ours was more a rather direct translation: "The new treaty with $param$ is good for our trading", yours sound definitely better.

Well I'm glad I could be of assistance. I've done a bit of writing over the years (One short story I consider publishable... but it isn't published of course ) so if you have need of any exposition that isn't as bad as Deep Space Nine episode 1& 2 ( Tears hair out and runs around in circles screaming) then I'll be glad to help

Edit: Ahh, what the hell. I'm going to blow my own trumpet. My short scifi story:http://www.clayspaces.com/videogames/into_the_dark.doc

thanks for your offer. Impressive futuristic mechs and firearms sketches over at your website btw. kinda like having one or two of them as troop images for our game (currently we are expanding the types and numbers of different troops in-game so fancy names and pictures for them would be very welcome .

I'm not so much into short stories (more the graphic type of guy) but others may wanna read it and leave corresponding critics .

Wasn't really thinking of posting relating to my website per se (haven't updated it in ages!) but had it on there to link to instead of the upload... but thanks for the comments. I'm better with mechanical stuff than organic (human faces I still have trouble getting really good) and mostly do pencil sketch or inked stuff. Never really done much color. Stylized deep shadow inked stuff might work for a game image, but would my normal sort of work directly? I'd have thought you'd need coloring, rendered backgrounds etc (of course that could be added, but might look an odd contrast)

rendered backgrounds are not really needed. as you can see with the Heyoun, their current rocketeer image comes without any background and is simple one-colored green with some shadows. of course color would be needed since everything else in-game is colored so to keep with overall game graphic style black&white images would not really fit unfortunately.

but back-to-topic: still, a lot of texts in-game (especially the race descriptions) could need an overhaul in terms of phrasing, maybe even story-wise. Most minor races have stories I invented for them (except those few that have a rather direct pendant in the trek universe). There is nothing wrong with altering them or adding new characterics to them.

Is there a list of descriptions you WANT updated? I don't want to step on anyone's toes by just wading in and redoing stuff

when you download the newer minorrace editor (see page 1 of this thread for link) you can view each description of each race quickly. I'd like to have those updated that sound a little weird to a native speaking englishman (mostly I tried to make them as "native" as possible but I'm sure a native speaker recognizes it quite quickly when wording could be improved or sentences are clumsy or awkwardly composed). So if you wanna scour through the list quickly and have a go at some of them once in a while I think that would be a really great improvement for the game.

denzil85 has already taken care of the races with letters A and B so you might wanna start with letter C or reverse-chronological with Z. As said you can surely exchange major parts of the description or make the race completely anew description-wise, as long as it fits at least a bit with the characteristics given with the ticks set (i.e. a a warlike race should stay a warlike one and also a treacherous or easy-to-be-corrupted race should stay so).

race pictures can be viewed at bote graphics subfolder (the .bop files are simple renamed png files, so irfanview for example is able to open them). So you can open the race pic and use it for inspiration for your story as I did when I invented the current story for them.

OK, I'll give it a shot, probably starting at Z. I took a quick look in the .data file last night and didn't see anything glaring at all... but then I started at the 'A's So not surprising. Does the editor include the game details of the race? Native buildings bonus' etc? Would help for giving an impression of what the race is capable of/psychology etc.

EDIT: OK, I dled the 'buildings.7z' but that only has the buildings.data file in it, no editor. I don't see anything else there that says it's about an editor. Am I missing something?

okay, reg has only uploaded the data file without the editor. The editor can be downloaded (/w latest english data file included) from over here: http://botf2.star-trek-games.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2014&p=40889

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Patupi, Thanks for helping !

Maybe helpful for getting together races and images of them http://svn.star-trek-games.com/birth/Ha ... Rassen.pdf or as Word-Doc http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki_files/Downloads/HandbuchderMinor-Rassen(BotE)v0.09.doc

a new building is planned - especially for getting more money (ingame: credits). Please give feedback and improvements for my try of an English translation - thanks

Building Name: Tetroin-processing plant
Description:
This plant distills Tetroin-4c to a higher concentration and freeds it from impure substances. As a result hosts gets more powerful thereby. A chemical waste product of the destillation is sold as an anesthetic on the interstellar markets with good return.


