The Fifth Race Quest

[Xilph]

Xilph Would you be willing to change the building of the bridge, to building a smaller bridge across the eastern river, leading to the Trinium Hatchery. This should help unite our hatcheries and be a valuable learning experience before we start on the much harder western bridge.

Click to shrink...

I'll say no, we're looking at least seven or eight turns at current rate before the creeps could unite so there is absolutely no reason to do it to unite the hatcheries. Hopefully we've got creep that grows on water before then as that is something I definitely want us to try for. We're also definitely able to cross it fairly easily as is too, given that we're hauling loads of trinium across it so ease of access isn't really a concern. That means everything comes down to whether or not getting a learning experience in before trying for the western bridge is more valuable, but I figure with how cheap drones are and how incredible useful crossing the river could be just going straight for that is probably better, given the relative sizes I don't actually think it would be worth too much either, if we can haul trinium across it the river is clearly fairly small or shallow so when compared to a 3km wide bridge we'll still be having to invent 95% of everything just due to it massively larger and thus requiring different construction techniques.

So yeah, basically I just don't think it's worth it.

 

[Daeth]

Fair enough.

[X] Xilph

 

[Walkir]

Hopefully we've got creep that grows on water before then as that is something I definitely want us to try for.

Click to shrink...

Creep growing on a river? I'd rather have us cover its ground and evolve a way for it to filter food out of the river. Maybe even other resources.

I always played the Zerg Navy on SB when it came to Zerg games. Or at least tried it.

Idea copied from there:

"Harvester Cloud: Creep Technique. Releases a massive swarm of small Plankton-sized zerg that are extremely effective at gathering DNA underwater."

Another game had creep tapping into thermal vents and similar.

 

[Xilph]

Underwater creep could work somewhat, I'm also thinking of the oceans though, they can easily be a huge portion of planets and growing creep on the ocean floor would be incredibly hard, but I'm sure we'll encounter something usable sooner or later. Maybe convert the oceans into giant breeding pits for fish for RP? Although that's pretty poor, we'll need some kind of plant probably, give the best resource input to output rates for sure.

 

[Walkir]

I'm down for another Zerg Navy indeed. Tie the creep to plankton (make it plankton?) and black smokers, that should suffice.

 

[SamPardi]

Xilph Each Hatchery comes with 0.56 if its built off the creep and then adds 0.5 to its particular satellite hive until the creep touches at which point it then contributes to the growth of the larger hive. The Lead hatchery was built off the creep at the beginning of the month, but by the end of the month the Primary Hive's creep had expanded to the point where they touched. So this is a kind of special case where it fulfilled one role when built, then took a second one by the time the next turn started.

The calculation for this turn's creep spelled out was - 2.63 (Last Turn) + 0.50 from Hatchery, +0.24 from tenements (0.08) = 3.37
Next turn's without any plan's modifications would be - 3.37 + 0.50 from primary Hatchery, +0.24 from tenements, + 0.50 from lead hatchery = 4.61 adjust that to account for overlap with existing creep and you get 4.7305

Okay so Unit Design!
So first off, you need the codex. Though you can pass on the buildings part.

Spoiler: Codex

Evolution Codex:

Queen Bio-morph Drone Biomorph "Hundling" Locomotion: Crawler Agile Quadruped Weapon: Work Claws Weapon: Attack Claws Weapon: Climbing Claws Weapon: Attack Fangs Weapon: Corrosive Spit Carapace: Hide Carapace: Tough Hide Ability: Detect Resource Vein Ability: Inject Larvae Ability: Creep Tumors Ability: Micromanage Ability: Predatory Senses Ability: Twin Upgrade: Retractable Claws Upgrade: Leg Muscle Overbuilding

