STGOD: A Dead Art?

[Crossroads Inc.]

Reading up a bit, and with three of my favorite people (at least) here, I think I'll pitch in my hat for the new STGOD. OOB Forthcoming.

[img]<snip>[/img]

(Dunnn dunnn ddaaa dunnn!)

Nephtys, I HAVE to ask.. do you planb to play the "original" organic GunBuster bugs? Or the Hyper evolved Mechanical defence force from 10,000 years in the GunBuster future?

[Nephtys]

Reading up a bit, and with three of my favorite people (at least) here, I think I'll pitch in my hat for the new STGOD. OOB Forthcoming.

[img]<snip>[/img]

(Dunnn dunnn ddaaa dunnn!)

Nephtys, I HAVE to ask.. do you planb to play the "original" organic GunBuster bugs? Or the Hyper evolved Mechanical defence force from 10,000 years in the GunBuster future?

It's not really either! It's sorta both. But also sorta not. Like I redid their economy somewhat, and ajusted some stuff. It's now I guess 'very firmly based', with a few similar looking stuff from that artwork. So I dunno. Say, half and half.

Why? Are you going to deploy a single 1000 point giant robot? ;P

[Crossroads Inc.]

Why? Are you going to deploy a single 1000 point giant robot? ;P

What have you seen! I-I mean no, of course not, that would just be silly!
<_<
>_>

[White Haven]

And on the sixth day of the blockade, the skies rained fire, and the fire was the wreckage of millions of ships dying under the guns of the relief fleet.

[Bugsby]

I've had a rough relationship with STGODs in the past... STGOD4 was the greatest thing that ever happened to me, but everything I joined since then sputtered out and died. But when I saw the huge outpouring of support for this STGOD, I decided to throw my hat into the ring once again. For honor and glory!

A fairly minimalist OOB is up (I hate to write 20 pages of technobabble), along with my first in-game post. As some of you may remember, I try to be pretty character-centric in my postings. I hope I can create an enjoyable dramatis personae for the upcoming festivities.

Oh, and in response to Adrian Laguna's criticism, overall size of fleets isn't all that important. As long as fleets are balanced, things are good. 100 ships or 500 ships is just the aesthetics, as long as relative fleet sizes balance. And smaller fleets fit the aesthetic we are creating of Trek-tech. Trek didn't have thousand-ship fleets.

[White Haven]

Tell that to Nepthys.

[Bugsby]

Ye gods! I only saw the number of swarms, not the thousands of ships IN each swarm. Thats a scary fuckin thing to fight against.

[Starglider]

North Galactic Treaty Organization? What? There's no North in space.

It is, if you didn't realise, a slight parody of the North Atlantic Treaty Organsation (NATO) - the suggested abbreviation is of course a pun on NORAD. However it would be completely realistic for individual powers to redefine the acronym or 'have their own translation/interpretation' of it, considering how much of that happens in real life.

Untrue, there is a North, South, West, and East in space. There is also an Up. Bad Astronomy pointed out that "West of the Rishi Maze" in Star Wars Episode II is not actually Bad Astronomy.

Indeed; Galactic north is defined by the IAU as RA 12h49m, Dec +27.4° (B1950).

]STGOD fleets are always too dammed small. We should have been given 4000 points with SirNitram's limitations (ships larger than 50 points suffer from the law of diminishing returns).

While it sounds good superficially that could make tracking all the fleets, ships and classes a pain. It's bad enough as it is with almost 40 players.

[Adrian Laguna]

Oh, and in response to Adrian Laguna's criticism, overall size of fleets isn't all that important. As long as fleets are balanced, things are good. 100 ships or 500 ships is just the aesthetics, as long as relative fleet sizes balance. And smaller fleets fit the aesthetic we are creating of Trek-tech. Trek didn't have thousand-ship fleets.

My problem might arise from the fact that my nation is 16th Century... in Spaaace! During this time navies were hundreds of ships strong. The again, I do remember in the last sci-fi STGOD me being annoyed at the low ship numbers.