Original German text:

Building Name: Tetroin-Veredelungsanlage
Description:
Diese Anlage destilliert das Tetroin-4c zu einer höheren Konzentration und befreit es von unreinen Stoffen. Die Wirte werden dadurch leistungsfähiger. Bei der Destillation entsteht ein chemisches Abfallprodukt, welches an den interstellaren Märkten gewinnbringend als Anästhetikum verkauft wird.

OK, I've got three done up, but they might be a tad verbose. Not sure how short you want to keep these.

Viebarans:
The Viebaran are a curiously divided people seperated into a strict caste system that is based almost entirely on religious status. The reason for the intensity of the caste system is an odd symbiotic mitochondrial organism that has co-existed with the species for millenia, though mostly this was without effect on the Viebarans.
The mitochondria in question have a curious afficinity to Electro Magnetic fields, particularly those relating to the Viebaran nervous system. In ancient times a few individuals learned to use these organisms to channel the electrical energy of their body, build it up and release it externally. This formed the basis for the first Mystic Votaries who founded the current church on Viebaran. Their abilities are shrouded in mystery as far as the inhabitants of Viebar are concerned, and they have ruthlessly used the advantages of this (both physical and psychological) to form the current fanatical government.
The Voteries and their preisthood are very secretive about the rites that enable their followers to gain their abilities. They have also shunned any suggested medical examination of any Voteries to determine how this ability functions on the molecular level. There is some worry from off worlders that such individuals may not be able to fully control the power they have at their fingertips under extreme emotional stress. Some local rumors suggest that disasters have happened in the past and has been covered up by the Votery Preisthood. How devastating it might be if a Votery looses control of his powers is uncertain, but their insistance on such total secrecy about it suggests the effects could be extreme.


Zuringlians:

Zuringlians are colonists that fled froom Viebaran fanatical rule when the Voteries were first spreading their religion across the face of Viebar centuries ago. Viebar had no space faring technology at the time but a passing race had taken interest in the political and religious upheaval on Viebar as they travelled through the system and opened up dialogue with the locals. The Votery refused any contact with such 'abominations' but rebels from a recently pacified country begged for assistance. The enforced caste system the Voteries were inflicting on them was completely at odds with their old form of open federated government and they hated their religious overlords.
The aliens agreed to take the a large group of the rebels off world with them and suggested they join their colonization effort in a nearby system. Unfortunately the aliens in question were themselves deeply religious, although records seem to indicate not zealots as the Voteries are. The Rebels found this out only after the voyage was begun and felt they had been tricked and feared the same kind of repression as on their homeworld. A bloody battle broke out on the ship and by the time the colony vessels had reached their destination the Rebels were the only ones left alive, albeit in far smaller numbers. It was many decades after landing that the Rebels decided that they may have over-reacted to their benefactors, but since most of the records were destroyed in the battle no-one knows who they were or where they came from. They had no understanding of the alien technology but the auto pilot managed to set the ships down successfully and they prospered on their new world.
The Rebels named themselved 'Zuringlians', which means 'penetant' in an ancient form of their tongue, and have tried to respect the relics of the aliens that brought them here. The many colony ships have since been mostly dismantled and the complex designs of the technology used as artworks. The ships themselves were both constructed from and carried with them considerable mineral resources not usually found on habitable worlds and they utilized this to help build their economy up. Nowadays the Zuringlians aren't quite so respectful of the alien relics and they and the remaining off world minerals may provide a good trade resource to other worlds.


