95 replies to this topic

[Spud_Dastardly]

This mod is no longer actively supported and may not function on the latest version of the game.  It has been replaced with my new mega mod: 5X - The Ultimate Balance Mod, which you can get here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=797954504

http://www.nexusmods.com/masteroforionconquerthestars/mods/6/?

 

Original Post:

Spoiler

 

This mod changes the race balance and custom race screen in the game.  Version 2.2 is the latest version: https://dl.dropboxus...es Mod v2.2.zip

 

The goals of this mod are:

• To expose every available custom race pick for maximal customization options and rebalance the cost of the traits.  This is what RacialPerks.yaml and RacialTraits.csv are for.
• To make each race worth 10 points according to the new points balance while still keeping the spirit of each race.  This is the content of RaceTypes.yaml.

 

Instructions:  Move the yaml files to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Master of Orion\MasterOfOrion_Data\StreamingAssets\GameplayData, and move RacialTraits.csv file to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Master of Orion\MasterOfOrion_Data\StreamingAssets\Localization\Backend  (make sure to backup your existing RacialTraits.csv file!).  If you had version 1.0 installed, make sure to delete the now obsolete Globals.yaml file.

 

Changes in version 2.0:

I have rebalanced the traits once again.  Several traits such as command points, homeworld size, and ship cost are now cheaper to reflect their value in comparison with the best traits such as +25% production and +25% food.  Most traits that have several levels now scale linearly.  The food consumption traits weren't working properly, so I had to remove them and bring back the cybernetic trait as the -50% food consumption trait.  Cybernetic now costs more than Lithovore because it is a much better trait due to the population growth handicap on Lithovore.  I believe this rebalance assigns a much more accurate point value to the available traits.  Since several things are now cheaper, it was much easier to rebalance the vanilla races to 10 points instead of the previous 11 point balance.  Here is the new custom race screen:

Spoiler

 

The traits overflow on the right side, which is unavoidable.  I have no way to add a scroll bar, so instead I have marked each of those traits with their point value, and they can still be selected by clicking on them.

 

Changes in v2.1: Removed plains dweller from Mrrshan, gave them rich hw (from MoO2) and ship defense +25% (reflects the ship experience bonus from the warlord trait they had in MoO2.  Removed Militarists from Terran, gave them +10% security and +30% command points instead.  Changed the credits bonuses to -3, 3, and 6 (note: morale+10%, worth 4, is better than +25% credits due to higher tax rate).  Tweaked the morale to give the Mrrshan and Darlok a greater inclination to expand and grow, tweaked the Silicoids to make them spy a little less but research a little more.  This is the final update to the race balance mod until the next patch comes out unless you really want more changes.

 

Changes in v2.2:

• Changed the rate at which lithovore races grow, adjusted point cost and Silicoid race accordingly.  You should now be able to keep up population wise with a lithovore race if you focus on rich and ultra rich planets and expand sufficiently quickly.  
• Removed desert homeworld from custom race since it's objectively a worse choice than arid every time.  Added Gaia homeworld and ultra poor home world options.
•  Slightly rearranged the custom race screen for space reasons and rebalanced traits again (see updated custom race screen screenshot).  
• I discovered there is a true repulsive trait à la MoO2 where you can't engage in any diplomacy, and it was just disabled, so I enabled it on the custom race screen and renamed the existing repulsive trait to "uncharismatic."  It is a little buggy though, so I opted not to give it to the Silicoids.  I also removed the negotiations/disposition traits and combined them into the charismatic and uncharismatic traits instead to save space and to balance points.  
• Removed missions risk +10% since it was just a free point, and added missions risk -30%.  Improved the AI settings again.
• Changed assimilation power modifiers to +/- 50% instead of 25% to make them more valuable
• Combined Extended marine barracks and improved training rate into one trait worth 1 point.
• Increased trade treaties and trade goods bonus effects to +50%.
• In order to accommodate new race trait values, several races had to be adjusted.  Mrrshan: Removed beam defense in favor of giving them grassland transformation, though they still start with a Terran homeworld.  This works well with my tech tree mod which allows you to transform terrans to ubers. Klackons: removed physics as a starting tech since +25% prod. costs 4 now.  They shouldn't have a starting tech anyway since they're supposed to be bad at research.  Meklar: Gave them small homeworld.  I had to take off 1 point somewhere, and this is just sort of a generic trait to give.  Actually because small planets grow population much faster, the Meklar do extremely well for population now.  Sakkra: Removed diplomacy penalties and starting techs.  Again these guys are supposed to be bad at research...  Darlok: Removed diplomacy penalty.  Terran: Gave them uncharismatic because -20% ship cost now costs 3, and the terrans are pretty uncharismatic.

