Yes, it's that time again, where another former makes a "Let's have Nomads we can actually play" Thread.
But I'm not just making this post on a whim with nothing to go for it but fond memories of Homeworld and the 2003 Battlestar Galactica. No, this thread comes from no less than six pages of ideas I've been adding to and modifying since before Utopia, covering mechanics, lore, playstyles, possible events and civics and even some ideas for balancing, that I've been more or less holding on to until I thought PDX might be ready (or at least close to ready) to start thinking on entirely new modes of play after getting the core game just right. While Wiz has express a desire to redo the diplomacy side of things (and some of these ideas do make some assumptions on how that goes), I putting this down now, on the idea/hope that the basics could be applied without having to rethink the whole thing just one update later.
So, that aside, let's get to it! For clarity I'm going to try and divide this up into several categories.
1. Creation- how to make one at the start, and how they might show up mid-game
2. The Home Fleet & Economy- How your mothership is - and isn't- just a mobile planet, and how you get the resources you need to survive and thrive
3. Warfare - What fighting as - and against- playable nomads should be like
4. Conquest(?) and Diplomacy- Should Nomads control territory? should they not? Could it be both? How would that work? and what would other empires think?
5. Civics
6. Lore and other stuff.
1. Creation
Nomads would be an authority type, like with megacorps. I figure elections would either be oligarch like corporate, or a dictatorship, with leaders primarily coming from admirals and scientists in that order. Any ethics are valid, including perhaps Gestalt, at least for some civics. Empires starting as nomads get to pick their starting Mothership's name. BUT I think they should still get to choose their home system type and the name of their planet as well, so you can find it (more on that at the end)
Pops that start in a Nomadic fleet have the "Void" trait, either as a extra trait like survivor or a habitability type. Void means that said pop has over generations become so acclimated to life on a spaceship that they can't really cut it out on a planet anymore, whether it's lack of immune system, overly sensitive allergies, body struggling to cope with a normal planetary gravity, or find idea of staying on a "ball of dirt" to be way too restrictive; They've basically become Belters and/or Quarians, depending on how you headcannon what the trait means for you specifically, with pretty much any planet being no different to them than a Tomb World. on the flip side however, they have no problems living in habitats, and take up less housing and use fewer amenities than they normally would, owing to being used to cramp conditions and lean times.
Finally, there would be at least two ways for a nomadic empire to appear in the middle of the game. One is as a possible outcome for an Early Space Flight primitive civilization that nukes themselves (survivors managed to build a ship and escape just before the end). The other would be an option during a Total war, whether that's against Fanatic Purifiers or something similar, a Machine Uprising, or the wrong end of a War in Heaven. This could be a special project which would severely clamp down on your incomes (since they are getting diverted to the Exodus fleet being built.) My Dream version of this would have multiple states of success depending on how close to finished the project was when you're last planet is taken, as well as events related to people finding out you're building it, and your attempts to hide it. Completing it fully would also make it a tag switch, ala picking the machines during an uprising, with your original empire still around and obviously rather miffed that you decided to abandon them rather than fight to the end, especially if "the end" never actually comes. Pops belonging to these empires (as well as pops that decide to move from terrestrial life to your fleet) will eventually get the Void trait for themselves, with a MTTH of about 25-50 years.
2. The Home Fleet and Economy.
Each Home Fleet (separate from military fleets and science ships) would be composed of three parts; The Mothership where your pops live and which collects from planets, the Mining ships that collect space-based resources, and the Guardian fleet that protects the Mothership. Though they are technically separate entities, in most cases they are commanded as a single fleet.
Every time the Home Fleet enters a new system, it gets a temporary "exploitation" bonus; the Nomads have gotten quite good at finding and extracting as many easy-to-get resources as they can. The bonus essentially improves the resource output of all ships in the system, but will eventually disappear and even become a penalty until you move on. Eventually it will wear off for that system and you will be able to do it again. I figure the timers should be balanced so that a territory of about 5 systems or planets would be enough to keep from hitting the penalties, more if you want to keep it from ever reaching no bonus. Of course, since not all parts of the galaxy nicely arrange themselves in circles (and that the most valuable thing to exploit - colonizable planets - aren't in every system) the actually path you take for getting the best resource output might be longer than that.
The Mothership is basically the "planet" for most nomads, though I kinda like to think of my idea for them as more "starbases with pops." Motherships, rather than creating raw resources out a thin air, are about boosting your military capacity and the Home Fleet's ability to gather resources from the systems it travels through. I figure exactly what the districts and buildings do is for the most part more of a balance issue, but there would probably be one district devoted to improving the Mothership's main resource acquisition of extracting resources from the districts of an uncolonizied planet, and one that basically takes the place of anchorages, improving fleet capacity and other military bonuses. There would also likely be a starport building for building ships. Otherwise, a mothership would be (barely) self-sustaining when it came to food, able to produce some EC, and still have access to the science and refining jobs in similar amounts to settled planets. As for how many districts they can have, I figure that goes up as technologies are unlocked. And even if it's your only Mothership, it could get specialization bonuses for focusing on military power or harvesting resources.
