Motie Concepts???? Well Ideas...
This race is STILL under
discussion by a small group of interested people. This page represents
some "minutes" of the discussions only.
Some major decisions still need to be taken.
Basic Race Design Concepts
OK - some text colour coding involved here?
Green = generally accepted ??? Please advise where I'm wrong! Stuff I put in originally when creating this site.
Other codes - discussions from :
Pale Orange = Henry
Pale Yellow = Mutu
Pale Blue = Scytale
Pale Purple = Drew
Pale Red = Crazy Eddie (well Pink Actually! Sorry)
Grey = Olly
Other "deeper colours" are just for emphasis/interest?
Playing the Race
Basic ideals?
This race should be fun to play
It should be different to play and play against.
Species
There are 5 basic sub-species:
The Whites = High Guard
These are the local leaders. Do not fight.
Idea? - without these the others will do nothing
and will not be controllable. Must have at least one per ship or base.
Maybe 1 per XXXX popuilation on bases/planets?
Ok Whites and Warriors..... By Rights If Whites are
HG they should have at BEST a 5 rating.
Troops should be 200 at least.
However...what will that do to the way ground combat works?>?
It won't hurt ground combat much at all. HG don't participate in GA, except
during surrender. What you'll have is Moties being much better at killing than
capturing, which is probably what we want.
More interesting is ship
boarding ability. HG are usually the undisputed kings of boarding.
HG/Warriors - yup! Whites/HG at 5 combat, Troops/Warriors at 200+. being
ignorant tho'? Boarding? Does it have to be HG that are good at boarding -
cannot just theTroops do that too?
The Warriors = Troops
These are the only sub-species that fight. They do it extremely well -
it is all they do! Without Whites to control them they may fight each
other or just go into a general killing spree! Extremely dangerous!
The Browns = Crew, sort of?
These are the engineers - brilliant engineers. They make Scotty or
LaForge look like amateurs. They don't DO anything else.
Idea? Without Whites
- they can go amok redesigning everything and anything into what ever
they feel like! Dismantling planetary defenses to try out a method of
boiling eggs faster - for example!
The Colonists = well, colonists
The workers and so on- don't fight, just make food, process materials etc.
Idea? Without the Whites, production may drop off?
The Miniatures = sort of, um, weapon? Infection?
These are "Fixers" - they don't design, but they have miraculous
abilities to fix, repair or improve stuff - the "way" they know how to do
it! "House Elves on Space Dust" but with "Attitude".
If you get these things on your ship they will rapidly modify it under
your feet. Within a few days/turns (whatever?) you will lose control of it. Daily opening
of the ship to vaccuum may reduce the effects, but if they've infested
enough, nothing but self destruct will solve the problem. Be sure none
of them get hold of space suits - several of them can fit in one and
can work together to escape onto your rescue ship! These are extremely
dangerous! But they're only trying to help!
Minis -- There are lots of ways minis can be implemented. The proposal for them
to affect ships for multiple turns is even a possibility, if Tim is willing to
use bits in his ship data structure or somehow save the information host-side.
Worth a question if that's what the group likes. (Basically, if something is
going to have an effect multiple turns later, that information has to be stored
somewhere until the correct time.) Other proposals, like only affecting the ship
the turn of the transfer, are very easy to implement. However, if we do decide
to use minis as a weapon, I would hope it would be an interesting one. Having
them affect a boarded ship is practically meaningless since Moties will
naturally be exceptional boarders. Having them affect allies' ships is
interesting, if we don't want the Moties to have allies.
Race Stats Page
Stats are posted on the main page of this site as Written by Henry - I will redline things as they develop?
In addition the salvage rate should be 95% or 100%
Power consumption should be halved.
Moties have nothing like a
theme park but they do have Museums.
I am not sure what the max highguard is I assume 255
Moties should be unmatched in combat but ONLY if a white
is giving
orders.
Not too sure what to do with the Max HG / Salvage Rate figures? It doesn't seem
to be a statistic of other race stats pages?
We will be asked what it is...so better to mention it
now.
I was under the assumption that the HG were the whites, so im confused by the HG
having such a great combat rating. I would have assumed the troops were a 200+
and the HG are more of a 20 or so.
Growth Rate 400 (every three months)
Colonist to Crew 20
Crew to Troop 5
Troop to Highguard 3
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What about setting these values to 0, otherwise
population cant be used as a trigger since people will only have to train insane
amounts of colonists to troops and crew...
