[Spoon]

I wanted to share some of the ideas I've been thinking up. I'm still working out a lot of details but I figured now is just as well a good time to hear your thoughts on this. It's a really big wall of text though.

First off all to get this out of the way: the game will not be a direct sequel to the first game.
Also I took a bunch of pages out of the book of the gundam game, Gihren's greed(/ambition). I doubt anyone here played it.
I have no idea for a date for this, this is just throwing out ideas.

The game will have two types of turns, the Strategy turn and the Tactical turn and will be split up in three phases. The first phase has the four Terran factions competing against each other in limited warfare and diplomatic games to reinforce their position. The second phase has the Hierachy invade and the LSF established. Then the third and last phase is all about securing the win for your faction.

Like the first game, the UGC, CRF, SF and DD will be the major players. The fleet/admiral distribution will likely be the same (4/4/3/2) but each faction now also comes with two political positions. A minister of foreign affairs and one for internal affairs. Both of these positions will have a stronger roleplay element to them and will be vital for success for your faction. The ministers do not take command of a fleet but instead are responsible for the strategic position of the faction. The Strategy turn is their battlefield.

Foreign affairs handles the direct dealings with other factions. They negotiate deals such as trade treaties with other factions. Also, they have a strong voice when it comes to influencing the decisions of their faction leader.
Internal affairs is the person responsible for making the financial decisions. What is the faction's money spend on? What plans do we initiate? and so forth. His opinions will also have some small amount of influence on the leader, just not as much as the minister of foreign affairs.

General faction mechanics
Money: Generated each turn from owned planets and other locations, as well as any trade treaties and the like. Money makes the universe spin around. Your faction needs money for research, making deals, its military and initiating plans.
Resources: While money is important, you still need actual materials to build ships. Resources is mostly spend on the military, rebuilding fleets and resupplying.

Technology: Each turn a certain (limited) amount of money can be spend to further your factions tech levels. Research is pretty straightforward. You pump money into it until the goal is met and you raise your tech level by one. This will either unlock some passive bonus, a new plan to initiate or other neat stuff. (Each faction follows the same tech path).
Research will be divided in 'General' and 'Military' technology.

Political Influence: This is gonna be an important thing to keep track of. PI comes in 5 levels: Trivial, Poor, Average, Strong, Mighty
PI can be increased by things like winning military battles, skillful negotiations with other factions and such. But will decrease if your military is getting its ass handed to them, or if an admiral decides to violate a treaty, disobeys direct orders from the faction leader and so forth.

An example on how PI comes into play.
Let's say the UGC has an excess of money but is running dangerously low on resources. The CRF on the other hand has the reverse situation. The ministers of foreign affairs contact each other and agree on a 'sell resources' deal. The UGC sells 1000 resources for 1000 money. However the UGC had some rough times and their PI is currently 'Average' wheras the CRF has a 'Strong' PI. This adds a modifier of 1 to the deal. So the UGC eventually sells 1000 resources for only 900 money. Had the CRF's PI been Mighty they would have only paid 800. In reverse, if the UGC had a stronger PI than the CRF, the CRF would have had to pay more money for the deal.
Political influence affects a number of deals like these as a modifier.

Plans: Over the course of the game there will be a number of plans that can be initiated for certain effects. Plans take effect immediately and cost money, some of these plans are faction specific. Like for example, the UGC can initiate a plan to hire a mercenary fleet. This plan can be initiated again once it expires. A lot of other plans are one time things with one time effects.

Faction leaders: I mentioned these a few times now. But who are these faction leaders?
It's a me~ Spoonio~
So yeah, all factions have me as their leader. A horrible prospect I'm sure. I'll roleplay your President/CEO/Empress&Queen. You'll have to deal with their personality and quirks. They may want to declare war on an other faction for some utterly trivial reason or want to backstab an allied faction for whatever reason. This is what the minister will have to try and lead into proper ways and the Admirals may have to obey some questionable orders at times.
Also, if a minister for whatever reason missed the strategy turn deadline, is out of town for a while, the position is not filled because of lack of players or whatever other reason. The leader will handle these affairs instead. (For better or worse )

That's the very general gist of the Strategy turn. After which comes the Tactical turn, where the admirals get to do their things.

