A bit of background on my thought process . . . I just decided to create a robot empire with the memorialist trait and as a matter of roleplay I decided to give them the machine world start and a history from the game's own lore. This is a species that tried to save itself by uploading it's neural patterns into the computer for a future species to potentially resurrect. But I gave the standard event a twist . . . the races own computers finished the research and brought the species back online.
Unfortunately the starting screen has to be completely ignored for this RP because it still said "We have no knowledge of our creators" even though I made the race memorialists with complete access to the memories and merged personalities of those creators. The game, somehow, thinks they are memorialists who remember nothing. This got me thinking that robotic empires lack a lot of diversity and eventually led to this post which is mostly going to be suggestions for future content and/or simple changes.
(1) The first thing that strikes me as odd has always been the idea that these robots have to be networked together into a hive. Why? Is there any reason that an automated drone production facility couldn't incrementally move from somewhat intelligent drones doing various tasks all the way to producing an intelligent race of individuals? Or even a couple of such races in a mimicry of the syncretic evolution origin? Perhaps the intelligence derives from a computer virus mimicking the necrotic origin and the "primitive" civilizations are other robotic races decended from the creator's technology?
(2) Habitats . . . why can't a robotic civilization evolve from the maintenance drones and computers maintaining an abandoned series of habitats inside the territory of some ancient civilization? They can inhabit ring worlds and the balance issues aren't that different here. In fact evolving inside an atmosphere free shell should probably result in robots who can't handle heavy gravity and depend on that shell to protect them from nasty things like oxygen, water, and solar radiation. . . . of course in return for such a handicap the robots might be even better suited to working and living within those habitats compared to an organic species with the same origin.
(3) Planetary origin . . . A robotic species probably does need an atmosphere of some sort to protect them against the elements but it doesn't really follow that they would be utilized mostly on worlds where life is possible. We don't send automated drones out to planets we could explore ourselves, we send them to mars or Europa, or wherever. More to the point water and oxygen are extremely reactive materials and thus not the best places for machinery to operate. Why shouldn't we get the option for an alternative set of starting planets with inert atmospheres of various sorts? Not only would this add variety to the game as some machine empires completely ignored living worlds but it would make the various "useless" planets a bit more diverse and fleshed out compared to our normal run of barren, toxic, and gas giant planets.
(4) Obviously my roleplay of a race that successfully transferred its intelligence into robotic machinery without first reaching space would be a great addition to the various robotic origin civics but . . . again why are these still civics? Shouldn't they be turned into origins as well with the robotic race requirement?
Unfortunately the starting screen has to be completely ignored for this RP because it still said "We have no knowledge of our creators" even though I made the race memorialists with complete access to the memories and merged personalities of those creators. The game, somehow, thinks they are memorialists who remember nothing. This got me thinking that robotic empires lack a lot of diversity and eventually led to this post which is mostly going to be suggestions for future content and/or simple changes.
(1) The first thing that strikes me as odd has always been the idea that these robots have to be networked together into a hive. Why? Is there any reason that an automated drone production facility couldn't incrementally move from somewhat intelligent drones doing various tasks all the way to producing an intelligent race of individuals? Or even a couple of such races in a mimicry of the syncretic evolution origin? Perhaps the intelligence derives from a computer virus mimicking the necrotic origin and the "primitive" civilizations are other robotic races decended from the creator's technology?
(2) Habitats . . . why can't a robotic civilization evolve from the maintenance drones and computers maintaining an abandoned series of habitats inside the territory of some ancient civilization? They can inhabit ring worlds and the balance issues aren't that different here. In fact evolving inside an atmosphere free shell should probably result in robots who can't handle heavy gravity and depend on that shell to protect them from nasty things like oxygen, water, and solar radiation. . . . of course in return for such a handicap the robots might be even better suited to working and living within those habitats compared to an organic species with the same origin.
(3) Planetary origin . . . A robotic species probably does need an atmosphere of some sort to protect them against the elements but it doesn't really follow that they would be utilized mostly on worlds where life is possible. We don't send automated drones out to planets we could explore ourselves, we send them to mars or Europa, or wherever. More to the point water and oxygen are extremely reactive materials and thus not the best places for machinery to operate. Why shouldn't we get the option for an alternative set of starting planets with inert atmospheres of various sorts? Not only would this add variety to the game as some machine empires completely ignored living worlds but it would make the various "useless" planets a bit more diverse and fleshed out compared to our normal run of barren, toxic, and gas giant planets.
(4) Obviously my roleplay of a race that successfully transferred its intelligence into robotic machinery without first reaching space would be a great addition to the various robotic origin civics but . . . again why are these still civics? Shouldn't they be turned into origins as well with the robotic race requirement?
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