Maybe have a building that
trains X colonists/crew/troops etc a turn?
Able To Build
Just about anything
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But again this will allow population limiting, they can
just tone down their growth by adding training centeres to every base, even with
a train rate of 0, it will at least slow pop growth by the amount of TC on a
base...
I think I would remove TC entirely, and make it so all TC get
destroyed when owned by a Motie player. Possibly get rid of cities as well and
have a Motie equivalent since they too drop growth...
Troop and Highguard combat - yep... I'd imagined much the
same - low HG combat (if any) and massive Troop combat...?
Are "we"
undecided about HG/Troop/Brown etc correlations with game terms?
Government
Distributed Anarchic(?) control by Whites - each white has control of its
Ideas
If there are no Whites, then there is no control - the
base or ship will rapidly depopulate (as Warriors kill everything) or
turn into pods or base materials (as the browns redesign everything
into mostly useless stuff ??? )
Intrinsically, then, it is an Unstable Anarchy?, but with distributed
control through presence of the Whites. In some ways like a Hive. The
Whites should be independent of each other ("random" Minister? maybe?)
Hmmmn...
Perhaps after a set time of
regression a White will be bred, like honey bees can convert a (very
young) worker larva into a Queen (if the old one dies off?)
The Collapse Concepts
Hmmn - pretty powerful race! Great warriors, great engineers! BUT
They breed like the proverbial...um ?!!! Rabbits maybe? No. They're just amateurs!
Moties HAVE to
breed as individuals in order to stay alive! Non-breeding Moties - just
die. There is no cure, no way out. And when they get overpopulated or
run short on food? - there is The Collapse.
They've worked out some "minor bug fixes" to this problem - they build
"bomb-proof " secret museums for the Whites (?) to hide in until it's
all over and they wait until the population regrows from the wreckage
before emerging and taking control again (and reproviding the "old
knowledge") for the same old cycle to start again. And it will. Again and Again...
They have the ultimate in "Boom/Bust ecomomies"...
The Cyclical Empire (generally accepted?)
The race - as a whole collapses across "known space" .
The empire's power grows rapidly and through "a mechanism" suddenly
collapes, population, tech, infrastrusture... All Tech levels go to 1.
To allow rebuilding afterwards
Ships -> converted to salvage pods (owned by the Moties) with a percentage of
the stuff inside
Bases -> structures turned into supplies and MCs
(this allows for the rebuilding after the fall)
Mechanisms/trigger?
- Number (too many) of whites per base
- Food?
- Set time period?
- The Ticker (what is that?)
- Idea - Number (too few) Whites for population/infrastructure?
Boom/bust -- That's easy enough to program no matter how we implement it. Tim
has demonstrated that he can get local and global totals, and stuff like
population and object decay are already in the game. The really tricky part is
finding a balanced solution. The closest I've seen to one is the countdown
proposal, with each successive countdown being a longer or there being some way
for the player to slow the countdown. Anything that a player can directly affect
(such as population) can and WILL be abused.
By temperment I lean towards individual planet collpase.
However.....
That would not affect existing ships. Also in the books,
the ships had to periodicly use warriors to kill each other and lower castes
to keep the population in check.
Effectively then, the true
de-limiter would be the number of whites existing in/on an object. The white
population density is the TRUE trigger for collapse.
It is also possible, and perhaps more deterministic if the LACK of Whites is the
determining factor? All the others breed like rabbits, and the Whites do not, if
there are factors relating to planetary stability that NEED whites, eventually
it all goes to sh**?
Agreed in the absence of Whites the warriors simply kill everything.
But is it suitable mechanism for "local" collapse? Are
there "cheats" that could invalidate it?
The collapse(s) need to be
infallible! Unavoidable...?
That is why I said Moties should not be allowed pods.
So that they cannot pod population.
However they SHOULD be allowed
to put population aboard ordinary ships.
But while abord the ships they
still breed.
So if you place too many on a ship, the ships will implode
into a wreck.
Even if the player tried to delibretely create ships just to
upload population and destroy it, he could not do it fast enough for a
planet with say 50mill. The growth rate would still be so high.
Dont
forget that the Moties can build probes. Probes with lightsails.
Also dont
forget that they have the Laser Cannons to launch the probes.
They can be
used against ships.
Better yet....Moties ARE allowed pods, but they cant pod
population.
This is interesting and it might work, assuming Moties cannot use other race's
hulls. Give them enough Geminis and they could stop the collapse.
