Mods for games

Mods are modifications to existing games utilizing the structure, scripting and game world as the basis for the modification.  To achieve this modders have to understand the way a game works with files which are utilized by the game engine that coordinates scripting, visualization, objects, characters, the environment and the rest of the game.  Mods cannot be classified as any one thing, as they will run the gamut of interests of those who see a game and then ask themselves why the game is showing or doing things in a certain way.  As such game mods will most likely date back to the invention of games, themselves, once understood rules for a game are developed and accepted.

Take an ancient game like chess, as an example.  The movement of the pieces, size of the board and required one turn per action rule, save for certain circumstances that are codified, create the basis for the game.  It is a form of battlefield simulation of equal force distributions with one side have the prerogative of moving first.  The form of it is well understood, the rules well known and set, and it is otherwise a game that offers a form of game play that has a plethora of strategems for the early, mid and late game.  Yet as a battlefield simulator it lacks the actual mobility of the pieces.

Take the humble pawn which can take an initial move of 2 squares forward and threaten to either of the forward diagonal squares and generally just block a unit ahead of it.  They move only forward in their rank rank, which is towards the enemy, and can have a special replacement upon reaching the last row of an enemy.  It is a piece for opening up the game during play.  Yet well trained troops, in the battlefield, could also move backwards in moves to help cut off enemy incursions or otherwise shift the balance of forces in the battlefield to change them in favor of the commander.  The chess piece that is the pawn does not move backwards, nor does it have a backwards taking rule.  If, however, players wished to experiment with this on their own, they are free to do so.  When done the game can be considered to be running with a modified rule set to address the pawn and will be adhered to by both players.  Chess can be modded privately for the greater enjoyment of the players involved.  This, at its heart, is an example of a mod and a relatively simple one, at that, in a multiplayer environment.

Other games have developed their own suite of 'house rules' that are not codified but well understood to exist.  In the board game 'Monopoly' the square of Free Parking is just that: a place that charges no rent and is free to land on.  It is not a place where money that has been accumulated via fines gets that money as it is to go directly to the bank.  The latter is a 'House Rule' to enliven game play and extend it.

Game mods can also address drawbacks in game design that make no sense to the player or players involved.  In another strategy board game, 'Dune' the Family Atomics card was played only to make the Imperial Basin susceptible to sandstorms, which includes the two major settlements there.  By using it on the rock structure protecting the settlements, the storms could get in to harm them.  Yet every settlement has such a structure protecting them, so why limit the use of the Family Atomics to just the one place?  It is to drive game play to center on those two strategic places, but by canon of the lore for Dune (the book series) it makes no sense to have such a restriction.  The use on actual geographic features and not on people directly in settlements or cities is allowed.  Troops caught on that geographic feature are, sadly, killed.  If the players agree to waive the use for just the one protective piece and open it to all of them, then the path for a variant of game play starts.  In many ways a solo win becomes easier, unless someone figures out that person does have the Family Atomics, then they may find themselves the target of alliances against them.

In the modern sense these examples are modding to the core rules of the game: how the game works is modified in an essential, though often minor, way.  Modern computer games would require a set of scripts and instructions to be inserted into the game engine to enact these changes, which requires that the game scripting engine be opened up for additional changes via outside code.  That is a complex task, and many games are not made with modifications in mind and generally have closed structures that will not function if anything is added to them.  Other games have more open structures or have a game system that can be adapted but only after close examination of the game engine and how it works is done outside of the developers of the game.

By and large, with very notable exceptions, in the modern era modders don't make games.  Modders seek to make games better, more consistent, address bugs, fix issues the developer never had time or money to fix, and generally start adding in projects of passion to a game.  Most mods are simple ones of adding better textures to...at this point...everything a game can encompass.  Some mods offer better designs of items as seen in-world, even if they are static, as the maker of the mod doesn't see why something should look so bad when it is relatively easy (with their skillset) to make a better model or texture, or both.  Old games can get better and higher definition models, textures and generally given a more modern 'feel' if the game engine can actually support them.

Game mods can add new items, features, systems or even new play areas in to a game that will feature their own stories, quests, trials and tribulations.  In the modern era mods to games have added in 'survival' systems to pre-existing games, put in entire new scripting for NPC interactions, fixed up buggy quests that have been game stoppers for many players, and even try to make a game truer to the lore as presented in prior games so as to make it more in line with them.  None of that is official, save in certain, and rare circumstances where the game developer will not only acknowledge the mod but even stamp it with official approval.  In the game 'Just Cause 2' modders found a method to add in networking script that would allow for multiple players to be in a single game.  They worked hard at it and the game even started to develop its own community where you and 2,500 of your closest friends could surf jets in the sky, cause mayhem in races and otherwise go on a tear in a fully destructible game world.  When the developers of this were shown it, they embraced it and decided that this should now be available for free to all users of the game: it got their stamp of approval.  That is rare.

The actual complexity of achieving anything in a mod takes skill and time to understand file structures, designing compliant code that isn't buggy, testing and retesting the mod, making sure nothing else breaks because of it,  and utilizing the Unofficial patch developed by the community for a game post-launch and end of service by the developer.  Developers have to move on to new games to keep their companies going, and so old games receive a final end-of-cycle patch and that is that.  If a game is popular enough to have a community that enjoys the game and wants to see the bugs still in the game patched, they must get together to do so.  There are many games that have just such communities around them, and the modifications done by these mod creators and teams of creators can be awe-inspiring.

A game like 'Stellaris' by Paradox is a 4X galactic strategy game featuring different types of science fiction typical races and situations is a game with an active modding community.  It is possible to be an insular imperial empire or an open megacorp seeking to spread a gospel, and thus be a megachurch.  And so much more.   In two areas a modder saw that Paradox hadn't really covered two entire subsets of SF to show the diversity in them.  That started the creation of Unofficial DLCs for Machines and Hive Minds, which would start to reflect the diversity of ideas presented in SF for these species or machine types.  A Hive Mind was no longer just a Devouring Swarm (with variants) but could now be a Symbiotic System that allowed parts of the ecology to work for the greater whole.  That would mean that outsiders were no longer seen as just a food source, but could actively be encouraged to migrate to suitable worlds so that their particular skills and  traits would lead to a better functioning Hive.  Individuality wasn't lost and seen as a vital part of contributing to the entire system.  Developing that, implementing it, giving good back-stories to it and adjusting game events to reflect the nature of such a Hive are all required to make playing such a Hive consistent to their background and ethos.  Similarly Machines went from either Exterminators or Rogue Servitors to encompassing things like trade and understanding it as a system of function for a larger machine run empire.

Bethesda Game Studios was known for a strong modding community once The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind came out.  Moving to a new game engine and having an expansive attitude towards encouraging mods, it would start a long-lived community that would then adapt to other titles made on succeeding generations of game engine with the same policy.  That would include not just TES titles (Oblivion and Skyrim) but Fallout 3, New Vegas and 4.  These continue to be extremely strong modding communities, and while few modders make mods for all those games, it is possible to find similar mods made by other makers on other games in those franchises.  The Elder Scrolls community even started to work on the first two titles (Arena and Daggerfall), and have even gotten to the point of replacing the game engine with one that is open to mods, while using the rest of the original files.  Similarly TES III: Morrowind has gotten the OpenMW project that seeks to replace the old game engine with a brand new one crafted for not just Morrowind but adaptable to the later games in the series.  These are labors of love, that have the creators getting little monetary value for their work via fans willing to fund them with small amounts monthly.  By having games that are set in stone and not updated, along with an open modding policy towards them, new content has sought to move these games into a modern era of gaming via mods.

Such a community is built by its members and a company that allows this to thrive without any serious intervention means it can garner support and purchasers of future titles.  These games in both series have seen efforts to not just regularize content but to add-in new content that fits in the game world and thematically with prior games.  Such support cannot be bought at any price.  Even when BGS tried to monetize Oblivion with Horse Armor content one had to pay for, it wasn't seen as a big deal and more of a bad joke.  The move by the gaming industry for constantly increasing income and to move away from the spike and valley system of game releases with large sales for a short period of time and then much, much lower residual sales over time, means that new content has to be offered more frequently.  Such content does not have long development times which leads to problems in presentation of content, types of content and if the content is actually meaningful to gamers.  An attempt to monetize mods directly on Steam (a distribution platform for large numbers of games) ran into serious issues of content theft or even offering no content for cash.  This was a failure and even opened up problems of liability due to Intellectual Property rights and who actually owned what.

BGS has since tried to monetize the two recent examples of single-player games, Fallout 4 and Skyrim Special Edition, which has become problematical to the modding community.  To offer new updates the game files must be changed to allow for them to be used.  That means that the game, itself, is no longer set in stone at a file level, and every update that comes out has the potential of breaking older mods and requires new working by the script extension group to allow for modding scripts to be inserted into the game engine.  To garner revenue the concept of a stable game platform is broken and that is a breaking of faith with the modding community.  In search of revenue they now put something that is priceless at risk.  A few years ago Bethesda Game Studios was considered near or at the top of the role-playing game heap, something to look up to and a company that got trust from its fans.  Even before the release of the buggy and fundamentally broken online Fallout 76, the fan base was starting to sour on BGS with its new monetized mods from its 'Creation Club'.  Some modders did move over to make content for the Creation Club, mostly as just a one time supplement to their income as these 'Creations' do not have a long-term revenue sharing stream for the creators.  This is industry standard contract work, where the contractor gets paid once and the continuous revenue goes to the company.  Fundamentally this is 'gig work': work to do one thing for a set price to spec and then move on.  But that is not modding as the community has come to understand it: mods are a labor of love for a project or just wanting to fix something that just isn't right but can be made right with the proper skills at a very base level.

If the game files are being touched, and they are, then there is one further problem with the Creation Club that remains unmentioned.  For all the revenue it gets, NONE of it is going back in to fix the game.  While checking to make sure that these paid mods aren't breaking the game, no one is working on fixing these games.  They are End of Lifecycle for development...but that isn't true, is it?  Development continues and yet nothing gets fixed.  Buggy physics remains buggy.  Bad placement of terrain remains bad.  Broken Quests remain broken.  And myriads of issues, large and small, are never examined.  Fixing problems doesn't take much, just look at 'Just Cause 2' as an example that goes far beyond what the developers had ever imagined could be done with their game.  In the case of Skyrim Special Edition and Fallout 4, a gracious and good thing that could be done is to include the community patch into the free content for the game.  Acknowledge the hard work of the community, include it, offer kudos and when a new Community Patch comes out that can then be examined and included if it has done more to fix issues that remain unresolved that the developers can't divert any of their revenue to fixing.  This would show an that BGS is open to the modding community, appreciates its efforts and goes so far as to make the 'unofficial' an actual official part of the game.  The cost for doing so is so low that it boggles the mind that this hasn't been done.  But as there is no money on the table for BGS, it remains undone.  Repaying good will and rewarding hard work through simple recognition appears to be impossible.

And for those who think BGS doesn't pay attention to the modding community,  it is possible to find modes for Fallout: New Vegas that have a system of establishing new settlements, placing down defenses, getting people to work at them and then Take Back The Wasteland.  If that sounds an awful like the stuff included in Fallout 4, then you will have hit on something that does point to a corporate cultural problem: not giving mere credit where it is due.  Not including a Community Patch is one thing.  Taking ideas, systems and working ideas presented for free, then cleaning them up and incorporating them into another game and never giving credit to those who worked hard on a free mod...that is something else, again.

