I have to check that with the inbred trait.
will fix it as soon I've found the issue.

Prometheans are different to the synthetic dawn machines: they are not various machine units commanded by one super machine intelligence. They are semi-intelligent robots with a few commanding units (leaders) which can make decisions themself. Neverthless, these leaders act individually (compare: Synthetic ascended species). In later game you can modify the prometheans with a trait that gives them a "soul" so that they are in fact "normal" species with a machine body. Means they must have (at least in mid-endgame) the possibilities to go e.g. spiritualist, xenophobe, etc etc.

Of course, it's not perfect that the prometheans have all the bio-techs, civics and goverments. E.g. a promethean democracy make absolute no sense on gamestart. But I don't have the ressource to create an entire promethean tech-tree, promethean ideas, ascension perks and so on.
Neverthless, there will be no randomized (AI) promethean factions on gamestart. If you RPing, just don't use "unfitting" civics etc; if you don't RPing, yeah, then it doesn't matter.

The first (unique) promethean portrait is basically the "vanilla" one. The other 6 (also avaible for machines) are just if a player want to create a customized promethean empire.

If you want to know more about the promethean lore, I would suggest you read the description of the premade promethean species & the describtion of the prescripted promethean traits (all species created with the class Promethean will get these on game start)

The matrarchal species has a special mechanic: they need another species to procreate (-> since femal only don't can become pregnant). If you pick a matriarchal Species, you NEED another species (syncretic evolution) or the "autogamy" trait. If not, no pop will ever grow (=game over).

Parasites need another species to "eat". As long a world is only inhabited by the same parasite species, they have to "eat" on their own (cannibalism), which is possible, but get a big mali on happiness and growth (only a few amoral individuals will feed on the own species). So yes, to play parasite I highly suggest to choose "syncretic species".

Otto Abnormalverbraucher původně napsal:

I see. So the prometheans have a play style closer to organic species. However, you might select Hive Mind as Authority form and basically end up with just the same, one super machine intelligence commanding all other machines that are basically just drones. Just started a round with a Promethean race to get an initial insight of the mechanics, and now I wonder, how does one build a Pandora machine on a colonized planet? Is it even possible or do I need to resettle the pops from my homeworld? It still does cost 50 influence so that's not an option in early game.
Well, I'd consider "matriarchal" as an unluckily chosen name as it doesn't transport the image of what the species actually are, or at least what I think they're supposed to. A self-fertile species is a hermaphrodite. A parasitic species may be anything as they're usually either already fertilized and lay their eggs or fetuses in the host or even already grown up upon infection. Matriarchy on the other hand is a social system in which the females hold the primary power over the males. I assume you were trying to get a mono-sex all female race like the Asari (I've noticed you didn't put them into the matriarchal category in your Mass Effect edition). I'd say one could call a hermaphrodite species as mono-sexual but then how would they set up a matriarchy? A parasitic species may very well set up a patriarchy, also humans could establish a matriarchy. I'd say the parasitic trait should simply be a trait that can be chosen for any species.
Now assuming we have a mono-sex all female race, how would they actually reproduce with the need of other species? I don't know, quick google search showed that there are species, in which the males hold no importance for reproduction, I might have a deeper check on that some other time. Too bad my girlfriend studies plant biology.

Last but not least, the way it currently is I'd force one of the two neccessary reproduction traits on the player instead of letting him choose neither nor and having already lost upon starting the game.

I might also be able to help out with translations or reexpress descriptions, as I found some more that seem devised unluckily. Now I'm not a native English speaker, either (an American friend of mine actually asked me whether I'm sure about that, lol) but my English is pretty fluent.

alright:

Promethean Hive Mind:
Posted this before: ...Neverthless, these leaders act individually (compare: Synthetic ascended species). In later game you can modify the prometheans with a trait that gives them a "soul" so that they are in fact "normal" species with a machine body. Means they must have (at least in mid-endgame) the possibilities to go e.g. spiritualist, xenophobe, etc etc....
-> so, no, hive ind is not an option

Pandora Machine:
You can't build a new pandora machine. Prometheans only "grow" on there homeworld.
Resettlement can be bypassed by focusing on robots (-> mechanist civic).
I know its a hard mali, but as written in the mod descr, this mod is mainly for RPing and not 100% balanced. Neverthless, even the AI can handle the prometheans without larger problems.

Matriarchies:
They are not self-fertile nor parasitic. They are in fact a female mono-sex species. And because there are only female, it is logical that they build up a matriarchy. Or do you think "female" would be a better species class name?! Kind of uncreative. And, to be honest, Matriarchy doesn't means that the Matres controls/have power over the Patres. ->"a system of society or government ruled by a woman or women." ->https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matriarchy
A system where females holding the power at a exclusion of men. If there are no mens, it is also en exclusion of men.

Mono-Sex species reproducing:
Trait Autogamy -> they are in fact hermaphrodites. Okay, in this case, matriarchy is possibly wrong since they are not real womans. But lol, freedom of creativity?
Trait parasite -> they lay their eggs into other lifeforms, these eggs become
fertilized by the blood/cells/what ever of the host species. Use your creativity!
Syncretic species -> basically the female-only species get some sperm of other species. Should be clear how. Okay, i could be funny to see a incetoid crossed with an humanoid, but a) why not, cmon, it's ficton & b) asari-like, child is always mother's species

Asari aren't in the matriarchy group:
compatibility issue. They are indeed in the ME group, but as soon you start the game, they get the matriarchy species class & trait.

Parasite should be availaible for all species:
arhm, it is. Haven't checked it out before complaining?

