Revolution Gaia (Closed to New Interest) - Page 2

Nyna · 09-20-2012, 09:24 PM

Rocket technology is an alternate propulsion technology to the nuclear drive that you can use with missiles (or ships and vehicles if you wanted), but without missile tech you don't have the know how to build a warhead. If you decide to use rockets for your missiles just keep in mind that until you invest in the tech, you'll be forced to use fossil fuels which you'll have to gather.

You don't know how to build modern day weaponry. You can use it just fine, which is why you can start with it, but actually constructing it requires tech. Technology pretty much covers anything that your faction knows how to do that the normal person doesn't.

A Unit Leader is basically a talented (or not so talented) individual that leads a division of people. They may or may not have officers underneath them, but the Unit is generally loyal to the Leader first, not the faction. If you lose the Leader somehow the Unit will follow the Leader, which can make having a lot of low loyalty officers dangerous. A Unit of 250 Personnel represents 250 people, including the Leader. It's worth noting that some actions don't require the full unit, just the Leader. You don't need all of your men during a negotiation, for example. Situations that don't need your full unit will have much lower Power requirements, and will just use your skill for your Unit Power.

Depending on how the game plays out (and what choices you make), you might find yourself with quite a few units. There will certainly be 'generic' leaders in your faction, but this will be determined mostly through usefulness. A unit that has an 8 in one stat will generally be much more prominent in events and the like than one that has a 4 for its highest stat.

An Enemy Spy · 09-20-2012, 09:53 PM

Count me in. I'll think of a faction later.

Kazun · 09-20-2012, 11:28 PM

So let's say I wanted to make a clone of the Marked, to facilitate my study of them...

I'd need to capture one, for starters. This would require a vehicle capable of making the trip down to Earth and back again, which would need to be constructed using resources (which I've presumably had to gather, after researching how to gather them and building the appropriate equipment to do so) and after researching how to make vehicles of this nature. All of this research will require personnel to actually do it, expending time and other resources along the way.

I would then need a crew/unit to make this expedition, somehow determine their success or failure, and then have them return to the Township, Marked in tow.

On board the Township, I need to have one or more modules in place in order to house/deploy the expedition vessel, and a medical facility or laboratory (the technology for which I would need to research before being allowed to build it, all using resources I've had to gather) to house the creature and any works-in-progress. The increased power draw due to these expanded facilities will mandate an improvement to the nuclear reactor that is powering the Township, which will mean a new technology and perhaps some physical modifications to the module (if not a complete replacement).

So once I've got the thing in the (adequately powered) lab, I need to have researched something along the lines of Bio-Engineering, as well as a more specific technology related to the unique physiology of the Marked.

Once all that is in place, I can (try to) make a clone? This is assuming exactly zero disruptive events (including, but not limited to, scarcity of resources, unfriendly neighbors, or a failed expedition).

In addition, I'll be trying to balance such subsystems as the loyalty of my subordinates, the nebulous resource of credits (where do I get them? what exactly should I be doing with them?), hull capacities, module and facility capacities, the health of my troops, the health of the aforementioned modules and facilities, my ship's energy generation and usage, and my faction's Power.

This seems like a bit of a long, crunchy grind... Maybe I'm not the target audience here, but I could do with some convincing about what is going to make this game/system fun for me to play. I'm beginning to feel that I'll have difficulty enjoying the interesting setting and events because I'll be buried in the micro-management of the simulation (which is a bit frustrating since it isn't even clearly defined). I guess in a nutshell you could say I'm having second thoughts, but I'm hoping you can convince me.

Maldiem · 09-21-2012, 12:19 AM

So I think that the combination of the really, really slow experience gain (1 XP/turn, 10 XP to level = 2.5 RL months to get a single point assuming week long turns and a unit is being managed optimally for XP gain) and the incredibly limited tech we start with is going to seriously hamper everyone out of the gate.

Using the missile example, to build a basic ground-based tank, I'd need at least two techs-- the relevant theory, and then the application, and that's assuming that "projectile weapon vehicle theory" and "projectile weapon ground vehicles" are alright technologies. Then I'd have to build the facility to do it, and then I'd have to run the facility to make the tanks-- assuming all of those things are 1-turn actions, that's 4 turns to build something that people could build in the 30's. Bleh. It sort of messes with my idea to hold onto the spaceport as long as possible, since it basically prohibits reinforcements. It also means that after people take off, they'll spend the first 2-3 turns holed up in a lab trying to get the techs they need to do very basic things like make basic weapons and do anything other than survive. How long are turns going to be, in RL time?

When you say fossil fuels for rocket fuel, I'm not sure what you mean-- liquid oxygen and hydrogen are rocket fuels of choice, and they can be produced from water as long as sufficient electricity is available. Would an Oxygen/hydrogen fuel source be a separate technology?

Are our nuclear reactors going to require fuel from somewhere? Do we have the technology to make it? If so, how much fuel do we have, and how long does it last?

How exactly does one hire new units? Can they be recruited directly from the population, and what is the crunch behind that? Is it a credit cost? Is it a negotiation check?

Also, there does not seem to be an espionage mechanic in the system; exploration would be the relevant skill, maybe?

Rogue_Dragon · 09-21-2012, 12:40 AM

Hmm, they make some excellent points about the slow progression. Honestly I don't think it would be a problem if we started with a few more basic technologies that I think should be pretty well universal by 2091, considering they are pretty much universal right now.

Having to unlock new technologies makes sense, even re-discovering some of the old tech might be acceptable, if it was at least simpler. Honestly I don't think anyone should have to come up with the 'theory' part of any tech that is already common place. I mean, you really believe that anyone smart enough to make a nuclear reactor (and keep it from exploding) would have much difficulty making a missile? or understanding how basic mining techniques work? The 'Theory' behind it is pretty much universally embedded in our minds. It might take them a month or so to figure out how to apply it given the resources and unique challenges they are facing now, but they shouldn't have to start the theory over from scratch.

I'm not positive, but I'm guessing that the low XP rate is to keep numbers from spiraling rapidly out of control, and I noticed that you've mentioned a number of times that there will be 'events' that give things like bonus skills, or personnel, etc. I'm not really worried about the long-term development to be honest, once we have ourselves secured, slow stat development can be fun. But the early game is a definite worry now that I really sit down and look at the numbers.

In short, I'll still probably give the game a shot and hope, but I really believe that a LARGE number of free 'theories' should be given out at the start. It would give all the factions a way to really differentiate themselves from each other, and even if we have to spend time building up our ship to our personal liking, at least we'll have the chance to actually do so without having to spend all of our time re-discovering 20th century weaponry to defend ourselves with.