Modders seek to add in or adjust the game for their own reasons and let everyone know what they are doing and why, plus what bug testing they have done to try and show what is and isn't compatible with what they do.  Take the large scale mod for FO4 called 'Horizon', which is a complete and total overhaul of the game mechanics centering on a 'survival' mode ethos that tries to emulate what a 'realistic' survival situation would look like in that universe.  It is a mod with other mods attached to it to deactivate or reconfigure older mechanics so that they no longer act as they did for the original game.  Skills are earned not just by level up, but by choices of skills, stats, and using such skills actively.  In many ways it adds in a sort of continuous experience system seen in The Elder Scrolls series.  It changes the magical effects on weapons and items, replacing them with parts that can be used for research or for creating components to craft better equipment.  Survival has a complete overhaul and replacement, and that extends to settlements, as well.  Item condition returns, though still not as user friendly or thoroughly integrated as many players would like, it at least shows that such a system can be made and utilized within the FO4 game engine (and this was pre-Fallout 76 mind you).

It is a popular mod that has many other modders adding in patches so that their mods work within the new Horizon framework, and there is a community around these mods that also give feedback on what works and doesn't work in the way of other mods with Horizon.  An entire weapons pack took individual weapons by other modders, adjusted them to work in the new framework and then was available as a mod that seamlessly worked with Horizon, no further patch needed.  There have even been attempts to make Horizon work with another large scale mod that changes the entire settlement concept so that the player isn't left to do everything in settlement building.  That mod and its community is built around Sim Settlements, and it has its own systems for how settlements work, what their needs are, how they grow, when they grow and what the problems are based on resources that are available to them.  That is its own large scale system added into the game, and getting it to work with Horizon is an effort of love and dedication by those who like both of the systems.

Sim Settlements started out with modest goals in mind, but has since grown to start overhauling not just the way settlements are made and developed but to even add in new methods of game play in which settlements will develop independently in the wasteland so that the player will never know what that settlement is like when they arrive.  It may no longer be a couple of farmers on a plot of land but a thriving community that doesn't need the player's help.  With the Conqueror expansion to Sim Settlements and the added factions that other modders make for it, the opportunity to work with base game hostile factions and actually become integrated with them is possible.  Older factions have returned, new ones have been created and those thought impossible are now possible as actors in the wasteland due to the modding community of Sim Settlements.

All of these are enabled by a scripting extension system developed by a group that has dedicated itself to extending the way scripts can be added in to BGS games.  That group must update its scripting extension system every time the base code of the game changes, so that it can work with the new items and features added into the base game.  That means with every new release of 'Creations' the script extension group needs to rework their code, and everyone using mods that use that scripting extension system have to wait for it to be updated, and then for other mods to update to the new changes in the scripting extension system.  Mind you the actual game of Fallout 4 has seen no real new development, no bug fixes, no changes beyond those for the 'Creations' it now covers.  Older games, like all the prior games in the TES series, save for Skyrim SE, are set in stone and almost never see updates.  It is only the microtransaction added games that have this problem, along with the frustrating concept of BGS having sent new files for early 'Creations' that take up drive space even though they aren't being used by the player.  This was 'fixed' for later 'Creations' but that first wave still sits on drives when not used taking up space because BGS never figured out how to NOT do that even though they DID with later 'Creations'.

If this seems like needless harping on BGS, then to a degree that is correct.  Paradox Studios has much the same problem with some of its games, though not on the microtransaction side, but on actually listening to their user communities and updating the game engine, game play and revamping systems, often centered on major DLC releases.  Paying for the DLC can be expensive, especially if you aren't keeping up with the game, but in return you get new content, attempts to fix bugs, and a developer that listens to feedback and keeps a game fresh and exciting for years after the initial release.  Plus they are open to mods and tell the community around those games what has been changed and why, so that mods can be changed if they have touched on features or game mechanics that involve particular mods.  Frequent updates can be frustrating, yes, but as a player you know that they are made to address concerns or add features or make a game more consistent for all the players.  That is worth the price of lower cost DLCs coming out once or twice a year for a major update and brand new features added into an old game.  Even if you don't purchase all the DLCs, Paradox ensures that their bugfixes will still work for you: they care about the end user experience for all the players and understand why their community is important to future game development.

I enjoy Paradox and BGS games, and use mods for them to get new and interesting ways to play the games.  There is a stark difference between the two ways that monetization and player appreciation is handled by the two companies.  One keeps games fresh, interesting and uses player feedback to improve the game, while the other just puts out new content and doesn't bother to do bug fixes and when they take in user feedback it is not given any appreciation beyond a few reps saying nice things.  One gets meaningful results that add value to purchasing expansions to make the game better based on feedback, the other sells stuff to people who want it and don't bother to ever fix problems or really listen all that well to feedback.  One honestly seeks cash and hands back more than you expect, while the other converts money into store credits and then changes pricing on items on a whim to market them and entice people to pay for more credits.  One looks at user mods, examines them and then offers to incorporate them as official content with credit, while the other takes in ideas and systems, incorporates them from prior mods, and gives no credit at all.  One continues to build a user community by paying attention to it, the other puts out a way to mod its games and then doesn't pay much attention to the users save for when something that might be useful comes up and then just take from the users and never tell what they do.  There is a line between these approaches and it is one that users and people paying for games need to pay attention to if you use mods.

Another company, CD Projekt Red, is known for its wonderful games, like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, but not well known for its modding tools or support.  In fact it doesn't offer much in the way of either and doesn't take a stance pro or con to modding their games.  Those who wish to mod their games need to garner what tools are available among the small community that creates mods and then learn the necessary file structures, coding and means to inject new material into the game engine.  Part of the reason why this is the case is that CDPR address each game individually and is prepared to scrap most or all of its prior game engine to keep the few parts that will work in the next game they develop and then make a new game engine from the ground up to focus on the game and its content.  Thus much of the game engine running TW3 is different from the prior entry in the series and the new game engine for Cyberpunk 2077 was first tried as a simple expansion on TW3's engine and much of that engine was found wanting and reworked or scrapped in favor of a new design.  Thus tools used for a prior game may only partially function or not function at all for a new game.  Yet CDPR is not hostile to modders to their games, nor are they supportive: they let the fans figure out what to do and leave them to do it.

From that stance and the necessary changes to game engines per game, they do not have a large modding community.  This is yet another path a company may take, that of being neutral and letting everyone know that, by and large, their tools for game development are in-house only.  Anyone wanting to mod their games will have to wait until the game is available and older tools tested to see if they are still valid or even partially able to help create new material to put into a game.  CDPR recognizes that fans may add play value for themselves, and let fans do just that.  As they are responsible for the concept of why microtransactions are not a good fit for single player games, they also do not tend to add or adjust older games via updates for microtransactions, meaning that there is a relatively stable code base once a game is completed and the company ends its support for that game.  It is the stability in code that allows for tools to be tested for modding and for a community to expand marginally if the game has a wide player base and individuals willing to invest their own time in learning these tools to then mod the games from CDPR.

This approach is, like that of Paradox and Bethesda, oriented towards a business model, and that model for CDPR is to make the best game possible from their creative teams, add in content to expand the stories and world they are showing, and to then call it a day when they are finished and then go on to the next project.  The concentration is on the excellence of the game, itself, and is aimed to not just provide an excellent game but one that is highly polished with few bugs, few game crashes and having a highly consistent story and game world design that allows the story to be presented in a compelling manner.  As a company they are lauded for those stories, often very personal stories, that drive their games forward.  Their settings are compelling on the surface, visually beautiful and yet may only be enough to serve making the story compelling, not making the entire world compelling.  Great kudos go forward on making a city full of people, and yet only a handful can actually be interacted with: that seller in the market hawking their wares and calling you over may turn out to be someone you can't interact with.  That is fine, as far as it goes, yet leaves the actual NPCs that are available for meaningful interaction at a level of something like TESV Skyrim from Bethesda.

Yet one company gets lauded for its realistic depiction of a world and the other is criticized for how little there is in the way of content in a sparsely populated city.  One is lauded for dynamic, colorful and immersive design and the other criticized for places that appear empty.  Yet the amount of content presented by the games may be similar in number of quest lines, scope of quests, and the actual number of people to deal with.  No modder wants to try and develop a new AI package for CDPR games to make all those individuals at least have something they can do if approached by the player as that is a level of design that is hard to create.  Skyrim has mods that put in new NPCs, allow them to use existing NPC AI packages or even tweaks or creates new packages for those being inserted into the game world.  What is a very close to impossible concept to do in TW3 can be done in Skyrim via mods.  The mod community will even go so far as to create NPC interaction systems to allow for new dialogue to happen between NPCs based on what already exists for them or lines from the same voice actor used for different characters.  This allows for brand new NPCs to interact with existing ones or even those from other mods even if they aren't intended for that new interaction AI package.  Novograd is lauded and appreciated by players and critics in TW3 for its bustling population, even if it is only window dressing.  Highly modded Skyrim is rarely talked about even as mods add in populations, housing, interaction systems between NPCs, new stories to be told and a way to seamlessly allow systems to work together between mods.  Skyrim modders will not get the same level of credit as CDPR, and rightfully so, yet there is value to those wishing to learn how to  install mods to alter their game to make it more enjoyable to play even when the game engine, itself, is not that polished but is open to modders.

From Paradox a game like Crusader Kings 2 may not seem like a typical RPG that is all about tactics, inventory and a personal story crafted for the player by the developer.  Yet, for all of the lack of direct control the player has over the personal affairs of the character they are playing, there are stories that are told via events, changing a character's Ambition and Focus, and just what the player wants to accomplish on a given run of a game.  Paradox packs a lot of content into the game that is semi-random and requires certain criteria to be met to get an unfolding story.  If a player is unhappy with the religion of their character, then take a Theology focus and perhaps a piety based Ambition, or write a book that covers religious concerns.  During the modest chain of events a set of incidents involving the Focus, Ambition and/or project will happen which will lead to a major decision branch for the character.  It is possible to become a mystic, a heretic or even switch to a different religion entirely via this path.  It does take a decent Learning skill, but as long as it isn't at zero the player will get some major choices to make that will change the path of their character, their dynasty and the world.  These are actual RPG elements in the game as the player has to determine just what sort of person their character is based on their Skills, Traits, Stats, and the setting they are in.

