STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

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VX-145
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by VX-145 »

Potentially - I'm not familiar with previous STGODs so any plaigarism is wholly unintentional :P

Just to keep the planning ball rolling, and since it's been mentioned in the thread before, what ideas to people have about Earth in this game? I was personally thinking something along the lines of it being something like Atlantis - people claim lineage from it, but it's lost and most people in-universe think it never even existed. Of course, to non-human species, the answer becomes more along the lines of "who cares?"
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by madd0ct0r »

I'm torn between playing as the terraforming curlews or as foot long intelligent slugs.
I'm scrambling to pull together my prewritten lists and notes for fast writing.

Development (a d slugs)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kuk ... p=drivesdk

Trade
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k5f ... p=drivesdk

And ways to mistreat your faction to see what they do:
\section{GM moves}
\begin{itemize}
\myitem put the spotlight on someone
\myitem seperate them
\myitem put them together
\myitemend make their lives complicated now
\myitem give them a difficult decision to make
\myitem offer an opportunity, with or without a cost
\myitemend offer stuff that's painfully expensive but good
\myitem tell them the possible consequences and ask
\myitem turn a failed move back on them
\myitem use up their resources
\myitemend activate stuff's bad side
\myitem use a front or threat move
\myitemend + Additional from the theme (see Theme Deconstruction section)
\end{itemize}
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Rogue 9 »

VX-145 wrote: 2020-09-28 03:30pm Potentially - I'm not familiar with previous STGODs so any plaigarism is wholly unintentional :P

Just to keep the planning ball rolling, and since it's been mentioned in the thread before, what ideas to people have about Earth in this game? I was personally thinking something along the lines of it being something like Atlantis - people claim lineage from it, but it's lost and most people in-universe think it never even existed. Of course, to non-human species, the answer becomes more along the lines of "who cares?"
You'd have to try really hard to directly copy. So far the similarity begins and ends at asteroid/comet habitat dwelling. You're fine.

Speaking of Floaters, Nashtar typically has a Floater cluster in one of the outer colonies that doesn't owe me allegiance; it was an arrangement with Thirdfain. Since he's not around anymore (so far; I dropped him an e-mail to see if he wanted to come back for this) I might or might not do that this time out, but since we had that agreement while he was playing the Ousters, I don't think he'd mind.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by VX-145 »

That sounds like a good flashpoint for conflict depending on how you play it - if they're technically in your borders, but my people (or want to be, or are someone else's etc etc), then there could be all sorts of fun stuff happening. In other words, I'm all for it.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Rogue 9 »

With the way Floaters work, they wouldn't want to join you any more than they'd want to join me. :wink: The way it ran, I was happy to let them mine comets and asteroids and buy their wonderful foamed steel - and protect them from their cousins the Ousters, who Thirdfain was playing in those games. Also, see above re: Monroe Doctrine. Hell, you might as well know what I'm talking about; here.

Anyway, in case anyone's interested in the thought process that went into the 2k8 rules that are the basis of the current proposal, here's the planning thread for that game. It's 46 pages long, but you can see all the permutations those rules went through and why they are the way they are, if that's interesting to anyone.

It also handily demonstrates why there aren't rules for ground invasions in it. If we want to try to hammer that out again we can, but people better at this than I am went round and round without coming up with a satisfactory system.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by VX-145 »

Oh, that's enlightening - I thought you were using the term as a general thing. I'll probably be pretty different from those guys, I have some other vague ideas that need hammering out. One of which being the idea that the colony ships used an experimental mind-upload system which, of course, broke - the original bodies for all the colonists were lost, and while new ones can be "printed"... the files containing what their bodies looked like were also lost. Some may embrace that, going full catgirl, while others are a bit less sanguine. IDK how I'll play it out, though.

With respect to ground invasions... well, like I said, I'm pretty bad at coming up with mechanics.

Something like "I bring X amount of abstracted soldiers (purchased the same way ships are?) to invade Planet Ballsack, which is defended by Y amount of soldiers (abstracted again, with bombardment maybe not being a thing just to keep things simple - most weapons can be dealt with by the atmosphere, and those that can't will render whatever you're trying to take useless, if you want a justification and wow this is a run-on sentence and a half), do I have more, if yes then I can threaten to take it over (-> proceed to negotiations with the other player?)" springs to mind, but is probably full of holes.

I mean, look at all the question marks in there.

