The thing about the research speed increase came directly from their lore, with the 'as the number of infomorphs grew their ability to process information left by the TITANS increased exponentially resulting in the discovery of several schematics for TITAN technology'.

I figured it would be a fun way to implement it actually in the game. I was originally thinking of suggesting it as a population number increase, but it would dramatically unbalance the race if Maelstorm style RingWorlds are added into play. Plus culture is already mostly coded for.

The silly ideas were just something that I thought were funny, and not really meant to be taken seriously. Bit more like an easter egg, though that's always an idea for when Rebellion comes along. One faction wanting to wipe out humanity, the other wanting to assimilate/live along side them.

And while stealing a cap ship is a little nonsensical, I just saw it more in the light of mass assimilating the crew or something. Meh, I don't know, I'll go read that book again. And also, with the weapon hacking thing, you'd be surised how effective it would be. Military equipment isn't always hardwired enough to allow for a quick override, especially when your dealing with factions like the TEC and Hyper Corp, which are built by the lowest priced company/hastily converted.

Then you get to a species like the Vasari who are running like hell. 

Technically for Archailect fluff, if I'm getting this right, the reserach boost would be a heck of a lot more then just more minds. Note that I'm getting this based off other sources then Zombie himself, but have you ever considered the true effect of exactly what we are looking at with a purely digital conscious. Frankly, the Archailect concept scares the crap out of me far more then any other race. Even the Plage doesn't scare the crap out of me as much as the Archailects. If Sins had a campign type thing, the Archailect would easily work as the grand enemy/final boss faction. Yes, they make the Plague look weak in comparison. 

Rather then with the other species, Archailect would never be in any direct risk of death short of wiping out every single possible computer in their network. Their ships would be faster, stronger and better armed, due to not needing lifesupport or other such organic matters. The excess space would easily be used to harden all their systems and similar to prevent EMP. rather then doing anything as clumsy as piloting a ship, they could simply use one as an avatar, effectively becoming the ship, and it literally being their body. No clumsy human reactions or targeting, they simply upload a targeting program and start firing, with the reactions of a computer. Or they upload programs/data on fleet management and stratergy/tactics. Which they then amend through experience and share with other commanding minds.

By why stop at just ship. With enough processing power, they could inhabit an entire fleet. An entire fleet of perfectly co-ordinated warships, with no chance of disagreement or mutinous thoughts. And unlike the traditional hivemind of things like the Plague (who based off their source material, I can see their leaders trying to constantly screw each other over). each Archailect is a fully independent and free thinking mind. So if they begin to adapt to the targeting protocols of one Archailect and come up with software to jam their controls, they can simply switch fleets with another one. Ten seconds later (which is likely to be an eternity to them) and both fleets have completely changed their tactics and operating systems, rendering the counter measures almost useless.

This is of course ignoring how their thinking is only limited by amount of processing power available to them, meaning that you have information being worked on and technology progressing in a logarithmic fashion rather then a normal. The scariest part about them however is not their technology, or stupidly well coordinated fleets/weapon systems. The scariest part comes down to two things: The Archailect that just totally destroyed your fleet might only be using two to three percent of his processing power to do so (ie he squashed without really realising it) and that they very very sincerely wish for you to join them, freely offering a gift of immortality. Which means you never know when one of your military staff might defect and deliever to them the specs of every ship in your fleet.

Note that a lot of this might be out of reach of the actual Archailects, depending on what Zombie decides their deal is. Even more of it either wouldn't be balanced for in game use, or is just unimplementable. Anyway, here are some practical ideas now that I wrote all that stuff off to put my thoughts to paper. It is also not including things such as splitting off copies of themselves to use as intelligence viruses or similar, or even brute force hacking.

Strength in numbers: While each individual ship in the Archailect fleet might be average in comparison to everyone else (they might trade on weapons and armour for larger amounts of computer hardware/power... perhaps that could be worked into the lore, with Minds running ships in exchange for extra processing power.. it could be limited due to the war or similar anyway) when linked up, it allows them to share excess power or programs, making each ship benefit the others in some way (ie each scout in the system might slightly increase the range of weapons, each siege ship might increase bombardment damage) Might give them a reason to bring frigates and such along, rather then just rely on their infinite exp gaining capitals.

Or perhaps since they don't need to worry as much about crew, the Archailects could just use more 'sucide ships'. Or their weapons might get stronger (+.01 or similar) for every enemy that they kill, to reflect better targeting protocols or more efficient weapon designs that get examined. Doesn't sound like much in the short term, but after battles that can drag on for ten+ hours and the crap load of ships and such that can be dragged into them and used as meat shields, it could lead to quite impressive boosts.