[Spoon]

Some things you guys will be already familiar with. A fleet will have a Major and a Minor action to take each turn. However since here all players take their turn at the same time it won't matter in what order you type down your minor or major action, as the way in which things are resolved are fixed.

A list of orders I've currently got:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Major:
 -Attack: Engage a fleet within range. Uses one supply
 -Travel Starlance: Move through a starlance
 -Insystem jump: Move to any sector in the same system. Uses one supply
 -Secure sector: Claims important sector for your faction.
 
Minor:
 -Move: Moves the fleet to an adjacent sector
 -Secure sector: Claims important sector for your faction.
 -Fire Subspace missiles: Attack an enemy fleet with Subspace missiles, can fire through Starlances. Uses one supply.
 -Resupply adjacent fleet: Uses one supply to give adjacent fleet two and recover 5% strength. Supply fleets cannot resupply each other.

Takes both Minor and Major action to perform:
Resupply: Must be in a Strategic sector.
Recovers 50% strength, recovers all supply. Costs xxx resources per supply recovered. Defense -10 during resupply.
When done in a sector containing a shipyard, this also upgrades the fleet to current tech levels and/or refits fleet to different type. And repairs the fleet completely.
 
Resolve Order: Resupply -> Attack -> Move
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now the map this time around will be grid based and things are a bit more in depth.


Here's a rough example on what I have in mind.

Fleet Mechanics:
- Strength: Or otherwise translated, the Hitpoints of a fleet. Unlike the first game, taking damage does not influence the damage your fleet is able to dish out.
- Defense: This stat tends to be Zero most of the time. But there will be occasions where your fleet takes up position in an asteroidbelt and the like which will give your fleet defense against enemy attacks.
- Supply: Every fleet needs supply to operate. And once they run out, the actions they can take will be highly restricted.

There will be different types of fleets an admiral can choose from:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fleet types:
Patrol fleet:
 - Fighters: Atk 5 Rng 0-0
 - Point Defense: Atk 3 Rng 0-0
 - Main Batteries: Atk 7 Rng 0-1
 - Subspace missiles: Atk 3 Rng 1-2 <Tech level unlock>
Supply: 5
Strength: 110

Rng 0: 15
Rng 1: 7+3
Rng 2: 3

Carrier fleet:
 - Fighters: Atk 5 Rng 0-1
 - Bombers: Atk 5 Rng 1-2
 - Point Defense: Atk 3 Rng 0-0
 - Subspace missiles: Atk 3 Rng 1-2 <Tech level unlock>
Supply: 5
Strength: 100

Rng 0: 8
Rng 1: 10+3
Rng 2: 5+3
 
Artillery fleet:
 - Point Defense: Atk 3 Rng 0-0
 - Main Batteries: Atk 10 Rng 1-2
 - Subspace missiles: Atk 5 Rng 1-3 <Tech level unlock>
Supply: 4
Strength: 90

Rng 0: 3
Rng 1: 10+5
Rng 2: 10+5
Rng 3: 5
 
Supply fleet:
 - Main Batteries: Atk 5 Rng 0-2
 - Subspace missiles: Atk 4 Rng 1-2 <Tech level unlock>
Special: Uses one supply to give adjacent fleet two and recover 5% strength.
Supply: 6
Strength: 90

Rng 0: 5
Rng 1: 5+4
Rng 2: 5+4
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
(There is no difference between faction fleets. And all of this is subject to change )

As you can see, each fleet has multiple ways of attacking an enemy fleet, leading to different opitimal ranges to attack from. Patrol fleets want to be in the same sector as their opponent so they can inflict maximum damage. Whereas a Artillery fleet wants to keep its distance.
Positioning and teamwork between allied fleets will be the key to success.

The formula is straightforward. Let's take a look at the picture of the map above again:

Let's say that the 4th CRF is a Patrol fleet and the 1st DD is a Carrier fleet. Both fleets attack each other, at their current range of 1, the 4th CRF suffers 10 damage, bringing its strength down from 110 to 100 wheras the the 1st DD takes 7 damage, putting it at 93. Both fleets have spend 1 supply this turn. The 1st DD has nothing near it to resupply (since this is the CRF hometurf) and will likely do an insystem jump to G-9 next turn to take the starlance to more friendly places.