It could be an idea to treat taking over a planet (or planet-equivalent) as a big deal, mostly RP'd and moderator'd? And then we run into the insurgency question, which I'm just getting to in the 2k8 planning thread, and honestly I don't know where to even begin with that one.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Rogue 9 »

I wound up occupying an enemy planet near the very beginning of STGOD 4 in 2004. It never did a thing for me. The dude just randomly kept an insurgency going for the whole game and my occupation fleet was driven off in an unrelated war like a year later.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Simon_Jester »

Rogue 9 wrote: 2020-09-26 08:41pm Well we've kicked around ideas for a week now, so time to make it official. I believe the plan is to run a space-based STGOD. We need to hammer out the rules and get nation concepts going.

There have been a couple of proposals for the ruleset. The one I'm most familiar with is the rules from STGOD 2k8, found on the Imperial Wiki. (Note: Using the Wiki for STGOD rules documents was a brilliant idea and we should probably do it more; it's a lot easier to reference.)
...Wait, shit, unit stats?

I'm sorry, but on the scale of this stuff, I'm not doing anything more complicated than "points are points are points." Figuring out how to make interesting conflict happen if players come into conflict with point-worthy forces on each side should be up to the players' writing skills, possibly with moderator arbitration if someone's being a jerk.

I think the SDNW4 ruleset was good for this, though the game had its own problems (ADHD Lemmings being the big one, which effectively isolated the available map space into a handful of little non-interacting clusters where only the Koprulu Zone ever did anything interesting with each other directly).
Crossroads, Inc. has drawn up this document, which draws heavily on the 2k8 rules but going into a lot more detail.
Sorry, but there is WAAAY too much prescriptive fluff about how to play in this document. Too long, don't wanna read.
Crossroads Inc. wrote: 2020-09-26 09:24pm Yeah.... I agree
I mean i would.. at SOME POINT love to have a game here to "Beta-Test" it... but this isn't really that time, especially if we are trying to revive things... For this one, simpler is better.
I'm going to be honest, the kind of rules you're portraying here are a significant barrier to entry that I, for one, don't think I feel like crossing. Many of you will remember my SDNW4 performance; I'd be delighted to reproduce that but if I have to spend hours "rolling up" my nation I just plain won't feel like starting.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Rogue 9 »

Simon_Jester wrote: 2020-09-29 06:21pm...Wait, shit, unit stats?

I'm sorry, but on the scale of this stuff, I'm not doing anything more complicated than "points are points are points." Figuring out how to make interesting conflict happen if players come into conflict with point-worthy forces on each side should be up to the players' writing skills, possibly with moderator arbitration if someone's being a jerk.
I phrased the OP neutrally to present the proposals that had been made to that point. I agree that Crossroads' system is far more complex than needed and don't support implementing it, and he rapidly agreed. However, ship specializations are not exactly rocket science (pun fully intended). If points are points are points, great, fine, but the answer to "this is a stealth ship" is then "no it isn't," and "I have an interdiction field" is "no you don't."

Frankly, having written STGOD orders of battle under both systems, it doesn't add a lot of work to it. You still know how much each ship's total cost is so the math is the same, and if you want to just have all basic points, you can - you'll have a fleet with a lot of hit points and a lot of hitting power, and there's nothing wrong with that. However, if it comes down to needing to just have a mash-points-together system in order to get players, I can live with that, but I'll miss actually being able to do things with my ships.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Elheru Aran »

I'm somewhat on Simon's side here; I don't have the time or desire to get really involved in stats and such. I'd prefer simply saying something like 'I have such and such [type of ships] which I think are worth [typical points value for said ships]' and then when it gets to where the points matter, not worrying about the nitty-gritty as much as just seeing how much of a badass space battle I can write out. The actual win/loss of said battle can be moderated, IE post ends something like 'as ships exploded in the blackness of the void Captain Hook of side X grinned', moderator goes 'side X loses', next post is 'still in shock from finding out that the battle was a loss, Captain Hook...' if you get what I mean?

That said, weekends are typically my free time, and I'll try to read through Crossroads' rules then. But in general I would be more comfortable with less S, more TGOD in general.

