MGoblin256

This was, of course, before the Rikti were revamped to be more modest clothing-wise

Unlikely. Each of the Lineages is a separate caste that tends to certain needs of the Rikti people as a whole. For example, the Lineage of Agriculture (if such a Lineage exists) would attend to food production and distribution throughout Rikti Earth.

Technically, the armor sets that are in-game have right now qualify as Lineage of War apparel.

As for the War Lineage being evil... Interesting story behind that.

SPOILERS

The Lineage of War, under normal circumstances, defends Rikti Earth from hostile threats, both external and internal. They were goaded into attacking Primal Earth when Nemesis sent robotic copies of the Freedom Phalanx to "stir up the hornet's nest" so to say, an act which resulted in the deaths of thousands of Rikti civillians and soldiers alike. This caused the Lineage of War to react defensively, attacking and attemping to eliminate the supposed source of the attackers, thus starting the Rikti War. Right now though, they're lead by a corrupt leader who's afraid to let the truth behind the war get to the masses, lest he become a war criminal instead of a war hero and get what he properly deserves for his actions. Thus, they're not truely evil; just misled.

On the other hand, if Nemesis' attack had been committed by the real Freedom Phalanx, the War Lineage would probably be justified in attempting to wipe us out

Initially anyways. It'd be cool if they thought better of the player after a while.

Anyways, I think I'll go over a few potential costume ideas.

This is our list of current Rikti costume sets, and some notes regarding them:

- Infantry: Conscripts, Guardians etc. Pretty basic set; no glows.

- Gunman: Headman Gunmen. Has green glows, as well as a unique backpiece and, of course, the big honking arm cannon.

- Chief: Chief Soldiers, Mentalists and Mesmerists. Has cyan glows, and four varieties of shoulder armor.

- Regal: Priests, Traditionalist Negotiators. Has cyan glows. Unique pieces include a cape and chest sash, both of which can be used effectively with Chief and Gunman armors, as shown by Lord of War Hro'Dtohz, as well as a crown-like headpiece. Name stems from the designation for Traditionalist Ambassador Il'los' model that's listed in demo recordings. This is the closest there is presently to Rikti civillian clothing.

A few separate, but noteworthy, pieces:

- War Lineage Adornments: Worn by U'Kon Gr'ai and the Lord of War himself. Consists of a back attachment and arm attachments that appear to be simillar in design to the more jagged looking of the Chief armor shoulder pads. Grants a more imposing appearance to an otherwise typical Rikti soldier.

- War Lineage Adornments: Worn by U'Kon Gr'ai and the Lord of War himself. Consists of a back attachment and arm attachments that appear to be simillar in design to the more jagged looking of the Chief armor shoulder pads. Grants a more imposing appearance to an otherwise typical Rikti soldier.

- Traditionalist Badge: Worn by C'Kelkah. Consists of a chest attachment with a red, inset jewel. Has a cyan glow, and the jewel itself also glows.

- Restructurist Ambassador's Sash: Worn by Ambassador Kuhr'Rekt. More-or-less the same as the Regal armor's sash, but worn in a different fashion to fit better with Chief armor.

That's what we presently have. Below is a list of some new ideas for Rikti costumes:

- Civillian Clothing: This is what I'm particularly curious about. Likely quite elegant in appearance. Would potentially include a variety of gloves, shirts, jackets, belts, boots, hats, eye-wear, pants and robes.

- Lineage-specific Clothing: Unique clothing designed for players who'd like their Rikti to associate with a specific Lineage. At the present, there are only two known lineages, those being Science and War. However, according to response from Hero-1 to a tell regarding some bits of Rikti lore, there are between 8 and 12 separate Lineages. The addition of a Rikti archetype would be a perfect opportunity to reveal information about the other Lineages (As well as Rikti society and culture as a whole).

- Police Gear: Armored, but not as well as a Rikti soldier. Would consist of chest wear, leg guards, gauntlets, shoulder guards, a partial helmet, a belt and some kind of chest regalia that designates the wearer as an officer of the law.

- "Classic" Rikti Soldier Armor: Basically, an alternate set of Chief Soldier armor, the appearance of which is greatly reminiscent of the armor used by pre-I10 Chief Soldiers, but still "modern" enough to look good on the I10 Rikti.

That's what I have to offer. Any other ideas?

I think it'd be cool if Paragon civvies fled from a Rikti player only until he/she has proven his/her good intentions (say the hero reaches level 15: Fewer civillians will flee from the player, and they will gradually start recognizing them as a genuine hero in Rikti form). Rogue Isles civvies should flee from a Rikti player regardless, seeing as the Restructurist Rikti aren't exactly the friendliest of folks.

Like you, I've no idea how the Praetorian civvies would react to a Rikti roaming about.

PS: To the OP: I think it'd be a good idea to keep the first post updated with all the ideas we've compiled so far.

Huh? I'm fairly certain Rikti drop Science-based SOs only (Though Mutant/Science DOs are a probability for them, considering the Lost drop said type of Enhancements)

It is indeed the closest we have, but there's a problem:

The Lost still look like they're evolving into the old school Rikti (note the green eyes and low-res textures). Thus, the anatomy might not be properly comparable to the shiny new I10 Rikti.

