[DEVBLOG#164] Developing of Rim-Effect: Turians and Gangs pt. 2 (Patreon)

Hey folks and welcome to another mod development blog!  Coming back to Turians, in the last devblog I showed you how I started off by making the Preview image and the storyteller image.

You can check the last devblog here.

Lets now take a look at what content we are planning to add in this mod:  Our modules for Rim-Effect always introduce a 'good' faction and their 'enemy'. By that I mean we always want to add a faction that player can ally with, as well as the enemy of that faction (the more lore-accurate enemy the better). This doesn't mean that that enemy is evil and cannot be worked with (Future Salarians and Krogans pack will have two factions that are... neither good or evil, as we know both Salarians and Krogans did some bad things in their respective histories and it's not up to me to decide).

For Turians and Gangs, the good faction are Turians. Not the C-Sec turians, and not some Turian colonization effort - because in my head canon RimWorld planet is in the Alliance space. Instead, it's the Turian Hierarchy Naval Force. Their fleet.

They struck a deal with Alliance and are offering protection of Alliance colonies from pirates and gangs. As part of this deal, a number of Fighter bases will exist on the surface of the rimworld - and hell, you can even raid them too!

Turian Hierarchy faction traits

Turian Hierarchy is a 100% Turian faction added with this mod. Due to the deal with Alliance, they are allowed to maintain minimal presence on the planet in the form of starship bases. These bases are small, heavily armed compounds with many strike fighters at their disposal.

Turian Hierarchy maintains a cold and distanced relationship with Systems Alliance. While they are not at war or hostile to each other, they are extremely difficult to ally with due to past grudges. As such, natural goodwill is low, and relations with the Turian Hierarchy will diminish with time unless the player works hard to maintain them.

Every Turian is a combat-ready individual, as such, there aren't any ‘civilian’ turians and everyone that player meets is enlisted military personnel.

Turian Hierarchy raids are always 15% stronger point-wise than a normal raid.

Turian raids never retreat and fight to the death.

Turian Hierarchy does not have the usual ‘Attacking immediately’ raid strategy. They are always either sappers, breachers, sieging, or using one of our new strategies.

Turian race

We definitely need to add Turian race if we are adding Turian Hierarchy faction, am I right?

^Image above is WIP (particularly heads won't be as big lol)

The Turians and Gangs module comes with a few unique races. First one is Turians. Known for their militaristic and disciplined culture, the turians were the third race to join the Citadel Council. They gained their Council seat after defeating the hostile krogan for the Council during the Krogan Rebellions. Originally from the planet Palaven, turians are best known for their military role, particularly their contributions of soldiers and starships to the Citadel Fleet.

Turians typically stand over six feet tall [1.8m], have two long, proportionately thick fingers and an opposable thumb on each hand, each tipped with talons, and a set of mandibles around their mouths. The most distinguishing feature of turians is their metallic carapace, which contains trace amounts of thulium. The turians evolved this trait as a defense against the greater levels of solar radiation that penetrate their homeworld's weak magnetic field.

The race uses only Female body type. It has, however, custom naked body graphics, so that it doesn't just look as a female pawn but instead looks like a Turian.

This approach will allow us to use vanilla and modded apparel without the need of 'white-listing' apparel. It will simply use the female variant when worn by Turians.

Turians have very little sexual dimorphism, with the only difference being the shape of the crests. As such, Turians require different graphics for male heads and female heads.

Unlike with Asari crest, Turian crest will be embedded in the same texture as their head - as Turians will have a white-list of what headgear they can wear, and that headgear will be custom-drawn to fit their head shape.

Turians apparel is the Female variant of apparel, as their body fits the dimensions of the female apparel shape.

Due to the nature of being predators, Turians can use their deadly talons in melee combat, dealing significant cut damage. They also have much lower pain sensitivity, making them more resilient in combat.

Turian blood has a dark blue colouration. (60,60,135)

Turians can form relations with any other species and can engage in lovin’.

Turians should be allowed to have normal prosthetics and bionics installable on them, for simplicity’s sake.

Turians live for roughly the same amount of time as humans.

Turians can have tattoos, similar to Asari.

Every Turian has passion for Melee and Shooting skills. Every. Single. Turian. Their culture is very militaristic, and they couldn’t afford not being passionate about warfare one way or another. This has to be reflected with backstories.

Turians have a unique social interaction between themselves called the Sparring Challenge. Explained in a separate section below.