Zhordanians:
The Zhordanian culture of ages past was a well developed, advanced society, but a single polity took control of the planet in a very short period of time. It isn't clear if this was by political intrigue, diplomatic agreements or by conflict, but the results were devastating. The new planet wide state was fixated on technology and scientific achievement with next to no accountability. There was certainly some severe violent tendancies as well as many relics of weapons tests in this period which still exist today. one test however changed everything. Indications are that it was supposed to be some form of vegetation control but it instead poisoned entire regions and destroyed eco systems entirely. It spread uncontrollably over a very short period of time and the entire ecology of the planet collapsed in a few decades.
Some Zhordanians survived in underground bunkers but records from before this period are sketchy at best. Despite loosing a lot of their old technology they still have a considerable edge and slowly they resurfaced and took back their world. Now however they require complex mechanical exoskeletons to survive on the poisoned surface. Offworlders only see Zhordanians inside their suits, though indications are that their physical body seems to have atrophied considerably as well as having mutated during their time underground. They may no longer be bipeds at all any more.

some corrections/typos: preisthood -> priesthood ; froom -> from

penetant?


overall very well done! Character traits of the Zuringlians are well-described so the reader can picture the race to be a little technology-wise backwards ("advanced space-faring technology used only as artworks" instead of gaining new technologies out of them) and a little volatile in character when it comes to corruptibility (the "might have overreacted"-part -> not-so-stable in their ways of thinking). In the end, all descriptions should give at least some hints on how the race is going to be reacting in-game so reading the text will have certain use later-on in-game.

As for the verbosity, it only matters as far as text is cut-off in-game when displayed in diplomacy menu. You might want to check it out and count the number of letters to get a maximum number for minor race descriptions. I don't know what the max number is myself but when you load a save game where you know some other races you can see which one fits best and comes closest to the max letter number and use that one as a reference. btw. when entering the text into the editor, line breaks should be avoided. just put each sentence directly after the other in one "continuum". Otherwise I think the file parser throws out errors and wrongly displays text in-game later-on.

All BotE editors have some "side-effects" when using them and that is that they tend to close themselves without saving whenever you press the enter button . I know I hate this behaviour too and it has already cost myself hours of work gone in one moment but I wasn't able to convince SirP yet to add a save before exit message to them. Just so you know to be cautious and saving from time to time when working with the editor.

reg:

gets -> get
freeds -> frees
good return -> solid revenues

I'm glad you like it so far, after looking back on them I wasn't sure that the 'feel' of them was right. Do you generally want them to be more history than biological description etc? I realised after I did it that that was what i was doing, probably based on what I remember from in game, but just wanted to check that it was what you wanted.

No line breaks? Ouch! Given my writing habits I'm going to have to go back through them and edit to make sure I take them all out. I generally don't think about it and automatically break stuff up into paragraphs. Also I tend to write somewhere else then copy paste (often in wordpad just because it's quicker and easier to bring it up ) so thus far I haven't hit the 'enter' problem.

One thing, is there a list of what buildings/bonuses go with which minor? It wasn't in the editor and I looked in the minorrace.data list and it just shows the starting diplomacy levels, right? I seem to remember that one or two minors that I came across in game a while ago had descriptions that didn't have any connection between one of the buildings and the description... can't remember which it was.

unfortunately I didn't add a list of minors and their specialities to the online (german) manual here: http://svn.star-trek-games.com/birth/handbuch/Handbuch.html

reg's word doc above has this overview but it's also only in german so you might have difficulties to read it (a google translation of a regular website is just way more comfortable than having a german .doc file to read through).

we once had a working homepage where all minors were listed with all their ships/buildings, pictures and stats. It got hacked pretty often (joomla...) so we took it down.

that means you can only view these things with the editors provided in your bote installation folder (bote->data->ships and ...->buildings). click the .exe files there and you find the minors at the bottom of each list.


as far as history versus biology, well, I didn't keep a strict line there myself. I just stretched either the first or the latter according to the picture (if there is any crucial characteristic to be seen in the picture which needs explaining) or the stats so describing their history gave opportunity to explain their actions to be expected in-game (i.e. a violent history would explain a war-like race's behavior and so on). So feel free to shift priorities as you seem fit for the purpose to give the player a little handout to work with the race when he encouters it in-game.

Sometimes I didn't check if the building descriptions belonging to a minor's special structure(s) are consistent with the overall race description. So it might be that you encounter discongruencies which you are free to amend of course. Mostly I focussed on the diplomatic reactions to be expected (unless the race is space-faring which should be mentioned in the overall description but is also viewable in the minor race editor itself as separate icon).