Even
still, I'm MUCH more in favor of unilateral collapse. Local collapses will not
feel like a rise-n-fall empire. What you'll end up with is just a lot of
micromanagement. Even with planet collapses being inevitable, it'll take a lot
of planning for EACH planet to determine when the collapse will happen and what
the overall empire needs to do about it. With enough time investment a empire
will end up like an engine with lots of cylinders, where some pistons are always
up while others are down. In the end all you get is an empire that works like
any other, but takes much longer to manage. Also think about sending out fleets.
If ships undergo the same collapses as planets (with a growing population),
fleets will need tons of micromanagement of jettosoning people, balancing
population levels between ships, etc. Again, enough micromanagement will end up
making the fleet act like any other.
I think the group is falling into
the trap of "stick to the books". Making a race similar to its book/TV/movie
counterpart should be a SECONDARY concern. The first concern is making a fun,
balanced race. If the race rules mimic the original race, that's all well and
good, but ONLY if it works well in game terms. And that means not only
rule-wise, but we need to stick to the race's focus -- which we have defined to
be an empire of extreme expansive power that time and again collapses under its
own weight.
Unilateral Collpase ok what? all turns evenly divisible by 25? I mean it
could be, as simple as that.
Aggregate number is susceptible to
manipulation.
We could add a 'Crazy Eddie' factor (that is what the wife
wants) The idea is that the Motie player gets a message that Crazy Eddie has
risen on planet whatever. He is starting to incite.
After a random
number of Turns Boom!
Game over. That way the player could not predict
collapse However NO ONE ELSE could either.
Also remember that after
a collapse the planet is NOT defenseless. It is simply low tech. It will
still have all the warriors and minis. That means the best solution is to
destroy Motie worlds rather than take them. Even destroying the world would not
get rid of the Minis.
Collapse.... Unilateral sounds more manageable? And more interesting for the
player. OTOH it doesn't seem realistic? SO who cares - that is Bookmania? I'm
not sure micromanagement won't still be a problem is you have to rebuild all
your planets at the same time rather than just some of them all the time?
Let's do the Unilateral thing then. If it is based on time then it can
be a "White" problem?
How about this? The race has "distributed" management
"in theory" but we all know the player is in charge... the "invisible one"... so
there is one other Caste - the controller - it is the "telepathic" key/interface
(in game terms just a construct - you can't kill him) and after 25 turns "he"
just dies/goes mad/senile - whatever? The bust is then the loss of that
control... the Whites lose control - and the Warriors go berserk and destroy
random buildings/population etc. It takes the "collapse" turn for the Whites to
create a new one... or something? It's a bit of a crummy story, but it only
needs to be worded right as part of the race description as Solipsism for the
collapse?
Pods: On the website concepts page I have suggested an idea
that only Minis can travel by pod (and why) - but only for a turn or two?? As a
sort of Minitorp/mine?
Ships: The basis of the logic thread about pods is that most Moties (esp
Whites/Browns) can only travel in "slow" ships... this could be used as a
limiting factor on the usage of alien ships to transport population? In order
for pop transport to work well you'd need to transport long distances, so the
ship might just implode from ship pop on the way? So you have to underload the
ships, making them less effective anyway... etc?
I think the Crazy Eddie idea is more workable than an invisible caste
however. We just need to set a usable time frame.
Also do we agree that
all planets go into rebellion when the population hits 50mill?
50 mil? For the whole empire? For any planet? For a particular planet?
How about something like the collapse happens when the empire reaches xx
colonists per base? (Or a non-linear function perhaps.) That would give some
extra incentive to gain territory. Though the proposed Museums already do that.
And basing it on population always has the potential of allies killing off some
of the population.
Or how about happiness? Let the buggers get all
unhappy when they get crowded, and when empire-wide happiness hits a certain
low, boom! Mind Crushers would then be a pretty potent anti-Motie weapon. Hsssr
devices would have to be considered, as well as any other happiness-raising
trick.
Here's an interesting question: how fast will the collapse be?
One turn might be pretty fun. BOOM. And how destructive? Whiping out bases is
good, how about ships? Destroyed? Downgraded?
Okay from everything I have been reading about the collapse
how are we going to do it? (If this has been answered and I missed it please let
me know)
Individual collapse is easy. However figuring out the collapse
over the entire empire could be hard. There are a few ways, the two best would
be using
A) general happiness to trigger the collapse or
B) the overall
ratio of whites to non-whites
If A then things such as hissers and so on
should not effect the moties (though I do think they should not effect the
moties anyway). And we should have a variety of things that effect happiness.
