully if you tried hard enough. Since they cant really research, they would always be a little behind in tech, but they can easily copy tech that they see, and have a massive bonus to production since they can change shape of their structures. 7) Borg type race. They have no population growth but can capture and assimilate other races to expand population. They can assimilate natives and minor races too. They could have a big bonus to research since they have a hive mind and a diverse population. Again, when you play as this race, you get to play the bad guys and be the galactic scourge.
The reason why I suggested that Endless Legend be a good template is because it thus far has been a very well regarded game. Most 4X reviewers who have played EL have done so within a very high opinion. A case could have been made for higher unit diversity, but otherwise, it has been a solid game.
PSS is actually kind of subtle with this. The races are different with regards to traits and preferences but have no behavior that forces them into predictable play (apart from which worlds they value). This should keep the game from getting too homogenized in the later stages as regards planet types and also benefit by increasing the possible reactions and events that can arise depending on a players actions. So far choice has been retained, some variety introduced and nothing negative encountered. Perhaps then it might be best if not too much more is done as it could trigger some of the negative issues related here, particularly by Possibility. The down side then would be that they are not all that exciting even though they are different. I would be cool with this in a game, nice to have a little more differentiation over Moo2 but no need to go overboard.
I didn't realize i posted negative issues, rather i just posted the types of races i want to see and play as, including some bad guy races i would like to play as. I personally want several races that are of the same basic kind but with some stat differences, a la moo2, and then i want a few races that are radically different. I also want the galaxy setup screen at the start of a new game to allow the player to check/uncheck which races will be in the random race pool, so they can remove any races that they don't want to play against.
Ooops! My bad, I was thinking of post no. 7 by gja102, sorry my good man. By the way, I emphatically agree with the ability to decide which races are present at the start. I spend a lot of time setting up games without the Psilons in Moo2 and it is tedious to do it.
Yes, I'm here late and just found starsector. As far as races which just make the game super replayable if done right. Yes, I skimmed through. Add as many races as possible but as someone said they have to possess a unique playable mechanics to them. Above all else please don't rush this. take your sweet time. I'm not dying anytime soon. This is what I've been waiting for since lol MoO2. quite a while ago. Keep on developing it. This is your niche in history.
