STGOD: A Dead Art? (II)

[Adrian Laguna]

Dark Hellion, I have a suggestion for you, shut the fuck up. I know through bitter experience that at this point if you are going to say anything else on the subject, it should be a succinct apology. Trust me, further discourse won't salvage the situation. Just shut up, or apologize and then shut up.

[Dark Hellion]

Whatever. This isn't worth it. What should have been a forgotten one liner is somehow a bunch of random shit again. Please do flush and lock this though. I don't want it clogging up the thread.

[Dark Hellion]

As for the idea, I like it. However, I do not like the idea of a mod getting to start with a lot of prepositioning unless players do as well. There should be well established enmity between many of the players as well as a large external foe. Otherwise, we will either end up with Mod vs. All or everyone trying to ally with mod vs. All. There should be very little reason for any stable alliances, and avoiding war post-first contact should require a fuckton of political backbending. This way, people go to war fast, lose fast, and new factions rise from the ashes every month or so to keep it interesting.

Also, I think we need some sort of diminishing returns for large fleet numbers. Maybe a defense modifier for ships defending their own planets or something. This stops what happened last game, where the CON and NTGO determined all the flow of the game because they could easily put 3x your fleet into your space without weakening their defense. Having a bigger, better military does not mean victory, but in the last game, there was no point in spending points on anything but ships.

[Covenant]

Some Theme Points!

Aliens: How many people want to play aliens? If we have only three or four, then those could be alien species that were suppressed/hidden from sight due to Terra. Small pockets of isolated colonies, completely walled in and barricaded off, threatened with utter annihiliation if they leave. Maybe they had Ur-Quan Slaveshields over them as well to keep them inside and others out.

Human Motivation for Mistreatment: If we give Sol Humans sort of crypto-racist Human Supremacy objective, similar to the current fundie one, it gives them a reason to hide the existance of aliens. If they're God's only, chosen children then the universe is theirs to rape and defile the way Ann Coulter wanted. No aliens, no moral questions. This sounds like the way some fundies act nowadays about the facts of the universe. It's possible that they consider aliens, like dinosaurs, evidence of Satan's Handiwork, things put there to confuse you. If aliens equal demons or such in the mind of these people, it's really hard for them to play nice--or even let them be known. Kinda 40k, but I love 40k, and it's a good motivation. Plus, these alien species will be angry as fuckall when the empire falls, and ready to fight. There could also be a few species that just hid to stay out of the Empire's way. I'm sure they would have known what happens by then to someone who waves a claw in friendship.

The NonSolar Human Problem: So when human aliens (nitram) show up, it completely fucks over everything, since nobody knows what the proper response is. Worse yet, they could be seen as a divine test (whereas other aliens were considered animals, attacked, and then stricken from the records). Huzzah! While Nitram's theme may be somewhat self-glorifying in that way (^__^) I can't say I disagree with having equal but unsymmetric powers. An Imperial Remnant, a Ragtag Fleet, and a coalition of Rapacious Raiders sound like way better game dynamics than what we had before--and there's room for aliens, just not a million of them. They'd either want to be slaveshielded suppressed species or ones that are hiding from detection by staying in the woods, like a Bigfoot. Please, nobody make a Bigfoot OOB.

The Transhuman Inheritance: But since this is a TRANSHUMAN empire, the term 'alien' is a little out of date. The amount of cultures in this empire, though human in biology, are sure to be an astounding variety. Apparently I'm the real-alien fanatic (hehe), but I've already got plans for a human empire that's quite unique. Transhuman can mean you're basically any iteration of humanoid critter, there's not much you can't do with machinery or genemodding.

And some rules points!

Ship Special Abilities: It'd be great if we could quantify, explain, and price these before we build OOB's. Instead of having so many variations on what people think stuff can do, let's just write down what's possible and think up some sensible point costs for them. This will cut down on the confusion about what technologies are available and so on. This restricts people a little, but they are anyway, so let's not get into that +10 to Attacking Yellow Ships type of stuff that we did last time.

