u/Cog-Sucking_Clanker

So, looking into the Wilderness Empire's whole gimmick of being a living ecosystem, I feel like I had to bite eventually. My only reason for not doing so sooner is due to a single concern I have: Biomorphosis. I love the path of Mutation, or at least the first and last flexible traditions. Vocational Genomics? Leviathan Traits? Mutagenic Habitability? I love 'em. However, knowing this, I've been kinda hesitant to do a wilderness playthrough because, from what I've heard, you're "Locked into" the Purity path (Which, don't get me wrong, I typically go with purity, but only because I get the 2nd flexible thing as purity so I can choose it.)

So for any of y'all who are more experienced with the Wilderness gameplay, could y'all lemme know if I'm forced to choose ONLY purity options?

So, given I have no experience with modding, I figured that, instead of just letting my ideas sit in my head, I'd post a couple here instead. Who knows, something might come from it.

So, for starters, I feel like the best way to make minecraft scary is by creating an event where almost every mob despawns, and your left completely alone. There'd be no animals, no monsters, no villagers or illagers. It'd just be a dead and empty world. Furthermore, there would be no music playing in the background, leaving the player with only the sound of their feet hitting the grass or their pickaxe slamming against stone. Throw on a creepy fog to obscure the player's view, and congratulations, you got the perfect setup for a decent horror mod.

But what about monsters? What about those oogly-boogly fellas who'll turn your innards into outtards? Well, given that nothing spawns, having a creepy creature chase you through the empty fields would be kinda iffy. If done right it might hold some merit, but having no hope of survival just makes it annoying. If anything, the best course of action should be having the mod IMPLY something is watching you, by playing an eerie noise here and there to break the silence, have a pair of glowing eyes staring at you from the fog or within the darkness of a cave, maybe take a page out of Flywheel of Terror's book and have the player enter the monster's perspective and slowly approach their avatar.

Well anyways, that's all for now, any other ideas you guys think would be perfect for a pretty good "terror" themed mod?

So, where do I begin? well, to put it simply, I love the devouring swarm asthetic. I love having organic based weaponry and vehicles that are born more-so than they are built. I love hive minds, and how every organism in said hive mind functions less as an individual and more as a single cell in this vast collective that spans across the stars and far into the darkest reaches of space.

safe to say, I love factions like the tyranids and Zerg. However, over time I’ve been wanting to see if there are other wargames out there with similar factions in their own universe. Warhammer’s no longer as interesting to me as it used to, and while StarCraft definetly fits the bill, I could never really enjoy the idea of Kerrigan, a dirty human, rising to the top of the Zerg swarm and leading it into battle.

my question is, what other options exist?

So, an idea I’ve had for a while now is to create a machine intelligence who, rather than seeing the flesh as something weak and flawed, was programmed by its original masters to create a superior organic form through genetic modification and engineering. Now, granted, there‘s going to be a lot of limitations with such an empire, since I’d be locked out of biomorphosis and unable to use the Overtuned origin for my machines, but the idea of a machine trying to become an organic entity seems pretty cool on paper, so how would y’all go about doing this?

So, a while back I came across a post asking the people here how the OP could recreate the Primal Zerg from Starcraft, and while the Primal Zerg are definitely an interesting concept, I’m more drawn to the OG Zerg, the alien hive mind, created by Amon, seeking evolutionary perfection. that’s why, I decided to come to y’all for suggestions. Some things I’d like suggestions on include:

1. “what civics and origin should the empire get?“ obviously, they're going to be a hivemind, so gestalt ethics all the way, but what civics would fit the swarm, and what origin would fit the flavor of the Zerg? (Progenitor seems to be the popular choice, but I have contemplated using overtuned for the gene modding side of things.
2. “What Traits and portrait would fit the swarm?” the Zerg have many bioforms within their hive, from the serpentine Hydralisk to the Voidborne leviathans, but the thing about that is the Hydralisks, Ultralisks and so on were only assimilated AFTER the hive left Zerus. Which traits would this “Founder Zerg Species“ have, and what portrait would they use?
3. “how would the swarm play? What ascension perks and traditions would they use?“ supremacy is a given, And biomorphosis would give the player access to assimilating pops into the hivemind and let them roleplay the creation of new zerg strains. but what other traditions and ascension perks would the swarm take in the quest for galactic domination?

With the anouncement of Nomads, I figured I'd throw my hat in and suggest that, incase the devs are listening, Arkships would get an organic alternative for people who use spinovore or shellcraft. Just think it'd be neat.

So one thing I always like to do for my stellaris games is have some of the presets come along for the ride, like the Djunn, Basidrix, and Yorphian Extractorate. I also would bring in the UNE and Commonwealth as the government mandated human faction, but when I tried to have them be added into the galaxy (Yes, I did set them to always spawn) They never show up and I don't even get that exclaimation point when generating a galaxy letting me know one of the presets won't be able to spawn. Anyone know why this changed?