You know, I never thought i'de say it, but it could actually work really well...
When in time would it be set? You would need to figure out some way to justify having reapers in the game. I would actually think it would be a MUCH better mod if you set it during the Rachni Wars, and not the 'current' timeframe.
Remember, that the Rachni wars were caused by the reapers, or at least it is heavily implied. It actually allows you to put a reaper or two, during the rachni wars and still be lore friendly... If a reaper attacking the CITADEL can be denied by the council, it's totally in the realm of possibility that reaper involvement during the rachni wars was denied too.
The Krogan, with the Turians and Salarians should be the 'big boys' in the galaxy, that are actively fighting the rachni, which should have control of many systems. It could make for a really interesting setup...
You could have a reaper here and there in VERY far off systems (Omega 4/Galactic Core
). But the main 'raiding' enemy should be rachni (If you find a reaper, bring HUNDREDS of capitals, another reason why reapers as the main antagonists are a bad idea).
You could also script it to allow the war with the rachni to be won... Leading onto the Krogan rebellions........
TO CLARIFY.
The galaxy should be made up of three main "races".
Council Space, Terminus systems and Rachni.
Only using three 'races' for this actually allows you to use the remaining race slots to really explore sub factions (eg, "pirates") and enemy races... Eg, if a player sides with the Council you could still have all the races styles etc all implied, through scripting and differing 'shipyards', but the game would consider the Asari, Turians, Krogan etc all as one "race"... which works.
I dont like your idea of calling the terminus systems pirates.
I think you should actually make them like corporations that are bordering on war with citadel space. It gives them a more interesting feel, and allows the player to actively trade with them.
There should be some trading going on, but not much... and with VERY large fleets sitting in systems that border the zones.
The more I think about this, the more I love it.
Sore more points.
1: You shouldnt extract assets from Mass Effect. You should really get people to make fresh models (I may actually be very interested myself).
2: The mass relays would be quite easy to do I think. Instead of the big blue circle we're used to in x, the relays would use large invisible disks around the relays, so when you get to a certain distance from it it grabs you.
3: Rebirth lends itself VERY well to a mod of this sort. The highways system is very similar in both function and look to the relays.
4: Missiles. Should be removed completely. They serve virtually no purpose when you have mass accelerators.
Weapons would be quite simple in this game but very interesting. From the smallest mass accelerator like your standard rifles, to the large dreadnaught weapons. Ammo would be blocks of different types of metals (Remember most mass accelerators use blocks of material and 'shave' ammunition off them for each 'shot').
To clarify. It is said in the codex if I remember correctly that all races realise that mass accelerators are simply the most powerful weapon possible (bar pushing an asteroid into something, which is the same... in principal) so only use them and nothing else (In space).
5 (EDIT): I just realised/remembered that the Rachni wars would mean no humans. I personally dont care. It could actually be really cool to go to the arcturus relay, and jump to sol, taking a look at earth and imagining the primative humans there
There should be an STG ship 'patroling' the sector too
Anyway, I need to stop myself because I could go on forever. This has been talked about before, over quite a long time but no one has taken it up.
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