Adamant Mod Discussion Thread

[Fyron]

Machine Races and Physical Races are practically the same paradigm (techology based), except coming from opposed sources of intelligence (computer versus biological). For weapons, I am thinking that the Machine Races will use the same types as the Physical Races. I am trying to think of some way to tweak them to be different, yet still balanced. Any ideas?

[Atrocities]

What would be the major differances between such races? Use that as a starting point. Machines do not reproduce they build replacements. Machines are great at maitenance so those costs should be adjusted if not already. They can build faster as they do not need sleep. They have superior strength but less agility.

They are emotionless for the most part.

I doubt any of this will help you though. Good luck.

[Kevin Arisa]

Machines would have no reproduction so they should have the AI Workshop type facility at the start.

They would have no need for life support or crew quarters. Therefore a Master Computer component should be made available from the start. This would make ALL of their ships vulnerable to computer viruses which will help offset their many advantages.

They should be able to get a neural net type component early. Training is simply downloading the latest combat protocols. Perhaps have the training happen either very quickly or instantly but have the experience cap lower than that of normal training centers.

Radioactives would be much more valuable since their entire population would need energy to operate. Their organics requirements would be either very low or none at all.

Colonization components would require many radioactives since new colonies would need a large store of energy to keep the population online in the early stages.

Solar Collectors to generate radioactives would be a good tech for them to have early on.

Thier effeciency and lack of physical needs would allow them to utilize planets very effeciently. Therefore they would have a lot more available space on their planets than most other species.

Machines are not known for inventiveness so research capability would suffer. Espionage however would be good due to advanced database hacking technology. Perhaps giving them a seperate set of intel projects centered around computer overrides and digital database infiltration.

They would not have to be emotionless, but of course they would all be mechanoids. Unless you want to put cyborgs in this category.

Too bad there isnt a Non-Breather trait. Machines can typically operate in any atmosphere without consequence.

Well, thats all I can think of right now.

[Suicide Junkie]

Eh? Machines have to build new copies of their race just like the squishies.

Machines need to be kept powered and topped off on consumables to stay alive, just like squishies.
And they need their daily maintenance cycles, just like the squishies.

That sounds like reproduction, lifesupport and crew quarters to me

[Kevin Arisa]

Reproduction would depend on if each unit is responsible for making more units or if the creation of more units is done in a factory. If it is the population's job, then yeah, reproduction makes sense, but if done in a factory they need a special factory facility for population construction. Perhaps making a sub-trait for population construction that costs exactly as many racial points as reducing reproduction to non-existant gives.

I'm with you on life support and crew quarters. It would work fine that way. I just prefer the mandatory master computer idea since it gives them a much needed weakness.

[Suicide Junkie]

How is factory production all that different from a beehive, where the queen makes all the babies and the rest fight and work?

[Kevin Arisa]

SE4 reproduction is based on a percentage of the total population amount. If the population isnt responsible for reproduction then it should not be factored into it. They only way to do this in SE4 is to use the AI Factory ability.

Hive insect races would ideally have a similar setup with a Queen's Chamber facility on their homeworld responsible for primary reproduction in the empire. Hive races would need a lot of pop transports since there is only one queen which is at the homeworld.

[Suicide Junkie]

You only need a million-to-one ratio of workers to reproducers in order to make the system indistinguishable from a typical 2:1 reproduction scheme or the popular "everybody reproduces" bacterial system when you're measuring it on SE4's scale.

Facility slots are freaking huge, after all, where you get 5-25 facilities on a planet with billions of population.

[Kevin Arisa]

Well I was just trying to find a way to make the machine races different from the others. That was the most drastic change I could come up with.

[Suicide Junkie]

Well, you could always have two flavours of machine race... Its really all in how you justify it with your RP history and mod physics I suppose.