Do you mean the actual meaning of immersion breaking, i.e, you'd see them and they'd remind you that you are playing a game? Or do you mean the more common meaning and are saying:
Either way, why?
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Please stop asking for biological technology for hive minds
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Do you mean the actual meaning of immersion breaking, i.e, you'd see them and they'd remind you that you are playing a game? Or do you mean the more common meaning and are saying:
Leviathans are basically cyborgs, as are the Wraith hiveships. But the Vorlon ones are outright stated to be alive and sentient. So maybe not living in the same way as Zerg or Tyranid ships but still biological and grown and augmented.
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vorlons are hive-like energetic and immortal beings who, despite their individuality, are interconnected, and they command their ships through psi power
though i don't recall their ships displaying signs of actual living organisms, they're just made of organic tissue as can be seen on the vorlon tech that was adopted by the minbari
the wraith are hive-like psionic beings too, with the mothership crews being something like the "hive within the hive"
i haven't watched farscape yet so i can't tell what the races there are like
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Not really. There are as many or more instances where they're not part of a hive mind as where they are.
The Edenists in the Night's Dawn trilogy (The Reality Dysfunction et al) use living bioships, Hyperion has living treeships, the Spline in Xeelee are megafauna that modified themselves into spaceships, the Yuuzhan Vong in Star Wars Legends.
If there were a way to mechanically differentiate living ships (bearing in mind it is already possible to create sentient, self healing spaceships which are made entirely with food), there would be no sane reason to restrict it to hive minds.
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If trees are 100% living organisms then Vorlon ships are too.
TBH whether a ship is a single grown organic ship or made of grown organic components or a mix of organics and machine is not super important, I'd say "yes to all of those please". We already have living tissue components and space amoeba hangar components so we already have machine ships with organic components. The crystal forged armor is arguably based on lithoid organisms.
I agree with OP: organic components are good, entire organic ships are also good. Both should be available to all empires, though IMO I think some special better components should be only available to Evolutionary Master ascension, like a T6 armor that is also regenerating. Or a T4 hangar component. Or T4 mega-bacteria torpedoes.
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Quoting this for emphasis.
If you're using regenerative hull tissue and autonomous combat computers on your catalytic processing hive mind ships with supremacy traditions finished, those are living, intelligent ships made with organic components.
I think we really need to distinguish between using organic technology to make spaceships and using meaty space creatures instead of spaceships.
And I'm not saying the latter shouldn't be possible in Stellaris, although I'm also personally fine with it being unique to the Prethoryn and part of what makes the Prethoryn unique. But it's not like you can't build biological ships.
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[[TANGENT]]-- Re: Vorlon Shipsthose ships are only partly made of organic tissue (mainly the hull/armor as well as some interior interfaces) without the ship itself being a living organism
when speaking of an organic ship i've got for example lexx in mind, which is an actual (yet artificially created) huge living organism (e.g. like the drakes or voidspawns in stellaris)
The Lexx
The Lexx was created as a flagship for His Divine Shadow to use on a universe-wide cleansing. It is the spiritual successor to the previous flagship the Megashadow (and its own predecessor the Foreshadow). “I am The Lexx, I am the most powerful weapon of destruction in the two universes” — The...lexx.fandom.com
this kind of ships are usually part of a hive mind or are controlled by a psionic entity, there are alao cases where the ship is fully self-aware and acts independently just like any other living organism
lexx for example was built by the divine order which itself was an insectoid hive fighting off humanoids and is fully self-aware, the new crew made up of individuals it treats more like kids to protect than
Both they and the Shadow vessels are very definitely living, sentient organisms. Granted, the Shadow crab-ships require a sentient regular species to bond in and direct it like a human telling a dog when to attack, but...
But with the Vorlons, for instance, they're not just bio engineered, but fall in love with / bond so closely to their pilot that when their Vorlon "owner" dies, the ships are so grief-stricken that they go commit suicide by diving into a star.
Yes. Totes.