New race traits:

• Alkari: +50 Beam Defense (4), Travel Speed Bonus (2), Combat Speed Bonus (1), Large homeworld (1), Artifacts homeworld (1), Starting tech: Engineering (1).
• Bulrathi: Starting tech: Biology (1), Pollution tolerance +25% (2), Large homeworld (1),  High Gravity (4), +50% ground combat (2)
• Darlok: Starting tech: government (1), Morale +5% (2), Stealthy ships (2), Missions risk -20% (3), Security +20% (2), Assimilation power +25% (1)
• Human: Starting tech: government (1), Morale +5% (2), Charismatic (2), Trade treaties bonus (2), trade goods bonus (2), Security -20% (-2), Research +25% (3)
• Klackon: Starting tech: physics (1), Production +25% (3), Uber planet: cavernous (2), Homeworld: arid (-2), Research: uncreative (-3), Food +50% (8), Security +10% (1)
• Meklar: Starting tech: physics (1), Production +25% (3), Cybernetic (-50% food consumption, ship auto repair) (10), Population growth -25% (-4) (Note; food production +50% is definitely worth +8, and food consumption -50% is even better than that because of the benefit from food buildings.  Adding +2 for ship repair gets you to 10 for cybernetic)
• Mrrshan: +20% command points (2), Beam attack +50% (4), Rich Homeworld (2), +25% beam defense (2)
• Psilon: Starting tech: physics (1), Artifacts world (1), Creative (4), research +50% (6), security -20% (-2)
• Sakkra: Starting techs: engineering (1) biology (1), Uber planet: tropical (2), swamp homeworld (-1), Research -25% (-3), Population growth +50% (8), +25% food (4), diplomacy: worsen disposition (-1) worsen negotiations (-1)
• Silicoids: Lithovore (6), Uber planet: inferno (1), volcanic homeworld (-3), diplomacy: worsen disposition (-1), worsen negotiations (-1), Pollution tolerance -25% (-2), Huge home world (2), population growth +25% (4), Heavy gravity (4) (The Silicoids were the hardest to balance.  I decided the most important traits were lithovore, lava breather, repulsive, and everything else was about making them a viable race.  Huge HW is necessary to accomodate their starting population on a volcanic, pollution tolerance penalty doesn't affect you on volcanic worlds so it's a smart choice, heavy g allows you to get those large/huge ultra riches for maximal population growth, and +25% population growth is a smart if not completely necessary choice for any lithovore race.  They now tend to perform in the middle of the pack instead of the bottom)
• Terran: Command points +30% (3), -20% ship cost (2), Morale +10% (4), Security +10% (1)

 

All race design was done by balancing four priorities: 10 points total, relatively few changes from vanilla design (except Mrrshan), changes in line with MoO2 design, and making a viable competitive race.

 

In addition, I also made some changes to the AI tendencies.  I ensured each race is at least moderately inclined toward growth and expansionism so they don't get totally left behind in population, and the silicoids in particular I increased almost to maximal expansionism because lithovore depends on it.  I also reduced the silicoid's inclination to build up such a massive army, which was set at the maximal level before but ultimately useless for them except for rushing players at the beginning.  I made other modest reductions to certain AI traits in order to accomodate the increases in expansionism and growth inclination.

