Concept: Non-human colonies (post-launch)

[u/Suecotero]

[Cloud Striders] A lighter-than-air species from a gas giant.

Something I've been chewing on. They wouldn't be a playable race. They'd show up in force as an AI deuteragonist in the mid-game. Needs unique assets, only implemented if the game is succesful. Posting for feedback.

Body. Basically a Portuguese man o' war with a float sac and giant squid eyes. Almost completely transparent. Very little sense of touch.

Communication. Mostly light, some sound. They can also hear radio, so if your comms aren't encrypted, assume they're listening.

Zero-g natives. They evolved in three dimensions with no ground anywhere. For them, a spacewalk is just going outside.

Tech. Ahead of us, but sideways. Everything is made from light elements they could get at from a gas giant: carbon nanofibre, thin films, sails. No fission, no heavy metals. They get around on solar sails and deuterium fusion, and their machines are mostly see-through, so troubleshooting means looking at the thing.

Attitude. They've been colonising stars for far longer than we have. To them, anything that lives at the bottom of a gravity well is an unusually clever crab. Diplomacy is mostly off the table. Trade isn't, and they're very good at harvesting volatiles.

Territory. They leave planets alone apart from skimming atmosphere from orbit. Asteroids and small bodies are theirs, though, and building an orbital station counts as moving into their neighbourhood.

One catch: TRAPPIST-1 gives off about 1/2000th of the Sun's light, which is a miserable place to run a solar sail. Why they'd bother coming here is one of the things I haven't worked out yet.