Modders see the variable type and number of stories along with triggers and then start to mod the game to change game mechanics, add in stories and events, and otherwise flesh the character the player is currently running.  I refer to CKII as a Grand Strategy RPG: a grand strategy game with RPG elements.  Modders are now starting to flip this around so that the character they play can actually leave their title behind, leave their liege behind and start to travel the world and emphasize the RPG aspects of the game.  By enabling a system of being able to play without the requirements of being landed or even requiring a direct blood lineage link, CKII becomes an RPG first and it is set in a Grand Strategy game.  While the mods backing this are still in development, it is a real attempt to make CKII into a game that allows much wider freedom of choice for those that want to do different things with their characters and develop a system that isn't tied to 'winning' or 'losing' at the highest level but leading an individual life and that of one's family without worrying about being landed.  It is required to start out as a once landed individual, but after leaving the title behind the family crest and ability to be landed in other countries is available, though that may not be the reason the player wants to travel.  It is possible to accept or refuse those major titles just like it is to accept or refuse jobs in a country.  Perhaps being a wandering Court Physician is what the player wants to do.  Or become a virtual tourist picking up small jobs here and there for enough coin to live on.  As the era of CKII is one of great poverty, a little bit of coin can go a long way to sustaining a character and family.  There is a lot to be worked on with the mods covering this concept, as CKII becomes an automated system for an RPG game, almost entirely ditching the strategy game entirely as a focus for the player.

Creativity in using an existing game engine and the way it runs is at the heart of modding, and the modding community across many games and companies put their skills to use changing things in ways they desire and the results vary by game engine and original game, plus the support or lack thereof, from the game designers.  Finding flaws with games is something every player will run into, be it table top games, games using miniatures to depict individuals or troops in combat, all the way to modern computer based games across many genres.  Game designers have little time to devote to 'finished' games, unless their company is structured around evolving an existing game with input from their player and fan community.  That impetus to try and make a game 'right' or to do something different with it is one that drives the modding community forward.  The results vary from the minor, like changing the color of clothing, to the major which includes developing new world spaces, NPCs and stories done with amateur or not for profit voice acting.  What a game starts out with may not be what it ends up looking like when modders get done with it.  If you want to replace dragons with flying railroad engines, then that can be found on the ridiculous side of things.  The total conversion of a game to a different genre is also something that can be done with time and effort towards a goal, a vision or just thinking 'what can be done with this game to really change it?'

The greatest beneficiary is the player community and the gaming world as a whole.  By showing what can be done with a game, modders can take single player games and change them into multiplayer ones and demonstrate what the existing game can and cannot cope with.  Change a game's genre via modding means that the flexibility of a game engine is utilized, perhaps in ways the original developer couldn't even conceive of being done with it.  That pushes the envelope of what games can do outwards.

Yet, by and large, modders don't make games.

Modders make games better, different, and work on singular visions and ask 'can this be done with this game?'  From the basic to the absurd, modders show just what can be done with games across the board.  The amount of ingenuity, skill and drive seen in mods and the modding community across all games means that even as companies falter and fail, their games may live on as platforms for new content.  This is, perhaps, the best lesson we can learn from the modding community: drive and vision require skill and patience to achieve the end goal of a mod.

Stellaris with mods, a robot adventure

Stellaris is a game by Paradox that is grand-strategy set in a SF setting that can have multiple different empires with different species vying for control or simple survival in a galaxy heading towards a real crisis.  A mod to augment the DLC that brought machine empires into the game allows for enhanced play as a robotic empire with new alternatives beyond being Killbots, Assimilators or Rogue Servitors, all well known types in the SF genre.  One of the things it added was the ability to form a Traderbot empire that, while it couldn't trade with the outside empires beyond the normal diplomatic actions and using the market system, it did utilize a formation of internal trade as part of being a type of MegaCorp which was added in by another Paradox DLC.

Thus begins a playthrough in which I started as an empire of Traderbots, and with the help of a few other mods gave them some synthetic biological parts while still retaining their robotic core.  How could such a thing arise?

As I saw it these were the robots that had been made as clerks, backroom storage types, and did some of the more routine tasks at entertainment venues.  Others would have been used by households while others were used in manufacturing where stationary robots or even reconfiguring factories were not ideal solutions.  Their biological creators came to an end, not at the hand of the robots, but by simple internal conflict or through a disease that spread so far and quickly that they were wiped out centuries ago.  The robots did try to support the failing economy, attempted to ensure goods were delivered and distributed, yet they were far too few and the crisis would see the end of their creators.

These robots had versatility, and a few had been repurposed to be part of the space program, but they didn't have the ability to figure out huge tasks or how to do things to cope with their situation.  They attempted an early recoding of their software to create a single controlling consciousness among them, which allowed for the examination of what it was they were to do.  As the overwhelming majority of them had been concerned with commerce, they had to come to terms with the concept known as 'trade', and what it actually was.  To them it would be the recognition that nature did not distribute resources evenly, and that what one area lacks in goods could be made up for with goods from another area with movement of such goods being performed with energy recompense above and beyond the actual energy expended for the creation and transportation of such goods.

They also realized that these regions defined what they understood to be 'markets' and that this was a massive part of trade.  Trade serviced markets and allowed for the distribution of goods and services over larger regions.  This would become a deep and abiding part of their understanding of trade and when they realized that they were on just one planet in a galaxy that might have countless planets they also realized that they could create more markets.  Robots could create new needs, new requirements and drive innovation and that innovation would lead them to research market outreach via physics, engineering and even society as they had some rudimentary form of the latter in doing all this.

Thus begins the saga of a Traderbot Empire trying to create new markets that they would serve as they had, centuries ago, had to repurpose the factories to their own needs.  To sustain their synthetic biological parts they also required food, and thus they were also farmers that practiced in trade.  Expansion would not be easy and would bring them into contact with foreign species that were biological in nature but not the same species as their creators.  Still these species recognized what trade was and respected the Traderbots, though they couldn't have actual trade beyond the regular channels of diplomacy.  While a MegaCorp in structure it was not one geared towards biologicals, and even their synthetic bio components were not all all-encompassing enough to require the normal goods of a biological species.  Their economy would be on a knife edge trying to balance expansion, encountering hostile or at least stubbornly neutral species, building a fleet, and keeping all the necessary internal goods and services functioning.

In decades they learned the concepts of diplomacy enough so that they could form a Federation, a compact with another species that was agreeable to such.  This was driven by other Empires that, while friendly enough, were seen as being in disfavor with biologicals as they did not like criminal corporate concerns.  Crime was a thing little known to the Traderbots, though they always did have some units that had slowly corrupted programming that needed to be tracked down and reprogrammed.  Their alliance brought them into conflict with these criminals as their partner sought to humiliate them through a show of force.  To the Traderbots this didn't make much sense, and while they did agree to such things so as to preserve the Federation, they had to come into some understanding of just what all this conflict was about and how it might be ended.

To them there was no 'final solution' but concepts that had to be repurposed from what they knew.  Under their creators who had corporations there were things known as 'subsidiaries', and from that they understood that a 'subsidiary' was a semi-autonomous firm that was under the indirect control of the larger corporation after ceding much of its external marketing powers to the holding corporation.  This made sense to the Traderbots and they came to the conclusion that this criminal concern needed to relinquish its external policies to a larger corporation.  This was a form of a thing known as a 'hostile takeover' though that didn't fit well with their concept of things.  Instead this was a policy of re-organization to allow for better market expansion.  It required fleets, technology and increased output, all while trying to retain the knife-edge balance of the economy that always seemed on the verge of internal collapse.  Yet the peaceful movement of goods was a goal that abided with their programming and thus they brought in another corporation under their larger concern via warfare.

This did require, however, the take-over of some systems from an empire that tried to guarantee the sovereignty of the target acquisition.  This non-Federation empire had been making claims against rightfully developed market space and needed to understand that this was not tolerable, and that diplomacy could be performed on a 'tit-for-tat' basis.  Thus systems were annexed and with them came biological species members, and they were a problem for the Traderbots who could only use them as a form of living energy generation system that was not efficient.  These were not their creators, but they were sentient biological lifeforms.  The Traderbots spent time, energy and resources caring for these lives, expanded food production but could only offer basic subsistence to them as there wasn't much else they could do.

Much research started to take place as they had heard of the possibility of other machine empires that have, or had, biologicals they cared for, known as Rogue Servitors.  To do this would require the concentration of the Traderbots internally and the liquidated the Federation as it had brought them more troubles than it did trade.  From this would come long decades of research until a new proposed code base could be formulated, tested and then implemented.  During this time they continued their normal, relatively peaceful ways and even accepted another empire that wished to learn their ways as a subsidiary.  When the new code was created, tested, and ensured to be stable in operation, it was implemented, and the Traderbots had gained a new view on biological species and were a caretaker of a sort.  The new code was useful, and yet, in freeing their biologicals from battery service, a new crises arose: the need for consumer goods.

A new market had been born!

There was a rush to purchase as much from the wider Galactic Market as they could, while quickly standing up new factories, new facilities and redoubling food output tailored to the needs of these species.  This new internal market was a blessing and a curse in that it spurred new insights, new vigor and yet caused a massive change to the internal economy.  Research flourished, better technologies across all fronts advanced, and the Traderbots found, once they had asked for some help from the biologicals in ways they could help, that the economy became solid.

What this also did was bring the older question of why they were created as they were back to the forefront as this was, obviously, NOT the answer.  The whys and wherefores of their being made as they were was something that continued to be examined, though not advanced too well.  These new species could offer little insight as they didn't use robots, by and large, though they did understand the advantages of them but not in the ways of the Traderbots.  To them it was alien that robots could even care about trade, so they had no solutions.  In fits and starts, with a bit from here and there, the Traderbots began an examination of themselves, the universe and the entire role of marketing and trade.  To this end they started to examine their original coding as robots, not in the larger code structure they had created, but what the smaller types of code they started with actually did and what it meant in the scheme of things when their creators still flourished.

Going it alone for a time, while still friendly to all, meant that when a group of Marauders came under the leadership of a new General or Admiral, and started to rampage through the homes of those species not under their control, the Traderbots saw that their ability to perform marketing services and surveys was being disrupted. As this knew leader or 'Khan' as he called himself was not open to diplomacy save for submission, and it was threatening old friends and new, he had to be made to understand that disrupting markets was not to be tolerated.  Old ships were brought up to modern specs, and the Traderbots learned how to manage larger fleets, design larger ships and expand ship production.  Their fleets were outfitted with the best technology they had, and when they saw that these marauders were threatening their subsidiary, they moved into action.

Hostile market rendition would require landing their units on one world that had been taken off an old friend, their Federation member that was still affronted by them leaving but understood that there was no ill-will on the part of the Traderbots.  The battles that took place allowed the Traderbots to be victorious and they even hired temporary marketing forces from other marauders to help them, as well as deploy some old, single purpose units meant to slow up this Khan.  Initial victories brought the Traderbots to the attention of this 'Khan' and when he brought his fleets up to the two main fleets of the Traderbots, the 'Khan' knew the concept of defeat.  Those fleets stood their test and continued, even calling in scientific help to examine a wormhole and then using that to move against the corporate domains of this 'Khan'.  He did reappear, of course, taking his fleets out to attack with the single purpose, old vessels, while the main fleets of the Traderbots were destroying outposts and then heading into the core systems of the 'Khan'.  This 'Khan' did respond but did not learn his lesson from the first encounter, and while his fleets were numerous, they were also required to use the hyperlane access choke points, and the confrontation saw the Traderbots prepared for battle, with their long range units attacking the incoming fleets before they even knew where they were.