Using the same example but giving the 4th CRF 1 defense for its positioning at the asteroid. It would take 8 damage instead, 1 damage less for each weapon type its being hit with.


Both turns will use the same map, but each turn will get its own version, displaying different information. My goal is to have all important information be available from just looking at the map with pretty little icons and shizzle. So it won't become a quagmire of spreadsheets.

And that's the general gist of it.
Thoughts? Ideas? Objections? Insults?

[Phantom Hoover]

OK this is probably a bit trivial, but: if you're adding all these extra mechanics to the map and game, will you be reducing the scope accordingly?

[0rph3u5]

Will Strategic and Tactical Turn by after one another or happen at the same time?

Depending on whetever all decission have to happen at the same time or after one another has a huge impact on how in-faction communication can be organized and enforces certain hierarchies in faction - e.g. the decisions of the Strategic Players (Ministers) are going to be far more important if the Turn happen sequentially since the Tactical Players have to work with the decission already being fixed, it will give the Strategic Players more room to enforce policy since the Tactical Players have to react to their decissions ... with synchronous turns the decission making structure will be more fluid as all Players actions have equal weight, due to the fact that no ones actions pre-from the actions of the others, and it will certainly deminish the dominance of single players but it might also lead to less "focused" play...


EDIT: also shotgun on the New Britannia Ministy of State! 

[General Battuta]

Simultaneous action reveal owns in games with intrigue.

[Spoon]

The turns happen after one another. So one week its strategy, then next its tactical, then back to strategy and so forth.
Makes the workload a bit easier on me and in effect gives a player two weeks inbetween turns to get their orders in.

[Lorric]

How are you going to make us all act individually? We can talk to each other.

Next, what's to stop us all just building ourselves up for the invasion? There's no sense in softening ourselves up for the now-on-hard-mode-Hierarchy invasion to sweep in and clean up what's left. Ideally, the warfare would leave each faction stronger than weaker when the Hierarchy arrives, with the ones who perform the best getting more bonuses, to provide motivation to engage in it, so even if one faction gets stomped, they are still in a stronger position than they started, or at least not a weaker one.

Won't the smaller factions be at a huge disadvantage?

Do you have the power to create private forums within your own forum and assign people to them? You could make one for each faction then, so they could talk to each other without the other factions seeing.

Are we reprising our old roles? I still wish to be with the CRF.

I do like the idea of you being everyone's leader. That way if we're stomping each other, it's because you told us to.

[0rph3u5]

How are you going to make us all act individually? We can talk to each other.

Interest to make the game fun for one; Interest to have your faction turn out to be on top once things settle down

Next, what's to stop us all just building ourselves up for the invasion? There's no sense in softening ourselves up for the now-on-hard-mode-Hierarchy invasion to sweep in and clean up what's left. Ideally, the warfare would leave each faction stronger than weaker when the Hierarchy arrives, with the ones who perform the best getting more bonuses, to provide motivation to engage in it, so even if one faction gets stomped, they are still in a stronger position than they started, or at least not a weaker one.

In part the "fearless leaders" of the factions will do that; in other parts the political influence system should do it as for the beginning of the game all factions have nothing else that will gain them points but hitting on another...

Won't the smaller factions be at a huge disadvantage?

Smaller might also mean that there are less ressources that have to go fleet upkeep and a more focussed research/political effort as you don't have to cover the interests of as many Admirals...

[AndrewofDoom]

Question. Regarding moves in the Tactical section, will there be a defend action? Will on the tactical section, will there be the ability to move not just around planets and asteroids, but also in deep space as well? Like for example on the fringes of the a system. It would be a good idea because otherwise we get the same problem as in the first game where there's too many bottlenecks and it becomes a game of brute force (There was literally only one turn in the first one where there was a flanking maneuver done by both UGCR fleets).

Won't the smaller factions be at a huge disadvantage?

If you're referring to the UGC, Spoon's got that covered. Speaking of which, I'll probably reprise my role as admiral of the 1st UGCR, especially if niffiwan takes 2nd UGCR.

