STGOD 2k8 Planning thread

[SirNitram]

On the transgal thing, the Enclave calls Andromeda.

What? It's where they've always been posted.

Also, a question: Would having the ability to assign more points to a ship than normal before 'diminishing returns' be acceptable in place of a normal Imperial Remnant thing for the start? The Enclave should really be all about a very small number of ships(The original expedition, literally), and repairing them back to full instead of building new ones, because in-universe, building up the infrastructure to their level of tech should be impossible.

[Academia Nut]

Well, I think we're already looking at having some sort of "Bigger Ships" racial ability, so I suppose you could say that your ships are in varying degrees of damage and you're repairing them all back up to their original standards. Theoretically so long as your point value worked out the same it wouldn't really matter with the way we've set things up. Long run you're probably screwed as you wouldn't be replacing losses (unless you start building crappier versions with local tech), and you would thus be slowly getting more and more ships that are pushing against your cap. Although if you seized an Imperial shipyard you wouldn't be in such a sticky situation.

But this question brings up an interesting point of discussion: should we allow experienced ships to be levelled up somehow? A sort of free boost for being kickass. How does that sound to people?

[Rogue 9]

Well, it would certainly favor having bigger ships; a big, tough ship is likelier to last long enough to actually become kickass.

[Beowulf]

An easy solution to giving the ability to do a Macross Missile Massacre would be to have fleets which do so have a damage multiplier for that turn of maybe 4x, but every subsequent turn, they have a damage multiplier of .5x, until they get resupplied. Easy math to do. All you need to do is keep track of which fleets have done it, and which haven't. Exact multipliers can be tweaked.

[SirNitram]

As far as building came along, I was going to ask if there were objections to Enclave ships being nigh-impossible to utterly destroy; so each new cycle the 'new ships' are just the old ones finally being brought back up to combat-readiness.

[Covenant]

An easy solution to giving the ability to do a Macross Missile Massacre would be to have fleets which do so have a damage multiplier for that turn of maybe 4x, but every subsequent turn, they have a damage multiplier of .5x, until they get resupplied. Easy math to do. All you need to do is keep track of which fleets have done it, and which haven't. Exact multipliers can be tweaked.

I'd still say that we just average out the damage. I'll be the first to say that if we have the ability to dump billions of missiles into space, I'll do it, and I'll warp out--dump all my ordinance--and then warp away before anyone can do anything. It's just unfair! There's no real value for it, honestly. I'd rather go with the "Missile" option than a specialized "Burst" option that penalizes you for every round AFTER firing it, but not also before. Worst case, someone fights, sees things are gonna go south, then fires every 3M Pod as they bail out into Hyper. Really un-fun.

As far as building came along, I was going to ask if there were objections to Enclave ships being nigh-impossible to utterly destroy; so each new cycle the 'new ships' are just the old ones finally being brought back up to combat-readiness.

Really? Eh... well, I'd call it wanking if it was anyone but you, since you have a long history with the Enclave and I don't think you'd turn this into a mess. However, since you're not going to build any new ones, is there any difference (semantics aside) between 'repairing' an entire fleet and 'building' a new one?

I'd be against your ships being 300 point behemoths, since that's pretty wacky and hard to balance, but if you'll never build NEW ones, then why not just call an Enclave ship reduced to Zero points a 'damaged' Enclave ship, and have it retreat? We can just RP never killing one, even if they are routinely 'defeated' in common gameplay terms.

Question though--what use would planets have for you then? Do they need the material output to repair their ships? If not, how do the rest of us attack your production base and keep you out of our hair? If we can't, then what does someone who has been attacked by you do to get you off their case?

[Academia Nut]

Well, the only objection I have to that is that if these ships are so hard to kill, someone is going to try and steal one, and eventually someone is going to succeed, especially if they score a resounding victory. No matter what you do in such a situation, you will lose hulls, either from scuttling them or from capture. Hell, if your opponents figure out that you keep recycling hulls, then they might try and board your ships just to force you to scuttle them rather than let them be captured. And somehow I think you've already got racial abilities tied up elsewhere that you can't make your ships uncapturable. Because unless we decide to give you a large point bonus to represent your extra-galacticness, there isn't much from keeping people from trying to capture enemy ships seeing as all the Milky Way denizens should share roughly compatible tech bases, even the weirder ones.