A similar system could be used for defensive structures as well, possibly making them an incredibly hard defensive nut to crack. Or possibly the bonus's could be empire wide rather then system wide at the final level of research. After all, one turret that shoots for one damage is a joke. Ten turrets that shoot for ten damage isn't that bad. But when you get to things such as fifty turrets doing fifty damage each, or one hundred turrets that shoot for one hundred damage each, you have a problem.

Would also help to differentiate them, being a race built for long term battles and turtling, rather then quick zerg style raids with weak ships

Another Idea I had for rogues or hypercorp may or may not be implementable, but perhaps instead of getting damage or antimatter from things in their culture, perhaps they drain resources or similar. Something along the lines of 'Increased funding for mercantile operations has lead to our operatives opening up cut price retail outlets on planets covered by our culture.' Then againt the idea of Vasari eating at Macdonalds just cracks me up.

Actually my favourite of Zombies races at the moment are the Plagued or the Rogues. Rogues because everyone likes being pirates and the Plagued because it makes me feel like a full on goatee and beard twirling bad guy. I mean, half the time you are swearing at your ships being useless gits that resemble a plate of bloody stakes when surrounded by lions. Or that you are surrounded by incompetents. The other half of the time your cackling wildly as the enemy thinks he has you outnumbered, only to realise that your tiny fleet is actually eight of the colony capital ships that begin pumping out an absolutely stupid amount of disposable frigates to spit at your enemies.

Just a suggestion for the next build, but perhaps you should make it that those frigates can't phase jump. Its rather unfair for the opponent when you start spitting out 24 Beliel to jump over and invade every few seconds,

This is true. Archailects are still human but have digitized their existence. Their main gripe against humanity is many infomorphs are enslaved in their digitized state. Infomorphs are not the same as an AI, though I will be using one of the theories on how a seed AI can develop from uploaded infomorphs with their final pact.

Ya, they get the logistic slots and orbital resources, but earn very little tax revenue.

Rogues are the only race I've given the ability to steal a capital ship with and it. It requires a level 6 Blue Arcadia with Harpoon and you have to be able to take the ship without taking damage yourself.

Plague has the ability to infect frigates gaining control and Rogue have the ability to incite Mutiny on frigates.

Rogue also has the ability to steal any extractor with it's Carrier though it needs some reworking to make sense.

I was planning on turning them into an alternate starbase type. If stardock can figure out how to get the AI to build superweapons I may change my tune a bit. But I think the starbase type might work pretty good.

They'll still be humans, but they more than any other Transhuman faction have embraced the idea of living digitally. Rogue's prefer modifications to their human body. Hypercorp's promote any style of transhuman upgrades from genetically engineered offspring to Bio or Synth-Morphs.

I wanted the concept of growth based ships for the Plague. It just seemed natural that a Plague capital ship would slowly level up as well. The rate at which the level could be tweaked though.

This is true, though their experience per kill will be spread across multiple capital ships. I kinda like the idea of more turtling slower expansion versions the quick hits of Plague or Rogue. Though a lightly defended system should have issues with even a few Archailect vessels.

Also, the ships don't need to be indestructible as the crew is always redownloaded to the new ship. Makes for an interesting dynamic when you are less concerned about losses to your crew...

Anyone can beat me, I'm not really that good. Its a shame that most of my ideas would break the engine... *mutters darkly about random stuff.

And I don't consider it abuse. I merely consider it good fun to launch an attack with the infamous kekekekekekeke. Though the ships not being able to hyperspace in order to prevent the swarm, capture and repeat rush would be good *thinks he got up to about 100 belial at one stage*. Though it would kind of screw you over if that weapons incerase idea for Infomorphs came in.

Hehe, i pretty much only use cap ships, i have feelings for my ships and usually give them own names, and if they die the population grieves and i build a new ship with either same name II or some other twist of the old name so that it continues to live on -in a way.

Well now and then i use huge fleets, but when playing vs only say 2 hard AI's i just turtle on 1-2 planets and level up all my cap ships. I guess i am going to like archailects, but right now i feel most inclined to play hypercorp i must admit, i enjoy their ship design and general flavour, although in my world they are a somewhat benevolent company with standards.

My concept is really to add new races that mesh with the Sins universe but don't feel like rehashes of the vanilla races. This can be accomplished a lot of different ways from visual differences in models, unique research trees and abilities, etc.

I've written basic lore or background for each race and won't go much further on them. The vanilla races have a fairly simple lore too and I think it works as you can make up your own story to fit the game at that time.