As for how the Mothership's space-based resource collection of planetary resources would work in this post-tile world, I figure it would be one of two ways. Way #1 would be for the amounts of energy, minerals and food collected before species traits are applied would be based on the % makeup of potential generator, mining and farming districts on the planet. Way #2 is that you have planetary expoitation jobs for each resource, and that's how the "districts" are distributed, with extras beyond what the planet has taking in resources at a reduced rate, like the "unemployed" pops of Gestalt empires. In either case, rare resources would still require a building on the mothership to extract, but for Nomads this might be a generic one-size-fits-all building.
The Mining Ships are the Nomad's version of the Mining station. Nomads do not build mining or research stations of their own, and instead deploy these things as they go along. This should be mostly automated, with you having to intervene only if there are more resources to exploit than there are ships and you don't like what the game picked. However, since there rarely more than two or three space-based resources in a system, I'm kinda juggling the idea that either Nomads can find resources noone else can while they have the full exploitation bonus, or the said bonus follows the mining ship, which could travel to adjacent systems while the mothership is parked at a planet. The later might be a better option, especially since it might tie the exploitation bonus to the planet, rather than the system, meaning multi-planet systems extremely valuable as someplace a Nomad can stick around for a while to make bank.
Last there is the Guardian fleet. The Guardian Fleet is a free-ish fleet of ships that always stays with the mothership that the player cannot otherwise command or control. "Free" in the since that it builds up to a certain level without any input, "-ish" in that building beyond that point costs money and upkeep... basically it's the equivalent of a starbase's module defenses and defense platforms, respectively. The fleet should also roughly scale in power relative to a starbase as well. For balance purposes, a Home fleet cannot enter a hostile system regardless of it's fleet stance, which include the unoccupied territory of an empire at war with the nomads, and any system with known hostiles of any sort (with the possibility of actually requiring LOS in the system for the Home fleet to enter, not just that a science ship went there at some point.) The in-game logic being that it would be monumentally risky and stupid to knowingly endanger the civilian population in such a way.
How should this setup compete with a normal empire? I feel that, in terms of raw income, it shouldn't; only the most optimal setup and location should get as much food/energy/minerals as a normal empire, which would be an incentive to perhaps settle and stop being Nomads (more on that in 4) However, I think they should be able to make this up in part by being able to do things cheaper than a normal empire ever could, *almost* enough to make up the difference. Already mentioned how their pops would take less housing and fewer amenities, could also be that they are better at converting raw resources, building/repairing ships, extracting and utilizing rare resources with fewer steps. A "Give a Thorgon Void Walker an expensive job, and they'll show you a cheap way to do it" sort of thing.
3. Warfare
The reason why the fleet is it's own thing, rather than just arming the Mothership, is for mechanics related to warfare. Obviously the Mothership getting destroyed (or in most cases, disabled) in one go for "no reason" would be terrible for the Nomad, but giving them a means slipping away that couldn't be countered in some way would be quite annoying for a normal empire as well. (especially since it's mobility means the Nomad's navy can always make sure it's never more than one jump away from a place it can repair.)
In a battle, the Mothership itself has a very low target priority for most ship and weapon types; mainly because the Guardian fleet is bodily protecting it. Once the enough of Guardian fleet attached to the Mothership is destroyed or disengages, the Mothership itself disengages, regardless of its current hull/armor/health or how quickly they got smoked. This will always happen as long as there is enough of the Guardian fleet still flying to protect the Mothership as it prepares for a hasty retreat (with testing would decide what is "enough," in both times it is used) Though any time the Mothership has to do this is going to be a big hit to war exhaustion. This leaves empires fighting Nomads three ways of pinning down a Mothership.
First way is to simply catch it without enough of a Guardian fleet to protect it, which will force it to wait for the E-FTL timer to run out. This is more of a lucky chance thing, though there might be something with how it works to be somewhat predictable in certain cases.
Second is to bring a loadout that directly targets the mothership. This would more or less change over time, as larger ships and new weapons begin to appear, but would mostly involve strike craft and missiles. I was thinking that Torpedoes, KA and Energy Torps would target Motherships over Corvettes and Destroyers, fighers/bombers, Particle Lances and Giga Cannons would target them over Crusiers, and the Titan Laser would target it over anything other than another Titan.
Finally, you can have a daring commando raid, by bringing transport ships into the battle. The dropships heading for the Mothership may or may not be treated as strike craft. Should they reach the Mothership, it keys off a "ground" battle against the ship's onboard defenders, and if they succeed, they take over the bridge, barricade themselves in, hoping that their own empire achieve victory.
Success with either of these disables the Mothership, preventing any Emergency FTL, and if the nomads don't win the space battle, basically forces an automatic surrender (though the mothership isn't destroyed, unless that was the CB goal). As for what that CB might have been, we go to the next bit.
4. Conquest(?) and Diplomacy
This is the part we go from "I think it could work like this..." to "Maybe it might possibly work like this?" territory, because there is one question that could completely change how Nomads play beyond the above.
And that is, "Do Nomads still build outposts of some kind and claim systems? Or are they truely stateless entities with no land to call their own?" (And before you ask, yes you can make territory-less empires work as the player; all the territory-less AI entities that currently exist can be tag switch to with commands, which are playable to a point and it doesn't result in an instant game over.)
