Oceanic Pack - 7 Aquatic factions [input requested]

[Sigma]

Idea for a better name for the Traders: The Tradewind Voyagers (Voyagers for short).

It invokes their ideology as explorers and merchants, as well as the idea that they spend most of their lives on board their ships.

[ete]

I like it, let's switch to that.

[Sigma]

I'm taking a swing at the Datalinks for the Harvesters:

(click to show/hide)

#BLURB
The material properties of Planet's fungus are unlike anything encountered within Earth's
ecosystem. Setting aside even its capacity for neural activity, its tensile strength approaches
that of carbon nanotubes, and its resistance to heat and corrosive forces is beyond any
naturally occurring substance.The bottom line is this: while Planet presents a harsh, forbidding
wasteland to all other human endeavors, it is the promised land for materials science.
 ^
 ^        —Supervisor Helen Frazier,
 ^           “Bounty from the Seas”

#DATALINKS1
^LEADER: {Helen Frazier}
^BACKGROUND: {Commonwealth of Australia, Unity Chemical Engineer}
^AGENDA: {Ecological Industry}
^TECH: {Centauri Meditation, Doctrine Flexibility}
^

#DATALINKS2
^-3 MORALE: {Soldiers ineffective in direct combat}
^-1 SUPPORT: {Difficulty combining fungal material with conventional weaponry}
^+25% Psi Combat Bonus {Attuned to Planet's native lifeforms}
^Collects 2 additional Minerals from Xenofungus
^Free Brood Pit at each Base upon discovery of Centauri Genetics
^{May not choose Green Economics}

It seems that in the harvester.txt you have them with Free Covert Ops centers instead of free Brood Pits.

Also, do you have any preference when it comes to the leadership for the Voyagers? I noticed that you named their leader "Francisco" but that's it.

[ete]

Looks good, though I may tweak the claims about properties slightly/make a few grammar fixes (e.g. in within). Could you sync so I can tweak while avoiding edit conflicts?

I don't have much idea about Voyager leadership, you're welcome to put something together.

Also, I just fixed half the broken factions. Should have the rest done soon.

Edit: All done!

Edit2: I've added and synced, you may need to compare/copy the current git text file over yours in your next sync if you edited your text file rather than just posting here.

[Sigma]

Potential Voyager Datalinks:

(click to show/hide)

#BLURB
The scout foil's bow tipped skyward as Hao opened up the throttle, testing what she was really
capable of. Despite the warnings of the quartermaster I stripped off my breathing mask and allowed
myself to feel the cold spray of a foreign sea upon my face. Endless kilometers of open, unexplored
ocean spread out in all directions, and I felt as did Earth's first seafarers, crossing unknown fathoms
in search of fame and prosperity.
 ^
 ^        —Navigator Julia Zhang Lin,
 ^           “Mapping the New World”

#DATALINKS1
^LEADER: {Julia Zhang Lin}
^BACKGROUND: {Hong Kong Protectorate, Unity Economic Consultant}
^AGENDA: {Profitable Trade}
^TECH: {Industrial Base, Doctrine Flexibility}
^

#DATALINKS2
^Free Heavy Transport, Repair Bay, and Carrier Deck with the required technologies
^+1 ECONOMY & +1 Commerce rating: {Vast trading network}
^-1 GROWTH: {Hard to raise a family while constantly sailing for trade}
^-1 PROBE: {Open borders for trade easily infiltrated}
^{May not make Planned choice in social engineering}

Not sure I'm sold on the title of "Navigator", mostly because I don't know how well it sits along side the group name of "Voyagers".

Also, these datalinks don't currently match the bonuses coded into the .txt. Which way are you planning to change them?

[ete]

Cool, slightly different from my initial thoughts, but this works well. Perhaps Merchant-Admiral for title?

The bonuses are not totally decided yet, the faction bonus line is what I'm testing currently, the datalinks are the previous version. I'm doing fast iteration on actual bonuses so not usually keeping datalinks updated, will check all before release.

[Sigma]

Not a huge fan of split titles, especially since Admiral is already a title for the leader of the Centauri Armada.

(Actually on that topic-- maybe change her title from Admiral to Commodore? It feels kind of redundant to have the leader of the Armada be the Admiral, even though it's the most obvious choice)

Actually Quartermaster may work. The Quartermaster in a naval sense is responsible for overseeing the navigation of a ship, and among some Pirate crews the Quartermaster had as much authority as the Captain himself.

(I'd rewrite the quote if we decide to go with that)

My reason for characterizing Lin in the quote like that is that basically all sea travel in Earth's history was first and foremost for the purpose of Trade, so the Voyagers would naturally identify themselves as explorers as much as merchants.