So it's really about how the theme of the race influences their ships, research, abilities, etc. The game also has a fairly preset mechanic to fit into when it comes to roles, damage types, etc that need to followed. You can skirt around some of this but to achieve balance and make playable AI for new races it's important to keep this in mind.

Specifically, The only races that aren't known yet are hypercorp and archailect as they are unreleased. Their theme is still being developed so it is much more malleable than the already released races.

Some things I've already decided is Hypercorp has access to advanced sciences from nano-technology, to psionics. This kindof makes them a jack of all trades which will be reflected in their ships, research trees and abilities. Hypercorps should be considered leaner entities too, so I would think their ability to expand might be quicker, though I'm not sure I envision them being a rush type of race.

Archailects have access to technology not conceivable by humans including their ships and abilities. I'm planning on giving Archialects access to Singularity based abilities as their theme. I haven't decided if nano-technology will play a role in archailects yet or not. I don't have a research tree designed for Archailect yet.

On the side...

The way I envision Archailects starting out is really pissed off infomorphs starting out for revenge against humanity. This requires an expansion and build up. Eventually the Archailects have an empire and start to look at themselves as the rulers of baseline humans, possibly adding a select few to their ranks, but ruling over the less worthy (mid-game). Late game, the Archailects see themselve as gods and look to protect their immortality by wiping out anyone not willing to worship them.

Of course this is just one way I might look at them.

Exactly, I don't want to spin too much up into the lore because of this.

Even the plague could splinter with a set of Vampires becoming concerned about their existence, or seeking more of a co-existence with humanity (Rebellion maybe... I'm just not sure what Rebels/Loyalists really means to the game yet).

In fact all the races in sins are fairly amoral in their background making it easy for them to be viewed as good or evil. And the victor ultimately defines this in the end

I'm thinking this would make a nice tactical structure that could be built. I'll look through my models to see if I have something that would work for this.

Their culture center is more of a Quantum Communications device and they have fairly standard military, civic, trade and refinery modules.

I agree, I'm thinking if they used nano-technology it would be more as a side note to some of the stuff they do. I wanted something different for them though in terms of abilities which is where the Singularity themed stuff comes in.

Let me tell you restarting after taking a break is HARD

I need to finish the first iteration for the Hypercorp research tree and then put that out for some testing. I also want to build out a new combat mechanic for hypercorp that will be implemented as an ability to see if it's any fun.

As you pointed out each race needs something that differentiates it from the others. What I'm looking at is an ability that makes a Hypercorp combat frigates/cruisers more powerful the longer it engages in sustained combat. It may be implemented as a toggled ability similar to charged missiles that turns off when engines are engaged or as a buff that resets each time a new target is acquired.

It just seems scientifically reasonable if you aren't putting power into engines it could be used to increase energy weapon damage. I'm thinking this builds overtime until it peaks out is the basic idea. So it's not an instant buff but you get rewarded for the longer you engage in battle.

I'm just lazy and tired of people changing their names

alexrose has changed his name a dozen times now. I'm not updating his each time

Edit - You are removed.... (from here). There's still a credit in the readme. Thanks again for the particle effects. I'm looking at adding some more from your mode when i get a chance.

Ahh yeah i forgot abouth the power to engines part, your quite right there. It can fit anywhere then.

Good plague: We despise this existance, but we will try to make the best of it. Yes we are ugly, yes we are undead, but we are still sentient and we are in control of our urges, not the urges in control of us (if they have any, thinking the jolly ol vampire for one) We no longer want to take over the galaxy and spread our curse around, we just want to be treated according to whats inside our heads not by the way we look, all too often people just want us for our good looks. Cant they just appreciate our personality. <cough cough>

Another issue zombie, that may or may not be just me: the harpoon attack of the rogues, i have always found it hard to use properly when you have a fleet of ships. If i recall how it works, you have to take down shields first then fire the harpoon and then it takes a while before the ship becomes yours. The problem as i recall it, is the rest of your ships blowing up the targeted capital while waiting, its hard to micro an entire fleet, and even then it dont work, because ships have several weapon banks and will still fire at the harpooned vessel. Is there a key or somethhing that i could make use of to exclude the harpooned vessel from beeing fired at by my own ships? If there aint an easy solution, what abouth making it invulnerable to fire while the process takes place? Or just a hefty damage reduction, or what abouth actually making it friendly before the process is complete but unable to move/fire weapons etc. That would simulate that when the borders have entered the ship and are on the brink of taking it the enemy may target their own ship and blow it to smithereens instead of letting it be captured by the enemy.

If this is not a problem for others let me know how you handle it, cause i find it intolerable that my carefull taking of an enemy cap ship is wrecked by my own gun crazy fleet. Ill tell you there are going to be alot of pirates walking the plank after such an event!