The Aliens

[Mark123jansen]

If anybody has ideas for alien units post here,
Gateway, if you could post relevant section of 'exodus' here (relevant meaning referring to aliens) it would be greatly appreciated.

-alien rover:
a large sixwheeled antlike vehicle made up of four section, a small control cabin up front and three carco/engine section with 2 wheels each. the wheel sections about 10m long, 7,5m diameter, shaped like a half cylinder, control cabin small flat chamber, high above the ground, with lots of windows.

[Jeremy Buloch]

Alien Scout Unit - Small Scout unit designed for basic exploration. Normal Height for the aliens. Scout pack for scouting, just some basic equipment, Rations, etc.

~What type of Aliens are we talking about? The beastmasters?~
-J.B.-

[DeathByTheSword]

i dont think so....beastmaster wont have any equiment...i forget the names....but these are the humoids kinda aliens with spacecraft and stuff.....not like the beastmaster that are just there to be a pain in the butt

[Mark123jansen]

dbts is right, this is for the 'civilised' aliens, the ones with spacecrafts and rayguns.

[Jeremy Buloch]

Oh well I wasn't aware that The Aliens would be on the planet. They dont need to have that type of weapon. They could destroy the civilization with a spaceship and its weapons.
-J.B.-

[Mark123jansen]

maybe, but that wouldn't be much fun would it?
one moment you have a thriving planet with millions of people, and then boom there are the aliens and gone is you planet, I would prefer that they have to land and fight a war with you, at most they could be like the aliens in "independence day"

[Jeremy Buloch]

Well I'm not sure, this all depends on the story and what aliens are to be incoperated. The ones that would be threatening Earth are close to a type 3 civlization as the story kinda shows, so IMO good luck to the humans. The ones fighting the type 3 are I think about type 2 in the latest phase and they help repel the first attack on Earth and give humans transportation to a new world(s) and then lift off after humans have landed and leave the planet. So I'm not sure if Aliens on the planet are going to be included at all.
-J.B.-

[Michiel]

Aren't there PC-aliens? (PC=Player Character) And are all aliens bipeds? I don't think they all should be. There should be StarTrek-species8472-like aliens too.

And I think spaceships should be able to attack planets. Spaceships aren't so big that they can destroy an entire planet, and planets can be defended with shielding, suborbital thingies, etc. No problem, I think.

[Mark123jansen]

as for what the aliens look like, i want to wait wat gateway says before we engage into idle discussions. whatever is discussed here has to be in accordance to "exodus" as gateway has written it.

[Leland]

I vote no to player controlled aliens. That would make the game world too "trekkie"... all the species would have to be on pretty much the same tech level, and I don't think that having a different number of limbs or bodily orifices makes up for that.

As for the aliens in the background story, I think that humans/players need not know what they look like exactly... the more mysterious, the better. If they do show up during the game, there should be absolutely no landing crafts or land units, only big-ass spacecrafts that either mean trouble or help.

Bad aliens = bye bye planet
Good aliens = phew!

[Jeremy Buloch]

Yup yup lets just wait for Gateway.
In the meantime I'll sing a song...

La di da, di do, di dum!

Dum, dum!

As for the bye bye planet, The civilizations would be advanced enough to do that.
-J.B.-

[Gateway103]

Oi... hrm... aliens...

Hmm... jump to the last section for the conclusion if you don't want to read through my babbling

Ok, in the original draft version of the "Exodus," two alien species were featured.

The first was the Drazans. Little is know about this enigmatic race (by humans or any other known alien species), save that they are ancient, technologically advanced, and for whatever reasons, appeared to want to exterminate all other sentient life in the galaxy (as far as other species can guess).

What attacked Earth actually was but a Drazan "probe" or "scout ship," which was unmanned. The probe/scout ship wasn't made or designed specifically to eradicate the humans, rather, these ships search each star system one by one, and destroy any sentient civilizations they detected (humans just happen to be in this solar system when the probe visted it). The humans then , of course, never got to meet their enemies, and consequently knew very little about them. But let me just hinted that it is a good thing that humans aren't attracting the Drazans' attention.

The second alien species featured was the Tal'Shians. They saved Earth from the probe ship, and advised the humans to evacuate Earth, should addition Drazans forces come to investigate the loss of their probe. The Tal'Shians then constructed large transport vessels to help the humans move to various star systems in the idea that it is better to not put all your eggs in one basket (this plot development allows human empires starting in different star systems, providing that they survived on those planets, hint hint.) [Disclaimer: this part is still subject to revision. I am thinking of changing this part of the story, especially the method of transportation. But nevertheless, the humans will move.)

The Tal'Shians are not alone in their effort to oppose the Drazans. There is this alliance of a few advanced alien species, whose mandate is to defeat the Drazans, and protect the less developed species from being eradicated. (The fact that it was the Tal'Shians that helped Humans is simply because their territory is the closest, the others are much farther away) Sadly, despite their valiant efforts, they aren't always successful. Many civilizations have been destroyed, and more will follow (including themselves), unless some final solution is found.

The scope of this game, as I envisioned it, will of course not offer a solution to the Drazan predictment. Unless we are having a game of epic scale where humans go from a barely interstellar capable species, to be on par with the Alliance, and finally achieved what the Alliance couldn't do in many centuries, in one entire game. Possible, but we can discuss this later if anyone's interested.

Anyway, if the game is not just in one planet/system but multiple systems (a sector of the galaxy is what I'm thinking), the players may need to deal with the Drazans in the latter case. Certainly in the latter case the Tal'Shians and possibly their friends may make appearances and/or be an important player.

Nevertheless, since the Alliance have been in the business of protecting less developed civilizations (lol), it is save to say that they have, on several occasions, the need to evacuate an entire species (or as much of the members of those species as feasible). But since good habitats for these varying species don't come in unlimited quantities, it is a good bet that some of them may be relocated to the same system or even the same planet. Therefore, feel free to use your imagination in cooking up these alien species.

Conclusion

Ok, so basically I am saying you can design any alien species, whose technological capability range from primative to at most barely interstellar capable (the upper limit depends on the game scope). These aliens can be on the same planet as the humans, and, if the game scope is larger, be on their own planets/systems as well.

And btw, most likely the Tal'Shians (the good alien if you didn't read the babbling above) will interact with humans only through space ships or diplomatic channels. If the game scope is large enough, however, perhaps you may see Tal'Shian ground units too, but that's it for now...

As for the Drazans (the bad alien if you will), if they ever appear, it will just be in forms of space ships (unless we are talking about epic game scale... read above).

-Gateway103

[Jeremy Buloch]

Thanks Gateway. Its put quite clearly.
-J.B.-

[Mark123jansen]

the Tal'shians could make nice trading partners, maybe they could have a small colony on each human planet to trade with (possibly technology or simply just food and resources to get the settlements going)

[Leland]

Why would they want to trade with us? If they wanted raw resources, they could've colonized (or disassembled...) the planets themselves instead of making them a human zoo. Surely there's nothing we can offer them technologically. Maybe they might be mildly interested in art and culture, but even that would cheapen their presence in my opinion.

On the other hand, it does kind of make sense for them to give freebies in form of "goody huts" or equivalent.