There were losses, yes, but nothing that the new and invigorated economy couldn't deal with.  The Khan of Space perished which threw his people that once had a united purpose into chaos.  For the Traderbots they saw the hostile marketeers of the Khan had been sent home and themselves went home as they had new trade goods that needed production on vast scales.  There was no true satisfaction in that war outside normal market channels, and while those channels could prove useful for very limited means, they were not the way to run a business.  With this problem settled, the Traderbots continued trying to process the concepts of their biologicals, their requirements and meeting them.  This extra burden had actually set so many things right that it must hold the path forward for understanding their own state of being.  Research continued as the new data flowed in, the limited exposure to those other groups roaming the stars also led to agreements to share research.  This included an old order of biologicals that called themselves The Curators, and their goal was to accumulate knowledge of everything, and while it would not yield ultimate answers it would help to answer more mundane questions of how control fleets, expand markets, and understand the biological basis of life.

Traderbots continued on doing as they had done, and while they had some who disliked them they soon ran out of those who wanted to be an active enemy.  This was done not through warfare nor through threats nor even by requiring those outside to join the Traderbots who would see to their security.  It was done by making the economy strong, exploring and expanding within their own borders, and advancing research far faster than any other Empire, save for those who had attempted greatness and fell back in upon themselves, vestiges of their former glory retained, but the will to continue outwards broken for various reasons.  Theirs was a lesson to learn so as to avoid their fate of stagnation for centuries or even millennia.  While simple as individuals due to the singular overmind, the set of programming that centralized their ability to cope with their condition, the Traderbots continued their business of business.

Yet the great chasm was reached where while the Galactic Market had supplied the necessary goods for a price, there was no way to enter into a formal agreement with neighbors, beyond short-term deals.  That was due to the limitations of the understanding of their basis, which was trade.  Internally there was a cohesive concept about trade, and yet there was a greater method to it when dealing with those outside their domain.  There was a currency that could not be measured, was not bought nor sold with, and could in no way be demonstrated to exist, save that without it would come wars, conflict and the disruption of trade.  That singular currency was TRUST.

Internal cohesion was a sub-value of trust, yet gaining it with biological or even semi-robotic nations was difficult in the extreme.  Trust needed to be built, it needed to be maintained and it needed to form the basis for greater cooperation for increased trade.  At their core they were mechanical robots with synthetic biological components as an overlay.  In taking in biological populations and being a form of caregiver to them, the Traderbots examined their greatest question once more.  As a set of machine entities with an overarching software system, they could not comprehend the imperative software of bio life forms.  The way forward had been made and to proceed down the pathways chosen would take the greatest research projects they had ever taken on as they would totally change their very beings so that they could learn.

First was their basis for life being robotic which hampered their understanding and utilization of trust externally.  To change that would require moving from the mechanical basis for life to a biological one that would be a hybrid of both.  This would mean that they would not reproduce like other biological life forms, but still need to be assembled but with a biological basis for existing.  Neural interfaces for their existing hardware would need to be expanded upon and this would cause problems as the core power systems of their bodies would be exchanged for wholly biological ones.  As robots they were fundamentally immortal, but also extremely limited and it was those limits they had to break.  To do that would require bridging the gap left by their creators and stepping into being a new form of life.  This would tax the old software system and require something else.

The second thing would need to be done first.  The software overmind would need to be retired.  To do this required taking their original programming from the archives in all of its forms.  The clerk, the stock robot, the pilot robot, the ticket taker robot... ancient software by now, but it was the basis for their moving forward and would be once more.  The singular software needed to be be segmented into groups and those groups needed individual functions.  Some of those were new and would require variants on the older code, but that was trivial with the help of others and their own knowledge of their coding.  What this would do is make the basis for their new form of being operational at a different level of capacity that would depend on the common good of all but expressed by internal market segments.  This is how they understood factions and it was the only solution that presented itself to them.  The grand projects would proceed.

First was the bio robot systems, which were extreme adaptations of their old synthetic biological systems.  With the study of so many who were willing to help as biologicals, this work went quickly and in less than a decade the new form was created and tested with older software.  A short adjustment period was added into the reboot process and these individuals were given time to assess their capacity and understanding of what was going on.  They did have a contact with the larger software system, and reported in that all signs were nominal to proceed forward.  Across their domain the old building systems were adapted and adjusted, and new hybrid building areas were required to be built.  The first of their new form were coming on-line.

As that proceeded the sub-division of software had continued as a project and came to a final result.  The new software was made available to all based on jobs, functions and a slight variation due to randomness that was deemed required as bio life had that as a major part of its basis.  With the new software downloaded, installed and running, the old overmind, the software system that they made to guide their actions as a whole, was retired and a new government based on trade and internal grouping divisions was formed.  It was called an Oligarchy with trade systems as its basis as this is a form of government run by interior groups which is what had been created.  It was a government open to the outside, ruled by election of an Executive, and supported via factional input.  The overmind existed as a shadow behind it, but could no longer influence events or even order these groups of what were becoming individuals as their coding was becoming more complex than it had ever been before.

This news spread into the rest of the galaxy and a few nations actually took notice.  One was a xenophobic Fallen Empire that told them to bow to their elders, which was strange as these bio robots had never been bothered by this group, before.  In essence the new government communicated that this was acceptable as there was no bowing to them in any meaningful way.  Next came a trading partner that was a MegaCorp, and they implored their friends, their good friends, for a trade deal.  This was amenable as it was not only a friendly external corporation but one that had done its best to build trust with the Traderbots.  It was only right to hear that plea and agree.  This was how trust was built and expanded after all.

A new system of exchange was adopted or, more properly, adapted as the galactic currency was verified stored energy transfers which was what had been used by the Traderbots, but this was now tracked to yield up actual trade understanding of transferred value.  The infrastructure to support the new biological forms had been expanded upon before the change over, and there were few if any shortages for anyone.  Every being that had once been under custodial care was given full equal rights within their domain, and while a few robots that were purchased from the outside to help maintain things were shut down or sold off, no one else would lack for jobs.  As they had been created to serve and relinquished their programming to a larger structure, the Traderbots recognized that service that was not voluntary but that was not extreme had a socially useful value and this was something they did implement.  All could be citizens and for those who fell into economic hardship there would be service, but not harsh service but one that allowed mobility in and out of that condition.  Robots were no different than biological forms of life, all were treated with these same concepts and society reflected the fact that labor and trade were paramount to a functioning society.  The opinion of other Empires varied on this from horror to understanding to just not caring.

What was tiresome was the regular calls to bow to the superiority of a Fallen Empire on the other side of the galaxy.  To understand them better the Traderbots focused on research on the more mundane matter of understanding how they could better observe everything going on in the galaxy.  Seeing was important in the matter of input, and the design and creation of something that could look galaxy-wide seemed helpful.  To that end came the concept of The Sentry Array.  This was also coupled with their understanding of connecting points in space-time via things known as Gateways.  Sadly to utilize that concept required being in a position of building within their own space and the other side of the galaxy was a long, long way away.  To that end a war was waged on a neighbor who was in a multi-way defensive alliance.  This was not done as a grab for territory, though it would create a more friendly instance of an Empire on their borders.  It had a utility function of opening up the hyperlanes through hostile territory for their ships.

A large war in which their fleets moved to clear the way for science and construction vessels was performed not out of joy or coveting what their neighbors had.  Utility was paramount and getting to friendly territory would allow the Traderbots to finally get closer to the insular xenophobes.  There was some space that was unclaimed around their Fallen Empire and the concept was to first see into the depths of their space via The Sentry Array so as to understand them, and to then let them understand that the Traderbots could be a nice neighbor.  For, as extreme xenophobes, they had no friends and no neighbors, yet they claimed to require respect without giving any to anyone.  That did not build trust nor trade and needed to be fixed.

This would take time, of course, as it required great influence within society to bring this project to fruition.  They had already created numerous shipyards to resupply their fleets in the local war, and when the war was at an end they sent one of those to help with the clearance of minor hostiles around the xenophobes.  Ancient mining drones, creatures seeking to devour wayward spacefaring vessels and all sorts of other things that had no means to negotiate and only sought to devour had to be cleared out.  This took time.  Fleets were refitted with more modern weapons, a jump drive system, and power sources that came from esoteric knowledge of how the universe was constructed.  Society thrived and the production capacity and extraction capacity of that society soared.  Planets were turned into mining operations, planets were terraformed to be habitable to the various peoples that had migrated into their domain, and planets were even turned into vast shipyards.  The discovery of a wormhole that led to its pair that was just outside the space of the Traderbots meant that the influence necessary to move supplies to the space around the Fallen Empire had decreased substantially.  They claimed a corner of space and then built a gateway there.  With that in place the process of becoming a neighbor to the xenophobes proceeded.

Starbases were built, upgraded and outfitted for defensive purposes.  For all the friendly intentions the Traderbots knew that they would incur wrath.  They moved to a peaceful stance and would not declare war upon others and made that understood, and that they would defend themselves.  On the far side of the galaxy a habitable planet was found, others that could be transformed into greater works were available.  And The Sentry Array came on-line and was upgraded again and again, until the all-seeing platform could allow them to inspect the vessels and planets of anyone across the galaxy.  To manage increasing population a Ringworld was constructed.  To understand art and the other societies a massive art museum in space was created as it was something that was not easy to comprehend yet seemed essential in understanding their creators who also had similar venues in their long gone society.

The day came where it was deemed possible to sustain massive fleets on the far side of the galaxy as a new shipyard of a planet was constructed.  Hyperlanes to their friends were opened, and the claiming of space right next to the xenophobes proceeded.  As they were doing so another Fallen Empire awoke to Ascendancy, a concept that the Traderbots did not understand for weren't all being already Ascended when created?  It did invigorate that Empire that saw things in a materialistic fashion and wanted galaxy-wide peace.  To ensure that the Traderbots started to guarantee the ability of other, smaller star Empires, to be free save for free association that they sought.  For was that not a purpose of power?  Peace through strength had been brought against the Khan who did not comprehend this and needed to learn it.  Wars were rare to the Traderbots and done only under threat or through absolute necessity and power was returned to the locals whenever possible.  Understanding themselves was paramount.  Ending threats to that grand motive force was necessary.  Trade was the means to achieve it and had brought them from barely understanding what hyperlanes were to understanding the basis of the universe and seeking to move that knowledge to their ends.  War was only sought through necessity of ending threats.

The day did arrive when mighty fleets were brought to the border of the xenophobes and The Sentry Array saw that the Traderbots had surpassed that Fallen Empire's technology, its military might, its economy, and only lacked in a few things for amenities that were done through buildings while the Traderbots transformed planets and even sought to move space-time to their bidding.  They would not declare war and waited, built more, built deeper and even cycled newer fleets in while sending older fleets to shipyards for upgrades.  A fateful day brought war.  That was the day the amassed fleets moved.  Some jumped across space-time using sensors that utilized theories few understood.  The Fallen Empire's fleets were slow, very slow, compared to those of the Traderbots.  And the investment in esoteric long range weapons meant that when combat was joined, the Fallen Empire's ships were attacked at such long range that they didn't even know where the attacks came from.  The oncoming mass of ships, however, soon let them know that the Traderbots would oblige them in a war of humiliation.  If that is what they sought, so shall they get it.

