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Old February 26th, 2010, 09:09 PM

Baron Munchausen Baron Munchausen is offline
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Default Re: Welcome Star Legacy Development Group!

Quote:
Originally Posted by MarcoPolo View Post
I think the idea of races being different and more suited to one planet type than another should be explored more as a gameplay dynamic. Furthermore this should throw up more interesting possibilities to enrich the game universe, such as incompatible tech trees, preferrability to colonising certain planet types over others (perhaps having several distinct alien types eg insectoid, reptilian and mammalian/humanoid, aquatic/squid?, crystalline/silicon based life or AI from a long dead race) just examples that conjure up very distinct tech types and unique civilisation and govt styles in my mind. If you have say a race of insectoids they could be more favourable when meeting other insectoid races, or even AI civilisations for instance, given their robotic sense of order.

Another example would be.. aquatic species having a totally different tech tree to terrestrial humanoids because of the different focus and evolution of their science, by the same token it would mean aquatic races would be more suited to waterworlds anything under 30% water 70% land (depending on planet size etc) would be counterproductive to a water based lifeforms technological development and infrastructural needs. Its also important to note that stealing from such aliens if your not an aquatic species yourself will pose some major limitations. But they would be excellent in providing powerful technology in water based sciences even if your humanoid or another race that needs some tech in say enriching a planet with water or terraforming.

I would appreciate it immensely if because of this diversity, we can see some races excelling in harsher star systems that humanoids would avoid more often than not. For example a nuetron star would be lethal to humans and practically a wasteland system, but for AI it could serve up some research bonuses to its science outposts and even provide some benefits to settling on a long dead planet that circles it. This actually makes me wonder if Star Legacy will make star systems spectrally accurate ie giving different star types in the game ranging from G type stars all the way to blue giants and beyond. This would alter the options of how many planets per star type if some accuracy is to be worked into the game.
Yes, it is important and very beneficial to work elements of simulation into the game. Science fiction needs to be vaguely related to real-world science in order to be believable. The generic 'conditions' that work the same for all races in the SE series have always been an annoyance. It would be great to have even a simple system of atmosphere type, temperature range, and gravity level like Stars! had. Radiation level would be a useful fourth factor.

What about biological weapons and medical technology to treat plagues? Those should also be distinct. A virus that can kill mammals or avians living at earth-normal temperature is not even going to survive in the environment that supports silicon-based life (always very high temperatures and pressures due to the need for those condition to make complex silicon compounds similar to complex carbon life). That goes for natural (plague) or artificial (bioweapons).

So, there needs to be a sort of 'genetic code' for all species in the game, describing their characteristics. Very general things, like silicon or carbon based, and broad factors like humanoid, avian, insectoid, etc. And also distinct individual codes so you can target a species individually. At low levels, a bioweapon should only kill a single species. As biotech advances though, it could become more flexible and able kill a broader range of species if you want it to. But there should never be a universal bioweapon. There is just too much variation in the species included in a good 4X game.
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