Sub-Avatars/Alliances

posted on November 4th, 2010, 7:54 am

Here is an idea ripped off from Dune 2000.  Doubt the devs will buy into this because it crosses over a bit with existing avatar ideas, especially Dominion.

Those of you who have played Dune 2000 know that when you select your house (race) you can also select 2 sub houses to join with you, like an alliance.  Each house usually gives you two additional units you can build from a special building.  Eg: Fremen allows you to build a Fremen Camp allowing you to build standard Fremen and Fedyakin.

So, what if after selecting your avatar you then can select 1 sub-race to ally with which allows one or two additional ship types to be produced from a special sub-race yard.

To make it easy to develop, make it so that you only need to modify either a) your initial constructors, or b) have the starbase spawn a special ally construction ship at the start (loose it, you loose the ability to build the  special yard).

Advantages:
Additional customization options for each player.  Different tactical/strategic options.
Allow some of the planned non-playable races to become playable.

Disadvantages:
More work for the devs 
More balancing work for each side.

I would keep the alliances "realistic" unlike in Dune 2000 where you can ally Fremen with Harkonen, although I suppose its not beyond the realm of possibility to have some available to more than one race.  Eg: Vulcans could alliance with Romulans or Federation.  Cardassians could ally with Dominion (yeah, i know about FO lore) or Federation (consider like different timelines.. in one they kept good relations with Dominion, in other they ally with Fed to escape destruction).  Borg as usual would need to be handled differently as they at best only make very temporary alliances.

I presume this would be possible to mod in with the engine as it stands at the moment.  My Vulcan race mod is going nowhere at the moment because basically I can't be arsed and would rather be playing, but it was one of the reasons for this idea.

posted on November 4th, 2010, 8:18 am

Vulcans allying with the Romulans would be easy, they're the same species.


Far better, remove the mixed tech yards when allied, have the mixed tech version replace the standard, save the mixed tech yards for when you steal a builder.

Prehaps add additonal research as well, when allied with a race, related to what they would have to exchange.

posted on November 4th, 2010, 10:36 am

The problem is in Star Trek we almost never see "minor" races ally with the major ones (except every unimportant little planet wants to ally with the Federation, but even that never really adds anything technology or ship-wise to them).  And while the Vulcans are the same race as the Romulans, I can't see them leaving the Federation to help them.

From a gameplay perspective the entire Dominion avatar selection would have to be restructured, because it's based on allying with different races.

@Tok'ra: I believe mixed tech is getting an overhaul, though I doubt it will make the mixed tech yard the normal yard (imagine a 3v3 or 4v4 with 2 or 3 different races allied to you - that, following your suggestion, would be crazy).

posted on November 4th, 2010, 10:50 am

I say just make the mixed tech varriants researchable.

You research a varriant, each ship of that class may be sepratley refit with the additions from that tech.

So a defiant, rom and klin allies, you could research mines AND cloak.

posted on November 4th, 2010, 11:02 am

It'd have to be down to Avatar as to what alliances are possible. 

Taq might ally with Romulans.  Unlikely that Martok would barring another Dominion War style threat to everyone.

The Feds would theoretically ally with anybody who'd play by their basic rules, or who needs protection.  But for them, I'd think a better focus would be actively employing the smaller members of the Federation.  Like that race that is so skilled at strategic thinking that even the Klingons don't want to fight them.  Even though they haven't proved their skill in battle for so long that it's all purely anecdotal now.

The Romulans...that's trickier.  They're not real big on outsiders...you've really gotta bribe the hell out of them, or give them a phenomonal reason.

The Borg?  They ally with everyone...if you accept their definition of ally.  Assimilation makes for one big happy family, after all.  Except that happiness is irrelevant, and family is irrelevant.

The Dominion will ally with anyone who is willing to join them and submit to the divine sovereignty of the Founders.

From what I've read in the guide, the Iconians don't want Allies (though if they get cocky, everyone's gonna need them...nobody wants the Borg assimilating Iconian technology...or Ciadan tech for that matter.)

The Ciadan seem like they'd be fairly willing to ally with anybody who won't try to change them.  Or anybody who can fool them into believing that they won't try to change them...hello Romulans!

posted on November 4th, 2010, 6:22 pm

Well, just think of the possible alliances....

Andorians, Orions, Cardies, Bajorans, aned not to forget, Tribbles 

posted on November 4th, 2010, 6:28 pm

Andorians would likely only work with the Federation, or as mercenaries rather than a proper alliance.

posted on November 4th, 2010, 11:30 pm

Kllingons can't ally with Tribbles.

posted on November 4th, 2010, 11:39 pm

Tribbles? What's next a borgified Tribble or a 8472-Tribble?

Seriously, i didn't have enough hands for the number of facepalms when i saw those on STO

posted on November 4th, 2010, 11:40 pm

...They actually included Tribbles in STO?

posted on November 4th, 2010, 11:41 pm

...They actually included Tribbles in STO?

Cryptic Store | Star Trek Online Official Site

Just go down the list...

Tribble of Borg

Fluidic Space Tribble

posted on November 4th, 2010, 11:42 pm

I just searched and found this...

[Andre27]

posted on November 4th, 2010, 11:44 pm

Last edited by Andre27 on November 4th, 2010, 11:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Somebody clone me, i need the extra set of hands for those face palms.

Edit: OMG when i thought it could not get worse Tribble/rivera - Star Trek Online Wiki

posted on November 5th, 2010, 7:51 am

Andorians would likely only work with the Federation, or as mercenaries rather than a proper alliance.

Yes, as one of the founding members of the Federation they would definitely be Fed only.  However, we have rarely seen any Andorian ships, but some Ent Episodes had them, so we have a design.

Interestingly enough, I remember one tooltip from the BotF mod for A2 which says that the saucer design came from the Andorians.  ST:Enterprise does not show this, and search on Google never revealed any lore which backed up this statement, so where the guy who wrote this tooltip got the idea from I have no idea.  However, always possible it was a one line comment in some forgotten Star Trek manual that was later discarded.

I can't remember exactly which ship this tooltip was on, but I suspect it is the Vulcan ship with the round bridge section.

posted on November 5th, 2010, 10:29 am

There are a ton of races that could be brought in as Fed allies (most of their notable members) but the same can't be said for the other races (especially the Romulans and the Borg, not to mention a rework of Dominion avatars).  But even then, those races are already part of the Federation.  Why should you have to choose to ally with them when they are already part of you, no longer have unique ships (generally), and have probably influenced current Fed ship design?