• 
  Name: Queen
  Quality: Specialist
  Cost: 5 RP/1 Larvae
  Wounds: 5
  Defense: 1d6
  Locomotion: Crawlers
  Armament: 4x Work Claws
  Support: Large Sack (3 Abilities) - Larvae Inject, Creep Tumors, Micromanage
  A large and usually quite slow bio-morph. It has the ability to be armed with 4 Claw hard-points, but is best utilized for the large support sack that produces large amounts of energy to fuel support abilities.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Name: Drone
  Quality: Swarmer
  Cost: .33 RP/1 Larvae
  Wounds: 2
  Defense: 1d4
  Locomotion: Crawlers
  Armament: 2x Work Claws, 1x Corrosive Spit
  Support: Small Sack (1 Ability) - Detect Resource Vein
  The drone is the basic worker of the swarm. Their job is to find new resources and exploit them. They are also necessary to create buildings as their special genetics allow them to morph into any building you can support.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Name: Hundling
  Quality: Swarmer
  Cost: .25 RP/1 Larvae
  Locomotion: Agile Quadruped - Very Fast
  Wounds: 1
  Defense: Tough Hide 1d4+1
  Weapons: Attack Fangs 1d6, Attack Claws 1d6 x2
  Support Sack Small: Twin (Produce 2 units for the price of one. Swarmer only.)
  
• 
  Name: Crawler
  Speed: Fast/Slow/Very Slow/Glacial (Swarmer/Warrior/Special/Big Guy)
  Slots: 2x claws, 1x mouth/4x claws, 1x mouth/4x claws/4x claws, 1x mouth
  Special: Small/Medium/Large/Medium
  It's useful for some basic line troops but it's nothing special.
  
• 
  Name: Agile Quadruped
  Speed: Very Fast/Very Fast/Fast/Fast
  Slots: 2x claws, 1x mouth/3x claws, 1x mouth/3x claws, 1x mouth/3x claws, 1x mouth
  Special: Small/Small/Medium/Small
  Meant for straight up combat, the agile quadruped is fast
  
• 
  Name: Work Claws
  Damage: 1d4-1
  Not truly meant to be used as a weapon. These claws are meant for the less immediate needs of labor and work. Still they can be damaging in close combat.
  
• 
  Name: Attack Claws
  Damage: 1d6
  Claws significantly longer and sharper than work claws meant for tearing into the enemy.
  
• 
  Name: Climbing Claws
  Damage: 1d4+1
  Reinforced claw formations that can be used for attack or work, but mostly are made to survive the rigors of climbing sheer faces.
  
• 
  Name: Attack Fangs
  Damage: 1d6
  Strengthened teeth and fangs that can be used by the attacker to bite their enemy for damage.
  
• 
  Name: Corrosive Spit
  Damage: 1d4
  This is an early non-weaponized form. It's great for slowly breaking down things you need to break apart, not so excellent at killing the enemy before they kill you. On the other hand, it's always at least slightly effective.
  
• 
  Name: Hide
  Defense: 1d4/1d4/1d6/1d8
  A layer of leathery skin.
  
• 
  Name: Tough Hide
  Defense: 1d4+1/1d4+1/1d6+1/1d8+1
  A tough layer of leathery skin.
  
• 
  Name: Detect Resource Vein
  Allows this unit to detect resource veins even underground.
  
• 
  Name: Inject Larvae
  Inject more larvae into the hatchery allowing it to produce 6 more larvae this turn.
  
• 
  Name: Creep Tumors
  Lay out some creep tumors to increase the extent to which a hatchery's creep grows this turn.
  
• 
  Name: Micromanage
  Only available to Queens, Brood Leaders and Hero Units. Add another action to the turn.
  
• 
  Name: Predatory Senses
  Predatory Senses allow a unit to seek out enemies, track enemies, search for specific known chemicals, find heat sources and gives a much better chance of gaining initiative for your units should it come to a fight.
  
• 
  Name: Twin
  Only for Swarmers, sacrifice the use of your support sack for the ability to buy two for the price of one.
  
• 
  Name: Retractable Claws
  Gives a small bonus to initiative, and decreases diplomacy penalties from being armed.
  
• 
  Name: Leg Muscle Overbuilding
  Creature gains +1 to all attack and defense rolls, increases speed by one rank unless already very fast, increases burrowing speed by one rank if applicable.
  

Second off, you need Vespene Points. Every design has a cost in VP that is calculable from the simple formula, 1/5/10/20 + 1 per upgrade + 1 per ability.

However that assumes you want to create a new design. Certain creatures have special properties, like Drones being able to morph into buildings and Queens counting towards Queen only actions and decisions. In these cases you may 'change the loudout' so to speak by only changing weapons, carapace and upgrades for the low cost of 1VP + 1VP per upgrade. These designs are considered variants and any unit can have them.

