On Discord this evening, Frogboy suggested that he wants ideas for a scavenger race that the newly proposed Scavenger ship belongs to:
(Brad)
"The art team hates me.
Because it means we'll ahve to add a new ship.
That scavenges.
So you guys need to come up with a new race."
So as a result, I've come up with a rough submission to fill this scavenger role.
Name: Martakeelan Corporation
Homeworld: The Flotilla (Unknown)
Genus: Unknown (Biomechanical in nature)
Physical Description: As the Martakeelan are not a single race, there is no real uniform appearance for any single member. Typically, the Martakeelan are so heavily mechanically modified that they might as well be chrome-domed robots. Some are wearing simple headgear that takes over their higher functions, while others may be a living tank. Some have multiple tentacles and other limbs from their previous bodies still tethered to their shells, while others are mostly internally replaced.
Story:
Eons ago, the Mar of Martak (Beta Glycinis IIa) nuked themselves into oblivion. That sucked. However, some survived. These survivors were augmented miners, laborers, farmers, all professions that got dirty and worked with their...claws. Their augments saved them, and so with little else to hold onto, the Mar built a new culture centered around the maintenance and worship of their cybernetic augmentations.
Of course, this new culture demanded the use of all available scrap. Technology only progressed so far as to improve the Mar’s ability to build bigger and better augments. This meant one of two things would happen every time they encountered a new neighbor: They either destroyed them and scavenged the remains for scrap, or they traded augment technology for parts. As they continued this practice, those too weak to defend themselves would be assimilated into the culture, and those who resisted were slagged.
Soon, the Mar met the Eelan, a mercantile race who perchance experienced a similar nuclear holocaust. Eelan, however, elected leaders based solely on how many augments they possessed, and how physically large they were. This appealed to the Mar, and the two soon merged to become the Martakeelan Corporation.
Over the next several thousands of years, they conquered and consumed hundreds of civilizations, and their nomadic fleet grew into a flotilla so immense that it generated its own gravity well. Small planets began orbiting the flotilla, one of which had a race of stone age primitives developing on it.
Recently, scouting parties of the Martakeelan Corporation arrived in the local region of space to search for scrap-rich worlds and civilizations. Anyone and everyone is fair game to them, but they might be willing to part with a few of their ships or components for the right price.Mar:
Eelan:
Ship:
Martakeelan Prospector
24 crew
20 energy
Medium size, low speed, high turn rate
Generates 1 energy every 3 seconds
Primary: Scrap gun: Fired in a wide (but short) cone in front of itself, the scrap gun is a nuisance to anyone unfortunate enough to be hit by it. (5 energy per shot, adds force to the victim, pushing them back, 1 damage per pellet. Fires 5 tiny projectiles in a cone.)
Secondary: Scavenge: (Brad):“Based on type, provides a fleet buff upon collecting.” (Pretty sure this means asteroids/nebulas/ship debris/ etc each provide different buffs)
The secondary could be a "space scoop". So the ship would have some kind of big opening at it's front. In the lore you could say that it has some type of "gravity wave" that draws nearby things into the "scoop". This makes some kind of vague sense as a means of collecting almost anything (like asteroids, nebula, ship debris, etc)... as long as you don't think it through too much
I posted a similar idea to discord, so I'm just going to piggyback on yours rather than create a new one that's very similar. My text was this:
> The scavenger race should TOTALLY be a machine race. No lip syncing required because they're machines; there are no machine races currently so that's cool; they scavenge because they need the parts to build up their bodies as well as their ships; gives a good excuse for one of the scavenge fleet bonuses to be extra crew because you build them.
I hadn't come up with a race name and ship etc yet, so I'm happy with yours. I like your ideas in general although I think the race should have "evolved" past the need for bioparts and be entirely machine based now, since we don't have that yet in SCO and it's cool and there's absolutely no reason for it to be remotely bipedal or have two eyes. It makes SO MUCH SENSE for a scavenger race to be a machine race, to the extent that I already can;t envision it being anything else. @Frogboy - please!