STGOD fleets are always too dammed small. We should have been given 4000 points with SirNitram's limitations (ships larger than 50 points suffer from the law of diminishing returns).

While it sounds good superficially that could make tracking all the fleets, ships and classes a pain. It's bad enough as it is with almost 40 players.

It's rather easy, actually. You just put the ships into squadrons and use those as your game pieces.

[Flameblade]

Question Time!

So, for spending points on things we have:
Merchant fleets
Intelligence and Counterintelligence
Ground Forces and the means to transport them
Diplomatic Corps
Interstellar Communications networks
Early Warning systems
and (above all) ships.

For points onto ships we have:
Beam
Missile/Fighter
Point Defense
Capital Ship Killers
EW
Cloaking
Interdiction
Counter-Interdiction
Shielding

Is that all?

What benefit do points spent into your merchant marine give you?

What benefit do points spent into your diplomatic corp give you?

What benefit do points spent into your early warning system give you?

Can you create sub-light/system defense ships? If so, what are the point differences? Can you create starbases/battlestations?

Can you buy more planets? If so, how many points?

Can you choose to have fewer planets than 10? If so, how does this balance out with 10 planets? 10 times as much production and defense? less, because 1 planet is easier to defend than 10 or 20?

Can you simply have more planets, but they're less developed? Would there be any benefit to doing so, since 100 planets collectively equivalent to the normal 10 planets, spread across a few dozen systems, are harder to defend than 10 planets (that could also be in a single system!).

That's all that I can think about for now. I'll probably have more questions later.

By the way, I tend to play test and trouble-shoot a lot of games, trying to make them work and be balanced, so I tend to ask a lot of these sorts of questions. I'd rather ask them before the game gets going, than have this sort of issue once the game got underway.

[Flameblade]

Dammit, already thought of some.

Planet-busters are one shot weapons. Are the part of a ship? Are they their own ship? How difficult is it to destroy a planet-buster? Is there a limit to the number of planet-busters one can have (aside from the point limit )?

Is there some sort of economy or industrial portion to this? Each turn is a month(?) and (as an example) the USA churned out ships within that time-frame during WWII. Research in-game is out, but what about replacing ship casualties?

Can someone invest in Industrial Capacity to gain a larger production base?
What are the effects of a healthier economy?

Even with the "larger gets less) ruling, what the fuck do you do with some fucktard who tries to pull a 1500 point Death Star wanna-be?

[GuppyShark]

Can someone invest in Industrial Capacity to gain a larger production base?
What are the effects of a healthier economy?

This is one thing that occured to me when I was writing up the Android Colony OOB. I decided not to bother - their obsession with improving their industrial capacity would be covered in RP, but if it was possible to invest in their economy they would do a lot of it, as they view military power only in the sense that it would protect their infrastructure, and that they would rather outgrow their enemies.

I went through a lot of "They don't eat! They don't breathe!" but decided nothing was really worth the points. I just designed my ships to have good EW, that would reflect their 'robotness' without going into excessive detail.

[Acidburns]

Even with the "larger gets less) ruling, what the fuck do you do with some fucktard who tries to pull a 1500 point Death Star wanna-be?

Either:

A) Laugh as his single ship leaves his territory and everyone falls over themselves to claim his worlds.

B) Watch as the mods smack him down.

[Spyder]

Christ, you turn your back for a couple of days and STGOD threads are springing up all over the show.

Planted the seed of an OOB for The Starborn.

