I was thinking about a few ideas and this was the result, unique crew, which provide a bonus to the race that you're currently playing as, when you switch races your unique crew will also convert to the new race's counterpart. The weaker races have gained a more directly beneficial crew type while the stronger races have gained somewhat less noticeable bonuses to even them out a little and add a new dynamic to the races outside of the race bonus and professions available.

-Sillixx: Trader: The Sillixx are expert merchants and many individuals seek out rare artifacts to barter for, +2 artifact production per trader.

-Inergon: Channeler: An Inergon trained to channel its energy to reactors and shield generators: +1 shield and max energy per channeler.

-Human: Adviser: Humans are fast learners and great tacticians, thus some individuals study enemy tactics and suggest ways to counter them, +4 defense per adviser.

-Konqul: Infantry: The Konqul are extremely aggressive combatants on the battlefield due to centuries of warfare, infantry provide +3 invasion attack.

-Vygoid: Cybernetic Technician: Vygoids are cybernetic masters of technology and many are experts of cybernetic warfare, when you hack an enemy ship you deal damage equivalent to the amount of CTs you have in addition to the usual research steal/badge. If the target is pacified then the damage bonus does not apply.

-Aerlen: Intelligence Gatherer: The Aerlen prefer to avoid conflict, so they use the intel they get to stay away from battles: +2 cloak per IG.

-Zolazin: Assailant: Pilots of small, well cloaked fighters that bombard enemy ships, 35% chance that when attacking will do additional damage equivalent to how many Assailants you have. Does not take damage cap into account.

-Mylarai: Prospector: The Mylarai are skilled miners, their prospectors are responsible for locating rich mining sites, +3 mining per prospector.

-Genetarr: Manipulator: The minds of the Genetarr are powerful enough that they often cause the crews of other ships to disobey commands from their officers. Manipulators are specifically trained to further this effect.
Your ship has a 20% chance to drop the defense that Ships (NPC and Player) have down by the number of manipulators you have, in the case of Elites, Bosses, and Alerted Players; this effect stacks when multiple Genetarr apply the effect to the same target.
The duration of this effect is permanent for NPCs, but expires in half an hour against players, opposing players can use a containment cage to remove the effect.

-Drannik: Avenger: The Drannik race was originally wiped out by their own creations, upon revival of the species many members of it sought revenge and have dedicated themselves to destroying the automatons. +4 NPC attack per avenger.

-Xecti: Warrior: Xecti individuals trained and equipped for flight and combat in space. Your ship gains +1 attack and defense per warrior. (unlike race bonus this also applies when you're on the offensive.)

-Lazuli: Mechanic: The lazuli are excellent ship builders and often have mechanics constantly maintaining their hulls, +5 hull per Mechanic.

-Kronyn: Archivist: Archivists are Kronyn individuals who have dedicated their lives to furthering the research of the species as a whole. +4 Research per Archivist.

-Taltherian: Architect: The Taltherian are designers and builders of vast mega-cities, all of your planets have +5 population per architect.

-Litheor: Tunnel Coordinator: The Litheor are a race that live beneath the surface of planets, their Tunnel Coordinators are responsible for concealing planet's infrastructure beneath the ground to render their planets far better defended. All of your planets gain +1 defense per Tunnel Coordinator (not multiplied by legion bonus or planetary multipliers such as barrier nexuses, this is added to the total).


Just an illustration of how it could look in the crew screen.

(Change log)
V0.1
-Xecti UC altered so it bonus only applies when under attack.
-Taltherian UC buffed to provide +5 pop, up from +2.
-Kronyn UC changed to provide +4 research, up from +2 to distinguish it from scientists.
-Lazuli UC changed to provide +5 hull, up from +2.
-Drannik UC changed to provide +4 NPC attack, up from +2 to distinguish it from a regular TO.
-Zolazin UC description altered to display that bonus ignores damage cap.
-Vygoid UC changed to provide +4 invasion attack, up from +2 to distinguish it from a regular TO.

v0.2
-Vygoid UC changed completely. New Vygoid UC does damage when hacking enemy ships.
-Slightly nerfed version of Vygoid's original UC given to Konqul.
-Humans now have a UC confirmed, provides +4 defense per UC.
-Genetarr now have a UC confirmed, permanently reduces NPC defense equivalent to the number of UCs you have on your first hit, stacks when multiple Genetarr hit the NPC.

v0.3
-Vygoid UC changed so that damage bonus to hacking does not apply when victim is pacified.
-Litheor now have a UC confirmed, all planets now gain cloaking equivalent to the number of Tunnel Coordinators you have.
-Genetarr UC changed to effect players, but unlike NPCs, the duration when affecting a player is only a half hour. Now is a 20% chance of occurring rather than automatic on first hit.
-Mylarai UC changed to provide +3 mining, up from +2. No real reason behind this change.
-Vygoid and Zolazin UCs due to controversy of damage potential are in the works of being nerfed so maximum bonus damage potential is based on a formula which will differ for these two races.

v0.4
-Xecti UC no longer applies to planets, but ship bonus now also applies for when you're on the offensive.
-Litheor UC changed to planet defense rather than cloak.

While I somewhat like the idea of additional crew types, as well as some impact from race choice, there are several issues with the types suggested here.

First, any +scan crew is automatically a -1, at least from me.

Konqul- same as scientists, but more useless?