Ships and building bonusses are mostly gifts that can be "opened" later-on after one has successfully climbed all diplomatic steps towards membership or conquered the race. Nonetheless if a minor has special ground combat defence buildings messing with possible major invasion plans it should of course be hinted at somewhere in the race description that this race might be difficult to conquer.

In fact when I created the special buildings and ships and invented their description I did this after I did the overall race description. I then tried to pick up something from the overall theme I created there. So in your case you'd need to also check the buildings and ships and verify that your new description fits at least with the effects and strengths the structures of the minor in question have. Altering their own descriptions in the buildings and/or ship editor is of course possible as long as the corresponding structure/ship picture fits to the new name respectively new description. Just the stats and the pics should stay the same as always.

btw. when altering the buildings.data and ships.data files, please use the latest version available (btw. I don't know if you already have the latest Alpha 6.1 version, the main portal site here offers the slightly older Alpha 6 version where some minor bugs are still in it): http://botf2.star-trek-games.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3760

that way all files are up-to-date and endless copy-paste can be omitted.


btw. I nearly forgot, we altered the race traits in our german version a bit (allowed for multiple race traits). When you rename MinorracesDE.data (which was in the zip file containing the minorrace editor 1.3) into Minorraces.data and open it via the editor you will see the difference with the Adamen (=Adamanen in german) for example. They are also "soloing" now. Since we are going to use the newer german file, you might want to leave a window open with the german editor and incur the new values into your description as well as into values, i.e. make a tic at soloing for example with the Adamen. We haven't updated the english file version in that respect yet.

OK, haven't had a chance to check out the editors in the program yet (Yes, I was using the 6.1 version so I should be up to date.) but I did notice one of the 'A' races didn't seem to be done. I apologize if this one has already been updated but an idea struck me about them and thought I'd go with it. Let me know what you think.


Ankarans:
The Ankarans have always been great story tellers but for them the great quests and adventure stories were not for the prize, but for the voyage. For them exploration and travel were the goal, not the end of the journey. Once they invented means of propulsion they fixated on it, developing science from scratch around the early sail vessels. As they developed technologically they structured their scientific community primarily around the great goals of movement, culminating in the current university networks and the vast sprawling impulse research institutes. The aim of all scientists is to work on the next great engine to come out of the famous laboratories. They do not design engines for the purpose of war. Theirs is not a warlike race, though they are perfectly adept at defending themselves. They also have come to hold those that pilot such ships with great regard as well, and the astronaunt's guild is never short of recruits or test pilots to fly their huge number of fighters. Their ethos is far more for small, maneouverable vessels than lumbering behemouths and the great hangers of the orbital yards regularly hold competitions for the best pilot and the fastest and most agile ship. The guild's heirarchy is mostly meritorious by nature, the best pilot getting the higher ranks and the highest, the chairperson, has effective control over the Ankaran military and can even over-rule the civilian leaders in matters of war and peace. He does answer to a council of the next ranking pilots but they need at least a three quarter majority to over-rule such decisions.

I like it! perfect story for them.

I did take a look at the newer german minorraces.data and it seems someone has given the Ankarans a productive tag. That would fit with the description (lots of fighters produced) but I tend to give them also a researcher tag since that is the most prominent feature they have. Need to have a chat with our data stats team about that..

Glad you liked it.

I was trying to come up with a more detailed background for the Zetarians but have hit a problem story-wise. I was thinking of talking about how they've been in space for a long time (they're tagged advanced and space faring) and then going on to say they were part of an alliance a long time ago that led to their current skill with tactics... but for them to be a single world race and there to be no other major races before the start of the game all the other members would have to have been wiped out etc. Not sure where to go with that. Might help with the background for the Zetarians but would be odd that there is no other indication of this old 'alliance' in game.

Anyway, found the game editors and that is useful... though annoying finding the ship descriptions for minors as they are in order of the SHIP names, not the race Useful for the game, not so much for me searching. Ah well, I'll manage.