Psi/TK/Mindreading: I think these are unsuitable for a game like this. Unless it costs something to make a psionic race, there's no reason not to. The benefits of mindreading, precog, etc are huge, and I threw TK in there because it's one of the other things people toss in a lot. I think it's a lot easier to quantify people 'intercepting' messages than it is to quantify 'I can read your mind'. If I'm wrong, then okay, but I think we at least need inhibitors to be available and quantify these powers flat-out. As it's clear from the "Jedi vs _____" threads, precog, instant telepathy, mindreading and such are incredibly powerful abilities and they end up being swiss-army-knives of omnipotence unless we quantify in what ways they can work, if psionic inhibitors also stop TK, etc.

Capture of Resources: The best part about Nit's setup, bar none, is the line about a cache of arms. I think that every race in this game should not just be making their own homebrew ships, but also trying to get their hands on Imperial Warships. It's quite possible that it's hard to get these things up and running without the proper crew/training/presence of a Kommisar/genetic key or whatever so that you have to 'pay' for them instead of getting them for free... but everyone should have access to Imperial Remnant tech that is the SAME for everyone. If there's a few ISDs stationed in each sector, those would be among the first targets of opportunity for any splinter faction. If there are a few of these caches on other player worlds, raiding them when you seize their planets would give you more of an incentive to attack, since you'd recoup some of your losses by trading your damage ships in for ones from the Vault.

This would also let us, for example, offer people the chance to buy 125 point star dreadnaughts, but not the option to actually design them themselves. So even if your nation is getting curbstomped by a faction whose ship designs nearly perfectly counter yours, you're still able to rely on a standby tech. We're going to have to write up the Imperial Remnant OOB anyway.

[Battlehymn Republic]

And magic should be quantified as well. Magic usually is just psi by another name, but occasionally you get fantasy things such as conjuring and summoning familiars from the void and stuff like that.

I'm also eager to get cracking at a nation profile soon. Is there a set format for one?

[rhoenix]

And magic should be quantified as well. Magic usually is just psi by another name, but occasionally you get fantasy things such as conjuring and summoning familiars from the void and stuff like that.

As I'm sure Nitram would tell you, as long as the "magic" used is quantified with proper uses, limits, and rules, I'm sure there won't be an issue.

I'm also eager to get cracking at a nation profile soon. Is there a set format for one?

Tentatively, use the STGOD 2k7 OOB thread as a template, though I'm sure there will be a few changes with tweaks to rules and such.

Mostly though, the game mechanics rules we had in place are okay, though a few of them do need quantifying.

[Hotfoot]

In previous games, I've referred to things such as Magic, Psionics, etc. as "Quantek". Again, either you make them as something that everyone has access to on some level, or you don't have them at all. It's the height of stupidity to assume that this civilization survived for as long as it did without some way to deal with magic/psionics, so having a setup where psionics or mages are somehow better than technology because they can't be countered is just plain silly.

Having a spy with cybernetic upgrades that can create effective "lie detectors", enhance strength, shoot lasers from hidden compartments, or control machines remotely is not functionally that different from what a psionicist or mage can achieve. I'm for having different methods to achieve the same effects, the problem arises when people try to claim being able to achieve different effects from those means. Like when people try to use ansibles to create unblockable, untraceable, undetectable communications networks with realtime functionality over any interstellar distance.

That, my friends, is what must be focused on. While we want to stay away from truly silly sources of power or what have you, like cotton-candy reactors and pizza cannons, but psionic amplifiers turning ten men's personal TK into a starship grade cannon or engine or what have you is not a huge deal. Obviously, you don't want to have a situation where a single psyker can rip a building to shreds unassisted, because that's just silly. A single psyker planting amplifiers over a building and detonating it as a result, however, could work, but those amplifiers are known quantities, and sneaking them in wouldn't be any easier than sneaking in, say, plastic explosives.

I'll dig up the rules I was originally going to use for an older STGOD that never got off the ground, see what I can't rip out for use in conjunction with this STGOD.