An Enemy Spy · 09-21-2012, 01:37 AM

Faction Name: Empire of Freya
Faction Leader: Empress Yvonne
Starting Spaceport: North America
Resources:
Credits: 8500
Population: 0 Factional Power: 14/12

Faction Backstory:

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After the American government collapsed, the former United States and Canada were filled with various gangs and cults, all fighting against each other for food and territory. The Nordic Brotherhood was a neo-nazi group originating in the Pacific Northwest who saw the new anarchy as a perfect opportunity to kill the racially "impure" without having to worry about the government stopping them.

Spreading quickly, they overpowered all the weaker groups of survovors around them, allowing appropriately aryan people to peacefully joining them, capturing "inferior" whites to be the low end workers and slaves, while non-whites were hunted down like animals. The Nordic Brotherhood expanded rapidly, conquering a large swath of land, and becoming a true bastion of civilazation, with a small army and an infrastructure that, while weak, was somewhat stable.

Envisioning themselves as modern Vikings and even worshipping the old Norse gods, the Brotherhood pillaged and raided everyone around them, with nobody being able to resist their power. That was when the Marked began to attack.

The Nordic Brotherhood soon found that refugees from all over were running to them, rather than away. Cruel and xenophobic as they were, they were also the strongest base of human power around, and the only hope of surviving against the Marked was by joining the Brotherhood. At first, the Brotherhood tried to keep out the massive influx of refugees with violence, but when the Marked began to come in greater numbers, they realized that they would need every body available. Within a few years, there were almost nine thousand people under the Brotherhood.

Despite the growing and diverse population, the Brotherhood stayed to its nazi roots. Minorities were the lowest of the low in their society, given less food than others and having no laws to protect them, even from murder. Non-Aryan whites were only teated marginally better. A growing discontent spread through the Brotherhood's lower classes, and they rallied around a charismatic teenage girl named Yvonne, with jet black hair and bright green eyes who claimed to be able to talk to the gods.

With a movement of almost two thousand downtrodden supporters, Yvonne led an incredibly bloody coup against the Nordic Brotherhood's leadership with the help of sympathetic members of the fighting force, defeating them and publicly executing them. She claimed leadership and renamed the Nordic Brotherhood the Empire of Freya, after the goddess of fertility, symbolizing a new era of life and growth for her followers. All races were equal under her leadership, and women, who had been treated as second class at best and like sex slaves at worst, were elevated to the same level as males. Freya was an empire for all of humanity, not just a small part of it, she taught her followers.

As the Marked attacks grew worse, it became obvious to Yvonne that to stay where they were was to die, and thus ordered the long march to the North American spaceport. Many decided to stay, and their fate is unkown.

It was a long, arduous journey east. Anyone who could not fight or breed was left behind, and the pace wasn't slowed down for anyone. If you couldn't keep up, you were abandoned to your fate. The Marked attacked constantly, whittling down their people.

At long last, the Freyans reached the spaceport, having lost more than half their number on the journey, and began work on their Township, christened the Jormungand.

Faction Description:

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Faction Goals:

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Township Name: Jormungand

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Starting Technology:

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Basic Hydroponics: Allows access to Basic Hydroponic Farms. (see the starting template for stats)

Basic Construction: Allows access to Basic Cargo Bays and Basic Living Quarters. (see the starting template for stats)

Basic Life Support: Allows access to Basic Life Support facilities. (see the starting template for stats)

Basic Gravity Generator: Allows access to the Basic Gravity Generator. (see the starting template for stats)

Basic Shipbuilding: Allow access to Hull Space, Interior Space, Reactor Rooms, and Propulsion Rooms. (see the starting template for stats)

Basic Hull Plating: Allows access to Basic Hull Plating. Hull Plating serves as a very basic layer of material that keeps things from outside getting into the ship. It offers minimal armor protection, but all spacecraft require at least one layer of Hull Plating. Hull Plating technology is different from Armor tech. (see the starting template for stats)

Basic Command: Allows access to basic command facilities such as the Basic Bridge. (see the starting template for stats)

Basic Sensors: Allows access to Basic Sensors. (see the starting template for stats)

Basic Communications: Allows access to Basic Communications.

Basic Mining: Allows access to Basic Mining facilities. Additional research is required to create mining modules. A Basic Mining facility is built directly on the resource in question and mines 50 units of resources a turn. Mining technology may gather all four basic resources (Minerals, Organics, Volatiles, Radioactives).

Basic Commerce: Allows access to Basic Commerical Districts. A Basic Commerical District provides up to 500 credits per turn, 1 per population using the district. It can hold up to 500 population, and requires 50 energy.

Basic Factories: Allows access to basic factory facilities. Factories come in three flavors, general, specific, and production. A general factory reduces the Power needed for a Construction project by 10%. A specific factory reduces the Power needed by 25% as long as the factory falls under the same category as the Project. Production factories produce some sort of refined good or equipment, and are not covered by the tech of the item they are producing, rather than this tech. Non-production Factories require 500 population and use 100 Power.

Starting Units:

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Factional Freebies:

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Nyna · 09-21-2012, 01:47 AM

@Kazun: You're basically correct with your example of how to capture a Marked. You could cut some steps out (the vehicle) by capturing one before you take off, but that's the general idea. Attempting to fully clone anything is a pretty big project, so it should take a lot of steps to accomplish. It should be a major achievement to pull it off. You can be assured though that if you go through the proper steps anything that isn't opposed is guaranteed to succeed. Obviously attempting to capture a Marked is met by resistance and thus could fail somehow, but once you get your prisoner and have the required research complete to clone to Marked along with the facilities in place, it won't fail. And you'll know if you have the required tech because it'll say so.

The game is as much about the (admittedly work in progress) system as it is about the setting itself. I enjoy crunchy systems that are less about trying to min/max your way to success and more about allowing players to do lots of different things. This is still a work in progress; I've never run it before and I quite literally just wrote it up less than a week ago, so I'm not entirely set on certain mechanics. If people have suggestions I'm more than interested in hearing them. That being said, I certainly don't want you to leave, but if the idea of micromanagement doesn't appeal to you you may want to reconsider joining. It's almost inevitable in this sort of system, though I do want to abstract parts of it to keep it from getting too bogged down.

Credits are something that I really didn't go into in the opening post and I probably should have, since they're pretty important and will help answer some questions about other things. You basically use Credits to manipulate your Population. Your population represents all civilians in your faction that are not members of your Units. If you build a factory, that factory will require a certain amount of population to operate, and you pay them x amount of credits per turn that it is used to make use of it. You can instead assign a Unit to the factory and not pay anything, but this allows you to use your units for more important things like enslaving your fellow players or committing mass genocide on the Marked.

You can also earn credits through similar methods. If you build some sort of commerce district (you can call it whatever you want, this needs no tech either), you can assign unused population to it. They'll produce credits equal to the amount of population in it per turn. A Basic Commerce District would require 50 energy and could hold up to 500 population per district.

@Maldiem: The slow leveling of units is intentional. It makes talent much more important, as the loss of a valuable Unit can hurt more than losing an entire ship. There are potentially ways to speed up leveling (by lowering the amount of exp needed through tech) but it's not something I predict anyone will do out of the gate.