[Starglider]

Updated the powers summary again with new players, alliances and all the OOB updates I could spot. Here's the current players list again:

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Academia Nut      - Straltoc Federation        - cybernetic  blobs from beyond   - 1500 pts
Acidburns         - The Nephilim               - eganite ais plus space elves    - 1458 pts
Agent Fisher      - Republic of America        - ?                               - ? pts
A-Wing-Slash      - Republic of the Sky Bear   - fundamentalist gummi bears      - 1500 pts
Beowulf           - The Kitaka                 - fanatical religious technomages - 1481 pts
brianeyci         - The Reskye                 - mind-controlling space slugs    - 800 pts
Bugsby            - The Oberin Imperiate       - schemeing alien imperialists    - 1500 pts
Cincinnatus       - Kingdom of Isdenestilom    - space dwarves                   - 1500 pts
consequences      - Them                       - the things ^ the flood          - 1500 pts
Covenant          - Cretacean Confederacy      - sentient dinosaurs in F-15s     - ? pts
Crossroads Inc    - Inter Stellar Union        - interstellar furry convention   - 1500 pts
Dahak             - Hegemony of Heavens        - neo-celestial bureaucracy       - 1500 pts
Darkevilme        - Chamara Kingdom            - catgirl matriarchy              - 1500 pts
Darksider         - Krytos Star Empire         - ?                               - ? pts
GuppyShark        - Android Colony             - robotic survivalists            - 1500 pts 
Hawkwings         - United States of America   - exporting freedom with nukes    - 1500 pts
HSRTG             - Nianan Theocracy           - beaked tentacled snake zealots  - 1500 pts
Imperial Overlord - The Logos Centrality       - technomage illuminati           - 1500 pts
InnocentBystander - Imperial State of Portugal - space conquistadors             - 1500 pts
MRDOD             - The German Empire          - cyber fourth reich              - ? pts
Nephtys           - Terranic Machine Custodian - mechanical space bug swarm      - 1500 pts
Noble Ire         - Brimafel Preeminence       - extragalactic atheist crusaders - 1500 pts
nt01jones         - Stellar Dominion           - turks + birds + demon spiders   - 1500 pts
Rawtooth          - Ahn'Qiraj, Sun Empire      - psychic slaver insectoids       - 1500 pts
Redleader34       - Trans Genetic Alliance     - transhumanist cyborgs&otherkin  - 1655 pts
Rhoenix           - Golden Sky Combine         - lanky socialist supermen        - 1500 pts
SirNitram         - The Wanderers              - politically correct lensmen     - 1500 pts
Spyder            - The Starborn               - energy beings?                  - ? pts
Starglider        - Kiroter'nah Overflock      - cybernetic alien space bats     - 1500 pts
Stormbringer      - Nathais Stellar Imperium   - gattica star romans             - 1500 pts
Tasoth            - The Vak Infocracy          - sentient obsolete radio parts   - 1500 pts
Thirdfain         - Polish Hegemony            - poles in spaaaaace              - 1500 pts
UCBooties         - Pirates of Bootswellington - retro space pirates             - 1500 pts
White Haven       - Software Patent Enforcer   - derranged Microsoft AI          - 1500 pts

Nephtys - if you have 100,000s of ships they're either going to be a) ridiculously weak, crumpling like paper mache under single railgun rounds, or b) the size of washing machines.

EDIT: Added brianeyci and a stub for Syper to the summary.

[GuppyShark]

My PMs seem to be delayed - Starglider, my OOB was updated but the PM is still in my Outbox.

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>>> GuppyShark : Android Colony <<<

robotic survivalists 

Upgrades : none

Planets  : 1  x 0 pt  : Zapf Prime (CAPITAL)
           7  x 0 pt  : (industrial colonies)

Ships    : 250 x FE  1 combat + 1 EW              'Purpose'
           125 x FH  2 combat + 1 EW + 1 anti-cap 'Survivor'
           25  x BC  15 combat + 5 speed          'Aggressive Deterrence'

(250 x 2) + (125 x 4) + (25 x 20) = 1500 pts

[Starglider]

My PMs seem to be delayed - Starglider, my OOB was updated but the PM is still in my Outbox.

Sorry, was a bit busy, your summary has now been updated.

[Covenant]

Got my dinosaurs offical, now I just need some feedback, and then I can stick my military bits up there too.