Forced reproduction trait:
Hmpf. Choose one of both traits or Syncretic Evolution Civic. If you don't want this, play another species. If you haven't choosed one of the traits nor the civic but didn't knew this is game over? read the trait descr after game startup. Use the brain and restart.

Translation issue:
This would be great. As I told, my english isn't the best. If you have any suggestions considering the localisation, please post them here: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/workshop/filedetails/discussion/812896318/152390648096586628/
I'm always looking for ideas for improvement.

Well, you *can* choose Hive Mind. Of course, you'd have to live with all the resulting implications but you're allowed to, and thus, you'll end up with a machine species ... basically.

I see. I usually have trouble keeping up with energy in early game so filling the colonies with robots is painful. Anyway, I'm not complaining about a tough difficulty.

No, I didn't. Sorry, my bad. It wasn't meant to be a complaint, though. More like a suggestion ;)

Well, I work in software engineering and you always have to assume the worst possible user (yeah, I know it's annoying). Use your brain is not user friendly, but hey, ultimately it's your mod and if you don't want to change anything, then don't. As said, I'm just making suggestions.

Alright, I'll see what I can do. By the way, as I'm a perfectionist and I don't want species to be sorted in improperly, I started creating new mods from certain species mods (mostly just changing the sorting and creating a predefined race if not existent already) and as I did I noticed that the Ascellian race has no facial variation. So I started to modify them slightly. When I'm done and they work properly I could send them to you so you could include them in your mod, if you like.

hm, yah, the hive mind thing. In the definite concept, the Prometheans are indeed a "machine intelligence" (better: a single command unit which operate as a de facto dictator) on game start. But there is a special ascension path for the prometheans, during which they get a "soul" and became a de jure full sentinent species, where each unit has it's own individuality.

Unfortunatly, the base game didn't give these options. I'm not aible to mod a ascension perk that changes the Authority/Ethics etc.

So I agree it's not perfect, but I think the current state is as near the my initial concept as possible.


About the balancing, yes, maybe the Prometheans are really the "worst" species to play with. But as you wrote, if you want to play a very easy game, it's maybe better to choose another species :)
Neverthless, I was once at war with a very big AI-played promethean empire - to conquer world can be reeeaaaaaly painfull since they have these imba ground combat boni. ;) so they are also not a "easy-to-exterminate" species :D


You totally right with the "WPU". What I initially had in mind, was that the species-class-specific traits are shown on species creation. This way, it would be much clearly that it's suicide to use them without the appropriate traits/civics. Unluckily, this is also a thing I can't change due the way Pdox has programmed the base game.
A alternate would be a tooltip which apears as soon you choose such a trait/species class (parasites, matriarchy etc), but again, this is not possible.
I could do a popup event on gamestart, which explains the mechanic as soon you enter the game, but this wouldn't change a lot (since on this stage, you've already made the species and have to make a new game).
I hope pdox will do soemthing here, since this would add a lot of possibilities to add alternate-gameplay-species classes.


About the sorting, I fell mostly the same. Neverthless, I have no idea how I should sort my species :D If you have any suggestion therefor, I'm open for it ;) (alphabetically maybe, but does this makes really a change?)


To be honest, I'm not sure about the ascellians. Haven't they a variation? I thought they did, but looks like I was wrong :D
If you have an edited version - and I think it would be fit the concept/style of my mod - I would really like to include it. Of course I would add you also the the (already long as hell ^_^) credits.

Yeah, the game assumes a single mind for all machines and doesn't account for autonomous units. I remember I once found a mind storage on a planet with the option to transfer the stored minds into robot-pops in pre-synthetic dawn vanilla game, effectively creating sentient machines. It didn't have much game impact and while they did become a race, they didn't become an empire. I'm also unsure as to how or whether they reproduced. This seems to go in the direction, though.

I understand the problem and while the game allows for authority and civics changes, I don't know whether it's possible to change the ethics.

I also don't think the AI has that much of energy problems like I do, honestly.

Hm, well, the game does allow for restrictions and shows a red text if you selected certain elements for your species that do not fit together. Like machines need the machine intelligence authority. Maybe that's a point to start, if you haven't tried it already. Show a red text if the user has selected a Matriarchal species and not one of the required traits, if possible.

I'm not talking about the sort order but the categories they're sorted in. Like, the Ascellians and Shemei basically being Humanoids and the Prometheans being machines. I do understand that Prometheans need a custom category due to the way they're supposed to be played, or else machine intelligence would have to be removed from the machines as requirement.
And now that I tried to include Ascellians into the humanoid category I learned that the gender is bound to the category, not the portrait, so trying to make a humanoid Ascellian sexless turns all other humanoids into sexless species. Dang. Looks like I do have to switch back to your solution with a custom category. Then I have to come up with a better fitting name than Matriarchal, though.

The only variation the Ascellians have is a different skin color tone but the facial features are all the same for the 5 "different" faces. I'm sure it would fit. The differences are rather minor, I just made small adjustments, like a different mouth line, more/less prominent cheekbones, different eye angles and such. It's well noticible in Photoshop where I adjusted the portraits, ingame slightly less, sadly but I won't do more prominent adjustments. Anyway, here's a link to them: http://www.share-online.biz/dl/LSP3EX0P09

Last but not least, to the translations. It's more than I expected but I'm still on it, just so you know ;)

hey, are you still here?
Somehow it didn't has shown that you've posted again.

lol, now it's long time gone.

The link you've posted is dead, but I still interested in your suggestions. Any way to reupload them?