For argument lets say that the perfect ratio is 1 White (HG) for every 500,000
colonists. If you get too many whites, or too few then there is a happiness
reduction. And the over all happiness is simply the happiness of each colonist
divided by the total number of colonists.
If B then we simply do a
simply tally saying there are 60 Million colonists and only 50 whites, so the
empire collapses.
In both cases we should send the player a message each
turn stating the general state of the empire so they can prepare for the
collapse and try to "Cray Eddie" it. For both of these ideas however I do not
think HG should be trainable, I think HG should breed HG at a very slow rate,
and the odds a new one is born can be used to balance out the race (ie we can
"tweak" it after the race is released).
Technology Concepts
Units
Ideally, all Motie constructs/ships should sort of "Morph"
as required, under the influences of Browns and Miniatures as
controlled by the Whites. Moties tend to reconfigure stuff as they need
things - its easier that way, when the population gets heavy, materials
are always in short supply - they're used to this sort of thing
unfortunately.... that may well be too tricky to code into the game... ?
Ships
Slow, preferably "Morphing"
Morphing problem - some of the consequences of this concept (that could be usable) are
that most ships can do many things. But at the expense of Armour,
Speed, even life support? (occasionally), that sort of thing? So they
are really flimsy things, with many weak points.
Idea? - new ship page GUI ?
(tricky I know) - each ship design has many switches for functions but
only a set number can be active per turn?
But if they get close to your ships - beware!!!
The Warrior sub-species are so deadly
that they have amazing boarding abilities, or - you may get infected with
Miniatures! Less lethal (sometimes) but more frustrating!
Ships are therefore slow and cumbersome, and flimsy - but with many Tech abilities.
I still say there should be ONE ship type...but its
capabilities vary as its population varies.
That is certainly how it
worked in 'The Gripping Hand'
Missles. Moties prefer to capture ships. All Captured ships should convert
instantly to a motie ship of the same class.
Missiles would be
non-explosive. Possibly EMP.
Possibly warrior assault forces.
I
simply dont think it fits that they would be willing to destroy a ship.
I don't think we could ever get this to work. What would you base this
conversion on? Tech level? Hull mass? No matter what you decide I'm sure there's
a scenario to break it. The potential exists for allies to feed in cheaper
versions of their own ships that would get "upgraded" into Motie ships.
How about at the end of combat, any ships captured by or destroyed by a motie
ship in combat is converted to wreckage pods. And then give 90% of the motie
ships dry docks, allowing ships to be made ont he fly, thus simulating the
"adaptation" that moties are good at?
Fighters
Fighters are fast and simple - but also weakly armoured. Short Range? No missiles? (Wasteful!)
Idea - Fighters are Kamikaze type - Warriors would think nothing at crashing into enemy ships
Seems to me that would be a waste of resources (the fighter not the pilot). I
was thinking more along the lines of having a fighter be high evasion and
attack, 1 armor, and killer beams, but no missiles.
To juxtapose the slowness of the ships I think the fighters
(piloted by Warriors) should be Fast, but short range.
So - usual bag of
types...
Light Fighter - Extremely Fast, short range, excellent against fighters, very
cheap- a sort of "Zero" - but crap against ships/ground
Heavy Fighter -
Fast, short range, OK against Fighters, OK against Ships. - a general purpose
thing
Bomber - slow, v slow, crap against fighters, v good against ships
and ground targets.
I'd rather see the fighters go in a different direction than this. This pattern
is used by practically everybody.
Alternate ideas?
Kamekazi - Dirt cheap, v
fast, crap against fighters, excellent against ships/ground
Swarmer -
crap at anything but ships, just a "kamekazi" delivery system for "Minis" - so
good against ships
Similar to the Solorian type 1. Currently that design has some odd issues
because of how Host calculates things. Supposedly a fix is coming out though.
Modular fighters... bit like the Aliens in Wing
Commander (later game 4 was it?)? Fighters that can lock together to pool
energy, boost multiple weapons into one bigger one...
Actually, all fighters act that way currently. This idea could be expanded upon,
though. Imagine small, cheap, underpowered fighters that need a pure battery
fighter to accompany them. Interesting concept, though I'm not sure it's
Motie-like, and probably just means micromanagement.
"Junk" fighters -
fighter wings join up to look like wreckage pods (or something) - a "stealth"
mechanism?