I would really like that answer to be "yes," so I'll try to describe my ideas on how both might work.
Every basic Nomad would start without any claimed territory, just their Home Fleet, starter navy, and a science ship. For as long as they are in this state, they get a few unique features:
First, they ignore the borders of all Non-FE empires, regardless of relations, though they will be forbidden from declaring war on their "host" while there. Empires that want to keep them out will have to declare war once they enter their borders with the using an "Expel" CB, with victory resulting in them obeying closed borders for X number of years. This can be dangerous, however; remember how I said Home Fleets can't enter hostile territory? That rule is waived if Nomads are fighting to escape a hostile empire.
Reason why you would want to do so is the second feature; because wandering Nomads can cause shenanigans. At the very least, unfriendly Nomads could send on their Mining ships to edge out your mining stations and temporarily disable the income they were getting. Home Fleets in orbit of colonized planets would also likely cause some crime and stability issues as they "borrow" the goods they need. Since this comes with the risk of getting wardec'd, I figure this could often be more profitable than sticking to unclaimed territory.
Of course, there is the more meta danger of them secretly scouting on behalf of a rival; One thing I would LOVE to see, to the point I almost feel like Border free Nomad's aren't worth it otherwise, is if they can be hired by other empires for jobs. Scouting the enemy could be one. Another could be a mercenary contract where they get paid for agreeing to be in a joint declaration of war, as well as being paid for the defensive pact they are in. If there ever comes espionage, I feel like Nomad's are a decent candidate for being better at parts of it than others, or at least a means for other empires to improve their chances in the empire the Nomads are currently in.
Friendlier Nomads, however, would turn this from parasitic to symbiotic, with Mining ships not disabling stations (maybe even boosting them?) and Home Fleets causing a significant boost in trade value on the hosting planet as they barter rather than steal for the goods they need. Nomads don't get as much stuff as they do being the galaxy's worst guests, but collect a lot of trade from this for themselves, enough to hopefully make this on par with going alone, perhaps better if you can expand on the goodwill for research pacts and ongoing trade deals. ("You psionics need Zro? I can get ya some Zro, next time I'm in your rival's empire, for the right price.")
Of course, those that don't want to make friends or take the passive-aggressive approach can simply declare war for stuff; Non-pacifist nomads could have access to the raiding bombardment policy and be able to use a Plunder CB, though only Authoritarians and Xenophobes that do slavery ever take pops; otherwise it's simply the single most lucrative way to get resources from someone else's planet, or any planet for that matter... at least before you factor in the damages from that hostile fleet heading your way.
Eventually though, you might decide to set down some boundaries- empire boundaries that is- and have a more defined place in the galaxy. The way I figure that would go is something like this:
You build/start with a special "meeting grounds" starbase, where your Nomads go to settle disputes, meet with foreigners and collect trade from the systems they control. It might even be (or can be upgraded to) a fully-functional Habitat, with the right techs and/or the ascension perk. In either case, it would be the closest thing you have to a "true" planetary capital (and yes, it could be something Megacorps can build a branch office in).
Once that's around, you can no longer enter other empire's territory willy-nilly, nor can you exploit your time there while at peace like border-free nomads do; you have to respect closed borders, and gain your trade bonuses with friendlier empires now via commercial pacts. Raiding is still a possibility, however.
Territory is still expanded by building outposts. However, they don't upgrade to normal starbases; instead, they upgrade to unique versions that might have an extra module or building slot over the normal first upgrade, but can't take weapon modules or anchorages. Their purpose is mainly for collecting trade in systems when you are not there, and for unique buildings that can't really have a Mothership equivalent (like Curator Think Tank and Black Hole Observatory) Piracy is less of an issue for you because, let's face it, odds are you ARE the pirates.Yarr Harr...
Since you have a "capital" other than the Mothership Fleet, you can build more Motherships! This would likely be very expensive and time consuming, especially since you would need even more habitable worlds in your borders to sustain them (remember; I suggested that 5 systems or planets is the minimum a Nomadic fleet should need access to in order to not suffer penalties to extraction all the time) though it can mean more economic and military power if you have the space. For sanity's sake, they would act like a sector, meaning you can automate them, specifically the path they take to gather resources, and how long they stay in one spot before moving on (based on exploitation buff).
Warfare for you is now more like with other empires - you can claim territory and have your territory taken. Considering you don't have any real "hard" borders, I'm thinking that you and your opponent can use a special "border dispute" type of CB that allows the taking of systems currently on the border, no claims required. One thing you do have to worry about, however, is for your "meeting grounds" being taken. If it is, you're empire collapses; you lose all claim to your territory and any Home Fleets other than your main/starting one become independent Nomads. If territorial is the *only* way, might just be a chance for the last part.
Can you control planets like this? Yes. Would you want to control planets like this? absolutely not; you are (no longer) meant for terrestrial life; On top of the habitability issues with regards to you pop's Void trait, directly controlled planets would add several times the Empire size to your total than it would for a normal planet. Instead, it's best to avoid doing that and only take planets in war, which you could spin off into tributaries like a proper space Mongol. (Might even add a special tributary that only controls the planet, and not the system for those that wish to avoid bordergore?)
