2nd attempt; space armarda

[Xen]

some idea for alien civlizations-

Karn-Dre
the Karn-Dre are, by most accounts, a rather barbaic people, ingageing in a great deal of the "seedier" activities, including piracy, and slavery, sometimes even with the official sanction of the goverment, an oligarchy, plantes are very much held as "fiefs", with the ruler of each planet haveing say in a grand chamber decideing the fate of their empire...

in apperence, they are of a rather slender build, and look, genrlly, like a cross between a human, being bipedal,a nd laceinkg a tail, a lizard, having the scales, and claws of it, and a bird, haveing a rather fearsome looking beak (though note that dose not mean the head in total bears a resemblen to a ird )

they are of a techniological level comparabel to humans, and are -generally- of friendlly relations to all species, though offical policy dose not stop indipendent raiders, and slavers from -attempting- to 'do buisness' in human, and opther species territiories
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Mern
the Mern are nbasically a conglomerate of trades- an example of what unbridled free enterprise dose to a civilization, the Mern have a small upper class basically repressing a huge majority of worker- consumers, generall peaceful, recent Human expansion, and influnces on the surrounding civlization have made thsoe civilzation more hesitant to do buissness witha people at odds with the moral ideals of the ever militartistic, ever expanding "Imperium Humanorum" tyhis has caused, at least in the opinion of the mern, a great deal of stirfe between them- though Humans, generally give little thought to the mern, as few products make thier way into human space, as trade embargos exist as a result of the harsh repression of the working class by the Mern upperclass...

a stout race, rather batlike in facial apperence, the mern have two arms, but four legs as wedll, a rather weak race physically, trade relations have brought them a great deal of techonolgy, and ship wise they are a formidible race
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Operincitalmundi

the Operincetalmundi are a race that si secretive in the extreme, confined to a back boen of a few denslly populated worlds, a few back water out posts, there is evidence that they once had a large influence, covering a great deal of the sector- *possible* artifacts of thier cultue has been found even in the Human home system, though on exactly what planets, is, if confiermed that they are artificat from the "mundi" as they are often called by other races, is classified...

the 'Mundi" are a rather dratic departure from the "average alien", being rather then Mamillian, Avian, Reptiallin, or amphibian, a sort of amaglimation between isectiod, and reptile, giveing a rather shocking aperrence, bearing an interesting resemblen to the generaic 'alien" that pervaded late 20th, and the early 21st century human media....

the cultureal aspects opf the mundi are that tehy hold in great distaste the use of artificial intelliegence, but no one for sure knows why... like the karn-Dre, slavery is an active aspect of Mundi socity, though basic rights for the slaves are garunteed, almost making them into a more "forced indentured servitude", though sacrifice, upon large "pyramids", remisint perhaps of mesoamerican temples in soem aspects i snoted, at least on the outpost worlds, as yet, no one has been to a mundi "core world', and in all actuallity the reports of slavery are unofficial, though some Mundi sorces have made allusions to it in diplomatic talks

 

[Bob McDob]

The 1994 4X Ascendancy had some great races, most notably the Orca (cow-like lava dwellers, as I remember), and Vega Strike has the Rlaan - I'll see if I can find a description.

Also, do you remember Star Control II (rereleased as The Ur-Quan Masters?) You might want to model your diplomacy on that. Those were some great conversations

 

[Smoking mirror]

Hmm.. with aliens, I think it would be better with one or two realy distict races, and have factions between them, that means that you have a culture graphics set the realy suits them and can use other things such as flavour governments and UUs to spice up individual civs. For instance the chitinous aliens I talked about, with the inteligent parasites, can imediately be split in to two factions, those with and those who have escaped infestation. Pehaps the home world is still free of parasites, perhaps there are those who fled the initial infection. Lots of room for flavour there.

Earlier I said about having a probe type satelite, I'm having trouble deciding on a final design, which of these looks better? the top one has a bigger gun, while the lower one looks more space ship like. I'm only going to make on though.

 

[Smoking mirror]

I think I prefer the top one as it captures something of the era of unmanned exploration.

Heres a quick look at a possible body layout for the chitinous alien (needed for pop heads etc later on), this is how alien I want the aliens to be.

 

[Smoking mirror]

Its an eight limbed creature that can bend in the middle to walk semi upright. Its top limbs are used for fighting or lifting, its upper middle ones are used for tool manipulation (I may swap the claws for something more subtle like feelers) and the bottom two sets of limbs are for mobility. The tail actualy extends from the upper back and is for protecting the fragile head.