Theories aren't limited to a size, only the basic tech. So you'd go Projectile Weapon Theory -> Basic Vehicle Projectile Weapons. The tech doesn't differentiate between ground, air, and space vehicles either. I'm not trying to be that picky, but there is a significant difference between a vehicle based weapon and a ship based one. I'm willing to drop it and just make it 'Basic Projectile Weapons' though if people want me to though.

You know, I'd always assumed rockets used fossil fuels for some reason and I never bothered to look it up. It'd probably be best to just go with 'rocket fuel' and call it good, and we can assume that some sort of munitions factory can produce the necessary fuel without resources.

Nuclear reactors do not require fuel. If you want to build new ones you'll need to find some sort of radioactive source (I don't know that much about nuclear reactors, but I think you could probably use multiple different kinds of radioactive fuels?) along with a small amount of building material. Because everyone starts with the technology for Basic Nuclear Reactors, everyone can build them.

New units can be hired directly from population if you want, but the leader isn't going to be very skilled. The best way is to build some sort of school and hire graduates (you'd get a choice to hire one or more leaders from the school based on the tech and the amount of population assigned to it) or to pick them up through events. Negotiation can be used to hire unattached NPCs (or attached ones that belong to others). There is no credit cost to hire new units, but you do need to have enough available Factional Power to pay them. Units only come with 1 personnel when you hire them normally (events can differ here), and hiring new personnel costs 5 credits per member, which I believe I may have mentioned in the starting post. It's expensive, admittedly, but Unit Power is incredibly important in every aspect of the game.

You're correct that there isn't Espionage listed as a unit skill. Espionage would be a unit type (you'd need to build some sort of 'equipment' for them, which would then change the unit type). Exploration would be the primary skill (I originally called it Search, but Exploration sounded better) but I could see Negotiation coming up in certain circumstances.

@Rogue_Dragon: Yes, progression speed was something that I had mentioned earlier with potentially making turns cover more time. I don't think I want to do that, though. I'm pretty open to the idea of players starting with more technologies, though. Looking things over, I can see how it's pretty restrictive so far, and this is supposed to be 2091. And the idea of letting players pick a bunch of freebie 'theories' to start with sounds intriguing, though I'm not sure how many.

@Everyone: Since it does seem like the starting tech is a big concern for everyone, what do you think would work best? I don't want players to have too much starting tech, but it's clearly too little right now. I also understand why people wouldn't want to re-research modern tech, and my solution was going to be to have it require a lot less research Power, but it might just be better to start with most of it out of the gate. Thoughts?

daelrog · 09-21-2012, 01:58 AM

Faction Leader: Lao Xui
Starting Spaceport: East Asia

Faction Backstory

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Faction Description

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Faction Goals:

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Resources:
Credits: 5000
Population: 0
Factional Power: 12/12

Township:

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Starting Technology:

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Starting Units:

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Factional Freebies:

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ArcaneStomper · 09-21-2012, 07:52 AM

I would prefer to have a large number of theories available at the start, essentially let everything without a prerequisite be available. That way the base of the tech tree is solid and well defined. There might be other theories later that require previous research, but anything that doesn't have a prerequisite should be fairly well known. Then have every faction be able to pick say a quarter of those basic theories to start. That way they get a good number, but they don't get everything. But on the other hand they do at least know whats possible.

Also it seems like population is going to be very hard to gain especially when we need it to both produce income and run our factories. Yes there is the option of staying at the spaceport, but just looking at the starting township we only have enough room for 1000 people, and 750 of that is already occupied. Getting just 1 freebie unit would fill it up. And increasing the space available would require at least two of the three starting actions, leaving only one for things like defense, gathering equipment, or negotiating with the refugees so they don't swarm the township trying to get on.

And that only gets you another 500 spots. Getting to 2000 would require all three actions, Getting anything higher than 2000 would require another 3 actions since you have to increase the life support to. And by that time the marked will be just about on top of you, leaving no time to actually do anything particularly useful at the space port.

Kazun · 09-21-2012, 10:34 AM

Thanks for the great response, Nyna! I kind of regretted my last post after I submitted it (thinking it sounded a bit whiny), but I’m glad that you were able to not be offended or get upset about it. That fact, more than any other thing you said, is keeping me here.

I’m going to try and take a big-picture, abstract view of things… forgive my rambling…

When I play a turn-based, space-themed strategy game (Galactic Civ, Master of Orion, Space Empires, etc), there are a few things I expect to be a part of the experience. I expect to have to manage a fleet of ships (and/or personnel depending on the granularity of the game), which should enable me to expand/dominate/explore. I expect to have to colonize and develop planets and other celestial bodies in order to grow my population and acquire resources. I expect to have to research and expand my technologies, which should facilitate bigger/badder/faster/cooler ships, planetary installments, and a more specialized and sophisticated workforce. If population, technology, and raw materials are primary resources, then planetary facilities, trained workers, and ships are secondary resources (though they affect each other in a continuum). Ultimately in these types of games, my goal is to leverage these secondary resources to either form alliances with, or gain dominance over, other civilizations in the game universe, until I reach a critical mass of authority or influence, at which time I win. These games are rewarding because they allow me to feel good about the decisions I’ve made throughout the game, both strategic and tactical, and feel accomplishment despite adversity. These games are fun for me because it’s a cool setting with space-age technology, and I get to do crazy things like terra-form planets, discover plasma torpedoes, and build giant ships to smash against other giant ships. I do not play these games because I necessarily enjoy managing the size and satisfaction of my population, or because I get fulfillment out of mining resources. These are hurdles I have to jump through to do the things that are fun and awesome, and if I do them intelligently and well, I get to do things that are more fun or more awesome.

I recognize that this PbP game is a bit more free-form, and, in the vein of most RPGs, probably doesn’t lead towards an eventual binary conclusion. That being said, emphasis should always be on fun. It shouldn’t feel like work. It’s my opinion that for each non-optional subsystem or resource in the game, players should start with the technology, facilities, and units they need to interact with that subsystem or resource. If I need credits to do stuff, I should start with a way to generate and spend credits. If almost everything requires some kind of ore, I should start with a way to harvest, process, and utilize it. If my population is a resource (which it usually is), I need a way to increase it and stabilize it. In addition, methods for immediate improvement within each of these subsystems should be clearly delineated. Players shouldn’t have to guess which technologies they need to research if they want to mine more efficiently, or if they want their ships to go faster. This isn’t to say you can’t have some surprises baked in; unlocking a specific technology might affect your interactions with another subsystem in a way you couldn’t anticipate. You don’t want players, at any point in the game, to not know how to make some kind of progress in any given subsystem (whether or not they choose to work towards that progress).

Okay, I should probably do some actual work now. I’ll try to come up with some more concrete suggestions as we go along.