Turians gain mood buff after a social fight.  Love a good spar! - “I love a good spar with fellow Turian. Makes me feel alive!” - +10 Mood lasting 2 days.

Turians can have a few different skin tones and also have face tattoos that are very important in their culture. Those come in various vibrant colors.

Turian Faction Raid composition

Turians have a number of new pawnKindDefs utilising their new weapons and turian-exclusive armors. Without going into details of particular weapons and armors yet, here's the full list of pawns available at Turian disposal:

Peaceful pawnKindDefs:

None, Turians don’t have peaceful pawnKindDefs.

Combat pawnkindDefs:

Soldier

Combat points: 190

Turian armor, Turian helmet, Turian Modular Assault Rifle

Sniper

Combat points: 200

Turian armor, Turian helmet, Turian Modular Sniper Rifle

Light Infantry

Combat points: 190

Turian armor, Turian helmet, Turian Modular SMG

Trader (Appears only in peaceful caravans)

Combat points: 190

Turian armor, Turian helmet, Turian Modular SMG

Heavy Infantry

Combat points: 300

Heavy Turian armor, Heavy Turian helmet, Breaching Grenade Launcher or Alliance Rocket Launcher

Veteran

Combat points: 280

Turian Hazard Armor, Heavy Turian helmet, Turian Modular Assault Rifle or Turian Modular DMR

Captain

Combat points: 315

Heavy Turian armor, Turian Modular Assault Rifle or Turian Modular Sniper Rifle

Sentinel

Combat points: 315

Turian Ghost Armor, Heavy Turian Helmet, Turian Modular Assault Rifle, Omni-Tool with abilities.

Havoc Trooper

Combat points: 400

Havoc armor, Heavy Turian Helmet, Turian Modular Assault Rifle or Turian Modular DMR, Omni-Tool with abilities.

Cabal

Combat points: 400

Turian Armor, Turian Modular SMG, Biotic Amp with abilities.

Turian Raid Methods

Turians are an incredibly military-focused faction. As such, I reckon it deserves a few new, more epic raiding methods. Please bear in mind that screenshots below are merely mockups as the mod is still only in design phase.

Turian Airstrike

A group of turian infantry have arrived nearby. They are attacking immediately.

These raiders intend to breach your walls. They'll determine their own path into your colony and destroy anything in their way.

Watch out - they appear to be assisted by a squadron of Attalia fighter bombers. These bombers will complete a few fly-bys, dropping bombs in random locations on their path.

This raid strategy spawns a normal turian infantry raid, however, a number of fighters assist in the assault. Fighters are not actual entities, instead, they are a graphic of a ‘shadow of the fighter’ flying from one edge of the map to another. There are random detonations (radius 3) scattered around the path of such a fly-by. The detonations don’t drop ahead of the fighter, we need to make sure they drop behind the fighter. They should be done using an invisible skyfaller, this way any anti-drop pod devices from other mods will be able to intercept those. This will also mean mountain bases are immune from fighter bombing runs, which makes sense.

Between 3 and 7 fighters fly by and drop bombs like this, but not simultaneously. There is about a 1-3 second downtime between fighters flying into the player map.

The vector in which such fighters are flying can be completely random. The gist is, they fly from one edge to another in a straight line, and fast.

The sustainer sound of a Turian fighter flying should play from the ‘shadow’ (as in, the further it is, the quieter it is).

Turian Bombardment

A group of turian infantry have arrived nearby. They are attacking immediately.

These raiders intend to breach your walls. They'll determine their own path into your colony and destroy anything in their way.

Watch out - a Turian Navy Cruiser has arrived nearby. It will lay covering fire for the entire duration of this combat encounter, and it will focus on bombarding your defensive positions.

This raid strategy spawns a normal turian infantry raid, however, a large shadow of a Turian cruiser shows up over the player base in a random place. We need to make sure the shadow renders at all times, because sometimes objects disappear if you zoom in too close in Rimworld. Cruiser is not an actual entity that the player can target, it’s just a visual indicator of what’s going on. During this raid, the cruiser will be bombarding the player's home area in random spots, using the same ‘invisible skyfaller’ method (so mountain-thick roof and shield generators can absorb the shots’).

It fires bursts of 3 shots every 10-15 seconds. Each shot plays the sound of a distant cruiser firing.

The cruiser retreats as soon as the Turian raid is defeated or forced to flee.

Next up I will explain the other two races that we are adding - Vorchas and Batarians, and talk about the adversary faction: Gangs.

Any questions?