However, directly controlling a planet yourself is the way you stop becoming a Nomad. Exactly how, I'm not sure, but the end result is that your Mothership(s) get dismantled for proper starbases and/or Habitats and/or free buildings/districts, you become a new empire with traditional authority and civics, and your Void pops living on ground eventually lose that trait and, if necessary, gain your new capital's (or random if it's a Gaia, Ecuminopolis, or Ringworld) Habitability trait instead.
5. Civics
Now I get into some of the fun ideas on how to mix up the above.
Sky Lords - By and large, I feel that slaves would not really worth it for Nomads. I don't think there would be that many worker jobs other than the teams that go planet side, and likely the slaves would tend to get "lost" once they are there. Plus there is always a chance that a slave decides to end it all by triggering explosive decompression, hoping to take their captives with them (yes, I'm thinking of these as events, the later for when slaves radicalize). Still, there are a place for them; after all, you might just be capturing them for the purpose of putting them on the slave market. This civic, however, changes that up. Whether it is the original reason for abandoning their homeworld or a justification for coming later, these Nomads have decided that they are "too good" to step foot on any terrestrial body. Instead, they drop captured slaves onto habitable planets and force them to work for the raw resources that they need. These guys would start already with a meeting grounds, with a recently subdued primitive world already under their control. They don't suffer the normal (or at least as big) empire size penalty for colonizing worlds as regular nomads. However, every world they do automatically becomes a unique version of a Thrall world, minus some of the bonuses. Also, they don't get any sort of exploitation bonus for harvesting. For fun, might also force no reproduction rights on the slave pops (or at least a significant pop growth penalty on the planets) meaning that if they want to grow, they need to keep finding and capturing more and more slaves.
Ancient Drifters - Most Nomads measure their time since they left their homeworld in centuries, maybe millennia. These guys, however, have been floating around much longer. They were once a Fallen Empire, forced to abandon their home in the disaster that ended the previous cycle. Though they have forgotten nearly everything that separates Fallen Empires from new empires at game start, they still have their Mothership, made with best of their old technology, with better planetary extractors and a special Jump Drive that can take other ships with it. It is one of a kind... literally, because they can't make another, and any sort of surrender might end with game over, regardless of the CB (as the special ship is damaged beyond repair) On top of that, their smug superiority rubs standard empires the wrong way, and one of the non-Custodial FE's were a rival of yours back when you had a planet, and if they awaken, would have a grudge to settle.
Opportunistic Marauders- The other way to avoid the "can't take Mothership anywhere dangerous" rule, These Nomads are a species of pirates, pure and simple. Rather than a Guardian fleet (and many of the protections that came with it) The Mothership itself is armed, and better armored. All the military personal it takes to man this man o' war puts a significant dent on your naval capacity though. Alternatively, instead of a "Must take at start, can't remove" civic, maybe it could be "unlocked with Galactic Administration, can't be removed once taken" Civic? Hasn't been done before, but I think it would fit better balance wise.
All Devouring- You may remember waaay back at the top of this massive post that I said that Gestalts could be an option as well, on top of other ethics. This is pretty much why: Playable Prethoryn Scourge. Get WAY more resources from planets they exploit than anyone else, but eventually said planet becomes a barren terraform candidate. Total wars with other empires, never stops consuming.
7. Lore and other stuff
Lastly, this is where I'm going to put down my random thoughts about possible lore, events, and other miscellaneous things that might not have been covered above. Since they are brief, they're going to be largely bullet points.
-In most cases, unless a civic specifically states otherwise, I think you should be from the galaxy and your homeworld is out there somewhere. Finding it should be a Big Deal, with a lot of possible outcomes, sort of like finding Sol. Might be figured at creation or with civics, but I think it would be more fun if it was largely random; your species has been gone so long you don't even remember exactly *why* you left. When you find it, it might be barren yet terraformable, it might be shattered and lost, stuck in an Ice Age, claimed by another empire, still the home of your long-forgotton cousins (who might treat your return as anything from a great homecoming to a brown-pants moment, possibly to your great confusion) home to a new primitive or pre-sapient species (you've been gone for a LONG time), or maybe it's perfectly pristine, with districts and buildings that overgrown but intact, leaving you to wonder why it was abandoned in the first place.
-Wonder if, with Void basically setting habitablity for most planets to 0, if Adaptive and it's variants might have a different bonus for nomads, such as extending or reducing the exploitation period (because your pops can "take it" on the surface better or worse) never really a fan of "free" or "wasted" traits.
-Thinking about it some more, one of the homeworld return possibilities *absolutely* needs to be your long-lost cousins losing their flipping minds because the last remnants of the great evil empire that escaped into space has returned to surely seek revenge... but you are now pacifists.
-One of the pre-sets should be another Human Ark ship like the ship the Commonwealth of Man came from. Never found a habitable planet to settle until the idea of settling down was anathema. Like the CoM, they guarantee that a UNE of some type spawns.
Anyway, that is the big, long, massive idea for this. I think I covered most everything (except numbers, because numbers are figured out during testing.)