So if you made a Schwerhundlisk and wanted one copy to have fangs and another to spit acid, that would only cost 1 VP to implement. However if you originally gave it 'Creep Tumors' since you intended it to guard hives anyways and then decided you wanted a variant with 'Detect Resources' and acid spit to act as a heavy miner that would cost the full design price. (20 VP for Big Guy, 1 VP for ability, +N VP for whatever else you add.) It goes without saying that changing locomotion or unit quality requires an entirely new design.

The reason for this is that it shouldn't cost too much to make something do what it already does but slightly better or slightly differently. while on the other hand if you're needing to a fill an entirely new role simply throwing the basis of that onto the existing design is going to cost enough to make you stop and ask yourself if you don't have any better options that might fulfill the role in a superior fashion.

So, let's walk through the process. In fact we'll walk through the creation of the Schwerhundlisk specifically.

With the intention of creating a unit intended to fight monsters on their own terms and win, these are the considerations and choices I'd make.

First up is the most basic decision: what quality of unit do we want? Unlike humans which have a lot of straight upwards changes where cost in RP and training time is the only difference, each of the Zerg qualities represent a very different intended purpose for the unit.

Swarmers are fundamentally disposable. In combat they take the early attacks so others can strike at the target unmolested. They are intended to be used in quantity and have prices and abilities that encourage using them en-mass. Quantity really is its own quality though as they excel in scouting roles and are often the fastest form for their particular method of locomotion.

Warriors are the actual meat of the fighting force. It's not a tragedy if you lose some but they aren't really 'disposable' either. In terms of size their small enough to be missed on a battlefield by blending with the crowds of swarmers and dangerous enough to make the enemy regret doing so. Sometimes they'll have more abilities to fall back on than your swarmers and their weapons are always much larger than their swarmer equivalents, this makes them dangerous and versatile while often more useful to have around. Warriors get a +1 to weapon die quality due to role.

Specialists tend to be similarly stated to the Warriors but are larger, a bit more bloated than lean. This can make them slower and they don't get a bonus to weapon quality. Instead they are the only form to have access to large support sacks. This sheer weight of utility and their tendency for filling special roles make them utterly indispensable to the Swarm though often not as fighters.

Big Guys are the anchors of the fighting force. Large, expensive and powerful in turn. They tend to be the slowest of their locomotion categories which can make them slow to enter battle, but when they do they make themselves felt. Their also the toughest, which they need to be since they stand out immensely drawing enemy fire to them like a magnet. Against organized armies they're often high cost to early loss especially if used poorly, but then again if your enemy has tanks they may be your best option. They get +2 to die quality on attacks due to their size.

Since it needs to fight on the level with a monster, and will usually have some swarmer support to make losing them unlikely, our best choice here is the Big Guy category. They can fight one of the monsters on even terms and create those difficult openings needed for lesser units to exploit a critical weakness.

That's 20VP to the cost. Normally this would immediately turn me off, but our first Big Guy design is -10VP so that makes the cost reasonable for this turn.

Next we decide our locomotion. The Crawler is the one we started with but their Big Guys are glacially slow. As a locomotion type its intended for workers and specialists, explaining the medium support pouch. Also its claws are on manipulator arms which may later be combined with all sorts of weapon types. The Agile Quadruped on the other hand is much faster at the cost of that support. Also its claws will only ever be capable of being claws since the legs their attached to are fore-legs necessary for moving the body properly.

For now there's no significant difference in weapons so its really a choice of do we want speed or another ability. Speed gets us better initiative in combat and gets us to distant combat more easily where as our ability choices are a bit stacked towards support at the moment. So ultimately I decide on Agile Quadruped. Besides, with proper upgrades to the design later there is a chance it may mutate to have more limbs or something similarly awesome.

Defenses at the moment we only really have Tough Hide so that's an easy choice. (which replaces Hide for any unit made moving forwards.)

