STGOD 2k8 Planning thread

[Covenant]

Blah! You didn't read my original system writeup, did you? D__D

Why does it take 2 days? Is this enough time for a counterattack?

What's the relationship between months and turns?

I've merged these two because they address a good point.

Basically the game is divided up into combat turns and production turns, which is like days and months. I called them days, but they might not be--I know a lot of people wanted a combat turn to be an hour or so long, and that's cool, doesn't muss my system any. Either way we'll decide on that seperately as a group, which is why I prefer to call them 'combat turns' as it keeps it vague enough that we can clarify it later without forcing a lot of redoing of work.

A month, however, is a single 'production round' or 'production turn' that you get your production value at the end of, and can buy new ships and shit. So there's a whole bunch of 'combat turns' per 'production turn.' Just how many is up to be decided, but it'll be a bunch.

I refered to them as days to you, so I'll describe it in those terms. It takes two 'days' because I wrote in my setup that the Fleet Weight (the Basic Cost, not the full cost) is the total bombardment value of the fleet. So a planet of 500 shield can take a 300 point blast with 200 left. I also don't allow a partial blast, so you fire again on the second day to kill the planet--and bam, dead shield. Then the next day (after the shield was toasted) you can either invade or nuke the surface some.

Basically, one action per combat turn:
1) Shoot shields, or
2) Invade the planet, or
3) Nuke some surface area

As for reinforcements, it may, that's why I made it take a few combat turns (and why you couldn't blast a shield AND invade, we're trying to favor reinforcements there). If it takes 3 combat turns to conduct the space battle and 2 combat turns to do the shield, and one more combat turn to nuke the planet before the invasion... that's 6 combat turns total. If you had a fleet 5 combat turns away that you sent as soon as combat started, they'd be arriving to save your planet just as the nuclear bombardment splats a few cities. Riding to the rescue, quite heroically.

Where did this 300 figure come from? It's the same as the resistance value, is this where it came from? So when these troops land, they instantly (in game terms) retake the planet? No need to fight the enemy soldiers still on the planet?

That's correct. Read my system! ;p Battling for control of a planet in actual 'unit v unit' terms is messy, and I don't like the idea of people deploying troops to their own planets in order to make them harder to invade, as that just starts a spiral of ground unit inflation. By the end of the game, people's homeworlds would have troop levels in the thousands, which is ridiculous. Your worlds would be involate, and this is turtlebad.

Because of that, and because of the way I handle Resistance Values, people would be unable to deploy troops to their own worlds to make them extra resistant, but an enemy would be able to barricade a planet he his currently invading by swarming it with troops. That creates a surreal double-standard, and makes it hard for someone to actually invade a planet that is currently under partial control--even though it should be easier.

The value I use is arbitary, but human nature dictates that resistance value and troops deployed will never be too far from each other until people have a fuckton of troops to spend. When they do, allowing someone to quickly demolish them in a glorious liberation maneuver adds extra incentive not to be wasteful, as well as encouraging glorious liberations to happen at all. Otherwise it'd be easier to invade a planet that is fully controlled by the enemy than one of yours that is actively resisting! How insane would that be?

So I keep all values consistant, but make it reasonably easier to retake a world than take over one of the enemy. That's fair.

I am in favor of partial production mostly because of the fact that I see STGODs going for not that many turns before dying. I don't want to wait 3 turns to start using my newly conquered planet, when the entire game is only going to be 10 turns long anyways.

Partial production favors large worlds more and they're really not much harder to invade--just require a larger investment of ground troops. The space battles are equally as hard (given that someone could choose to defend a small world with equal veracity) and if you get partial production from a big world, large worlds are actually more useful to invade, which makes them all-around better. That's poor design for no reason other than laziness.

As for turn rate, part of the lack of turns is the lack of action. We're trying to make a more action-oriented game already. I have no idea why people wait so goddamn long to call one turn over and start the next, but the speed at which turns roll over is mostly arbitary as well. There's no reason to make it take so long, and if people are only going to play for 10 turns or so before dropping like flies, we really shouldn't play at all--or we should endeavor to make a system that encourages lots of action and reaction, not one that merely panders to the status quo.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Sorry to bust up this lovely play of Ground combat... But iI am wondering if the whole "Active Defence" "Active Offence" "Stelath" etc was either:
A) Finalized
B) Put somewhere in a big list where I can properly apply it to muy ships.

