Questions about Independent Races.

[Unforeseen]

Question A: If i change a race so that it cannot be a normal empire, and it appears in game as an independent can it still become an empire with the proper setting in the game creation screen? There are several races in the game that, to me strike me as if they would either not develop into empires at all or would take MUCH longer than the others to develop.

Question B: Do Independent races that become empires ever actually expand? I have seen this mechanic in only two games..both games they empire failed to colonize another planet before their destruction by the Shaktur. This was despite the fact that i was giving them money, granted them mining stations that i owned in their home system, and had active open trade with them. The most they seemed to accomplish was setting up a mining station over a gas giant in an adjacent system.

[Shark7]

Basically the way that galaxy generation seems to work in Shadows will cause that particular race not to show up as an independent. You'd have to add them in manually via the in game editor. These races can still be conquered, and once conquered will act just like other assimilated races in your empire though. Just check your games after random empire generation and you will note that all 'independents' are of the races present as Empires at game start.

Can be a normal empire; N will result in a race that even if it is in as an empire, it will never grow (acts just like the Ancient Guardians).

[Fenrisfil]

On the second question, in theory a colony that flips over to a new empire can expand, but they tend to be so far behind everyone else (not much cash, minimum technology level and often not enough resources available) that they pretty much just sit there and wait to be conquered.

I think the biggest problem is their low population level, which is often a quarter of even a pre-warp start empire. They do spawn a space port (sometimes right on top of the pirate ship trying to raid their planet) and a constructor, but that's not really enough to get them going at full speed. I always find money tighter when you start at a pre-warp population level, so I can only imagine what a quarter of that would be like.

Plus of course as indy planets tend to spawn in the same region of space as an empire of the same race, many of the best nearby colony targets will have already been snapped up and it will be a long time before they can colonise anywhere other than their native planet type.

[Unforeseen]

Hmm disappointing :\, i am very comfortable with the editor...it just ruins the immersion when i have to go in and preset things like race positions. Well anyways thanks for the info