Should we start putting down what we're envisioning for our particular factions yet or no?
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Simon_Jester »

Rogue 9 wrote: 2020-09-29 07:11pmI phrased the OP neutrally to present the proposals that had been made to that point. I agree that Crossroads' system is far more complex than needed and don't support implementing it, and he rapidly agreed. However, ship specializations are not exactly rocket science (pun fully intended). If points are points are points, great, fine, but the answer to "this is a stealth ship" is then "no it isn't," and "I have an interdiction field" is "no you don't."
I mean.

If you were doing it with me, I'd honor that in my narrative descriptions of the action even under a "points are points are points" system. I work the same way with sneak attacks. You want to get in a sneak attack on me, I'll help you, narratively speaking; message me in advance and I'll help you set that shit up and work out some really nasty ways to hit the (probably) Umerians in the balls. Nobody asked me, last time, but I was willing then and I'm willing now.

Like, I'm not fifteen. I have enough of a sense of humor and a sense of perspective to lose gracefully, and will happily accept losing gracefully if it means I get to portray my stuff losing gallantly and with a measure of dignity preserved.

But then again, that's me. Someone else may pull childish "nuh-uh" crap, in which case I guess some kind of rules are needed for things like stealth and interdiction and God knows what all else are in those

...

I guess my thing is, I want a reasonably compact set of rules, with clearly enumerated steps for nation creation.

Once I have that in front of me, I can decide what to make of the system, I guess.

I do NOT want ten or twenty pages of wall-o-text blather I have to read through to figure out the important parts for purposes of putting together the stat line. Like, that thing on the Wiki is over six thousand words long, and it's not finished. If I have to read a novella to understand the rules, I'm not going to be able to engage with the game.

Anyway, until further notice I'm playing a reimagined version of the Technocracy of Umeria; I'll work out the details later.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Rogue 9 »

Last thing first: Yes, starting to outline our factions is one of the reasons for the thread. :)

We're not going to use Crossroads' rules document barring unforeseen circumstances (namely a bunch of people signing up and voting to use it). As Academia Nut put it when we were hammering out the rules that wound up on the wiki, "the designer reaches perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but nothing left to take away." The flip side of that is that you can take away so much that you lose functionality.

The thing about the rules is that, unless players are absolutely at loggerheads, they shouldn't be used to routinely decide things by the strict mathematics of the points. I believe we all agree on that point. In practice, what the specializations did in play was generally inform what the ships and fleets could do: My ships were heavy on the sensor and comms equipment, so the Metallkonige's (yes, Academia Nut's faction was exactly what that sounds like, and it was hilarious) massive jamming wouldn't have been as effective on me, etc. Stealth existing completely enabled most of my interactions in the game since I never got invaded and wasn't playing a hostile power inclined to preemptively attack because the other players were there; having stealth frigates prowling around essentially let me play. Improved Offensives catered to those players who just can't help saying exactly what ship out of a fleet they're shooting at; you want to call shots, you pay for the privilege.

Here's my summary fleet ORBAT from STGOD 2k8 after one production turn (courtesy that game's quick reference thread):

Fleet

Dauntless - 40+10O+5C3+5D=60 x5
Intrepid - 40+10C3+5O+5D=60 x5

Kensington - 20+10D=30 x15
Guardian -10+5O+5C3=20 x15
Binder - 10+10I=20 x5

Polaris - 5+5D+5C3=15 x30
Bandit - 5+5O+5C3=15 x25
Shadow - 5+10S+5C3=20 x11

If you just want the total, remove everything in front of the = signs. But that says that the Shadow class is a combat match for the Guardian is a match for the Binder - none of which is true, or intended to be true. The process started with a rough outline of what I wanted my fleet compositions to look like - traditional; a large battleship and large fleet carrier leading a battlegroup of cruisers with a larger number of escorts. I wanted five such battlegroups (I started with four and used my first production turn to commission a fifth), and figured what I generally wanted to be able to do - namely, defend myself, see what was going on, and simulate being fighter-heavy via the carrier (small craft being able to get where they want and put ordnance where they want from the angle they want much easier than a railcannon). So I broke up my points the way you would in a points are points are points system, composed the fleet with a 495 point budget (the odd stealth frigate had a... special assignment), and then spent like five minutes putting on the logical specializations to have the capabilities I wanted (O to simulate the fighters, C3 to make sure I could use it, D on escorting cruisers and destroyers because that's their job, and an interdictor platform per fleet because they're handy to have).

