The Sauros are Predestination’s first reptilian race! The race is composed of three distinct sub-species:

• The purple Monitor Sauros: The shamanistic ruling caste and diplomatic contacts for the empire. They are native to the desert regions of their home world and are worshiped as if they were gods.
• The white Albino Sauros: A rare breed possessing an immense intellect. They are native to desert regions and are responsible for all scientific discovery in the empire.
• The green Jungle Sauros: Have been selectively bred to be the perfect labourers and ground combatants. They are native to the jungles of their home world and make up the majority of the Saurosian population.

Background Lore:

The Saurosian Empire is one of the oldest and most feared cultures in the Predestination universe. The desert-dwelling ruling caste conquered the jungles of their homeworld, enslaving the primitive jungle race as a worker force and military army. In breeding massive slave armies, the Sauros soon overpopulated their home planet and were forced to expand into space. The empire slowly grew without interference for millennia, producing colossal armoured hulk ships and protecting its borders from intrusion.

The Sauros watched as other species emerged into space and began colonising the stars, but rejected all attempts at contact and co-habitation. No-one dared enter Saurosian space, and they liked it that way. When the Revenants were unleashed on the galaxy and started destroying their hatchery worlds, the empire finally broke its silence and led the younger races into war. But despite their advanced technology, even the ancient Saurosian hulks couldn’t stand against the Revenants.

At the final battle with the Revenants, the last surviving hulk was torn apart by temporal rifts and pulled back in time, crash-landing on a terran world. Now cut off from their empire, the Sauros have only a few scraps of advanced technology remaining and several technological relics whose secrets remain to be unlocked. The Sauros now aim to rebuild their civilisation and stop the younger races that might foolishly wake the Revenants again in the past.

(Sauros story trailer still to come)

Race stats and abilities:

As a reptilian race, the Sauros are at home on Desert worlds and have a penalty to living on Ocean and Tundra worlds. Military expansionists by nature, the Sauros have a bonus to armour hitpoints, ground combat and diplomatic intimidation. The species’ isolationist ways give them a large diplomatic penalty with other races, and their starting planet contains ancient artifacts left over from the crashed ship. Example stats for the Sauros are below: (Stats are not finalised but are intended to give a general idea of what we’re thinking of)

• +10% Armour Hitpoints
• +15 Ground Combat Rating
• +10 Intimidation (bonus to diplomatic extortion)
• -20 Diplomacy (penalty to friendly diplomacy)
• -50% Population Growth Rate
• Ancient Artifacts: Home world contains ancient artifact resources that increase research output. Once your race reaches a certain tech level, the artifact turns into a usable item.
• Low Metabolism: Population use half the normal amount of food per turn.

Sauros starting technologies: Each race starts the game with several advanced technologies. The Sauros start with a number of technologies left over from the crashed hulk ship:

• Assault shuttles: Armoured shuttles are fitted with shaped charges and fired at enemy ships. They pierce the enemy’s hull and deliver marines that try to capture the ship and kill its crew. Enemy shields must be down for the shuttles to penetrate.
• Reactive armour: An inert polymer is inserted between two layers of hull armour. Dissipates some of the impact energy from projectiles, increasing the effective toughness of the armour. Reduces damage from projectile weapons by 10%, and cannot be penetrated by assault shuttles unless the hull is exposed (armour hitpoints are all gone).

Reptilian race archetype:

Unique gameplay: Each of the four race archetypes in Predestination (Humanoid, Aquatic, Reptilian and Mechanoid) has its own unique gameplay that will hopefully feel iconic to that type of race. Reptilian cities feature a unique hatchery for storing and hatching eggs, and an organised breeding area to speed up their usually slow reproductive habits. Players can decide what percentage of the hatchery building to dedicate to each particular sub-race of their species: Workers/Ground troops, Scientists, or the Diplomatic ruling caste. This will in turn provide bonuses to Production, Research, or Morale/Tax at that colony.

Unique tech field: Reptilian races have access to a unique technology field full of upgrades to the hatchery to let you specialise each city to a particular task. A few ideas we’ve had for possible upgrades include:

• Heat Lamps: Improves the population output of the hatchery by 25%.
• Farm Upgrade: Uses up one food resource linked to the city, but gives a large bonus to population output of the hatchery.
• Training Center: All workers are trained as ground troops and give a bonus against invasion. *We could also have training centers for scientists and diplomats
• Forced Breeding: An emergency option to produce extra ground troops.
• Euthanasia: Can kill existing population and replace them with another species. For example, can kill workers and replace them with scientists. Has a huge morale penalty.
• Genetic Manipulation: Can convert existing population units from one subspecies to another. For example, can turn all workers into scientists. No morale penalty.

Have your say!

What do you think about the Sauros? Head over to the Sauros thread on the Predestination Community forum to leave us feedback, and don’t forget to share this post on Facebook and Twitter if you like it!