[Dahak]

Another question: How old do we want this Human Empire to be? If it was truly ancient before it fell, there would have been ample time for satellite nations of various origins to have popped up around its boundary to sufficient power levels, and a load of splinter groups within the fractured Old Empire, including the "official" Remnant.

And I'm all for rules when it comes down to the general settings like technology, advancement, infrastructure... , I just don't very much like too much rules in regard to space fights (and ship design). This is the heart of a functioning STGOD, and it should not be throttled too much by rules. Just my two cents.

[Covenant]

Well, rules for space battles seem kinda irrelevent, since isn't that more or less decided via the very basic "I have more points in this fleet than you" style? Not exactly a thrilling combat, but it's the diplomacy and backstabbing that wins these wars, not brilliant starship design... right?

Rules for ship design, I think, are not only necessary but also prudent, though. It only inconveniences two types of people: the ones who want to make an unquantifiably bizzare species, or the ones who want to make an unsportsmanlike advantage that they stay silent about until the game is started. Neither of these people are helpful.

Rules will give some benchmarks and boundaries, and that'll encourage a healthy game, not stifle it.

[Academia Nut]

Hmmm... a religious fundamentalist empire. That would actually work quite well with my metal barbarians, who are basically all about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. They worship bizarre paganistic deities, the utilize strange powers, and they party so hard they leave radioactive wastelands in their wake. No wonder they were pushed off to the fringes of human space, hard enough that they couldn't quite be wiped out, but not strong enough to do anything but sit on their own worlds and stew for generations.

And now the empire is collapsing, it is time to go on a tour that has been on delay for far too long.

As far as magic and psi are concerned, I agree that so long as its quantifiable, its a-okay. Moreso, one could imagine repressed groups that were exterminated because they were useful, so instead they were kept in secluded enclave worlds. Now that the empire has collapsed, their oppressors are gone, but so is the only thing keeping an interstellar pogrom out of their backyard.

I think we should actually give the mods control over something along the lines of a fleet on the Last Crusade. The last Imperial Admiral was present at the final battle for Terra and saw the world die. A staunchly faithful man, he could not accept this an promptly went insane. Taking his fleet, including the last of the Imperial super weapons, out into the void, he has done Very Bad Things (TM) to his crew, resulting in a fleet of super powerful ships that mostly drift about deep space, doing nothing until some psychotic whim strikes and they head off on a random vector to cause mayhem and destruction. They strike without warning, without mercy, but fade into the shadows just as quickly. Metagamingly, these ships can be the explanation for why factions that take too long to resolve things get nuked: by whatever selection process they use, the battle was interrupted by the Last Crusade wiping out one particular faction and sparing the others.

Oh, and Covenant, you would be surprised how bizarre things can get. People definitely will not want to have to select from a pregenerated list of ships. While yes, there is a certain amount of sense for standard Imperial designs, we could say that each group was often required to make their own ships to supply in a sort of vassal relationship, resulting in a multitude of designs across the empire as people stopped caring about standardization.

[Covenant]

Not only from a pregenned list of Impie ships, but I thought everyone should have -access- to them. As in, we all have our own Empires, but even if I choose to be nothing but a fighter nation, I should be able to 'raid a Remnant weapons cache' and get an ISD to fight with. It seems goofy that an Empire would collapse and take all the weapons with them. I was thinking we could use them like rewards, not to the exclusion of regular ships.

My comment about "pregenning ship abilities" was about the special abilities, like ECM's or Cloaking or Interdiction equipment. I think it'd be a lot simpler and a lot easier to conduct combat if we can all look up what each other's stuff does without needing to 'compare definitions' of what we consider ECM and ECCM and such to be, and how cloaking works, and so on.

I mean, go look at the old OOBs, some of them were using incredibly nonstandard 'special powers' or point assignments. That just causes confusion.