[Starglider]

Relevant chat in the sdnet room:

[10:20] Flameblade CotWW: So does the new STGOD have a comprehensive list of "Things to Spend Points On" list anywhere?
[10:21] Flameblade CotWW: I've seen some flak about Merchant fleets , Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Ground Forces and the means to transport them, Diplomatic Corps, Interstellar Communications networks, Early Warning systems and (above all) ships.
[10:22] Flameblade CotWW: I've seen stuff about spending points on a ships EW, Cloaking, Interdiction, Counter-Interdiction, Shielding... what else is there?
[10:22] Flameblade CotWW: I'm asking because I'd heard that people on here were involved with STGOD
[11:54] mwdestinystar: Flameblade: no
[11:55] mwdestinystar: There is no comprehensive list.
[11:55] Flameblade CotWW: Okay
[11:55] mwdestinystar: You can check the summary to see what other people have bought.
[11:55] Flameblade CotWW: Ahh
[11:55] mwdestinystar: If you want anything else, just write it down and see if it gets accepted.
[11:55] Flameblade CotWW: Can I ask what your SDN username is?
[11:55] mwdestinystar: But if there's no clear obvious game effect, just make it fluff and don't spend points.
[11:55] mwdestinystar: Starglider
[11:55] Flameblade CotWW: Okay
[11:56] Flameblade CotWW: Are you one of the mods?
[11:56] mwdestinystar: No.
[11:56] Flameblade CotWW: Gotcha
[11:56] mwdestinystar: I just publish Starglider's Fighting Ships of the Galaxy.
[11:56] Flameblade CotWW: heh
[11:57] Flameblade CotWW: Like Jane's? Just less detail and more awesome?
[11:57] mwdestinystar: Jane's does not include spy networks, planetary defences or rock bands.
[11:57] mwdestinystar: Incidentally you are not allowed to spend points on rock bands.
[11:57] Flameblade CotWW: Like I said, more awesome.
[11:58] Flameblade CotWW: I know, but what if they are part of your spy network and serve on board your flagship?
[11:58] Flameblade CotWW: Or what if they would be the leaders of your society? Bill and Ted style?
[11:59] Flameblade CotWW: Naw, no rock bands.
[11:59] mwdestinystar: You can spend points on pot plants if you wish, just so long as they're not antimatter pot plants that blow up whole enemy fleets. You can waste as many points as you wish on useless items.
[11:59] Flameblade CotWW: heh
[12:00] mwdestinystar: Frankly some people have done that already with '+10 to diplomacy'.
[12:00] Flameblade CotWW: I was kinda wondering what the effect of Early Warning was, in particular, because one of my ideas would have something like that
[12:00] Flameblade CotWW: Diplomacy does nothing?
[12:00] mwdestinystar: Diplomacy is RPed. I can't imagine what use a +10 modifier is going to be.
[12:00] Flameblade CotWW: ...
[12:01] Flameblade CotWW: I have a +10 score to my awesomeness? Fear my awesomeness?
[12:01] mwdestinystar: I am ignoring stuff like +10 shields +10 weapons.
[12:01] mwdestinystar: I figure that's no different from just a 20 point higher general combat rating.
[12:01] Flameblade CotWW: just weaker though
[12:02] mwdestinystar: I am paying attention to EW, cloaks, and anti-fighter / anti-cap-ship specialisations.
[12:02] Flameblade CotWW: yeah
[12:02] mwdestinystar: Because as I understand it that is what the mods are doing.
[12:02] mwdestinystar: +5 attack +5 defence style global bonuses are stupid and pointless
[12:02] Flameblade CotWW: Early warning is going to be a big deciding factor for me though
[12:02] Flameblade CotWW: Very much so
[12:02] mwdestinystar: Just spend another 10 points beefing up your ships.
[12:03] mwdestinystar: A few players have taken +100 and above spy networks.
[12:03] Flameblade CotWW: The "stupid and pointless" global modifiers, that is. For the "very much so"
