Can we >please< get a Robot "Species" Portrait Pack?

[MathyM]

I know that you are doing away with bland cosmetic DLCs and actually adding proper content, but when you look at it:

* Machine Intelligence empires are limited by these portraits.

* Normal assembled robots (which nearly every empire except Hive Mind and some staunch Spiritualists will use) also draw from this portrait pool.

* Synthetically ascended empires? Ditto.

Even if we have a decent variety of robot portraits, they don't meet the demand. Could we please get some more? I surely wouldn't mind paying for them, but I understand if the community is tired of paying for cosmetics. I'd especially like some portraits that better match the look of other species, so they can serve as the logical choice when Synthetically ascending.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

 

[HFY]

I'd like some implicit tiers of robot portraits, too. Things the player could easily override but which the game uses by default.

- Crude Robots, perhaps like R2D2 or Boston Dynamics dog-bots or other non-humanoid / purely-functional chassis. Blocky, obviously mechanical. Doesn't matter if there are few or many, these are just where you start when you get your first robotic workers. Perhaps add blinking lights which change color according to your empire's flag.

- Droids, something between the Crude Robots and the perfected Synths. Hands start appearing, though still obviously artificial, but the portrait movements are closer to biological. Some of the existing Machine portraits could fit here, like the excellent Necroid spider-bot, or the XT-489 model.

- Synths / MI drones, start with the more-polished half of the current Machine portraits and add a "polished" version for each base portrait type. Fine manipulators (e.g. less-blocky hands) and tentacles go here, including the tentacle-fishbowl guy.

- Also, a "Crude Robot" styled Synth which has a large screen that shows the image of a biological portrait. The biological portrait is configured separately -- this is the fail-safe Synth Ascension portrait, with the original species portrait on the monitor. Cheap and easy.

 

[GOLANX]

I know that you are doing away with bland cosmetic DLCs and actually adding proper content, but when you look at it:

* Machine Intelligence empires are limited by these portraits.

* Normal assembled robots (which nearly every empire except Hive Mind and some staunch Spiritualists will use) also draw from this portrait pool.

* Synthetically ascended empires? Ditto.

Even if we have a decent variety of robot portraits, they don't meet the demand. Could we please get some more? I surely wouldn't mind paying for them, but I understand if the community is tired of paying for cosmetics. I'd especially like some portraits that better match the look of other species, so they can serve as the logical choice when Synthetically ascending.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Any such pack should be added to Synthetic Dawn or Utopia

 

[MathyM]

Any such pack should be added to Synthetic Dawn or Utopia

I don't mind if it's free or paid, I'm less concerned with the business decisions than I mean with some robot variety right now.

I do agree that Synthetic Dawn is the right pack for this expansion, but if it turns out to be too expensive for PDX to make, and they wish to make some money from it, I'll happily shell out a few bucks to get what I want in the game.

 

[GOLANX]

I don't mind if it's free or paid, I'm less concerned with the business decisions than I mean with some robot variety right now.

I do agree that Synthetic Dawn is the right pack for this expansion, but if it turns out to be too expensive for PDX to make, and they wish to make some money from it, I'll happily shell out a few bucks to get what I want in the game.

I don't think their income is something you should be worrying about, they added the custodian team for this exact reason. I would rather they allowed portrait mods to not modify the checksum than shell out for a portrait DLC that requires Synthetic Dawn or Utopia to use, nesting doll DLCs are a big no from me.

 

[LordIII3]

I would be really happy if we would get some Tiered robot Portraits, unlocked by reaching the next lvl of robotics research

Also I would be really happy if a ship skin set for machine Intelligence Empires (and Hive minds maybe too) would be added, so it's possible to distinguish them from regular Empires also by ship design.

 

[MathyM]

I would be really happy if we would get some Tiered robot Portraits, unlocked by reaching the next lvl of robotics research

Also I would be really happy if a ship skin set for machine Intelligence Empires (and Hive minds maybe too) would be added, so it's possible to distinguish them from regular Empires also by ship design.

To be fair, it's about time that Hive Minds also get an option to produce organic ships, not much different from what we see as space-faring creatures, as well as in an in-game event.

 

[LordIII3]

To be fair, it's about time that Hive Minds also get an option to produce organic ships, not much different from what we see as space-faring creatures, as well as in an in-game event.

Maybe just not them but all who pick an ascension perk for organic ship growing

 

[MathyM]

Maybe just not them but all who pick an ascension perk for organic ship growing

The game could use some reason to get food surplus indeed. It’s way too easy to feed your pops right now.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

I really don't see any reason for that. There are already a lot of robot portraits in the game. Yes since all Synths and Robots it feels like there are not enough but they are around the same number as for any other category. They also have a unique mechanic, origin and civics so adding more to machines seems useless to me.

 

[MathyM]

Yes since all Synths and Robots it feels like there are not enough but they are around the same number as for any other category.

There are as about as many robot portraits as there are for other categories, but when you pick another category, you can run almost any other type of empire. Effectively meaning that other categories are essentially interchangeable (save for special cases like Lithoids).

Robot portraits are a pool shared by worker robots (which almost evert empire uses), MI pops (which are an entire empire type of their own), and synth ascension pops (which any normal organic empire can turn into). So there are not enough, given the demand. That's precisely the point.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

There are as about as many robot portraits as there are for other categories, but when you pick another category, you can run almost any other type of empire. Effectively meaning that other categories are essentially interchangeable (save for special cases like Lithoids).

Robot portraits are a pool shared by worker robots (which almost evert empire uses), MI pops (which are an entire empire type of their own), and synth ascension pops (which any normal organic empire can turn into). So there are not enough, given the demand. That's precisely the point.

Yes I read your original post. That is still no reason for me.