3rd Edition Rules

[crucis]

I think the first thing I want to say because maybe I'm not being clear.  I like 3rdR but I also like GSF.  It fixes some things that were clearly wrong in 3rdR.  In both cases there is stuff I like and stuff I don't.   I don't play GSF because I could never convince the München locals to play it due to lack of computer support.  The single thing that for me that stands out in GSF is the whole tech tree and research system that is the best change they made.  It makes each game new and different...if well the weapons themelves were so damn homongenized.

Hi Paul.  I don't own GSF.  It's the only version of Starfire that I don't own.  However, I will say that there's something to be said conceptually for tech trees.  Maybe not exactly as they exist in Ultra (which I presume to be very similar to those in GSF), but conceptually.  And its R&D model does create more uncertainty because you don't really know when you'll succeed, whereas with the ISF model, you have a pretty decent idea how long it'll take with average rolls to complete whatever project you're working on, be it a TL research or developing some tech system.

As for the weapons feeling homogenized, well yeah, a lack of good fluff will do that, won't it? 

What I don't like about specifically SM2's economic changes (and these carry through with only minor modifications to GSF) is that the economy always grows and at some point it goes over the cliff to the "rich get richer faster and faster."  GSF pushes that point back by making stuff more expensive and I understand why Marvin did that.  For the games he likes, it will solve the problem.  To me it is just kicking the can down the road as opposed to dealing with the problem.  My solution is unfortunately not going to be popular.  You have to make there be a cost to your empire.  Buoys, Space Yards, mines, IDEW, etc have to cost money so that as you empire grows so to does your maintenance fee, to the point where you might not colonize a system since it costs you money for a long time before it brings in money.  Or you may need to accept that a system is going to be a net drain but is strategically vital.  The whole "corruption" shlock they put into Civilization games.  Otherwise SF's economy is purely compound interest and it is only a question of what the rate of interest is.  By making things simplier and easier and most importantly basically free in SM2 the net result was an increase in empire size and fleet size that both leads to more paperwork and to me unfun battles, since even starfire breaks down at 100s of ships per side.  You have to do something that isn't just "money" to keep things in check.  That can be lower chances of habitables, that can be slower growth, that can be slower hull construction, it can be personal points, whatever...money as a limit fails when the economy tends to infinity as turn number increases.  See both Kurt and Steve's games for that.  But logisitics and so on is about as fun as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.  But the result of a turn to turn budget in the hundreds of thousands of MCr is not any better.  Steve's trial with supply rules for example can really put a slow down to exploration as you need supplies to explore.  Requiring military mine layers also changes things.  There is an infinite number of possible solutions.  I'd be inclined to suggest an administrative fee per system, that goes up if it is more than a month from an ICC.  You have to get the economy off the compound interest basis.

I understand what you're talking about here, Paul.  But I don't think that increasing costs solves any problems, though some of your suggestions I agree with.

I personally think that the root cause of the problem is any sort of aggressive population (and thus economic) growth.  I know that supposedly Marvin believed that people didn't like the slow growth in pure ISF and changed that in SM2.  However, it is that growth model that creates the economic explosiveness that you correctly point out.  And I don't think that the problem with a broken economic model can be fixed by throwing bucketloads of band-aids at it.  I think that the real solution is to attack the root cause of the problem head-on.  However, in doing so, would people willingly accept that they'd have to give up any degree of quick growth as the price for solving the economic problem that so many seem to understand exists?

[crucis]

An example - I've recently typed up the ISF rules for tidelocked planets/moons (see 13.05.01), and it appears that here is where you can cut 1/2 a page of rules. I mean, seriously, who ever bothers with tidelocked planets/moons? Does it make a difference that the moons are tidelocked - or is simply an un-necessary feature?

To me, what happened in Ultra, is that there are a lot of features that are similar to ISF's tidelocked planets - where they could be easily removed without changing the gameplay.....

And as to fluff - a single line here and there (which is very useful in breaking the drudgery of reading the rules) is vastly different to pages and pages of rules that serve very little game purpose (aside from making the rules "astronomically correct" - or other similar reason).

Matt, there are two reasons that tidelocking matters.