EDIT: OK, I've noticed there are some other connections between races so I suppose this isn't too far off. This is what I did for the Zetarians:

Most races that have contact with trade and information networks have heard of the Zetarians. They have been space travellers longer than most races have even heard of alien races, but it is not their technological development that most races take note of. After the Zetarians built their first warp ships they joined an alliance with neighboring races to deal with piracy in the region. At first the alliance worked, but the piracy became more of a threat than anyone realised. They were being backed by an outside force with considerable resources who gave them advanced warships. Over time piracy turned to direct warfare and the alliance's worlds were bombarded ruthlessly into slag. The Zetarians learned bitter lessons in these ferocious conflicts and ultimately destroyed the 'pirates', but not before the other alliance members were obliterated. This has left the Zetarians with a deep sense of bitterness, but also a sense that they are superior to others they meet, even allies. This attitude can often annoy any that deal with them but despite the fact that they haven't been in a major conflict for centuries the bitter lessons they learned so long ago have been proven true in the many combat simulations that they sell and are currently famous for. In more recent times they have not strayed far from their homeworld but have maintained their economy at least in part by offering mothballing and recycling services to other star faring empires. This has only served to widen their renown.

There is an error in the current minorrace editor, the order in which the race traits appear is mixed up. In the excel file below is a complete overview of all race traits and a small box where the correct order is given. That means that the Ankarans are not productive but scientific as they should.

The Zetarians are probably candidates for the so-called "mediors" later-on, i.e. a multiple-world minor with possibilities of off-start-alliances and regular major-like expansion. It's just that right now all minors are single-world"ed". If you take a look at Scytorians and I believe also the Andromedans, they have alliances and old wars in their race description, which means that they also probably get a medior-status later-on when the minor race AI is fully implemented.

So you can just assume that the Zetarians had just overcome a long war against maybe a possible borg-like super-race invasion (such a race is planned, we also have no name or story currently for it, if you happen to have an idea..) and are rebuilding their empire or have lost their alliance partner in a war against such a race or due to a spatial anomaly large enough to suck a whole part of the galaxy quadrant or just that the old alliance broke up and resulted in many single-worlded planetary systems with no contact among each other, something like that.

Edit: Or something like that . Good story! Since we haven't decided yet which one of the space-faring races will get mediors, we can do that afterwards according to the race description. I'd say at least 5-6 of them should story-wise be sneaking into every galaxy's corner so to speak. I guess the Ankarans are a prototype for a race with rather few (if not just one) colonies but a large network of outposts for the fighter-based space travel. Mediors will be distinguished for being more colonist-type or more invader-type like the more war-like space-faring ones.

I finally got a game with one of the races I'd modified with rather long titles (The Ankarans as a matter of fact) and what is there just fits in the diplomacy screen. With the pop up description it would be fine anyway, but that seems to be about a couple of words short of too much. Good guess! Now I've got to go check to see if any of my others go over that!

As for a background race how about a race that is totally different from others. Plasmids. I've been toying with the idea for many years now, but basically plasma in a star gets focussed and a minor... well, twist of magnetics can form a pinch that contains a fusing core. This core feeds magnetic fields around it and these fields contain the core as long as there is sufficient fuel. They can spontaneously form within stars but eventually one will form that can 'bud', ie form a kind of plasma life form. Eventually this can evolve into a race that doesn't really interact with normal matter at all, but instead generates energy fields and manipulates plasmas. Once life gets sapient and builds 'ships' they'd basically be modified life forms from their stars (they'd live only on stars, not worlds). These plasma ships would be very high on shield and energy weapons but low on anything material. The 'hulls' would be very weak, but partially transparent to a lot of damage. Things would literally go straight through them, especially light!

You could evolve a race of Plasmids that are basically Xenophobes, not understanding material creatures at all and destroying worlds with these pests on them. They'd go from star to star and set up shop, and it could be no-one would actually notice them there. They'd look like flares if no-one caught them accelerating. Being so different from any race in the game would be a rational for them to be uncooperative. They simply wouldn't understand any of these races were intelligent from their point of view. Stars could be inhabited while the rest of the system was inhabited by a 'normal' race. They'd never invade as they aren't interested in planets at all but would be very annoyed at all this irritating warp field fluctuation around their homes.

