An SDNW Proposal

[CmdrWilkens]

I'm so absolutely tempted to see if I could actually import my faction from the old ASVS STGOD Mk 2. The big issue is the whole worship of Sauron and the cult of Wilkens that goes along with it may be a tad more difficult to manage.

[Steve]

I'm so absolutely tempted to see if I could actually import my faction from the old ASVS STGOD Mk 2. The big issue is the whole worship of Sauron and the cult of Wilkens that goes along with it may be a tad more difficult to manage.

Adapt it into some esoteric religion that popped up?

[Steve]

Now on to armies:

Planetary Forces:

Planetary forces relating to troops will be given minimum prices by troop quality, with modifiers to show the basic cost of specific gear categories. There are four levels of troop quality and four military kit quality levels.

Kit is rated as follows; Elite, Regular, Baseline, and Old.

Elite forces are the cream of the crop. They are your empire's most skilled, most highly-trained soldiers, with tremendous espirit d'corps and morale as well as skill that makes them excellent at offensive maneuver, at the cost of expense and raising/rebuilding time (it takes more time to train replacement Elites). They can use any kind of Kit, but you're best to give them the Elite stuff because they'll put it to best use.

Regulars are the professional forces of your military, led by career officers and NCOs with volunteers and/or top-qualifying draftees to fill out the ranks. In battle they will perform quite well, particularly on the defensive. They are given the training to use Elite kit though for economic reasons most Regular units will use Regular equipment and even, in some nations with stricter budgets, Baseline equipment.

Conscripts are not professional units, instead consisting of citizens/subjects called into National Service and given basic training for whatever job the military decides to give them. They defend about as well as Regulars but their offensive spirit tends to vary; a charismatic, beloved sergeant or lieutenant can sway his troops to advance indomitably under heavy fire but for the most part conscripts do not do well in the attack unless they are aided by sufficient fire support to keep enemy fire suppressed - the lone exception are the battle-tested Conscript units that have learned to survive enough that they advance with better morale. Conscripts are typically outfitted with Baseline equipment for economic reasons but a wealthy nation can give Conscript units Regular equipment and see it used effectively, especially by veteran units. Conscripts cannot use Elite kit.

Screaming Hordes are like Conscripts, but without the discipline or training. They are a literal horde, usually made to attack only through A) the promise of loot and/or B) the threat of death at the hands of their leaders if they fail to do so. On the defense they can hold for a time, but their defensive morale is fragile and will crack easily. It is not hard to raise a Screaming Horde formation; what is hard is keeping it in line and preventing it from wrecking your forces' relations with the civilian populace of whatever world you station them on. A Screaming Horde's lack of training means they don't have a hope of using Regular or Elite kit, and while Baseline kit is usable for them,

Basic Army costs are determined as so:

$1:
500,000 Screaming Horde
250,000 Conscripts
100,000 Regulars
50,000 Elites

Once you've decided your allotment of troops of these qualities, you apply the following multipliers to give a base cost with specific kit types.

Old: 1x
Baseline: 1.5x
Regular: 2x
Elite: 3x

That means if you want 50,000 Elites with Elite Kit, you spend $3 - the same will get you 100,000 Regulars with elite kit. $1.5, meanwhile, buys you any of the above mentioned types with Baseline kit.


Interstellar Transport Rules:

Having an army is nice and everything, but for interstellar war you need ships to move them in.

Any hull type can be turned into a troop carrier. The carrying capacity of a warship depends upon its hull cost. A starship can carry 1,000 troops per $1 of hull cost; a spacecraft can only carry 500 (Reflects different structural capability) per $1.

For example, a basic Heavy Hull, worth $125, can be used for a troop carrier holding 125,000 troops. A baseline shuttle, of which 10 can be gotten for $1, can carry only 50 troops, a $.20 hyperlight shuttle can carry 100, a $1 gunboat hull can carry 500.

Any vessel with troop carrying capacity specified is considered to sacrifice some defense, speed, and armament capacity for it, sufficent that a troop carrier configured for its maximum possible load is presumed to only carry sufficient defensive protection and firepower to secure landing zones and is incapable of combating starships (it still has anti-spacecraft capability).


Carrier Rules:

Any Starship Hull can be configured to carry Fighters and Gunboats. Superheavies can be configured to carry Ultralights and Ultraheavies can carry Ultralights and Lights.

A Hull size's carrying capacity is equivalent to half its cost. For example, a Medium Hull ship of $80 cost can carry $40 worth of craft (that's 200 basic Fighter hulls or 40 basic Gunboats as a max exclusive capacity).

The same rules for troop transports' combat capabilities apply to hulls made into carriers, though mostly in terms of anti-starship firepower; a carrier, unlike a troop transport, is presumed to have at least mediocre, if not moderate, defensive capability between armored hull and energy shielding.