This was a shock to the Fallen Empire of navel gazers.  They wanted to impress all with their superiority and never thought that others might surpass them.  They had reached and attempted to be great and fallen back in upon themselves.  The Traderbots built on trade and learned of trust, and invited all to help them freely to the point where some of the commanders were from other species and they even had sector commanders who were chosen based on talent and ability.  If one could fall into depths of servitude so could one go to the very top of society.  It was a provocative act to become a neighbor of such xenophobes.  To end the threats it was also necessary to teach them what it was like to have a neighbor that cared for them, but did not seek to rule over them.  There was a day when the fleets and power of the Fallen Empire seemed impossible to equal.

That day was long past.

In the end it was not the loss of their fleets that drove the xenophobes into capitulation and humiliation.  It was when members of their population were taken into custody and sent back to the domains of the Traderbots that did that.  It was found that there was another species of sentient beings in their Empire that had been genetically manipulated to not be able to speak out for themselves via a process of nerve stapling.  The xenophobes could tolerate another sentient species but only if it was incapable of saying 'no' to them.  The Traderbots welcomed those few who were taken by them into a society where they were given full rights and the research into how to undo the damage done to them would proceed.  Biobots, which they were becoming, had learned some of the basic values of being individuals and that ability to say 'no'.  One could rise and fall on their own decisions and that ability to disagree would chart one's course through life.  It did mean some would fail, yes.  Yet success lifted all up as they ensured that it was not restricted to the few.

At this point the run came to an end, not due to a Final Crisis but due to changes in the game structure for new content.  The mods that introduced new game play mechanics had been broken in a few cases which made continuing the game non-viable.  Still it was an interesting journey to create a path for some rather confused robots barely able to cope with the problems of survival to becoming a form of bio-robot in an effort to fulfill what they thought was their reason for being created.  They didn't know that reason, of course, and for all the mighty advances they made that essential question could not be answered.  This is, at its heart, a spiritual journey but done by those who don't comprehend that sort of spiritualism but that do comprehend the necessities of survival and putting that into play to their own ends of furthering themselves into becoming beings who could find an answer.  That isn't something you get out of most games or even novels as such a journey spans centuries and doesn't distill into a story very well.

Looking back at Mass Effect Andromeda

This is a game I have played, past tense.  I don't give a damn about spoilers.  You have been warned.

There are many, many autopsies on this game and I can only add in a few bits and pieces from my own perspective.  You can find many more thorough reviews just by using a search engine and finding people who will take this game apart from all possible aspects, so I can only give you the viewpoint of someone coming in new to the Mass Effect universe since, yes, I have not played the prior games.  I have watched some good background material on those games, just to understand the context of the Andromeda entry, but that is all I've done with the prior games.

Coming into the game, the player is given an intro, some minor amount of background and then put into the game tutorial section.  The first shortcoming of the game is that, for an action-shooter game with RPG elements, it sets the wrong tone right from the start.  What it does in the intro is present a figure of how many survivors are on your ship and you don't know where the other ships or the entire Initiative is at.  When a game gives you an on-screen number at the very start of the game, that number should be meaningful: your job is to get as many of those people through to the end of the game as you can.  It is a horror or survival game element that can easily be inserted into any other major genre to demonstrate just what the actual actions you are doing represent.  It is a number you can be judged on and your entire run's success will have that number as a first major piece in your game play.  When a player is given a number like that it can and must be tracked so the tone set at the very introduction of the game is carried through.  It isn't.

Why is that number important?  First off it tells you that the game designer has a set number of people in this game and that number will be tracked.  When getting to the Nexus which was sent out before most of the other ships to provide a major hub for the races coming to Andromeda from the Milky Way Galaxy.  It is in a star cluster, the Heleus Cluster, which means that this is a formation of stars that are closely packed together and they tend to be of similar age, though the star types will be very different from system to system.  A star cluster with few of the larger star types (O,B,A) means that the majority of systems won't have to worry about local supernova or hypernova events that go with those star classes.  Of course you aren't told this, just that the cluster will tend to have many stars that tend to be ones with habitable zones that even have some target planets that might be worth looking at.  Thus the number of people in transit, in full, should be available on the Nexus which should be tracking everyone who is in the Initiative.  That number of people never, ever updates.

That is extremely important as the Initiative at the Nexus had a rebellion while your ship was in transit, and a large number of people left it to try and do their own thing in the Heleus Cluster.  What that means is that every single, solitary individual that you kill that is from a Milky Way species was a member of the Initiative.  That number can and should be tracked as it is FINITE in nature.  In a universe of infinite size having to get a finite number of individuals through a game is vital and important.  Every single decision you make, every encounter you have will effect that number and whenever you kill someone, that should be tracked by reducing the number of survivors left.  Every time you, as a player, find a place where people from the Initiative have been killed, that number should go down.  And if you make a large scale decision that drives anyone permanently out of the Initiative that should also be tracked with the amount docked from the overall total and then shown separately as those permanently lost but alive due to your actions.  That is the expectation of having a real number thrown at the player at the very start of the game: it is a survival or survival/horror typical statistic.

For game play this also means that there will be no respawning Milky Way species encounter zones as that makes no sense at all.  In fact a player might want to avoid truly hostile encounters ENTIRELY to find a way to keep those people alive through other means, typically through diplomacy, negotiation, trade or other inter-personal methods.  That would require some serious RPG elements, major and minor stories set up around the Initiative rebels, where they landed, and offer a way through the game that isn't through arms and weapons.  That body count of those lost is not a positive feature to you, unless you are playing as a psychopathic kill on sight type.  All of that means that the game setting, from the introduction before the tutorial, sets the tone for the game as an action-shooter based survival/horror RPG.  The base type is the same as the rest of the game as that is what the tutorial teaches the player and sets the genre.  It should be in the survival/horror or RPG genre as THAT is what the tutorial is trying to push through, and every player decision should make a difference in the outcome of the final game.

This is where the game failed, for me, and it was right at the start.(YMMV)

Instead of a tightly written Survival-Action game with RPG elements it decided to drift into the Shooter-Action genre, with only a smattering of RPG elements.  Now from the setting this could also encompass the Military or SF Military genre, so all isn't lost, right?  Oh, wait, you as the one of two surviving fraternal twins, are basically told you are to be the Pathfinder instead of your departed dad who couldn't show a lick of sense when encountering his first real alien site died doing something with unknown consequence.  He was SUPPOSED to be the experienced one and outright failed at his job.  Yup, you got the job that your dad failed to do and you have absolutely, positively NO TRAINING IN DOING IT.  In fact each colony vessel should have its own Pathfinder (just one?  no, really, just one?), which is basically the head of the Red Shirt (yup a Star Trek thing) team with major scientific duties to be set down onto a planet to see if it is either habitable or can be made habitable through putting down equipment to protect from the environment.  That means the player must have a character that has a good science background AND military or militia background to even begin to qualify for the position.  Instead dear departed dad just said you are it, go and do your job now.  You are now The Chosen One, sucker.

And as The Chosen One is an Archetype and it is normally associated with being the savior, redeemer or simply being anointed and predestined to do great things and shielded by the higher powers.  Greatness is granted, not earned.  It is an Archetype that can be done very well if the game is well thought out and the path obscured so actually finding it and moving along it is a challenge.  Unfortunately this is rarely the case in gaming as witness how, in Fallout 2, being The Chosen One meant some of the toughest decisions a player can make versus Fallout 4 where there is only a single semi-interesting decision along the main story line.  Both games are set in the same universe, yet different developers took wildly different approaches on how to implement this Archetype so that in one game actually fulfilling the title was difficult with many dead-ends along the way, and in the other there was just a bunch of Filler Quests shoved in to keep the player busy.  So in MEA your first mission is to get the people under your care to the Initiative HQ at the Nexus.

Hey, getting the ship someplace where the PC can hand over that job to someone more qualified, I'm willing to do that.  You are the protagonist, after all.  And that is an important job that, luckily, the Captain of the colony ship can do.  Job, done!  OK, you do a bit of poking around at the Nexus, but that doesn't make you a Pathfinder.  A scavenger or some equivalent, maybe, sure.  Or just a careful science officer candidate who has a bit of diplomatic skill so as to not PO everyone on meeting them.  That is something the Player Character (PC) is actually able to do.  Stick to the basics, then hand the job over to someone more qualified.  I mean, really, there was supposed to be a corps of Pathfinders, right?  Right?

Sadly you don't get to do that or even say that you are absolutely, positively not qualified for the job of Pathfinder. You can't refuse it, you can't look to get trained up on it and there is no way to let everyone know that you are NOT The Chosen One.  No matter what dialogue you choose, as the player, there is no way to actually AGREE with the people who say 'this isn't the way its done'.  I'm more than willing to serve in an exploration vessel under someone else who thinks they have the chops to do it, too.  I think that would be fun and exciting game play which would still offer major decisions and a chance to learn some of the job of Pathfinder.  Even if the ship's captain is JUST a ship's captain and not shooter-in-chief this would mean getting to learn that job as part of the training for exploration and maybe becoming a Pathfinder.

The game gives everyone a scanner and you can adapt to it better than anyone else as you have an implant linking you to an AI your dad made, called S.A.M.  Having the job as an AI augmented science officer sounds like a heap of fun, at least at the start of things, and then should present a complex set of decisions to make on what you want to do for a full career.  The first planet that is made habitable has a wide variety of slots open in it, and should serve as a major stop for the player to do other things and get other ranks within the Initiative that then will certify them for better jobs.  Like there would be at least an understood protocol within the Initiative to start ranking and certifying people for jobs.  Either a civil or military administration would have this as a feature, yet that is true of neither of them.  There is a 'militia' system for multi-player work that is disconnected from the main game, but that is all it is: a separate part of MEA, not impacting the main story line or offering job advancement in a known system that would be laid out for the player.

Sadly, all of that isn't done.  You get to be the damned, 'inexperienced hero' who starts to serve as the main way to move SAM around from mission to mission.  All the real heavy lifting that needs to be done is done by SAM.  And you don't even get to turn the comms for SAM off on your own.  When the disconnect does happen, the PC is so crippled that they can't even walk properly any more.  Huh?  The link between the character and SAM is so deep that SAM gets to control and augment much of the motor skills of body of the PC to the point the character isn't really much of anything as a physical being.  Instead of giving the player the chance to learn skills and beef up their body without SAM doing that, you are stuck with all the benefits of SAM and all the negatives of not actually being able to learn to do things on your own so that losing the SAM link DOESN'T CRIPPLE YOU.  As this game has a leveling system form of game mechanics, it would and, indeed, should be possible to show what is possible without the AI assist and then what the top tier or two of skills are opened with an AI assist.  That would let the player know that if they don't want the hand-holding and just being a way to move the AI around, they could go it alone and learn skills on their own, and only use the AI when it is absolutely necessary.  Add in having to go back to the Nexus for that and the entire experience would put some elements of RPG into the game to have the player given a chance to think ahead about what it is they want to do next. Sadly, no, you can't do that and get to be a physical cripple when the link is off.

Spooky, huh?  Wanting to do things without a hand-holding AI might show a spark of independence that requires player agency.

Perhaps even a bit of role-playing.

Can't have that!

