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Solarius Scorch -> Refugee All Stars: alien race collection (5/30/2014 2:16:15 PM)
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There's a new alien races project I have, and I need some opinions.
Well, it's not entirely new, since I made it way back when Shadows came out. However, despite all the races being done - files, pics, characters and everything - I couldn't get it to run properly due to the biases.txt file being somehow wrong, though I failed to determine why, and after two days or so I rage-quitted. Now it a good time to go back to this.
Well then, there's one thing I never liked much about Distant Worlds: the alien races. They just feel bland and silly at the same time; they're neither serious sci-fi not space opera cool. And since hard sci-fi aliens don't generally work well in 4X games, I decided to make it so.
Then Haree's DW Extended came along, which was a significant improvement, but still not exactly what I wanted. I also noticed another problem: all species in a family have similar political affiliations, so if you play for example a fascist human empire Everyone will hate you (other humanoids will hate you for your government, and fascist non-humanoids will hate you for being a humanoid). So I figured the game needs more political variability within families.
Yet another starting point was that I really wanted Master of Orion II races in the game, so I made them. They helped create a more diverse range of races to choose from, and provide some additional fun factor.
Therefore, this project's goals are:
- To make more interesting aliens (and remove those I didn't like).
- To make more diverse aliens, by political and biological affiliations.
- To add Master of Orion 2 races, as part of the solution to the above and also for sheer awesomness.
Now, here's the most important issue. Since I don't believe in inventing the wheel from the very beginning, I thought about using some races from already released mods by other people - namely Haree (DW Extended) and Kalthaniell (Mass Effect mod). Some of their creations simply fit in the scheme of things, and besides they're already known among the community and would therefore be more friendly. However, the obvious issue is that these creators would have to give a green light for using them in the project. Of course these races can be replaced by something I would make myself if need be.
So, there would be the following races in the mod:
From Distant Worlds:
- Haakonish
- Zenox
- Mechanoid
- Teekan
- Atuuk
- Humans (as High Men - a Byzantium-like space culture)
- Quameno
- Shakturi
- Boskara
- Ackdarian
- Dhayut
From Haree's Distant Worlds Extended:
- Tarapin
- X-Human
- Phaerax
- Ortain
- Keskudon
From Kalthaniell's Mass Effect mod:
- Turian
- Asari
- Human (as Humans - a more standard military sci-fi style)
- Hanar
- Krogan
- Vorcha
- Volus
- Salarian
- Geth
- Quarian
- Elcor
From Master of Orion:
- Gnolam
- Bulrathi
- Psilon
- Klackon
- Silicoid
- Sakkra
- Elerian
- Mrrshan
- Meklar
- Darlok
- Alkari
- Trilarian
Additional races, made by me:
- Ramman (tough, anarchistic humanoids)
- Tskrang (diplomatic reptiles)
- Hemath (hive-like lobstermen, extra alien)
- Draconite (warlike lizard bastards)
- Zentabi (nasty space elves)
As I mentioned earlier, all I need to do is update the files to Universe standard and make the biases.txt. If the abovementioned mod authors agree, I will include their mod parts, otherwise I'll think of making something new (though frankly I really don't want to, since I'll never be as good).
Of course, any comments and thoughts will be appreciated.
I'm attaching an .xlsx file containing the philosophy begind this mod, for those crazy enough to want to analyse it. :)
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