[Hotfoot]

Spyder
A percent system turns into a point system anyway, just with an added level of complexity, because any given percentage is a percentage of SOME whole number. What you're saying is give everyone 100 points, but hey, instead of making it an easy "this many points to that many points" comparison, let's add an extra level of obscurity.

See, a percent system only works so long as everyone starts with the same amount and KEEPS the same amount. This comes into a major problem the first time anyone grows faster than anyone else, or slower than anyone else, or loses a fleet, etc. Meaning that now someone has to have a points system ANYWAY, but the players don't see it right away, because this needless percentage system comes into play, except now we need to have modifiers, because Nation X's 10% is worth more than Nation Y's, which is worth more than Nation Z's.

Now there is a way around this, by going above 100% and doing away with the "percent of a whole" method. However, if you go above 100%, you completely remove the point of an actual percent system, and all you really achieve is making ANOTHER point system, but artificially lowering the numbers involved.

What use can be garnered from this concept, however, is the idea that the specific types of ships involved don't matter as much as the amount of force applied. It's something to consider, but if there's one thing people like, it's making up fleet lists. I suppose we could have an option for just saying "X points here, there, and there, with Y amount being Imperial tech (bonuses), and a few captured Imperial Fleets", with the option of declaring them as different types of ships, but the problem with this is that there ceases to be a distinction between large and small ships, and every navy effectively becomes a large mass of one point ships.

Rogue 9
Yeah, it may mean fewer ships per nation, at least to start, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Of course, as Academia Nut says, it's easy enough to up the point values. These numbers are purely placeholders that sound good. What matters is that the equation works first, and can be used for a largish number similar to what we're used to for these kinds of games. Doubling or tripling the number involved for purposes of scaling hardly matters so long as 1 point is the smallest number for a military ship.


Now, as far as space lanes, wormholes, whatever, it's not really necessary, and again results in either easier ganking or superdefense. If you get hit by a sneak attack, you should get hit, not repel it with ease. If you can get intel on an enemy planning on attacking you and you get forces organized to help with defense, hey great, but otherwise, well, good luck.

Look, the initial combat in just about any STGOD is going to be rather bloody, but it starts the "blood in the water" attitude, and alliances form, schemes come into play, etc., and so long as there aren't two equally gigantic alliances, things get very interesting.

SirNitram
Well, it would be possible to have a "bigger ships" racial, like Academia Nut suggested, but if we were to do it, I'd probably have it be similar to "Imperial Shipyards" of X maximum size, but of course they wouldn't be strictly Imperial, but the effect is the same, we'd just call it a different name.

As far as building new ships, I'm not sure if I understand exactly what you're talking about. Retooling dead ships into new ones through some weird process isn't a bad idea, but does this mean you essentially have no shipyards?

Beowulf
Doesn't matter. I don't care if the penalty to tactical combat is that after an alpha strike is that you have to sit on your ass and twiddle your thumbs for an hour. Let me paint you a picture:

I come in with a force that will allow me to win a battle. I decide I don't want to take any losses, or at least as few as possible. I use an alpha strike and completely wipe out the enemy in the first salvo. Now I can call in my supply group and reload in peace while my ground forces smash up the place.

Or another one: I get a force with FTL +10 and use it as an elite smash-and-grab force. I jump in, smash the defenders up a bit, and jump out before reinforcements can arrive. Then I withdraw, resupply, wash, rinse, repeat. Because I can pack a stupid amount of firepower into the initial shot, the game is now skewed towards stupidly overpowered raiding groups.

Again, there is NO WAY to implement an alpha strike system without adding several new layers of complexity to the system that muddle things further, and frankly it's a whole level of complexity which has one single objective: making hit and runs the prominent way to fight. Well, unless you added some sort of other set of functions to counter an alpha strike, which again, is another level of complexity, and eventually combat becomes less about coming up with interesting roleplay around a fairly simple point comparison system and more about become a tactical wargame that requires a vast amount of increased bookkeeping, not just for the players, but for the mods.