Could I perhaps have busted out a spreadsheet and spent hours figuring a way to cheese it? Sure, maybe (though probably not since the system doesn't really have that many moving parts), but again, these aren't going to be used literally unless someone's being a jerk. I just threw up the numbers to signify what I wanted to be competent at, and enough to ensure that in case of the aforementioned jerkdom I would be competent at. That's all it's for.

To be clear, I'm putting forth the argument because I like the rules, but if this is not persuasive, I'm fine with points = points and just having a beatstick fleet.

Now I'm going to outline my faction, which I'll do in a separate post for ease of separating the rules discussion.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Rogue 9 »

Nashtar, the Cradle of the Stars

History

The history of Nashtar properly begins with the launch of Star Colony Fleet 04 and Colonial Fleet 3 from the United States and the British Commonwealth, respectively. The two fleets were a joint venture, intentionally bound for the same inhabitable planet and traveling together through the long centuries of the journey through space at slower than light speeds, for at the time of their launch, FTL drive had not been discovered. Over the centuries, generations of colonists lived and died aboard the ships, carefully nurturing each successive generation and educating them in the areas of science, philosophy, and government. The colonists were drawn from all walks of life in the English-speaking nations of Earth, and the diversity of American and British culture was present in its full spectrum.

The fleets initially arrived in the Helios system at the edge of the nebula that the Nashtar Republic holds today. There, they found the native species of the cluster receptive to the newcomers, and already capable of spaceflight. The Zambarim and Ronoghans were already capable of faster than light travel. Both races were also in contact with the Ernari, though Ernarn's ships were not yet capable of interstellar flight.

Holdings

The Republic holds seven main worlds and several colonies [subject to change with the rules]. All the main settled planets are within the Nashtar star cluster, while the colonies lie outside it.

Core Systems:

Helios System: This system contains two inhabited planetoids; the capital planet of Nashtar and it's moon, Tyche.
  • Nashtar: Capital planet and cultural center for the Republic, this planet’s concerns besides government mainly revolve around commerce. It is the second planet in its system. A good portion of the Republic’s ordinary citizens make their homes here. The Republic's government convenes on Nashtar. The planet is named for the spectacular nearby (in interstellar terms) nebula that dominates the night sky; the word "Nashtar" is Ronoghan for "Cradle of the Stars," named for the view of the star-birthing gas cloud.
  • Tyche: Nashtar's single large moon, Tyche, is home to lunar colonies, mainly concerned with mining. The system's defense forces are primarily based on the moon.
Oro System: The Oro system is the Republic's primary industrial center. It is home to two inhabited worlds and three asteroid mining colonies.
  • Orodan: This planet is highly industrialized and oriented towards heavy manufacturing. It is the third planet in its system. The government maintains one continent for military manufacturing, and the main shipyards, both military and civilian, are in orbit. The remaining landmasses are open for private use, with clusters of factories mostly along the coasts; factory workers live in towns nearby. Orodan takes full advantage of the Ronoghan technical institutes' great strides in clean manufacturing, so this planet is not as heavily polluted as some suppose when they hear of an industrial world.
  • Oromos: This world is almost entirely given over to mining. It is in the same system as Orodan, and is the fourth planet. It is a very old planet, so old that its mantle is mostly solidified. This in combination with its three rather large moons makes it prone to violent earthquakes upon occasion. Advanced seismographic analysis equipment provides plenty of early warning for the miners, who have shuttles ready for quick liftoff when necessary. Ore haulers move back and forth between Oromos and Orodan in a steady stream, taking raw materials to the factories. The planet’s atmosphere is very thin, and breath masks are necessary for humans and other creatures not used to thin air.
Mintar: This planet is the main agrarian planet responsible for ensuring that the others are well stocked with consumables. It is the third planet in its system, and is almost entirely given over to farmland. While the other planets all have some measure of agriculture, agriculture is almost all this planet does. Gigantic farming machines roam slowly over the fields, planting or harvesting as the crop and season dictates. As one would imagine, comestibles are Mintar's primary export, both to other Nashtari worlds and to international markets.

Pinnacle: Pinnacle, the cold sixth planet in an otherwise barren system, is a highly militarized world, mainly serving as a base for the Republic's quick-response fleet. The ships stationed here are ready to respond to distress signals from other systems on short notice.

Ronogho: Home to the Ronoghan race, Ronogho is an industrialized world. The Ronoghans had a highly advanced society before human settlement, and continue to produce advanced technology for the Republic and international trade. Parts for the Shadow class stealth frigates are manufactured here, among other things.