1. Without tidelocking, there wouldn't be any Type T/ST planets around Red Dwarf stars.  ((However, last I read, this belief may not be as correct as once thought.  There are some who apparently not believe that it might indeed be possible to tidelocked planets in a RD's narrow hab zone to be somewhat habitable.  Somewhat as in a narrow band between the always lit and always dark sides might be habitable, which would then seem to make it a new type of habitable planet.))

2. Tidelocked moons do not rotate.  That's the definition, of course.  This impacts the firing arcs of PDC's on those moons, which could affect tactical combat.

And the TL rules are actually only 1/2 of a single column of rules on a 2 column page, but I understand your point.  Still, there are some people who don't care much about detail in sysgen, and there are some people who are positively anal about it.  There are some people who may not bother moving planets thru their orbits.  And there are some people who whine about how the 1 sys hex every other month isn't a realistic orbital movement model.  What can I say?  Different people have different priorities.

To be honest, the comments of "blandness" and "next big system" are different sides of the same coin - and it depends of which side of the fence you sit on as to whether it is a problem or not.

I'm not sure if blandness is the opposite of "next big system" or of a lack of fluff to provide flavor.  I lean more towards the latter myself.

Having said that, Marvin is very anti-R3rd (for a variety of reasons), and I can't see that changing any time soon. (An example of the anti-R3rd, is the fact that he doesn't even sell ISF/R3rd ed any more (you can buy some of the supplements, but not the core rules)....)

Actually, it's hard to sell hard copy products that you no longer have in stock. 

[crucis]

 Anyway, what is clear is that with the changes of 3rdR ISW4 battles fail even more than the ones in SAW to follows the interludes.  Take the first battle of Justin (or second) where the TFN BCR's engage the bugs...with the 3rdR Dx rules the outcome of an entire SBM load will not be more than a few SDs shield down.  I am dubious in the extreme the rules allow more than to happen.  The changes both to the SBM, to Dx, and to Improved Multiplex Targeting make that tactic doomed.  At 31+ hexs the chance of a missile to hit is base 4, add in +2 from Mi2  and then subtract -3 for ECM and you are at 3.  So 30 SBM's fired, mean is 9 impact.  That is 27 shots which is only 6 Dx (and I think each SD had that alone) so that is 9 to intercept...or 1 impacts.  If ECM can be negated (and I don't think it can at that range as the missile is using onboard terminal guidance) that goes up to mean 18 impacts and 72 shots required (90 available to the data group) so 2 impacts.  Also at that range you only know it is a SD nothing more...you have to have a ship or something inside of 30 hexs with an Xr to get "class" information and even then I'm not sure exactly.  I can't recall what they did to identify them or maybe they didn't.  I doubt the BCs would last very long in the phase where they were using CMs either...the SDs are harder targets and the Dx-3 ship group is as good as the Dxz with the exception that the SDs will loose Z earlier.   Regardless the tech changes make the battle plan in the book utterly senseless.

A big change was in the Mi# system.  The Mi# system as Dave envisioned it allowed you to buy as many levels of Mi# as you wanted.  If you wanted a Mi10 system and were willing to plunk down the Mc for it, it was yours.  And the ISW4 battles you describe were written under that assumption, both in the novels and in the original ISW4 scenario book manuscript.

[MWadwell]

Matt, there are two reasons that tidelocking matters.

1. Without tidelocking, there wouldn't be any Type T/ST planets around Red Dwarf stars.  ((However, last I read, this belief may not be as correct as once thought.  There are some who apparently not believe that it might indeed be possible to tidelocked planets in a RD's narrow hab zone to be somewhat habitable.  Somewhat as in a narrow band between the always lit and always dark sides might be habitable, which would then seem to make it a new type of habitable planet.))

2. Tidelocked moons do not rotate.  That's the definition, of course.  This impacts the firing arcs of PDC's on those moons, which could affect tactical combat.

And the TL rules are actually only 1/2 of a single column of rules on a 2 column page, but I understand your point.  Still, there are some people who don't care much about detail in sysgen, and there are some people who are positively anal about it.  There are some people who may not bother moving planets thru their orbits.  And there are some people who whine about how the 1 sys hex every other month isn't a realistic orbital movement model.  What can I say?  Different people have different priorities.

