LaertesSC2 had some interest in making custom races in Starcraft 2. Why don't you PM him and maybe you too can work something out. Here is his fictional background stories he presented to me couple months ago.
"The Void Pirates fled from their home planet fleeing genocide and civil war. At this time, their ranks consisted of a handful of fleeing templars. These renegade templars knew that they were being hunted and they fled to worlds unknown. The fleeing templar came upon a planet where there existed a repository, and beside it, incarnations collecting information. These beings, born of knowledge, and sometimes powerful enough to morph into other repositories with enough knowledge, were universal anomalies. They should not have existed, and yet they did. The creatures gave the pirates a new purpose, and the first Void Pirate colony was established on a neighboring world. Drawing upon resources garnered by the Incarnations, the Void Pirates took off on their eternal quest for knowledge. However, the Void Pirates would soon clash with races of all kinds in a faraway sector which they themselves did not have a name for.
Void Pirate Techtree + Lore
Repository: It is unclear what caused the creation of this strange structure and the incarnations that tend to it. It is just as unclear what came first, the Incarnation, or the Repository. One thing is clear though, when you find one Repository, you will many more around it, for incarnations, beings of knowledge, can metamorphose into these strange formations.
Astronomicon: An infinite void is contained in every Astronomicon. But it is not clear just how it works. The Void Pirates believe that a dead universe is linked to this strange formation. But only Incarnations truly know the way. When asked about their strange journeys through, they only mention that anything can be found in an Astronomicon, but to find it, one must look beyond the dead space. Whatever the case is, the Incarnations dare not use it to find anything but the vespene geysers that the Astronomicons are built around. Those few who have emerged from the Astronomicon alive have become oblivious to the world around, muttering incomprehensible things in an ancient tongue that the Void Pirates dare not repeat...
Enclave: The Renegade Templar take up residence in community homes known as enclaves. These homes house civilians, soldiers, and monstrosities alike. Each being takes up one small dorm, but the community will eat, recreate and live in the same domain. In militant colonies, the enclave is the main training center for humanoid soldiers. The Shadowbringer, Slayer, and Renegade Templar are all trained within this home. In fact,
the enclave is likely the last link to the unknown and archaic culture of their ancestry.
Void Factory: The term "factory" is loosely defined here, however, this structure was adapted by the Void Pirates from an age old marine corp design. When an incarnation surrounded the structure in metamorphosis it could be used to create machines and experiment on devastating robotic technologies left over from an older culture not completely the void pirates. However, the Void Pirates added their own to twists to experiments performed in these factories. The engineering traits performed here include reverse engineering, Artificial Intelligence, and even dark flying creations when advanced in experimentation."
Ah, nice to see another idea... My concern with this army though, is it seems to retread very familiar ground in borrowing elements like the void, templar, twilight, feralisk sounds very zerg. I'd be wary to make a protoss-zerg-void sounding army, especially given the possibility of a Xel'Naga/Hybrid army coming out in later expansions. Just my two cents. I wish him the best though. :)
Reading over what you've already got planned out, I came up with a few ideas that may help give your race a unique feel.
So far it seems you want to have a lot of focus on flying units and structures, as your race has to be very mobile. In addition to that, being pirates, their primary source of income seems to be stealing and scrapping whatever they can. Pirates don't have strong financial backing, centralized leadership, nor unified research and development. In many cases of pirate attacks, their main advantage comes in the element of surprise, exploiting their target's weaknesses, and commandeering the equipment of the enemy.
All this in mind, let's look at some options:
First off, give them a mobile command center. Not only will it make relocating and expanding easier, combined with flying gatherers, you now have the ability to steal enemy resources as a harassment option. Early game, most races don't have a quick response to air, and by using your new Piracy strategy, they now have to adjust their strategy in response. Mid-game, you can expand on this mechanic with a collection vessel. This unit wouldn't be able to construct additional gatherers, but would give gatherers a highly mobile drop off point. Additionally, by making this unit a transport, you can now fly it around the map, full of gatherers, to set up an expansion or steal from your opponents.
