New race idea

Xandu · #1 January 29th, 2002, 11:51 PM

Hey ppl,
Call me precocious, but with this space monster stuff flying around, I felt like adding in my idea. I thought, partly inspired by the idea of ringworlds etc to suggest a race of'computer beings', sentient machines, if you will, and, if you have ever read 'heaven's reach', or any of the uplift series by david brin, then you might understand my idea. I think that it would be great to, using that as a source, create something based on the idea of the different 'spheres of life', oxygen breathers, hydrogen breathers, computer beings etc. We could implement this by making it a compulsory choice in the race trait screen to choose 1, and, eventually, after a long time, as happens in uplift, they change into new types of being and reach 'transcenence' and change in focus. Anyway, new ideas would be cool, this is just a rough idea based on having read some of the books and the other stuff.

Thoughts please

Suicide Junkie · #2 January 30th, 2002, 12:09 AM

Ah, so how would they work in the game?

AI races having just an MC on board right from the beginning?

quote:
We could implement this by making it a compulsory choice in the race trait screen to choose 1, and, eventually, after a long time, as happens in uplift, they change into new types of being and reach 'transcenence' and change in focus

Currently, you cannot force the choice of exactly 1 trait out of N. At the moment, it is up to the host of the game to make sure the races uploaded are following the spirit of the mod.

Once racial traits are chosen, they cannot be changed.
However, it is possible for you to mod a super tech area, which opens once a player has maxed out on a special "transcendence" tech. That could start a whole new set of ships & components, or give an exact duplicate of all the original racial techs.

If I've understood your idea, then it should be possible, and require only a little "turn zero" trust when choosing racial traits.

Phoenix-D · #3 January 30th, 2002, 04:44 AM

"Ah, so how would they work in the game?"

Not exactly. The sentient machine part, sure (though that can be done other ways)

minor spoilers below

The "Trancendants" and "Retired Races" in Brin's Uplift stuff were really, really powerful. Dyson spheres as standard low-end habitats, blowing up stars so their flashes could act like morse code pulses, weapons capable of carving ships apart and then putting the remains back together as new ships..

EDIT: as to what they were, that universe had a few main classes of life- oxygen breathers, hydrogen breathers, and machine. Also a few others like "quantum" life. Anyway, the trancendants were a combination of all those. SE4 terms, built in MC, immune to computer viruses and plagues, and any atmosphere acts like the "home" atmosphere.

Phoenix-D

[ 30 January 2002: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

Atrocities · #4 January 30th, 2002, 07:04 AM

Very interesting. Hum, at this rate, there will be something on the order of 1000 races for SEIV.

Phoenix-D · #5 January 30th, 2002, 07:26 AM

This is more of a tech tree really..and I suppose a good way to give a newbie a boost against an experienced player

Not sure how you'd RP them in a SE4; one of their quirks if they can't bear to live in "flat" (low gravity) space- the more advanced kinds like living next to the event horizon of a black hole.

Doing a race style would be difficult, if only because they are never actually described! Voice only, well, voice one ship and a long-range hologram.

Phoenix-D

Xandu · #6 January 30th, 2002, 08:37 AM

Thanks for the ideas. I thought really, that the player could choose their race, and, like the 'layered space' idea for the space monsters, different orders of life existed at different levels, with very little contact. Somehow, however, you could reach them, and, below them all, on the lowest, most insrutable level, you had the transcendents, living in and around stars, black holes and other gravitic anomalies. anyway, when your race becomes transcendant, then you must leave all your colonies, and create (not exactly faithful to the book here) a portal, which brings you to the lowest space, and you create ringworld style colonies etc, and play out the grand scheme of things. I'm just throwing ideas round now, your thoughts again please.