Vygoid-unique crew for invasion attack? Really? How does that logically stack up? As well as worse than normal TOs

Aerlen- also logic issues...why cloak?

Zolazin- a) How would ship damage cap effect that calculation? b) cloak crew is far more logical here

Drannik- less benefit from unique crew than from just putting the point into TOs?

Xecti- Way too overpowered, unless you add "when being attacked"

Lazuli- underpowered

Kronyn- less beneficial than scientists?

Taltherian- population? what? how does that work? Their cities are large...but dead.

If this was put in I would change race to extra artifact generation race and just sink points in to making my artifacts better.....

suggestion for the Vygoid: Cyber Warfare, Deals # in damage to any foe you hack.

So you would actually play as Sillixx despite having to deal with a larger damage cap? Seems my idea of balancing out the races might actually be working.

Good idea for the vygoid unique crew though, I'll actually put that in.

I like the idea overall. I assume that the unique crew would always stay around and the benefit they granted would change if/when you changed race?

The higher damage cap would indeed suck however, I can sit on my rump NOT ranking, pulling RP's from my artifact pulls, say you get 2-3 a day (not unreasonable from what I have read from some players) do that for a year and they are generating 4380 artifact points an hour. that's better than alot of planets currently.

You are correct.

This is a very nice idea. However, I would like the one on the damage cap to include the damage cap due to there being many SSB ships.

You have no limit on hull, what's the problem?

Still looking for ideas on litheor, anyone got any ideas?

Perhaps a passive 0.001% per crew member bonus on offense/defense on all planets as you get "burrow designer?"

Hm, that sounds interesting, I was thinking planet cloak actually. as planet attack and defense almost seems similar to the Xecti's UC.

Another thought I had would be for one of the races to have a % chance of ignoreing traps per crew (likely .01 per) not sure which race it fits best with but that would be a COOL perk.... hate them dam things.

This is actually a pretty decent idea. I'll +1 this, would be nice to actually be doing damage while I'm freeze ranking.

anyway, here are my thoughts on the types you have suggested.

-Sillixx: Probably the best unique crew for the worst race in the game, maybe even making it a decent option for the late game.

-Inergon: It's fitting, can't say much else about it.

-Human: Sounds more like something for Aerlen but this would be great to make human more viable as an option.

-Konqul: Yeah, much more fitting for konqul than it must've been for vygoid.

-Vygoid: Maybe my freeze ranking and hacking people would actually result in me getting some kills. I would suggest a few tweaks to this though.
If you hack a player that is under a halcyon you will do no damage (so people won't complain about being disabled under the effect of a halc by multihacking), if you score a critical hack the amount of damage the hack will do is tripled.

-Aerlen: *shrug*, it works I guess.

-Zolazin: Sounds fun. Does this effect bases and planets or only players and NPCs?

-Mylarai: It's fitting to say the least.

-Genetarr: I can see this making genetarr more useful when dealing with those insanely tough bosses.

-Drannik: This wouldn't prevent Drannik from becoming "dated" when you get into the higher ranks unfortunately.

-Xecti: Sounds like an overlap of the race bonus but whatever.

-Lazuli: This would almost be like having a 6th hull module that doesn't take up any decks. I kinda like this.

-Kronyn: Just a slightly better scientist really.

-Taltherian: Pretty weak for what's arguably the best end-game race but I can see where you were going with this. It would make holding onto those 15x MR arti planets slightly easier to hold onto. It's like having a population structure on all of your planets that doesn't take up any space.

-Litheor: Planet cloak doesn't sound bad... Next to sillixx this would probably be one of the better endgame races thanks to its unique crew since people could have a hard time finding your planets provided planet cloak wasn't bugged and defective.

Love the idea, but zolazin as is is Waaay too powerful.

It would not take long at all to be cranking 10k crew, and that is adding 3k damage a hit on average to every single time you attack that ignores damage cap.

That is not an attack score of 10k - that is 10k pure damage triggered 35% of the time.

To the PVP world, TO's would be something you only get for planet invasion, as zolazin racial crew would be madly more effective.

Because honestly, what would you rather have? 50k tac officers, letting you deal 1-2k damage a hit, or 50k racial crew, dealing 17k damage on average per hit?

Vygoid has a similar problem, but the inherent limitations of hacking (could only do it 5 times normally, etc) help balance it a lot. Still mad damage though.

Each race already gets a bonus. Some are better than others. Live with it.

Game balance Darth. As it is, every single person on these forums should know that Sillix, for example, is a terrible race. Why would you choose it? If they had a good boost to their race, then more people would be that race. It would bring more variety, as the only races I see high ranks in the end-game choosing are Aerlen, Konqul, Taltherian, and Litheor. Again, simply more variety.

Sorry, I worded that wrong. Some are viewed to be better than others. Starter races are just that, STARTER races. If you actually pay attention to what you are doing, each of the Original Six have an advantage in certain aspects of the game. It's all in how you play that character that determines whether it is good or bad. There already is balance among them.

I will concede that they all have their bonuses. However, what exactly is the disadvantage of being Aerlen, Konqul, Vygoid, or Inergon, as opposed to being Sillix or Human? Yes, those two do indeed have their bonuses, but how do those scale to the other bonuses? If you wanted to rank faster as a Human, as opposed to Inergon, you would have to pop a NI or RSL to make the bonus stack, and thus get more out of it. How is that balanced?