 

My early testing of version 2.0 is performing better than 1.0 with all races being competitive.  No race seems particularly dominant in every category or at the bottom in every category.  I hope you like it!  I am open to suggestions for further changes. 

Version 1.0 notes:

Spoiler

 

Since I recently got my hands on the yaml files for the game, I decided to do a mod to rebalance all of the custom race traits and balanced races.  I also split all of the special traits into their component traits so that you have many more customization options.  Details below. You can download the mod here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32174515/Balanced%20Races%20Mod%20v1.0.zip

 

Instructions:  Move the yaml files to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Master of Orion\MasterOfOrion_Data\StreamingAssets\GameplayData, and move RacialTraits.csv file to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Master of Orion\MasterOfOrion_Data\StreamingAssets\Localization\Backend  (make sure to backup your existing RacialTraits.csv file!).

 

Because I have the steam version and a windows system, I don't know how to do this on the GoG version or on Apple systems.  I assume for GoG windows at least there is a similar folder structure in the Master of Orion directory.

 

The goals of this mod are:

• To expose every available custom race pick for maximal customization options and rebalance the cost of the traits.  This is what RacialPerks.yaml and RacialTraits.csv are for.
• To make each race cost the same number of points (11) according to the new points balance while still keeping the spirit of each race.  This is the content of RaceTypes.yaml.
• To give the player enough points and options to be able to recreate each race in the custom race screen.  The Globals.yaml file changes the number of available points in custom race selection to 11.

 

Why 11 points?  Well, it just turned out to be a lot easier to modify each race to be 11 than 10 or 12.  Besides, we all want 1 extra point anyway to make a slightly cooler race.  If you have a good way to make each race worth 10 points, let me know.  It's harder than it looks.

You can edit these files yourself with Notepad ++.  To only mod the custom race screen as I have done without changing the vanilla races, just exclude the RaceTypes.yaml from the GameplayData folder.  

 

Changes to the custom race screen:  Exposing all available traits resulted in too many traits to fit on the screen.  In order to fit them all on the screen, I had to group several categories (such as homeworld modifications) together into the same category in order to save space.  The category names are modified accordingly.  The screen now looks like this:

Spoiler

 

You will notice that the traits still overflow on the right side.  There is no way to avoid this, and it's beyond my ability to add a scroll bar.  Instead, I have marked the number of points each of those traits costs in parentheses next to the trait, and you can still select the trait by clicking the name.

 

You will notice some new traits not previously available, such as Omniscient, Immediate assimilation, and Unbreakable morale.  These were in the yaml files already but just disabled.  I haven't yet tested all of the extra traits, though I did start a game with omniscient, and it worked fine (edit: it seems omniscient is a bit bugged after all.)  In the original custom race selection, most minus picks were not worth it because they were just too detrimental for the points cost.  I have altered most minus picks to make them give more points.  I changed a few positive traits as well to reflect, in my opinion, their value in the game, such as making the charismatic traits cheaper.  

 

Changes to the races:

