Welcome to Gaia! ::

It depends on the nature of the faction. For example, the Mirai have large vessels because they are inhabited. This means that they have large power supplies and many weapons, but will try hard to avoid combat and probably cannot power all their weapons at once (at least not without preparation) because there is a high risk of casualties.

The Djin (as far as I am aware) have larger vessels because they are expected to operate independently. So while they may have a large number of large vessels, they are so spread out that it is unlikely any two will operate together.

On a smaller scale, Blue Hell is a powerful and well-equipped vessel, but is very small compared to other ships of similar power so it has disadvantages of taking a while to get any where and taking damage much more severely than larger opponents. Also, because it is smaller, it has a comparably small crew, which has benefits and disadvantages.

Basically, you just have to balance it. Try to find a drawback for every positive and state what that is. And we the admins will work with you and maybe suggest changes to what you first draw up.

The Guild centers on individual interactions so military might is less important and it can be more fun when two sides don't want to fight, but can't avoid it.

And for the size of a faction, I would suggest 10-20 star systems. That is what the Mirai have (sort of, they're all in one system, but spread out). The Orai have more than 10-20, but they are much more loosely controlled. The Konigserker only have two. Most factions are single-system, I believe.

Feel free to post whenever you are ready, but if you prefer, you can also PM me first and I'll give it a once over.

Smaller ships have less mass so they can change direction more easily and often faster due to better thrust-to-mass ratios, but that is not necessarily the case and larger ships will almost always be faster, but take longer to get up to speed.

Capital ships often appear to be static compared to fighters because the fighters usually originate from those ships and therefore have the same initial velocity. Fighters, being smaller and having greater thrust/mass ratios, have much better relative acceleration than the capital ships from which they launch, so over a limited time period they seem faster, but in the long run they will fall behind the capital ships.

And so far souls have not come up, but I think they can be assumed to occur naturally as a consequence of sentience (as distinct from sapience, one might note).

The Renegades look good, but could you start a thread explaining their Soul Technology. I'm worried that it might be too powerful so I'd like to see some more about it, such as an explanation of the mechanisms behind it and how it would interact with other races and the degree to which other energy beings might affect it and vice versa.

What you have so far looks pretty good, but I think that the effects of Soul Weaponry would be slightly different from what you say. The manufacturing process sounds good, though. As does the God Shroud and the Psi-Amplifier.

With Soul Weaponry, the only major enhancement is that every bullet actually has a soul. While that would definitely have some powerful effects, I don't think it would be as direct as you say.

By being sentient, at least to a limited degree, it would be possible for these bullets to adjust themselves in some ways. For example, correcting their trajectory to better impact the desired target or avoid collateral damage. Also, reacting to the type of target, on impact; such as expanding in soft tissue or compressing and hardening to penetrate armor or counteracting shields (to a limited degree, of course) with minute energy fields.

Also, I think that Soul Weapons could be extremely powerful against sentient beings because it is able to attack the Soul directly (kind of like two Energy Beings canceling each other out). It would be something like a slow poison or sickness that affects being who are shot with even just one bullet. Over a period of time (which varies depending on the strength of the being and the gravity/number of the wound or wounds) the being will wither and die without any obvious physical cause and in spite of any form of medical treatment (with the possible exception spiritual/energy-based healing).

What do you think of that as opposed to what you originally wrote? With those effects, the poisoning may not work depending on the degree to which an Energy interacts with the race it created and the knowledge that race has of the Energy dimension. However, this kind of weapon could also be modified to act in a similar way to the God Shroud. When a being is hit by one of these modified rounds, it has the effect of cutting that being off from the Energy Plane, resulting in a lose of powers and connection to any Energy Being that can only be remedied by the direct intervention of a knowledgeable outside source, such as another Energy Being acting through a lesser being.

If you want, you can keep what you have, but I think what I have suggested for Soul Weapons is also reasonable given their manufacturing process and has the benefit of being potentially more adaptable and also more general. It does not describe specifically what will happen, just what would happen in a particular situation so it makes it easier to figure out what effects Soul Weapons would have in situations that have yet to be described.

I do like the idea of the soul poisoning, that would be great if the Soul Weaponry could have both soul poisoning and the effects I described, though of course if you think that would make it too powerful...

They would not have no effect whatsoever, I was thinking of the classic sci-fi horror scenario: Some alien monster or monstrous alien has skin thick enough or technology advanced enough to shrug off pretty much anything we can throw at it.

For example, the energy shields of the Orai sound pretty powerful to me.

Also the armor of the Mirai sounds like it could block conventional bullets... which is what my men would be using, if not for the Soul Weaponry.

Soul Weaponry might indeed be better than the Harper Longblaster or the MACAW, but so is a lot of things, right? Specifically, the sword/blaster thingies the Mirai and Orai use.

And yes, Soul Weaponry as I described it does make it a multipurpose weapon, useful against anything but soft, fleshy opponents. However, the degree to which it is useful is yet to be determined.

If you so desire, we could scale back the effects so much that Soul ammunition is only, say. 25% more penetrating than normal ammo?

As I had imagined it, Soul Weaponry was roughly 50% more powerful against armor and maybe 300% more powerful against shields (while being a good deal less effective against unarmored opponents) but if you would like to change those percentages I wholeheartedly support that. It is, after all, your Guild.

Explosive? I had not intended that, but I see how that could be. And yes, the soul poisoning and the shrouding would probably be counted as secondary effects. I do think they add a lot to the idea, they certainly make Soul Weaponry a lot more interesting. I had thought, though, that they would make it too powerful. Again, it is up to you.

Also, I think "our weapons are better then yours" is the lesser of the two evils, when compared to "our weapons have no effect." At least with the former, you can shoot me first. (again, the Renegades have little to no armor) With the latter, our only recourse (barring creative improvisation) is to run away.

Personally, I think when it comes to powerful technology, Soul Weaponry is the least of our worries. I know you have probably talked to them about this, but the Tiberium crystals and the GN particles sound extremely poweful. Also, the Konigserker's ability is mind-boggling: Does it really protect against all direct attacks, even physical ones like punches? How could you possibly fight the Konigserker when they have such power?
Also, the Mirai have invisibility technology which (while well explained) is very good. By my understanding, any person or ship can be rendered invisible to all forms of magnetic-wave detection for relatively little energy cost! Especially in space, where there is no sound, how am I supposed to detect and protect against Stealthvipers?

Again, you're the boss. But my race feels that they are small and weak by comparison to the older residents of this universe.

Allright, I agree.

DSW sounds great. If you agree, I shall modify my posts to reflect that description. OSW, as I see it, is a more mundane version of DSW. I am willing to use OSW if you think DSW is too powerful.

As for corrections: I do not think they have explosive capability. That would literally be suicide for the bullet. Also, I think it is a good thing for them to have a weakness--specifically, soft targets.

I did misunderstand the other technologies, thank you for clarifying.

And yes, I did plan to use railguns.