Those are all good, practical suggestions. Thanks.

A clenching, mangling weapon, the Locust's tractor beam can be a new form of attack and yet ultimately be no different in terms of delivering damage over time than the mains weapons of ranged Vasari, Advent, and TEC frigates. Your formula for slow, steady damage is great. I think the special ability of stealing metal is unique enough to be of interest, and yet the numbers would be small enough for the ability not to uber.

Since the Servitors are nomadic scavengers, I think this ability would fit into their theme well.

Nova Ship. Yeah, I'm hoping the flak effect of the nova attack wouldn't be too different than those of the other flak frigates. However, since the effect is an omnidirectional bubble and fries anything and everything within that the bubble simultaenously, the DPS would have to be low.

I think your idea about the Hornet's special ability is cool, and would balance it out. The Servitors don't care about damaging their own ships (which are all automated), as long as they do great damage to enemy ships in the process.

Another option for the tractor beam would be to "take control" of the ship.  What you would do would be deactivate everything except the engines which would be amplified (speed and acceleration) to make it look like you are flinging your target around the gravity well...  If you could fling it into stuff and give it a projected-martyr ability where it can throw things into structures and planets, that would be absolutely awesome.  I'll check the code for this and get back to you because I don't know how viable this would be, but if you did use it, it could only work on frigates for obvious reasons and wouldn't kill the ship in question, just damage it along with the target...  I don't know how well this will work though, but it is worth a try...

Edit: nope... checked... it won't work...

Metal Scavenging would have to take the scuttle bonus from the Vasari and put it to a different use...  That is all I can come up with though unless you stick this on a capital.  At that point, you could link the metal gained to the experience gained somehow...

Yeah... Perhaps 5 DPS and the effect would of course stack.  If you had something like seven, just one of these would completely neutralize SC's...  5 would be better.  And, since this effects everything in its radius, it would be good at taking down battleballs...  Flaks deal good damage to LRM's so it would be a great answer to an illum spam.  Building three or four of these would take down any fighters in just a couple passes...  Let's say you have four.  Each one does 5, so that is 20 DPS.  With a good range, this could have about 2.5 seconds to damage the enemy fighters.  That is 50 damage to every single fighter and within another pass, they would be dead.  Just make sure you have the fleet supply on these things high and make them expensive.  Oh, and make sure they are tier 3ish...  

As for the Harbinger, I say give it something like:

Harbinger of Deatht: Increases phase space speed for incoming ships by 50%/100% (depending on research level).

Or----

Harbinger of Life: Increases phase space speed for outgoing ships by 200%/400%.

That would fit well with its name...  The outgoing thing would have to have a range though...  Just ideas here...

By the way, I can't wait to see what you come up with for carriers...

Cruisers

Servitor Cruisers can only be built by a frigate/cruiser bay inside a Worldship. They mostly follow the general roles of other cruiser-class vessels of the TEC, Advent, and Vasari: that is, heavy combat, orbital killers, support ships, and so forth. However, many of their powers are different and thus offer unique tactical problems for enemy fleets. 

So far, 6 cruiser-class Servitor vessels have been identified by TEC High Command, and have been classified as follows.

Predator

Primary Role: heavy combat

A dense disk bristling with guns, the Predator is the most heavily armoured cruiser in the game. However, with so much emphasis on armour mass and weaponry, it is also definitely the slowest cruiser (1/2 speed on average) and slowest ship altogether in the game. It was built to drift straight into combat, aiming to smash enemy formations before they could flee.

Special Abilities:

#1 Over-charged Tachyon batteries. Its first research upgrade is exactly the same as its smaller cousin, the Hornet. If need be, it will use this ability until it destroys itself.

#2 Omni-Fire. The second upgrade allows the disk-like Predator to rapidly spin in any direction, while its guns simultaneously slide along its equator to track new targets. The process is almost instant, offering a 360 field of fire..

Unless you have superior force, it's best to maneuver around the slow Predators, pick away at weaker Servitor vessels, and then retreat. Or use special ability to hamper their gradual advance.

*

Impaler

Primary Role: Orbital Hunter

The attack of an Impaler is awe-inspiring and highly destructive. Its function is generally the same as the artillery ships of the TEC: that is, to damage enemy orbitals and star bases. But the Impaler's method is entirely different. It's a suicidal ramship, laden with ordnance. It is a one-shot ship that always hits unless its interdicted en route. Unable to strike evasive enemy ships, the Impaler locks onto an enemy orbital and steers right into it for full impact. Destroying the Impaler instantly, the energetic collision causes massive damage, equal to more than 10 strikes from a normal artillery ship. Weaker orbital orbitals are destroyed instantly. Larger ones are considerably wounded.

Special Ability: Tractor-lock. Once the slow moving Impaler comes within range of its target, it activates a tractor beam that literally lassoes the target and pulls the Impaler in faster, so it gains velocity.