[Covenant]

Sorry to bust up this lovely play of Ground combat... But iI am wondering if the whole "Active Defence" "Active Offence" "Stelath" etc was either:
A) Finalized
B) Put somewhere in a big list where I can properly apply it to muy ships.

Not sure if it was finalized yet--I put forth a proposal that generated some controversy about the role of sensors and comms, but I think we settled that a while back, perhaps. If so I can write it up tomorrow. You can scroll back a few pages though and look for Hotfoot's post commenting on the summary of his system I made--they are basically the best description of how it should work.

[Covenant]

Man that was a long way back. Okay--here's a very, very short description version of the ship attributes. No fluff, just mechanics. These are still in flux but I'm using Hotfoot's latest post to make it the most clear as possible. Can someone find me, like, the SDN wiki? I could put these things up there on my talk page and just link to that directly.

Crossroads, I do apologize for length. I wanted to explain things, and propose a few twists on this to make everything more concise and condensed. I like rules that reference each other instead of other arbitrary systems, and I'd not yet posted these with the changes Hotfoot suggested.

Note On Combat:
Regular combat between vessels uses the Fleet Weight (basic cost) as an attack and hitpoint value. At the moment, it seems likely that ships will do around 10% of their Weight per combat turn in damage to the enemy, which is spread about by the defender to whatever ships and in whatever fashion they choose. This value is just a ballpark figure, based on the idea that 2 combat rounds and then an escape would be the average combat, and that the average combat between equal sides should cause around 25% casualties to the loser (10% per 2 combat turns and 5% during escape attempt) Keep this in mind when thinking out why Improved Offensives and Defenses are useful.

This is the non-fluff version, so for themely descriptions of why and what these things are, look to my earlier post on page 15ish or so.

==========
(S) Stealth Systems: I'd say this is, by far, the most confusing stat. Basically, it works off a percent of your ship's Non-Stealth cost (not Weight, total cost except stealth systems) and gives you a number. That number is your Stealth Rating. The stealth rating must be surpassed by someone's C3 systems to be detected, so a small ship with full stealth requires a huge sensor array to catch, whereas a big ship with full stealth requires a less complex one. Ships in stealth can't fire or move sublight, but they can travel through hyperspace while stealthed. The wierdness comes in how you decide the rating--see the balance note below.

• Countered By: Sensors and Comms. These can see you in Hyperspace.
  Counters: None, stealth only functions on the big map to hide you. Maybe works in-combat too but only if you wanna hide like a turtle--no sneaking around.
  Stat Bonus: Invisible Strategic Movement. That's pretty much it.
  Balance Note: Stealth, unlike some systems, benefits small ships more than big ones. While you're limited to a 1-10 scale, getting a 'rating' of stealth actually costs an amount equal to 10% of your ship's total non-stealth value, even if you can never invest more than 10 points into the ship's stealth systems. You following so far? Here's an example. Each stealth rating costs 10% of total cost. If your ship cost 10, 10% of 10 is 1. So each stealth point would cost 1, meaning a 10+10Stealth ship gets a stealth rating of 10.
  
  Like I said, it's complex. Here's Hotfoot's reply (paraphrased) when I asked how it works:

  Question: Would a 1+10Stealth ship be the same as a 40+10Stealth ship?
  
  Answer: No, it'd be better. 10% of a ship's other costs = 1 stealth rating. So the 1 point ship would have effective stealth rating of 10 (well, maybe higher, but you get the idea), the 40 point ship would have effective stealth of 2.5

  So a 30+5D+5O+10S ship (total 50) is essentially a 40+10S ship for the purposes of stealth. 10% of 40 is 4, so that means each rating of stealth for that ship costs 4 of the +10S points, meaning you end up with a ship that has a +10S but only a +2.5 Stealth Rating.
  
  One of the oddnesses is that actually a 1+10S ship ends up having a stealth rating of 100, which is pretty hilarious. But 100 is as good as 11, so it doesn't matter, they're both above maximum C3 strength.
  
  I'm going to propose that all ships start off with a +1 stealth rating, but that Planets actually have a C3 rating of 1. This allows them to always spot an unstealthed ship, but not allowing fleets on their own in deep space to track other fleets without sensor-ships. This makes sensors useful, and also makes stealth useful by raising the level of the smallest possible 'Perfect Cloak' vessel unable to be spotted to 10, which is more fair to stealthers. Technically an 11+10S ship ends up with a rating of 10.0909, but we shouldn't bother counting anything less than a tenth of a Stealth Rating. It also raises the stealth rating of a 40+10S ship to 3.5, which is an aesthetically pleasing approximately 1/3rd rating, which is better than 1/4th and makes having a few radar picket ships important.
  