That said, I think the Lost could use an art update to reflect the changes made to the Rikti in I10.

Sure, you can replicate the powers pretty well, but I'd rather be able to mix those powers to make a passable Rikti warrior; I don't know about you, but the thought of being able to scramble an enemy's brains with a mental attack and then subsequently bifurcate said enemy with a huge, plasma-edged sword on one character sounds pretty yummy.

Wee bit of a nitpick with this:

Since I10, some Rikti (notably Mentalists/Mesmerists and Magi) don't have the bulbous shoulder pads of old, suggesting one of two things:

A. Rikti were re-designed in I10 to have normal, human-like shoulder blades, and the bulbous look of some shoulder pads is strictly ornamental.

OR

B. Thanks to varying genes, some Rikti have the big shoulder-blades, while some don't.

Having the costume parts would be nice, but a separate Archetype with unique traits, power sets and story-lines along with the costume parts (and, if neccessary, a new body type) sounds far more desirable IMHO.

That said, I recall reading a user page on Paragon Wiki (Sadly, I've forgotten where it is. If anybody who knows of this page, a link would be greatly appreciated) that had a really good potential set-up for a Rikti AT that worked in a manner vaguely simillar to the VEATs, with multiple power branches that allowed combinations like those that you've listed.

Unlike the VEAT branches though, they were split into several separate pools (not sets), each featuring powers based on the various types of Rikti mobs. These included Soldier (Sword-Gun), Gunman (Arm-Cannon) Mentalist (Psionic Offense), Mesmerist (Psionic Control), Guardian (Force Field/Radiation combo), Priest (Empathy/Kinetics combo), Magus (Various Elemental ranged powers) and Comm. Officer (Pets). You could take powers from up to four (I think) of these pools (This didn't count against regular power pools such as Fitness, Medicine etc, etc)

Again, my memory of the page is sketchy, since I've forgotten where it is. But I remember that much.

I believe they said no more unlockable archetypes that are unlocked by reaching level 50. Thus alternate methods of acquiring epic archetypes are still open.

As with any other Rikti Archetype/Costume Piece thread, I support this 100%. They've been in the game long enough to warrant an archetype anyways. I'm tired of just fighting them, I'm ready to be them... For real anyways. My main blue sider is RP'd as a Traditionalist Rikti, and I would instantly remake him without a second thought if such an archetype was added.

Again: /Signed.

This is the only Vanguard costume part that I have a problem with in regards to price.

I can purchase the chest armor, which comes with two chest details in addition to the chest texture for 50 merits, and I can purchase those wicked Talso- err, "Vanguard" blades or a Redding Rifle for a mere 100 merits. But I have to pay 200 merits for a texture that can be used for - what? - two categories of leg wear? Outrageous! IMHO, it should cost the same as the chest items.

While I do agree somewhat with the first comment, I see nothing barring women from becoming soldiers. Heck, there was female Wolf Spider concept art for CoV at one point. My guess is that they weren't able to be added as NPCs due to time constraints or something.

He does. This one to be precise. It spawns about three to five (can't remember exactly; It's been a while since I did this mission) Bone Daddies, more depending on team size/difficulty settings. They're set at level 15 too, so they're easily farmable. The down side is that you have to wait till 30 to get Psymon as a contact.

I'm curious about the Battalion myself. I also have a sneaking suspicion they may be the "Coming Storm" that's mentioned throughout Ouroboros. I mean, are there any current villain groups in the game that are known to use Kheldians for starship fuel?

As for the Rikti being the creations of the Battalion, I highly doubt it. It doesn't seem right that an advanced alien culture would take the time to raise a lesser species to an equally advanced state just to try and wipe them out later (Though I'm pretty sure those of us who have played Spore might have actually done something simillar to this, myself included ).

Any ways, that's just my two cents. I really do hope that the Battalion does make an appearance later in the game.

PS: You're right on the money about the Battalion invasion being remarkably close, time-wise, to the Martian invasion in The War Of The Worlds. That said I like the idea about the Battalion having a War of the Worlds theme if they're (ever) eventually added as an enemy group.

This is exactly how I feel about the new Rikti stuff

Agreed. It would be nice to see helmetless Banes and Crabs eventually (even if the hair styles are somewhat restricted; I can only think of about 6 or 7 total that would probably work without horrible clipping), along with the option to set costume slots to be either standard or uniform-specific.

That's possible.

It might have also been messed up when the piece was ported over to players. There was a bug in the Standard Character editor for the MA (the one that allows you to edit stock mob colors and the like) that was present for a while that allowed you to edit the physique of the stock models (although you couldn't actually save them with the physique afterwards; doing so resulted in a crash).

This bug is resolved I think, but I recall testing the shoulder slider on a stock Bane Spider Executioner. The result: The shoulder and shoulder armor scaled appropriately when the slider was manipulated. This seems to indicate that something didn't translate correctly when the Bane/Crab Spider chest/shoulder piece was ported over for player usage.