Weapons are also an easy choice. Its a bit big to be climbing and its really meant as an attack creature. If climbing is necessary a swarmer with those claws can probably be used to bait the target out to a better fighting area anyways. So Attack Claws x2. Plus the tail slot which we fill with another Attack Claw. Spitting acid is nice but its not really a combat tool just yet. It would be nice for variety, but for the moment Attack Fangs just gets us the better roll straight up.

Wounds are probably the biggest point of straight up judgement call. It's most complicated on the small end since you need at least 1 wounds and can safely go up to two on a swarmer, but wounds are your most direct tie to RP. Hundlings have 1 and cost 0.25, drones have 2 and cost 0.33. As a rule of thumb a swarmer RP should form a whole number at 12 and should have 1 or 2 wounds, 3 at the far outside of extreme toughness. Warriors are hardest as they generally have from 2-4 wounds and should cost about 1 RP +/- 25%. Specialists and Big Guys are much easier. The rule of thumb is they should be 1 for 1 with Specialists in the 4-6 range and Big Guys in the 6-12 range. (Winged One go ahead and adjust your design up to four wounds to comply with this. My bad for leading you astray earlier.)

Now we want it tough but we don't want to break the bank on something that we stand a serious chance of losing in a fight, so we'll split the difference and go with 8 Wounds. For a base RP cost of 8 RP as well.

Now we get to the support abilities. In this case we have a Small Support Sack because of our locomotion. Since we only get one ability, I'll go ahead and pick the Predatory Senses ability since it increases my chances of winning initiative against monsters and lowers the chance of getting ambushed. Remember this is because its intended to be an offensive combatant. Other abilities may go better with other roles, but in this case I think ability and role complement each other well. Since we've picked an ability that's one more 1 VP. You are allowed to not pick any abilities at all, but it isn't recommended.

Finally we get to upgrades. Retractable Claws don't seem especially useful to our combat build, though it does assist in sneaking around for that initiative bonus... Let's add it just so we don't regret not having it later. Leg Muscle Overbuilding on the other hand is awesome. It makes us faster, greatly increasing our combat range, and makes us defend a bit better and attack a bit harder. What's not to love? That's 2 VP to our design cost. Upgrades also cost 0.25 VP each when building the unit, so now our unit costs 0.5 VP to build.

Put it all together and you get this unit card:

Schwerhundlisk

• 
  Name: Schwerhundlisk
  Quality: Big Guy
  Cost: 8 RP, 0.5 VP, 1 Larvae
  Locomotion: Agile Quadruped - Very Fast
  Wounds: 8
  Defense: Tough Hide 1d8+2
  Weapons: Attack Claws 1d10+1 , Attack Fangs 1d10+1
  Support Sack Small: Predatory Senses
  Upgrades Installed: Retractable Claws, Leg Muscle Overbuilding (Effects already shown.)
  
  
  
  

This is then added to the next turn in the Build-Up phase as:

[ ] Buy Design: Schwerhundlisk
(Cost: 23 VP unless first Big Guy researched, then 13 VP)

Allowing planners and voters to decide if they really want to go with the design proposed.

Addendum:
Die Quality levels: (Because of the roller I'm using I can't do really odd ones like 1d7 so there's actual discrete jumps here.)

1. 1d4 A workman's tool
2. 1d6 A sturdy spear
3. 1d8 A Great Cat's claws
4. 1d10 Armor piercing bullets
5. 1d12 A Ma'toc staff blast
6. 1d20 A staff cannon blast
7. 2d20 Standing on-top of C4
8. 3d20
9. Nd20 Starship Main Weapons

 

[Walkir]

Wow, awesome beast. We should build that once the steel upgrades are completed.

SamPardi, what would you (and Myrrdin) say if we started to go aquatic and invest much into colonizing the local oceans and waterways instead of concentrating on the gate?

 

[Xilph]

Ok with the creep, I see where I got confused.

So for designs some initial thoughts on designs that could be useful. For some basic questions however.

• Does Creep Tumor vary by unit in how effective it is? If so how?
• Can we sacrifice parts for decreased cost? For example some of my designs are purely support units, even to the point of work claws being superfluous.
• Can we copy the special properties to units with different abilities? A drone with Twin for example or a Queen modified with combat abilities.