[Academia Nut]

Ah, okay, you were talking about letting us have access to the Imperial armoury, not restricting us to it. Okay, yeah that makes sense, so long as the things are expensive enough that having them is rare. Like say they carry an extra resupply cost to gain their benefits. The old empire didn't care because it had resources out the ying-yang, but with its collapse resupplying the things is now a massive bitch to deal with, but if you can afford them, they're worth the cost.

And for prearranging the abilities, I assume you mean something like:
Interdiction Module- Costs X points, must be fitted to a frame of Y points, and has Z effect.
EW Module- Costs A points, must be fitted to a frame of B points, and has C effect

That sound about what you were saying?

[Battlehymn Republic]

Yeah, it'd be nice to get an estimate at how far future the setting will be. I was thinking about doing a variant of Zor's worlds settled by communists/libertarians, but on second thought if it's really the neo-medieval type far future (of WH40K, Dune, Foundation) where the year is in quintuple digits, then I'm going to make an appropriately socially regressed neo-medieval faction.

On second thought, I'll just wait until the rules are set and some factions are written.

[Covenant]

Ah, okay, you were talking about letting us have access to the Imperial armoury, not restricting us to it. Okay, yeah that makes sense, so long as the things are expensive enough that having them is rare. Like say they carry an extra resupply cost to gain their benefits. The old empire didn't care because it had resources out the ying-yang, but with its collapse resupplying the things is now a massive bitch to deal with, but if you can afford them, they're worth the cost.

And for prearranging the abilities, I assume you mean something like:
Interdiction Module- Costs X points, must be fitted to a frame of Y points, and has Z effect.
EW Module- Costs A points, must be fitted to a frame of B points, and has C effect

That sound about what you were saying?

Yep! On all counts! I thought it'd be totally sweet to say "No DBZ vessels, except the overpriced Imperial Dreadnaughts" or such things, so that they're around... and scary... but not omnipresent. It was mostly a coolness thing, and an incentive to raid other people's territories. If there were hidden stockpiles of Imperial weapons, that's a huge reason to risk losing your forces.

And you're right about the secondary stuff too. Last time we did a pretty good job on saying "Cloaking does this, and can't be used on ships bigger than this" but it had no point cost, and several other things had point costs but no understood actual function (besides, like, scrambling 'communications' or something?). If we came up with 15 types of special powers for ships to have then we'd have a pretty good spread of powers for people to choose from, as well as a very easily referenced way to compare ships.

[Darkevilme]

My opinions if they matter.

I'm seconding Adrian for the megatonnage range firepower, no particular reason i just like the feel for that sort of sci fi era.

I think Academia's, pay for economy, ship maintenance/upkeep fees, idea is interesting and opens certain possibilities. Such as my aforementioned extra galactic Chamaran invasion fleet's only economy assets being motherships that while mobile can only maintain the fleet not build new ships unless combined with other assets that i'll have to swipe from someone.

[Academia Nut]

Your opinions will only matter if you say something, so never be scared to make a suggestion or comment on something in here. A STGOD is at its heart a collaborative writing project, so don't be afraid to speak up.

As for the economy, is there any objection to something along the lines of "Points allocated to economic activity produce 0.5 points per turn, to be spent on maintaining, repair and constructing ships; upgrading technology and miscellaneous capacities; building up future economic capacity; or as payments for services/bribes/tribute/etc to other nations. Ships must be resupplied with 1/10 their base cost every turn."

If you have objections to the concept or the exact math, please say so. If you think you have a better idea, please present it. I think this looks good, but other perspectives always help.

Following on that, how's about this as a tag for Imperial Ships: "The ships of the old empire are the product of generations of refinement and technology and are true gods of warfare now that their primary production facility on Earth has been destroyed. They feature technology now rare and difficult to produce, and combine it in a cohesive whole. All Imperial ships have a cost greater than 50 points and often feature additional specialized warfare modules. They are not subject to the nonlinearity rule for ships costing greater than 50 points due to their refined technology, but they cost five times as much to maintain in comparison to regular ships due to this lost technology. Additionally, Imperial ships must be bought at the beginning of the game, found in weapons caches, or captured in battle. No one possesses the capacity to make them from scratch and thus they cannot be bought after the start of the game. Damaged ships may be 'discovered' and restored with the permission of the mods."