[12:03] mwdestinystar: Rather more players have taken lots of internal security.
[12:03] Flameblade CotWW: Holy shit!
[12:03] mwdestinystar: I figure that unless I'm prepared to sink 50+ points into it, which I'm not, those things are pointless.
[12:04] Flameblade CotWW: What do you think about the planet questions?
[12:04] mwdestinystar: I have some displacers just so I can RP some special ops missions.
[12:04] mwdestinystar: Defences make sense if you think you're going to be attacked.
[12:04] mwdestinystar: I /assume/ you can have the fight in low orbit and add twice the defence value to your fleet strength.
[12:05] Flameblade CotWW: That would be cool
[12:05] mwdestinystar: But the enemy can probably blockade your system, and you have to fight without the benefit of the planet defences if you want to prevent that.
[12:05] Flameblade CotWW: Which brings back one of my questions. Actually, a few
[12:06] Flameblade CotWW: Can you buy more planets? If so, how many points?
[12:06] Flameblade CotWW: Can you choose to have fewer planets than 10? If so, how does this balance out with 10 planets? 10 times as much production and defense? less, because 1 planet is easier to defend than 10 or 20?
[12:07] Flameblade CotWW: Can you simply have more planets, but they're less developed?
[12:07] Flameblade CotWW: Would there be any benefit to doing so, since 100 planets collectively equivalent to the normal 10 planets, spread across a few dozen systems, are harder to defend than 10 planets (that could also be in a singlesystem!).
[12:08] Flameblade CotWW: I've never played a STGOD game before, and these seem to be things that haven't been covered yet.
[12:08] mwdestinystar: You get +150/turn production capability.
[12:08] mwdestinystar: That is assumed to be spread across your planets in some distribution.
[12:09] mwdestinystar: Distributions of defences doesn't have to match that but probably should.
[12:09] Flameblade CotWW: +150 points per turn? Nice.
[12:09] mwdestinystar: You can have lots of easily picked off but near worthless planets or a few heavily defended valuable planets.
[12:09] Flameblade CotWW: I was just wondering about how they would scale
[12:10] mwdestinystar: Obviously spreading your fleet over 100 planets means that it'll be hard to stop raids. Even if you detect them in time with early warning, that's a lot of space to cover.
[12:10] mwdestinystar: But conversely it will take many turns and a hell of a lot of ground forces to conquer all that territory.
[12:10] Flameblade CotWW: Oh, how far out does Early Warning give you per point?
[12:10] mwdestinystar: I don't know, mod preference.
[12:10] Flameblade CotWW: damn
[12:12] mwdestinystar: Probably something like 0 EW = just forces that happen to be in that system, but more turn up while the battle is in progress, +20 EW defence fleets from half your empire, +40 defence fleets from all your empire get there in time,
[12:12] mwdestinystar: +60 so much warning you can recall any expeditionary fleets that are faster or closer than the attacking fleets.
[12:12] mwdestinystar: But that's just my guess.
[12:13] mwdestinystar: Most empires don't have any dedicated early warning, but do have system defence fleets.
[12:13] Flameblade CotWW: Mkay
[12:13] mwdestinystar: Then again, points spent on spy networks and sigint probably let you get advance warning too, if you say 'I am dedicating my spies to ferreting out plans against me this turn'.
[12:14] mwdestinystar: Maybe I should post this chat to the OOC thread.
[12:14] Flameblade CotWW: Because the race I'm wanting to create has a clairvoyance ability that allowed them to have much fewer ships and still hold off a larger empire... for a time.
[12:15] mwdestinystar: Sure, counts as points spend on long range scanners.

