Continuation from jubjub15's theme.
This is just some postulating! Instead of moral to keep the Yor happy (seeing as machines even sentient ones shouldn't need to be happy)why don't we give them the need for power. You know to keep their empire running efficiently. If they start running low on power or their power source their so called moral would start to dwindle. So some of their tech lines could research new ways for power production. This could even lead into different races having different mining resources. i.e. I know we have different planets why could we not have different types of steroids which when mined would produce different commodities. This would make the asteriod race a bit more specific, and during war times the races would have to protect their mines a bit more than they do now. heck the Yor's final research tech could be a machine or starbase that is able to directly draw unlimited power from the sun giving them the ultimate so called moral boost but a ripper of a boost to military as well.
On the research area; even though they are sentient machines they woulds still not be able to actually think up new stuff so much as to gather information. This of course would make them obviously like the Borg or the replicators. Thus the Yor would have to conquer planets to get most of their technology. To help them be on an even par with the other races, they would get maybe three techs from conquering a planet. This would make for a very different game play when facing the Yor as in if they really got going they could be a very big threat (as they should be) so players would have to watch very carefully to not let the Yor get a too strong a foot hold in the galaxy.
All this would obviously have to be balanced. Hope you enjoyed my two cents worth!
Yes, I like that.
Perhaps energy could be replaced with something else for the Thalans.
It's stupid for Thalans to have morale, what are they going to do if they get mad? They would die off without a queen. Speaking of the queen, does one come with each colony ship? That would be a tad dangerous if another queen was hanging around. If that happened then I could see that happen. Unless even the quuen doesn't have sentient thought, which would make sending a queen feasible. I guess you would need a hive mind like the Zerg have to have a intergalactic hive race.
The Thalans in my opinion, are the twins of the Torians. They are like ants, which have a large population. The
Driver ants(AKA Siafu) of Africa can have
20 million ants in one colony. The Thalans should have enourmous numbers and be unmatched when it comes to being industrious. A hybrid of Torans and the Yor--one badass race.
The Thalans could be a truely unique race if stardock does it right.