[Steve]

Beo thinks I should express the basic cost of army forces in a basic "$1/500,000 troops" figure with the different levels of quality expressed as multipliers. Would anyone find that easier?

[Ryan Thunder]

Yeah.

[Agent Sorchus]

I think there should be a disclaimer to the army numbers for those people that are thinking of going 40k on us with the super-soldiers. We shouldn't say no outright, but say that what ever force you pay $x for fights equivalent to the number of normal men that same price could buy. Additionally the ratio of equivalent normal bodies to the actual super soldier bodies is used to modify the estimated recruitment times. So for 50 Space marines that are equivalent to 2000 normal men it would take 40 times as long to recruit and replace loses.

This should all just be considered general guidelines for fun and fair play, while allowing people to branch out in their concepts as much as possible.

[loomer]

How would I go about representing the Worldship of the Mari? Sector points or part of my starter fleet?

[Steve]

I think there should be a disclaimer to the army numbers for those people that are thinking of going 40k on us with the super-soldiers. We shouldn't say no outright, but say that what ever force you pay $x for fights equivalent to the number of normal men that same price could buy. Additionally the ratio of equivalent normal bodies to the actual super soldier bodies is used to modify the estimated recruitment times. So for 50 Space marines that are equivalent to 2000 normal men it would take 40 times as long to recruit and replace loses.

This should all just be considered general guidelines for fun and fair play, while allowing people to branch out in their concepts as much as possible.

Cost equivalency was being used to measure relative effectiveness anyway. Though lots of money poured into Elites doesn't necessarily mean they're super-soldiers as opposed to being really well-armed forces.

[Steve]

How would I go about representing the Worldship of the Mari? Sector points or part of my starter fleet?

Describe?

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

On the subject of GWAR and P-Funk, back in STGOD 2k8 there was an entire civilization based on heavy metal, as well as my faction of Haruhi worshippers. If those two were able to pass muster back then, well...

[Steve]

What's Haruhi?


And one last item to tend to:

System Defenses:

Every planet is presumed to have a planetary militia of some form, be it reservist formations or literal town militias in the Colonies, also things like paramilitary gendarme forces. These forces are nominally not available for war, but rather mobilize and deploy when a planet is faced with invasion.

Much the same way, a planet or solar system's defense forces also control planet-based craft and weapons, including anti-starship artillery, minefields, theater shields, space stations, and orbital defensive weapon platforms. The quality and quantity of these forces varies by kind of Sector: Home Sectors have the best defenses and Colony Sectors have the least.

Even a Home Sector major system's defenses are not impregnable of course; a large enough enemy fleet with sufficient troops can and will seize such systems.

Heh, a heavy metal nation? *is listening to Sabaton*

Edit: The Heavy Metal people suck. Their ships should be named after Sabaton songs!

Edit 2: I suppose some wackyness is permissible, we do let Shroom play after all.

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

What's Haruhi?

Allow me to enlighten you.

[loomer]

How would I go about representing the Worldship of the Mari? Sector points or part of my starter fleet?

Describe?

The Mari are one of the alien races in the Outlands. They lost their world a couple of millenia ago and took to the skies in a large 'mothership' fleet of sorts. Most of them settled worlds far, far away or were destroyed, and only one still roams the Outlands. It's only lightly armed and is genuinely more of a home and factory than a warship - same with its attendant vessels. Homes, factories, farms.

[WesFox13]

Hehe, to be honest, after missing out on SDN World 2 and 3 I'd love to get back in the story, count me in too!

[Darkevilme]

Myself I'll probably be doing a re-invention of the Chamaran Hierarchy, catgirls in space.

Only now i'm looting cthulutech for ideas. They were originally created from human DNA by extradimensional beings known as the Outsiders who sent them back into Realspace in a super powered mothership as an invasion force. The Chamarans eventually cottoned on to the fact their implanted history was false, realized they'd been had and the mothership went back through the gateway to the Outside to inflict payback and hasn't been seen since. The remaining Chamarans established a nation in their own name and have various non duplicatable pieces of outsider technology left over.

Specifically their planetary defences are sometimes bolstered by 'Rift Cannon', space stations built around weapons that make enemy ships or parts of them vanish without a trace to locations unknown, and their GDP boosters are sometimes Infinity Engines which are universal atomic level fabricators.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Hmm... Likely my tech will be the following:

Ultra High Density Deuterium to power my fusion powerplants, and some mini-nukes.

Antimatter to power the mid-range power plants.

Warp Generators, i.e. interdimensional rifts created by strings, to generate high power required to drive the warp drive.

Personally, I am inclined to employ super humans like Space Marines, like 10 elites to one Space Marine that sort of thing. But again, it follows the usual cost.

