STGOD And Rules: Discussion.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-09-18 04:24pm

Okay. So, since the creation of the Gaming Forum, we've had a series of STGOD's. Some were good. Some were bad. They were all quite different from the STGODs of ASVS. As some of you know, the ASVS ones were far less structured, and less 'balanced'. They were alot of fun, but if people here don't want that, that's fine.

STGOD's here have tried to be fairly rigid in starting forces and technology, but there's been alot of arguments. Can you have direct conversion of matter to energy.. And then use it as an undetectable bomb? Does a million missile throw weight mean you can auto-kill entire fleets? Can my planetary defenses hold off fleets? Can I play by the rules of magic I stole from, or must I stick to the STGOD's power level? Perhaps there needs to be a little more rigidity, or at least well-defined limits, as opposed to the current, vague, level.

What I'm trying to do is come up with rules that capture the innate zaniness and creativity of the STGOD, allowing people more options, and still hammer out balance issues. This won't be perfect as I lay them out. I bet there will be trouble even if we think we hammer out all the problems. But hey, can't hurt to try and talk about it, right?

Basically, I have been looking at the unholy fusion of Master Of Orion-esque nation creation with GURPS. The opening ideas have been built around the idea of a starting nation having 100 points to spend, and a 'restart' being 75.

Planets. Big one here. In my mind, planets should come in three flavors: Claimed(Maybe a military outpost with sensors), Colony(Just settled, produce maybe some raw materials), Capital(Large enough for it's own heavy industry). I'm thinking 2-3 points for a 'Claimed' planet, 5 for a Colony, 10 for a Capital. And you get one free Capital world. For instance, your nation might have ten Capital-class worlds, allowing for a vast navy, but you'd be quite low-tech.

Tech Level. One we've not seen in the SDNet STGODs, but I think it should be possible to start at a higher tech level.. For a hefty price. I'm thinking of using GURPS tech levels here(Default of 9, early starflight, up to 14, Dysonian engineering). Since that's five, I think 20 points per 'level' is decent. You can start out with a Ringworld.. But you take a massive hit because you can't have any more planets.

Military. I'm thinking this should be based off of your planet count, IE, each planet gives you X amount of ships and troops possible. Possibly a bonus or penalty to change the amount up or down?(Bonus: Militant, doubling the military supported by a given amount of planets, against a negative, Pacifist, which cuts the support in half?)

Industry. Again, based off of planets, I think.

Feedback, please!

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-09-18 04:30pm

these sort of rules would be pretty damn cool. I cna also work out actual rules for space combat and smaller actions of you like.

Concrete rules for telepathy, targeting, detection of ships running silent etc etc

Thirdfain · Post by **Thirdfain** » 2004-09-18 04:31pm

Fuck rules for space combat. Half the fun of the STGOD is the free-form battle system, where if the participants aren't idiots, it's easy to do and fun.

I like the idea of planets offering certain and clearly defined advantages a lot, but I'm not to keen about the variable tech level deal.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-09-18 04:36pm

I atleast think weapons and shields need to be quantified

Thirdfain · Post by **Thirdfain** » 2004-09-18 04:44pm

I atleast think weapons and shields need to be quantified

Why? That's ridiculous. All that matters is capability, and frankly, I'm sure as fuck not going to tool about calculating how many megatons of damage my vessels do per minute. If you want to, feel free, but I don't think that it's necessary or useful.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-09-18 04:49pm

Knowing how many of your pponents missiles it will take to destroy one of your cuisers should come in handy. It would prevent a shitload of bickering as well. If we had set limits based on tech level and type of vessel as to broadside strength.

Raxmei · Post by **Raxmei** » 2004-09-18 04:50pm

I don't think we know each other well enough to do ASVS style properly. I do think more flexibility would be nice, both for character purposes and believability. I think it's a little silly for there to be a whole lot of nations that happen to be exactly the same size existing at the same time.
Variable tech level would be hard to balance, but adds some dimension. A concept I've been thinking about involved being at lower tech level than base and making it up with numbers. Getting that with the rules we've been using involves some twisting around that I'm not entirely happy with.

Maybe add rules for racial advantages. Cybernetics, psionics, and genetic enhancements are all pretty common, but not ignored in current rules.

Thirdfain · Post by **Thirdfain** » 2004-09-18 04:52pm

I don't think we know each other well enough to do ASVS style properly. I do think more flexibility would be nice, both for character purposes and believability. I think it's a little silly for there to be a whole lot of nations that happen to be exactly the same size existing at the same time.

Hoew about this? Nations can have power gradients, with Superpowers, Great Powers, Regional Powers, and Minor Powers? Those applying for Superpower or Great Power status would have to check in with a mod for permission, with the majority of players being Regional and Minor powers?

Thirdfain · Post by **Thirdfain** » 2004-09-18 04:53pm

Knowing how many of your pponents missiles it will take to destroy one of your cuisers should come in handy.

No it won't! Damned if I'm gonna do math in this STGOD when 5 minutes conversing with the opponent and working out a compromise gets the job done just as well.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-09-18 05:00pm

then the numbers become inconsistent, and the quantity/quality bit doesnt always work, especially if we are going to have varied tech levels.

Now, if you dont want to quantify shit, that is fine, I will. I always have. Though for things like kinetic impacts(railguns, rammings and the like) we should hold to the math. Purley for realism if anything else.