*

Sorcerer

Primary Role: Infiltration and Support

The Sorcerer was code-named thus due to its mysterious and shocking powers, which one TEC fleet captain unabashedly called "black magic."

The Sorcerer is a data infiltration ship, able to 'hack' the most secure computer systems of enemy forces. While weak in combat, it may employ the follow abilities.

Default ability: Friendly Signature. Each Sorcerer ship begin with this ability. With an expenditure of anti-matter, it can convince the computers of all enemy ships within a gravwell that it is a friendly unit and not an enemy bogey. So it cannot be attacked. Ability lasts for a reasonably short amount of seconds. 12?

#2 De-Activate Defenses. The infiltration attack orders either an enemy defense platform or hangar base to power down and shut its blast doors. The affected defense orbital shuts down for 20 seconds, or another reasonable amount of time, during which is highly vulnerable. Fighters and bombers cannot exit a powered-down hangar.

#3 Command Over-Ride. This powerful data attack allows the Sorcerer to temporarily take complete command of an enemy frigate or cruiser. The duration is somewhat short, but enough to be disruptive. The Over-Ride might require a lot of AM and a long cool-down.

Haven't posted here in a while. Wanted to drop in and say I love your idea.

I tried to read most of it, but I'm a little sleepy right now so I scimmed some posts. If my idea has been mentioned, please ignore it. Apologies in advance.

Instead of having mobile planetship things, would it be possible to have them start with one planetship thing which would function as their home planet? This would eleminate the issues with the sins dynamic of not having a home planet. It would be a different texture than any other planet and would only spawn as a home planet for this specific race. I have this image in my head of a black sphere with some exhaust ports and some various glowing/industrial sparks or what have you... fiber optic lighting or something. Pulsing.

While the uniqueness of not having to colonize planets is a novel idea, I'd like to think that with the enormous burdon by their increased upkeep and construction costs, it would be beneficial to instead of producing worker bot things, they would utilze the resources they have at their disposal in the system, which, of course, would be the current residents of a given planet. Enslavement would be similar to colonization, but would have different stat pros and cons... Perhaps resources would extract from the planets 'roids quicker, but at the same time population would be low due to almost concentration camp like living conditions for the population. It would add to a serious decision making process about whether or not taking over a planet would be worth it. On higher population planets, it might be, but on planets with less populations like volcanic and 'roid, it might not be, as the population might stay at a level where credit income is negative. At the same time, due to the increase in resource asteroids on ice and volcanic planets, the boost in resource extraction due to slave labor might be worth the cost. Currently, as long as no planetary bonuses affect tax income, you can always at least keep yourself in the black, this would add another "choice" to how you play the game and it could backfire if you end up losing your higher pop planets and are left with enslaved low-pop planets. Also, other races that free "enslaved" planets as opposed to bombarding  planets could get culture boosts due to "Liberation" or whatever, but it might be more difficult to liberate. The option to bomb would remain, but perhaps your planet's network of citizens might disagree with your genocidal decision, and thus your culture and tax income could suffer, and stability could be loosened easier on less culture planets... which would add a new interesting culture element.

I think this could keep this fourth race within the standard gameplay concepts of sose, while at the same time adding a unique flavor due to the slight adjustments in how they play as a race.

I didn't read the ship descriptions, etc, but I read your first couple posts. I think this is a kick ass idea and I believe if the concept was refined, it could not only add some new flavor and excitement to sose, but also add some serious new gameplay factors and really change the way the game is played for all the races, as there would be new strategies that play off of the new factors introduced by these things.

At first I was like "awwww... robots again?" But after reading it, I kinda got excited.

I like all the ship ideas. Yes Volt, I have read your mod and I admit that thats where I got the name from. I like your modifications to the Skullcrusher.

One thing though. The ability "friendly signiture" would be useless unless you already researched its other abilities. I think it should be casted on another friendly ship. Not a cap ship though, that would be too strong. Command override should have a long duration otherwise it would be useless.

Weapon types of the servitors: particle wave cannons, tachyon pulse guns, impulse rockets and concussion pulses (anti-planet)

The Worldship SB should focus of civic upgrades but should have the most health.

The Servitors would get a specialised suicidal SC unit as their anti-SB weapon. Rather then the regular other SC, the Servitors would get fighter-bombers. These SC fulfill the roles of both fighters and bombers and thus have amazing battlefield flexibility, but are not as effective or effecient as either SC types of the other races.

Also, the servitors would get great salvaging upgrades.

Two words: I likey.

I may put in my own idea maybe not sure yet.

I would like to see mobile shipyards. It could be build by the capital shipyard and produce all the stuff from the frigate shipyard. Maybe a supply of 50 too and maybe two squadron of strikecraft for defense.