ArcaneStomper · 09-21-2012, 11:13 AM

I agree with Kazun, we should start with at least some capability in every necessary aspect. Something to mine with, a small population in addition to the units, a factory of some kind. That said these should be very basic versions of those things. So obviously if you want to get anywhere then you will need to work at improving them.

But I mean if there are certain facililities that everyone is going to be building right off the bat, like a mining arm, then that facility should probably be included to start.

Also you may want to add some extra population as a freebie option.

Now I do have an actual concrete suggestion as well.

Rather than have a random mix of resources that people can get why not just start with a certain number of types. I would think something like ore, radioactives, volatiles, and exotic. That way I wouldn't need to mine 30 Iron, 10 carbon, and 5 copper to build my new module it would all fall under ore. Similarly I wouldn't need to worry about the differences between plutonium and uranium when building a reactor, or having to find more stable isotopes for other purposes. I would just find a deposit of radioactives somewhere.

It might not be wholly realistic, but I think it would help streamline the game if everyone knew from the beginning what is available to mine, and save you the trouble of trying to determine what the different properties of minerals would be mechanics wise.

Rogue_Dragon · 09-21-2012, 01:12 PM

Ok, not in a place for a huge post or a lot of planning, but I had a question about factories. You said we can pay the non-unit personnel to run them for us. Does this mean that they can run things like munitions plants to give us missiles? What is the general cost of hiring the civilians, and what kind of facilities can they work in? Can they work on the bridge for example? Run sensors? How about if we give them weapons, can we pay them to become mercenaries for awhile? If the answer to any of those is yes, what kind of stats do civilians have? When I get home I'll put together a more complete set of suggestions for starting conditions.

An Enemy Spy · 09-21-2012, 01:27 PM

If I have four units with 250 personnel each, do I have 1000 population?

Rogue_Dragon · 09-21-2012, 01:31 PM

You have 1000 people, but 0 population. My understanding is that 'population' in this game is a measure of your civilian population. Members of units are more like soldiers or government workers.

Nyna · 09-21-2012, 02:57 PM

Okay, I've got about 10 minutes before I should get ready for class so I need to be brief for now, but I just wanted to say a couple of things.

Expect to leave port with your population capped out by your living capacity. Unless every faction at a spaceport builds an absurd amount of living space (say like 1500-2000 each) there shouldn't be a problem with taking as many people as you want. And yes, it takes three projects to increase your cap to that amount, assuming you don't take a freebie to build one of the required facilities. You'd need 2 Basic Living Quarters and 1 Basic Hydroponics farm, and that would push your living space and food limits to your live support limit of 2000. I don't consider this to be an unreasonable amount of time spent (you could do this in one turn if you had three awful Units for Construction, say around skill 2 given the spaceport construction bonuses.)

I like the idea of having abstracted resource 'groups'. I think that 'ores', 'radioactives', and 'volatiles' (I assume you mean things that burn for energy or explode for weaponry?) are good groups, but I'm not sure I would want an 'exotic' group necessarily. Maybe an exotic group with the caveat that there may be other major resources out there that can/will get their own group when discovered.

I should explain why the ships start so limited as well. This relates to the low initial population amount along with the lack of a mining arm and the like. The game starts with each faction just completing the bare minimums necessary to take off. That doesn't mean you'll thrive, but it does mean that you could take off the very first turn and expect to not die from natural causes. The idea is to force players to make trade offs between constructing desired modules more quickly on the surface but risk being attacked, or to build them up in space in safety but take more actions doing so. I can see how giving out more technology initially makes this more of a choice, which is something I'm interested in doing.

It makes sense to me that everyone has access to basic modern technology without the need for a theory, and that theories should perhaps be restricted to new fields of development (or major breakthroughs in current fields). If we dropped the requirement for theories on modern technologies that humanity would already have and gave out several more basic technologies that are useful for survival (Basic Mining to name one such tech), I think this would help cut down the initial struggle quite a bit. I just want to know what techs you think everyone should get.

I need to get going, but a couple of other things. Population does refer to any people that aren't currently in a unit. So yes, your civilian population. And you're correct in thinking that your population can run factories and the like to produce your missiles, but they can't run things like your bridge or your sensors. The bridge by default is mostly just for piloting, communications, sensors, and Factional Power, but everything is assumed to be 'automated' unless manned. You receive a bonus if you man a system with a unit, it's not required. And your civilian population cannot (with starting tech anyways) fight. Even if you research technology that lets them fight, you won't have complete control over how many of them do or when they do it, and they'll still be less effective than a unit without a lot of investment. With no leader they'd have something like a 1 in everything.

Kazun · 09-21-2012, 04:07 PM

In regards to what techs factions should start with... Expanding on my previous post (as if it needed expanding, right?), players should have the technologies they need to interact with all of the game's default/non-optional subsystems. ie, the ability to accumulate credits, population, and other resources. Factions should also have the ability to store/process/"spend" these things. Exactly which combination of tech is required to get people to that point would be entirely up to you.

I also like the idea of a classification system for resources (although I'd like to use a different term to distinguish them from other, less tangible resources such as population, units, and credits... maybe 'materials'?). Planets/asteroids/etc could have ratings in each category of materials, making them better or worse for different types of harvesting. I think perhaps organics could be added as a category as well, and maybe call them minerals instead of ores. So it'd be minerals (crystal, stone, metal), organics (wood, textiles, leather), volatiles (petroleum et al), and radioactives.

I can appreciate what you're trying to do with the "time pressure" of dawdling at the spaceport. The longer you stay there accumulating resources, the more likely it is that something bad might happen. But unless it's really important to the story (or you want people to roleplay it, but this doesn't seem like that sort of game), I think we could probably fast forward into space, and have our chosen "freebies" be representative of what we accomplished while sitting in the spaceport. You could even have some sort of percentage-based "event" chart, with good results being closer to 1 and worse results being closer to 100. Each player would have to roll on this chart when the game starts, and the more "freebies" or other resources they started with will turn into a modifier that's added to their roll. With a solution like this, the players will still understand what's happening (they're choosing between stockpiling and tempting fate or rushing off into space and hopefully avoiding calamity). This does introduce a little randomness (you could leave first thing and still roll 100% on your launch event), but hey, these are desperate and dangerous times, no?

And you could mitigate it a bit by having the chart extend above 100 or below zero, and reserve especially good or bad results for those slots. So if I take my sweet time getting out of port (represented by taking X extra freebies), I might be looking at +25% on whatever I roll. Maybe 115% or higher is some catastrophic event (overrun by the Marked, launch failure, etc). If I get the heck out of dodge, maybe I'll reap a -10% on my event roll, with anything -5% or lower being a substantial bonus (second Township joins my faction, benevolent aliens gift me with resources, bonus freebie, etc.).

Anyway, I'm rambling again. Signing off for now!