Actually, this is the reason that, in my headcanon, Devouring Swarms already have bio ships. One if their bonuses is
* +X% Hull points
* +X% Hull Regeneration / Day.
Cant remember the numbers.
But to me that screams bioships.
Went and changed most of my DS empires I've made to Vatakytic Processing just to make it all match. Esoecially since that effectively means that the pops you eat get turned into ships. Totes Zerg / Tyrannid.
yeah, that's a fair point. something like that happened upon kosh's death, no?
the main problem with vorlon and shadow tech is that both factions played the grey eminence role and you rarely got to see them or their tech operate, you mainly got to see others cleaning up their mess
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Did you mean "no reason why it would not be used"? But yes there's no reason for organic construction to be hive mind exclusive.
You could make organic construction a standardised option that's got a few ways to unlock it. So your "standard" biobuilding option turns the mineral costs for buildings and stations into a mix of minerals and a whole bunch of food, and the alloy costs for spaceships and space stations and robots into a mix of alloys and a whole bunch of food, and the energy upkeeps for all of the above into a mix of energy and regular amounts food.
Then you can gain access to it in various ways with different riders, like for hive minds it's an origin that also gives you a hive world and bonus armies but for regular empires it's a civic or ascension path.
"Please stop asking for Hive Minds to have any flavour at all, as opposed to being a completely bland and entirely tamely mechanically differentiated choice to just not use consumer goods or trade value. Stellaris having any actual identity at all offends me. Also, please remove gooey hive worlds, I want them to look exactly the same as all other worlds.
.....hm? Oh, I'd like a large fries with no salt please. Yeah. No salt. Yes. Yes I know they're supposed to have salt. I don't want them to taste like anything. Thanks."
.....hm? Oh, I'd like a large fries with no salt please. Yeah. No salt. Yes. Yes I know they're supposed to have salt. I don't want them to taste like anything. Thanks."
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There's a difference between asking for hiveminds to have flavour, and asking for hiveminds to have a single, extremely specific flavour that noone else is allowed to have.
I think the ideal would be for there to be many different possible flavours of hive mind, just as there are many possible flavours of regular empire. Not just a bunch of different variations on Zerg and Tyranids with slightly different mechanical bonuses (which is really no different from what we have now).
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On this point... I think they should do 3 completely unique ship sets for the 3 ascension paths. Make it truly unique.
For the evolution path, some sort of half-biological half-technological ship set.
Man, that would be some real flavour.
And on the paths themselves - I wish they were WAY more extreme and truly transformative of your entire civilization. Something to make everyone else soil their pants. Balance be damned tbh, just make it expensive and thoroughly impactful.
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hives would still need, in relative numbers, more flavour if all the new flavour would be made available to everyone
so the fight over a new skin pack for hive ships continues
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hives would still need, in relative numbers, more flavour if all the new flavour would be made available to everyone
so the fight over a new skin pack for hive ships continues
Well yeah, but their flavour is supposed to be "hive mind". The way to enhance that flavour is to figure out different ways for a gigantic single mind to interact with the systems of the galaxy. Membership in a federation, the galctic community, etc. should all have little twists for being a hive mind.
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Currently hiveminds are normal empires with fewer mechanics.
They don't actually feel different from normal empires anywhere else than the planetscreen, and even then it's miniscule differences.
I'd love for some actual content for hiveminds instead of "lack of features IS your feature".
Just giving hives access to what normal empires have would be nice (trade/advanced pop upkeep chains) but some actual flavourful mechanics for hives would be awesome.
But I'll agree that bio-tech shouldn't be locked to hives, it should be locked to bio-ascension.
They don't actually feel different from normal empires anywhere else than the planetscreen, and even then it's miniscule differences.
I'd love for some actual content for hiveminds instead of "lack of features IS your feature".
Just giving hives access to what normal empires have would be nice (trade/advanced pop upkeep chains) but some actual flavourful mechanics for hives would be awesome.
But I'll agree that bio-tech shouldn't be locked to hives, it should be locked to bio-ascension.
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