Thatguyeric wrote:Honestly, the planet races add a more luck aspect to a strategy game. With moon formation and ships changing in effectiveness, I would really only like things that emphasize skill, not luckily getting a really great race. I am still a supporter of the one chosable race idea.

There already are plenty of "luck" elements in the game, including WSA factors in combat and planet/moon formation. It would not unbalance the game, but would provide another element of strategy. A planet with only 150 fields, but a unique race might be a planet worth keeping. Most things are already pretty cookie cutter. Personally, I find that boring. As the game progresses, many players will have their mines and other buildings maxed out and what then? Stagnation.

The other thing this does is gives lower and mid-level players another dimension to the game. The majority of players will never see number one, let alone a top 10 spot. The process of discovery was one of my favorite parts of the game. Figuring out which races do what will add more context to the game.

The Alien artifacts concept gives the higher echelon players another element to the game. Possession of artifacts would be something most top 100 players could strive for. By allowing each player a maximum of one artifact, it would ensure that one player does not hoard them all.

I would even like to said more techs and buildings added eventually. Most tech researches unlock a building/ship/defense/technology advance. However, most veteran players have maxed on those and are left with just the Drive, computer and WSA upgrades. Even some of the dynamic techs don't make sense purchasing at a high level, like Computer and Espionage.

How about with new technologies and with specific Native races (as opposed to player races), you could build World Wonders that increase a population's content (with governments) or Mine productions or even unique technologies? I am not the first to think of those kinds of ideas, but those things make me excited about the possibilities.

Well, these things are different because they are reversable. You screw up a moonshot, you try again. However, we will be stuck with these planet races forever. I think it could work if each planet already colonised gets assigned a race, and if we don't like that one then we can pay a fee to change it. Do you understand what I am trying to say when I say this? It is unfair to make people with developed planets lose that much work. Individual planet races is a good idea, but if we have to delete developed planets to get a good race it becomes unfair. The artifact thing could be cool, I say make them even stronger though. They are randomly assigned to a player to start with one and can be raided. One could maybe raise WSA by 30% when you attack with it, one could cloak an attack until 2 minutes until it lands, one could increase mine output by 20% (even if its in the air because people need to FS). Kudos on that. And the owner would be on the scoreboard, no disable option.

Eric,

As far as the player races go, I am not really in favor of people being able to choose NATIVE races for planets. IF they liked the concept well enough to actually implement NATIVE races as well as the planned PLAYER races, there would likely be plenty of changes along the way. At this point, it is pure brainstorming. However, if it were actually implemented in the way I had described, maybe they could work out a nice compromise.

This is what I would suggest...

Existing planets will be populated with Humans as the Default NATIVE population. Humans will be the baseline with no penalties or bonuses.

Each player will be given 50 rubies after the upgrade. As a new option for Zorg Rubies, you will be given the opportunity to generate a race on the new planet. It will cost 5 rubies to regenerate a new race. After the new race is determined, you will be given an option to Keep the existing race (for most will be humans) or to have the planet populated with the new race you have generated. This will also provide players with a way of replacing the NATIVE race on planets that have a NATIVE race on a planet that does not serve the planet's purpose.

To change a PLAYER's race, it should be more expensive. Maybe 25 Zorg rubies. That will provide player's with the flexibility to change those things without killing the Server in the process. There may be additional penalties for changing a player's race too.

LOL, as I said before all this is very much up in the air and I don't know if they will even consider the NATIVE races concept.


EDITED for Clarity: PLAYER Races should be the Player's choice, NATIVE races for planets should be randomly generated IMO

I think that planet race may be fair with the 50 ruby change. Not being able to choose your player race seems absurd to me though. If I am assigned engines +15% but WSA-10%, it will pretty much govern what I am as far as miner/fleeter/turtle. This will limit player freedom. I think it is clear that a compromise will not come between us two, and it wouldn't matter if we did anyway.What about the artifacts though? Are you still in to that? I think that would give players something to shoot for.

Sorry if I was unclear. Players should definitely be able to select the PLAYER race.

I was just providing one method for allowing players to change the PLAYER race, which should be more expensive and difficult to change than the NATIVE race of a planet.

I would love to see the artifacts concept implemented as well. They both would be a good bit of coding, so even though I love the idea, I can't be sure it is something that will be seriously considered.

I personally like both ideas. For existing planets I think they should all be of whatever player race the player chooses or they can choose to generate it, with one 'reroll' and any new ones could be either player race or a random gen that includes more bizarre and specialized races that are not choosable for player race. Also perhaps a limit like at least 50% of the players planets must be the player race? Doesnt make sense if youre humans, with one human planet kind of thing.
For the artifacts, exactly as theyve been laid out Id love it. Perhaps not have anyone have any of them to start, but have them be found in new planets, expeditions etc?

i love the idea of races but will players who are different race can be together in an alliance or is it then 3 great groups against each other??

No the three races wont be against each other.
Although that could be alot of fun...

RogueSpearofTRA wrote:I personally like both ideas. For existing planets I think they should all be of whatever player race the player chooses or they can choose to generate it, with one 'reroll' and any new ones could be either player race or a random gen that includes more bizarre and specialized races that are not choosable for player race. Also perhaps a limit like at least 50% of the players planets must be the player race? Doesnt make sense if youre humans, with one human planet kind of thing.
For the artifacts, exactly as theyve been laid out Id love it. Perhaps not have anyone have any of them to start, but have them be found in new planets, expeditions etc?

You jumped around a little bit there, but it seems you are saying players can choose to populate the planets with NATIVE races from the three PLAYER races. If that is what you are saying, I think that is a good idea. I was trying to figure out a way to make it fair and also not overload the server at the same time.

I had mentioned that there should be a scale for the occurrence of NATIVE races. More specifically, some NATIVE races should be common, others uncommon, others rare and others unique. In that scenario, player races would all be common and you could choose one of those races to populate your planet. That would be fair for existing planets. For new planets, you would randomly generate the race. You could also be provided with two choices. For 5 rubies you could randomly generate a different race or could select one of the common races to populate the planet.

I think the less common NATIVE races should only be acquired by chance. Having the major races populate most of the planets makes sense and if you could choose any old race everyone will have a rare super mining race on most of their planets with other less common races on planets only to serve a specific function. That would lead to a cookie cutter approach, which I think is a direction the game should avoid.

Using the scale of occurrence, the common NATIVE races would have the smallest benefits and penalties and the unique NATIVE races would have the greatest. It would make sense that the unique races would be the ones that could potentially have new unique techs or artifacts. Including the possibility for acquiring the same from Expeditions is another great idea in my opinion. I think either myself or someone else mentioned that a long time ago. It would make expeditions a much more important part of the game. As of now, they are kind of a one trick pony.

Hopefully someone from Zorg will chime in on the discussion. I would like to know what they think about all this or if we are just spinning our wheels.

Yes thats what I meant with a couple of twists.
For clarity:
I log in after the races are introduced. I choose Race B from the list of A, B, C. So all my planets I can make Race B, or choose to 'roll' a random race from A-Z, rolling again if I dont like it, but being stuck with the second result.