• Alkari: Now starts with Engineering because they needed 1 extra point and are a ship-oriented race.
• Bulrathi: Removed rich homeworld because they had 2 extra points and always expand too fast at the beginning of the game anyway.
• Darlok: No changes.  I like the Darlok race design as is actually.
• Human: Added research +25%.  They needed 3 more points, and this is consistent with the Democracy trait from MoO2.
• Klackon: Added Huge homeworld and security +10%.  They needed 5 more points but were already pretty powerful, so I figured a homeworld mod is good enough for them. Security +10% is consistent with the security bonus from unification they get in MoO2.
• Meklar: -25% population growth, Immediate assimilation.  The Meklar are such an interesting race, and I wanted to make them even more so.  Tbh, this change is mostly about making them into the Borg collective with that immediate assimlation.  I'm hoping that -25% pop growth balances with -50% food consumption well, though I haven't tested yet.  I figure as cybernetic creatures they have difficulty reproducing the biological parts in order to increase their population.  This change makes the Meklar much more dependent on invading other races to keep up with population.
• Mrrshan: Removed Militarist, Improved negotiations, Warlord.  Added Beam attack +50, Rich HW, Cmd points +20%, because we all know this is how the Mrrshan are meant to be.
• Psilon: Removed small HW, changed to research +50%.  They had large hw in MoO2, so not sure why they got small here.  Research +50% is a pretty obvious choice to get them up to 11.
• Sakkra: Removed repulsive, added +25% food, Large HW, +25% ground combat.  The Sakkra were pretty underpowered, but MoO2 didn't give me a lot to go on since there's no analogue to the MoO2 subterranean trait here.  I don't see why they need to be repulsive.  The food bonus is from MoO2, and the +25% ground combat is to give them the extra point for 11.
• Silicoids: Changed gravity tolerant to pollution immunity.  Added -25% assimilation rate and -25% ship defense.  In MoO2 they were pollution tolerant not High g.  I still had to get them down to 11 though.  It seems like it would be naturally difficult for any race to assimilate into a Lithovore race.  -25% ship defense, I mean their ships are made of rocks because they eat all the heavy metals, so they can't be that strong.  Silicoids were admittedly difficult to get down to 11 in a reasonable way, and I even changed lava breather to be a -2 pick.
• Terran: Removed ship attack, changed command point bonus to +10%, reduced morale bonus to +10%.  Why are the "other humans" naturally better at aiming weapons than humans anyway?

 

 

I just finished making this mod, so it is almost entirely untested.  I probably have quite a bit of rebalance to do.  Please let me know what you think and whether there are any bugs or issues.  If you don't like how I've changed the races or race traits, feel free to suggest any alternative choices.  I hope to keep this mod updated.

Check out my other mods too:

Strong Empire Defense mod

Tech Tree mod

Diplomacy/Spying mod

 

Edited by Spud_Dastardly, 12 November 2016 - 11:12 AM.

[Arent11]

That is really great work. If I have time, maybe I'll do my own, but I am quite happy with a lot of these changes.

 

I especially like the changes to Psilon, Mrrshan & Bulrathi, because they synergize a little better/feel more true to the races.

The Darlok should maybe be a little more mysterious/mistrusted/repulsive, but just for flavor/rpg reasons. To make them really shine, they need to revamp the espionage system & they said already that they are planning to do that.

I also feel that Meklar shouldn't be "borg", I would imagine them to be more like ~posbis  But that is just my opinion. A machine consciousness could be just "nice" to other living beings & not necessarily "evil".

[mewdego]

i lack your patience to do that modding, i take my hat off for you.

 

about the rebalancing, may i suggest to make them linear, for example: if you pay 4 points to get +25% pop grow you should also get the equal amount if you chose -25% por grow...

about the gravity, since you are normal gravity tolerant anyway and any other choice give you the extra tolerance, both low and high gravity should cost the same, perhaps 2 or 3 points each, and of course all for the sum of both. actually, high gravity gives you bigger and richer planets... makes sense that way.

 

about the screen space, i don't know about the .csv file, but perhaps it's possible of instead adding a scroll just tweak the column spacing...

 

remember, silicoids were repulsive in moo2

 

---

 

anyways, i got my hopes renewed by the devs, take a look:

http://forum.mastero...this-on-reddit/

Edited by mewdego, 25 September 2016 - 12:50 PM.

[Spud_Dastardly]

Arent11, on 25 September 2016 - 11:19 AM, said:

That is really great work. If I have time, maybe I'll do my own, but I am quite happy with a lot of these changes.