ArcaneStomper · 09-21-2012, 05:18 PM

Oh I like the idea of rolling for it. Say you have the option of getting more freebies, but with each one you have to roll. Get a bad roll and you take damage, and with each freebie you take more and more penalties on the roll.

Now this could do weird things to the time, since if someone had more rolls than someone else. So what I suggest is giving 5 additional freebies. These represent say the first two or three turns of actions in space, so call them space freebies. But instead of these a player can choose to take the rolled freebies. The rolled freebies are better than the space freebies, but come with inherent danger.

That way we basically get an accelerated start. Everyone starts in space, with at least a few things done, unless of course they were a bit too reckless with the rolled freebies. We can skip some of the more tedious first actions which would basically just be infrastructure, and get right into the more interesting exploration and events.

Jade Dragon · 09-21-2012, 05:26 PM

Current day cutting-edge stuff (lasers, electron beams), and stuff just beyond the cutting-edge (Bionics and Tissue Engineering that go beyond merely making you healthier), we should probably get free Theories and Technologies for one or two of. Maybe base it off the combined Research scores of the Units in the Faction. Like, say, 10 Research with one guy having at least 4 (which the Faction Leader will always be able to qualify for) as the added up total of the Faction's Unit Leaders gives one Theory/Technology, 15 Research total with one guy having at least 6 gives two free Theories/Technologies, 20 Research total with one guy having at least 8 gives three free Theories/Technologies.

So I guess there would be Laser Theory and Biological Engineering Theory. Electron Beam Tech would probably be an advancement of Electrical Theory. Tissue Engineering would be an advancement of Bio-Engineering. Not sure about Bionics... probably would require Bio-Engineering Theory and Electrical Theory. Ultimately, I don't think there would be much difference between Bionics and Tissue Engineering in the results. The real difference would probably be time (I'm guessing Tissue Engineering would take longer), and the resources they take.

And I don't want to start in space and just roll. I want to start on the ground.

Maldiem · 09-21-2012, 06:08 PM

I think that just rolling for the spaceport stuff is an enormous missed opportunity for fun RP. This is the one window of time the factions are forced to interact, and by cooperating (or sabotaging one another) you can have an enormous impact on the outcome of the later game. It's a high-pressure situation where the character of a faction will come out in the actions they take in the face of serious adversity. Do they try to save everyone? Do they take all refugees, or just the skilled? Do they fight over resources with the other factions or cooperate? Do they take off immediately or do they stay and fight the fight? Not to mention the opportunity to actually get an idea of what the Marked are like, up close and personal. You can form player alliances here that actually stand on something concrete (they stayed and fought for me even though they were ready to leave), rather than general Machiavellian scheming. Please don't reduce all that to just a roll. We can get to the "fly around in progressively more awesome ships" section of the game later.

I see this as an RP game with a bit more crunch than normal; I intend to make the RP my central focus.

Now that I see that the construction facilities at the spaceport are going to be very good, I think the starting conditions are going to be basically fine (plus 4-5 theory and 2-3 application techs). You can always make up for slow skill growth with better infrastructure and throwing more people at the problem, so it just means that it's important to recruit competent people, rather than recruit and train.

I know from personal experience that it is infuriating when players say something like "please outline the entire tech tree". They're asking you to outline everything that's possible, and do their thinking for them. May I suggest that we be given a certain number of free techs, which we write up ourselves and then you reconcile them to be internally consistent/balanced?

Some random questions while I get the feel for where this is on the hard->soft sci-fi axis:

1) Can I fluff how the artificial gravity system works? Would it be annoying to read into that technology with regard to its other implications, such as drive technology (ships that move around by "falling" down a gravity gradient that they create), weapons (damaging other ships stealthily by creating a zone of ultra-high gravity in, say, their bridge) and defenses (creating a gravitational lens around the ship that deflects incident light, defending against both observation and light-based weapons)?

2) If I were to start with a railgun artillery cruiser support ship from the carrier battle group as a freebee, could I weld it to the Jackson before taking off, and worry about converting it into a spacecraft later?

3) I'm sort of drawing a blank on espionage equipment to do things like human intelligence (developing human sources, making double agents, getting people drunk so they drop too much information without meaning to), other than, say, a very dapper suit, or perhaps some sort of espionage command and control facility. Ideas?

4) Could a unit that was in, say, a 1 freebee life-supporting moon base do construction actions to expand the moon base, or are they basically trapped in a hydroponic farm/barracks slowly going crazy?

5) Could drone atmospheric fighters be carried in the township without a module, or should I build some sort of hangar facility? Could the drone hanger be an exterior module, rather than interior?

6) Are space suits assumed, or should we build those if we want to do things on the exterior after taking off?

Rogue_Dragon · 09-21-2012, 07:08 PM

I agree with Mald whole-heartedly. Perhaps 110% of my heart (since it's rather shriveled and ineffective anyways). Rolling for the first few turns seems extremely counter productive. I want the beginning to make us all feel different, not just give us different stats. Correcting the starting research capabilities should go a long ways in letting us design our ships the way we want, and I would much rather sit and work on my ship for a turn or two than just roll some dice and pray that the gods of chance happen to give me stuff I like. I'm VERY fond of random chance in general, almost a compulsive gambler in fact, but if we're supposed to have escaped this world after working on our ship, I'd at least like to have the opportunity to role play some of what happened, and have some say in when and, more importantly, why we finally abandoned Earth in favor of space. Rolls just don't quite do that for me.

On to the question of 'Theories' Honestly, my biggest problem with theories is that right now, I have no idea what needs to be a theory and what doesn't. For instance, I would have assumed that most mining tech was covered under 'basic construction'. Finding out that it isn't makes me wonder why Life support is, since it's a much more complex concept, and far newer than the 'theory' of mining. We have to have 'Missile Theory' but we start with 'Basic Rockets' and no hint of 'Rocket Theory'. In fact, the only thing we start with Theory wise, is Nuclear Theory. Do we need 'Radio Theory'? How about leadership, do we need to get a 'Command Theory'?

My suggestion, which I think would make things far far easier, and less confusing for most people, is honestly just remove the 'Theory' aspect from any modern tech. You still have to develop the tech itself, but not the Theory. For true sci-fi tech, I could see needing the theory, because your doing actual study to see if something is even feasible. Shield Theory, Mind control Theory, Warp Core Theory, etc. We can all probably agree that those things need actual study.

As for why I think developing the tech is still acceptable. I personally know a decent amount regarding weaponry. If you asked me to make you a gun capable of functioning fully in space, and be prepared to mass-produce it, It'd probably take at least a month before I got you something I was confident would work absolutely.

I'm assuming that the best and brightest of mankind is already dead, so we need to do what we can to piece certain things back together, even if it's just sit-down and take the time to actually figure it out.

So, in summary my suggestion for the starting stats is as follows.

