Read by Council Playable Races

[nightrune]

Playable races have been suggested before, but usually it gets no where because there isn't a real reason for it!

I think I have a reason though.

The devs have suggested that fauna is likely to be modular. So you could extend that to our character models and NPCS. This would let us create a race, but its not just about looks.

During race creation we should be able to willfully reject being able to manufacture certain blocks in exchange for boosts on other blocks. Applied either as a shipwright or in as a faction.

For example, Giving up advanced armor to gain boosts in shields and shield recharge. Or maybe giving up cloaking for extra power regen. There a ton of combinations that could really spice up gameplay.

Other things may be useful as well. Maybe you give up medical cabinets for extra character health and natural armor. Lots of bonuses could be added.

Factions:
A factions capabilities are set when its founded based off its founder. This removes ways people could exploit the system if you could change the type of blocks you could manufacture.

This can also retroactively happen to factions automatically created by players as well. Doing a check to see what blocks that are used at creation could create the boosts needed.

Ship construction:
Ships you construct carry your traits on your server always. Meaning you can create a ship yourself and give it to your faction, if they have different races but the faction can not mass produce it.

Trade and Allys
This also opens another area for trade. Since to get the best of everything you need to ally and trade. Even if you voted to not be able to create any block you would still need money and must get along with other players.

Along with resource rarity this could make economies very interesting and dynamic. Since maybe you supply someone with cloakers and they can't destroy you since no one else in the universe creates them!

If you still want to be jack of all trades then you get no boosts, but you can build everything. Specialize too much and you'll be too reliant on external forces.

I'm sure I'll revisit and fix grammar and add as well. Let me know what you peeps think.

 

[NorskDragon]

I'll assume even if you "reject" the manufacturing of certain blocks, you'd still be able to purchase them,correct?

 

[nightrune]

I'll assume even if you "reject" the manufacturing of certain blocks, you'd still be able to purchase them,correct?

Yes, that's the idea.

 

[SmilingDemon]

i would like to see the game support the ability to mod something like that in.
so to speak to provide the necessary foundation.

but i dont think this is to be required to be in the game as default (this goes for a lot of suggestion i have seen)
it would split of to much time from development to implement every nice idea ... at least that is my fear here.

otherwise ... great idea

 

[HolyCookie]

I like the idea of different races but I think it would be better if the ships don't keep the traits. The economy you are suggesting wouldn't work as good as you think it would. A faction with 10 people would simply have specialised people for everything needed only resulting in inner faction trade. If a ship doesn't keep the traits it means ships could be specialised instead of people say, you have shields buff then you won't go into the advanced armor tank but instead you go into the ship that has shields as its major defense. It gives variety in ships and players won't be missing out on content. The part where your traits are inherited by the faction when you create it is also strange, a faction is nothing more than a collection of people/races. just because you would be good with shields doesn't mean the armor guy is good with it. It has no logical explanation. But I do like the idea of easy customization as getting a skin on wasn't the easiest thing to do and it limits you to always being the same shape.

As for the dynamic trading, there is already a huge suggestion thread about a grand exchange market where prices depend on the supply and demand law. This suggestion would already bring all the trade and dynamic stuff you'd want in an economy.

PS: All disabilities that disable/limit production can be bypassed by having an alt account.

 

[nightrune]

I like the idea of different races but I think it would be better if the ships don't keep the traits. The economy you are suggesting wouldn't work as good as you think it would. A faction with 10 people would simply have specialised people for everything needed only resulting in inner faction trade.

This is fine. Its actually intentional. Since its based on who built it. Each person would then have a very special job within the faction. Creating easy paths to helping, but since its based on ship not a person. Its the technology inherit in the ship. Not the person running it.

If a ship doesn't keep the traits it means ships could be specialised instead of people say, you have shields buff then you won't go into the advanced armor tank but instead you go into the ship that has shields as its major defense. It gives variety in ships and players won't be missing out on content. The part where your traits are inherited by the faction when you create it is also strange, a faction is nothing more than a collection of people/races. just because you would be good with shields doesn't mean the armor guy is good with it. It has no logical explanation.