[Thirdfain]

So, for spending points on things we have:
Merchant fleets

Wrong, merchant fleets are free

Intelligence and Counterintelligence

Correct, though every nation gets a large and effective intelligence community for free; extra points only provide a minor boost.

Ground Forces and the means to transport them

Every country of 50 billion (average number for total population in this STGOD) is assumed to have around 150 million men and women under arms in peacetime, unmobilized, with wartime mobilizations increasing that amount by as much as ten times or even more, AND troop transports are free.

Extra points can be spent to give a boost.

Diplomatic Corps

What? No,

Interstellar Communications networks

Once again, eveeryone has a complete IC network for free, capable of sending messages across known space in a matter of hours. Tricks like near-realtime communications can be purchased.

Early Warning systems

Everyone gets a decent early warning system for free; extra points can be spent to increase the amount of warning you get and decrease it's vulnerability to spoofing.

Beam
Missile/Fighters
Capital Ship Killers

Points spent on the ship go to all these automatically; rather than assigning a point value to each one, just build a ship and in your brief description outline it's purpose. For instance, there's no need to, say, have a battleship which is "50 points total, 10 points on beam, 10 points on capship killers, 20 points on missiles.) Nope. Just write "50 point battleship:" This class mounts a balanced armament of mid and short-ranged weaponry with an emphasis on long-range missile batteries.

Overthinking points is your enemy.

EW

Specialized EW boats should be noted.

Cloaking

Same with cloaked ships

Interdiction
Counter-Interdiction

Same, same.

Shielding

Definintely not, shielding is a general combat characteristic.

What benefit do points spent into your merchant marine give you?

None.

What benefit do points spent into your diplomatic corp give you?

None, the quality of your diplomacy is going to depend on your actual personal acumen in negotiations and planning with others. Sorry! No way to model points effects in on that...

What benefit do points spent into your early warning system give you?

More time to prepare defenses of course.

Can you create sub-light/system defense ships? If so, what are the point differences? Can you create starbases/battlestations?

All that goes on planetary defenses; any efforst to turn your sublight ships into an offensive weapon (at least without paying points and taking lots of time to modify them) will be met with the modhammer

Can you buy more planets? If so, how many points?

No, because the average is just that- an average. You can have more or less planets as you chose. The Polish Republic has seven major worlds besides Terra, and over forty smaller colonies and outposts. This is perfectly legal, and was meant to represent a good baseline for nation size.

Can you choose to have fewer planets than 10? If so, how does this balance out with 10 planets? 10 times as much production and defense? less, because 1 planet is easier to defend than 10 or 20?

Powers with very few planets may be audited by the mods for lower production; otherwise each nation has the same amount of production as any other regardless of the fluff.

Can you simply have more planets, but they're less developed? Would there be any benefit to doing so, since 100 planets collectively equivalent to the normal 10 planets, spread across a few dozen systems, are harder to defend than 10 planets (that could also be in a single system!).

A single-system nation? No way, not without penalties to national production. As for the 100 planets thing, I'd have to discuss it, but my initial thought is that such a departure from the established 10-planet norm is obnoxious.

By the way, I tend to play test and trouble-shoot a lot of games, trying to make them work and be balanced, so I tend to ask a lot of these sorts of questions. I'd rather ask them before the game gets going, than have this sort of issue once the game got underway.

This is not quite the right attitude, I'd like to think. STGODs are structured and organized, but they are largely freeform and shy away from hard and fast rules. Wherever possible, I personally prefer abstract rules as opposed to a comprehensive rules set.

Planet-busters are one shot weapons. Are the part of a ship? Are they their own ship? How difficult is it to destroy a planet-buster? Is there a limit to the number of planet-busters one can have (aside from the point limit Razz )?

Their own platform, and everything else depends on the points spent on it. Planet busters should be very rare.

Moreover, I personally deplore the need for planet busters when a fleet of ships armed even with only conventional nuclear weapons can pretty much destroy civilization on a world in a day or so...

Is there some sort of economy or industrial portion to this? Each turn is a month(?) and (as an example) the USA churned out ships within that time-frame during WWII. Research in-game is out, but what about replacing ship casualties?