Creeper Barnacle Houndling Hundling 2.0 Carpet Kilemdedar

• 
  Name: Creeper
  Quality: Swarmer
  Cost: 0.25 RP, 1 Larva
  Wounds: 1
  Locomotion: Crawlers
  Defense: Hide 1d4
  Weapons: Attack Claws, Climbing Claws
  Support Sack Small: Creep Tumors
  
  2 VP
  This makes more creep, we don't have enough creep, therefore this is very good. The work/climbing claws are for locomotion, sometimes tumors might need to go in weird spots or terrain so they provide an explanation for that lore wise, they can just climb or cut through anything in their path, although it does mean if worst comes to worst they can stab stuff.
  
• 
  Name: Barnacle
  Quality: Swarmer
  Cost: 0.25 RP, 1 Larva
  Wounds: 1
  Locomotion: Crawlers
  Defense: Hide 1d4
  Support Sack Small: Inject Larvae
  
  2 VP
  Need more larvae? Don't worry the Gestater has you covered, for the low, low cost of only 0.25 RP you can form one of these, once attached to a hatchery it will produce an extra 6 Larvae a turn, totally free. Seriously those these things would destroy all potential larvae shortages forever. 0.25 RP and 1 Larva for essentially a hatchery that only produces larva? Hmm, could we boost their ability if we totally remove the locomotion? Drop all pretense and just have them be a stationary larvae factory.
  
• 
  Name: Houndling
  Quality: Swarmer
  Cost: .33 RP/1 Larvae
  Locomotion: Agile Quadruped - Very Fast
  Wounds: 2
  Defense: Tough Hide 1d4+1
  Weapons: Attack Fangs 1d6, Attack Claws 1d6 x2
  Support Sack Small: Predatory Senses
  
  2 VP
  Yes it's a Hundling modified to be better in combat, it's not a variant because variants are weapons, carapace, and upgrades only, this boosts wounds and modifies ability. Otherwise the Gestater and Creeper would just be Drone variants, but they modify the ability.
  
• 
  Name: Hundling 2.0
  Quality: Swarmer
  Cost: .25 RP/1 Larvae
  Locomotion: Agile Quadruped - Very Fast
  Wounds: 1
  Defense: Tough Hide 1d4+1
  Weapons: Attack Fangs 1d6, Attack Claws 1d6 x2
  Support Sack Small: Detect Resource Vein
  
  2 VP
  Like a Hundling but better for scouting, stupid no abilities variants.
  
• 
  Name: Carpet
  Quality: Swarmer
  Cost: .25 RP/1 Larvae
  Locomotion: Crawler - Fast
  Wounds: 1
  Defense: Tough Hide 1d4+1
  Weapons: Climbing Claws x2, Corrosive Spit
  Support Sack Small: Twin (Produce 2 units for the price of one. Swarmer only.)
  
  2 VP
  Designed to swarm and more importantly to carry, carpet is a reference to flying carpet, these things are designed to transport heavy loads. Crawler provides greater grip and Climbing Claws increased ability to get places.
  
• 
  Name: Kilemdedar
  Quality: Big Guy
  Cost: 12 RP, 0.25 VP, 1 Larva
  Locomotion: Crawler - Very Slow
  Wounds: 12
  Defense: Tough Hide 1d8+2
  Weapons: Attack Claws 1d10+1 x4, Attack Fangs 1d10+1
  Support Sack Medium: Predatory Senses, ???
  Upgrades: Leg Day
  
  22 VP (12 if first)
  So it's incomplete as of now as we lack something but it's still decent, it's designed to be ferried towards battle by Carpets or the like, and then just be so powerful it can clear through everything in it's path. SamPardi, where did you get the extra +1 to defense and +d2 to weapons? Since I took +2 quality to mean +d2 on attack and leg day's bonus to be +1 to attack/defense but my numbers for the big guy are still below yours so it's confusing me as to what I did wrong.
  

 

[Walkir]

I have to point out the naming convention for creatures sems to be German, seeing how she just build the "Heavy doglisk".

 

[Xilph]

I have a reference to creep, gestation, 2 to hundlings, an Aladdin reference, and a pun on "Kill Them Deader", my names were never meant to be good. That said if anyone has names feel free to suggest stuff, as mentioned they really aren't my strong point.