I thought through a few scenarios. For my idea, if you base it on when ships are created you don't want the faction to be able to just change owners or who's in the faction every minute to get different bonuses on different ships. For someone as a different race inside a faction to build a ship inherits their races traits, they need to build it in a personal shipyard or by hand to get their bonus. That would suck in a late game. Hand building each ship is not going to be useful. I also assume that blueprints as a whole would go away as this does destroy most of what I am thinking. As well as you can't deconstruct a ship and rebuild it to get its bonuses. So it absolutely makes sense. I could come up with many in game reasons this would exist that way, but if a faction wants to mass produce ships with certain tech it would need to disband and create it again. This is for gameplay reasons. It allows each faction to be different with out scarificing performance because you don't use a particular block.

But I do like the idea of easy customization as getting a skin on wasn't the easiest thing to do and it limits you to always being the same shape.

Thank you!

As for the dynamic trading, there is already a huge suggestion thread about a grand exchange market where prices depend on the supply and demand law. This suggestion would already bring all the trade and dynamic stuff you'd want in an economy.

This is in addition to that. Creating rarities to a race/faction allows for creating trade opportunities. Another reason would be to be able to buy turrets or shuttles from a specific faction that could make a trait better then your faction can. Then you just outfit your ship with it, but it might be a pain since you have to hand automate it.

PS: All disabilities that disable/limit production can be bypassed by having an alt account.

Already taken care of above. You have to hand build or have many factions that are still allies. They can't play them all, all the time.
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i would like to see the game support the ability to mod something like that in.
so to speak to provide the necessary foundation.

but i dont think this is to be required to be in the game as default (this goes for a lot of suggestion i have seen)
it would split of to much time from development to implement every nice idea ... at least that is my fear here.

otherwise ... great idea

Fair enough. I know the devs have talked about races. This happens to be my take on how to make them mean something and add something to the game besides looks.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Once crew is added assigning crew to specific tasks are supposed to give your ships buffs. For example a high level gunner has better aim and maybe an increased fire-rate. Assign crew to shields and power and maybe those systems work better as well. Being able to create a race and their traits may be a great way to customize the crew of your ships instead of effecting the ships themselves. Maybe your race has better eyesight so more range on the weapons or they can repair faster or something like that. Crew would have to be implemented first or at least in development but it would be a really interesting mechanic to expand it.

 

[Kenshkrix]

I thought through a few scenarios. For my idea, if you base it on when ships are created you don't want the faction to be able to just change owners or who's in the faction every minute to get different bonuses on different ships. For someone as a different race inside a faction to build a ship inherits their races traits, they need to build it in a personal shipyard or by hand to get their bonus. That would suck in a late game. Hand building each ship is not going to be useful. I also assume that blueprints as a whole would go away as this does destroy most of what I am thinking. As well as you can't deconstruct a ship and rebuild it to get its bonuses. So it absolutely makes sense. I could come up with many in game reasons this would exist that way, but if a faction wants to mass produce ships with certain tech it would need to disband and create it again. This is for gameplay reasons. It allows each faction to be different with out scarificing performance because you don't use a particular block.

I'm against the disappearance of blueprints, but I'm fine with a shipyard's product being of generic quality compared to a hand-built ship.

To compensate for the bonus in a personal shipyard, it could just work more slowly and require the player to actually be there.

 

[nightrune]

I'm against the disappearance of blueprints, but I'm fine with a shipyard's product being of generic quality compared to a hand-built ship.

To compensate for the bonus in a personal shipyard, it could just work more slowly and require the player to actually be there.

We can discuss blueprints in another thread. While fair, your suggestion does not sound fun. Which is largely what this is all about.

 

[MeRobo]

During race creation we should be able to willfully reject being able to manufacture certain blocks

This should only aply to blocks with a function, because otherwise someone could give up all the decoratives to get massive boosts to systems.

 

[nightrune]

This should only aply to blocks with a function, because otherwise someone could give up all the decoratives to get massive boosts to systems.

Agreed, at the implementation level I envisioned this just like our current block config. Where servers could remove some and add others. It still needs to balanced in vanilla.