But let's back up. What else can we do with the command center? Well first let's address some issues balancing a flying main structure. In order to be a viable drop-off point, not to mention vulnerable to ground units, give this ship an anchor. The anchor keeps the command center in place, close to the resource nodes so you can gather them efficiently. When destroyed by enemy forces or when retracted for relocation, the command center will drift when idle, making it an unfit landing location for gatherers. It will then take time and resources to build a new anchor, thus giving a balanced disruption to resource gathering.
Now, more on the gatherers. Don't make them a worker in the traditional sense. Their primary purpose should be as the name I've used implies. In that regard, they don't have any form of self defense, other than the fact that they can only be targeted by anti-air units, and they can't build structures. In an emergency though, such as when your command center gets destroyed, they have a distress beacon with which they can call in a new command center from orbit. Without a command center or a collection vessel nearby, they'll quickly run out of fuel and become practically immobile.
So what about building construction? How about a dedicated queen like unit, or perhaps beacons to call in structures from orbit? Both ideas are quite viable. Let's take a look at the command center again for a moment. In addition to producing workers, let's give it a larva-train like ability to call in new structures from orbit, using a gatherer as a calldown beacon. Now for that queen unit, a pretty simple solution comes to mind: the collection vessel. With it, you can also call in new structures away from your main base.
Wow, that's a lot already! And it's only 3 of your units! Let's recap:
- Flying Command Center: Must be anchored to be a resource drop off, produces gatherers and collection vessels, calls in other structures from orbit.
- Gatherers: flying units that collect resources, quick when fueled, nearly immobile when stranded, acts as a signal beacon that calls in structures.
- Collection Vessels: Mobile resource drop off points, can call in basic structures, transports gatherers over long-distances.
That only covers part of the theme mechanics. I'm barely even started here, but it's 5am and I'm yawning too much to keep typing tonight. If you want the rest of what I've come up with, you'll have to contact me via PM or on IRC (sn: Saeris). I'm always in the mapster channel, though not always awake, though you can typically reach me during the PST afternoon hours.
Good luck with creating a custom race! It'll be difficult, but it's entirely possible. You've got a good idea going here already, and it should be pretty easy to start fleshing it out with existing units and structures. Don't get hung up on creating art assets right now, you'll want to change them a million times over, and when you decide some idea you had for a unit didn't work, you'd just end up scrapping whatever art you made for it in the first place. Always try to nail function down before polishing it, that philosophy will get you far in game design.
I don't think there's any problem with your main building become a capital ship... Terran can build Planetary Fortresses. Protoss get to build a single mothership... You could combine and balance both those ideas for your Capital Ship... Only able to have 1, you lose the ability to make units from it, only available late game. Have it maybe slightly more powerful(damage wise) than a Mothership(not by much, less/no abilities??)... you DID just giveup your ability to build extra Workers in the event you get steamrolled.
Saeris, I'd be very happy to discuss design w/ you. I'll be in a mapster channel on Starcraft 2 chat for a while here. I'll leave the window up, so I may not respond right away.
I'm wary about flying workers and things like that, but I'm willing to discuss it.
I made concepts for many new races (like aqir and troll empires) back in W3, but with SC2, I have concepts for only one so far: robotic army of doom [PH name].
Basically, it's a race of machines. People that evolved into machines or machines that went Skynet, I don't care. Machines. Angry machines. They want to steal your cookies. They're evil. Very. Prepare for a HUGE wall of text:
Some core concepts for the race:
No workers: the buildings themselves harvest and stuff
Buildings are units: they stay idle when training units or researching
Supply unit is the harvester: the "depots" have legs, and place themselves over the minerals/gas, and don't need to return to base for anything. They only need a command building stationed near them.
Production: to produce units, the buildings need to be near "depots". The depots act as batteries, but they aren't like pylons. Pylons cover and area and that's all, but depots, depending on upgrade level, have in and out. Buildings' energy works with "beams". These beams jump from one depot to another, carrying energy. You need to link manually those beams from depot to depot until you reach the production building. These beams originate from the command building, that acts as an energy station.
Smaller units: he robotic army has smaller units, that don't act as buildings, but the building-units are still the core of the army. These smaller units act as normal units, and maybe, they could be recycled just like terran bunkers. You put them inside the proper building and surprise, you recover the money.