This sort of rule would mean that while your 100 point Imperial dreadnought would bring all sorts of pain to the party, its going to cost you most of the economic output of a decently industrialized planet just to keep the damn thing running.

Thoughts? Comments? Additions? Scorn?

[Dark Hellion]

That sounds really cool Academia. The exact numbers might need to be hammered at a bit, but the general sentiment is exactly on. Possibly there should be a way to lessen the impact, by drydocking ships, etc. That way you can have a large non-aggressive military and still build economy, or have a huge rampaging fleet and pay out the ass for it. It makes players make more interesting choices, makes maintaining the balance between economic control and military might extremely important, and makes managing trade partners vs. mutual defense pacts, etc. incredibly important, as your fleet is going to walk if you can't pay their wage, but you could piss off powerful neighbors by trading with shitholia, the neighboring country.

[Academia Nut]

Hmmm... hadn't thought about drydocking, but that brings to mind an awesome scenario. Imagine this: Group A hits the jackpot and uncovers a large group of Imperial Ships, but they don't have the economy to maintain the damn things. So they drydock them, but let everyone know that they have them, maybe have a fight or two with them, so that they can hunker down and build up their economy to the point where they can field these behemoths. But this sudden change of behaviour tips off their neighbours, and some espionage action later they realize that if a few of them push now they can take out this paper tiger before it becomes a real one and then split the spoils between them. Thus Group A has to either take the killships out of drydock and sell of their own fleets, reducing their overall firepower, or hope that they can hold off the advance long enough with their standard Navy that they won't bankrupt themselves.

Even events that could break the game might just push it along further! Woohoo!

Obviously there are still problems to be ironed out, but that was an unexpected bonus in a way.

[Dark Hellion]

That's why I loved your original idea. With such a minor increase in mechanical complexity we made the political complexity tense and interesting at all times. Plus, trade becomes huge, and Space Dwarves trade caravans being raided by Space Orks is interesting again.

[rhoenix]

Academia Nut, your idea about Imperial ships sounds workable to me - yes, they're large, scary, and tremendously devastating - but require massively specialized upkeep to keep going. The tradeoffs sound good, and remind me of Star Wars in that respect.

So far, ladies and gentlemen, this is sounding good.

However (yes, you all knew this was coming), we need further discussions on finer points.

- Point allocation per turn. How do you think this should be determined?

- Research and development. How should this be handled?

- Stealth. In the old game, it had no cost, but had to be fitted on a 10 point or less ship. Ideas on this count?

Otherwise, this is sounding better and better, thanks to the input of everyone. Please, keep your thoughts, concerns, and ideas coming.

[Academia Nut]

I still content that you should get to allocate points towards your economy to produce new points each turn, so that you can focus on becoming an industrial superpower at the risk of painting a giant bullseye on your worlds.

But yeah, I think we're going to have to work on developing several "modules", upgrades to capacity other than straight "I have more points!" So a stealth module, an EW module, an interdiction module, etc. etc.

Oh, and for your enjoyment, here is the first bit of my metal barbarians idea:

(apologies to German speakers, technically I'm parodying what real metal bands do to the Germanic languages)

Metallkönige, Lords of Metal

The Awesome

The Metallkönige, or Könige for short, worship what they call The Awesome, a primal cosmic force that holds sway over all things. Belief in The Awesome permeates all levels of their culture, from people attributing bad luck to “Being Un-Awesome” to their scientist referring to the Grand Unified Force as “The Awesome Force”. From religion and superstition to science and technology, all things involve The Awesome.

This is because for the Könige, The Awesome is a real, quantifiable factor in their lives. Looking awesome, doing awesome things, and generally being awesome all allow for the Könige to tap into powers beyond the ken of normal humans. Some outside their nation call it magic or psychic abilities, but the Könige know that while such things are indeed awesome, they are not The Awesome they wield.