Any Questions?
But I'm not just making this post on a whim with nothing to go for it but fond memories of Homeworld and the 2003 Battlestar Galactica. No, this thread comes from no less than six pages of ideas I've been adding to and modifying since before Utopia, covering mechanics, lore, playstyles, possible events and civics and even some ideas for balancing, that I've been more or less holding on to until I thought PDX might be ready (or at least close to ready) to start thinking on entirely new modes of play after getting the core game just right. While Wiz has express a desire to redo the diplomacy side of things (and some of these ideas do make some assumptions on how that goes), I putting this down now, on the idea/hope that the basics could be applied without having to rethink the whole thing just one update later.
So, that aside, let's get to it! For clarity I'm going to try and divide this up into several categories.
1. Creation- how to make one at the start, and how they might show up mid-game
2. The Home Fleet & Economy- How your mothership is - and isn't- just a mobile planet, and how you get the resources you need to survive and thrive
3. Warfare - What fighting as - and against- playable nomads should be like
4. Conquest(?) and Diplomacy- Should Nomads control territory? should they not? Could it be both? How would that work? and what would other empires think?
5. Civics
6. Lore and other stuff.
1. Creation
Nomads would be an authority type, like with megacorps. I figure elections would either be oligarch like corporate, or a dictatorship, with leaders primarily coming from admirals and scientists in that order. Any ethics are valid, including perhaps Gestalt, at least for some civics. Empires starting as nomads get to pick their starting Mothership's name. BUT I think they should still get to choose their home system type and the name of their planet as well, so you can find it (more on that at the end)
Pops that start in a Nomadic fleet have the "Void" trait, either as a extra trait like survivor or a habitability type. Void means that said pop has over generations become so acclimated to life on a spaceship that they can't really cut it out on a planet anymore, whether it's lack of immune system, overly sensitive allergies, body struggling to cope with a normal planetary gravity, or find idea of staying on a "ball of dirt" to be way too restrictive; They've basically become Belters and/or Quarians, depending on how you headcannon what the trait means for you specifically, with pretty much any planet being no different to them than a Tomb World. on the flip side however, they have no problems living in habitats, and take up less housing and use fewer amenities than they normally would, owing to being used to cramp conditions and lean times.
Finally, there would be at least two ways for a nomadic empire to appear in the middle of the game. One is as a possible outcome for an Early Space Flight primitive civilization that nukes themselves (survivors managed to build a ship and escape just before the end). The other would be an option during a Total war, whether that's against Fanatic Purifiers or something similar, a Machine Uprising, or the wrong end of a War in Heaven. This could be a special project which would severely clamp down on your incomes (since they are getting diverted to the Exodus fleet being built.) My Dream version of this would have multiple states of success depending on how close to finished the project was when you're last planet is taken, as well as events related to people finding out you're building it, and your attempts to hide it. Completing it fully would also make it a tag switch, ala picking the machines during an uprising, with your original empire still around and obviously rather miffed that you decided to abandon them rather than fight to the end, especially if "the end" never actually comes. Pops belonging to these empires (as well as pops that decide to move from terrestrial life to your fleet) will eventually get the Void trait for themselves, with a MTTH of about 25-50 years.
2. The Home Fleet and Economy.
Each Home Fleet (separate from military fleets and science ships) would be composed of three parts; The Mothership where your pops live and which collects from planets, the Mining ships that collect space-based resources, and the Guardian fleet that protects the Mothership. Though they are technically separate entities, in most cases they are commanded as a single fleet.
Every time the Home Fleet enters a new system, it gets a temporary "exploitation" bonus; the Nomads have gotten quite good at finding and extracting as many easy-to-get resources as they can. The bonus essentially improves the resource output of all ships in the system, but will eventually disappear and even become a penalty until you move on. Eventually it will wear off for that system and you will be able to do it again. I figure the timers should be balanced so that a territory of about 5 systems or planets would be enough to keep from hitting the penalties, more if you want to keep it from ever reaching no bonus. Of course, since not all parts of the galaxy nicely arrange themselves in circles (and that the most valuable thing to exploit - colonizable planets - aren't in every system) the actually path you take for getting the best resource output might be longer than that.
The Mothership is basically the "planet" for most nomads, though I kinda like to think of my idea for them as more "starbases with pops." Motherships, rather than creating raw resources out a thin air, are about boosting your military capacity and the Home Fleet's ability to gather resources from the systems it travels through. I figure exactly what the districts and buildings do is for the most part more of a balance issue, but there would probably be one district devoted to improving the Mothership's main resource acquisition of extracting resources from the districts of an uncolonizied planet, and one that basically takes the place of anchorages, improving fleet capacity and other military bonuses. There would also likely be a starport building for building ships. Otherwise, a mothership would be (barely) self-sustaining when it came to food, able to produce some EC, and still have access to the science and refining jobs in similar amounts to settled planets. As for how many districts they can have, I figure that goes up as technologies are unlocked. And even if it's your only Mothership, it could get specialization bonuses for focusing on military power or harvesting resources.