Zambar: Considered backwater compared to the other core worlds, Zambar is home to both human colonists and a native race, who call themselves the Zambarim. The planet is settled, but not heavily industrialized; much of the surface is untracked jungle. The Nashtar Republican Army uses Zambar for jungle warfare training.

Colonies:

Krentos IV: Krentos IV is a world located in a system outside the Nashtar Cluster, but has line of travel to Pinnacle. It houses a small colony and military outpost. A small battle group from Sixth Fleet is housed here. There is an army outpost at the colony, housing one armored division. Besides the army personnel, the colony is home to approximately 2,000 colonists.

Joyous Gard: Named for the castle of Sir Launcelot of the Arthurian legends, this is a forward military base. Sixth Fleet, the frontier force (made up of lighter ships than the five main battle fleets) is based here along with army and Marine forces. While Joyous Gard is officially registered as the base of operations of Sixth and its accompanying forces, in actuality these units are spread among the colonies. A medium sized moon orbits the planet, and as with most moons in the Republic, it houses a fighter base.

Krynlo Colony: Krynlo is a dome colony located on a large moon without an atmosphere. About 800 colonists live here. The system is regularly patrolled by Nashtari destroyers; apart from its fighters it has very little in the way of other defenses.

Parlan: Parlan is a mining colony on the second planet of a small yellow star. Rather than mining for industrial metals like Oromos, Parlan’s miners search for, and find, gems and some amounts of precious metals. There are about 600 miners and other personnel here, minus anyone crewing vessels with shipments back to the core worlds. Sixth Fleet patrols the colony in much the same way as Krynlo.

Barrier: Named for the three separate asteroid belts that make navigation of the system along the planetary plane hazardous, Barrier is home to about 1,000 colonists, most employed in light manufacturing or asteroid mining. A Floater cluster mines comets and Oort cloud objects in the outer system, and happily trades with the Republic.

Farpoint: A small military listening post on the ninth planet of a red star’s system, this small outpost is manned by military personnel and armed with highly sensitive electronic monitoring arrays. The system is situated slightly “above” the galactic plane. A single Shadow class destroyer orbits the planet, under strict communications silence unless an imminent threat is reported by the post or detected by the destroyer, at which point the planned course of action is to load the post’s 53 crew members on and leave as quickly as possible. This hasn’t happened yet, and to the Republic Space Command’s knowledge the post’s security is uncompromised.

Inhabitants

Human colonists: Thanks to the discovery of Mintar and Orodan, which were primarily settled by the human colonials, humanity is the dominant race in the subsector. Transhuman augmentations popular in other parts of the Terran colonization zones never took root in Nashtari civilian use, though members of the military receive limited augmentations depending upon their duties.

Ronoghans: Physically, the Ronoghan species as a rule towers over most humans, nearing three meters in height when standing fully erect. Most of this is in their elongated necks. Their skin is red, and changes hue depending upon mood. They are bipedal, and their double jointed limbs end in dextrous, four-digited hands and feet. Mentally, they tend toward the analytical and visual, being possessed of keen eyesight and typically highly developed visual pattern recognition. The genetic material structure of Ronoghans, and indeed almost all indigenous animal life on Ronogho, is arranged in a triple nucleotide helix rather than the double helix of Earthers, and their technology has long used this structure as a data storage method; in a pinch they have even been known to engineer information into their own mitochondria to be extracted later.

Zambarim: The natives of Zambar are bipedal but six limbed, possessed of two pairs of arms. The upper pair is immensely strong, claw-tipped, and capable of brachiation, while the lower are comparable to a strong human's. The species is furred, typically black though variations exist. The head of a Zambarim is elongated and downward facing, with the mouth oriented down as opposed to forward like a human's. Zambarim are natural predators and obligate carnivores, and enjoy sneaking and stalking, whether prey in the jungle of their homeworld or on the battlefield of the Republic's wars - postings on Shadow class frigates are sought after by Zambarim in the Space Command. This should not be mistaken for barbarism on their part, however; they are highly intelligent, technically savvy, and were capable of space flight before the arrival of humanity in the star cluster.

Politics and Government

The Republic is, of course, a republic. The nation's executive head is a President, but lawmaking power is held by a bicameral legislature populated by representatives from all member worlds. There are four major political parties; in descending order of influence, they are Unity, National Sovereignty, Free Trade, and Democratic Labor. Free Trade and Democratic Labor are rump parties with no real chance at the Presidency, though they have sufficient support to gain minorities in the legislature.

