Species: Whumsoom

Species suggestions, story ideas and contributions.
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Ophiuchus
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Re: Species: Whumsoom

#16 Post by Ophiuchus »

DraconicLunacy wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:29 pm If any species is the best at any given niche, they will naturally be all over the place. The problem with GGs and ABs is that there are only 2 species that can colonize them, hence the monoculture.
I would mind a lot of species competing for asteroids more than a monoculture. What i want are distinctive environments. And so I dont like steps in the direction of making an environment work more like the others. Asteroids could be: really hard and slow to colonize

In theory a Sly hidden empire should be able to settle "peacefully" inbetween enemy planets. And that is why it is ok for me that those spread through the galaxy - that is part of their "story".
I do not like that they are also a species you can use to colonize gas giants in a normal empire, but that is hard to prevent - the smaller gas giant generator bonus when populated tries to address that not very successfully.
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LienRag
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Re: Species: Whumsoom

#17 Post by LienRag »

Ophiuchus wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 1:29 pm [
I would mind a lot of species competing for asteroids more than a monoculture. What i want are distinctive environments. And so I dont like steps in the direction of making an environment work more like the others. Asteroids could be: really hard and slow to colonize
I entirely agree with you, but I'm not sure there's a way to do that in the game.
Is it possible in the code to decide that as Asteroids are not all in one place like the planets, but all over their orbit, then settling them takes 3 times the usual number of turns ?

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Re: Species: Whumsoom

#18 Post by Ophiuchus »

LienRag wrote: Wed Jul 15, 2020 3:22 am
Ophiuchus wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 1:29 pm I would mind a lot of species competing for asteroids more than a monoculture. What i want are distinctive environments. And so I dont like steps in the direction of making an environment work more like the others. Asteroids could be: really hard and slow to colonize
I entirely agree with you, but I'm not sure there's a way to do that in the game.
One way is: which kinds of species are available for a certain environment - these will be competing for the environment. Choosing to populate a planet with a certain species means you cant put the other one there.
One kind of environment could only have native species with good environment, one kind of environment could have all the good combat (or production or ...) species.

And everything else is still up to imagination - like your suggestion. Adding specials only to certain kinds of environments. Having a bonus to certain focus based on environment....
LienRag wrote: Wed Jul 15, 2020 3:22 am Is it possible in the code to decide that as Asteroids are not all in one place like the planets, but all over their orbit, then settling them takes 3 times the usual number of turns ?
I am not sure what you are suggesting. "Not all in one place" is fixable by fluff/description. Colonisation always takes a single turn. It is possible to reduce growth rate based on e.g. environment or species.
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Re: Species: Whumsoom

#19 Post by DraconicLunacy »

Ophiuchus wrote: Wed Jul 15, 2020 8:29 am
LienRag wrote: Wed Jul 15, 2020 3:22 am
Ophiuchus wrote: Mon Jul 13, 2020 1:29 pm I would mind a lot of species competing for asteroids more than a monoculture. What i want are distinctive environments. And so I dont like steps in the direction of making an environment work more like the others. Asteroids could be: really hard and slow to colonize
I entirely agree with you, but I'm not sure there's a way to do that in the game.
One way is: which kinds of species are available for a certain environment - these will be competing for the environment. Choosing to populate a planet with a certain species means you cant put the other one there.
One kind of environment could only have native species with good environment, one kind of environment could have all the good combat (or production or ...) species.

And everything else is still up to imagination - like your suggestion. Adding specials only to certain kinds of environments. Having a bonus to certain focus based on environment....
LienRag wrote: Wed Jul 15, 2020 3:22 am Is it possible in the code to decide that as Asteroids are not all in one place like the planets, but all over their orbit, then settling them takes 3 times the usual number of turns ?
I am not sure what you are suggesting. "Not all in one place" is fixable by fluff/description. Colonisation always takes a single turn. It is possible to reduce growth rate based on e.g. environment or species.
One can make asteroids harder to inhabit by reducing their default habitable size to 2. Or alternatively, I can create a precedent by capping Whumsoom habitation on ABs at 'Adequate' instead of 'Good'. It's not a hard-coded constraint, but a balance convention nonetheless. Perhaps that will be the Whumsoom nerf you desire.
Just my 2c.

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LienRag
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Re: Species: Whumsoom

#20 Post by LienRag »

Ophiuchus wrote: Wed Jul 15, 2020 8:29 am
LienRag wrote: Wed Jul 15, 2020 3:22 am Is it possible in the code to decide that as Asteroids are not all in one place like the planets, but all over their orbit, then settling them takes 3 times the usual number of turns ?
I am not sure what you are suggesting. "Not all in one place" is fixable by fluff/description. Colonisation always takes a single turn. It is possible to reduce growth rate based on e.g. environment or species.
I meant the Colonization building, have it take much more time on Asteroids than on planets.