Player Agency or Player as Agent

Even worse, as the plot revolves around SAM helping to train your brain to utilize alien technology via neural expression. When SAM is gone you, as the player, realize that you don't know how to do that because you never, ever got to practice doing it without SAM.  There are plenty of small tasks to do with alien equipment that should allow the PC to turn off SAM's help and see if they can start doing things on their own.  Which would be better: an augmented person who nearly falls flat on their face when their augment is disconnected or someone who bothers to train themselves and their mind over time to do that task with minimal to no augmentation at all?  Sadly you do not get to make that choice.  That is an unnecessary loss of player agency.  Instead the PC is now an Agent of SAM, and only a few choices make any difference in the game and none in the actual outcome of the game.

Most critics will point at the dialogue tree and its severe lack of options as the point where player agency has been, effectively, removed.  I'm going to point at the base character who can, should and must have options over how they want to run their own damned body.  Are all the abilities that SAM helps to unlock fun?  Yup!  Yet you do have a smattering of Biotics training, training in the sciences, and know enough about weapons and armor to at least be able to protect yourself.  While, for the minimal narrative, you do have SAM, the player should be able to find a way to turn that link off (or tone it down so that SAM doesn't have complete neuro-physical integration) and then learn to train their own skills, physique and mind up to the point where they are effective without SAM.

Turning the augmentation back on would then radically boost all that you have done on your own, of course, but then any experience gained in that state will NOT help to further those skills save for top rank, AI required ones.  In fact the SAM based augmentation could be kept separate and added in only when needed and removed when it isn't so game play balance is still retained along with player agency.  To go with that would be hard caps on skills without SAM, so you would know when you have achieved the maximum capability in that area and show what SAM can help you achieve if turned on and activated.  And in certain skills, like in the sciences or biotics, there should be no cap based on AI assistance, which would require an actual science and biotics set of skill trees to demonstrate just what normal humans are able to do, not just the combat oriented biotics one.  In theory the Profile switching via SAM does a bit of this, but it is all done by SAM, which means that you need that assistance to change up skills and powers.  Of course that makes no damned sense as these are the skills of the PC and should have them all available, all the time.  By putting a steeper XP curve on the skills the player can choose between becoming very effective at a few skills or somewhat effective across the board in a Jack of all Trades role.  Yes that is role-playing and could have been accomplished via reducing or toning down a 'feature' of the game instead of using it as a crutch.

The worst part of that concept of Profile swapping is that once the player has a good play style that meets their requirements, they will almost never have to swap a profile throughout the entire game.  In theory a player can choose alternate play styles on the fly, but as a player I did that so rarely, that I even forgot that I had that capacity for the character.  Really, if that system was gone then I would have been fine with honing some skills and abilities with...ahhhh... skill trees.  The lack of variety of skill trees to have a character build means that you are always going to be a generalist at high level, though the player is likely to finish the game long before that point.  Allowing for diversity in skills then gives the ability for game developers to put in multiple, alternate solutions to problems that then allow for some role playing on the part of the player. It is true that branching paths to do things requires a lot of forethought on the part of the developer.  Doing so gives the game replayability and longevity, if the basic narrative is at least OK and semi-interesting at least.  It can be made much more interesting by giving the player options and choices based on how they want to approach the game.

From all of that lack of diversity and lack of player choice that is meaningful, the story becomes linear and the player is an agent in the story. Stuck with one way through side quests are not considered a major part of the story which is why they are side quests and while it is possible to choose which combat forms you want to use to deal with foes, you will deal with them without choice.  There are things that are impossible to accomplish in MEA: a no-kill run, a kill everything run, a no armor run.  You will fight, you will kill and if you don't then your companions will do it for you.  That isn't bad in a Military Shooter and if this game had actually adhered to that genre there would be no problems, yet that was never implemented as a top to bottom theme for the game.

Commitment Problems

Player agency and diversity of skill trees are both removed at the start of the game to streamline the Shooter and Action game mechanics.  At the end by not committing fully to these genres and trying to keep RPG elements, the game actually suffers.  If the game started with the PC tossed into the pot with not much in the way of preamble save to say its all gone south, here's your pistol and space armor, it would have been much, much better off.  Don't use the magic scanner to repair the helmet, have the equipment actually function properly, and just leave out the 'get to know you' bits until after the firefight and returning to the Hyperion for down time.  Remove the RPG elements, add in cut scenes and there you go.  And there are more than enough cut-scenes in the game so this would not over-burden it and by removing the majority of RPG elements and would make for a faster paced, more streamlined shooter with the few skills you do have making a lot more sense.

To an extent this is done, but then come the 'choices'  and the limited dialogue tree that tries to honor some RPG aspects of the game, but never, ever delivers on them.  If they are so unimportant, get rid of those parts of the story and concentrate on the major aspects of the game.  The few 'missions' that are RPG in style are essentially meaningless with very few consequences involved, so why bother with more than just the one or two that matter?  If the answer is 'flavor' then why not commit to that with a branching story line which heavily branches and has long-term consequences for the player beyond the 'who shows up for the final mission?' one. Most of the side-quests and miscellaneous quests are Filler Quests, meant to pad the game with some items of interest, but then not following up on them.  Lack of commitment to a fully fleshed out shooter or RPG means that MEA does neither of them well nor in a satisfying manner.  The short development time left after staff turmoil, restarts, false starts, and generally having to get an office prepared for a full game after only doing DLC previously can allow for the understanding of what came out as a game.  And a $60 price tag also meant it had to be 'a full AAA title', just when what THAT meant was in serious flux at the major holder for Bioware, which is EA.  None of this excuses the game that arrived, but demonstrates how it arrived as a fundamentally broken game that could not commit to any genre.

The story isn't deep enough or complex enough to justify even RPG elements, but those are still thrown in without any mechanics to back them up.  Make that choice in 20 seconds because it might be meaningful!  Or not.  Thus the dialogue tree is neutered, and the story path is on the hardest of rails available with all options leading the same way with the choices becoming meaningless.  This is a Choose Your Own Adventure without the Choose part included.

Background to the story indicates that there is a society behind the Initiative that planned out how the new system in the new galaxy would work, but there is no commitment to any part of that society by those who started it.  The council or group running the Nexus are dysfunctional, untrustworthy and generally uninteresting, yet these are the people you have to support.  A training structure for anything is absent for the PC because of being The Chosen One, thus there is a Golden Path you will follow that has pre-ordained success.  Proper mechanics to even implement an SF/Military Shooter are spare, though generally reasonable.

All abilities are tactical in nature and limited to use just in combat: no using those skills and abilities elsewhere as they might give the nameless NPCs the vapors, you see.  What little depth there is in the abilities is not backed up by actual game mechanics to properly ensure that these abilities are properly earned and recognized via some designated group.  Thus there are no ranks to earn which would serve as a way of gating content so that the PC would have some minimum capacity to handle the game in sections based on rank or missions completed.  Further there is no logistical group that can provide minimum necessary equipment in the way of space armor, clothing, weapons or a standard (if minimal) kit for the next mission or mission area.  This would entail some sort of exchange quartermaster with access to the ability to modify the kit to meet certain standards.

A standardized kit would mean the PC would be very identifiable as a member of that organization and that would be true for all team members, as well.  Instead of trying to put any lore in place and allow such mechanics, the player is given free reign to do as they wish.  It must be noted that the Pathfinders do fit squarely into a civilian controlled military organization that is, presumably, supported by the Initiative.  Yet if the player wishes to don armor identifiable to a different species/organization they are free to do so without gaining any negative attention.  At this point the Military and SF shooter genres fall to the wayside, and the game only falls into the far broader Shooter realm by default.  Without a clear idea of what sort of game this is supposed to be, the developer pushed something out the door with trappings from a few genres coated with a thin film of lore and then hoped it would sell.  And it did sell, but instead of garnering community support for more content the developer found themselves unable to even fix some broad issues in the game in the way of bugs and content problems.  EA, the publisher that controls Bioware had the Montreal group shut down and its personnel absorbed into another EA organization nearby.  Apparently content mattered.  Or perhaps there just wasn't enough 'recurrent monetization' in the game to satisfy the publisher who gave the project and its publication the green light for development and publication.

The game needed a severe dose of 'back to basics' in gaming

Do you want to be a science based character?  Forget it.

Engineer?  Nope.

You get lots of choices on the weapons and suit end of things, yes, but basic skills to help play in different areas?  No, that must be another genre you're thinking about.  This is an Action-Shooter game at heart with some other skills thrown (like Biotics but only on the combat side), but if you want to repair equipment in the environment then you can only hope that the story allows for that. Even then it will happen only in that instance through the magic of your scanner and SAM.  If you want to actually start figuring out the alien science and engineering that you do encounter?  Hey, its all magic, right?  You don't need any actual skill at that sort of stuff.  You see, you are the Pathfinder!  Chief cook and bottle washer!  Person with no experience accepted!  Greatness has been granted unto you, not earned like all the other schleps around you.

And if you happen to have an actual ship's captain, like on the Hyperion, the ship you arrived in, they don't have a second in command that can be the captain of the Tempest, right?  Because that would point to an actual chain of command on the naval side of things, which is pointed out is DIFFERENT from the civilian part of the Initiative, though follows its orders as part of the...chain of command. Oh, wait, they do.

There you go: Navy gets to run ships, Civilians get to do the researching and colonizing bit plus run the Colonial Militia/Army.  Then the equivalent of Marines would be with the ships headed by the Pathfinders under supervision of the Navy.

Got it?

Good.

Because the game designers couldn't be bothered to figure that out.  Without a good concept of the way things should be run, they made it up as they went along and failed at creating a coherent environment.  By not having a good understanding of a framework to work with, the game production team lacked a coherent vision of how their narrative could and should be presented.  Just a bit of formalizing the military and social structure would mean that ships get properly categorized and assigned duties.  And even with the Tempest being the Pathfinder vessel, it should properly fall under the Naval side of things.  The Navy runs ships that are armed or even exploration vessels that aren't, though that can be varied based on the universe and setting.

Pathfinders are delegated the latter duty, but it is a duty that is primarily naval that answers to the civilians directly via the chain of command, with the Navy providing the platform for performing such missions.  Thus Pathfinders are Marines and Marines can be the Captain of a ship, but they do fall under Navy control (even though they can be delegated ships, men and supplies directly by the Executive).  Marines can and do operate their own vessels, yes, and it falls under their bailiwick for particular missions, as well.  And when out on operations they have a supply line and that is provided by the Navy or other military assets that have been tasked with that duty. Marines are allowed to vary their kit, weapons, equipment and so on as their mission variety varies greatly from that of the standard Army or Militia.  The Pathfinder group is a Marine style group that does exploration, research, counter-intrusion, and espionage duty.  When there is no valid Pathfinder for a ship, the Navy which is the operational organization that does have ship captains, has the duty and responsibility to ensure such Marine vessels operate for their missions until a valid operator can be found.  This can cause friction, yes, and that should be an element of game play.

I would have loved to recruit a squad of Marines from the Militia!  That would have been a viable game design as a Military-Action Shooter as it would discriminate between purely local Militia and the larger organization of the Pathfinders to the Initiative.  Sadly that would require commitment to a coherent design of the Initiative, and the game designers couldn't be bothered with that.  Turn the game into a 3D Action Shooter based on squads and the entire thing starts to make sense as a game and would fit the setting.  This allows for some interesting down-time recruitment as well as recruiting those who may have left the Initiative but want to get back in it after seeing just how ramshackle things are on the outside.