As a rule, regardless of current administration, the Republic of Nashtar heavily favors free trade and freedom of navigation, and commits significant military resources to combating piracy in the region. While not an overly aggressive power, Nashtar maintains a strict and very public policy of non-interference with the smaller regional powers, both from the Republic and from anyone else, and is publicly willing to back that policy with military force. The primary beneficiaries of this are Ernarn, a neighboring minor power on good terms with Nashtar, as well as a few small Floater clusters that have settled nearby to mine the nebular gas.

Military

The Republic's military is (relative to it's multi-trillion population) small, but highly professional and well-equipped. Naval doctrine calls for survivability over high numbers of vessels, which means that Nashtari ships tend to be highly expensive, but better ship-for-ship to their counterparts in other navies, with the exception of some powers' heaviest capital vessels.

[Order of Battle goes here once we have rules.]
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by VX-145 »

Rogue: I like it.

I've worked up an outline for my guys, under the working title of Endeavour, though it's nowhere near finished and highly WIP. It's on a google document here. I've not started on settlement or military details, I'll wait until the rules become a bit more solidified. Also it's late where I am and I need sleep.

IDK how we're setting up the backstory for the galaxy as a whole, but I've got some opportunities for minor pre-game interactions if people are interested - you can drop me a PM or just ask in thread, or comment on the google document if it's set up for that. Basic stuff like "who found who first" and so on.

I'm continuing to stay out of ruleschat, in case people are wondering where I stand, for reasons articulated upthread.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Esquire »

Oh, neat. I'd be into this - have to figure out my nation concept, I tried 'weird out-of-time ancient Greek stuff' twice and I'm not feeling it a third time.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Rogue 9 »

Welcome aboard. :)

Quick addendum to my rules post above: Note that in terms of combat ability, specializing all my ships that way significantly reduced the raw firepower of my fleet. If you took one of my battlegroups and put it up against a 495 point task force of ships with no specializations at all, it would lose: It could soak damage with D, but not enough to keep up and the sensors advantage is plain old useless; it would just mean I could see my doom coming from further away and let me pick targets with my improved offensives - but that doesn't help against an undifferentiated mass of pure points because without enemy specialist ships in need of taking out (interdictors to prevent the running away I'd need to do in this case, for instance) it doesn't matter if I focus down a ship or not. The only things it would have going that the points blob doesn't just overpower are the interdictor and the two stealth frigates. The interdictor could get me a free round of shooting if I managed to catch the points blob in hyperspace but that's not enough to win the prolonged battle, and perfect cloak doesn't exist; once the frigates engage they get swatted with a full 3/4 of their total cost not contributing a thing to the slugfest. So even in the 2k8 system, not using specializations is a viable strategy. It limits your out of combat options a little, but if you plan to aggress and just Zerg rush at people, it works fine.
Last edited by Rogue 9 on 2020-09-29 11:04pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Beowulf »

Points should generally be points. The specializations should mostly tell you how a given ship is focused. So an offensive and defensive oriented pair of ships fighting, you know that the offensively oriented ship isn't going to be getting shot at as much, but the shots at it are more likely to hit or more likely to cause damage. Conversely, the defensively oriented ship is going to be great at avoiding, blocking, or shooting down incoming, but isn't going to be able to send much in return.

That said, I do think special abilities should be costly. So interdictors, or stealth ships, or being high-speed couriers might be worthwhile. But it should be largely fluff for the core combat. Whether you're eggshells with sledgehammers or tanks with peashooters.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Rogue 9 »

Okay, so points are points with the exception of being able to purchase, say, the Stealth ability for X, Interdiction ability for Y, and Ludicrous Speed ability for Z? I could live with that.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Esquire »

Maybe fractional multipliers? Say base cost *1.2 for the stealth version, *1.5 for interdiction, etc.? Numbers entirely negotiable, I just think flat costs will get weird at the high and low ends of the spread.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Rogue 9 »

Yeah, that's why the 2k8 rules had a formula comparing S and H scores to the rest of the cost of the ship to give a rating rather than +5S (or +5H) having the same effect no matter how big the ship is. Sneaky Dreadnoughts is something you really don't want.