 

[Least Devotee]

[X] Xilph

 

[SamPardi]

Walkir
Myrddin would say:
"An interesting and probably effective strategy. I am... Hmm, I would say perhaps a certain amount more curiosity about the galaxy would be healthy, but such things can as easily go awry. I suppose then I would just say to remember that access to many worlds will reveal things that focusing solely on one world will not. Otherwise... Well I was expecting to wait thousands of years for the Fifth Race to rise, waiting a few more months while you fully colonize your homeworld is no great hardship."

I don't mind if others don't follow my naming convention, just makes the various creators touch more obvious.

Xilph
Answers to your questions in order:
The game designer in me is screaming yes, but mostly I'm not as certain. I'd hate for specialists to be essentially kicked to the curb for swarmers that do their jobs much cheaper but I'd also hate to kill off something quintessentially zerg over something as ephemeral as game balance. So here's my thought, those abilities should scale as Creep Tumors: 0.06/0.1/0.33/0.25, and Larvae, 1/2/6/4. And they're stack-able.
Not really but that doesn't mean you shouldn't; removing work claws means they can't be used in gathering or other activities meaning there's no temptation to use them for anything but what they can actually do that others can't.
No. There is already an accessible system for eventually giving other units those abilities and discovering yet more.

You missed the +1 to defense from Tough Hide, added to the upgrade it gives a total of +2. As to die quality see edit at the end of the Unit Design tutorial.

As to making the gestators essentially buildings, nope. Buildings have other advantages besides not moving, and the Hatchery is still doing most of the heavy lifting. Maybe I'll describe them as barnacles on the hatchery, but they're mobile barnacles! You can send them off to a new hive if and when necessary.

 

[Ame]

[X] Xilph

 

[Hazardine]

[X] Xilph

 

[Winged One]

Hm. Would a specialist with Sense Resource Deposits and Predatory Senses be better at finding resources and monsters than a paired swarmer team with those abilities split between them?

 

[Xilph]

Ok cool that makes sense, and it's good that dedicated swarmers still give more bang for their buck than specialists RP wise, at the natural cost of only being able to do that one thing.

I'm adding Creeper then as a plan to evolve to my plan for anyone voting for it, as they're cheap VP wise and they are a fantastic RP/larva dump for whenever we have some spare. Along with really easy to command, just have dedicated tumors or larva as that's all they're really good for. Gestaters would be good as well but we haven't hit exponential growth yet so Creepers are better, even if they'd fit well together.

As for the rest of the VP, any suggestions for a good combat unit could be taken, however we have no source yet and I want to save some for an amphibious zerg as that will require a new design. No point getting evolutions if we have no VP to create them after all.

EDIT: Also renamed gestaters to Barnacles, the name does seem better.

 

[SamPardi]

Winged One
If your just throwing them around blind, no real difference. If you're looking for something specific that you already have a sample of though, the specialist is much better.

 

[Walkir]

Well, I would vote for buying the Schwerhundlisk, that thing is great.

 

[Xilph]

So one of the major issues with the Schwerhundlisk and why I'm unsure on taking them is the price, I really want Creeper's as RP is the everything stat and the sooner we hit the critical point of RP growth the better as at that point we can move up from our current gains to a higher function. Remember those predictions of being able to cover the entire planet with creep inside 20 turns? Those were actually based off maths, going from our current ~7km wide circle of creep to an entire planet inside 20 turns should be possible. Then all we need to go into hyperdrive is space travel, actual space travel and not stargates, as once we've got zerg reserves in space between stars or even galaxies and taking over all the inhospitable planets that nobody cares about and stargates don't connect to? It's basically a matter of time without some very impressive counters. I mean honestly I'd prefer space travel before activating the star gate just as a safety thing but I figure organic space travel is going to be hard, particularly without vespene to help.

However that's all later, and we really need a source of VP soon as evolutions as soon as possible, however there is one possible thing that could get them added. SamPardi, how does the Ponder action work when compared to buying with vespene? Since that seems like it could be utterly invaluable at the moment, as anything above swarmers have such a huge VP cost we couldn't make more than a couple. Also, the -10 VP bonus for first big guy, is there something similar for the other qualities?