Depots' special ability: the beam used to transport energy can be altered to be a "repairing" beam, as well as a "electric fence" beam. Ultimately, they could even give better firepower when connected to nearby building-units.
Transportation special ability: the small units could use the "beam network" just as a nydus network, entering a special building linked to the network, of course. The beams would show units being transported.
Construction: to build new buildings, you have to use the existing ones. Depots are the lowest level, and can build anything. However, the construction for high tier buildings is very slow, so you may want to use more depots. Yes, you can speed up the construction of a buildings using more "constructors". Aside from depots, any building can build other buildings, but the higher tier they are, the more limited they are, and they can't build lower buildings, for example. The only disadvantage is that to do so, they must stay idle, and have a beam linked to the constructing building.
And those are the core concepts that make this race unique. Since the units are the buildings, there's less buildings than in other races, and certain research buildings (those you build only to unlock stuff) may be translated as research or additional linked beams. After all, to research you have to stay idle, losing an unit in the process, so I think it's fine.
The "but there's no micro on recollection so you just suck" problem is fixed by the need to have a good beam macro, connecting stuff here and there. You won't be competitive if you don't link buildings efficiently, because no matter you have tons of resources, you need working buildings to spend them.
Some unit ideas, although they need work (I never got to write any of this, so I'm spawning everything out of my head right now, lol): [note: A: air, B: building]
Tier 0
Command (B): big ass structure, can load depots to get more beam power. Starts with only 4-6 (you need a beam for each resource object and to link the network). They can attack, but they are pretty weak, just like a fat depot. However, if you load depots on it, it becomes more powerful.
Tier 0.5
Depot (better name would be battery or something like that, but I leave it as depot so you don't get lost :P) B): these are the basic building units, they don't do too much damage, but they are excellent tanks to resist damage, and form a cannon fodder wall in front of the ranged units. They can evolve into different towers, too (anti-light and anti-heavy).
Tier 1
Wasp: these guys are like marines, but of 1 food. Think of slow zerglings with assault rifles.
Brutes (B): these are the basic force, and cost 3 food. They are like 1.5 zealots. They produce wasps and technoguys, when standing idle and having 1 beam linked to them.
Technoguy: these guys are built from brutes, too, and are the T1 casters. They can spawn fake-depots, that don't give food, but allow beams to travel higher distances (beams have a jump limit, and these help bring energy to distant places faster). They can sacrifice to heal their allies, too. Finally, they can spawn small flying drones, that can drain enemy energy and shields, and be used for exploration. They fly, but only attack land.
Tier 2
Shockwaver (B): these big and slow guys attack using shockwaves, with a decreasing damage and a growing area depending on the distance. Think of a cone shockwave. They're powerful against armored units. However, the shockwave doesn't trespass attacked enemies, at least not without the upgrade.
Barrager (B): these small and fast guys are the special anti air unit. In land, they are useful against light units, but in general, they are weak. Against air, they use their full potency, and have a special barrage aoe attack.
Stinger: melee fliers, that are good against big objectives. They get near enemy fliers, where they take speed and make small hits, to later retreat a few meters and charge again. They are terrible on high numbers, overwhelming smaller and slower fleets of heavy ships. Created by Barrager.
Caster: the typical caster like the Infestor, HT and Raven. Doesn't fly. Still haven't decide any ability for him. Created by Shockwaver.
Transport: they can act as flying fake depots as well as carry buildings and units. Created by Barrager.
Tier 3:
Destroyer (B): a melee brute, in the levels of an Ultralisk, but with a circle AoE. Has a weaker anti-air attack.
Worm: a small permanently invisible flier with a slowing area attack. Created by Spaceship.
Spaceship (B): a medium flier (the only flying building) with a good siege attack against land, and ranged cannons against air (think of void-ray + viking).
And well, if you've read all of this, WHoA, you really have a lot of free time xDDD. Those are the ideas for my race. I start to write and I don't stop, lulz. I hope my design schematics inspire everyone to make cool stuff ;).
And if someone wants to work with me to create the race, well, I'm open to work :P.