I'll do a proper version later with better textures. What colour should I make the little feller, and how many eyes should he have? How abour a little fur?

 

[Grey Fox]

If you do 5 races, and 4 factions of each, that's 20 Civs.

To simplify, maybe 5 races and 2 factions each, that's 10 civs, more then enough, and a little more choice for a MP scenario.

 

[Bobisback]

I think the top one looks the best.

 

[Bluemofia]

well for humans, just use the major contributors today, like U.S, China, European Union, Russia, and the Arab nations. also for the alien, i think it should have 3 eyes, 2 in front, 1 in back.

 

[Smoking mirror]

Yeah, I decided on the top model for the probe. I'm going to do two death animations, so that when I make the mini version as a multi-unit type unit, it can have a more varried death animation.

I don't want to have too many alien races, as having more than one within 12 LYs of us is already improbable. Perhaps I could squeeze in one more but not sure yet.

Anyway heres a preview of the probe. Once I've got a few units done I'll need to test them on a space terrain, theres stil a few things I'm not certain of, like just what will the alpha blending look like on a nearly black background.

 

[Smoking mirror]

The finished death (1) is actualy a little longer, with two extra frames to alow for delayed action death on the two companion vessels which will have a less violent death, more like the satelite. Heres a preview of the attack animation, it uses a high power particle beam like a Laser or Bozer (different particle beams have different names depending on the particle they fire, examples are grasers, lasers, bosers etc..);

 

[Smoking mirror]

I've been working out the ship designs for the other aliens, wanted to show what I meant about different factions within the cultures.

The chitinous aliens (have to think up a name at some point), are divided in to four factions. To understand why its necicary to describe their history and a little of thier habitat.

The Tau ceti Chitinoids live in tau ceti, a star sytem very much like Sol, with a yellow dwarf sun. It has a cold jupiter, exelent for catching dangerous asteroids. Within the habitable zone there are three planets, two small semi-desert types each about the size of mars, and a large swamp like planet nearer the star.

On the middle desert planet, the water to land ratio is about 55%, with some plant life mostly giant cacti inland and some wetland forested swamps near the coast. Humans would find it arid and barren, but it would be habitable with some light breathing gear.

The inhabitants of this planet are an large inteligent insect like race, with a loose colony/tribal social structure. It is possible that at one time the creatures lived in a hive society, but now the only lasting eveidence is the division of the society in to thinkers and doers (comanders and soldiers). There are large insectoid predators on the planet that require the physical strength of the soldiers, but the full colonisation of the main continents has required the human like inteligence of the comanders. However, both types are the same species, a comander can lay eggs that will develop into soliders and a soldier can lay egs that will generate a comander (A baby comander tends to eat his siblings at birth unless they are soldiers).

Because of the low gravity of the home world and the scarcity of focil fuels the chitinoids social development did not dwell long in the industrial age. They quickly moved on to the electronic age, the homeworld having many metals and elements usefull for a post industrial society. It didnt take long before the chitinoids were sending craft in to space, the low gravity and thin atmosphere providing no real chalenge. Within few decades they had landed on one of thier small moons, and within half a century they had begun to colonise the second planet, somewhat colder, and dryer than the homeworld, but still habitable.

At this point (1000 BC by our calender) the Chitinoids world was changed forever.

Heres a Chitinoid Inter-Orbital shuttle, designed to travel the short distance between the two chitinoid homeworlds. It was a fleet of ships like this that made the first flights to the large swamp planet.

 

[Bluemofia]

Neat!

 

[Smoking mirror]

At this point you have two factions, the chitinoid homeworld dwellers, high on culture and tradition, and the new world settlers, who have already started introducing strange new social practices, like the wearing of clothes, not shaving thier coarse body hair, and seperating eggs after fertilisation (which gives rise to a higher percentage of comanders).

A third faction are also starting to emerge, the space dwellers. Mostly new worlders, the space dwellers twavel the habitable zone colecting asteroids for fuel, raw materials and life suport. They talk openly of spreading beyond the tau ceti system, and begin to make ginat fusion powered generational ships.