  ...okay, now that that's done... onto the rest.

(O) Improved Offenses: Whereas normal 'fleet weight' points are thrown into the normal damage pool and assigned to ships of the defender's choosing, these act as sniper damage, essentially. They may also be given a more leniant computation--doing about 1 damage per 4 point (25%) rather than 1 in 10 (10%) like normal fleet weight as stated above. The advantage of +O is that you're able to single out specific targets, something you're not able to do otherwise. It also ignores +D, so your foe can't call it soaked.

• Countered By: None, nothing actually messes with your sniper damage.
  Counters: Nothing, this only kills ships, it has no other purpose.
  Stat Bonus: Basically just raises your damage per turn, but doesn't give you any extra hitpoints like basic fleet weight. Makes glass cannons.
  Balance Note: It's a pretty standard gameplay convention of TGODs that you get to decide which of your units die. Since these rules are just for ballparking, sniper damage is just a ballpark too and should be bartered for between players ("I'll let you kill my flagship if you lose your cruiser squad") but this prevents someone from getting too minmaxy. You don't need sniper damage, but I assume everyone will take some anyway.

(D) Active Defenses: These act like damage soaks and fuck with people's sensors too. The general reason you want them is because they reduce the amount of offense of your enemy. My guess is that we'll agree that 1 point of defense offsets 1 (or maybe 2) enemy point of attack, meaning that a fleet that has a total +100D would reduce an enemy fleet with a fleet weight of 500 to a weight of 400 for damage calcs.

• Countered By: None, this is a Passive Effect. If you wanna ignore someone's defense though, you can use +Offense.
  Counters: Improved Offenses, Sensors and Comms. That's right, defenses fuck your opponent's sensors--that's because Defenses include a lot of ECM and pattern scramblers such. At the moment comms don't do too much though.
  Stat Bonus: None, does not increase ship Hitpoints. All this does is reduce the damage you take per turn.
  Balance Note: You add up your fleet's entire Defense total, so you can essentially decide which ships to screen and which not to by how you assign damage. Defenses don't subtract an entire point of damage, because ships only do about 10% of their weight per turn in damage. The advantage of +D is that while it gives you no damage or hitpoints extra, reducing your enemy's damage per-turn is pretty useful if used strategically. You can't afford to just load up on it though, or else someone's +O will pierce your armor and pop you.

(C3) Sensors and Comms: Sensors are used to detect stealth, but the more you have, the better you're able to resist an enemy's +Defensive ECM fuckery. I'm not sure what this fuckery entails, but it won't be gamebreaking. I presume having a huge comm/sensor advantage will be useful for asking the GM's to let you do higher than average damage. I'll include some thoughts on this on my Space Combat rule proposition.

• Countered By: Active Defenses.
  Counters: Stealth. A single comm ship will be able to alert the entire fleet that there's a stealthed badguy, but a single comm ship is probably going to be the first thing the enemy Space-Submarine kills with it's +Offense torpedoes.
  Stat Bonus: This probably will 'fudge' numbers a bit, helping you do a few percent more. If you have a massive communication superiority over their level of defense, expect a good fudging bonus. None of this is absolute though, remember. Only take these numbers as 'concrete' if you're a douchebag and don't want to barter with your foe.
  Balance Note: It's a bit unfair that a single comm ship can point out all the stealth ships out there, but stealth isn't used in-combat anyway. Still, avoid making your radar pickets too few and flimsy, or else they'll all die. And without FTL sensors, the only reply you'll be getting from your fleets in deep space is "We can't see shit."

(I) Interdiction Gear: This stuff lets you slow down someone's escape attempt, letting you pound on them for more turns than they want, and it also can fuck up people attempting to fly past you--letting you interdict people in deep space. The better it is, the better you can stop people. While the mechanics are not precise, basically they work like Star Wars interdictors--you only need one to stop a fleet, but if you only have one it'll get blown to fuck and gone real fast by an extremely annoyed enemy fleet.

• Countered By: Hyperdrives. Improved hyperdrives reduce the hassle these things cause by letting you blast back into space better.
  Counters: Hyperdrives. But if you have good interdictors, you can pothole a speed demon pretty well.
  Stat Bonus: None. All these do is operate strategically.
  Balance Note: The way these interact with hyperdrives is a bit unclear, but I'm going to be advocating they work the same way as stealth versus sensors, as you'll see below. Really, a lot of these systems are support skills--you don't need lots of them per fleet, except for redundancy. You can get full benefit from one +10, but just wait, someone will spread a bunch of +5's across several battleships and you'll be crying that you can't ever escape and can't kill his interdictors either.

