Hello again,
it has been a month since the last post already, but we haven't been idle in the meantime.
The portrait for the long awaited trailer emperor has been finished. Some of you may have already seen it on reddit, but it does not hurt to show it here again.
Of course for the game itself only the upper half will be shown.
Without spoiling anything of his backstory, he comes from an alternative reality and will be possible to recruit after the completion of a new astral rift.
His events aren't finished yet though, partly because of the modjam getting inbetween my plans and me being terrible at getting writing done. The plans for this legendary leader go beyond the astral rift for finding him though. There will be more stuff happening, once you have him.
From this we come to part two of this post which is the integration of my modjam contribution. I have already made the necessary adjustmends for it to work fine within MEM.
As a little bonus, he will now also be able to take on his old masked form and the look of our emperor as seen above - which will be the only way for this portrait to show up for the time being until i have finished its events.
I would still like to hear any feedback you have on that leader, his events and where you think adjustmends or changes are needed.
Coming from the modjam a new opportunity showed itself, when a few other modders suggested a colaboration for a side project in the form of a new origin with the intention of adding it to MEM. The theme for this new origin will be void dwelling machines, which seed primitive civilizations on habitable worlds within their space. However the four of us could not agree on a unified theme and so the project split off into two separate origins, the G.E.N.E.S.I.S. Protocol and the E.D.E.N Protocol.
For now I can tell a bit about the one tr33 and myself are working on.
Our origin project, called E.D.E.N Protocol, is on first glance a void dweller start for a machine empire. But there is more to it. Given that machines have perfect habitability no matter where they are there needed to be a few adjustmends as well as incentives, not to settle planets and instead stay on habitats.
First of all, in addition to machine empires already big empire size malus for colonies, we added another 50% to it. Additionally a country modifier on the ruler trait, reduces pop productivity on planets but increases it on habitats.
As you can see in this picture, there is something else that sets our origin apart from a simple void dweller clone. For each primitive civilization maintained within your borders (up to 25 for the bonus) you get +2% job output for the mentioned job types, if the Protocol Synchronicity edict is active.
This edict functions as a switch between heightened productivity or strong unity income. Its unity cost and upkeep are proportional to the number of primitive civs and your empire size. It functions both as an outlet for your strong unity income (which I will explain shortly after) and with the production bonus as incentive not to settle planet yourself and let them be seeded with primitives instead.
For this seeding, two new building types have been added for habitats.
This building will in time change tomb worlds and terraforming candidates into habitable ones. It has two tiers. The second one will be able to change more exotic terraforming candidates and also gaiaform normal habitable worlds, but will only be available if specific conditions are met.
This building will after some time establish a primitive civilization on a habitable world within the system it is built in. The number of Caretaker Jobs is multiplied with the number of primitive civilizations within the system. It has three tiers, two of which are always available and the third only if specific conditions are met. The number of Caretaker drones changes between the tiers with the formula Tier-level * number of primitive civs in the system.
While you go about your buisness, speading life around the galaxy a situation will slowly progress (speed depending on the number of primitive civs you care for) and at different stages present you with choices, how to adapt your empire. In the end it presents you with a choice to fundamentally change your civ, by either 1: strengthening what the origin already does and opening up tier two of the first and tier thee of the second building, 2: adding the driven ssimilator civic to your empire and in turn assimilating the primitives besides doing some other adjustmends or 3: adding the rogue servitor civic to your empire letting you take a more hands on approach in caring for your fosterlings.
Obviously it is still work in progress and values are not final yet, but I hope it piques someones interest.
Ok, until next time and have a nice day!