Anyway, so that leads to another thing. Who assigns damage, attacker or defender? Without the O and D stats, there's no way to change whatever the default is, so we need to decide that default.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Rogue 9 »

Also, Simon, you bring up the SDNW4 rules. What are those rules? There doesn't seem to be a rules thread that's titled as such and I don't feel like wading through however many commentary threads it generated to find them.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Esquire »

Rogue 9 wrote: 2020-09-29 11:37pm Also, Simon, you bring up the SDNW4 rules. What are those rules? There doesn't seem to be a rules thread that's titled as such and I don't feel like wading through however many commentary threads it generated to find them.
https://worldsofsdn.fandom.com/wiki/Ruleset

This, no? Found via Google.

EDIT: I apparently don't know how HTML tags work on my phone.
Last edited by Esquire on 2020-09-29 11:48pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Beowulf »

Rather than 1.2 * base cost for stealth, or whatever, people can assign % to specializations like stealth or speed. So you can do 50% stealth, which gives you 50% of normal combat capacity. Or do 30% stealth and 30% speed, for a penalty of 60% to combat capacity.

I'd say defender generally assigns damage, with the attacker saying where they're aiming. So the attacker can say that their aiming their volleys at the battlewagons, but defender says that the attacks are suckered away, or shot down, or intercepted by one of their small boys, and that's perfectly legitimate. This has always been the way. The O and D stats only let you adjust how far towards the eggshell vs peashooter you've got.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Jub »

Esquire's link checks out with what I found in this thread.

As for my civ, I have a day off tomorrow and I'll nail down the details then. It'll be roughly what I was tossing around up thread, but I'm debating a serious twist that changes a lot internally and very little externally.
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Re: STGOD 2020 Concept/Planning Thread

Post by Simon_Jester »

Rogue 9 wrote: 2020-09-29 08:17pm Last thing first: Yes, starting to outline our factions is one of the reasons for the thread. :)

We're not going to use Crossroads' rules document barring unforeseen circumstances (namely a bunch of people signing up and voting to use it). As Academia Nut put it when we were hammering out the rules that wound up on the wiki, "the designer reaches perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but nothing left to take away." The flip side of that is that you can take away so much that you lose functionality.

The thing about the rules is that, unless players are absolutely at loggerheads, they shouldn't be used to routinely decide things by the strict mathematics of the points. I believe we all agree on that point. In practice, what the specializations did in play was generally inform what the ships and fleets could do: My ships were heavy on the sensor and comms equipment, so the Metallkonige's (yes, Academia Nut's faction was exactly what that sounds like, and it was hilarious) massive jamming wouldn't have been as effective on me, etc. Stealth existing completely enabled most of my interactions in the game since I never got invaded and wasn't playing a hostile power inclined to preemptively attack because the other players were there; having stealth frigates prowling around essentially let me play. Improved Offensives catered to those players who just can't help saying exactly what ship out of a fleet they're shooting at; you want to call shots, you pay for the privilege.

Here's my summary fleet ORBAT from STGOD 2k8 after one production turn (courtesy that game's quick reference thread):

Fleet

Dauntless - 40+10O+5C3+5D=60 x5
Intrepid - 40+10C3+5O+5D=60 x5

Kensington - 20+10D=30 x15
Guardian -10+5O+5C3=20 x15
Binder - 10+10I=20 x5

Polaris - 5+5D+5C3=15 x30
Bandit - 5+5O+5C3=15 x25
Shadow - 5+10S+5C3=20 x11
OK, but... what does any of this even mean and how do I nation-create with it?

I can't bring myself to read through 6000 words to figure out how to write an order of battle. This has to be manageably complex, not just in terms of the actual rules but in terms of how the rules are presented as an actionable set of instructions for how to play.

In a "points are points" system you can at least eyeball how things work quickly; I have no fucking clue what 'O' and 'D' and 'C3' mean or how any of this trades off or whatever.
Esquire wrote: 2020-09-29 10:39pm Oh, neat. I'd be into this - have to figure out my nation concept, I tried 'weird out-of-time ancient Greek stuff' twice and I'm not feeling it a third time.
I was rather fond of them, but alas, it's been too long for me to reprise that one space trireme full of Shroom's Elysians that I stole, and without them it's just... not the same.

And yeah, that link Esquire gave is to the SDNW4/5 rules, or some iteration of them. The carrier rules were needlessly complicated for some screwy reason, but aside from that things were conceptually simple, which is a huge plus.
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