(H) Hyperdrives: The better these are, the faster you go. I think these should operate the same as stealth--on a normal 1-10 scale, but benefitting the smaller ships more. Every ship is assumed to have a hyperdrive rating of 1, normally. If you've got a rating better than your foe's Interdictors, you can escape fast, otherwise you're stuck for another turn or so while he beats the shit out of you.

• Countered By: Interdiction Gear. As above, if someone makes a lot of interdictors, you're probably going to have a harder time getting around.
  Counters: Interdiction Gear. But if you've got a lot of speedy ships, you'll be able to ignore most of these minor inconveniences.
  Stat Bonus: Additional Strategic Movement speed, as well as faster escape speed. The higher your rating, the faster you go.
  Balance Note: Like stealth, I think this should operate on a fractional level. Using the same mechanics, every ship has a Hyperdrive Rating of +1 automatically and for free, and without an interdictor level of +1 purchased specially, no interdiction takes place and all ships move the same speed.
  
  But following the above, a small ship can get a speed of INSANELY FAST by putting a few points into it. I'm not sure if we should put a cap on it or what, but I find it kinda funny that you might be able to achieve nearly realtime space travel by having a ship that's 99 percent Hyperdrive. It'd fly in system and be obliterated instantly, but it'd sure arrive in style. Consider it the Ferrari of personal transports. Regardless, as you approach cruiser sizes near 10, you top out at +11H as the fastest uninterceptable ships for the purposes of Interdiction (just as you reached the largest possible invisisble ships for the purposes of stealth detection), and from then on an Interdiction rating of +10 and below are able to net your vessels out of space. And a big ship with +10H would have a maximum speed of +3.5 rather than +10. I was originally against this idea, but I'm following Hotfoot's battle-tested wisdom on this subject, and if we use the Stealth mechanics to goven it, the values do make sense.

==========

[Crossroads Inc.]

No need to apologize Cove! I can finally finish off the Bases for my own Military ships ((as well as let others pic them apart))

“ Kushawni National Guard ” ((580 Points))
Before the Collapse of Holy Terra, The Kushawni Province needed only a marginal home defense force. With only six planets in a small and compact sector of space, the CityMind calculated that heavy militarization was not needed, and only a small set of duel fleets would be sufficient to patrol the Province. If threats of a significant level ever presented themselves, the plan was for the National Guard to hold until Imperial help arrived. Unfortunately with the collapse of Terra, the Kushawni have found themselves woefully ill prepared for the oncoming storm.

“Tekonotron Class BattleShip” – 20 +5O = 25 x 2
Once the pride of the twin Kushawni Fleets, these ships seem woefully underpowered in the face of an angry and vicious galaxy. While not up to par with anything the Imperium once had, they can still hold their own against many large Capital ships.

“Benta Class BattleCruiser” - 15 +5SP = 20 x 6
Built to flank the Battleships in combat, these ships we’re constructed to compliment the Battleships raw firepower with a high-speed weapon system. Far more meanvurable then larger ships, their can engage several small capital ships at once.

"Support Destroyer" - 10 +5D = 15 x 11
“Combat Destroyer" - 10 +5O = 15 x 11
The primary Escorts and patrol ships in the Kushawn Nationa Guard. They were constructed in two distinct types for either offensive or defensive actions. Support Destroyers have been constructed with additional layers of amour shielding and extensive redundancies and backup systems to maximize active life during combat. Mean while the ‘Combat Class’ Destroyer has an extensively upgraded weapon system including high powered long range forward Turbolasers.

"Sensors ship" - 10 +5C3 = 15 x 8
With the intense focus on trade and cargo ships going in and out of the Kushawni Province, smugglers and cloaked ships have always been a problem. Also illegal broadcasts for shady business deals have needed to be stamped out as well. To combat this, a standard Destroyer hull was retrofitted with advanced Electronics for both functions. As a result a Sensor ship is ideal for ferreting out cloaked ships, or jamming long range communications that don’t have explicite Kushawni authorization.