[Lorric]

Will we see the Cyrvans? Will we be able to enter Hierarchy Space?

[Spoon]

Question. Regarding moves in the Tactical section, will there be a defend action?

I've been messing around with it but I haven't found a 'sweet spot' for a functional defend action yet.

Will on the tactical section, will there be the ability to move not just around planets and asteroids, but also in deep space as well? Like for example on the fringes of the a system. It would be a good idea because otherwise we get the same problem as in the first game where there's too many bottlenecks and it becomes a game of brute force (There was literally only one turn in the first one where there was a flanking maneuver done by both UGCR fleets).

Starlances will always be natural bottlenecks, but I'll do my best to have each system be as nifty as possible. Either way bottlenecks should not be as big of a problem considering you can do an insystem jump to get from point A to Z for the cost of one supply.
I'm aware of the defender's advantage though. Especially since the core worlds of each faction also get garrison fleets/starbases protecting their stuff.

Won't the smaller factions be at a huge disadvantage?

If you're referring to the UGC, Spoon's got that covered. Speaking of which, I'll probably reprise my role as admiral of the 1st UGCR, especially if niffiwan takes 2nd UGCR.

The UGC has a really favorable position on the map and a a lot of dough. And the bling bling is seriously important.

As a general starting situation this is what most factions are at:

CRF:
Money: Low
Resources: High
Tech: Lowest
PI: Strong
Fleets: 4
Relations: SF Neutral, UGC Cold, DD Neutral, Cyrvans Neutral, Hydra Neutral, Silva Warm

SF:
Money: Medium
Resources: High
Tech: Low
PI: Strong
Fleets: 4
Relations: CRF Neutral, UGC Warm, DD Cold, Cyrvans Neutral, Hydra Neutral, Silva Warm

UGC:
Money: Highest
Resources: Medium
Tech: Medium
PI: Average
Relations: SF Warm, CRF Cold, DD Cold, Cyrvans Neutral, Hydra Warm, Silva Warm

DD:
Money: Medium
Resources: Medium
Tech: Highest
PI: Poor
Relations: SF Cold, UGC Cold, CRF Neutral, Cyrvans Neutral, Hydra Neutral, Silva Neutral

Hydra Foundation: Neutral faction, Resources
Silva Coorperation: Neutral faction, Tech
Cyrvans: Kinda hard to deal with, but maybe super strong allies?

[Spoon]

How are you going to make us all act individually? We can talk to each other.

Interest to make the game fun for one; Interest to have your faction turn out to be on top once things settle down

I'm assuming everyone will want their faction to come out on top in the end (there will be a reward of some kind for the players of the winning faction)

Next, what's to stop us all just building ourselves up for the invasion? There's no sense in softening ourselves up for the now-on-hard-mode-Hierarchy invasion to sweep in and clean up what's left. Ideally, the warfare would leave each faction stronger than weaker when the Hierarchy arrives, with the ones who perform the best getting more bonuses, to provide motivation to engage in it, so even if one faction gets stomped, they are still in a stronger position than they started, or at least not a weaker one.

In part the "fearless leaders" of the factions will do that; in other parts the political influence system should do it as for the beginning of the game all factions have nothing else that will gain them points but hitting on another...

That's called meta gaming, Lorric. Where's the fun in that?
Either way, defying your leader's wishes is going to leave your faction in a weaker overal state.

[Destiny]

Maybe the Cyrvans ought to be a force of nature; cryptic, unpredictable, doesn't listen to any Jerrans.

For the subspace missile attack, while it's only minor, but is there anyway to counter/defend from it?


I don't have any faction preferences, but I'll take whatever chess piece Spoon throws at me if the board has space.

[Lorric]

Looks like the SF is flat out superior to the CRF. However, I guess there will be other considerations, but having Earth as a piece of real estate would be one hell of a consideration I'm guessing.

I'm assuming everyone will want their faction to come out on top in the end (there will be a reward of some kind for the players of the winning faction)

Honestly, I'm pretty meh about that. But a reward might well change that. Right now, my main desire would be to survive the Hierarchy invasion, and if that doesn't happen, no one gets a reward anyway.