Are these Whumsoon to be integrated in a release soon ? They seem to be interesting.
At least a non-colonizing version at first, as you suggested earlier, if balance is still an issue ?

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LienRag
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Re: Species: Whumsoom

#21 Post by LienRag »

DraconicLunacy wrote: Sun Jul 05, 2020 10:10 am Whumsoom (natives - aerial-02.png)
Benevolent space whales that farm moss on asteroids.
Exclusively Prefer Asteroids.
Lithic Metabolism, {Gregarious}, {Environmentalist}.
The FOCS file is not adapted to the new requirements, could you update it ?

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LienRag
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Re: Species: Whumsoom

#22 Post by LienRag »

This file works, but it doesn't have all the Likes/Dislikes that are used in the latest version of FreeOrion.
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SP_WHUMSOOM.focs.txt
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Ophiuchus
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Re: Species: Whumsoom

#23 Post by Ophiuchus »

I am not sure where the species description gets its trait information nowadays, so please check that. Else some tags may be missing (good troops and great supply).

Needs influence stuff. I guess they should have influence focus, BAD (or VERY_BAD) macro and maybe tag.

As you said you probably should add likes/dislikes.

Then it needs the stringtable entries and you need to generate the colony building using the python script.

And for discussion about code it is easier, if you put up a PR and link it here.
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LienRag
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Re: Species: Whumsoom

#24 Post by LienRag »

I tested them as not able to colonize, and without polishing the FOCS file as Ophiuchus would have wished.

They work and are not unbalanced (well, difficult to have a Species unbalanced when it can't colonize nor build ships).

I used the original stringtable as written by DraconicLunacy, it's quite good.

When they are not able to colonize, they do not bring that much to the game though, they're just another Native and the fact that they're on Asteroids do not change basically anything.
Easier to build an Asteroid Processor maybe as one doesn't need to build an outpost for that, but that's nearly all.

I guess if we can make them distinctively like and dislike specific Policies/Foci/Buildings it could give them more flavor, but I have no idea what they should like or dislike.
Also, as long as they cannot Colonize, we could make them great Influence (Space Whales have some dream-like quality imho, be it the short cartoon about them or Frank's "Les baleines publiques") without unbalancing anything.

If we want to make them able to Colonize, they probably won't spam every Asteroid Belt as the new Influence mechanisms severely discourage "colonize everything" strategies, but then balance problems should be carefully addressed.

Whumsooms tend to be more frequent on the Galaxy map than other Species, I guess because like for Specials the game engine tests first if there will be a Native planet somewhere and then what Species will the Native be.

It makes me notice that I never encountered a Native Sly planet ?

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Re: Species: Whumsoom

#25 Post by LienRag »

Ophiuchus wrote: Wed Jul 15, 2020 8:29 am It is possible to reduce growth rate based on e.g. environment or species.
That could be a way to make Whumsooms more distinctive, by making their growth way slower.
How to do that ? I don't think I ever met FOCS code slowing or accelerating growth.
The "Population" policy FOCS file has no effect in it except the "likes and dislikes policy stability effect" macro...

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Oberlus
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Re: Species: Whumsoom

#26 Post by Oberlus »

Whumsoom should be playable species.

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Re: Species: Whumsoom

#27 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 12:17 pm Whumsoom should be playable species.
You think so ?

They'll need a lot more balancing efforts then, and I'm not convinced to be the one qualified to do that balancing.

We should at least include them as a non-colonizing Species in the next beta imho, so as to progressively test their balance - then maybe make them able to Colonize, then after a good amount of testing make them playable.

But indeed, as playable Species, they may bring real diversity in the gameplay, if correctly designed.

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Re: Species: Whumsoom

#28 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 12:37 pm
Oberlus wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 12:17 pm Whumsoom should be playable species.
You think so ?
Why would I say it if I didn't think it?

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LienRag
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Re: Species: Whumsoom

#29 Post by LienRag »

We have Celestyphytes now (and not a lot of them, which is good), shouldn't we introduce Whumsooms too ?

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Re: Species: Whumsoom

#30 Post by LienRag »

What should they dislike ?

Asteroid Processor, Asteroid Reformation Processor, Black Hole Generator, Industrial Center, Solar Orbital Generator, Industry, Bureaucracy, Charge, Asteroid Coating, what else ?

What should they like ?

Influence, Silmarine Crystal, Dream Recursion, what else ?

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