A mod idea :)

[Starhawk]

Hey some of you may or may not (most likely not) remember that I mentioned the idea that I would be making a mod sometime in the future.

Well I have finally come up with an idea and I'd like ya'll to tell me what you think before I lose hours and hours of work on something nobody would play


Anyway here be the ideer (yes that was on purpose):

Concept: I started doing boardwars when I was 13 and kept up with them for the next 4 years, in that time I had met some GREAT people with some excellent ideas, back then I asked them for permission to perhaps someday in the future make a mod of their races, and all but 2 gave me permission (jerks lol).

So it took me a few years to come up with how I would like to best portray my time with the Boardwars and the friends I made there, whether I should make a story about them (I already have with my Icarans and Fisks Mantisorans and am still working on this story), or whether I should create a new mod for them.

I have finally chosen to make the mod to immortalize my time and friends there (not really immortalize obviously as some day Space Empires will be gone and we all will be gone as well.)

Credit to:
Yoshi (The Swarmers creator)

The General (The Hunter's creator)

Mephesto Odium (may he rest in peace the creator of the Hra-Thrall my Terrenesi's most beloved allies and hated enemies)

Frish (United Shipping Corporations creator)

Korim (Kerensky)

Starhawk (me) (Union of Man, Icaran Star Empire, Terrenesi Federated Empire)


Pluses and minuses of each race:

Swarmers: They are a totally mechanical race as in they don't have ANY organic parts what so ever, they are however programmed to be highly agressive and to spread themselves to other worlds.

Traits:
Universal colony ability

Their whole fleet is carrier based, they do not have "line ships" but instead have swarm command ships which carry "fighters" into battle. Mind you the largest of these "fighters" will be destroyer sized and the Swarmer mega-carrier with the proper swarmer carrier bays will be able to hold about 50 per ship.

Being that they do not require life support or crew quarters at all swarmer ships have a lot of spare mass to devote to carrier bays.

Average weapons strength: They don't have much in the way of awe inspiring firepower but they don't need each gun to be powerful per se when they have 100 weaker guns to make up for it.

Can NOT conquer planets: Being non-organic and totally unwilling to allow organic waste to infest their worlds Swarmers do not land ground forces to capture a planet but instead glass it from orbit.

Slow ships: The swarmers have the mixed blessing and curse of having slow ships, their Carriers are huge lumbering vessels that have not learned to develope grav compensators and thus keep the ship intact at high gee cruising speeds.


The Hunters: A second mechanical race in the universe it is believed they were created specifically to battle against the Swarmers, and their combat technology tends to lend credence to that theory.

Moderate ship cost: Fairly inexpensive ships being that the average swarmer carrier is a weak unit in and of its self that is easily destroyed without it's escorts.

Traits:
Universal Colony ability

Their ships range from destroyer to commandship (dreadnought) in size and are boomerang shaped craft with fair shields and excellent close in firepower focusing on beams.

Their primary armaments are designed not to kill but instead disable a ship to allow a Hunter ship to capture and convert it, thus the bulk of Hunter Weapons are designed to kill weapons, shields, command centers, and engines.

Fair shields: They have average shield technology and rely on the typical mix of armor/shields to keep their ships in battle.

Moderate ship cost: They have fairly cheap and easily produced ships.

Unable to conquer planets: Being mechanical in nature and sharing an almost swarmer like hatred for organics Hunters tend to glass worlds and re-establish their own technology base on the surface.

Hra-Thrall: An ancient and wise race they resemble large squids and live in water environments and reproduce very slowly compared to other races.
Though peaceful the Hra-Thrall have developed excellent war making technology to defend the few Hra-Thrall that there are in the universe.

Traits:

Ultra-fast ships (say 22 movement on map 11 in battle): The Hra-Thrall have developed inertialess drives which allow them massive ammounts of acceleration compared to virtually every other race in the galaxy.