I used a similar idea (though they were 'nice' plasmids and much more primitive) in my short story. Basically the Plasmid equivalent of 1950's style tech.

What do you think? They don't have the dark edgy feel of the Borg but they would be different.

oh..this thread has so much text so I don't read it completely - too much for me to translate into german

@Patupi:
Last post you said that description texts are too long - I thought some time ago: there's a need to count the amount of characters which fit in in all parts of the game. Maybe you could do this - and also make a short summary how many characters fits into which part of the game e.g. Tooltip -> no limit, Diplo-Info
well...the amount depends too on the used font (size and race), largest fonts are used by Heyouns and Rotharians (see bottom: no diplomatic news http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki_fil ... gaBeta.doc)

longest English description: MinorRace REMRI 1249 characters
longest German description: MinorRace PAMBUKA 1301 characters
I just put =länge(d2) into the following excel sheet, English excel ??: =length()

For minor races this file could also be helpful for you http://birth-of-the-empires.de/wiki_fil ... s.data.xls . I hope this mistake descripted below is not also in this file...didn't check it

Do you collect your changes in the word file I delivered? If not I planning to do it after next release to have also an English manual of minor races.

such a plasmid-like race can be used as a random-event sort-of-race, i.e. like in good old botf the Cristalline Entity or the Calamarain. If you take a look in the shiplist.data file with the editor, I believe the Boseans (they have a "Alien/Unknown" tag as ownership in the editor) can be used with a plasmid story (picture, see the link below). Along with the ship classes there are also descriptions of the classes. It would be good to also create an extended version of these descriptions for a later-on random event window where the new "race" is characterized and presented to the player.

we even have pictures for them already: http://svn.star-trek-games.com/birth/Entities.zip

these Boseans or however you want to call them could indeed be a replacement for a borg-race, if the description is convincing enough and later-on an "infiltration" of the galaxy as the borg did gameplay-wise in botf with rendering all planets in a star system dry and least-habitable (Class M to Class C functionally) and moving through sectors like a "plague", that would be fine.

Re: Reg

The Ankaran is the only one I've encountered in game yet, and that does fit with space for maybe a few more words, but it's close. That ends up as 1587 chars so I'm guessing somewhere around 1650 to 1700 would be the limit. Put it at 1600 to be safe.

My files I've been saving seperately as a wordpad file and adding them into the race editor file Minorrace.data file. If you want to add them in yourself feel free. Be advised I'm trying to catch things but my desktop computer is in for repairs and my laptop has the annoying habit of double pressing keys. I kkeepp ggeeettingg rreppittittiioonnsss I think I've edited all of them out but feel free to check. I used to be a good typist (120 wpm, but that was 10 years ago!) but I've got a little lazy of late so there could be other errors. I generally don't use spell check/grammar check (never needed it much before) much but it'd probably be safer for me to do it honestly . Also, which 'English' should I use? I've been in the States a while so my English is more American now. Color rather than Colour, armor instead of armour etc. (I'm a machinist so Aluminum/aluminium is one I more notice )

Re Malvosisin

I'll try to think of another race that might have a more dark, brooding atmosphere, but if I don't come up with something semi-unique and interesting (other than the old 'organic tech' race which would be my fall back.) the Boseaner look interesting. They look more organic than plasma but a couple of those pics could definitely work (the diplo one looks more like plasma to me). I'd noticed in the Ship editor there were ships there that looked from the descriptions that they were going to be space monsters. That would be very interesting and it is something that seems missing from the current build compared to the old BOTF. Albeit that the old BOTF had those events fairly rarely if I remember correctly. I rarely encountered the BORG on the old game, but generally could only defeat them as Romulans unless I had insanely huge fleets. A large fleet of romulan ships cloaked with good torpedoes could get one blast in from cloak. If it was enough to kill the cube good. Otherwise the fleet tended to burn

As far as the effects on systems taken by 'Plasmids' or whatever we name them, I was thinking more turning planets into asteroid fields, but this impinges on what I had been saying on the Supremacy forums that Planet killing events aren't fun if there isn't any way to either avert them or maybe re-terraform them back into useful worlds again. Unterraforming events seem like a good compromise to me, making them habitable worlds, but red numbered so you have to send the colony ships back in again... once the Plasmids have either left or been pushed back from the system.