 

I especially like the changes to Psilon, Mrrshan & Bulrathi, because they synergize a little better/feel more true to the races.

The Darlok should maybe be a little more mysterious/mistrusted/repulsive, but just for flavor/rpg reasons. To make them really shine, they need to revamp the espionage system & they said already that they are planning to do that.

I also feel that Meklar shouldn't be "borg", I would imagine them to be more like ~posbis  But that is just my opinion. A machine consciousness could be just "nice" to other living beings & not necessarily "evil".

Thanks!  I'll take a look at the Darlok's AI settings to see if I can make the mistrust other players more.  I saw some settings for that in the yaml file, but I haven't played around with it at all.  I'll take a look at including some other race traits that might fit better with them too.

 

Perhaps the borg aren't the right model for the Meklar.  I think the lore has them as rather neutral actually.  I still think the instant assimilation is a cool trait for them though, and in my recent test game, they were able to keep up with population growth just fine.

mewdego, on 25 September 2016 - 11:33 AM, said:

i lack your patience to do that modding, i take my hat off for you.

 

about the rebalancing, may i suggest to make them linear, for example: if you pay 4 points to get +25% pop grow you should also get the equal amount if you chose -25% por grow...

about the gravity, since you are normal gravity tolerant anyway and any other choice give you the extra tolerance, both low and high gravity should cost the same, perhaps 2 or 3 points each, and of course all for the sum of both.

 

about the screen space, i don't know about the .csv file, but perhaps it's possible of instead adding a scroll just tweak the column spacing...

 

remember, silicoids were repulsive in moo2

 

---

 

anyways, i got my hopes renewed by the devs, take a look:

http://forum.mastero...this-on-reddit/

I'm glad you like it.  Here's the reason I didn't make it linear.  An increase from 100 to 150 is a 50% increase, but an increase from 50 to 100 is a 100% increase.  For simplicity sake, suppose 4 population is the norm, they each produce 1 production, and you want to build something that costs 12 production.  With 4 population, it takes 3 turns.  With a 50% increase in population to 6, it takes 2 turns.  With a 50% penalty to population bringing you down to 2, it now takes 6 turns: twice as long.  So in general, a % penalty should give you more points than the same % as a bonus costs in points.  You also get diminishing returns on higher bonuses, so a 50% bonus compared to a 25% bonus is less drastic than a 25% bonus compared to normal.  There are exceptions of course, for example missions risk -10% is hardly a penalty at all if you aren't planning on doing any offensive spying anyway, so I wanted to avoid giving away too many free points for things like that. While keeping that in mind, I at least tried to make it close to linear: only deviating by 1 point here or there.  To be consistent at least, I probably should have set -25% population growth to -4.  I'll take a closer look at the balance again when I update this.  Edit:  I have decided you're right; linear is best.

 

Now about gravity, keep in mind that high G planets are inherently superior to Low g planets.  The only planets in the game that are low g are small poor, small ultra poor, and medium ultra poor planets, and even without low g these are the worst possible planets in the game.  Meanwhile the high g ones are large ultra rich, huge rich, and huge ultra rich, which are the best possible planets in the game.  I could see reducing High g to +3 or increasing Low g to +2 perhaps, but they really are unequal bonuses.

 

For the screen space, I have no control over the column spacing, width, height, font size, or any of that.  The only thing in the racialperks yaml is just a list of traits, references to their names and effects, and their point costs.  As far as I've seen, no one has been able to locate the actual screen layout data in the game's files.  If someone does manage to find the settings for that in the game files, I'll be sure to take a look at tweaking it.

 

The Silicoids still have the repulsive trait; I would never take that away from them 

 

I saw that other thread too.  I'm really looking forward to those changes   I'm sure I'll have a lot of work to do with this mod when the next patch comes out.

Edited by Spud_Dastardly, 28 September 2016 - 02:26 PM.