Greetz MuriaticAcid

very nice I have to say. I like ships, and the overall picture. Though, the option of ENSLAVEMENT instead of only BOMBARDMENT is also something that could be viable. Your choice though.

Arakcheev, Juletron, Shadowmind, MuriaticAcid, Whiskey144:  thanks for all the feedback.

I'll finish up Servitor ships and revise them as necessary. Then I'll carry on with other aspects, keeping in mind what you guys wrote.

Cruisers   (continued)

Tigershark

Primary role: Stealth raider

The Tigershark plays the same role as an attack submarine (of pre space-faring days). It is the only other Servitor ship able to utilize the Cloak special ability, the other being the Haunter capital ship. The Tigershark's smooth, dark hull is crammed with stealth devices that allow it sneak up on its prey and fire its one and only weapon: a powerful antimatter torpedo. The torpedo is dependent on antimatter reserves (I haven't decided on its range yet). Firing it depletes X amount of AM. A Tigershark with full AM reserves has enough to launch 6 torpedoes, in slow succession. However, for the Tigershark, it's best not to deplete all of its AM at once because it require AM to employ its other special abilities, which are researched into play.

Also, since the Servitors have discovered that the three other races are dependent on trade, it built the Tigershark to specialize in wiping out trade ships and refinery ships. One torpedo = one kill.

Special Abilities:

1. Sensor Screen. This stealth ability allows the Tigershark to reflect and absorb all long-range enemy sensor scans. The Sensor Screen makes the Tigershark completely immune (invisible) to starmap radar. Therefore, when it's activated, an enemy cannot sense the Tigershark jumping en route to another area of the map. Manually activated and requiring a small amount of AM, the ability lasts 12 seconds, ample time for the Tigershark to jump from one gravwell to another. Obviously the Sensor Screen is ideal for jumping undetected toward enemy occupied gravwells.

2. Cloak. Researching this ability allows the Tigershark (and the Haunter capital ship) to go invisible inside a gravwell. While invisible, a Tigershark cannot been seen in a gravwell, cannot be attacked, and itself cannot attack. When manually ordered to attack, its cloaking device automatically switches off, as antimatter is redirected to its torpedo launcher. Cloaking depletes "X" of AM per second. The Tigershark can be cloaked for as long as it has AM. When off, the ability requires a crucial 5 seconds to be turned on (a vulnerable window of time during which enemies may interdict a fleeing Tigershark). In order to jump, a cloaked Tigershark must redirect all AM to its drives and thus becomes visible.

Game Notes: The Tigershark's awesome stealth abilities are tempered by its slow rate of fire and vulnerability when not employing its stealth abilities. Like a submarine, it is not heavily armoured and requires finesse (micro-management) in order to bring out its potential.

Scouts may detect any cloaked unit, including the Tigershark. A Tigershark straying too close to a Star Base also is detected by the latter's intense scanning equipment.

*

Jackal

Primary Role: Repair / Support/ Scavenging

Not unlike similar cruisers of this nature, the Jackal is deployed for repair and support. However, it may also scavenge the space battlefield to absorb useful debris left from violent clashes (see below). With expenditures of AM, it has the default ability to repair damaged friendly vessels. It also has the default ability to rapidly disassemble friendly ships (effectively scuttling them) and convert the destroyed hulls into useful metal, which is then added to the main reserve of a Servitor player. The Jackal cannot defend itself, relying on other ships for protection.

Special Abilities:

1. Debris Sift. During any space battle, the Jackal may turn on its powerful Sift to absorb and recycle some of the debris created by the destruction of both enemy and friendly vessels. The Sift has a limited but omnidirectional area of effect. Each and every vessel destroyed within this area allows the Jackal to ingest a small amount of Metal from the scattered hull debris. A destroyed frigate gives X, a destroyed Cruiser Y, a destroyed capital or orbital gives Z. Again, the scavenged amounts are rather small (so as not to be uber), though stackable if mutiple Jackals are operating. The absorbed amount is then added directly to a Servitor player's main reserve of Metal.

While a Jackal is 'sifting', it cannot repair friendly vessels.

The Sifting requires an expenditure of X amount of AM. The duration is 20 seconds, with a short cooldown.

Finally, the Jackal may utilize its Debris Sift ability to some effect outside of space battles. It can go to areas of a star system, such as the scattered Asteroid Belts and junkyard regions, to collect very small amounts of metal. It may scavenge there indefinitely if left alone.

2. Energy Sift. Since the Servitors require larges amounts of Antimatter as an actual resource for production, the Jackal is also built with another logistical purpose: to avoid battle and seek out ambient sources of energy. When the Energy Sift is activated in the gravwell of either a star, a magnetic cloud, or a wormhole, it can absorb small amounts of Antimatter. This amount is then transferred directly to a Servitor's main reserve.