Bugsby · Post by **Bugsby** » 2004-09-18 05:02pm

We should definitely finish out hte current STGOD the way we started it. The rules have been designed to make structure to the game, and if we throw that structure out, espceially now, we are going to have BIG problems.

However, in STGOD 5 (or 4.5, or whatever the next iteration turns out to be), I would like to experiment with a different structure. I like Thirdfain's idea of graded power levels. Your system is good, too. But I think this is something to discuss when we are starting up a new STGOD, not something to throw chaos into the middle of an already chaotic STGOD4....

Raxmei · Post by **Raxmei** » 2004-09-18 05:05pm

Oh, definitely. It would be insane to have everyone rewrite their nations right now in the middle of action, especially since there is apparently a fast-forward in the works that would render all that obsolete.

That's also why I've been holding off entry; this is a really bad time to put new stuff in. This is very much a next time thing.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-09-18 05:23pm

No. Shields/hulls/weapons should not be given hard numbers. That's min-maxer heaven.

I think, however, a value for an overall ship isn't too bad.(Either in some vaguely-arcane form, IE, making a Dreadnought worth 4000 Industry, or in a more direct form, IE, a Capital provides enough for One Dreadnought and X escorts.)

Different level 'Powers' sound okay on paper, but how can we fairly decide who gets which? Needless, this structure would support that; simply tune the amount of points you start with. A Superpower may start with 150-200, whereas a Regional might only start with 50 or less.

I do think we should finish STGOD4. I just feel we should talk about the possibility of changing things, because of all the arguments.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-09-18 06:27pm

Since I'm proposing the use of GURPS tech levels, I might as well include 'em!

TL7 - Modern Day.
TL8 - STL Spaceflight, fusion, early implants, early AI.
TL9 - FTL Spaceflight, sentient computers, longevity.
TL10 - Antimatter power, artificial gravity, slow, selfcontained FTL radio.
TL11 - Forcefields, tractor beams, fast selfcontained FTL radio.
TL12 - Antigravity, personal shielding, cheap genemods.
TL13 - Full terraforming, living metal, full regeneration.
TL14 - Dysonian construction.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-09-18 06:29pm

So are we at somewhere around TL 11 on that scale? Except we've done full terraforming before. Hmmm.

Thirdfain · Post by **Thirdfain** » 2004-09-18 06:31pm

TL7 - Modern Day.
TL8 - STL Spaceflight, fusion, early implants, early AI.
TL9 - FTL Spaceflight, sentient computers, longevity.
TL10 - Antimatter power, artificial gravity, slow, selfcontained FTL radio.
TL11 - Forcefields, tractor beams, fast selfcontained FTL radio.
TL12 - Antigravity, personal shielding, cheap genemods.
TL13 - Full terraforming, living metal, full regeneration.
TL14 - Dysonian construction.

I don't like it. For instance, the Ousters have very cheap genemodding tech, but don't have personal shielding tech.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-09-18 06:32pm

Good points by you both. We'd need to revamp that.. Heavily.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-09-18 06:37pm

SirNitram wrote:Good points by you both. We'd need to revamp that.. Heavily.

Well, perhaps allow for the boying of specific bits from a highter tech level, but suffer a negative on another aspect.

Or buy a seperate peice with points.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-09-18 06:48pm

STGOD Tech Levels.

TL0 - Modern Day Earth.
TL1 - Fusion power, space stations, superficial genemodding, slow FTL comms.
TL2 - Slow FTL, Fast FTL comms, minor genemodding(Adaptation to low or high gravity, improved immunodefenses). Default.
TL3 - AI, artificial gravity, inertial dampening for fighters.
TL4 - Antimatter power, portable FTL comms, sentient machines.
TL5 - Shields, forcefields, tractor beams, moderate genemodding(Tailored bioweapons to only affect certain groups, terraform-aiding creations, etc).
TL6 - Fast FTL, Personal shielding, instant FTL comms.
TL7 - Instant FTL, Dysonian construction, trans-species genemodding(See: Culture).

Better/worse?

Thirdfain · Post by **Thirdfain** » 2004-09-18 06:51pm

That puts us mostly, actually, at TL5 or 6 in this STGOD. And the next one would be set at TL2?

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-09-18 06:53pm

Thirdfain wrote:That puts us mostly, actually, at TL5 or 6 in this STGOD. And the next one would be set at TL2?

Meeeeeeeeeeeeeh. I dunno anymore. I want to introduce the flexibility of different tech levels, but it's a serious bitch to make even interesting.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-09-18 06:57pm

I say we purchase different tech levels in certain areas(Have different categories like FTL Weapons, generators, sheidling etcetc)

Raxmei · Post by **Raxmei** » 2004-09-18 07:23pm

Getting into the area where you risk getting too detailed now, but it's possible to split tech levels up into branches. Master of Orion (the first one, I think they changed the techs around in the later ones), for instance, split techs into Weapons, Force Fields, Computers, Construction, Propulsion, and Planetology. That gives you more wiggle room, but also is complicated and risks minmaxing.

Thirdfain · Post by **Thirdfain** » 2004-09-18 07:26pm

I don't like the variable tech level drill. LKet's set a base level of capabilities, and work out any variances people want on an individual basis.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-09-18 07:28pm

I would break it into

Offensive

Defensive

Sensors/comms

FTL

Sciences

Power generation

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STGOD And Rules: Discussion.

Rules or no?

STGOD And Rules: Discussion.