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Hi Sheva, the system isn't broken - it's actually been designed this way by Dafedz, and is based on a large number of factors.

In respects to the Edo, they don't *need* ANY defense structures; the Edo Guardian is all the defence they need. On the other hand, canonically, the Gorn are a major galactic power; they have unique ship designs, control a large area of space, have their own colonies, have an interstellar trade network, and a large defense fleet. Combine this with the fact that they are technologically advanced, and you would expect them to have many defensive structures. We have tried to purposely show these traits in how the minor races are able to defend their systems.

The way the minor races are set up is explained in section 10 of the Races Page 1 area of Dafedz's Database. This is what it says:

Now for reference, this section of Dafedz's Database was written before I created the minor race generic defense structures - Dafedz hasn't yet updated it to take these specific structures into account. The structures that I created are:

Bunkers
Basic Shelters
Hardened Bunkers
Heavy Bunkers

Cells
Civilian Reserve
Resistance Cells

Defence Shield
Molecular Shield
Positron Shield
Gravitron Shield
Advanced Gravitron Shield

Anti-Ship
Minor Race Orbital Batteries
Tachyon Defense Grid

Air Response
Air Command HQ
Combat Grid
Missile Silo
Fighter Squadrons


Dafedz has assigned each of the minor races with particular traits that identify which generic types of structures they would be most likely to design and construct - the structures available to a minor race are therefore base don these traits, and i've given the minor race structures based on these traits. So this results in the minor races having mixtures of different structures, meaning every minor race will present unique challenges should anyone attempt to conquer them. Some races will be pacifists and simply allow you to walk over them. Others will throw weapons at you until you are dead. And others will design powerful shields to protect themselves with. This system not only makes the game more of a challenge, it also make sthe minor races more canonical in the way that they defend their systems.

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ALL of the minor races have their own special, unique buildings - thats the real point of them in the game.

...Unless you're referring to the generic defense buildings. Any minor race that doesn't have any generic defense buildings is set this way for a particular reason; either they don't need them (Eg. the Edo don't need any because the Edo Guardian is all the defense they need), they don't want them (Eg. the Mizarians are absolute pacifists), or their society hasn't advanced to the point where the concept of alien civilizations - let alone a war with such races - has necessitated the creation of defense structures against such occurrences (Eg. the Mintakans).

No one has ever asked whether the minor race special buildings should have requirements before; it was that way in BOTF, and I think most people expect it to remain that way. I accept that it is an unrealistic system though. There are certainly no programming barriers in implementing such requirements either - the minor race special buildings are trreated as any other. The only reason why these buildings don't have tech requirements is simply that none have been set.

Races that have multiple special buildings are those races that we have identified as being unique or important enough to need multiple special buildings. There is nothing as such that prevents all of the minor races having multiple special buildings. Or you could even have a system where players are forced to choose between a number of buildings - chosing one would obsolete the others and prevent you building them. Unfortunately there is a bug in the editor that prevents you from doing precisely this at the moment; the obsoletion system only works for structures that have *already* been built. If a structure has been obsoleted, it doesn't also get removed from the build list.

There are player experience issues behind adding multiple structures for each minor race as well. Each structure in the game requires a database entry. This entry contains all of the information about the structure - build costs, maintenance costs, tech requirements, a description, prerequisites, obsoletion lists, upgrade lists, and so on. This is a lot of information to process, and the more information that is added to the game the slower it will perform. The same thing happens with upgrades for buildings - the database considers upgrades as a separate building, so an upgrade requires a separate set of data, further adding to the size of the database. Adding one building won't necessarily result in a slowdown that the player will notice, but if you're thinking about upgrades for every special building, you're talking about 150+ upgrades, and adding all of those certainly could result in slowdowns.

Dafedz has created a database of all of the information relating to the game. You might find the minor race pages particularly useful because they contain information on all of their special structures. Have A Look

Oh, and just for reference, the Gorn already have two structures, the Gorn Trade Alliance and the Gorn Replicator Net, whilst the Vulcans also have two structures, the Vulcan Science Academy and the Vulcan propulsion Laboratory. They have two structures each because they are both known to be large galactic powers.

Err, wrong. I did. Actually, I commented on them NOT having...

Fine then. Sheva is only the second person to ask it vs the 4587 other forum users that haven't asked for it. The silent majority obviously don't want it.

Oh, right, I forgot you were in those 4587...
I also forgot that it's not that way in BotF. But wait, there's already a bunch of stuff that's not like it was in BotF... ah, whatever, those people who expected it to be the same will just have to live with it.

See? You're starting to get how things work around here now.