I suggest that we add minor empires to Supremacy. We would upgrade a dozen minor races into minor empires. The change would be simple, minor empires would use normal empire AI, have a more rudimentary tech tree and only tech 5-6 max ships (Except in one or two cases, like the Borg, that could be implemented in this manner.)

This would be an important factor in the Delta and Gamma quadrants as they wouldn't be just minor harvesting ground and would remove that advantage to the Dominion player. Gamma quadrant would have one strong and two weaker empires, the strong would be the hunters and weaker some other two. In the same time the Alpha and Beta quadrants would have only two each of a weaker minor empire such as the Tzenketi empire, Ferengi alliance and the Tholian assembly.

Delta quadrant would have two strong and the Borg (tied in with the random events if implemented) which would make it an inhospitable quadrant, with two (if not assimilated races, they should be a counterbalance to the Borg and we would limit the Borg so that they don't spread trough the entire quadrant) The two other would be the Krenim and the Devore Imperium.

Alpha and Beta would have four powers battling for dominance, the ordinary minor races would all become extremely important since out of 12 only 10 would be memberable, other two (two in Alpha and two in beta Beta I mean) could be allied and would be a nuisance until TMP/TNG era, so tech 6-7, after that they would be as much threat as any other minor race. This would also make colonies very important trough the whole game.

Even with the option of turning off the quadrants, all those races would be counted in as major powers in out galactic generator (no change needed there) so the galaxy would be properly balanced in any form.

This would definitely attract players as it would be an unique feature and a definite upgrade to the concept of the original BOTF, delivering the expanding minors as promised and needing only slight programing update to the new game menu so that it hides them from selection (perhaps a tag <is_visible>0</is_visible> and the main game recognizing it as an order not to show the race in the selection menu)

I just ask that this idea isn't scrapped lightly since most of the work would have to be done in the data files and the art department, coding needed to make it possible wouldn't take much time and it would add a new and improved vision of the game and the Star Trek universe, a more diverse vision, one in which there is no truly minor race and in which you have to focus on more than just other 4 players (a big plus to the single-player game experience and a minor minus to multiplayer because all multiplayer games are high-end at which point those minor empire wouldn't make a big difference)

Sounds good

Also, we are having problems because we have only 13 Gamma quadrant species (12 + those that are supposed to be in the center of the galaxy) but there are actually 20 canon gamma species (one extinct - the Hur'Q, but we can bring them in the game if needed.)

This has been discussed at some length, and was in fact what I proposed as an alternative to expanding minor races (a feature originally planned but since scrapped).

The reasons why minor empires will not be included in the "official" game are the same as the arguments against expanding minors, which is why I proposed we ship "minor empires" as a mod included with the game. Apart from restoring some of the scrapped BotF2 features, it would be useful to ship at least one "officially sanctioned" mod to serve as a sort of reference to aspiring modders.

Ok, so mod it is.