Today I won't be around much until later in the evening. I'll send you a PM with some of the other things I came up with Barbasol.
One thing other thing I want to mention is the play style I've got in mind. Mainly what I'm imagining for this race is heavy heavy harassment and resource manipulation. Overall they wouldn't be focused on big battles because most of the units would be designed for hit and run missions and resource denying. Most of the biological ground units work in this regard, while some of the more expensive late game units are there to help balance that inability to fight big battles one on one. Most of their defenses come in the form of stealthiness and being hard to catch. Playing on that orbital drop theme, the race's ultimate or nuke would be in the form of an orbital ion cannon capable of quickly taking out key units and structures in short bursts.
Anyways, for now I've gotta go bring home my girlfriend from college for spring break. I'll be back in a few hours. Hope you don't feel like I'm completely re-writing your design here, I kinda feel bad because I'm sort of doing just that. >.<
I have a night class coming up soon, so hopefully we'll be able to chat sometime.
--
Still looking for a unit/data editor. Basically someone to join up and basically work with us to create the units with their abilities. :)
Just wanted 2 say 2 abilities i thought the capital ship. it could possibly have some sort of time distortion field that shows enemies attacks, speed, missiles, and such in the field and such as well as the ability to call down a Napalm strike that sort of has a function like a nuke but ships come down from the sky with a pre-warning to the enemy like the nuke I've already seen these two things like these made from the data editor thought with some balance you could conceder the 2 abilities. i know its just more ideas piling up i know but we all want to be of help =)
Appreciate the interest. :)
So far the plan for the Capital Ship is that it has two main modes of attack.
Broadside- Broadside diverts full power to its auxilliary guns, which in turn light up the sky in a fury of AA blasts.
Bombardment- Unleashes a constant stream of explosive rounds which cause wide splash damage and is used against ground targets.
This way, the Capital Ship is a dominant force in both Air and Ground... but only one at a time. And it takes quite a while to switch. So in big battles, the Capital Ship can be used to even the odds where you are outmatched.
LaertesSC2 had some interest in making custom races in Starcraft 2. Why don't you PM him and maybe you too can work something out. Here is his fictional background stories he presented to me couple months ago.
"The Void Pirates fled from their home planet fleeing genocide and civil war. At this time, their ranks consisted of a handful of fleeing templars. These renegade templars knew that they were being hunted and they fled to worlds unknown. The fleeing templar came upon a planet where there existed a repository, and beside it, incarnations collecting information. These beings, born of knowledge, and sometimes powerful enough to morph into other repositories with enough knowledge, were universal anomalies. They should not have existed, and yet they did. The creatures gave the pirates a new purpose, and the first Void Pirate colony was established on a neighboring world. Drawing upon resources garnered by the Incarnations, the Void Pirates took off on their eternal quest for knowledge. However, the Void Pirates would soon clash with races of all kinds in a faraway sector which they themselves did not have a name for.
Void Pirate Techtree + Lore
Repository: It is unclear what caused the creation of this strange structure and the incarnations that tend to it. It is just as unclear what came first, the Incarnation, or the Repository. One thing is clear though, when you find one Repository, you will many more around it, for incarnations, beings of knowledge, can metamorphose into these strange formations.
Astronomicon: An infinite void is contained in every Astronomicon. But it is not clear just how it works. The Void Pirates believe that a dead universe is linked to this strange formation. But only Incarnations truly know the way. When asked about their strange journeys through, they only mention that anything can be found in an Astronomicon, but to find it, one must look beyond the dead space. Whatever the case is, the Incarnations dare not use it to find anything but the vespene geysers that the Astronomicons are built around. Those few who have emerged from the Astronomicon alive have become oblivious to the world around, muttering incomprehensible things in an ancient tongue that the Void Pirates dare not repeat...
Enclave: The Renegade Templar take up residence in community homes known as enclaves. These homes house civilians, soldiers, and monstrosities alike. Each being takes up one small dorm, but the community will eat, recreate and live in the same domain. In militant colonies, the enclave is the main training center for humanoid soldiers. The Shadowbringer, Slayer, and Renegade Templar are all trained within this home. In fact,
the enclave is likely the last link to the unknown and archaic culture of their ancestry.
