Thoraxians & Burlusts lore vs actuality

[UnfriendlyBG]

So the thoraxians are my favorite race. I don't know why, they just are. I like bug monsters not irl I guess.

Basically, the lore reads as if the thoraxians are hands down the most fearsome soldier in the galaxy.  The burlusts written to be more hot headed and perhaps honor based, but their combat prowess is never brought up in a way that the thoraxians is as far as I know.

The thing is though, In game, the burlusts are man for man better than the thoraxians (at least according to the 'effective power').  The burlusts have access to laser pistols and vibro blades and such that the thoraxians don't.  I believe this is what makes them stronger.  I went through their lists of techs and I don't particularly see anything combat wise that the thoraxians get that the burlusts do not, so I would imagine this would be the truth after nearly any stage in the game.  Those early combat upgrades are super common, so it's not rare that the burlusts have them at least from what I've seen.

So basically, are the burlusts better fighters than the thoraxians or am i missing something?  Why does this seem to go against the lore?  Also, balance wise it seems like maybe the burlust shouldn't be so strong because they're so agressive as well.  Theyve been getting attacked for about 35 years now in my game (I'm trying to keep everyone alive so I haven't tried to help wipe them out but haven't done much for them either).  One of the races thats attacking them is actually the thoraxians too. 

The burlusts have a 5.0 planet compatability so that helps a lot, but the other races have decent numbers as well.  According to the lore it just seems like a 35 year ground invasion by the the thoraxians with support from the evucks and 1 armada of raiding peltian should probably kill the burlusts.  Instead its the 1 armada of peltians (raiding, you really gotta do something about that mechanic) that do the most damage with probably 750k on average a day done in orbital bombing.  Also I'm not sure why the thoraxians don;t put more boots on the ground, the burlusts have been essentially armadaless since the beginning of the game...  Maybe if they could put more than 2 or 3 million on the ground it would be a different story but I think theyre still losing the combat anyway, I cant tell those tooltips are confusing.

Am I offbase here?

[UnfriendlyBG]

not one person has any sort of opinion or insight into this topic?  He'll i'd settle for an offtopic post at this point.

[topper]

Hey there,

I think you could be totally right about the Burlusts overtaking the Thoraxians in combat prowess, but I have not checked all of the multipliers.

It makes a small amount of sense that the Thoraxians are the strongest, but then get overtaken since they do not use all the tech. Perhaps they need some bonus combat multiplier based on the number of them present due to Hive Mind Troop Coordination, or likewise. The only way to take a heavily fortified Thoraxian world should be to nuke them from orbit or employ a nearby moon. 

[ptarth]

• You asked for feedback in the other thread and wondered why you hadn't gotten any responses.
• The Lore is rather arbitrary and is only a rough guideline.
• The Lore is completely opinion based, and I don't have very much interest in it.
• Thoraxians got a 500% population density boost a while back. Ground combat was not rebalanced for this to my knowledge.
• Ground Combat mechanics are not working as intended. Essentially no one wins a ground war against the Thoraxians/Burlusts.
• Planets are mostly lost when populations are bombed to death or die to RCI swings.
• Therefore, there isn't anything for me to say.

[UnfriendlyBG]

But you actually totally did just say something! and it was valuable.  even being like 'I dont know' can lead to useful things.  Thank you.

[nas1m]

There definitely is (still) something off with the warlike races - at least as I see it.
Not even talking about the lore (which might be just a more or less slighty inconsistent with the multipliers currently assigned to a given race) I have yet to see a single game where the Thoraxians and especially the Burlusts are making any impact on what happens in the solar system or impose any trouble to contain - at all. Feels wrong to me that - very wrong .

@ptarth: The "scientific approach" that is inherent to many of your later posts is always a pleasure to behold ...

[Misery]

There definitely is (still) something off with the warlike races - at least as I see it.
Not even talking about the lore (which might be just a more or less slighty inconsistent with the multipliers currently assigned to a given race) I have yet to see a single game where the Thoraxians and especially the Burlusts are making any impact on what happens in the solar system or impose any trouble to contain - at all. Feels wrong to me that - very wrong .

@ptarth: The "scientific approach" that is inherent to many of your later posts is always a pleasure to behold ...

Yeah, I've seen this too.

The Thoraxians never seem to do.... "large scale" things.   Often they seem content with skirmishing with whoever they are trading with at the time, because apparently that's how trading works *eye roll*. "Ah, good, this is just what we needed, we'll pop by later to give you some thank-you stabbings". 

[ptarth]

• "... even  being like 'I dont know' can lead to useful things.  Thank you...."
• You're welcome, but I still don't think it was useful for me to respond.
• The short version was: "Things are in flux. It  could completely reverse next patch. Nothing useful to say."
• Which, didn't really provide any informative content, and therefore shouldn't really exist.
• re:nas1m
• Thanks. It's been my pleasure.
• re:Thoraxians and Burlusts
• It has varied across the patches, sometimes they dominate exclusively, sometimes they contribute, and sometimes they just die quietly.
• The only solid contenders across all of the patches has been the Skylaxians.

[x4000]

One minor note, just from the original topic.

The ground combat strengths are as follows:
Acutians  3
Andors  0.3
Boarines  2
Burlusts  8
Evucks  1
Peltians  0.01
Thoraxians  24
Skylaxians 1


As you can see, man to man the Thoraxians are absolutely more terrifying than anything else, by a ridiculous margin.  They can't use weapons, though, while Burlusts can, so with enough techs the Burlusts can probably surpass them in man to man combat.

[x4000]

This is going to majorly swing things in favor of the Thoraxians in terms of ground combat:

* The following technologies now have additional races that can use them that could not before:
** More Compact Living Quarters: Thoraxians
** Mind Reading: Thoraxians
** Psionics: Thoraxians
** Teleportation: Thoraxians
** Personal Shields: Andor, Peltian, and Thoraxians
** Bio Machinery: Peltian and Thoraxians
** Graviton Gun: Andors and Peltians
** Meson and Gluon Computers: Andors and Acutians
** Mark VII ships: Thoraxians

* Personal shields no longer have any prerequisite techs, but they now aren't available until 18 years in.
** Teleportation also is no longer available until 27 years in.
** Psionics are no longer available until 18 years in.
** Mind Reading is no longer available until 9 years in.
** Quantum Computers are no longer available until 9 years in.
** Quantum Power is no longer available until 15 years in.
** Gluon Computers are no longer available until 30 years in.
** Meson Computers are no longer available until 24 years in.

[UnfriendlyBG]

Really interesting changes.  I have no idea what's going to happen  but its definitely going to be different.  I have the burlusts and the thoraxions at war so ill see something albiet not with the rebalanced tech tree from the beginning. 

That's interesting that the thoraxions multiplier was so high as they would pretty
Much break even with the burlusts for like 30 years straight.  There's gotta be something I don't understand or am overlooking in regards to ground combat.