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While my brain continues to fizzle and burp along like an Umerian chemistry set with regards to a prospective nation, I've run across a more mechanical question browsing through the wiki. Specifically the Solarian order of battle and the carrier rules as posted seem wildly at odds with one another (warships with carrier capacities and no apparent penalty to warfighting ability, non-superheavies carrying ultralights). Given the prominence of the Solarian presence, I assume the carrier rules have changed behind the scenes. For obvious reasons, I'd like to figure out what exactly the rules are before I start to write up an order of battle.

White Haven wrote:While my brain continues to fizzle and burp along like an Umerian chemistry set with regards to a prospective nation, I've run across a more mechanical question browsing through the wiki. Specifically the Solarian order of battle and the carrier rules as posted seem wildly at odds with one another (warships with carrier capacities and no apparent penalty to warfighting ability, non-superheavies carrying ultralights). Given the prominence of the Solarian presence, I assume the carrier rules have changed behind the scenes. For obvious reasons, I'd like to figure out what exactly the rules are before I start to write up an order of battle.

Could you name the ship classes in question? We may have a violation on Siege's part, or more likely just an honest mistake.

Rules are as follows.


STARSHIP CARRYING: WHY BOTHER?

In general, there's no point to having carriers that carry starships, since anything over 3 points is yacht-class and is perfectly capable of moving as far as you want under its own power.


SMALL CRAFT CARRYING: HERE IT IS

Small craft (gunboats, which are hypermobile but lack inter-sector range, and fighters, which are STL) must be placed on a carrier.

A carrier devotes X points to small craft storage, up to the limit of its hull size. It carries X/2 points of small craft. However, this small craft wing acts offensively as if it were worth X points: small craft punch at twice their nominal point value.

This part gets people upset because it's kind of inelegant. I was not a mod when the decision was made, though I was involved in the discussions at the time; the main reason we don't change it now is that everyone would have to rewrite their order of battle to adjust the point costs of their small craft. I for one am opposed to that because it would involve work.


THE FOLLOWING APPLIES TO CARRIERS WHICH DEVOTE ALL OR NEARLY ALL THEIR POINT VALUE TO SMALL CRAFT CARRIAGE:

A carrier, operating alone and without its small craft wing, has a 'defensive' value equal to its point cost: that reflects how difficult it is to kill. Thus, if you wish to destroy a 300-point carrier, you had better bring along a 300-point battleship, or a wolfpack of several 40-50 point destroyers, because you're going to need that volume of firepower.

HOWEVER, the carrier's offensive firepower is quite limited- probably massed point defense weapons more than anything else. Therefore, the carrier on its own is unable to reliably kill ships worth more than 10% its own point value: a 75-point cruiser cannot reasonably expect to kill a 300-point carrier using its limited weapons, but the carrier won't be killing the cruiser either. At least, not until its small craft wing comes back.

Ah. The salient point is that those carrier rules bear almost no resemblance to the carrier rules in the wiki linked under Current Ruleset. Are properly-updated rules posted anywhere, and if so would it be possible to get an updated link?

Steve posted an update involving saying something about telling us peons to stop bothering him.

Sorry bout the general silence from me, I just haven't been feeling it the last couple of weeks. Also, according to Simon I can legitimately claim writers block so bleh.

About the carrier rules, given the mess that they have been can't we just rule 1 it instead and say, carriers exists, make them up somehow, don't be a douche about using them?

Anywho, whenever I get around to it I have another BEEEF post to make, as well as a post to prelude my involvment in operation MEHstomp and maybe some little silly posts as well. I just need to get them organized in my brain.

Finally, no giant killer robots in the Inhumanist league Shroom? We hate humanity too.

We (the Brags) don't know what to make of the Xylyx.

Though if you are coordinating with the Chamarrans, then we can gladly bring you into the special meeting that will happen after the Inhumanist League meeting. That special meeting dealing with a certain very large, you could almost say fat, interest we have in common.

I'm making a list of all the major players and forces in the former Outlander Commissions. Here's what I have so far:

Major nations:
The Refuge
The Bragulan Star Empire
The Clans of Hiigara
Byzantine Empire

Sassanid Empire?
League of Free Stars??

(Special considerations) Karlack Swarm

Mega-corporations:
Spinward Outback Trading Company
Multi-Planetary United


Political movements:
Centralism
Communards

Others:
Former Outlanders
*Black Asteroid caretakers/local Muslim sect


These are for major powers and forces only. Small mercenary groups and pirates, etc, are excluded. So, any others I should add to the mess?

EDIT: addition of Black Asteroid, removal of USS.

Presumably there is at least a moderate-sized group of the local sect of Muslims who are acting as caretakers of the Black Asteroid, where supposedly the twin Black Stones of the twin Meccas of Earth and Nova Terra originated from. Expect some professional Klavostani mercs to supplement their defensive muscle.

KlavoHunter wrote:Presumably there is at least a moderate-sized group of the local sect of Muslims who are acting as caretakers of the Black Asteroid, where supposedly the twin Black Stones of the twin Meccas of Earth and Nova Terra originated from. Expect some professional Klavostani mercs to supplement their defensive muscle.

And well paid too.

Is that a real graph, Maya? I can't read it.

[embarrassed]

Simon_Jester wrote:Is that a real graph, Maya? I can't read it.

[embarrassed]

I do not believe so.