Spoiler

I think that will make us all feel different, keep us from feeling too gimped in the beginning, but we still have to struggle and interact with each other and NPCs to be able to truly get ourselves into a comfortable position.

Jade Dragon · 09-21-2012, 07:53 PM

I looked up missiles and warheads on Wikipedia. Missiles still require fossil fuels:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

A powered, unguided munition is known as a rocket.

So developing missile tech consists solely of the guiding system, it has nothing to do with warheads:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

The term warhead refers to the explosive material and detonator that is delivered by a missile, rocket, or torpedo.

So an unfueled, unguided warhead-delivering munition is an explosive projectile in the shape of a rocket. Or maybe a bazooka projectile, I'm not sure if the bazooka provides the power or not.

Of course, I guess the point is null because with the ability to construct any modern day tech, I can easily make missiles.

Blindslayer1 · 09-21-2012, 10:05 PM

Sorry, I haven't been more active in discussion.

I agree the theory thing is a bit misguided in some aspects, but it still seems appropriate in some cases. For example I doubt that 1 in 750 people would know how nuclear physics in its entirety or that they would know how to build a weaponized laser (this might be more common knowledge in the future if we have laser rifles). Do keep in mind that this is only one lifespan into the future where government has been out of place for a few years. There aren't many organized research teams or schools left. I've spoken to Nyna on the subject and he is working on getting some sort of base tech in place.

In regards to having slightly advanced vehicles and weapons as freebies your people might have them and use them occasionally. That doesn't mean they could know how to build one. Keep that in mind because that means you'd still have to climb the tech tree to get there. It will be easier since you'd have to reverse engineer them, but it still takes time to learn the aspects.

Missles could use pressurized gas for propulsion. If you think about what happens if you smack the nozzle off a CO2 tank this becomes clearer. Just because modern technology says it is this way doesn't mean it has to be. The warheads could be napalm, scatter (multiple missles) or cluster. The system could be heat-seaking, radar guided, or stealthy (anti-radar). There is much to think about especially in terms of multi-arena combat.

Nyna · 09-22-2012, 10:10 AM

There's too much RP opportunity to skip the initial launch stage. Not only are there a lot of things potentially happening on the ground (faction interactions, Marked attacks, additional refugees coming in with more resources, etc), but people who launch earlier are able to interact with space events sooner than people who launch later. It is, like Maldiem said, the only time the factions are forced to interact with one another, and it also helps set the tone for the game. No matter how well you bunker yourself in, you will have to leave eventually. You're outnumbered and outgunned. There will also be NPC factions to interact with, so I don't want to skip this stage of the game. This game is as much about the RP as the crunch. I love a game with good crunch, but I enjoy this setting concept too much to just let it come down to number crunching.

I'm amenable to removing the theory requirements on modern (or near future) tech. The initial idea behind theories was that certain technologies should require a pre-req tech to be researched before they can actually be applied. With modern technology, humanity already knows how to apply the technology, so we can cut that step out. However, this is all a bit of a gray area. I'm not a scientist, so I don't really know where technology is going to bring us in the next fifty years (and I doubt scientists really do either). I'm going to retain the right to require you to research a theory on certain near future projects. It should take more time and effort to make cybernetics viable than it does to make re-entry viable (in smaller craft).

Also, the idea behind giving players rocket technology was so that you could have something that could actually lift the Township out of the atmosphere. It's still unrealistic to launch a ship that size regardless, but it makes slightly more sense than using your default propulsion system. However, since this is clearly becoming a problem, I'm going to simply remove the rockets and have the spaceports have some sort of booster system. I don't want people to have free weapon tech unless they spend a freebie on it.

I'm fine with calling physical resources materials, though expect me to go back and forth (I'll forget). It doesn't make a huge difference to me either way; you'll have to have cargo space to actually hold it in your Township anyways, so it'll be tracked in your cargo regardless. I agree with Kazun's groups, and we'll go with minerals, volatiles, organics, and radioactives. I expect that we'll see one or more resources added to this group as players do things I don't expect, but these'll be the starting groups.

Also, regarding missiles in general. Missiles are by far the most complex weapon technology you can use. They require a propulsion system, a warhead, and some sort of targeting system. It makes them the most versatile weapon system (a single launcher can launch multiple kinds of missiles, including ones that aren't exactly damaging if you're creative about it), and they have the least energy drain as well, but you'll have to research a lot more tech to make them useful, though the tech for more than just missiles. For example, a 'basic' missile that you could build early on once you research Basic Ship Missiles would have no built in targeting system (so it just flies straight, you'd need to research a targeting system via sensor tech), a missile sized Nuclear Drive (you would have to research this) and the Basic Missile warhead (this is what you actually research with Basic Missile tech). You can expect to get a lot of damage from missiles, and for the low energy drain they're very useful, since once you have the tech you can use a LOT of launchers.

So, let's get to rule changes now.

I'm going to change the starting tech to the following:

Spoiler

Players will receive six additional technologies of their choice along with the five freebies they normally get to choose from. If you're not sure if a tech line requires a Theory or not, just ask. Modern techs will generally never require a Theory, while near future ones may depending on what it is. Regardless, you can't start with any technology that is way outside of human boundaries initially (no Psionics, Mind Control, Teleportation, etc).

To clarify factory bonuses, they do stack, but you get diminishing returns. They reduce the Power requirement one at a time, rather than all at once, so having two general factories reduces the requirement by 19%, not 20%. (A 100 Power project reduced by 10% is 90, and a 90 Power project reduced by 10% is 81.) Later projects will require a LOT of Power, so factories are essential to get things done in any reasonable amount of time later on.

@Maldiem: 1) Initially the artificial gravity system does exactly what it says. I added a tech for it in the starting technology. Anything further requires new tech. For IC purposes, artificial gravity is a very new technology, so expect the research to be pretty difficult (you're discovering something new rather than something that you know works but you just have to figure out how).

2) That's... an interesting question. I'd say that it's fine, though it'll require a fairly laborious Construction action. You have to make sure it doesn't fall off during liftoff, after all. With access to the Spaceport facilities, it'll require 200 Power, which means you'll need a Unit with 8 Construction to do it one turn. A unit with 4 or more Construction can do it in two. You could also have two units work together on it (they combine Power).

3) You'd want to just start with Basic Espionage tech, which would give access to an Espionage Kit. You could then research additional 'upgrades' to the kit which add various items. Any unit equipping the Kit would change into an Espionage type unit.

4) Yes, they can take Construction actions. Having facilities that aid in Construction and are manned by population lowers the amount of Power needed for a project, but they aren't strictly required.

5) You would need a hangar module, which occupies an Interior Module slot (for the hangar itself) and an Exterior Module slot (for the door). It's a paired module, similar to propulsion. Hangars require a research project (but no theory obviously), and more advanced hangars could hold more fighters per module slot. An additional research project could allow an exterior only hangar, which would still only require one exterior slot, but would only support unmanned drones.

