What are the characteristics of your favorite race?

[Chronon]

This may be like asking Scrooge where he hides his money, or like Chekov asking the San Francisco policeman where to find the nuclear vessels, but I'll try anyway. I was wondering what race designs everyone likes, and why?

From the "gamey tactics" thread I see that aggressive-defensive-bezerker is a favorite combination, but I'm sure there are others. I am new to SE4 and PBW, so I would greatly appreciate any advice you could give in this extremely important area. Thanks! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Suicide Junkie]

All five (or six in P&N) major racial traits, plus Living Ships if possible. Then whatever negatives are required to achieve this.

[tesco samoa]

51% on repair
50% on Ground Combat
51% on Tolerance...

[Chronon]

SJ - An organic, crystalline, temporal, religious, and psychic race? They would indeed be great pirates. I imagine the crossover components make them even more fun. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Tesco - I think I understand why tolerance and ground combat aren't worth spending money on, but why cut repair down so much?

[Suicide Junkie]

Yep. And in P&N, gravitic manipulation too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Repair can be reduced greatly because ships rarely survive damage in unmodded SE4.

In fleet-on-fleet combat, you either do not get shot at, or you die.
Also, with the preponderance of shields, your enemy has to do between 80% and 99% damage to hurt you without killing you. That is pretty rare.

So, for the most part, you get X dead ships, Y undamaged ships, and a 20% chance of a single crippled ship.

Even for retrofitting ships, all you need is a second dedicated repair base. The extra cost in bases and repair ships is minimal.

[SamuraiProgrammer]

Here is what I have been using the most, although, I can already see that this will have to change... I never dreamt of running something all the way down to 50!!!!

Culture
Artisans

Physical Characteristics
Physical Strength 100
Intelligence 100
Cunning 100
Environmental 80
Reproduction 100
Happiness 100
Aggressiveness 90
Defensiveness 90
Political Savvy 80

Vocational Aptitude
Mining 95
Farming 95
Refining 95
Construction 120
Repair 95
Maintenance 120


Advanced Traits
Propulsion
Storage
Industrialists
Organic

[Pax]

Here's one option:

Culture: Engineers, Artisans, whatever fits the race RP-wise

Physical Characteristics
Physical Strength 50
Intelligence 150
Cunning 50
Environmental 96
Reproduction 100
Happiness 100
Aggressiveness 75
Defensiveness 125
Political Savvy 50

Vocational Aptitude
Mining 120
Farming 60
Refining 90
Construction ***
Repair 50
Maintenance 120

*** = "whatever I can afford"

Advanced Traits : Advanced Storage
: Religious

And another:

Culture: Engineers, Artisans, whatever fits the race RP-wise

Physical Characteristics
Physical Strength 50
Intelligence 150
Cunning 50
Environmental 96
Reproduction 100
Happiness 100
Aggressiveness 100
Defensiveness 100
Political Savvy 50

Vocational Aptitude
Mining 100
Farming 100
Refining 100
Construction ***
Repair 50
Maintenance 120

*** = "whatever I can afford"

Advanced Traits : Advanced Storage
: Organic

For P&N, I usually try to get either Living Ships (especially with organic races), or Advanced Automation. "Big Thinkers" is also a fun one.

In general -- I don't bother with covert action, except to defend, so Cunning is irrelevant. Trade income, well, I'd rather pump those points into my own economy than rely on the friendliness of others. Physical strength, numbers can overcome that. With religious races, plan on the talisman and drop your aggression through the floor. I then like to pay as little in maintenance as possible, and build as fasta s possible; if I need stuff repaired, I'll pile on repair components. And so on.

[Chronon]

Thanks for the ideas, everyone, keep them coming!

SJ - Thanks for the explanation of why repair is unnecessary. I usually do a lot of retrofitting, so I mistakenly assumed that I would need a good repair rate.

I am curious about hardy industrialists. Does the advanced trait supercede the construction rate, or do they add together (or multiply)? In other words, if I pick hardy industrialists and a 125% construction rate, is my actual construction rate 125%, 150%, or 156%?

[dogscoff]

Chronon: 150%

[rdouglass]

I don't usually pick racial traits anymore, but I am quite fond of Advanced Storage Techniques. 5 extra fac's on every huge world does add up after a while.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Fyron]

Advanced Storage Techniques gives you a 20% increase in all production values, from research to resources. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[solops]

It would appear to me that race characteristics would be heavily dependent on game-setup parameters. Things like expensive research, victory goals, colonisable planet restrictions, etc. would all seem to weigh heavily in race design. Although I have not reviewed the entire thread, what I have seen does not mention this aspect of race design. Does this mean that you all play with the same conditions most of the time? If so, there may be whole new frontiers of gameplay to explore.

[Chronon]

Fyron - is that so? No wonder I've seen so many Advanced Storage Techniques races over on PBW. I may have to join you and rdouglas and use that one more frequently.

Thanks Dogscoff, for the info on construction rates.