Would me dumping a few of the Commune's more advanced technology to the Communards in Outlander Co. impact the situation somehow?

Probably, yeah.

Well...it might be a real graph. I just found it online while looking for an out-of-context overcomplicated 3D graph to represent the nature of how screwed up the former Outlands are.

So, Black Asteroid caretakers. Anyone else?

Edit: and speaking of them, would this be something where the Refuge could get some local brownie points by letting pilgrims go worship there and keeping the traveling lanes clear? Made me think of a hypothetical yelling match:

"It promotes goodwill and we could even charge a small toll for traveling there."

"But they're worshiping a god. We shouldn't encourage any theology, no matter what the source!"

"Oh, come on. Their god isn't real!"

Panic Node: "YOU DON'T KNOW THAT!"

The Sovereignty isn't directly involved in the Outlands, as a rule the Sovvies don't maintain a military presence outside the K-Zone. Doesn't stop enterprising individuals or, well, enterprises from meddling of course, but that's another matter.

So since it's been established that the carrier rules are woefully out-of-date, are there any other divergences from the posted rules that new players should know about beforehand?

The naval construction times have been updated, so I don't think so. The ground troop rules are screwy, but haven't been changed and don't cause a lot of problems- certainly won't cause problems when you're setting up your country.

That said, I'd like to review where you're planning to put your country and what it is; PM me, OK?

Yay, rules issues!

By the way, I had a thought. I'm assuming people have considered a major NPC invasion of the galaxy at large, so I'd like to ask- what was the reasoning against? Because I thought it would be... interesting if the Melconian Empire, say, decided to stop by and do some conquering. Someone not actively xenophobic to the point of always genocide all the time, in particular- someone who people can negotiate with and backstab the rest of us to side with. That might allow for some shaking-up of the galaxy that I can't see coming about any other way. So, why not, because like I said, I assume this has been thought of before?

doom3607 wrote:Yay, rules issues!

By the way, I had a thought. I'm assuming people have considered a major NPC invasion of the galaxy at large, so I'd like to ask- what was the reasoning against? Because I thought it would be... interesting if the Melconian Empire, say, decided to stop by and do some conquering. Someone not actively xenophobic to the point of always genocide all the time, in particular- someone who people can negotiate with and backstab the rest of us to side with. That might allow for some shaking-up of the galaxy that I can't see coming about any other way. So, why not, because like I said, I assume this has been thought of before?

If everybody (or at least a supermajority) wanted that to happen, it could possibly do so. But barring that, I don't think there's a will for it.

Besides: who's controlling this extragalactic force from a playing standpoint? Or does each player just randomly assume control of their own theater and what happens happens?

I mean, sure we don't get to just dictate that only what we want to happen will happen. I could launch an invasion force against Siege tomorrow and he'd just have to deal with that, for example. (I'm not going to, of course) But insofar as introducing an entirely new element into the game that could affect, well, everyone, I think it is something that all players can either go along with...or object to. With good reason.

So, tl;dr version: I don't think anyone feels like dealing with that, as the majority seem rather content with the current state of affairs.

I'd have no particular objection to an extragalactic invasion. It'd shake things up, certainly - but I'd like to get my internal affairs in order before anything of that magnitude happened.

I agree with Rogue; I don't want major events dropped on my head any time in the near future.

Hell, I introduced an NPC faction that could potentially make trouble, but I wouldn't impose any major events caused by that faction without the consent of the players directly involved. A galactic invasion would have just such an effect- everyone would be obliged to drop their plans and deal with the consequences.

I think with all the players who've popped into existence already, we're ALREADY dealing with a MUCH more interesting sense of "Invasion", it's not like they're sweeping in in an all-conquering horde of starships with their weapons blazing, necessarily. Not everything is resolved by warfare alone.

Yeah, a sudden extragalactic invasion will cramp our storylines.

And now I started a new one.

Master_Baerne wrote:I'd have no particular objection to an extragalactic invasion. It'd shake things up, certainly - but I'd like to get my internal affairs in order before anything of that magnitude happened.

There have been lots of discussions into this actually.

Mayabird wrote:Well...it might be a real graph. I just found it online while looking for an out-of-context overcomplicated 3D graph to represent the nature of how screwed up the former Outlands are.

So, Black Asteroid caretakers. Anyone else?

Edit: and speaking of them, would this be something where the Refuge could get some local brownie points by letting pilgrims go worship there and keeping the traveling lanes clear? Made me think of a hypothetical yelling match:

"It promotes goodwill and we could even charge a small toll for traveling there."

"But they're worshiping a god. We shouldn't encourage any theology, no matter what the source!"

"Oh, come on. Their god isn't real!"

Panic Node: "YOU DON'T KNOW THAT!"

There could be a Defense Against Divine Actions department that now promotes a new strategy of diverting indigenous people's beliefs from worshiping potentially real god-entities that would eat souls and break shit to worshiping totally not-real harmless fake gods like Christianity, Islam and so on. *

Hell, there could be a Space Jihadist group that goes around blowing up Buddha statues ancient artifacts of mysterious dead races, and since these artifacts are potentially theologically unsound, the Refuge could support the Jihadist loons in blowing up those infidel iniquities.



* Byzonism and Byzantine Orthodoxy don't count in the latter, since their deity worship-figures are real and are harmful, though they aren't really god-entities. Well, at least Byzon doesn't have theological powers. Dunno how the GEoM's gnarly psyker powers strike the Refuge.