[SirNitram]

I should explain more thoroughly my idea.

An Enclave ship that would be destroyed would limp away at low FTL speeds, and have to berth in a converted shipyards. WHen I say 'Repaired', I don't mean Star Trek 'We'll remodulate the tachyon converter'. I mean pull into a drydock and be worked on by massive teams to patch back up. Planets become necessary simply as a source of raw materials and labour force, even if it's simpler to patch up the ship than build a new one(Obviously, the Enclave will prefer asteroid fields as they'll have less residents, but massive docks to berth the capital ships will require planets and the like). It's literally seen as only a cinematic change: The ship limps away and is patched back up, but mechanics-wise, it's just me building a new ship when I have the time.

[Academia Nut]

Well then the problem is, if you can limp away when you lost, how come you can't hit and run against people like all hell? Will your ships still be able to escape if they're outnumbered ten to one with massive system-wide interdiction and enemy marines swarming over the hull? I'm not saying your idea is bad, just that you will have to explain why you can do certain things and not others. And if other people get their ships blown to vapour, why aren't yours hanging on tooth and nail for that last moment that might be able to save you in a critical battle? Their hulls are still intact, their engines still functional, and their crews still alive, so why aren't they still fighting? And if they keep doing this, in universe people are going to wonder why and start making plans for acquiring one of these ships and seeing if they really are coming back or if you just keep re-using the same ship names and hull numbers.

[Hotfoot]

I think the core here is that, mechanically, the ships are destroyed. There's no difference between a ship that's been destroyed and one that "gets away at the point of no longer functioning". It doesn't get repaired for free, and in fact has to be built as though it were a new ship.

As far as making new ships, they could always have hulls that got destroyed in the event prior to the game that they haven't gotten around to fixing yet, essentially making "new" ships.

However, without resources, these ships won't be coming back, so again, there's no functional difference here.

If people get curious, hey, all the better, they'll find out he's got converted Imperial Super-shipyards, (if they haven't already), and think "Hey, maybe we should invade this guy and take his awesome shipyards for ourselves."

Which of course, people are bound to think anyway if he's coming at them with these hugely powerful ships.

Edit: Also, the mechanism would have to be simple, which means it plots a course back home...which clears up any questions as to where said super-shipyards might be, which would be as good as advertising the fact that you've got them (the usual downside to having Imperial Tech).

[SirNitram]

I will attempt to answer the concerns. First, the easiest: Why they retreat.

The Expedition took over a century on max sustainable FTL to get to this region of space. When it did, it signalled back home that they had found Earth, and that the region of space was stable. Therefore, what will be following is not a battlefleet. It will be a colonial fleet, designed to settle in on whatever worlds the locals consider too harsh. Now, with things going to hell, a message of the true situation has been sent.. But the colonial fleet will be in stasis and won't know to turn around until they're too close to do anything but try and settle in. A battlefleet will take even longer.

Every ship, man, and AI counts. Not only must a region of space suitable for colonization be stabilized, but the Enclave must survive or the colony fleet will be torn to shreds. One fight, one planet, one nation is insignifigant in comparison to this.

Escaping heavy interdiction will be harder, but I do plan on investing heavily on superior FTL(They did just cross the Gulf) with my normal alotment of points. Beyond that, they will fight tooth and nail to keep their ships and people. They will gladly abandon an objective for that goal, even a converted shipyard.

The Enclave aren't fanatics. They're professionals. As for the last, I fully expect some crazy intel mania to try and get an Enclave hull. Mind you, I think the genetic drift will make it hard to do it sneakily.

[Academia Nut]

Mechanically there is no problem, I'm just saying Nitrams got to lose hulls at some point because people are going to try their damnedest to do very bad things to them, so you will have to have some way of making "new" ships because otherwise you're giving yourself adamantium ships. Cause other people will also want to retreat their damaged ships, but typically they will try and go before they reach 0 HP, at which point they are typically reduced to atomic gas floating through the void, or a hollow, burned out wreck if they're lucky, but sometimes retreat is no option, and if you make a habit of retreating, eventually someone is going to get annoyed and decide to drop the hammer on you.