alright.

in botf, the borg turned all planets into barren worlds once invaded so they were a real pain when they got to a bright 80+ bn world (or was it millions with botf, I don't remember) and turned it into a 20 bn star system..

yes, space monsters was what I meant with the Alien/Unknown ships. I had the idea to also make space monsters available for diplomatic contact in the diplomacy menu so that unlike in botf, you can have some kind of "restricted contact" with them, i.e. negotiate a non-aggression pact or even a war-pact against other players, the AI, or even other space monsters or the borg-replacement. I think this feature was really missing to botf considering what the Star Trek TNG TV series offered. They always had contact with those species and negotiated with them in the show and botf just allowed to ignore or kill them, ts..

so in our case, the borg-replacement, as all the other space monsters, will need a full "race description" (maybe shorter than the usual ones), and they need a bigger picture (300x300; well we take care of that). And the pseudo-borgs need some kind of agenda, i.e. they'd be tagged war-like I guess in the minor race editor and producer.

American english is fine though if BE is used from time to time, I don't think it will be of that much importance. So we don't need to be uber-strict I guess.

My personal idea would still go for unterraforming. That at least would mean such a fluke event wouldn't be totally disasterous... or at least not permanently so. That was one thing I didn't like about BOTF. Some random events could be overpowerful, especially planet damaging/destroying ones. If it's unterraforming worlds so they take 10+ turns to re-terraform that would still be annoying but wouldn't be unbalancing. I had one game in BOTF where I had a random planet affecting event early on and the planet was the majority of the pop of that system... and (if I remember correctly) I only had 2 systems! That was over the top. If such events are in there should be a ramp in so the devastating ones should be later in game, as I think the Borg were in BOTF.

I like the idea of monster diplomacy, though you'd probably have to break it into three or more types of monsters: those that couldn't be communicated with, those that could understand simple commands and might listen (IE, go away. food is here. we mean you no harm etc), and those that could be talked to more directly... the borg are a little odd in Trek lore. To begin with they'd be in the 2nd of those options... but then came the film First Contact and we have a borg queen that can communicate one on one. Before that Borg interaction was minimal. About the most interaction they had was 'making' Locutus out of Picard to act as some kind of intermediary. Still boiled down to him saying "surrender" or words to that effect. Whatever big bad Borg like monster we end up with we'll have to think if that is something we want to be talked to or not. Maybe only some of the minor monsters could be talked to like that. I personally think the Borg were more interesting before the Queen was added. She made them more personal, more like us, and that lost a bit of appeal to me... despite the fact that I still think First Contact is, over all, my favorite movie of the series (I love the music addition they made for that one!)

One thing you might want to consider, for whatever the Borg replacement ends up as, is having two or more descriptions. Think of it as 'We've just met this weird race', then after several encounters 'This techno organic race just seems to want to absorb other life' (for the Borg, as an example) , then finally a more exact description. Might even want a specific 'special research' topic to get that last description... and maybe improve weapons and or shields vs this race only... that should be available at any TL as it only modifies existing equipment... just a thought

OK, just done up a quick description of Plasmids, and then tried a more down to Earth (Yes, British humour! *groan*) race. The descriptions are a little too detailed right now and purposely don't go into the psychology or culture as if you change it from major monster to minor monster these could change. (Note, for the Igneoids weaponry I was thinking something slow firing but devastating. Big ships wouldn't fare well against them but lots of smaller ships would )