“The Imperial Kushawni Starforce” ((90 Points))
The Instant Terra was destroyed, everything changed. The CityMind knew it could no longer relay upon the Imperium for help from large threats and thus began a rapid and radical Militarization of it’s forces. It scraped designs for the current “National Guard” and drew up plans for a proper military that could go toe to toe with threats to it’s people. The result was a line of ships that looked radically different from what was currently in production. The new ships we’re design directly for Long range focused attacks. They would be cold and functional Wedge ships, designed to focus all fire upon a single target at any one time.
More so they would be including military technologies that would ordinarily be out of reach or specifically banned from small-scale systems. Now with the Imperium gone, exotic weapon systems we’re fare game.
However such a leap of Scale in production was not without a price. So far, only the Heaviest ships of this new production, the new Exelion class Battleships have been built.

Exelion Class Battleship - 38 +5O +2D = 45 x 2
Luxion Class Cruiser –30 +3O +2I = 35x0
Hexeon Class Destroyer. –20 +3D +2C3 =25x0
Durexion Class Corvette –5 +5SP = 10x0

[Covenant]

As far as I know there's no sublight speed bonus, or any idea what such a bonus would do. Could that be additional hyperspeed instead, perhaps? Or an interdictor.

And your +Defense ships would also able to help soak the heat from other ships, helping the entire fleet live longer, so make some note of that.

[Academia Nut]

OOB writing note, how many ship points do we get now? And world points? Is it 1500 and 60, or 2000 and 100?

Oh, and can I petition for aggressor status to get an extra 175 points for ships? I promise (and want) to attack within the first time, and I'll pretty much be trying to stir up shit from the first in game post, if not sooner.

Also, I presume that we don't buy planetary defences anymore?

[Crossroads Inc.]

As far as I know there's no sublight speed bonus, or any idea what such a bonus would do. Could that be additional hyperspeed instead, perhaps? Or an interdictor.

And your +Defense ships would also able to help soak the heat from other ships, helping the entire fleet live longer, so make some note of that.

Bah that was my Mistake, those "SP" should be "H" for increased hyperspeed.

EDIT: worked out a bit more of the ships to round out my fleet:

“Civilian Conscripts” ((294 Points))
When Terra Collapsed, The CityMind looked for new ships everywhere it could. In this regard, it called for a public Conscription of any able bodied Tradeship that could be fitted with small, yet powerful military grade weapons. While even the larges of private cargo ships we’re ill equipped for military duty, the numbers of new ships have filled a vital roll in system Patrol and escort duties.
One down side has been the vast amount of different ships to work with, nd any sort of Standardization with them has long since been given up by the Military.
((A Note. Any self respecting Cargo Captain has their ship tweaked one way or the other, so far, most of those who have been conscripted all have highly enhanced HyperDrives))

Large Cargo ships – 5+1H x 25
Small Cargo ships – 3+1H x 31
“The NovaOutlaw” –4 +1H x 1
A small sub standard 80metre Cargoship that is piloted by the fearless ‘Genea Solwynn’ While categorized as a sub-escort, one must never underestimate it’s pilot or history.

[Academia Nut]

Tenacious class destroyer: 3+1S+1D+1FTL+2Seige(Se) = 8 total

These ships are the designated "planet shankers" of the Konige fleet, built to operate in 8 to 10 ship fleets to quickly and effectively overwhelm the defences of smaller worlds.

Cacofonix class electronic warfare cruiser: 4+1I+10D = 15 total

One word describes these ships: annoying. The Konige keep them around their larger fleets to protect their larger ships and in the hopes they'll be blown up.

Rammstein class planetary assault cruiser: 15+3I+3D+1C3+10Se = 32 total

When the Konige plan on assaulting larger planets, they bring along the Rammstein class, equipped with some of the heaviest weapons available. While extremely slow to target, they can still hold their own in space battles.

Dragon class heavy cruiser: 20+2D+3O+2FTL+3C3 = 30 total

Fast and agile, the dragon seeks out prey and lays into them with extreme prejudice. The smallest Konige class designed exclusively for space combat rather than planetary attack or jamming.

Manowar class battleship: 30+1D+5O = 36 total

Another dedicated ship killer, the Manowar class is more than capable of mauling other capital ships while still taking a beating of its own.

Megadeth class dreadnought: 40+5I+3D+2C3 = 50 total

The pride of the Konige fleets, the Megadeths are built to hold enemy ships in place and pummel them into oblivion.

Assuming 1500 points:

Tenacious x 50 = 400
Cacofonix x 10 = 150
Rammstein x 10 = 320
Dragon x 10 = 300
Manowar x 5 = 180
Megadeth x 3 = 150

Assuming 2000 + 175

Tenacious x 65 = 528
Cacofonix x 17 = 255
Rammstein x 16 = 512
Dragon x 15 = 450
Manowar x 5 = 180
Megadeth x 5 = 250

[Crossroads Inc.]

