Ideas for species Development

Species suggestions, story ideas and contributions.
Post Reply
Message
Author
halfmuh
Space Krill
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2011 1:50 pm

Ideas for species Development

#1 Post by halfmuh »

EDIT: Split from here

Was thinking of about race developement and reading some race ideas in "Post your races here".

Just creating a "oh i think this type of crystals race should be cool... and they will have good bioharvesting! and good ecology! because they are stones and need organic food! and because..." does not feels right, if you wish to have all races be playable and balanced, if you wish them to be logical. Ofcourse there can not be ideal balance in such a huge game, but here is idea:
First thing to start with is not placing a ready races,
i suppose it could be right to begin from creating different colonisation possibility. What i mean ? For example, type A has better population grows on small(low grtavity) terran planets, type B on medium desert planets, type C on gas giants et.c.
After that you can observe how population and colonisation differs, and it becames possibleto correct this information by changing how often some kinds of plannets appear in galaxy. This is only real thing i see possible at theese stage of game development.
+ environmental difference of planets required

The next step should come with trade and random resources on planet (for example 2 desert planets can differ in ammount of minerals they have, and while averange bioharvesting is low it still can differ) only then it becames possible to determine what types has strong bioharvesting and mining ability and can sell food and minerals, and who prefers to buy their food. Who mines for themself and who uses foreing resourses to maintain full power of their production capability. Huge space for subtypes. Or for interface where players can adjust their subtype as they want.

And the third step comes with good diplomacy mechanics. Here will matter how your spices looks like and how other spices look at you. Here your story is really matters: abilities do not come from story (ofcourse if your race is not someone's genetic engineering project), they come from evolution, from conditions on the planet and it's resources.

When all of this finished it is time to make unique mechanics for races (like silicoids eat only minerals et.c.) as final step

the other major thing: the story about evil as satan guys must be avoidable, so you can play his cyberinsects not just as xenophobic "i-kill-all-i-see" (as i love to play), but also as peacefull cyberisects.

P.S. sorry for my bad english (not my main language at all)

User avatar
eleazar
Design & Graphics Lead Emeritus
Posts: 3858
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:09 pm
Location: USA — midwest

Re: Ideas for species Development

#2 Post by eleazar »

Halfmuh: welcome :)

Take some time getting aquainted with what we're done here.

There are 9 planet types arranged in a Environmental Preference ring. Each species prefers to live on one of these 9, and the further around the ring from a species EP, the less they will thrive on the planet.

Beyond this, most of the integration of differences between species must wait until a much later point in development. So where just pretty much collecting ideas that may or may not need to be adjusted for balance at to fit the eventual feature set.

There's no special status necessarily given to the species that you start the game with. You may add a lot of other species, and your original species may end up a small minority. So the fact that you start with Warmongers doesn't mean you have to play as a warmonger. But it's sorta planned that each species will like and dislike different sorts of imperial actions, so it may not work very well to match a warmonger species with a pacifist play-style.

But if you don't like the default species you'll probably be able to make your own, one way or another.

User avatar
Adamant
Space Kraken
Posts: 101
Joined: Mon Jan 06, 2014 3:33 pm

Re: Ideas for species Development

#3 Post by Adamant »

eleazar wrote:There are 9 planet types arranged in a Environmental Preference ring.
Can not find that Issue in InGame-Wiki while Planets are there listed iirc alphabetic ordered.
That Lib should get splitted internal or better external into Generic and Specific Lib as that
Planet List is reasonable while compete in its ROI with the Object Inventory, which looks
much more attractive and behave well as DB offering Meanings to search for Specifics
like Object Planet, Special=Foo etc.

In that Scope I would consider that Lib as alternative Implementation for Wiki for with
Specific Scope listening all Items at same Level, does not know about Stars but just
their Planets and the first addressed DB is not flat but can Kind of HyperLinks but can
not offer DB Tecs like search for Specifics. Please consider both Implementation with
logical same Scope (DB) while offer different Features which all are useful and best
offered by single DB and by different MenuButtons at Top-Menu-List open DB GUI
applies preselected Search-Attributes like Generic or Specific, like a Species and
that Species, a Planet and that Planet, while eg selecting a Star from TreeList could
open its Branch making that long Column better to manage inclusive Buttones like
expand/collaps all Branches one Step more to offer same Features like as is, as
that expanded Planet-Branch (sadly without Star-Grouping but got analog by literal
Order) is sometimes useful while the Search-Interface is in most cases better suited
than manual Search. In that Competition the Planet-List in Wiki is obsolete.

Advice: join Features! Consider Join of Classes resp Recombination and thus get
cleaner lesser Code. Recombination means ReDesign does not means Start from
Scratch.
Pure Cyan harms PhotoReceptors doubtless - even half Portion appears mysterious.

User avatar
Dilvish
AI Lead and Programmer Emeritus
Posts: 4768
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:25 pm

Re: Ideas for species Development

#4 Post by Dilvish »

Adamant wrote:
eleazar wrote:There are 9 planet types arranged in a Environmental Preference ring.
Can not find that Issue in InGame-Wiki
see partway through the planets section of the quick start guide -- clicking the wheel image displays a larger version. I seem to recall there is some problem/limitation with the current in-game Pedia that prevents it being used there.
If I provided any code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0

Post Reply