As for how the Mothership's space-based resource collection of planetary resources would work in this post-tile world, I figure it would be one of two ways. Way #1 would be for the amounts of energy, minerals and food collected before species traits are applied would be based on the % makeup of potential generator, mining and farming districts on the planet. Way #2 is that you have planetary expoitation jobs for each resource, and that's how the "districts" are distributed, with extras beyond what the planet has taking in resources at a reduced rate, like the "unemployed" pops of Gestalt empires. In either case, rare resources would still require a building on the mothership to extract, but for Nomads this might be a generic one-size-fits-all building.
The Mining Ships are the Nomad's version of the Mining station. Nomads do not build mining or research stations of their own, and instead deploy these things as they go along. This should be mostly automated, with you having to intervene only if there are more resources to exploit than there are ships and you don't like what the game picked. However, since there rarely more than two or three space-based resources in a system, I'm kinda juggling the idea that either Nomads can find resources noone else can while they have the full exploitation bonus, or the said bonus follows the mining ship, which could travel to adjacent systems while the mothership is parked at a planet. The later might be a better option, especially since it might tie the exploitation bonus to the planet, rather than the system, meaning multi-planet systems extremely valuable as someplace a Nomad can stick around for a while to make bank.
Last there is the Guardian fleet. The Guardian Fleet is a free-ish fleet of ships that always stays with the mothership that the player cannot otherwise command or control. "Free" in the since that it builds up to a certain level without any input, "-ish" in that building beyond that point costs money and upkeep... basically it's the equivalent of a starbase's module defenses and defense platforms, respectively. The fleet should also roughly scale in power relative to a starbase as well. For balance purposes, a Home fleet cannot enter a hostile system regardless of it's fleet stance, which include the unoccupied territory of an empire at war with the nomads, and any system with known hostiles of any sort (with the possibility of actually requiring LOS in the system for the Home fleet to enter, not just that a science ship went there at some point.) The in-game logic being that it would be monumentally risky and stupid to knowingly endanger the civilian population in such a way.
How should this setup compete with a normal empire? I feel that, in terms of raw income, it shouldn't; only the most optimal setup and location should get as much food/energy/minerals as a normal empire, which would be an incentive to perhaps settle and stop being Nomads (more on that in 4) However, I think they should be able to make this up in part by being able to do things cheaper than a normal empire ever could, *almost* enough to make up the difference. Already mentioned how their pops would take less housing and fewer amenities, could also be that they are better at converting raw resources, building/repairing ships, extracting and utilizing rare resources with fewer steps. A "Give a Thorgon Void Walker an expensive job, and they'll show you a cheap way to do it" sort of thing.
3. Warfare
The reason why the fleet is it's own thing, rather than just arming the Mothership, is for mechanics related to warfare. Obviously the Mothership getting destroyed (or in most cases, disabled) in one go for "no reason" would be terrible for the Nomad, but giving them a means slipping away that couldn't be countered in some way would be quite annoying for a normal empire as well. (especially since it's mobility means the Nomad's navy can always make sure it's never more than one jump away from a place it can repair.)
In a battle, the Mothership itself has a very low target priority for most ship and weapon types; mainly because the Guardian fleet is bodily protecting it. Once the enough of Guardian fleet attached to the Mothership is destroyed or disengages, the Mothership itself disengages, regardless of its current hull/armor/health or how quickly they got smoked. This will always happen as long as there is enough of the Guardian fleet still flying to protect the Mothership as it prepares for a hasty retreat (with testing would decide what is "enough," in both times it is used) Though any time the Mothership has to do this is going to be a big hit to war exhaustion. This leaves empires fighting Nomads three ways of pinning down a Mothership.
First way is to simply catch it without enough of a Guardian fleet to protect it, which will force it to wait for the E-FTL timer to run out. This is more of a lucky chance thing, though there might be something with how it works to be somewhat predictable in certain cases.
Second is to bring a loadout that directly targets the mothership. This would more or less change over time, as larger ships and new weapons begin to appear, but would mostly involve strike craft and missiles. I was thinking that Torpedoes, KA and Energy Torps would target Motherships over Corvettes and Destroyers, fighers/bombers, Particle Lances and Giga Cannons would target them over Crusiers, and the Titan Laser would target it over anything other than another Titan.
Finally, you can have a daring commando raid, by bringing transport ships into the battle. The dropships heading for the Mothership may or may not be treated as strike craft. Should they reach the Mothership, it keys off a "ground" battle against the ship's onboard defenders, and if they succeed, they take over the bridge, barricade themselves in, hoping that their own empire achieve victory.
Success with either of these disables the Mothership, preventing any Emergency FTL, and if the nomads don't win the space battle, basically forces an automatic surrender (though the mothership isn't destroyed, unless that was the CB goal). As for what that CB might have been, we go to the next bit.
4. Conquest(?) and Diplomacy
This is the part we go from "I think it could work like this..." to "Maybe it might possibly work like this?" territory, because there is one question that could completely change how Nomads play beyond the above.
And that is, "Do Nomads still build outposts of some kind and claim systems? Or are they truely stateless entities with no land to call their own?" (And before you ask, yes you can make territory-less empires work as the player; all the territory-less AI entities that currently exist can be tag switch to with commands, which are playable to a point and it doesn't result in an instant game over.)