:EDIT: updated OOB

[Academia Nut]

Hmmm... curious question. How do the sensor scrambling effects of Active Defence work at interstellar ranges? Would it be possible to set up a jammed zone, that while a gigantic fucking "I'M RIGHT HERE" sign would also conceal the number and sizes of ships you have moving about? Or do we just say that only works in combat?

[Crossroads Inc.]

Hmmm... curious question. How do the sensor scrambling effects of Active Defence work at interstellar ranges? Would it be possible to set up a jammed zone, that while a gigantic fucking "I'M RIGHT HERE" sign would also conceal the number and sizes of ships you have moving about? Or do we just say that only works in combat?

That seems like a LOT of extra work and Im not sure what long term benafits you would reap from doing it.

Also, Want to run my Main ship by everyone now that we're doing ship finalizations.
Bentuselion - 40 +10D +5H +5S = 60 x 1

EDIT: Posting my Buster machine stats for examination as well:
BUSTER MACHINES ((221 Points))
With the advent in perfect Man/Machine interface, a new leap in military application was applied. Since embracing the mix between Man and Machine, more and more construct began to resemble Humanoid shapes. Indeed many standard machines, from construction equipment to military gear, became more humanoid and functional as people ‘Became’ those machines. The Pinnacle of these Humanoid machines came to be known as “Busters”. For Decades this name was given to any Humanoid warmachine that distinguished itself. However in the past 50 years, the CityMind drew up plans for a standardized ‘BusterMachine’. These machines we’re immensely more sophisticated then anything that came before them. Their ability to move across space at blinding speeds and come to asset the neddy in moments earned them a Heroic status amongst many of the Kushawni people.

ProductionLine BusterMachine:
06 +1O +1D +1H +1S= 10 x 17

Specialized Busters
BusterMachines have always been thought of as “Living Machines” and the oldest among them have indeed grown beyond their normal production standards. Adding components and in some cases completely overhauling their original structure. Of these, numbers 12, 14 and 8 are the most radically different.
BusterMachine #12
10 +1O +2D +2H +2S = 17 x 1
BusterMachine #14
10 +2O +2D +1H +2S = 17 x 1
BusterMachine #8
10 +3O +2D +1H +1S = 17 x 1

[Academia Nut]

It's more for being a sneaky bastard in RP. Do I have a huge fleet incoming, or is it just a couple of Cacofonix class ships trying to draw your defences away?

Should you be paying attention to the hand waving the red flag or the one holding the sword?

And your ship looks okay so long as you're going to spend the attribute points on the shipyard to build it over 50 points.

Oh, and I think I've figured out how to work Imperial technology. Since it seems to involve making things bigger and nastier, we can allow it to increase the normal caps on ship extras. Say something like:

Total cost = (Total cap increase)*10 + Number of ships it can be applied to

So if you want to increase the max stealth of 30 of your ships by 5, it would cost 5*10+30 = 80 attribute points. And you have to declare a planet where you keep the facilities that produce this stuff and they can be captured. Perhaps an increase in the attribute cost for being a barbarian since they don't have such weaknesses as having stuff they spend attribute points on being capturable.

[Crossroads Inc.]

It's more for being a sneaky bastard in RP. Do I have a huge fleet incoming, or is it just a couple of Cacofonix class ships trying to draw your defences away?

Should you be paying attention to the hand waving the red flag or the one holding the sword?

And your ship looks okay so long as you're going to spend the attribute points on the shipyard to build it over 50 points.

We all know that the problem with a single Über ship is that it can't be everywhere at once. But between hyper speed and Stealth, if you don't where a ship is, it could be ANYwhere.

As for shipyards big enough for it. At100km Tekonotron-1 has more than enough space for immense DeepHarbors to have been constructed to house a vessel of that size.

[Academia Nut]

No no no, I'm saying that you set up a spot on the sensor screen where there is just a blob of noise. Is it a ruse or a 500 point rape fleet coming in? I'm not talking about hiding an Ubership, I'm talking about misdirection and that sort of thing. Magicians get away with their illusions because they focus attention away from what they are really doing.

Let's put it this way: say you see on your long range sensors two large blobs of noise. One could be a huge fleet and the other a distraction, both could be medium sized fleets, or both could be distractions. What do you do? Do you hope both blobs are roughly the same size and split your forces? Do you gamble and pick one and hope you get the big fleet, or that it's not two medium sized fleets? And if both are distractions, did you miss a stealthed group that was attacking along a third vector?