[Siege]

Ship concept:

Assailant-class cruiser

Hull class: Heavy ($125)

The Assailant-class cruiser is a mainstay of the Interstellar Sovereignty Navy and can frequently be seen patrolling the edges of Wild Space. Principal armament consists of several heavy autolaser and torpedo batteries arranged in dual mounts flanking the ship's tower structure, complemented by smaller secondary weapons and point defence cannons. These warships carry a sizeable marine complement for colonial pacification and occupation missions, as well as several squadrons worth of fighters and gunboats -- plenty to convince the average colonial fringe world yokel (who does not know where his loyalties lay) not to get any funny ideas regarding 'self determination' or any of that soppy bullshit.

Embarked troops: $14,600 - 14,600 Marines

Fighter complement: $400

• $100 - 500 fighters
• $200 - 200 gunboats
• $100 - 100 dropships (hull class: gunboat)

[Teebs]

I've never played one of these games before but I'd like to give this one a go once the rules are sorted.

[Steve]

The Mari are one of the alien races in the Outlands. They lost their world a couple of millenia ago and took to the skies in a large 'mothership' fleet of sorts. Most of them settled worlds far, far away or were destroyed, and only one still roams the Outlands. It's only lightly armed and is genuinely more of a home and factory than a warship - same with its attendant vessels. Homes, factories, farms.

Hrm.

*ponders*

How "mobile" is this Worldship? Is it more of a massive space habitat?

Myself I'll probably be doing a re-invention of the Chamaran Hierarchy, catgirls in space.

Only now i'm looting cthulutech for ideas. They were originally created from human DNA by extradimensional beings known as the Outsiders who sent them back into Realspace in a super powered mothership as an invasion force. The Chamarans eventually cottoned on to the fact their implanted history was false, realized they'd been had and the mothership went back through the gateway to the Outside to inflict payback and hasn't been seen since. The remaining Chamarans established a nation in their own name and have various non duplicatable pieces of outsider technology left over.

Specifically their planetary defences are sometimes bolstered by 'Rift Cannon', space stations built around weapons that make enemy ships or parts of them vanish without a trace to locations unknown, and their GDP boosters are sometimes Infinity Engines which are universal atomic level fabricators.

Honestly, I'm not prepared to accept the Rift Cannon. And "GDP boosters"? As in NCPs spent on improving one's GDP?

[Darkevilme]

Myself I'll probably be doing a re-invention of the Chamaran Hierarchy, catgirls in space.

Only now i'm looting cthulutech for ideas. They were originally created from human DNA by extradimensional beings known as the Outsiders who sent them back into Realspace in a super powered mothership as an invasion force. The Chamarans eventually cottoned on to the fact their implanted history was false, realized they'd been had and the mothership went back through the gateway to the Outside to inflict payback and hasn't been seen since. The remaining Chamarans established a nation in their own name and have various non duplicatable pieces of outsider technology left over.

Specifically their planetary defences are sometimes bolstered by 'Rift Cannon', space stations built around weapons that make enemy ships or parts of them vanish without a trace to locations unknown, and their GDP boosters are sometimes Infinity Engines which are universal atomic level fabricators.

Honestly, I'm not prepared to accept the Rift Cannon. And "GDP boosters"? As in NCPs spent on improving one's GDP?

I'm not that attached to the idea of Rift Cannon beyond them being a cool thing so okay.

And yes, i meant NCPs spent on GDP. So investment in GDP for a sector is in the game world represented partially by the presence of some infinity engines on planets in those sectors. They're fluff essentially, cool potentially stealable fluff but essentially just fluff for GDP investment.

[Steve]

Hrm... so long as they're not abused in-game.

[Darkevilme]

How we handling interception of fleets?
Is it possible to force a ship out of hyperspace?
Or are you limited to engaging ships only when they choose to drop to sublight?

Latter and there's no such thing as borders.

So i suggest we come up with a workable solution for interception.

The STGODs with hyperspace style drives had interdictor as a specialization for ships which meant they could knock you out of hyperspace...sometimes, the rules were confusing. This has the problem of being a specialization and we already have 2 specializations here (troop capacity, aux. craft capacity) and i for one want to keep the number of specializations down if at all possible.

So how we handling it?
Bring back the interdictor specialization?
Make it an assumed ability of all ships?
What happens if a light cruiser tries to pull a juggernaught out of hyperspace, does it work?

[Setzer]

What about mecha? If players want them, how do we balance it gameplay wise?

[Darkevilme]

What about mecha? If players want them, how do we balance it gameplay wise?

Super soldiers to the Nth degree. so a $1 mecha equal to $1 worth of troops.

Not sure how much troop capacity one of them would take up. that's the only sticking point i think.

[Ryan Thunder]

What's there to handle? They're the worst possible vehicle design in the universe.