Racialquirks

[Lord Kodos]

in the vastness of space im afriad to say we humans are pretty pathetic we squandered and lost natures gifts ( sharp teeth claws fur etc etc) however we have tools but when compared to aleins our tools are like toys however humans have one thing a strong sense of desire and will to live we love our sentience during the slave trade time the slaves would rather die a free man then live a slave humans have a strong will.i wish to incorparete this to se4 like terrens have that ability and in the game should have a bigger milita i mean if alienss invaded new york someone is bound to pull a shotgun on them.i also owant more advance3ed species so aleins can have selective breeding making a smaller but more efficent population one milita can do the job of two normal one half the facility pop needed.i also want facilitys to have different pop use percentages i mean my genetics lab needs a lot of peeps but my little bar dosent!oi also want to add things like if x species happiness= i mean them vectorieans would always ally with the reptisaurs but never with the florals or the hive remnants! well thats all ciao

(pardon my spelling i was in a rush my pizza came and i was typing with one hand!

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Some rule some serve
some declare wars some
fight them
i declare wars i rule
you serve you fight
wars.....
we are not the same.....
never forget that..

[Suicide Junkie]

Hmmm... most if not all of those examples would require hardcode changes, but the idea of racial quirks is interesting.

Rather than the large, expensive trait such as temporal, organic & stuff, why not create a whole host of small, 250 point traits?

-A 25% bonus in unit size. Large sats would be 150KT, rather than 120. Small troops would be 12kT instead of 10.

-Expanded automation - all ships require fewer crew quarters & life support. The bridge component will include life support & crew quarters ability. So, essentially, you get frigates & destroyers running with a crew of 30, living in the 10KT of bridge and built-in corridors.

-Tiny race (#2), all crew-based components (bridge, lifesupport, crewquarters) are reduced to 7KT in size. Could be linked with the above trait, to reduce your C&C costs even more. (Just imagine- 21Kt of C&C for an entire Battle Cruiser, rather than 50 - enough for an extra large mount weapon)

-Pack Rats. All ships get a built-in storage capability, (20% of thier design size is the amount of cargo space they get for free).

-Tortoise Mentality. All ships have double the normal "engines per move" requirement, but get a built-in 3 movment per turn. (Thus, with no engines, you can move 3, with 6 engines, you move 6, with 12 engines, you move 9.) Your ship hulls are designed to work best a low speed, and you save on engine space, which you can spend on weapons and shields.

Note: You could still create normal ship hulls if you want more than 6 speed, but you would not be able to retrofit between the two. (and you would be wasting your racial abilities)

As you can see, none of these quirks are terribly unbalancing, so their price would be quite low, anywhere from 100 to 500 racial points, and thus, very easy to afford more than one.

------------------
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[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 08 August 2001).]

[Lord Kodos]

thanks a little help how should i eneact selective breeding hmm? and about the militia terran thing any ideas their and howsabout if this race x happiness + or minus x

------------------
Some rule some serve
some declare wars some
fight them
i declare wars i rule
you serve you fight
wars.....
we are not the same.....
never forget that..

[Suicide Junkie]

Selective breeding... hmmm.
The militia hitpoints & attack strength are the same for everybody (hardcode).

What you could do is give the player a physical strength bonus to simulate the selective breeding for warriors.

Alternatively, you could give most (or all) of their facilities a ground defense bonus (there is an ability for that already in the game).
The problem with that method is that you must copy every facility entry, and give the copy the extra ability, and a racial tech requirement. Not hard, just lots of copy-paste work.

The happiness trait is already in the characteristics, but if you wanted an additional racial trait modifier, you could do the same thing as above, except give the copied facilities the UPC's "Change Population Happiness" ability.

Doing both of these changes would quadruple the size of your facilities.txt, though, and its already 120Kb. SE4 might choke on older machines.

AFAIK, these two modifiers are already accounted for in the characteristics section of your race setup, it may not really be nessesary; players would just say "selective breeding" in their race descriptions, and spend points on ground combat.

------------------
The latest info on Pirates & Nomads (forum thread).
-<Download V2.1>- (Now with extra scenario support!)
-<Download V1.7>- (With default AIs patched)
-<Download compatible EMPs for P&N v1.2 through v1.7>-
-<Download SJs latest AI Patcher>-
Visit My Homepage

Other Links:
-<Play By Web>-
-<Schlock Mercenary>- (great space-based webcartoon) -<First Strip>-
-<8-bit Theater>- (fun comic with the pixellated FF1 characters)

[Baron Munchausen]

There are far more 'racial traits' available than are used in the current control files. As an old-time executable snooper I loaded the se4.exe into a viewer ages ago. I've only used one so far, but it works fine.

Name := Natural Engineers
Description := Repairs are made at 150% of their normal rate.
Pic Num := 0
General Type := Advantage
Cost := 1000
Trait Type := Repair
Value 1 := 50
Value 2 := 0
Required Trait 1 := None
Required Trait 2 := None
Required Trait 3 := None
Restricted Trait 1 := None
Restricted Trait 2 := None
Restricted Trait 3 := None

This gives a 50 percent boost to repair rate as you would think. The abilities currently used in the default config are:

Supply Cost,
No Plagues,
No Spaceports,
Luck,
Vehicle Speed,
Galaxy Seen,
Planet Storage Space,
Planetary SY Rate,
Tech Area,
Population Emotionless,
Tech Area (racial techs, of course)

Other abilities listed in the executable, which may or may not all work, are the following:

Troops Bonus
Fighter Bonus
Ship Bonus
Mineral Production
Mineral Storage
Organics Production
Organics Storage
Radioactives Production
Radioactives Storage
Research Production
Intelligence Production
Trade
Ground Combat
Space Combat
Maintenance Cost
Ship Attack
Ship Defense

As you can see, many of them look like duplicates. But some experimentation that I don't have the patience for (Edit racialtraits.txt file, start new game, create race & experiment with new trait...) might turn up some others that are usable. Too bad there's not a "Ship SIZE" ability, huh? Having larger ships at all tech levels would be a cool advantage.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 09 August 2001).]

[Ed Marshall]

I'd personally like to see humans portrayed as a bloodthirsty, territorial, and violently war-like race. We have been killing each other since the beginning of recorded history, and 10's of millions of people died in wars during the Last century. We are so good at killing each other, that it seems we would do well against our interstellar nieghbors as well. The Terrans should be a race of bad-asses.

No more pansy-assed Advanced Storage, we need combat bonuses.....especially ground combat ( we do, after all have plenty of experience ). It's hard to imagine a civilized, sentient culture being more violence prone than mankind.