[Crossroads Inc.]

See aca.. this is why you are so much better at this than I am

[Academia Nut]

I figure a good rule would be that if you have a ship with C3 equal to or greater than the highest D in an enemy fleet then you get an accurate count of hulls and their sizes, otherwise you just see noise. And for range, let's say that every day's travel reduces your C3 by 1. So let's say that someone shows up with 5D at the edge of your long range sensors. All you know is that someone has at least one ship with 5D out there. The only way you'll know more is if you send out a ship to take a look. If you send out a ship with 5C3 then you have to push it less than a day in towards the source to actually find out what is there, while 6C3 ship only has to get within a day's travel to find out what is there.

As for long range sensors, how about we say that every world has a C3 of 1 extending out for 5 days. Improved Sensor Nets could be used to increase the effectiveness, say every 50 points buys you an extra point of C3 for your worlds. So if you say spend 100 attribute points on sensor nets, you can have 3C3 in a 5 day radius about your worlds, decaying away to 2 at 6 days, 1 at 7 days, and 0 beyond that.

[Covenant]

That all sounds decent.

And I always wondered about defense blocking people's C3. I figured that since they're active defenses, they're noisy--not stealthy--but that you could essentially set up 'dead zones' that are difficult to scan into and thus good places to hide ships. IE, it's not so easy to scan for enemy stealthed vessels within their own safe harbors.

I don't really see anything wrong with the idea. It makes a pile of scanner-ships (or some daring courier scouts) viable options. I like it when we favor more than just offense and defense.

Two tangental questions:

Are we doing distance in terms of Hours or Days? And, are combat turns going to be in Hours or Days? If they're the same time-frame, we could do reinforcements seamlessly. If they're not (travel takes days, combat takes hours) then we've got a slightly more confusing situation--and it makes reinforcements harder to do.

It basically just depends on how we draw our maps. It could be that distances between factions are so huge that it takes days to travel them, even if friendly worlds can be travelled between in mere hours due to proximity.

[Academia Nut]

Well, it's like this. We've already decided that the old Empire should have had a radius of about two weeks travel, and thus getting from world to world should take hours at least. If we give days warning, then there is time to prepare defences. You'll basically have one of those hurricane track sheets with a cone showing where an incoming ship could be and thus plan accordingly, although that would be more an in-universe thing than something that would be done for everyone.

For reinforcements to really be effective, they would have to be in the general area. Again, you don't know what the enemy is thinking (unless you have good intel on them), so its a gamble. Do you concentrate forces around the world that you think is most likely to be hit, or do you spread out a bit and hope that once the attack comes you have enough time to reinforce. Do you head out to engage the enemy and hope that they aren't luring you into a trap? If they have ships with stealth capacities or extra FTL speed, they could be trying to draw your defenders away from your worlds.

And all those considerations are when you know what the enemy has. If you're one of my neighbours then you better invest in some good C3 equipment or all you're going to know is that your sensors are crying out "A-ah-ahh-ah, ah-ah-ahh-ah"

[Hawkwings]

The Empire was 2 weeks from end to end. I'm thinking that a splinter group, no matter how powerful, will only have its borders a maximum of two days apart, and that's for an unusually shaped territory. My faction idea has their planets no more than 24 hours away from each other. So I think travel and combat can both be done in hours. A short skirmish could take like 4 hours, and a major battle could take 16 hours. We could have combat in 2-hour blocks, so two hours per combat turn, 12 combat turns in a day.

Covenant: You say that I am unfairly encouraging invasion of large planets through the partial production scheme. Well, why not? Large planets *are* better targets to invade, precisely because you can get more bang for your buck. Small planets are easy to conquer because nobody cares too much about them. Big planets are harder to conquer because that's where the home fleet is going to be. But they offer more reward because you can get partial production.

Besides, aren't we trying to encourage attacking? You've given the advantage to the defenders by making small worlds proportionally harder to conquer. If I wanted to min/max right now, I'd say that my civ consists of 100 1 pt space colonies close to each other. Then I just keep my home fleet on patrol, and any incursion would be met with the full defense force. And even if they defeat it, the enemy only gets 10 pts of production anyways.

We need to provide more incentive for invasion than reasons to not invade. Leaving out space combat for now, because that's the same no matter what size the planet is...

The incentive for invading small worlds is that you gpacify quickly. I see no major reasons to not invade a small world, so that's +1 in favor of attacking.