I'm not worried about the subtle stuff, I'm worried about the blatant, obvious stuff.

[SirNitram]

Retreat is always an option for a sensible commander. Professional officers do not make a habit of throwing away thousands of highly trained professionals and gigatons worth of advanced alloys because they're too prideful to retreat. This is space; there is lots of room and three dimensions. There is always a direction to flee in.

[Academia Nut]

Then why don't the other factions get the same option? That's all I'm saying. It's perfectly acceptable for your ships to make a habit of retreating when losing, or if the situation looks bad, but the "I don't build new ships, I repair the ones counted as destroyed but the points work out the same" thing implies that you can recover ships that for other nations would be nothing more than scrap. And what if retreat is not an option because an enemy commander, for whom there is no guarantee of professionality or even sanity in this galaxy, decides he's grown tired of your bullshit and orders his crews to start ramming missiles into your engines to keep you from escaping. Can you honestly say that retreat is still an option when the enemy fleet focuses enough firepower on one of your ships to obliterate Wisconsin? Limping home is not an option if you have no legs or you simply no longer exist.

[Hotfoot]

Eventually I imagine he will lose hulls, but by him having a bevy of ships waiting to be repaired in his space reduces the issue, and of course it gives him a further reason to attack someone, to recover a ship hull.

And remember, most kills don't result in vaporization, despite what movies and video games show us. Most kills result in a ship being "hulked", which is to say there's no way to get the ship up and running again without basically rebuilding it. Sure, some components might still be functional, but the frame of the ship is so horribly mangled it needs to be melted down and recast to be of any use. This of course means that anyone can use ruined hulls to build new ships. In fact, it may be worthwhile to put in a small resource bonus to reward winning battles to represent salvage, but that's a minor point. Of course, with no salvage rights system, there is no reason other people couldn't do the same trick if they felt like it. In fact, it only really becomes a big deal if there IS a salvage system in which salvaging enemy ships matters. Since there isn't, what's the big deal?

The only real downside to this is that it becomes difficult to sift through wreckage for intel, but intel from hulked ships would be miniscule at best, and if necessary, we could have a lone computer core break off from the main ship in the fight and get left behind, yadda yadda.

[Crossroads Inc.]

First off remind me to never, ever EVER play so many different races again! Nor try to slip into a massive alliance full of poltics and constant back door deals...

You Think your ready for something like that... but your not. Last STGOD was my first and DAMN did I lear some lessons.. If we're doing his thing agin Im going in a whole new direction.

As much "fun" as it would have been to shunt my own little universe into the game, it just wans't worth keeping up with all the upkeep.

If Im doing this again, my new SINGLE alien race will be small and reclusive.

That said, the idea I've been tossing around is for a massivly "advanced" civilization that is nerfed by tiny numbers. Let me go into detail a bit.

Imagine an extragalactic Über civilation that is torn apart for what ever reasons. A group of them, fleeing thier homes, lands in the Galaxy of the game. The have a "Mothership" and two 'standard' battleships. Thier tech base is immenslly powerful, bordering on 'magic' like. However, they have NO industrial base and basiclly have to start from scratch on new planets.

So they would star wityh, maybe 3 at most, nigh invicable ships, and then a large fleet of "Old Fashioned" ships that would be more on level with what everyone else has. The basic premise being, they could kick everyone elses ass, but would take them 1,000 years to rebuild the tech base needed to make such ships.

How would that fly?

[Dark Hellion]

I am really liking the imagery of Nitrams ships fighting, retreating and then coming back again for another go a bunch of turns later. The ships are going to build personality as they get hobbled back together and fight different foes. When you see the USS blackmaginator you are going to be "hey, thats the blackmaginator, it took out 5 of generic space commies heavy destroyers. We better run!"

[Academia Nut]

Okay then, if we presume that a kill is a hulked ship, then this is better, especially since it encourages RPing for the Enclave to try and recover lost hulls. Of course, once it becomes known that they are in the habit of doing this, the ambushes and homing beacons will make the Enclave wonder if maybe building some new but lower quality ships might not be such a bad idea.