Void Factory: The term "factory" is loosely defined here, however, this structure was adapted by the Void Pirates from an age old marine corp design. When an incarnation surrounded the structure in metamorphosis it could be used to create machines and experiment on devastating robotic technologies left over from an older culture not completely the void pirates. However, the Void Pirates added their own to twists to experiments performed in these factories. The engineering traits performed here include reverse engineering, Artificial Intelligence, and even dark flying creations when advanced in experimentation."
Thanks queen, I have also finished and released another techtree
This one is for the terran based units.
(This time i took your advice queen, and made the units have no bubble around them)
Note on similarities:
Intentionally, the lore takes place within the same universe, while not the same area, as the koprulu sector. Since Renegade Templar are somehow linked to the koprulu sector through an enigmatic past, the renegade templar can be called the forerunners to the dark templar. Also, the twilight gate is supposedly a "portal" through time and space that allows beings to travel through to those linked areas through a strange anomaly called twilight. Due to this, the Feralisk by definition is a Mutalisk that has been lost in these gates(Psionic power does not exist in twilight) and has come out as a Feralisk, an aggressive, uncontrolled version of the Mutalisk that is more easily manipulated by slayers.
Note on Marine Corp similarities: I intended marine corp to be more immediately connected to the Koprulu Sector, as recently as the Confederacy. They were sent out on a mission, and were lost to the Confederacy, so therein, they became their own. A nomad race that was able to survive on their own due to a colonist population. To avoid inbreeding for prolonged generations at a time, they develop many colonies on different worlds to promote cultural diversity. Just in case you were wondering.
Anyway, I am doing this alone, but we can correspond, if you want.
It's a real shame SC2's support for custom races is so poor. Only Units can even have a custom race set for them, and even then they tend to forget or glitch.
If you work out how to get editor-wide support (especially for help menu stuff) I would love to know.
wow you had this more planned out than I thought O.o
Will there be a campaign and story accompanying it? Or will it only be melee?
yeah shoot big but start off small =)
LaertesSC2 had some interest in making custom races in Starcraft 2. Why don't you PM him and maybe you too can work something out. Here is his fictional background stories he presented to me couple months ago.
"The Void Pirates fled from their home planet fleeing genocide and civil war. At this time, their ranks consisted of a handful of fleeing templars. These renegade templars knew that they were being hunted and they fled to worlds unknown. The fleeing templar came upon a planet where there existed a repository, and beside it, incarnations collecting information. These beings, born of knowledge, and sometimes powerful enough to morph into other repositories with enough knowledge, were universal anomalies. They should not have existed, and yet they did. The creatures gave the pirates a new purpose, and the first Void Pirate colony was established on a neighboring world. Drawing upon resources garnered by the Incarnations, the Void Pirates took off on their eternal quest for knowledge. However, the Void Pirates would soon clash with races of all kinds in a faraway sector which they themselves did not have a name for.
Void Pirate Techtree + Lore
Repository: It is unclear what caused the creation of this strange structure and the incarnations that tend to it. It is just as unclear what came first, the Incarnation, or the Repository. One thing is clear though, when you find one Repository, you will many more around it, for incarnations, beings of knowledge, can metamorphose into these strange formations.
Astronomicon: An infinite void is contained in every Astronomicon. But it is not clear just how it works. The Void Pirates believe that a dead universe is linked to this strange formation. But only Incarnations truly know the way. When asked about their strange journeys through, they only mention that anything can be found in an Astronomicon, but to find it, one must look beyond the dead space. Whatever the case is, the Incarnations dare not use it to find anything but the vespene geysers that the Astronomicons are built around. Those few who have emerged from the Astronomicon alive have become oblivious to the world around, muttering incomprehensible things in an ancient tongue that the Void Pirates dare not repeat...
Enclave: The Renegade Templar take up residence in community homes known as enclaves. These homes house civilians, soldiers, and monstrosities alike. Each being takes up one small dorm, but the community will eat, recreate and live in the same domain. In militant colonies, the enclave is the main training center for humanoid soldiers. The Shadowbringer, Slayer, and Renegade Templar are all trained within this home. In fact,
the enclave is likely the last link to the unknown and archaic culture of their ancestry.