A group of Space dwellers also atempts to settle the large swamp planet.
What they find is a massive primative ecosystem, not at all comfortable for most chitinoidans, though a few coastal dwellers, used to humid conditions manage to establish colonies high up in the mountians. Further exploration reqires powered harnesses to offset the problems of gravity, and respiration gear to deal with the difficult atmosphere. Most of the native life is primative, giant invertebrates and lizard like creatures, even some small insects which atract much attention.
Some chitinoid explorers claim to see biped lizards acting with wary inteligence. Others scoff at these tales of "alien inteligence". However, some chitinoid settlers start to go missing, one at a time to start with, and finaly whole ships. Soon the main colonies are under attack, from savage looking lizard natives, and some of the missing Settlers using bizzare alien weapons.

The large swamp planet is evacuated and all the faction leaders meet to discuss what to do next. Some of the settlers have captured a lizard native tribe and begin to question them. Eventualy the chitinoids learn that thier fellow settlers have become the victims of a local highly inteligent parasites which form a hive mind. The parasites find a compatable victim (not all individuals are compatible) and enter into thier bodies while they are asleep. Once inside, they send thier victim into a stupor of pure bliss, before eating thier higher brain functions and taking control. The parasites have a high level of ambient corupting Nano/biotechnology that allows them to gain full control of thier victim and thier enviroment.
The parasties quickly gain control of the settlers fleet and using thier own strangely primative craft begin to wage war upon the two home-worlds.

Eventualy the Chitinoids are victorious, destroying the parasite fleet, and driving them back to the large swamp planet, where they are bomabrded from orbit untill it is decided that they pose no further threat. Many of the in-compatible lizard-like natives are returned to the homeworld for study.

The chitinoids either flee in to space (the outcast space dwelling faction) or return to thier homeworld terrified by the dark possibilites of space. They give up space flight and advacned technology to return to a dark age that lasts for 3000 years. However, as they begin to pick up radio signals from the humans of Sol, the chitinoids begin to once more think about expansion.

 

[Smoking mirror]

So there are four factions;
The homeworlders; Culturaly advanced, but with a rigid tradtionalist outlook.
The newworlders; Adventurous and open minded, but still afraid of the terrors of space.
The Outcast space dwellers; Comunicating with secure light beam transmissions The OSD have establised a small society in the outer tau ceti system, amid the far asteroid belt. They are paranoid but expansionistic.
And finaly the infected swamp dwellers; They were not wiped out by the other chitinoids, and having fought back form the brink of extiction they are even more determined to gain victory over the two homeworlds.

Each faction will have its own advantages and disadvantages, for instance, the Infected use thier powerfull nano/biotechnology to augment the chitinoid ship designs, and thier hive mind (more of a distributed network inteligence, with no central command) provides an exelent government, but will start with few citizens to represent the arfter effects of the great cull.

Heres a infected version of the chitinoid inter-orbiter (most chitinoid ships will have a "flying saucer" type layout);

 

[Smoking mirror]

For example here is a chitinoid launch vehicle/shuttle (no need for giant booster rockets onsuch low gravity worlds);

 

[MarcusSaurono]

Are you saying that there will be four independant factions in one system to start with?

 

[subbss]

Smoking mirror, aren't you giving yourself too much work to do?
With so many factions-per-civ the mod might become too difficult to finish.

Just worried, that's all. Your ideas sound fantastic though .

 

[Smoking mirror]

Don't worry, ive set my self a goal of finishing the human factions for the first two eras, the rest will be added later as and when Ive got time.
The real reason for showing the other races and ships etc.. is just to keep my brain active, otherwise I'd become bored with the whole endevor. Also making new designs helps me learn lessons for adjusting the older ones.

I wil proably make some of the alien ships just to include as barbarians in the first version of the mod.

And yes, I think that having bunched starting possitions such as four in one system (the syestem will be big enough for four cities at least) will create an interesting tactical game. You wont see spread like in a normal continental style game of Civ III, with all one civs cities bunched together in a large block, but instead, different factions should find them selves sharing individual systems this should lead to some interesting localised conflicts (with perhaps no-nationality pirate type units playing a big part).

 

[Grey Fox]

For insects to become large, they would need some kind of huge energy source, or be designed on a much different way then they are on our planet.

Insects here have reached their theoretical limit, would they be 10 times their size or 100 times their size they would be too heavy to function, and require a lot of food to live.

 

[Bluemofia]

but, insects in the early earth period were massive! dragonflies as big as eagles, centapeeds as large as 2 meters, and giant butterflies.

anyways, i just read about the "god" partical in science class, and then i just thought about a good way to make things travel as fast as light. just remove all of the higgs bosons surrounding a partical, and it can travel at the speed of light. but, this will take enourmous amounts of energy to work.