Excellent shields: Powerful shields protect all Hra-Thrall starships, capable of rebuffing firepower that would totally destroy other race's ships Hra-Thrall are never to be underestimated in battle.

Excellent close in weapons: Due to the nature of Hra-Thrall technology their weapons are mainly close in cutting beams and slipstream shard cannons capable of inflicting massive damage but requiring a ship to close into point blank range of their enemies.

NO ARMOR: Hra-Thrall are incapable of putting armor on their ships, it is unknown for sure why this is so but the mere concept of armor seems to shock and baffle Hra-Thrall scientists.

Expensive ships: Hra-Thrall starships though powerful and fast are also expensive and the Hra-Thrall charish each starship as an individual work of art because of this.

Below average ground troops: Hra-Thrall do not like planetary battles but they like destroying whole worlds even less, and so they do their best when they must and they land brave Hra-Thrall on distant worlds to do battle.

Sphereworld tech


United Shipping Corporation: A massive multi-species corporation bent on "conquest through profit" they are excellent merchants and miners and resourcers but not the best soldiers in the universe.

Traits:

Cheap ships: Their largest ship is a "battleship" that is little more then a converted Merchant design, their capital ships are cheap and mass produceable though likewise not very durable.

Huge population growth: The USC is renowned for the fact that it's entire military is made up of Clones, each branch of the service in fact consists of a single series of clones tailored for their jobs.

Due to this fact the USC civilian populace does not have to worry its self for martial prowess at all and instead focuses on life in general which includes of course mating.

Cheap ground units: Being mere clones the lives of the average USC soldiers are not considered valuable at all and so the USC has no problem giving it's average foot soldier a laser a flak jacket and a helmet and sending them off to war ne masse to acomplish their goals.
Same goes for their tanks which are lightly armed and armored.

Cheap/weak weapons/shields: The USC is all about economics and so are it's weapons and defensive systems which are all cheap yet weak compared to the other races and Empires in the known galaxy.

Ringworld tech.

Korim: I'm still getting ideas from Kerensky.

Terrenesi: A massive intergalactic Empire that has sent an expedition to this galaxy along with the Hra-Thrall multi-galactic Empire. The Terrenesi are essentially Humans that were taken long ago by an alien race and genetically engineered into 3 known castes and one suspected one. Each similar yet distinct from one another.

Excellent starships: Terrenesi warrior caste starships are massive powerful craft capable of bringing fear into just about any one unlucky enough to encounter them. (largest ships in the mod go to Terrenesi)

Phased Weapons: Terrenesi technology relies almost entirely on the principal of phasing energy their weapons reflect this in their ability to pass through almost any shield, the phased slipstream shard cannon and Quantum discharge cannons can even pass through armor inflicting massive damage.

Pulse weapons however are fairly weak per shot and fairly close ranged (they do average SEIV damage and have close range)

The exception to this is the Quantum Discharge cannon which is so large only Dreadnoughts (10mt) and SuperDreadnoughts (15mt) can carry them. (they also only fire once per 15 turns)

Phased Shields: These shields while weaker then "pure" energy shields are capable of totally ignoring phased weaponry being fired at them.

Phased armor: Phased armor is a bizzare technology to say the least it actually channels energy that impacts upon it back into the shields, and totally ignores small weapons fire. (basically a single Swarmer destroyer wouldn't even dent it but 50 would destroy it just like any other armor)

Excellent ground troops: Terrenesi warriors on the ground are just as frightening as they are in space, stormers supported by tanks and artillery can easily overcome their equal on any battlefield anywhere.

Expensive military: Being totally devoted to war the Warrior cast has the best of everything, though this comes at a high cost. (most expensive ships and ground troops in game)

Terrapedo: The Terrapedo as it is called literally destroys a planet and rebuilds it from the "rocks up" to create a new world for the Empire and remove whatever enemy was on that planet.

Sphereworld tech

Bad at diplomacy (the ambassadorial caste are few and precious to the Terrenesi and are thus not deployed on every occasion)

Highly aggressive