That's called meta gaming, Lorric. Where's the fun in that?
Either way, defying your leader's wishes is going to leave your faction in a weaker overal state.

So what would you be having us do? All act individually, even within our own faction? No more discussion threads?

[Spoon]

So what would you be having us do? All act individually, even within our own faction? No more discussion threads?

Oh no, not at all. Discuss away, among yourselves, among your competition. Most of the information is going to be in the open anyway.
Why would you want to act indiviually in your own faction anyway? That seems highly counterproductive.

Maybe the Cyrvans ought to be a force of nature; cryptic, unpredictable, doesn't listen to any Jerrans.

For the subspace missile attack, while it's only minor, but is there anyway to counter/defend from it?


I don't have any faction preferences, but I'll take whatever chess piece Spoon throws at me if the board has space.

I'll mark you down for the last position that remains open. Though this is not a sign up thread yet, since I dont know when (if at all!) this would even start.

The CSA will definitely do its own thing.

There is no specific defense against SSM attacks right now, maybe as an unlockable action later on in the tech tree? I don't know yet, right now I don't think it really needs a specific counter meassure cause it's a pretty weak attack for a single supply.

[0rph3u5]

So what would you be having us do? All act individually, even within our own faction? No more discussion threads?

As far as I've understood it the faction leaders set goals in first place, then the players get together to develop their strategy to accomplish said goal - with the Strategic Players having the power to set the framework for the Tactical actions ...

In order to maximize what your faction can do you'll have coordinate on a Strategic level what is the best course to support you Tactical level while on the Tactical level you will have to deal with the feedback you will bring to the next Strategic Turn; as such you are encouraged to communicate with members of your faction in order to optimze the gains in either turn

Although the Strategic Players can set policy and so can push a certain course of action, building a consensus with your faction's Players is encouraged...

Most of the information is going to be in the open anyway.

Please define "most of information"...

[Lorric]

Oh no, not at all. Discuss away, among yourselves, among your competition. Most of the information is going to be in the open anyway.
Why would you want to act indiviually in your own faction anyway? That seems highly counterproductive.

Well that sounds good to me. It's this everyone acts at the same time thing. Some seem to have the impression no one knows the orders until they all happen at the same time. Is that not so then?

*stuff*

Where are you getting all this? Have you already spoken to Spoon about this or something?

[0rph3u5]

*stuff*

Where are you getting all this? Have you already spoken to Spoon about this or something?

It's what I do for a living (sort of): analysing and anticipating how communication and decission-making are organized...

[Lorric]

I wonder if I'd be better suited to one of the ministerial positions...?

I don't know enough about them.

[niffiwan]

... Speaking of which, I'll probably reprise my role as admiral of the 1st UGCR, especially if niffiwan takes 2nd UGCR.

I'd love to

UGC:
Money: Highest
Resources: Medium
Tech: Medium
PI: Average
Relations: SF Warm, CRF Cold, DD Cold, Cyrvans Neutral, Hydra Warm, Silva Warm

Bwahaha, money vs honour 

As for the rules themselves, there's certainly a lot more detail that the previous set (and I'm a details person so that's good ). And I think my role-play-fu is kinda weak, so I'm happy to stick with the tactical game, we just need to recruit some hard-headed corporate negotiators.

I do note that the artillery fleet seems to have the edge in the damage department and with sufficient manoeuvring room they have a decent chance of "kiting" opposing fleets (if the enemy uses an intrasystem jump they can't attack). Will orders be secret from other players or will they be open like in game 1?  If they're secret then I can see it being very difficult to stay in range 0 of an artillery fleet.

With supply limiting attacks (and more) and being fairly low I can see resupply being quite important. Could you give an indication as to how large the map will be? Are the systems the same as the 1st game? In particular, how far away from supply bases would fleets generally need to operate?

On defence/movement, does a hostile fleet in a sector inflict retreat damage on fleets leaving that sector? (by movement or intrasystem jump?)

Also, the "Secure Sector" action appears as both a major and minor order?

Lastly, regarding the example system map you showed, could you confirm if the following ranges are correct?
H1 <-> G1: range 3
H4 <-> G7: range 4
H4 <-> G9: range 6