RolePlay Mod
 

With the History game and the up coming DN2 game, I've been inspired to help out the role-playing community out there. In having to actually write about SE4 in the History thread, you realize there are a lot of things in SE4 that aren't easily adaptable to role-play. I'm not talking about the techno-babble, because that is arbitrary and can be created to suit any purpose.

I am talking about the game being virtually the same for everybody. Even organic and crystaline races play with much the same style and components the rest of the races do. It all started with my religious race starting intel, and I thought intel doesn't suit religious races.

The thought has expanded and I am now attempting to create what I think best called "Racial Archetypes" You will choose what your empire is, and then you will have access to an entire set of components, facilites, ship sizes etc, that suit your race's archetype. This will serve as a double edged sword. Meaning, it will give you advantages, but it will also give you disadvantages, all of which will help to keep your race within the bounds of it's archetype. Not all the races will be balanced, and I am planning on making what I call "Limited Races," which aren't capable of conquering the galaxy outright, but have something unique about them which they can exploit," but they hopefully can find a place in any Roleplay game. The whole reason is to create stories, am I correct.

Here are the Archetypes I have so far. The names may change and some may drop, if I cannot figure out how to make them distinct.

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Limited Races:
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-Pirates
-Rebels
-Space Cannibals (not sure about this one...was just a sudden idea I had)
-Space Dragons (Space monster idea)
-Galactic Beings
-Semi-neutral Industrialists

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Normal Races:
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-Trade/Mining Empire
-Religious
-Organic
-Energy
-Crystaline
-Assimilators (Borg knock-offs)
-Evil Undead (Who said the Army of Darkness can't build spaceships)
-Honorable Feudalists (generic good guys)
-Evil Empire (much like the Starwars Empire)
-Psychic
-Temporal
-Toxic race (still unsure of this one)
-Solar dependent
-Anarchist/Lawless (this would basically be played as more of a zone than a race, but it is still under consideration)

I realize you are thinking that this is a lot of work, but I am not going to make bmps or try to accomodate the AI. Almost every race will have it's own tech tree, facilites, vehicles, etc. Little will be shared.

I am posting this just to get a feel of what the community thinks, and if it is worth the effort. Be frank. Add ideas and archetypes you'd like to see.

Re: RolePlay Mod
 

I really like the idea. More sharply diversified races would be cool. And I like having different tech trees. You have my vote...

I don't know if this is relevant in your concept, but one issue I have is a lack of game goals. Most games boil down to a "Conquer the Universe." But what about race-specific goals? I thought it would always be neat to have a bunch of races attempting quite different agendas.

Your thoughts?

Re: RolePlay Mod
 

Ah, yes. An idea I've been kicking around a bit...the race specific goals.
When I first played Suicide's Pirates, I started wondering what the goal of the pirate would be. Certainly hoarding treasure (resources), but that's a goal that goes nowhere in SE4. I doubt they would concern themselves with outright conquering of the universe. That's just one instance. Take an organic race. What would their goal be? No idea.

One idea I did have was race specific feuds. These would be determined before the game begins: everyone would have one race they must defeat. So the organics would have to kill the evil empire, the evil empire would hate the rebels, the rebels would have to kill the crystaline etc etc.

It could be done circular as stated above, or in pairs, but I think circular is better, as you really have to then fight two empires--defend against one and attack the other. The small races might be exempt from this, as say the pirates obviously can't handle an assualt from the largest empire. You might start next to the race you must defeat or across the galaxy from it. Who knows. Just an idea.

The real idea of this mod is to bring flavor to SE4.

Another idea I had to drum up interest in a roleplay mod, was to open it up to contributors. The way I am laying out the set up, it would be easy to add more races from others. All you would need to do, is create the racial trait, the derived tech, the components, the vehicles, and facilities and intel if needed. Then I just copy and paste. Some of the basic game will be changed, but nothing too severe.

More thoughts please.

Re: RolePlay Mod
 

I tried something like this a while back, but it ended up with a lack of interest.
RP mod ideas

Feel free to use those ideas.

Re: RolePlay Mod
 

Yes, it seems to be the same case here.

Hmmm.

Re: RolePlay Mod
 

I'm interested but must admit that I don't quite understand the premise of the mod. Is it intended more for PBW play with other players rather than AI? It would seem that way in order for most of the race feuds to work as intended.

SJ - I don't know if you caught my earlier thread...I just wanted to comment on your mini torpedoes and bombs you made for the ImageMod...I just thought they were great and I use them for my games.

Re: RolePlay Mod
 

Maybe that is the problem, and now that I reread my post, it does leave out certain things.

The mod would be for exclusive PBW play. No AI whatsoever.

Space Empires exists within a homogenous galaxy as it is. All these different races basically, apart from a few facilities struggle to unlock identical secrets of the universe, through tech. Just as in some older boardgames, certain countries or personas or roles would have benefits and advantages, so I want different races in SE4 to compliment how they are to be played. At present, when you role play in SE4, about the only way in which you approach it, is through communication and, if you choose, limitation. But in the end, a capital missle is the same to a religious race, as it is to a temporal, as it is to a group of anarchists, etc.