As for salvage, hows about you can recover 5-10% of a hulked ship's points as salvage if you recover it. Should be at least some sort of reward considering that people are going to want to recover Imperial ships all the time even if they are radioactive husks of their former glory, and all that space junk generated when you blow up a dreadnought has got to be worth something.

EDIT: I had a brainstorm. If we have some sort of salvage mechanic, we could include "Improved Salvage" as a racial attribute. Whether this is bceause you are meticulous recyclers or because you just love to loot things, you get more out of your salvage efforts. Would work for Nitram's constantly repairing ships, and it would fit with my barbarian's looting theme.

Oh, and Crossroads, I just noticed your post, and I have to say, you're the third guy who's said he wants to be extragalactic. Is anybody from around here?

[Covenant]

How many extragalactic threats are we going to have here? If it's legions of superadvanted alien meta-civilizations versus, like, me and three other worlds then that's hardly going to end up being fair. Unless we're Star Wars and being attacked by hordes from Star Trek, there's gotta be a better reason than "Help is a zillion miles away" for all these people to be here now.

And if it takes a zillion years to get here... why is everyone arriving now? There's a point at which you gotta ask people to either be more creative, or to rewrite the backstory. We can't have humanity never encountering aliens, yet be beset on all sides by fucking swarms of extragalatic hordes.

Really, am I the only one who wants to be a member of the failed transhuman Empire itself? Shall I alone fight for the memory of Terra? ;_;

[Academia Nut]

Yeah, Crossroads, I think your best method of modification to keep the "extragalactic but just arrived here" levels down is to either be a splinter faction from the Enclave or the Chamarrans (since they called first), or to say that you arrived at the Empire's height and got your asses handed to you and were forced to settle in a ghetto system because you made some neat trinkets, but all your cool stuff got taken away.

And Covenant, at least I'm playing as a human. If there is a dearth of post-Imperials, I'll rewrite my guys as a persecuted minority who have finally been able to break away with the fall of the Empire and give up some of my barbarian image. But some more humans had better show up damnit *shakes-fist*

[Adrian Laguna]

Missiles are the best weapon in terms of range and mass invested for return in firepower. They have, however, three disadvantages. Firstly they can be shot down. Secondly once they're gone, they're gone. Thirdly, they take a while to get to the target. Disadvantages 1 and 3 nullify the range advantage when the enemy has decent point-defences.

Thus, it is not effective to come in outside the range of the enemy's guns, open up with all your missiles, and then leave. The enemy will just shoot them all down. Hell, the enemy might just dodge them. Either with their sublight engines or by going into hypespace. Congratulations, you just accomplished nothing and if the enemy decides to pursue you're out of ammo.

Suppose you come in at normal engagement ranges. The fight becomes more even. The enemy can still use their sublight engines to dodge and their PD to shoot your missiles down, but a bunch of them will still get through. What's more, they'll be shooting you with their beam cannons, and if you want to run, they've got interdictors. At the start of the battle the enemy will take greater losses, but as the battle wears on you'll be at a disadvantage because you've spent most of your fire-power. Thus the end result should be roughly equivalent to if neither side had missiles.

The two would obviously be invalidated if the enemy fleet has little or shitty PD. But not having point defence and whining about getting pwnt by missiles is like not having long-range weapons and whining about getting pwnt by lasers.

Then we have what happens when you get real close, inside the enemy's PD envelope. Some of your missiles will be hit by wild-firing point-defences, but the great majority will get through, as there's just no time to track. This is were missiles are really deadly, the battle will turn into a slaughter, especially if both sides have them. Here's the problem though, closing to point-blank range won't happen without enemy cooperation. Range doesn't get closer unless both fleets want it to get closer.

Combat should be taking place at low single-digit light-second ranges. This is realistic when lasers and particle beams are common. Ships in real life have fought a bit short of the longest effective range allowed by their guns ever since the broadside died. I don't see why it would be different in space. Knife fights are still a possibility if both sides want one. Likewise it's possible to have an extreme range fight at up to ~15 ls. However, one must keep in mind that both have trade-offs. In words of Humper-Monkey (from SA), "The first rule of knife fighting is that you will get cut. Expect it, accept it, and cut the other guy while he thinks victory is his." It makes battles more decisive as one side is almost guaranteed annihilation, but it'll be very messy for the survivor. On the other extreme, trading shots at 12 ls will make the battle take forever (maybe even days), and either side will find it easy to retreat the moment they think they're going to lose.