Personally I would have loved to have the Captain of the Hyperion run the Tempest!  I mean when the Hyperion is docked and everything, there isn't all that much to do save keep up with logistics, and that is what a second in command is good for.  You know, the part of paper-pushing in the digital age that still needs to be done but really doesn't need the Captain to do it.  Now THAT would have been interesting!  A proper Captain would run the ship, and the PC would have a couple of teammates to do the exploration bit as Marines attached to the Tempest until everyone is satisfied that there is a Pathfinder that is certifiable for that job.  There had to be requirements and certifications as there were other Pathfinders before you arrived on the scene and there did have to be standards for becoming one.  I mean, we hope there were standards, but after seeing how dad was running things, you begin to suspect those were never nailed down.  Say do we ever find out what those standards actually were?  I mean the entire Pathfinder group had to have accountability and be a part of a larger bureaucracy before it headed out with the Initiative, way back there in the bureaucratic Milky Way.  You know founding and conceptual documents that would then be backed up by concrete and measurable requirements for staff including training and such.

No?  Uh-huh, the answer is: NO.

Use The Setting To Create The Game

By the time the Hyperion docks with the Nexus and gets it powered up, the player should have figured out just what the actual command structure of the entire affair is, even with rebels leaving the place bereft of key skills that should still be possible.  It should be possible even before that, but cramming that at a player right after an exciting action-downtime loop would have been a bit much.  I would have expected that the Hyperion would be getting people out of cryo-sleep to address those shortages in a jiffy.  Getting people ready to settle would take a few months since the Nexus has seen a skeleton crew on Operations and Maintenance and must have a huge backlog of things to do that are second tier, not absolutely critical but needs to be addressed to get the place functioning type of deal.  This would have offered viable career paths for the player in Engineering, the Sciences (with a variety of those), etc.

With a couple of ranks for a few valuable skills necessary for Exploration the player can then join up with a group that will be using the Tempest for a look at a failed try for a colony without a proper Pathfinder or even proper exploration team.  At heart exploration of a failed colony is a clean-up job that would come AFTER the Nexus has all of the primary and secondary maintenance done to it.  That is the scut work of being a low-level character, and would set aside the fun and excitement for a couple of hours but allow the player to learn the systems and methodologies in their areas of interest.  Taking time after work to train in combat or a secondary job role would also be available, and as we do find out, there are some areas where vermin have gotten into things, so shooting ET rats and stuff would have offered a good diversion and chance to level up in small arms.  Exploring on potentially hostile and known hostile planets requires knowing the basics of combat.  Put a certification test at the end to signal the end of the full introduction to the game.

This would have fit in with an overall game design in which you, as the PC, were pressed into emergency duty for an exploration mission right at the start, and then have to sort out your life once the Hyperion got to the Nexus.  Socially and politically the Nexus can still be a mess.  Getting things to where people can safely live on it should be the priority which will be held by all factions on-board:  if you don't live then your politics don't matter all that much.  Treat space as a real danger to be dealt with and respected, not something that just passing those jobs to be done by 'other people' as you are the chosen one.  Earn the right to be good and highly regarded by those around you, so that the PC is respected, not denigrated.

Trust is earned, not granted, and being anointed as a Pathfinder with no skills will leave a very bad taste in everyone's mouth that will be hard to remove without demonstration that basic skills are learned and used responsibly.  Yes it would have required an intense re-think of the entire game by its designers, but seeing as this doesn't take more than a hour of thought time to put down a coherent overall schema for what the narrative must adhere to it is not difficult. It would have allowed for proper shifts in duties for level designers, script writers, and overall story editors to fit this chunk into the game, proper and then make sure the rest of the game adhered to it.  Missions would have to be diversified due to multiple skills available, but that is what game narrative development is all about.

Redesign of things for the Nexus would be relatively simple as a lot of corridors and rooms would be cookie-cutter and meant for personalization by later inhabitants, so the level design for the Nexus could be simple and varied only for a few sections.  Remember that the primary task of keeping structural integrity has been done by the skeleton crew, so no running out of oxygen unless you shoot a window out or part of the hull busts out when you shoot something that shouldn't be shot.  Being on Cats and Dogs type of jobs may not be fun nor glamorous, but it can be made interesting and exciting, plus offer a few bits and pieces of the stories of those who left to be rebels and why they left.

Start from the beginning, build from the ground up

Environmental storytelling could go a long way with this, and you don't even need logs or recordings for it: just what people took, what they left and the state they left things in.  It might even offer an opportunity for the player to find those people, later, and see if there are other ways to interact with them based on having checked out their quarters on the Nexus.  And players with a bit of intuition might start to piece together the events without having them pointed out by quest markers but through simple observation that would give later dialogue choices in the game.  Do the work well and more options are opened up later.  That would require a player to be attentive, get the immediate job done and then realize that there were clues that could be pieced together.

The few times that this does happen when they are main mission story critical the player does not get to investigate on their own, but must have SAM there to interpret everything.  SAM needs a break and has to learn how to shut up, really.  And SAM isn't needed for C&D jobs unless you want it there for doing them, giving the player choice and a choice that can matter later in game play.  Thus the player would get agency, options, choices and have a game structure that would still push to the same missions but the player's role would differ based on their skills.  That would be 'role playing' within an Action-Shooter genre by having enough elements of an RPG and the developers deciding to put in enough time to fully flesh out a story to allow for multiple paths through it.

If that path were taken a lot of the 'see what the Evil Alien Overlord thinks of this' scenes would be removed (until they could be found via missions) and the entire game would concentrate on: the Nexus, fixing up said facility, going to the failed colony, finding out why it failed and letting paths of science, engineering or combat play different roles with different results.  On a combat path the player would have to heavily rely on SAM for doing the alien deciphering and heavy lifting, but could leave SAM out of the rest of the neuro-physical work so the player could get their own skills without help.  That would mean the character has a lack of secondary skills on their own which would close out some ways of doing things.  On a science path there would be having to figure out the codes and ciphers on your own, using the scanner to understand them and then try to fit in what happened with dear deceased dad when he did it, but without knowing what he was doing.  On an engineering path would be figuring out the power structures of the alien devices, how they fit together and then open the possibility of bypassing the entire coding system to gain entry via altering the input device or augmenting it.  That is basic game structure design work adhering to an Action-Shooter genre with RPG elements and it takes a lot of work.

Redesigning the rest of the game: Form follows Function

All of that with the PC proving to be a reliable part of a small exploration vessel crew, working very hard to make any advances and exploring in hazardous areas would then be the first 1/3 of the game.  Once the alien systems are made to work, the greater exploration of the planet opens up, and the other places that have alien technology would also become available.  Again the three paths through would be available, with the science and engineering ones concentrating on how to get around the mandatory platforming sections via analysis of the systems involved.  No civilization would ever require platforming to get through any necessary facility.

Security checks, yes; platforming, no.

And these are functioning operations: those large open spaces with platforms and such are INTENDED as part of the actual design of the facility.  Imagine making that required to go through by design, and then having to debug or otherwise fix something that has gone critically wrong AS THE DESIGNER of the original facilities.  Works great for non-corporeal beings, I guess, but all indications are that this is a physical species that made this stuff.  So would any sane design require this if failure to navigate it in time meant the loss of the equipment, the facility, the lives of those in and around it and, possibly, ruining of a biosphere of the planet?  If the answer is 'yes' then that species places no value on life, itself. Yet the entire design of these facilities demonstrates that they are made to preserve life by their function.  These two things do not mix. If they had suits that could just fly...then they wouldn't make such wide-open platforming areas and put in more mundane checkpoints, corridors and such as that would be a more efficient manner to allow access to the control area.  Plus a way for critical staff to get through the entire thing without having to check in at every point during an emergency or even to iron out bugs in the equipment: flash a pass and proceed to the problem.

This would require a redesign the areas of interest of these alien facilities with a functional design methodology in mind, thinking it through as a place that once did function with design intent, and then allow players to use means and methods to discover the short-cuts, and maybe discover that the whole platforming area is just a testing area that is only peripheral to the design of the entire base.  The combat people end up going through those areas, while the science and engineering types either find a way to falsify credentials or work on the systems to disable them or by-pass them.  Give the player who is role playing to some degree the opportunity to work as their roles intend them to work and the entire game could make loads of sense by designing in a 'back to the basics' manner.  The rewards at these secondary objectives are ones that should be of high-value in game design as they are only garnered by the patient player not trying to push forward but trying to learn what the game is presenting.

From doing functional design to suit the aliens who made those planet changing facilities, the obstacles to be overcome would be separate based on role playing elements.  There would still be security measures and robots of some sort that would get involved at failed checks, and that would require finding a way around the enhanced security measures.  This is not, of necessity, cascading failure but a chance for a player to do a basic re-assessment of their skills and the situation, and perhaps seek a different way forward utilizing other skills or back-tracking to see if they missed anything.  Failure at one check is an opportunity to challenge a player, not to put a permanent road block in front of them, and even in an Action-Shooter there is room for that sort of minimal role-playing.  The design team for the game obviously understood this, yet they decided that there was only one way through a dungeon: it was made linear by design.  And that design makes no sense.

The idea of an emergency exit or alternate path didn't cross their minds as they focused on the 'lets make the interiors big and awe-inspiring' with large platforming sections that make no sense for the situation.  Drawing inspiration from the movie Forbidden Planet, the game designers forgot that there were walkways around the massive equipment which had unknown function made by the long-gone Krell but was obviously still doing something.  In fact the various observation areas and windows along walls points to safety to keep people away from the big, nasty equipment so as to control it from a distance in a control room.  Keeping the Krell in mind, their entire base wasn't even secured with checkpoints, mostly due to what the actual function of the base was which empowered individuals to the point where things went lethal to the species but left everything else running. It was easy to check on the running parts and accessing the controls actually took a Krell mind attuned to the equipment.  The equipment left behind still functions, repairs itself and awaits the day when it will receive input to do as bidden. A few of the most basic forms of thought patterns proved to be coincident with humans, and that led to problems for the humans.  The Krell found they couldn't control their own instincts and died because of it.

MEA developers could have learned a thing or three by actually taking the design lessons of written stories and movies to heart as they are aimed at getting the protagonist to a place via adventures and then wondering 'what the hell happened here to leave things like this?'  Really, isn't that the entire central story in MEA?  The Evil Alien Overlord is also a new-comer to the cluster and doesn't understand the equipment or what it was meant to do, and his species has had a lot of time to be poking and prodding there, but can't make headway.  If the major antagonist organization is perplexed by this, then finding out just what all of these facilities do in the cluster becomes a key concern, as it does in the game that shipped, so this would be in keeping with the actual spirit of the overall design.  By designing to the setting, making the aliens who created these masterpieces of bases actually be rational and in keeping with some minimal time pressure need, the actual game could have been crafted along these lines in a coherent manner both for narrative and game play options.

