Racial Types and Tech

[Rho]

I don't see why the crab-material would be any different from the generic "Organic" material, in terms of game mechanics. As a race, the crab people might be interesting, but they'd likely require a very different tech system, possibly a whole new tech tree. As I've heard, there's not gonna be separate tech trees.

I like the idea of the crabs, but in the sense of being more like the Space Dragons - monsters. It's been proposed that the space dragons could be tamed/bred and used as weapons... Using space crabs could be a quick way of starting a colony - dump a bunch of crabs on a planet, let them build the basic houses, then go down and claim the empty shells once the crabs have died. In that sense, there's a tangible gameplay effect.

However, as a playable race, they're a little difficult to envision. How would they learn space travel? How would they adapt to technology? Why did the need for technology arise in the first place? I can see how big crabs could be modified to fit almost any FO purpose, but that's by another - playable - race.

[Tortanick]

If most ships are one crab in a huge shell, you couldn't start a colony with one guy.

In my opinion the Hermit crabs wouldn't be different from normal organic ships ingame

there'd still be a crew. The difference is that "kills crew" weapons would be able to kill the ship itself.

Ah right, I'd assumed with hermit crabs they'd be only one crab per shell. And wouldn't kills crew weapons be able to kill any organic ship?

[marhawkman]

If most ships are one crab in a huge shell, you couldn't start a colony with one guy.

In my opinion the Hermit crabs wouldn't be different from normal organic ships ingame

there'd still be a crew. The difference is that "kills crew" weapons would be able to kill the ship itself.

Ah right, I'd assumed with hermit crabs they'd be only one crab per shell. And wouldn't kills crew weapons be able to kill any organic ship?

Not necessarily, generally the ship would be a different species than the crew, and thus have different resistances.

Rho: Like I said it's a kinda whimsical idea. It's not necessarily that they GROW organic parts to their shells, they could put in other stuff too, maybe.

[Tortanick]

Well ships would usually be a different species to the crew, but kills crew weapons probably work on all species, since the race creators (and I agree) recommend against creating archetypes due to the difficulty of classification so why not have them affect the ships too, its a nice addition that makes organic ships unique.

[Krikkitone]

This does seem like another Interesting "Type" pick for a race (a "Type" pick being like MOO2's Government where you select one from a list rather than a 'how good are you at this' or do you have this ability yes or no)

so for each race pick

Picture [no points]
Environmental preference
Technology type
then All the various bonuses and Penalties

Another option is that rather than having it be a Permanent Race Pick, make certain techs more easily researched when youhave others...so the more Research Points of 'Metal' techs you have, the easier it is to research future 'Metal' techs

So instead of picking something that is a characteristic of your race, your just picking a certain tech to start with.