Extreme range fights with missile armed opponents would be even less decisive, and between one with missiles and one without the guy without has and advantage. Similarly, point-blank fights between non-missile armed opponents would be less messy and decisive than when both sides have them. If one side has missiles and one doesn't, it becomes a one-sided massacre, but No Missiles had it coming for letting the enemy close range in the first place.


EDIT - By the way Nitram, why would your faction want to colonize our corner of space when they have an entire other galaxy to play around in?

[Covenant]

Also, these are transhumans. You don't need to look like Joe Sixpack. You could be genetic superman with chiseled jaws and a perfect haircurl, or hyper-specialized subspecies that live in Chlorine environments, or like me and be all cyborged and such, or just be normal except you live for a thousand years and have organs that regenerate regardless of damage. If you want to be all furry and such like last time, you could just be from a planet of likeminded folks who all decided to move in where everyone's got fuzzy ears and such.

I bet there's a planet in the Empire somewhere comprised completely of different colors of genetically-modified humans who look like Elfs all competiting to be the most androgenous-looking freakshow ever, and do nothing but have sex all day. Or at least they used to, they're probably busily being invaded by the very confused Space Vikings, who don't know how best to divide them up into men and women.

[Spyder]

Spyder, what happens to your percentage system after the first round of production? do we get 116 percent totals for our empires? do you recalculate the percentage of everything to reflect the larger empire? And what about losses?

With no actions taken, everyone would cruise along merrily at a standard growth rate. Thus the 100% mark would reflect the standard quantity and quality of combat ships anyone will have at any one time. All fleets will assumed to be growing, the differences will come in when someone wants to grow their fleet quicker then the next guy.

Some things we could impliment for growth:

War time economy: Goes to 150% for a quality of life hit for citizens. Empires that stay on a war footing for extended periods of time invite intervention from other nations on humanitarian grounds.

Captured territory: additional x% per planet for resources plundered, double the reward if you either sell put slaves to work.

Other: ?

For losses, deduct the % that has been lost (e.g) lose 9% then you'll only be able to deploy forces up to 91% until your forces have been recovered. I would reccomend a generous recovery rate to more promote combat, which can be doubled for a war-time economy.

Captured territory: loose x% per planet captured, double if the populace is captured/exterminated

x% = (100/total planets) / 2

Works best if we all have a fixed number of worlds, say five. Then you get an additional 10% for capturing a planet, and 20% for nerve stapling the population and putting them to work. You can leave them alone, but then that leaves 10% of an empire hanging around for an insurgency.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Academia Nut
On the "just arrived" bussines... My idea, sadly, orginally was conivied before the current theme had taken root of "Collapsing Uber All human Empire" deal

Originally my force would have arrived and been in the galaxy for about 500 years, which would have been long enough to build up a basic Industrial base of "Primative" warships which would be on par with what the other players would have.

However, since I was a latecomer to the planning session, I obviously have to work with what I have...

Your arrived at the Empire's height and got your asses handed to you and were forced to settle in a ghetto system Is perhaps my best bet because it would allow me to ((perhaps)) keep some really exotic stuff I'd love to have for this.. Primarally my Mothership/Arc/Herd ship, as well as a really nifty Weapon/defense all in one Idea I cooked up for my "Super Tech" ships which I'd have, but less then 3 or 2.

The only problem with this is that it means there would be a record of my Über race and everyone ((mostly)) would be on the look out for me as, pressumbly, I cam in and went Toe to Toe with the might of the Old Imperium, but lost in the end.

Sadly it also means I have to scrap fully my "PlanB" this time around which was to be "The Irkin Armada Yes, I deeply want to have a race of insain little zims led by The Massive But it seems that will have to wait for the NEXT next game.

By the by... THIS is the "mothership" i've been talking about...