6) Space suits aren't assumed, but if you need to do work on the exterior of the ship it's assumed that you have some sort of automatic machinery that allows you to do so. For anything else that involves leaving the ship (such as retrieving something) you'll have to have the proper equipment.

If I forgot anything, let me know. I had a lot to write up. I'll be around again later tonight, and I'll close the game to new interest at that time.

Maldiem · 09-22-2012, 12:46 PM

Awesome, I really like the changes. In my opinion, the only way to launch something Township sized with near-future tech would be an Orion-type spacecraft, though since I could see how that would be unbalancing (everyone starting with a store of H-bombs, and unless everyone takes off at the same time the people who wait get nuked, a LOT), I'm perfectly fine with the idea that maybe there's a near-future huge breakthrough in booster technology.

A few more questions and I think I'll be ready to draw up some crunch.

1) How many materials are required for basic shipbuilding stuff in space? Does it just require a mass source, and the quantified materials are for other things?

2) What is the power cost for the starting ship modules, in terms of a construction action taken without a construction facility? How much do the spaceport and Township construction facilities reduce things by?

3) Am I correct in reading the township stats such that it's hull size 10, which means it can have 10 interior and 10 exterior modules? Since basic shipbuilding allows hull space, does that mean we can make the starting Township larger? Is each point of hull space a single action, or is there some exchange rate? Is the omission of exterior modules from the basic shipbuilding description intentional?

4) How does technology trading work? Can you just give other people technology that you started with?

5) When you hire new people into an existing unit, do they take effect immediately or is there some waiting period before they kick in?

6) Am I correct in assuming that building more engine modules and facilities would be directly additive for ship speed? Given that there's no drag in space, it makes sense, but either interpretation is fine with me.

7) If I took advanced shipbuilding, would that increase the number of facilities that can fit into one module, and if so, by how much? For example, would I be able to cram more than 1 reactor into a reactor room? Do advanced versions of basic facilities have greater construction power costs?

8) Where are the planets fixed? Just wikipedia-ing here, and going by the planets' average orbital distance from the sun, I get the following:

Spoiler

That does seem to imply that with the starting engines, going much farther than Mars or Venus is going to be sloooooooow. The only place you can get to in one turn of travel is the moon (~380,000 km).

Zweanslord · 09-22-2012, 02:04 PM

Solar

March 16th, 2089 - CEO of Solar, Eduard Sommer, and his family found dead, company griefs loss

The CEO of Solar, the world's greatest supplier of solar energy, has been found dead along with his closest relatives at his vacation home in Switzerland which had been buried under a snow avalanche. After a six hour rescue operation, the home was finally reached under the snow, but it was already too late for the Sommer family. As they have owned and led the family company from 2014, this is a major hit for the company who is now bereft of leadership. Condolences from the company has been given to far relatives, but they have been difficult to find. Already, higher management is trying to deal with the situation, but word is that it is tough going. Everybody at the company is sad at the loss, as the Sommer family has been widely known for their benevolence and fair leadership through the company, praised for their innovation and investment in the field of sustainable solar energy. With their vision, this field has taken huge leaps, such as the large solar arrays that have been placed in space to absorb the sun's energy after which that energy is sent to Earth's surface. A sad time for humanity, as this comes in addition to the news of the death of other world leaders. How long will this continue?

What follows is an old news article from Solar's internal magazine, faded in certain places.

Septe..er 2..h, 20.. - Solar's presen.. in Europe sever.. ...inished, Marked attac.. ..ntinue

The Marked attack conti.... .......out the European continent. Our company has been hit severely by the Marked attack and it has been difficult to deal with the situation after the devastation brought upon the Headquarters in Germany. Closed .......... .... .eployed advanced weap.... ... ..sses continue to accrue. With the disarray in Europe, leadership has been transferred to a Eurasian division, which has immediately placed more responsib...... ... ..ivileges in the hands of local divisions as a local strategy to deal with the local problems is of the essence. As Solar has capital and means, the company has found locations where we are able to survive where even local governments fall, especially in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, though Euro.. the rest is too faded to read

December 1st, 2090 - Township's engines still on schedule: nearing completion

The Solar's Township construction at the Asian Spaceport continues as scheduled. Predicted is that on January the 1st of 2091 it will be possible to take off as the engines finish completion, but Solar has already stated that this is only the case if they must. Until then, construction will continue on the Solar's Township to improve it as is seen fit.

Solar, a company which once spanned the globe, providing state of the art solar energy, managed to stave off the Marked assault on several locations, but nobody knows for how long those remain, as communications run ever fewer and give worse messages as time passes. At several locations Solar managed to put advanced laser weaponry in production, but even these falter under the greater Marked numbers. Several of these weapons protect the Asian spaceport, but nobody is sure how long it can be held against the rampage brought on by the Marked. What is known is that the number of refugees continues to increase.

The men and women arming these weapons fight not just to protect their own, but with a zeal to revenge their fallen colleagues. Hate for the Marked runs deep, and what was once a company built on the foundation of an idealistic future powered by solar energy has now transformed in a company seeking to survive.

***

And that's the start of my faction's description! Will add more and detail out unit leaders and freebies later, but just want to point out for technologies I am looking at advanced solar energy technology and for one of my freebies I will want a space facility: one of the aforementioned solar arrays in space collecting energy and broadcasting it. The rest of the arrays is assumed to have been lost contact with or no longer operational. For at least another one of my freebies I will want laser weapons, just not sure yet in what form.

Spoiler

Jade Dragon · 09-22-2012, 02:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blindslayer1

In regards to having slightly advanced vehicles and weapons as freebies your people might have them and use them occasionally. That doesn't mean they could know how to build one. Keep that in mind because that means you'd still have to climb the tech tree to get there. It will be easier since you'd have to reverse engineer them, but it still takes time to learn the aspects.

...I could probably figure out how a rifle works just by firing blanks while one side of the shell is off so I can see the inner parts. For a guy with Research 6? No problem.

ArcaneStomper · 09-22-2012, 02:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jade Dragon

...I could probably figure out how a rifle works just by firing blanks while one side of the shell is off so I can see the inner parts. For a guy with Research 6? No problem.

Sure and that would get you a basic rifle. Doesn't tell you what formula of gunpowder is being used though. Which alloys the barrel is made of. Or even how to make the machines that made the parts. All of which are necessary to make a rifle that actually shoots as well as the original one.

There is a difference between knowing how something theoretically works and how to actually build it.

There is a lot of engineering that goes into building modern technology. And unless you have the manuals that actually specify all that just looking at an example isn't going to get you all that information. Sure it's not hard that hard to build the basic versions of most things, but an actual replica which works as well as the original carefully machined piece is a bit harder.