Also, when the ship model is built, it needs to totally look like it's been built out of entirely spare parts and not be sleek or elegant looking. Sticky-outy bits and maybe even bits that are visibly obviously parts of other ships tacked on, etc.
Ooh.
Thought.
SInce we're all about the rock/paper/scissors, and because this is otherwise a fairly weak ship given the weak primary weapon, how about it it's good at scavenging physical projectiles? Like Kavic's suggestion of a ram scoop - energy attacks and so on hit the ship as normal, but physical projectiles can be scavenged if the ship times the scavenge secondary at the right time - this provides a great foil to the Earthling Cruiser which is otherwise still pretty OP - if you time it right you can scavenge the nuclear missile (and the zapsat's from whoever those guys are with zapsats; name eludes me right now). Suddenly making an otherwise weakish ship situationally a bit better.
I haven't been able to play it much yet, but yes, the Earth ship's missile is retrograde heaven in this game;-)
I assume I am not missing it somewhere... the BETA is offline only and it doesn't have gamepad support yet, right?
I kind of suck at these games with the keyboard, so it's hard for me to play it well right now. In this kind of game there are gamepad players and keyboard players, and I am definitely a 100% gamepad player. I really suck with the keyboard.
I like the idea of the primary. Can imagine the secondary buffs varying from fuel or crew replenish (replicants), speed boost, bigger scrap pellets.
Feels as they are the tech equivalent to the Melnorme. Instead of giving info on rainbow worlds, you provide location on annihilated civilisations in exchange for credit. This could be used as a double edged sword in the game - as more and more information is provided to the Martakeelan then the sector becomes a more viable investment for the flotilla to target. Easy early game gains for the player, but potential pain late game as you have to deal with larger scavenger fleets (sped up if you share too much data). Could it a 'big bad' in a future expansion?
Adding to the back story - I would add they must love Precursor kit. It could be part of the justification on why they have entered this part of space, perhaps considered rich in Precursor scraps.
Yeah, I like that. Makes them a great should-I-or-shouldn't-I because cluing them in on good scavenge sites is valuable, but makes therm stronger (as you said). Plus, you really don't want them to come across juicy precursor artifacts before you do. Obviously you need to be able to ally with them so you can get scavenger ships as well (to improve your own fleet via scrap) but how much/how far will you ever really trust the ships in your own fleet when you know the main scrap civilization is out there in the galaxy getting more and more powerful (in part thanks to you).
Don't we already have a machine race (the Synth)? The scavengers don't have to be a machine race.
^ We do have dumb Drenkend (Skryve muscle) that like to mod themselves already...
Hmm the initial concept seems okay but they seem to be missing in depth in a few aspects primarily:-What does their dialogue sceen show? Since most of them look different from eachother it would seem weird to see the same ones multiple times.-What is their deeper motive? You haven't exactly stated it is hidden but at this rate it sounds like they just want to become rich using business-What is their personality like exactly? Since this will be what drives most of the dialogue with them.-What makes these creatures truely alien from us? Or are they meant to be a reflection of our future selves or something along those lines?
?/10 would like to know more first.
Synths aren't playable or present in the game as far as we know.It's not up to me what their dialogue screen shows. We have several canon races that have multiple phenotypes that aren't a problem (Drenkend, Trandals). They only want scrap and Precursor scrap. That's it, that's their entire motive, and while it's shallow, I don't think it's necessarily out of place for Star Control. They're willing to acquire it peacefully through trade, but they are shrewd negotiators. Personality should be somewhere between the enigmatic Melnorme and the unscrupulous Druuge, but keep in mind that their entire MO is scrap and parts, so there should definitely be lots of discussions involving expressing the desire to augment not only themselves, but the captain and other residents of the local region.As for the last question...really? Like, what part of them doesn't seem alien to you?
It might be that I've gotten too used to all these alien races. But the best races from SC2 had something that made us question what makes us special as humans. Like the scary thraddash that end up being a joke or the ugly Vux that thin we look disgusting.
I can see them cracking jokes for some reason!
This is excellent.
Here are the Crazies! the races that make up the "Martakeelan Corporaton"!
They are fun, they have fun
Heh!
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