Void Factory: The term "factory" is loosely defined here, however, this structure was adapted by the Void Pirates from an age old marine corp design. When an incarnation surrounded the structure in metamorphosis it could be used to create machines and experiment on devastating robotic technologies left over from an older culture not completely the void pirates. However, the Void Pirates added their own to twists to experiments performed in these factories. The engineering traits performed here include reverse engineering, Artificial Intelligence, and even dark flying creations when advanced in experimentation."
I don't think there's any problem with your main building become a capital ship... Terran can build Planetary Fortresses. Protoss get to build a single mothership... You could combine and balance both those ideas for your Capital Ship... Only able to have 1, you lose the ability to make units from it, only available late game. Have it maybe slightly more powerful(damage wise) than a Mothership(not by much, less/no abilities??)... you DID just giveup your ability to build extra Workers in the event you get steamrolled.
I made concepts for many new races (like aqir and troll empires) back in W3, but with SC2, I have concepts for only one so far: robotic army of doom [PH name].
Basically, it's a race of machines. People that evolved into machines or machines that went Skynet, I don't care. Machines. Angry machines. They want to steal your cookies. They're evil. Very. Prepare for a HUGE wall of text:
Some core concepts for the race:
And those are the core concepts that make this race unique. Since the units are the buildings, there's less buildings than in other races, and certain research buildings (those you build only to unlock stuff) may be translated as research or additional linked beams. After all, to research you have to stay idle, losing an unit in the process, so I think it's fine.
The "but there's no micro on recollection so you just suck" problem is fixed by the need to have a good beam macro, connecting stuff here and there. You won't be competitive if you don't link buildings efficiently, because no matter you have tons of resources, you need working buildings to spend them.
Some unit ideas, although they need work (I never got to write any of this, so I'm spawning everything out of my head right now, lol): [note: A: air, B: building]
And well, if you've read all of this, WHoA, you really have a lot of free time xDDD. Those are the ideas for my race. I start to write and I don't stop, lulz. I hope my design schematics inspire everyone to make cool stuff ;).
And if someone wants to work with me to create the race, well, I'm open to work :P.
Just wanted 2 say 2 abilities i thought the capital ship. it could possibly have some sort of time distortion field that shows enemies attacks, speed, missiles, and such in the field and such as well as the ability to call down a Napalm strike that sort of has a function like a nuke but ships come down from the sky with a pre-warning to the enemy like the nuke I've already seen these two things like these made from the data editor thought with some balance you could conceder the 2 abilities. i know its just more ideas piling up i know but we all want to be of help =)
Thanks queen, I have also finished and released another techtree
This one is for the terran based units. (This time i took your advice queen, and made the units have no bubble around them)
Note on similarities: Intentionally, the lore takes place within the same universe, while not the same area, as the koprulu sector. Since Renegade Templar are somehow linked to the koprulu sector through an enigmatic past, the renegade templar can be called the forerunners to the dark templar. Also, the twilight gate is supposedly a "portal" through time and space that allows beings to travel through to those linked areas through a strange anomaly called twilight. Due to this, the Feralisk by definition is a Mutalisk that has been lost in these gates(Psionic power does not exist in twilight) and has come out as a Feralisk, an aggressive, uncontrolled version of the Mutalisk that is more easily manipulated by slayers.
Note on Marine Corp similarities: I intended marine corp to be more immediately connected to the Koprulu Sector, as recently as the Confederacy. They were sent out on a mission, and were lost to the Confederacy, so therein, they became their own. A nomad race that was able to survive on their own due to a colonist population. To avoid inbreeding for prolonged generations at a time, they develop many colonies on different worlds to promote cultural diversity. Just in case you were wondering.
Anyway, I am doing this alone, but we can correspond, if you want.
It's a real shame SC2's support for custom races is so poor. Only Units can even have a custom race set for them, and even then they tend to forget or glitch.
If you work out how to get editor-wide support (especially for help menu stuff) I would love to know.
awww I thought by race you meant like a rally course, lol :(