The most notable use of The Awesome in Könige society is in their ruling warrior caste, the Rückers. Blessed with Awesome, they can command enormous powers, channeled through their music and focused by enormous amplifier arrays. When combined with an Oblivion Folder amp system, a Rücker of at least gold rank can literally rock so hard as to punch a hole in the universe to allow for FTL travel. What the Könige call a power chord most other people call a broadside. In tactical combat, a Rücker shredding his guitar will cause his enemies to literally shred.

The Awesome is also the motivation behind some of the more nonsensical things the Könige do. For example, they know full well that the gaudy decorations they put on their armour would normally be counterproductive as they decorations would tend to catch blows, but they look awesome, so it actually makes their armour stronger. When it is pointed out that the levels of drugs their leaders take should kill them, not extend their lifespan, the Könige counter by pointing out that its more Awesome this way. And yes, they know that their Trollmäche don’t make sense from a military standpoint, they counter that one cannot deny that a giant robot with a guitar and built in amps is Awesome.

[Adrian Laguna]

I oppose the spending of points on economic investment for the simple reason that such things tend to take a couple years, at least, from when you start implementing them to when they pay-off. If it is reasonable to think the game would cover such time-scales, then I wouldn't be much opposed. However spending points on industry and getting a few months later has little basis on reality. Also, even if the return is minimal, it still encourages a bit of turtling.

[Dahak]

I'd like also to offer the idea that we should all decide on a set (or general level) of available technologies, especially for the FTL drives.
There have been numerous occasions, and I'm not quite innocent myself here, were player A said "I'm doing XXX" and player B answered "Not possible because of property XXX of my FTL drive". If we all could decide on one drive with a fixed set of properties, it would make things easier.

[Darkevilme]

Well its either that Dahak or make sure that if people do have such exotic FTL they actually list the effects and describe it explicitly. I'm more interested in the hyper limit and FTL speed questions at the moment but i suppose this needs to be covered either in isolating everyone to a single FTL drive system or by having people describe their systems.

For instance describing the Chamaran hyper corridor drive used in the last game, creates a portal ahead of the ship for it to enter at which point it travels along a hyperspace tunnel to the destination at which point it drops out of another portal into realspace. This means the Chamaran ship cannot change course mid jump though can drop out of hyper prematurely and spin up the drives again pointing in a different direction. They also cannot 'lurk' in hyperspace as you can't come to a halt inside the corridor. It has no special features with regards to interdiction and FTL sensors, the vessels can be brought out of hyperspace by an interdiction field along their path or stopped from generating a portal by the presence of said field. Vessels are no harder to detect in FTL than normal by the appropriate sensors.

Edit adding: Is there anything i left out of this description seen as i'm using it as a template for how we could do this?

Also a full agreed upon definition of what ECM,EW ETC means and what they can do in this game may be useful.

Edit two: However i know some people wont want to bother describing their FTL drives so we'll need a definition for a standard one perhaps or just let people say 'i have a drive like Hellion's' and use someone elses definition.

[Covenant]

Ehhh... of all the things to custom-wank, I think Hyperdrive is the one worst suited. That's a gameplay mechanic that should really be equal across the board. Maybe you enter or exit hyperspace differently, have varying speeds, but I think it should all work the same way, lest we have people coming up with awesome yet frustrating FTL tech that ends up offering massive strategic advantages that we normally wouldn't have wanted to allow--such as one person having a technology that utterly bypasses any form of interdiction.

I'm just being a rulesy sort of guy here because we can either go RedMage style and minmax the rules, or we can go Darkstar style and make up our own numbers. While I trust the mods to make smart decisions, I think that reducing the variables that could come up later as unbalancing backdoor strategies (the infamous ansibles) is wise.

There's nothing stopping someone from being incredibly creative and describing all their fun stuff, but it doesn't always need to DO something fancy. Maybe they have a unique hyperspace drive design, and it makes a big purple door instead of just a woosh, but does it actually need to have a gameplay effect?