So yeah, depending on how the Ponder action works I might swap out draft militia for Ponder to get a big guy as avoiding the VP cost would be awesome, throwing 70% of our VP for the foreseeable future at a combat buff, even a good one isn't something I'm a fan of. Creepers are just too useful to avoid IMO and while the Schwerhundlisk is great I don't want to leave us with only a few VP left as that leaves us with very little leeway if we want to use any more evolutions we get.

On a different note I just got around to checking the fluff on vespene, apparently it's just a superfuel and enhancer, used by Zerg to allow them to more easily fuel themselves, so while it makes sense as being useful to larger units it'd probably make more sense as an upkeep cost for larger units? Pay X VP per turn to stop the unit going into hibernation from lack of energy? Although that means mutating makes little sense, eh, I'll just put it as mechanics.

 

[SamPardi]

Sorry, lost something on the note for it in transition. Should be clearer now.

 

[Xilph]

Hmm, and since I kind of assumed but never really asked. In regards to rare metals and their incorporation in units, what is the limitation on that? Since we don't have a large supply of stuff like trinium so using it all up on units seems really inefficient, and it makes no sense once we've scaled to the interstellar level and are doing things like forming armies of thousands of units or whatever how we're getting all the trinium.

 

[Dromeosaur]

[X] Xilph

 

[SamPardi]

so voting closes in about 4 hours.

 

[SamPardi]

Voting closed.
[X] Xilph clearly won this one.

Xilph honestly you don't really have the unit numbers for it to really come up for a good long while. A quality 7 Trinium vein is actually quite a bit of material. for a rule of thumb though think of it as... (10-Type(Trinium is type 8, Iron is type 3))*Quality*100 and that's the maximum cost in RP that it can improve.

And to everybody. Starting next turn I'm listing Larvae with the Hives so you can specify what is morphed at each location.

Edit: on second thought reduce that by an order of magnitude and it makes more sense.

 

[Xilph]

Gotcha, so it's not a concern right now but could easily become one soon if it auto upgrades all our units, Trinium swarmers are unneeded after all, and 1400 RP worth of major units isn't even 200 of them so as we scale up it becomes a serious concern and I support forethought and all that.

That leaves one thing to double check, Vespene has been made to exist in Stargate right? Because otherwise the next evolution is definitely going to be studying Vespene as much as possible to figure out how to synthesise it, as we really need some to properly be the Zerg, no evolving units kinda defeats most of the point of the Zerg after all.

 

[Winged One]

I don't know, a swarm of Hundlings that take 4 hits each to kill a land are extra killy sounds fun.

 

[SamPardi]

I get off work in an hour or so, already did most of the rolls just need to start writing the actual update bit.

There is a Vespene equivalent which can be identified by the trace amounts of actual Vespene in it. I have not done anything to purposefully sabotage the players.

 

[Winged One]

I get off work in an hour or so, already did most of the rolls just need to start writing the actual update bit.

Click to shrink...

Yay!

There is a Vespene equivalent which can be identified by the trace amounts of actual Vespene in it. I have not done anything to purposefully sabotage the players.

Click to shrink...

It's Naquedah, isn't it?

 

[Xilph]

It's Naquedah, isn't it?

Click to shrink...

Please no, Vespene is a core resource, if we have to use Naquadah for it I'll definitely be supporting throwing a bunch of resources into figuring out how to synthesise it. That and they're fairly radically different, Vespene seems like gaseous super petrol, Naquadah on the other hand is a metal that is good at conducting and amplifying energy, Naquadria just being a radioactive version that is way better at that.

So they could work together to be rather effective, Vespene providing energy and Naquadah harnessing it but there is that key difference, Vespene is an energy source while Naquadah is an energy amplifier instead.

 

[Daeth]

All the references I've seen of Naquadah acting as a energy amplifier have related to nuclear bombs, and Starship grade reactors, which I think have to be nuclear in nature. Though they have never explicitly stated it, they only way that makes sense to me is if in these cases Naquadah is undergoing nuclear fission, catalyzed by whatever it is amplifying. If it was straight forwardly amplifying energy then it would violate conservation of energy. Also Naquadah generators are widely used.
I would say both Vespene and Naquadah are energy sources. Its just Vespene is a chemical energy source and Naquadah is nuclear.