Plasmids:
Plasmids are 'living' plasma balls, roughly spherical blobs of incredibly hot hydrogen and helium. Their cores are constantly fusing hydrogen held tight inside contricting fields of electromagnetic energy. The outer shell taps this fusing hydrogen to make magnetic fields which both hold the core together and form the shell itself out of wisps of hydrogen in complex shapes. Magnetic streams and ion channels are how energy is carried within the creature, and more complex plasma life forms use these streams in the same way organic life use a nervous system. They can move using a very efficient magnetic bubble field that can generate gravity fields in a similar way to a continuum field, pinching space around the Plasma creature. Normal plasma creatures can only move around at sublight speeds, at most reaching 1/10 impulse. But intelligent Plasmids can 'make' ships out of remains of other plasma life forms which can reach warp speeds. Their structure (both the life forms and ships) are very weak, having very little substance, but they are mostly transparent to directed energy weapons. explosives can affect them but they excel at generating defensive energy shields which can be incredibly hard to break down. Plasmids themselves can generate streams of plasma they can use as weapons themselves and their ships can generate fusion torpedoes as well as advanced Magnetic Ripper beams that tear solid matter apart at the atomic level. These creatures thrive only in the photosphere of stars and indeed need this environment to 'build' their ships or to reproduce. They can exist in space but prolonged contact with solid matter would kill them or degrade their ships structure so they have no interest in planets of any kind.

Igneoids:
The Igneoids are vast slabs of semi crystaline rocks. They are not a 'silicate' life form as we know it, but instead seem to exist as a form of mineral growth within a silicate/carbonacious substrate. The crystal growth intermingles and creates very complex pathways for light which can in turn stimulate or hinder other growth. The light carries thought within the creature so in effect it can reshape it's own body by thinking about it... although rather slowly. They can ride magnetic fields and intensely focussed fields can even form some kind of continuum fissure, a short cut through space far faster than conventional continuum drives of any kind, though shorter ranged. They feed off rock and minerals on planets and given their size this can be devastating on any habitable world. They seem however to feed on any non-gas giant world rather than specifically hunting down life bearing planets. When they land and begin to feed the planet will be severely affected in climate and in the level of vulcanism. When they finally leave the world will likely be much the worse for wear. Their skin is incredibly tough and their sheer size means they can absorb enormous amounts of damage before dying, but they also can project huge shards of stone and near light speed towards something they percieve as a threat. The damage these shards do cannot be understated! It is debatable whether these creatures are sapient or not and there are conflicting reports on their behaviour that confuses matters even more.

I'm in favor of a pre-First-Contact Borg replacement, i.e. minimal and - if tried - frustrating diplomatic contact, i.e. you can try to offer them NAP but get in turn a rise of their fleet and/or ships heading towards your homeworld in return (alien kind of humour ).

As for multiple descriptions for one race depending on first, second etc. contact, well I'd suggest a small one like "unfortunately up to this point we were not able to gather information about the society and goals of this lifeform. We might have to wait until it reveals its intentions or intelligence sources around the galaxy are able to obtain qualified information from other sources". Then after the monster race has attacked or invaded a world, this description will automatically be replaced by the full one (happens with all players then because rumours will quickly spread around and the race is known then before first contact).

a slow firing and devastating weapon is already implemented, the proton cannon (one minor space-faring race has got it, I don't remember which one however).

I like the idea of the continuum fissure.

When the "follow" command for ships is implemented I had the idea to allow spae monsters to gather directly with your fleet (happens when you got "co-op" or alliance status with them) so you can directly move them around as if they were a ship of yours. But they would only follow ships of your fleet, not hyperspace communication so you have to deploy at least one ship and try not to loose it while navigating your space monster around .

Sounds good, and would it be possible for some means (either diplomacy, research or just enough incidents) to improve either firepower or defense against the uber-monster race? I'm just thinking of the feel of the series. The federation was seriously under powered against the Borg and slowly got better, not just overall in tech, but specifically against the Borg. Some stuff was general purpose (designing the Defiant) but I was thinking of a way to counter just that monster race and not make them uber powerful against other major/minor races.

we have the special tech area so I can ask SirP what he thinks of it. Maybe a tech that improves weapon power specifically against alien/unknown ships (each of them, not distinguishing which race) or to have a continuous percentage increase on fire power against space monsters from the time on you meet them, i.e. when you have met monster 1 at turn 20 and monster 2 at turn 80 but developed anti-space-monster-special-tech at turn 50, you have a certain x% advantage on fighting monster 1 but a y<x % bonus on monster 2 and x and y are increasing overtime without the need to allocate extra research points on it. Have to think about it.