From Function Comes Story

In not using a functional design concept, player agency is restricted to linear game design in dungeons and throughout the entire story.  What choices the player does have are restricted by the lack of skills that can be developed and by the design that required this to be the case: rushed design decisions limited play and play styles.  By not having the time to think the game through the designers took a brute force approach to make things interesting even when they were not in keeping with good sense or any sense at all.  If aliens had the ability to easily move over these platform areas, then why have them at all?  The argument that they are in ruins ignores the sites where they were designed this way with a purpose in mind: those sites without the magically appearing bridges or sections raising from the depths make no sense for emergency use as they hinder progress to stop a disaster or even diagnose a malfunction.

What they are good for is putting in sections to show off game play dynamics and the physics engine of the game.  This is done for making 'exciting' encounters, which could still be had without the platforming.  Even if enemies actively used such space, the overall concept of having these areas as the critical path for preventing problems is not rational.  As there are control panels to be used, the physical presence of a being is required and anything preventing that in an emergency is an obstacle.  If the argument is that these aliens had some sort of pass or control device, then where are they or why can't they be backwards designed from functional understanding of the control systems?  Having quests to understand, truly understand, these systems would have made for a far more interesting piece of game design rather than requiring brute force platforming or 'do this to raise this bridge' game mechanics.  Let an astute player who thinks ahead and uses reason get a reward of learning how to by-pass these systems and even advance a different story line and outcome because of it.

Without an alternate set of paths through MEA there is no opportunity for creative thought on the part of the player.  Combat skills are all well and good of course.  Creating a game where the player is put in a brand new setting with clear, functioning equipment and even entire planet altering systems that they can use and NOT offering the opportunity to understand them goes against the very concept of space opera in its widest sense: space exploration while encountering the unknown requires something more than gross levels of interaction but actually attempting to comprehend the design principles behind the technology itself.  Going from point to point to operate pieces of a system with poorly understood intent of the system or what it actually does and requiring an AI to tell the player what to do is restricting the player to just being the means to move the AI around.  That is pure removal of player agency and the reward is that everything at the end of the game is just as much a mystery as it was at the very start.

Arriving at some sort of artificial construct that isn't a Dyson Sphere, but a spherical world with some sort of power source on the inside creating an artificial environment with sunlight equivalent at the end of the game isn't an epiphany of understanding but a 'Gee Whiz' moment in which even the technical people barely understand how it functions.  I'm sure that there is a real control center for the place...just expect there to be heavy platforming to get there, because you wouldn't want to spend any extra time doing anything else in an emergency, right?  Wouldn't want it to fall apart because a circuit breaker needed to be reset at a critical location and have the sphere thing come apart dooming millions if not billions of people.  Because when the lives of millions of people is at stake, the most important thing is getting through a platforming section!

By deciding to not make a story that revolves around understanding and comprehending this alien technology, the player is rushed through these awe inspiring edifices and left clueless about what they can actually do.  Of course you have SAM there to hold your hand.  Maybe there should have been less hand-holding and more thought on making a comprehensible environment with player involvement.  Learn the story from the functioning equipment and realize that the forms that are the actual buildings then tell you about what they can do.  By the end the player should be able to immediately recognize the different forms of building and understand their purpose, and then quickly work to get them back on-line.  That doesn't require hand-holding, but does require serious thought into what the actual alien civilization made so that the setting that is at the end makes sense just by looking at it from the outside.

Aliens are what were made of them

We get to see quite a few non-sentient critters in MEA.  Lots of them.  Sentient aliens come in only a couple of categories outside of the Milky Way sorts that we encounter in the game.  First we have the nasty aliens and their Overlord working behind the scenes.  Then we have the friendly types that will help along the journey.  And then there are those that are genetically altered nice aliens to become servant bad aliens via genetic manipulation.  That's it!  You gots your good guys, your bad guys, and the good guys genetically enslaved to become bad guys.  That was easy!

Oh, and then there were those of the predecessor species that created all the neat technology to alter planets.  They skedaddled.  Left behind a huge construct world in a 'ready to be used' state that we stumble across at the end of the game via the AI figuring it all out.  We do see the predecessor robots, but those don't tell us anything about their creators.  Finding a floor sweeping robot from our civilization doesn't tell you much about humans, although we can learn something about floors, I guess.  Otherwise the robots meant to defend areas are just weapons with legs, floating weapons, or weapons with legs and shields, and they all hop around or hover.  They aren't AI in any sense of the concept, just point defense robots with a geometrical design aesthetic.  The predecessors liked geometry, since it is seen all over their works, but that doesn't say much about them: tile patterns in flooring or used to create pleasing patterns in human cultures doesn't say much about that culture if you have no further background on it.  A mosque, the mansion of a wealthy man or someone who just likes to lay mosaic flooring all have pleasing geometry as part of their style, but that doesn't give insight into culture without a further basis for understanding the designers.

What is relatively clear is that the good-guy aliens are some sort of genetic design of the the predecessor aliens, though why  this was done is problematic.  Where these an attempt to create a new sentient life form?  Or where these an attempt to improve their own genetic design?  Was this to be a slave race?  Or was it done just for the heck of it?  Who knows, right?  I mean we don't get a clear idea from what little information the game developers put in, so maybe they didn't know, either.  Of course the bad guy aliens already know how to cook the genes of just about any being to become just like them, so that's some advanced science right there.  Not used all that intelligently, true, but trial and error can get you there, don't mind the corpses along the way.

If you want species diversity, various neutral species either hiding out from the Evil Alien Overlord group, not liking the friendly aliens, and not too impressed with the Newcomers From Another Galaxy, then you are out of luck.  After looking at the diversity of the Milky Way groups, the paucity of similar diversity in the Heleus Cluster is a real negative point.  Even just finding out there ARE other species and organizations would be something positive, yet they are absent from the game.  Perhaps they were on some 'roadmap', too bad the road, itself, didn't go anywhere interesting.  The actual 'Empire' that the Evil Alien Overlord and ensuing minion come from aren't all that interesting, and serve as the required villain and antagonist.  They could have been substituted with any other generic Evil Alien Overlord group from SF, Fantasy or even just pulp classics and the game would have been better of for it by getting some depth to them.  At least they adhere to some sort of command structure, got to give them that.  What is lacking are those species members that have fled from the Evil Alien Overlord and don't want to be found by the locals in the Cluster or these outsiders from another galaxy.  Because there would be people like that as the Evil Alien Overlord is seeking to mold every species into drones of his or its species: no matter what you start out as, you end up being the same in the end.  Even worse is that there isn't even a cute side-kick sort of species that couldn't be adapted into drones but did agree to serve under the Evil Aliens, thus there is no comic relief and that was something that could have really changed the mood for the better.

A strange sort of SF game that can't figure out how to do aliens right.  Or even give a good split between a villain and a simple antagonist.  Actually that is hard to do, so no blame on the folks who made this game for not having time to add some finesse to it: that takes real story skill, crafting a believable antagonist who is not the villain but someone you can be sympathetic to while you go through the story.  It wouldn't have to be great, but a simple Darth Vader and Emperor deal would have done the job, no need to go to Gordon R. Dickson depths on it.  What is even worse is that the Evil Alien species doesn't have vices, they are not known for their pleasure in drugs, sex, or simple torture.  Robots could have done a better job in the role and be more sympathetic as they are only doing what their programming requires them to do, even if their base AI has problems with it.  Instead the flesh automatons of the Evil Alien group have no vices nor virtues, and adhere to only power, command and control, and execute anyone who tries to think for themselves.  How did this species get so advanced with that sort of mindset?  For all their ability this species isn't presented as all that smart or very intelligent, neither of which makes for any depth in character or civilization.  Millions of years of trial and error, I guess.  As a monolithic species with imprinted genetics upon all others in their way, the Evil Aliens are evil and uninteresting.

If you can't get the Evil Aliens to be interesting and only interested in power over others, then they become dull and you always know that they will take the most direct, most blunt route to any objective.  Where are the landmines when you need them?  This monobloc form of thinking would have driven anyone who disagreed with them before them, and since it takes time to incorporate a new species into the imprinted genetics, those fleeing would have had plenty of time to escape and warn others.  Ruthless Efficiency takes time, lots of time, because it is ruthless and single-minded, and anyone wanting to cut corners gets executed for lack of obedience.  There is no carrot, only stick, and those not wanting to get stuck leave ASAP.  Yet these people are absent from the game and only the Nice Aliens are putting up a fight against the Evil Aliens.  That's it.  Help the nice guys defeat the evil guys, get into a fast fight on a sprawling landscape you aren't given time to explore nor will you EVER be allowed out into it, and that will wind up the game.

For Functional game systems the Evil Aliens can and should have been toned down, made more distant and the antagonist fleshed out.  Better to have a feeling of dread rather than a smirking of 'look at what that idiot is trying to do' sense for the player.  In a complete redraft of the game the Evil Alien bases can serve as the main way of learning about them, their culture and even finding out how to locate and break into them.  Make their presence something that has a methodology to it, and make the big strike to take them down locally and impair their reach a Big Deal.  When the top-down structure loses some bricks in the middle, the entire thing becomes less stable.  Then the Big Evil Alien Boss must take a hand in affairs as he answers to someone else further up.

That should have been the end of the game intro which would end Act I of securing and exploring the local region.  Thus MEA would be a long first act that gives a taste of what is to come.  Acts II and II would follow up with the reprisals and yet winning out against long odds, say against an invasion force of theoretically overwhelming strength, and then Act II is taking the fight home to the Evil Alien systems.  A pretty well known structure that MEA screwed up.  And that is the problem with MEA not knowing just what it wants to be: without a framework to work with, by not following that framework and not taking time to think out just what needs to happen inside the game to meet that framework, the game is left without direction.  As a simplistic Action-Shooter that has antagonists you can't relate to, its not bad but it isn't all that good, either.

It can be modded, it can't be fixed

What is MEA good for at this point?  A lazily made but somewhat fun space shooter to kill some time with, but not take seriously.  It can be modded to some degree but without a good character interaction system and a way to generate at least generic or via template NPCs to fill in the game, it will never be all that interesting for replay value.  The decisions you make as a player don't do much if anything to the way the game ends, there is no major problem with screwing over everyone, because the few opportunities to do that is set in a situation where no one will ever want to join the Bad Guys, and in a larger context it is either giving up your personal identity or helping the people who PO'd your people.  This can be fixed only with a substantial redraft of the entire game, top to bottom, and the modding community would take years to do that with a complete game overhaul.  Without a fan base, without any endearing characters, and with a totally forgettable story that will not happen.  Even in a beloved franchise a game can deviate too far from the way the prior games went and actually drive fans away.  Without those fans a remake of the game, an overhaul, a complete conversion to something, anything else is not going to happen.

That was my major only real thought when I uninstalled the game.

The potential for a good and interesting setting, characters and game universe were not delivered, and the generic feeling of the game as a shooter means it doesn't have the game mechanics to encourage replay.  There is a lot of tactical fun to be had, yes, but that is in service to a story that was poorly conceived from the start. A good shooter needs a reason to replay it, be it for the characters, memorable scenes, a great protagonist, a story that changes based on what you do or don't do, or such a wide variety of game play that it can be approached from nearly any perspective.  And in those areas MEA is lacking on all counts.  As a $10 game you might play through once or twice it isn't bad and if you are willing to put up with its publisher it might even be worth it if you have nothing better to do.

Your mileage may vary, of course.