I would really like that answer to be "yes," so I'll try to describe my ideas on how both might work.
Every basic Nomad would start without any claimed territory, just their Home Fleet, starter navy, and a science ship. For as long as they are in this state, they get a few unique features:
First, they ignore the borders of all Non-FE empires, regardless of relations, though they will be forbidden from declaring war on their "host" while there. Empires that want to keep them out will have to declare war once they enter their borders with the using an "Expel" CB, with victory resulting in them obeying closed borders for X number of years. This can be dangerous, however; remember how I said Home Fleets can't enter hostile territory? That rule is waived if Nomads are fighting to escape a hostile empire.
Reason why you would want to do so is the second feature; because wandering Nomads can cause shenanigans. At the very least, unfriendly Nomads could send on their Mining ships to edge out your mining stations and temporarily disable the income they were getting. Home Fleets in orbit of colonized planets would also likely cause some crime and stability issues as they "borrow" the goods they need. Since this comes with the risk of getting wardec'd, I figure this could often be more profitable than sticking to unclaimed territory.
Of course, there is the more meta danger of them secretly scouting on behalf of a rival; One thing I would LOVE to see, to the point I almost feel like Border free Nomad's aren't worth it otherwise, is if they can be hired by other empires for jobs. Scouting the enemy could be one. Another could be a mercenary contract where they get paid for agreeing to be in a joint declaration of war, as well as being paid for the defensive pact they are in. If there ever comes espionage, I feel like Nomad's are a decent candidate for being better at parts of it than others, or at least a means for other empires to improve their chances in the empire the Nomads are currently in.
Friendlier Nomads, however, would turn this from parasitic to symbiotic, with Mining ships not disabling stations (maybe even boosting them?) and Home Fleets causing a significant boost in trade value on the hosting planet as they barter rather than steal for the goods they need. Nomads don't get as much stuff as they do being the galaxy's worst guests, but collect a lot of trade from this for themselves, enough to hopefully make this on par with going alone, perhaps better if you can expand on the goodwill for research pacts and ongoing trade deals. ("You psionics need Zro? I can get ya some Zro, next time I'm in your rival's empire, for the right price.")
Of course, those that don't want to make friends or take the passive-aggressive approach can simply declare war for stuff; Non-pacifist nomads could have access to the raiding bombardment policy and be able to use a Plunder CB, though only Authoritarians and Xenophobes that do slavery ever take pops; otherwise it's simply the single most lucrative way to get resources from someone else's planet, or any planet for that matter... at least before you factor in the damages from that hostile fleet heading your way.
Eventually though, you might decide to set down some boundaries- empire boundaries that is- and have a more defined place in the galaxy. The way I figure that would go is something like this:
You build/start with a special "meeting grounds" starbase, where your Nomads go to settle disputes, meet with foreigners and collect trade from the systems they control. It might even be (or can be upgraded to) a fully-functional Habitat, with the right techs and/or the ascension perk. In either case, it would be the closest thing you have to a "true" planetary capital (and yes, it could be something Megacorps can build a branch office in).
Once that's around, you can no longer enter other empire's territory willy-nilly, nor can you exploit your time there while at peace like border-free nomads do; you have to respect closed borders, and gain your trade bonuses with friendlier empires now via commercial pacts. Raiding is still a possibility, however.
Territory is still expanded by building outposts. However, they don't upgrade to normal starbases; instead, they upgrade to unique versions that might have an extra module or building slot over the normal first upgrade, but can't take weapon modules or anchorages. Their purpose is mainly for collecting trade in systems when you are not there, and for unique buildings that can't really have a Mothership equivalent (like Curator Think Tank and Black Hole Observatory) Piracy is less of an issue for you because, let's face it, odds are you ARE the pirates.Yarr Harr...
Since you have a "capital" other than the Mothership Fleet, you can build more Motherships! This would likely be very expensive and time consuming, especially since you would need even more habitable worlds in your borders to sustain them (remember; I suggested that 5 systems or planets is the minimum a Nomadic fleet should need access to in order to not suffer penalties to extraction all the time) though it can mean more economic and military power if you have the space. For sanity's sake, they would act like a sector, meaning you can automate them, specifically the path they take to gather resources, and how long they stay in one spot before moving on (based on exploitation buff).
Warfare for you is now more like with other empires - you can claim territory and have your territory taken. Considering you don't have any real "hard" borders, I'm thinking that you and your opponent can use a special "border dispute" type of CB that allows the taking of systems currently on the border, no claims required. One thing you do have to worry about, however, is for your "meeting grounds" being taken. If it is, you're empire collapses; you lose all claim to your territory and any Home Fleets other than your main/starting one become independent Nomads. If territorial is the *only* way, might just be a chance for the last part.
Can you control planets like this? Yes. Would you want to control planets like this? absolutely not; you are (no longer) meant for terrestrial life; On top of the habitability issues with regards to you pop's Void trait, directly controlled planets would add several times the Empire size to your total than it would for a normal planet. Instead, it's best to avoid doing that and only take planets in war, which you could spin off into tributaries like a proper space Mongol. (Might even add a special tributary that only controls the planet, and not the system for those that wish to avoid bordergore?)