The current ideas we've tossed around are 10% of your total points in new construction every 3 in-game months.

Can someone invest in Industrial Capacity to gain a larger production base?
What are the effects of a healthier economy?

No on the investment thing, and things like economic problems or prosperity will be handled on a case-by-case basis as they come up.

Even with the "larger gets less) ruling, what the fuck do you do with some fucktard who tries to pull a 1500 point Death Star wanna-be?

Ignore it, and laugh as it gets crippled by a fraction of it's points cost in it's first engagement.

[Starglider]

None, the quality of your diplomacy is going to depend on your actual personal acumen in negotiations and planning with others.

Amen.

All that goes on planetary defenses; any efforst to turn your sublight ships into an offensive weapon (at least without paying points and taking lots of time to modify them) will be met with the modhammer.

This is a little more complicated. I've got some ships which are very slow. The intent is that they can be moved around to reinforce or subtract from defences in my empire (maybe adjacent ones), but that they are pretty much useless for offensive operations. RedLeader34 has bought some 'defence platforms' as if they were normal ships. I suggest he takes some points off them to represent the fact they're immobile (he's over-target by my tally anyway), but they're an improvement on just planetary defences in that they have to be taken out to blockade the system.

A single-system nation? No way, not without penalties to national production.

Some people have done this (e.g. Nitram). I just assumed it was an 'eggs in one basket' risk. Are you penalising their production as well? I suppose UCbooties at least can get some production back by raiding and stealing cargo.

This is not quite the right attitude, I'd like to think. STGODs are structured and organized, but they are largely freeform and shy away from hard and fast rules.

Yes, most of the 'special point spends' are just roleplaying hooks anyway (I bought 10 points of 'displacers' just so I can narrate a cool special forces insertion). Maybe we'll do a really rules-heavy game in a few months time, for people who want to try that.

Their own platform, and everything else depends on the points spent on it. Planet busters should be very rare.

AFAIK mine is the only one. Again, really it's just a narrative hook. There's no real benefit to wiping out a planet as opposed to just destroying its industry with a battleship orbital bombardment.

Can someone invest in Industrial Capacity to gain a larger production base?

No on the investment thing, and things like economic problems or prosperity will be handled on a case-by-case basis as they come up.

My guess was that people who spend 10 points or so on a merchant fleet get 151 points of construction rather than 150 points per turn. It's really pretty irrelevant. Though I suppose you could use it as a hook to negotiate trade routes and free passage and such.

[Noble Ire]

Updated my OOB to bring it into line with the established point limit, expand upon my ground forces, and clarify the effect of the Telemetric Mass Inhibitor.

[Thirdfain]

A single-system nation? No way, not without penalties to national production.

Some people have done this (e.g. Nitram). I just assumed it was an 'eggs in one basket' risk. Are you penalising their production as well? I suppose UCbooties at least can get some production back by raiding and stealing cargo.

This issue will be discussed, but something will be worked out to everyone's benefit.

[Tasoth]

Starglider, I only used 1200pts, and not even the full amount, for the Vak. I took the suggestion of losing 300pts for not having any actual worlds for them. I think my grand total was 1170 points or so.

[Stormbringer]

What benefit do points spent into your diplomatic corp give you?

None, the quality of your diplomacy is going to depend on your actual personal acumen in negotiations and planning with others. Sorry! No way to model points effects in on that...

Just a suggestion but if we continue the tradition of previous STGODs of assuming that there are NPC nations about that represent the smaller fish in the galatic pond, wouldn't spending some points on a diplomatic corps be a valid option there? I'd personally like to see NPC nations exist as they did a lot to open up options for diplomacy, warfare, and general intrigue with out forcing the kind of apocalyptic confrontation between player nations that usually ends an STGOD. If they're under mod control (and the players don't just ignore them) I'd say that would be a fair way if handling them.

As a note, I've rather assumed that such nations will exist. If that's not going to happen I'd like to know so I can make the appropriate changes.