Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)

[jimbob]

Erax: I talked a little with SJ about putting in a pirate or nomad race type in the cross-over mod. He suggested making a single racial type "Wanderer" that fuses both types together, so that the racial type is somewhat competitive with the "Normal" type (He did suggest that there may be a better descriptor word than "wanderer").

I was thinking that in the ST universe the Orions, Hirogen and perhaps the Ferengi could make good "Wanderers". In the SW universe the Jawa would make excellent wanderers! I'm not sure if the Hutt would fall into that Category though. In the B5 universe there are a handful of potentials too (most notably the Raiders).

It would be hip if we had an "Ancient" type of some sort too for the B5 cross over. Perhaps in the ST portion we could have some Ancient types too... the Q? the Organas (sp) from the original series? Well, okay, maybe the Q is overkill, but it would be fun! Perhaps a race of monsters could be the ancient race... they don't colonize planets, just fly through space and occassionally drop troops (Aliens vs. Predators anyone?)

I'd like to offer my services on the QNP part of the SW mod, but I'm uncertain if I'm up to the task... SJ is so much better at that sort of thing. I'd like to look at his method using mounts again too - it had a lot of potential, and I think it was able to avoid problems with RCEs. SJ?

[ June 26, 2003, 18:52: Message edited by: jimbob ]

[Erax]

The Organians would be an Ancient Neutral race (weird, huh ?). The Q... I see them as an event sort of thing more than a race ("Q moved one of your ships across the Galaxy." "Q has opened up a new warp point.").

Regarding 'wanderers', how about calling them Rogue Races ? The SW Bounty Hunters Guild and various smuggler organizations would make good rogue races. The Black Sun might be true P&N pirates. The Orions could actually be two separate races, one pirate race and one 'normal' race.

If you want to beef up the pirates/nomads/rogues, all you have to do is give them limited colonization capability.

I'm actually reading the back Posts on the P&N thread, I'll post some ideas there eventually.

[Andrés]

We don't need to copy too much from P&N to implement pirate-like races.
Every race or group of races has its own colonization techs and restricted access to other techs so that part is already made.
We don't need a "pirate" or "wanderer" racial trait unless we find that doing that actually reduces repeated components and techs.

[jimbob]

Yah, a neutral Ancient race that demands you make peace with everyone, or it'll take it to ya! That would actually be quite cool. Do you think that's worth persuing later down the road? - I personally think that's sorta neat.

Space Rogues is nice enough. These are the words I got from the ol' Thesaurus:
Interstellar Vagrants
Travellers
Wanderers
Ephemerals
Nomads
However, I think that "limited colonization" ability = colonization. I guess I'd need to see a proposal on limiting colonization, but it just seems to me that a race that can colonize, will colonize. Besides, this will tie them down to planets, which we're trying to (mostly?) avoid.

[ June 26, 2003, 22:10: Message edited by: jimbob ]

[jimbob]

Sorry Andres, I was evidently typing at the same time you were. Here's an extra post then:

If we want some races that do not have any colonization capacity, the only way to pull it off is to produce a trait that lacks colony ships (ie. Ancient races of B5). That means we'll have to produce another racial trait (ie Normal) that does have the capacity to colonize. Well heck, if we're at it, we could throw in a "Nomad/Pirate" race type while we're at it... and I personally think it would be a fun and worthwhile effort.

In the case of the SW universe, it seems from the movies and the books that "minor races" and Groups often have a huge effect on the balance of power between the major combatants (for example the Rebels and the Empire). Of course it would be hard to make an AI that would successfully affect major empires as the AI is not intelligent enough. However, there are many people who would love to play a minor race, and just go about buggering up things for the major races (wouldn't it be fun to play the weapons dealing Hutts - sure you're not going to "win", but you can have a lot of fun affecting the outcomes for the greater empires. Personally I'm all over playing the Jawa ). For those of us that love to be @%$# disturbers, we would love to have the tools available to do this, while maintaining some semblance of balance.

Edit: oh, and I read your post a little closer. I didn't realize that every race has it's own set of colonization techs! I just assumed it worked a bit more along the lines of the P&N or Proportions systems: one set of colony techs. I suppose that if you do it your way it would be fine too... and I guess you about break even on the number of components that need to be added:

three colonization components x # of races

versus

a separate couple of traits and 3 x ship sets.

[ June 26, 2003, 22:26: Message edited by: jimbob ]

[Andrés]

Yeah but 3 more components for each trait wouldn't make much of difference.
And players would have to remember to select a 3rd racial trait: StarWars Tech, Imperial Tech, Normal Tech.

Anyway I was thinking to make a single trait for all minor starwars "outlaw races" instead of one for each one.

[Fyron]

Andres, please write a concise desription of the SW II mod so that it can be added to the mods list on MM's web site. Also, please indicate where you want the link to go. To this thread? Elsewhere? What "Version" should be listed? Alpha? Beta? Some number?