Let me state an example:
I'm now trying to put together a Toxic race between spurts of actual work at work; it's an idea I stole from a voyager episode, I only half remember.

The toxic race will have no population growth, so it will have to capture the pop of other worlds in order to grow. Their ships are going to be big, bulky and expensive to maintain on account of their dirty inefficient fuel. Same with engines. They will have extremely powerful planetary bombardment weapons. Strong troops to capture planets. They won't have cloaking devices because their ships leave such an exhaust trail (exhaust on starships? Believe it, baby). The same with their mines...they cloak at a lower level because they leak radiation. Going to give them a plague bomb by another name, which will kill population in droves by radiation poisoning. I plan on giving crew quarters of most races a security station ability, and the Toxic race will have a weapon which takes this out...other little stuff like this. Like a crew converter, which isn't really a crew converter, it kills everyone aboard with a bLast of radiation. And although their ships are expensive to maintain, they will be cheap to build, costing as much or more in radioactives as in minerals.

With each race I hope to come up with enough traits manifested in the components and hulls and tech that to play a certain race, feels like you are playing them, as best as it can be done.

And like I said, it would be no problem to add other races after the fact. So if someone wants to design an aquatic race, or a liliputian race, or a bug race, or a race of witches that fly around outerspace on a broom...the more the merrier. That is until we hit the limits of the data files http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: RolePlay Mod
 

RP mod is a great idea i've always supported.
You have my vote or whatever, plus all the support you could need.
If you need my help with the mod, e-mail me at trouble11@hotpop.com and i'll be more detailed.

Re: RolePlay Mod
 

"That is until we hit the limits of the data files"

heh, that might take a while. I just did an experiment with components.txt; I QUADRUPLED it's size, and nothing bad happened. OK, SE4 was running a little slow, but other than that..

You can have 64k weapon families, 64k component families, a crapload of components, and I imagine the limits on the other files are similar. Now, implimenting that many new and *functional* ideas might be a bit difficult http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Phoenix-D

Re: RolePlay Mod
 

Yeah, that's it J. In fact, I am working on my own mod with similar race-specific goals; some will start with 'Eliminate (race).'

Whoo-hoo! Imported races! Most likely I will come up with one too. Hmm.. maybe a Communist race bent on uniting all 'Worker' cultures against any imperialist races. Workers of the World, Unite!

Re: RolePlay Mod
 

Excellent!

Then by the way I am doing it. Every racial trait number gets a corresponding 1000 level family number, I can have 64 races, and still keep it simple. Well, 63 and not have to use the 0's place, so that they all line up. Hell, I have a hard enough time remembering that the 19th century is the 1800s. Wouldn't want to have to remember that the 6th race has 5000 level components.

No I have no intention of making 64 thousand components. Many components will be duplicates with just slight tweaks. I've created more of a copy and paste nightmare for myself than anything.

Re: RolePlay Mod
 

Well, Prophet, I had this idea late Last night while watching Neil Young on Leno (don't ask about the connection here).

Mod in a bunch of limited races with one or two super strong abilities each. Like amazing organic, mineral or radioactive harvesting, fast building SYs, some bad-*** weapons that are race bound and not steal-able or research-able...whatever you can think of. However these limited races can't conquer the galaxy on their own because of other serious disadvantages. The idea is that the larger races, in their course of conquering the galaxy have to take in as many of these limited races under their wing as they can, because of the great benefits derived from them.

It's not really a goal, but it does add another facet to winning the game. Hopefully, this mod can eventually provide this.

Taera...thanks a billion for the support. I was really close to giving up on this mod. Biggest problem I am having right now is visualizing several of the stock racial traits as complete races w/ their own tech, weapons etc. The Temporal and the Psychic. The psychic less so, but both I am having a hard time seeing what their empires would look like. Here is where I could certainly use some help.

Re: RolePlay Mod
 

Very well.
Things i can do:
HTML, 3d graphics, 2d graphics, SE coding (havent modded yet, i prefer to play the standard game with TDM races, but its not a problem), ideas (my strongest point). I tend to balance things too.

I am not sure about the idea, but it can work.
E-mail me if you want with any thoughts.

Re: RolePlay Mod
 

J, that sounds very similar to a scenario concept I thought of. It involved a few "Greater" races, and 2x-3x "Lesser" races. A Greater race would have many more race points than a Lesser. The Greater races are out to conquest their fellow Greater's (the Lessers are just primitive natives); the Last surviving Greater is named victor, and the game ends. The Lesser races are just attempting to survive the Greater wars; the Lesser with the best score at game's end is named victor. In other words, there are 2 winners to the game.
Feel free to use any of that idea.

BTW, does anyone know where to find a Modder's Guide? The only one I've found appears to be just a collection of Posts. Something easier to read would be nice.

Prophet