Rogue_Dragon · 09-22-2012, 03:56 PM

Faction Name: The Awoken
Faction Leader: Kevin Brightstone
Starting Spaceport: Europe

Faction Backstory: Over 20 years ago, a charismatic young man named Marcus Brightstone sought to unite the numerous 'new age' religions that were spreading throughout his country, and much of the rest of the world. He ended up combining many of them together into a very open and accepting nature oriented religion. The religion was not designed to control, but to educate people. He worked for many years teaching people how humanity was impacting the world, and trying to spread a message of co-existence with nature, as well as enlightened and planned progress, rather than simply advancement through greed and aggression.

To a certain degree, Marcus was successful. His religion spread much further and wider than many would have predicted, especially considering he claimed no divine right or special powers. Some followers of his religion were of course extremists, as every religion has some, that bombed oil-companies, and chemical plants known for polluting. For the most part however, his followers were peaceful and friendly people, who strived more to teach, through good example and simple logic, rather than to force or coerce others.

In the years before Gaia's attacks however, this started to change. Though he refused to share it's source, Marcus declared that he was certain that the world was preparing to rise up. It had been mistreated too long, and if mankind didn't change now, then this would be the end of us all. He started actively recruiting more followers, and encouraged numerous attacks against the worst offenders in regards to pollution, and deforestation.

Then Gaia rose up. Marcus Brightstone's plane simply stopped broadcasting, and everyone assumes it went down somewhere over the Rocky Mountains. It is assumed that, like so many others, he died in that first assault on mankind's leaders. His children however, were far more lucky.

After the death of his father, Kevin Brightstone sent out messages to everyone that had ever had dealings with the church of the Awoken. He pointed out that these attacks proved what his father had been saying, and collected what resources he could from every source that he could get his hands on. Finally he managed to secure one of the construction bays in the European space-port, and a partially completed Township. After that he simply sent out messages to everyone that still had a radio. The spirits of this world were obviously too angry to appease, the only chance for humanity was to flee to the stars until the spirits' anger had subsided. The Awoken would be leaving the world, along with as many willing refugees as their ship could carry.

Having collected as many like-minded individuals as he can, Marcus is now focusing all of his attention on upgrading the township to save as many people as possible from the Earth's rage.

Faction Goals: Early goals are simply to survive, and save as many others as possible. Long term goals of the faction are to find a way to calm the spirits of the Earth, and re-establish humanity. They want to do this through peaceful means if at all possible.

I'll get more up later, including more backstory on specific individuals when I actually get them stated out. That's the general idea of the faction though. Research/Freebie wise I'm going to be focusing almost all of my starting stuff on increasing my Townships capacity and efficiency, so probably as much of the Bio-dome and energy efficiency research, that we talked about, as I am allowed to take at the start, and then a number of extra Units to help with construction and whatnot.

Nyna · 09-22-2012, 10:52 PM

@Maldiem: 1) It varies depending on the project, but for most basic facilities it requires 10 units, and for modules 25. More expensive projects require more material. You simply need the resources gathered, either directly from a mining source or in your cargo bay.

2) A starting basic facility requires 200 Power to complete, while a starting basic module requires 500 Power. This can vary based on the project itself, but for the starting technologies it's usually around this amount. The spaceport facility reduces all shipbuilding Power requirements by 75%, while the factories on your ship vary. I think it's listed in the new tech rules under factories, but it's 10% for general purpose factories and 25% for specific purpose factories. All factories stack, but they reduce one by one rather than adding all of their modifiers up at once. So two 10% factories reduce by 19%, not 20%.

3) Correct, the Township starts at hull size 10. Each point gives 1 interior and exterior module space. You can expand the starting Township size while docked at a facility, but it can't be done by your crew in the middle of nowhere. It requires Power equal to (300 * the new Hull size you're aiming for), and minerals equal to (50 * the new Hull size you're aiming for). It's pricey. Exterior modules are not included in Basic Shipbuilding because all of the exterior modules you start with have their own tech. I forgot about armor though, which I'll add.

4) Tech trading is a touchy thing. I want to allow it with free reign, but it can be abused pretty easily. The best way for tech trading to work I believe is to limit the number of technologies that factions can trade. I'm thinking one per three turns per faction traded with.

5) New Personnel take effect the moment you hire them.

6) Correct, it's directly additive. That's part of the reason the starting movement speed is so low.

7) Advanced Shipbuilding does increase the number of modules you can fit, though you'll have to wait until you actually have it to see by how much. This isn't really the sort of tech you research directly to. You could, but it'll take a long time. It's faster to research the individual parts generally.

8) Using your chart there, I'll use the following distances:

Spoiler

And yes, traveling anywhere takes forever. Get those engines upgraded.

@Zweanslord: Looks good so far! Solar tech works just fine, though as a 'cold' energy source (IE one that won't explode) it provides less energy. To benefit from your proposed space facility you'll want some kind of capacitor as well. Laser tech is fine, though advanced laser tech may or may not be doable depending on how much other tech you want. You'll have to start with Laser Theory and then the specific weapon size you want (Basic Ship Lasers, Basic Vehicle Lasers, etc), and then upgrades. Upgrades are laser tech wide though, not just size wide (so an upgrade that increase damage applies across the board, etc).

@Jade Dragon: It's for that reason that you get a bonus for reverse engineering something rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.

@Rogue_Dragon: Backstory looks good so far. The biodomes are fine, as are extra units. Just keep in mind your Factional Power limits. You can start with more units than your Factional Power would ordinarily allow, but once you start generating income you'll generate less than normal, and you won't be able to recruit any new units at all until you increase your Factional Power. Also, you obviously need room for the additional personnel new units bring.

I'm closing the game to new interest now. Looking forward to seeing what people have to show me. If you already have a sheet posted, please let me know when you've updated it according to the new rules and I'll take a look.

Zweanslord · 09-23-2012, 05:09 AM

Updated by faction description, with amongst other units and a number of techologies and freebies in the previous post. There are still some open in the case of the latter two, will fill those in later. First I would like to know if it is okay for me to consider a capacitor to be part of the Basic/Advanced Solar Energy technology, as well if the other chosen technologies/freebies so far are ok.

Other than that, I have some questions. I will 'equip' my units with the Beam Tanks/Laser weapons, but does that mean they can still be equipped with other equipment too and deal with other non-combat actions? For example, I would like to give my Diode unit the order to construct something in the month as non-combat order and as combat order I would like to say that as soon as an assault of the Marked is sighted, they get in the Beam Tanks and defend the spaceport against assaults. This seems the way to go as the rules indicate, but checking to see if I understand it correctly.

The other question is whether I understood correctly that for vehicles, not only does Piloting effectively take the place of Resistance for that type of combat, but does Systems largely take the place of Attack in the case of vehicles as well? I chose my stats based on that assumption.

Edit: Another question, if you say, have a Unit with 500 personnel and 5 construction to construct something which requires 200 Power. Said Unit produces 250 Power. Can the 50 surplus power be used for other things?