Making fighter wings look like wreckage pods is an interesting idea for a race
power. Perhaps only for type 1 wings or something. Something the group should
consider.
Oh! How about "Mini" mines????
Basically, there are 9 variables that need to be considered for a fighter:
Anti-Ship Power
Anti-Ship Value
Anti-Ship Scaling
Anti-Fighter Power
Anti-Fighter Value
Anti-Fighter Scaling
Ground Assault Value
Travel Range
Special Abilities
It might
be fun to have Motie fighters be specialist. For example, there could be a
"defense satellite" one that has no travel range or combat speed, but lots of
missiles. Park lots over a base for defense. Or repair suits, able to repair (or
upgrade!) ships.
At the end of the day there are now 21 accepted races and at least 23 in the
pipeline - that makes for about 75+ current fighter designs. The Moties aren't
going to be unique here - unless it gets really quirky?
More alternate concepts
there are 3 types of figther - but the enemy
cannot tell the difference between them - they all look like random engineering.
Not "stealth" just misdirection.
Alternatively - due to stolen tech,
Motie fighers look like other races' ships on scanners. Chameleon rather than
stealth. Not intended, just a byproduct of stolen tech? Cuckoo tech?
"Mini" with a rocket pack and a tin-opener.
or the same but with
Warriors and a BFG (big f***** gun)
off the Motie track track a bit
but...
Nanotech figher - mega "minis"
EMP ships - disabling
technologies
Suggest ?
Extremely strong in GA (correct acronym??) and OK in anti
fighter (not much different from normal planetary warfare) but weak against
ships - not their usual racial experience???
So - fighters are
1
Antifighter
1 GA
1 Special
I like the the defence orbital figher
idea - also like Minis-in-jetpacks?
I'm cool with the proposal of 1 anti-fighter, 1 GA, and 1 special. How about one
costly anti-fighter (no missiles, weak but long-range beams), 1 GA (poor VCR
ability), and 1 special ... defense satellite? What are everyone else's
thoughts?
We also need to consider fighter bays on ships. I would like
to suggest no fighter bays, and give the anti-fighter fighter the same speed as
the ships. The GA one can be loaded in assault pods, and the defensive satellite
is not made to move around. Thoughts?
Motie Fighters:
No Computers
Beam weapon only
No focusing equipment (not needed)
No jump capability
No hyper
capability
Speed would be ONE(effectively zero)
They would auto
destroy if not docked so....very cheap to build indeed
Probably the
cheapest in any game.
I could see Moties dispensing with 'ships' and
use Warriors with Jet packs and a bomb.
Range would be maxxed
Power
would be maxxed
Also no need for fuel
Tactical speed would be very
high
I like these ideas!
This sounds like a carrier/fighter based race? This woud "gel" with the Warrior
as the fighter ethos?
If range 0 means that they cannot spend a turn
away from either a ship or a planet - I like that! But may be too weak???
Perhaps the anto ship fighter - a slightly longer range fighter is a
semi-autonomous one with Minis as the only crew? Extremely cheap, ramming bonus,
and the Mini infection to boot?
Well its just that the Moties had nothing that could exceed
the speed of light. If they HAD, they would not have been moties
The Motie idea is all very well, but it's basic tenets are not sustainable in a
galactic context. It is exactly why they should not be allowed to leave
planetary confinement. We are looking for ways to make the planetary effect work
galactically - and it won't "rub" in the same way - hence the "Freckled" idea.
BUT - that isn't interesting!
We've "sort of" decided that the
Unilateral Collapse mechanism is more "fun" - but there is no
rational/economic/population reason to make it work that way on this scale -
without limits the Moties are - unstoppable - without "fake" rules.
So we
needed to curb that and impose a boom/bust ecology that shouldn't really
happen Unilaterally. Logic dictates that collapse should be planetary.
BUT - that isn't "interesting" - or FUN! - to play. So we try
sophistry/solipsism - whatever the word is - We argue the standpoint from where
we want it to go!
General Note - SHIP SPEED
Some mixed discussions about ship speeds and such ran though many discussions
Olly's premise was that
1 turn = 1 year - therefore speed stats are 1 = the speed of light...?
So Moties would have to be supra light just to be playable. Ramscoop
drive or light sail ships are interesting as a "look" but are both
sub-light.
Hank argues for Slow Hyper with some Moties dying from shock.
Ultimately the reasons are less important that the numbers????