[Skaughtey]

This is nice! I am definitely gonna try this out. I'll probably spend days fiddling with the files myself. I'm interested in making some really diverse play styles. My current attempts at a pure money/buyout build so far are being hampered by no production/income in the early game because I have to take too many penalties. But with this I think I can tweak it a lot better. I also want to try my own variations of all the races.

[Vahouth]

Really appreciate your efforts in creating this balance thread Spud!  I may even try my own suggestions for the gog version. (If it's any different that is).

There's one thing that troubles me though. 

I'd hate to see the devs looking at this kind of threads as an excuse to stop bothering with race balance. 

These threads should serve as feedback hubs instead. 

 

EDIT: Is there a way to mess with the composite traits like Warlord?

[Spud_Dastardly]

I hope they continue to work on race balance, but I'm not waiting for them to do so.  Yes you can change what Warlord and such do by editing the RacialPerks.yaml file.  The warlord trait looks like this:

Spoiler

 - key: perk_warlord
            category: PERK_CATEGORY_SPECIAL
            valueType: bool
            levels:
                - value: false
                - displayName: WARLORD_NAME
                  description: WARLORD_DESCRIPTION
                  value: true
                  score: 4
                  displayIcon: assets/racial_traits/warlord.png
            perks:
               - perk: perk_ground_combat_rating
                 level: 3
               - perk: perk_ground_units_extended_barracks
                 level: 1
            exclusions:
               - perk_ground_combat_rating
               - perk_ground_units_extended_barracks  

You can easily change this by changing the perk that it refers to, so for instance something like

Spoiler

 - key: perk_warlord
            category: PERK_CATEGORY_SPECIAL
            valueType: bool
            levels:
                - value: false
                - displayName: WARLORD_NAME
                  description: WARLORD_DESCRIPTION
                  value: true
                  score: 4
                  displayIcon: assets/racial_traits/warlord.png
            perks:
               - perk: perk_ship_attack
                 level: 2
               - perk: perk_command_points_bonus
                 level: 3
            exclusions:
               - perk_ship_attack
               - perk_command_points_bonus

For the name of each trait, you have to find that trait in the yaml.  The "level" denotes which one it chooses from among the options for that trait, so for example ship attack level 2 is +25% (level 1 is -25%).  The "exclusions" refers to traits that are mutually exclusive to this one and can't be selected at the same time.  You would want to edit the ship attack and command points bonuses to list warlord as an exclusion in this example while removing that exclusion from the ground combat bonuses.  You can create new composite traits too, but you can only reference existing traits from among the basic choices, not create totally new ones like "generates 1 command point per colony."  I thought about removing ship attack from the Alkari's natural pilots trait, but they needed the points to be used anyway.

Edited by Spud_Dastardly, 25 September 2016 - 04:31 PM.

[Summon3r]

Spud you sir are a god damned genius, i loved your MoO 2 work (i think you did ICE mod?) and i really really am looking forward to more of your work!

 

THANKS!

[Spud_Dastardly]

Thanks, but no, I didn't have anything to do with the ICE mod.  Actually this is my first time modding a game.  It's easier than I thought it would be, at least for this kind of stuff  

[Skaughtey]

Spud_Dastardly, on 25 September 2016 - 12:51 PM, said:

Perhaps the borg aren't the right model for the Meklar.  I think the lore has them as rather neutral actually.  I still think the instant assimilation is a cool trait for them though, and in my recent test game, they were able to keep up with population growth just fine.

 

I think they are supposed to be a hybrid between the Borg from Star Trek and the Cylons from the original Battlestar Galactica. Their lore has elements of both and, after all, when you mix Cylons and Borg you get Cyborgs... just saying =D

Edited by Skaughtey, 25 September 2016 - 07:34 PM.

[Archont4000]

Amazing! Thank you so much!!

 

PS. Any idea how it will work in multiplayer?