[ete]

Not a huge fan of split titles, especially since Admiral is already a title for the leader of the Centauri Armada.

(Actually on that topic-- maybe change her title from Admiral to Commodore? It feels kind of redundant to have the leader of the Armada be the Admiral, even though it's the most obvious choice)

Actually Quartermaster may work. The Quartermaster in a naval sense is responsible for overseeing the navigation of a ship, and among some Pirate crews the Quartermaster had as much authority as the Captain himself.

(I'd rewrite the quote if we decide to go with that)

Okay. I think I prefer Quartermaster to Navigator.

My reason for characterizing Lin in the quote like that is that basically all sea travel in Earth's history was first and foremost for the purpose of Trade, so the Voyagers would naturally identify themselves as explorers as much as merchants.

Yup, makes sense.


Seasteaders are feeling pretty OP in human hands.


Edit: Actually.. I retract that. They feel very nice to play, but I'm actually doing really quite poorly. Requiring hab complexes to get beyond size 3 is a huge penalty at sea where nuts are plentiful and colony pods are expensive. I'm pretty late in and am still well behind several factions on the powergraph, though I think my production power will kick in soon.

[Sigma]

I'm taking a few minutes right now to fill out the Voyager's Diplomacy fluff.

EDIT: Done. For the leaderhead, I'm thinking maybe Michelle Yeoh has the right mix of beauty and maturity that would work for this role.

Possible Images:

1
2
3

Not married to any of these, though...

[ete]

Cool, got the changes.

I like how this pack is coming together. Playing a game as a human vs AI is really interesting, seeing how the politics works and how different factions develop (Armada are pretty strong). I'm not sure whether I'm just missing something in my strategy, but I feel under pressure fairly constantly. I'm building hard (minimal defenses, going for hab complexs and tree farms), using SE settings that should be amazing (planned/PS with no drawbacks) and still not really outbuilding the others. I think it's mostly the max base size 3 thing, means you have to invest a _lot_ in each base before it's productive.

[ete]

Finally ready for war against the powergraph leader who's been bullying me for tech/cash, racing me for SPs (they even got a couple I wanted, notably the MCC) and border pushing me for half the game, the Armada. I had a skirmish with the Monarchists earlier, ended up taking a couple of their land bases but lost my original sea base to a surprise attack (only one defender, was not expecting a fight) but this'll be the first real war. The Monarchists were already fighting the Armada, and I probed the Voyagers with an Elite probe framing the Armada successfully (75% chance) so they joined in. Those two hit the Armada's near bases with air power for a few turns, then I joined in and swept in with my ~5 ships/~5 air units (soon to be much more, my bases are just finishing rushed Genejack Factories) to take four bases in one turn.

red=voyagers
light yellow=armada
slightly darker yellow=monarchy
pink=seasteaders
black=savants
white=harvester
off-white=covenant
(had to drop some placeholder graphics in because everyone being black was just confusing)





They are hard to play early, but have a very strong late game, kinda like the morgans but rather than being mostly militarily weak at the start they are more productively weak.


The third image looks like it has some potential, but imo it's best to have the leaders generally looking at the camera?

[ete]

Got backstabbed by both the monarchs and voyagers once Armada dropped off first place, each of which has a military over five times as big as mine (monarchs have 25+ air units to my five, voyagers have 27 naval combat units to my three remaining after their initial attack) and both have loads of bases close to my center, while still fighting the Armada (about 10 air and 10 sea combat units).


I think I'll be okay, but lost a _lot_ of formers/defenders to those monarch (and armada, and voyager) air units worryingly quickly. Just need to get some chaos rotors to make the skies safe again, then rebuild my navy...

[Buster's Uncle]

The third image looks like it has some potential, but imo it's best to have the leaders generally looking at the camera?

Generally -I've spent many an hour moving eyes around- but whatever works, works...

[Sigma]

#3 looks pretty centered to me...

Also, the Monarchs are literally called Neo-Reactionaries in-game? Why don't you just go with Monarchs?

[ete]

The third image looks like it has some potential, but imo it's best to have the leaders generally looking at the camera?

Generally -I've spent many an hour moving eyes around- but whatever works, works...

Right. Ideally we'll find something with correctly positioned eyes, but worth knowing that's an option.

#3 looks pretty centered to me...

Also, the Monarchs are literally called Neo-Reactionaries in-game? Why don't you just go with Monarchs?

Ops, the way I opened the three at once confused me. #1 is the one I like, other than not facing the camera (centering is not the issue, it's angle). #3 is looking at the camera, but has maybe slightly too friendly an expression I think? And #2 is at quite an angle to the camera.

And good point. It has seemed out of place for a while, I'll change that.