I'm cool with the proposal of 1 anti-fighter, 1 GA, and 1
special. How about one costly anti-fighter (no missiles, weak but long-range
beams), 1 GA (poor VCR ability), and 1 special ... defense satellite? What are
everyone else's thoughts?
We also need to consider fighter bays on
ships. I would like to suggest no fighter bays, and give the anti-fighter
fighter the same speed as the ships. The GA one can be loaded in assault pods,
and the defensive satellite is not made to move around.
Thoughts? |
I think both of
these ideas are good. Though I wonder what you think the 3rd fighter shoudl be
for. Possibly for mining asteroids and repairing ships?
Ground units - ????
None???
Idea - they don't really
need them, the Warrior subspecies and the weaponry are THAT good! So
they match up as slightly better than other races tanks etc? Maybe an
aircraft tho'?
Travel/Expansion
Slow - so slow but inexorable empire expansion
Moties Need slow but mainly irresistable expansion? so... tortuous logic thread
Mini's and Warriors. ---
Presume for arguement's sake that... ?
2 or more Warriors together
alone- "far" from a White will kill each other - within the Turn.
Whites (and Browns) (and colonists?)
cannot survive Hi-Gtransport (or whatever?)- SO only slow ships. Not
Pods/fighters
Minis can survive N turns together - without Whites
- after which they starve or die of disease or bad tooth decay (whatever!!! 8) ).
Only Minis and Warriors can survive Hi-Gravity ships
"Engineered" deductions?
Warriors cannot be sent in Pods (they would
kill each other as Whites cannot go with them)
Minis can be sent in pods - but only
for the distance covered by those N turns? = "Mini-torps"???
Warriors can man "solo" fighters - and
wings - without Whites so long as they are within xLY of a white or
something? I suppose you could transport Warriors one per pod - for short distances!!! ?.
Other "deductions"/sophistry ?
Really slow and unmanouvrable.
Ships need Whites and Browns to travel, and their physiology cannot
suffer high acceleration. Warriors and Miniatures can though!, so look
out for the Fighters and "Minitorps" (an idea???)
They cannot Hyperjump, Chunnel,
use Womholes or Jumpgates - it will kill all the Whites and Browns on
board. If there are Troops on board - this is BAD - without Whites in
the confined space of a ship - they
will fight to the death and all kill each other - killing everything but
the
Miniatures (too hard to find). After N turns the ship will turn into
"Infested" pods/wreckage as the Minis go, well "Mini-frenzy". These are
wreckage pods with the usual materials but infested with Minis!
Oh
dear... pick that up and.... Ooops!
After another X turns without Whites any community of Minis will die out from
disease - but by then wherever they have been will have been
essentially "trashed"...i.e. wreckage pod - idea
Buildings/Structures
The Museum - Tech 10?
The Museum is the Repository of Knowledge that attempts to save the
Race's technology against the imminent collapses - traditionally it is
"manned" by sterile whites (?)
We go with the Museum structure. High planetary tech level, one allowed
per planet, makes XXX GC's a turn. This structure is NOT destroyed upon cycle
collapse. Museums would then help them raise back up more quickly after each
collapse. Motie players would want to raise planetary tech high enough to build
Museums, then dump them on every world they can get their hands on. As the game
progresses, a good Motie player will expand and be able to recover from
collapses quicker and return to superpower status. Motie enemies will try to
take advantage of the collapses and blast every world with a Museum on it, while
Motie allies will try to defend the Museum worlds.
Idea - in a low White growth
rate model - and if you need X Whites to "man" a museum, you
could restrict the proliferation of these.
Also - I think it would be interesting if Museums only had a (highish) % chance of surviving collapse.
In the Unilateral collapse concept perhaps each surviving Museum "saves" you one "random" tech level loss?
Population Control Centres (instead of Cities?)
Maybe we need the Cities tailored more to the Motie Needs
so we don't use "Cities" but "Motie Population Centers" (a race spefic
building).
Contraband Converter
What are Moties gonna do with video disks? They need materials. So the
Converter is actually a way of allowing 'trade' w/o contact.
They
buy contraband and convert it to materials. They are REALLY just buying
materials
Advantages/Disadvantages
Disadvantages
Massive growth rate leads to unilateral/freckled? infrastructure destruction - in repeated phases
Really flimsy ships
Really slow ships - and expansion
No cloning tech
Must have sufficient HG (Whites) to retain control
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'
Advantages
"Drop dead good" Warriors - literally
Scottie bonus?
"Mini" infection / weapons?.
"Mega" Tech capaibilty
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