Solops - I was just assuming a standard start with 2,000 points. But you are right that game setup should make a big difference in determining racial characteristics. Why spend points on intel, for example, in a game where intel is turned off?

The main point of my question, though, is to ascertain which of the traits and characteristics are most useful in the game in general (especially for games on PBW against those wily human players - where a small disadvantage against a good opponent can mean defeat).

[capnq]

Another consideration is whether you're playing to be competitive, or roleplaying the race.

One of the reasons why I've never won a PBW game is that I tend to pick traits to match my concept of the race more than for in-game benefits. I'm often the only person in the game who has increased Physical Strength rather than decreased it, for one example. I usually don't bother to write down the exact values I put into Characteristics; I prefer to make a fresh empire to suit each new game's settings.

I've got at least two races that I've made up for solo games that I'd never put in a competitive game.

If I had to pick one race as my favorite, it would be my Mi-Go, whom I give increased Cunning and the Schemers culture. I obviously won't play them in a game with intel turned off.

[ December 23, 2002, 23:06: Message edited by: capnq ]

[Slick]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Advanced Storage Techniques gives you a 20% increase in all production values, from research to resources. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I assume you mean that you can build 20% more facilities, which gives you a 20% increase in production. Or am I missing the big flick? Does AST increase the output of 1 facility?

[Dralasite]

I read it as building 20% more facilities. I don't think it adds to any individual facility. However, it also allows you to have more population, which can increase production as well...

[rdouglass]

Thats it exactly. AST doesn't increase the output of each facility, just the number of facilities.

If you think about it, it's like getting 6 planets for the price of 5... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Fyron]

Yeah... what I meant was that you can build 20% more facilities, so you can make 20% more stuff. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif But, the increased population Doesn't equate to increased production rates except on Huge breatheable planets, becase only there does the increase actually take the max population to a new pop modifier. But, it does allow you to load population off of your HW without lowering it below 2000, 3000 or 4000 (depending on size), and so lets you more quickly build up new colonies, while maintaining the high bonus on the HW. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Taera]

hrm, people, are 50% statistics are fun?
i dont play pbw much but in my single game i just cut down the trade (i try to play aggressive) and farming (dont realy need it) down to 80% or 85%.
Repair goes down sometimes, too, but only to 85%.

I think 50% are not fair, not fun, whatever.

[Pax]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
But, the increased population Doesn't equate to increased production rates except on Huge breatheable planets, becase only there does the increase actually take the max population to a new pop modifier.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Except in some Mods, where population modifiers have a higher degree of "resolution" .. 8)

[ December 24, 2002, 19:37: Message edited by: Pax ]

[SamuraiProgrammer]

Well, I think it is acceptable to put the race settings anywhere you like for the simple reason that the points gained by changing something from 51 to 50 are not as many points as are gained by changing something from 100 to 99. There are diminishing returns.

Also, there are limits as to how far some attributes can be reduced.

The hope is that the game designers have balanced things appropriately. Also, there are different opinions as to what 'balance' is.

There are many ways we could rationalize why it is appropriate to drop one attribute to an unbelievably low number and raising others.

For example, lets look at the repair attribute. If my race has big, stocky arms and legs, it might cause them to have to completely dissasemble a piece of equipment in order to repair it. This could easily cause most repairs to take twice as long (more or less) to effect. This would directly correlate to a 50% repair rating. At the same time, this bulk could improve their survivability when they are damaged (plusses to ground combat and defensiveness).

Of course, we can easily rationalize anything. And for every rationalization, there are several counters that make at least as much sense to do it the other way. One of my favorite lines from a movie was from The Big Chill. Jeff Goldblum's character said "Rationalizations are more important than sex. When was the Last time you went an entire week without a juicy rationalization?"

Anyhow, it is safe to assume that there are some things some players will do that will offend the sensibilities of the other players.

Happy Holidays!

[Chronon]

Thanks for the clarification on AST, everyone. It certainly does sound useful.

I do agree with you, SP and CapnQ, about roleplaying races. There are always gamers who will do their share of 'min-maxing' (see the "gamey tactics" thread on this forum), and I don't see this as unfair, or bad. It's just part of the game. But I, like you, think it's more fun to set up the racial characteristics to reflect the type of being(s) that one is playing. I don't think these are mutually exclusive, though. Why not play a race that role plays well, AND is competitive on PBW? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Atraikius]

capnq - I found I actually like raising the physical strength. Bump physical strength to 105% - 110% and 150 small troops with GC3's have a good chance capturing homeworlds of all those 50% strength races.

[Zarix]

Natural Merchants, intelligence and maintenance. I almost always use a few points on those but everything else depends on game settings.

[Fyron]

Natural Merchants lost some of its punch when planets went from up to 14 facilities in SE3 to 25 in SE4. That 1 Spaceport only takes 3 turns to build (instead of 10 in se3). IMO, Natural Merchants is not worth as much as something like Advanced Storage Techniques. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Fyron]

I like Psychic and Organic races. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Chronon]

Fyron, I have played organic, and I understand its advantages. But I have no experience with psychic. What are its main good points?