However, directly controlling a planet yourself is the way you stop becoming a Nomad. Exactly how, I'm not sure, but the end result is that your Mothership(s) get dismantled for proper starbases and/or Habitats and/or free buildings/districts, you become a new empire with traditional authority and civics, and your Void pops living on ground eventually lose that trait and, if necessary, gain your new capital's (or random if it's a Gaia, Ecuminopolis, or Ringworld) Habitability trait instead.
5. Civics
Now I get into some of the fun ideas on how to mix up the above.
Sky Lords - By and large, I feel that slaves would not really worth it for Nomads. I don't think there would be that many worker jobs other than the teams that go planet side, and likely the slaves would tend to get "lost" once they are there. Plus there is always a chance that a slave decides to end it all by triggering explosive decompression, hoping to take their captives with them (yes, I'm thinking of these as events, the later for when slaves radicalize). Still, there are a place for them; after all, you might just be capturing them for the purpose of putting them on the slave market. This civic, however, changes that up. Whether it is the original reason for abandoning their homeworld or a justification for coming later, these Nomads have decided that they are "too good" to step foot on any terrestrial body. Instead, they drop captured slaves onto habitable planets and force them to work for the raw resources that they need. These guys would start already with a meeting grounds, with a recently subdued primitive world already under their control. They don't suffer the normal (or at least as big) empire size penalty for colonizing worlds as regular nomads. However, every world they do automatically becomes a unique version of a Thrall world, minus some of the bonuses. Also, they don't get any sort of exploitation bonus for harvesting. For fun, might also force no reproduction rights on the slave pops (or at least a significant pop growth penalty on the planets) meaning that if they want to grow, they need to keep finding and capturing more and more slaves.
Ancient Drifters - Most Nomads measure their time since they left their homeworld in centuries, maybe millennia. These guys, however, have been floating around much longer. They were once a Fallen Empire, forced to abandon their home in the disaster that ended the previous cycle. Though they have forgotten nearly everything that separates Fallen Empires from new empires at game start, they still have their Mothership, made with best of their old technology, with better planetary extractors and a special Jump Drive that can take other ships with it. It is one of a kind... literally, because they can't make another, and any sort of surrender might end with game over, regardless of the CB (as the special ship is damaged beyond repair) On top of that, their smug superiority rubs standard empires the wrong way, and one of the non-Custodial FE's were a rival of yours back when you had a planet, and if they awaken, would have a grudge to settle.
Opportunistic Marauders- The other way to avoid the "can't take Mothership anywhere dangerous" rule, These Nomads are a species of pirates, pure and simple. Rather than a Guardian fleet (and many of the protections that came with it) The Mothership itself is armed, and better armored. All the military personal it takes to man this man o' war puts a significant dent on your naval capacity though. Alternatively, instead of a "Must take at start, can't remove" civic, maybe it could be "unlocked with Galactic Administration, can't be removed once taken" Civic? Hasn't been done before, but I think it would fit better balance wise.
All Devouring- You may remember waaay back at the top of this massive post that I said that Gestalts could be an option as well, on top of other ethics. This is pretty much why: Playable Prethoryn Scourge. Get WAY more resources from planets they exploit than anyone else, but eventually said planet becomes a barren terraform candidate. Total wars with other empires, never stops consuming.
7. Lore and other stuff
Lastly, this is where I'm going to put down my random thoughts about possible lore, events, and other miscellaneous things that might not have been covered above. Since they are brief, they're going to be largely bullet points.
-In most cases, unless a civic specifically states otherwise, I think you should be from the galaxy and your homeworld is out there somewhere. Finding it should be a Big Deal, with a lot of possible outcomes, sort of like finding Sol. Might be figured at creation or with civics, but I think it would be more fun if it was largely random; your species has been gone so long you don't even remember exactly *why* you left. When you find it, it might be barren yet terraformable, it might be shattered and lost, stuck in an Ice Age, claimed by another empire, still the home of your long-forgotton cousins (who might treat your return as anything from a great homecoming to a brown-pants moment, possibly to your great confusion) home to a new primitive or pre-sapient species (you've been gone for a LONG time), or maybe it's perfectly pristine, with districts and buildings that overgrown but intact, leaving you to wonder why it was abandoned in the first place.
-Wonder if, with Void basically setting habitablity for most planets to 0, if Adaptive and it's variants might have a different bonus for nomads, such as extending or reducing the exploitation period (because your pops can "take it" on the surface better or worse) never really a fan of "free" or "wasted" traits.
-Thinking about it some more, one of the homeworld return possibilities *absolutely* needs to be your long-lost cousins losing their flipping minds because the last remnants of the great evil empire that escaped into space has returned to surely seek revenge... but you are now pacifists.
-One of the pre-sets should be another Human Ark ship like the ship the Commonwealth of Man came from. Never found a habitable planet to settle until the idea of settling down was anathema. Like the CoM, they guarantee that a UNE of some type spawns.
Anyway, that is the big, long, massive idea for this. I think I covered most everything (except numbers, because numbers are figured out during testing.)
Any Questions?
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