[Spud_Dastardly]

I don't know if it will work in multiplayer since I only play single player.  It's possible they disabled this kind of modding to prevent cheating, since you could easily change this to give yourself 100 points for a custom race.  If it will work, it probably has to be installed on the host computer if not all player's computers.  You might try hosting a game with it and seeing if it works; I'd be interested to know.

[PLA_123]

Great work mate. Will give this mod a try this week and post feed back here.

[Ahaneon]

Doesn't this come pretty close to creating a new race?

[Spud_Dastardly]

Ahaneon, on 26 September 2016 - 02:34 AM, said:

Doesn't this come pretty close to creating a new race?

 

I'm not sure what you mean.  I tried to keep each race true to their original designs.

[Summon3r]

playing on a huge galaxy on hard right now and love this mod, anything that moves the game closer to lore is a pure win in my books

[Spud_Dastardly]

Having tried my mod out for a couple games, I have a few thoughts on balance.

• I stand by -50% population growth being -9, but -25% needs to be at -4.  That means I need to tweak the Meklar a little bit.
• I tentatively think minus production should be -3.
• I noticed the Mrrshan population grows really slowly: almost as slow as the Silicoids.  I started a game with them and found out why.  It's that damn Arid homeworld that slows population growth to a crawl.  I think Arid/Desert homeworld should be -2 instead of -1.  See it's not a problem for the Klackons because they have a food bonus.  But then I need to use that extra point to benefit the Mrrshan population growth.  Giving them straight up food or pop growth wouldn't fit with their design, so I'm thinking of having them start with Biology, though I don't know that it would entirely fix the problem.  I might also alter their AI to give them more inclination toward pop growth. 
• The Silicoids grow way too slowly still.  Taking away their High G means they have less access to large and huge ultra rich planets for them to grow quickly.  Either they need High g back, or they need +25% population growth.  It's nothing to do with their intended race lore, just about making them balanced.  This presents a problem as to where I would get the points from.   Maybe lithovore should be cheaper?
• Omniscience is a bit bugged.  It's still playable, but mliitary outposts and sometimes new colonies don't show up on the galaxy screen.  I'm thinking of removing it.

 

Before I make these changes, I'd like your feedback on these points.  Also, what do you think of the Meklar's -25% pop growth with instant assimilation combo?  Do you think the credits from population point costs should be adjusted?  Should I try to rebalance the races to 10 points or possibly 12?  Any other feedback or suggestions are welcome too.  Keep in mind any changes in point values means adjusting any race with that trait as well, so try to think of ways this could work.

[Vahouth]

Meklar don't need the instant assimilation IMHO. Cybernetic is too much of a bonus already and having them breed somewhat slower is enough. 

I played many games as Meklar with a -25% & -50% growth rate, in hard and very hard difficulty. The first one feels ideal for me.

Edited by Vahouth, 27 September 2016 - 06:59 PM.

[Archont4000]

Give Sicoids small home world, it could actually help with early colony ship spam

[Spud_Dastardly]

Vahouth, on 27 September 2016 - 06:58 PM, said:

Meklar don't need the instant assimilation IMHO. Cybernetic is too much of a bonus already and having them breed somewhat slower is enough. 

I played many games as Meklar with a -25% & -50% growth rate, in hard and very hard difficulty. The first one feels ideal for me.

 

If I take away the assimilation, then I need to give them something else instead to get them to the same points, unless you think -50% food consumption should be worth more points.  

Archont4000, on 27 September 2016 - 09:08 PM, said:

Give Sicoids small home world, it could actually help with early colony ship spam

 

I tried originally having the silicoids on a normal size homeworld, and I ran into a huge issue because they have a volcanic homeworld.  They start with 6 population, and a medium volcanic only has 5 max population, so you actually start the game with more than the max allowed population.  Small volcanic would be even worse in this regard, giving them I think 3 max population.  This is why I made volcanic homeworld worth -3. Large homeworld has to stay unfortunately.