For a large world, the incentive is that you get more production and hurt the enemy more than if you were to invade a small world. That's +1. But the downside is that it takes much longer pacify, which the enemy could use to counter-invade and take it back. Back to 0. So we add the Partial Production mechanic, letting you use the planet even when it's not fully taken over. +1.

Also...

I really don't like how a counter-invader could defeat the enemy fleet, land X number of troops, and instantly get control over the planet again, even if the invader had 99% control, or a fraction of a turn left to go before full pacification. You mean the effects of my psychic assimilators are instantly removed because my occupying troops are gone?

These are my two main issues with your system. And I do believe that they are big important issues. Otherwise, I think it's fine.

[Academia Nut]

Well, if space combat turns take about an hour and the average combat will take about 2 turns, then getting in reinforcements will be a major pain in the ass unless you have them already waiting or choose to prolong the fight to give time for reinforcements to arrive.

Also, for intelligence operations, another important part of all this, might I suggest that we PM our requests to a handy mod, who will then decide the general specifics of what happens. So if say you have a good intelligence modifier in comparison to the target's counter-intelligence and ask an unambitious question like "What is the general disposition of X's forces?" the mod will put on the mod hat and PM the target and request the information. All the target will know, and metagame at that, is that someone was looking for certain information, and it might just be a random mod check. On the other hand, if you screw up then the mod will inform the target who did it. Screw up really badly all the target will know you tried it, and you won't know shit went down and you'll get bad intel.

Of course, this brings up the question of who exactly the mods should be, especially important now that it looks like we're a week or two away from actual gameplay.

[Hawkwings]

Well, as long as you have a home defense fleet, and they aren't on the other side of your territory, a they could probably respond to a mid-sized battle that lasted 8 hours or so.

And yes! You most definitely could try to draw a battle out for a long time!

[Academia Nut]

Well, currently the way the rules are written neither fleet will last much longer than 10 hours as that's about when they'll start collapsing from taking excessive damage. If an attacker doesn't have space superiority within 2 or 3 turns, then they'll probably bug out seeing as having to face reinforcements after being involved in a full out brawl is not a good idea unless they have a trick up their sleeve.

I suppose what we could do is have long range sensors on planets have their range in days, while ships have a range of hours. So the standard nets will spot foreign traffic a day out and thus have to deploy intrepid scouts really close to the enemy formations to get a good read on them if they have any significant form of active defences up and running. This would give enough time for most nations to mobilize in the face of an attack.

[Covenant]

Well, alright. I dislike the idea of partial production control, but I suppose that keeping track of the current production of a planet only needs a single line of simple math (current time held divided by total time required) and would only need to be done one or two or three times or so, which isn't much of a burden on the players.

So if people really like it, I suppose there's no reason not to have partial control. I'd cede that element without complaint.

As for space combats, generally I figured people didn't want to do TONS of turns--2 or 3 seems reasonable for most people, right? But for a planet defense, you could easily assign the damage points in a really absurd, expensive, foolish fashion just to delay the enemy. It'll end up putting your entire defense fleet into drydock to assign them all to near-death levels of damage, but you'd be able to delay combat for a long time then. Epic holdout maneuver!

But yes, this does make reinforcing difficult. We could make planets all within several hours of each other, but have battles take a day or so to resolve. I thought people said earlier that they were hoping for about 2 hours or so of combat though, so I just made up the 10 percent per hour figure off the cuff.

[Academia Nut]

Hmm... I suppose this would be a good time to ask, but how will damage affect combat capacity? Will it be "Firepower decreases with loss of health" or "I still have 1HP left so I can still beat face" or something in between? Especially considering all the specials we've got.

But yeah, if you're defending a world and expect to be reinforced, then hanging on would be the best thing to do, as the attacker is likely to back off rather than be caught between a rock and a hard place. Of course, if the attacker has enough D to completely fuck over your comms, he might be able to fuck up your reinforcement plans. Defenders bitterly fighting to the last for reinforcements that will not come when they could have run and fought more effectively another day is the stuff people talk about later. Both the epic last stand and the sneakiness of the guy who did it.

Also, with interdiction fields, do reinforcements come in at the edge of the field? Because that could affect how close to the battle they could get. If reinforcements arrive in system but will take more than a turn or two to get to the fight, things could go sour for the guys already there real fast. If they expected to only have to hold for two rounds but have to hold for four or five, they could take a shitpile more of a kicking than they were initially prepared for.