My point is quite simple - is it worth it? By the time you add 1/2 a page here, 1/4 a page there, another page over here - you end up with ~200 pages of rules turning into 350+ pages. You have to ask yourself, is pandering to the anal retentive people at the cost of the average player helping the game or not?

Actually, it's hard to sell hard copy products that you no longer have in stock. 

Well, answer this - why isn't R3rd ed rules being sold in electronic format? I know the SDS has it (I gave Cralis a copy that I put together a few years ago) - so why isn't that sold?

Why isn't the UTM sold?

Both of these products are in electronic format, and could easily be sold, so why aren't they???

[crucis]

My point is quite simple - is it worth it? By the time you add 1/2 a page here, 1/4 a page there, another page over here - you end up with ~200 pages of rules turning into 350+ pages. You have to ask yourself, is pandering to the anal retentive people at the cost of the average player helping the game or not?

Well, not to be picky (or maybe I am), but original 3e/ISF managed to include tidelocking and stay (just) under 200 pages.  

Still, I know what you're getting at.  But I still maintain that one person's "must have" feature is another person's "optional, and can be cut" item.  And yet having said that, I suppose it's the game designer's job to make a decision.  Include lots of features and build up page count?  Or try to hold page count down and only retain the critical "core" rules?  

I actually think that there could be a third answer.  Hold page count down with a product that tries to stick to the critical core rules.  BUT assemble all the other stuff for some sort of "advanced players" book that could contain those nice, but not critical "features".  Things like random events, oddities, graded crews and leaders, etc.  Anything that could be removed from the core game without preventing the core game from functioning properly.  I think that there might be a pretty fair amount of stuff that falls into this category that people may take for granted.

EDIT:  BTW, I should add that pulling out some non-critical rules isn't always as easy as it may seem, since many rules may be cross referenced by other rules.  And those cross references have to be yanked as well.  Graded crews, for example.  I suspect that there are references to graded crews all around the rules and tech systems, talking about how this or that is affected or not affected by crew grade.  Of course, on the flip side, I imagine that tide-locked moons' cross references are limited to a small handful of references also in the sysgen section.  Anyways, food for thought.

Well, answer this - why isn't R3rd ed rules being sold in electronic format? I know the SDS has it (I gave Cralis a copy that I put together a few years ago) - so why isn't that sold?

At the moment, I can't answer your question without betraying a confidence.  Sorry.  

[MWadwell]

I actually think that there could be a third answer.  Hold page count down with a product that tries to stick to the critical core rules.  BUT assemble all the other stuff for some sort of "advanced players" book that could contain those nice, but not critical "features".  Things like random events, oddities, graded crews and leaders, etc.  Anything that could be removed from the core game without preventing the core game from functioning properly.  I think that there might be a pretty fair amount of stuff that falls into this category that people may take for granted.

EDIT:  BTW, I should add that pulling out some non-critical rules isn't always as easy as it may seem, since many rules may be cross referenced by other rules.  And those cross references have to be yanked as well.  Graded crews, for example.  I suspect that there are references to graded crews all around the rules and tech systems, talking about how this or that is affected or not affected by crew grade.  Of course, on the flip side, I imagine that tide-locked moons' cross references are limited to a small handful of references also in the sysgen section.  Anyways, food for thought.

As you point out, the problem is that due to the cross referencing, the Core rules then end up being bigger then they would be without the Advanced rules. E.g, All of the rules that cross reference crew grade - there would have to be a paragraph saying "If playing with optional rules on crew grade, then do XXXX, otherwise do YYYY".

And when you have multiple cross referencing (i.e. optional rules of nebulas, with optional rules on tidelocking, with optional rules on racial traits), then even simple rules get complicated (and long) to account for all of the possibilities... 

[crucis]

As you point out, the problem is that due to the cross referencing, the Core rules then end up being bigger then they would be without the Advanced rules. E.g, All of the rules that cross reference crew grade - there would have to be a paragraph saying "If playing with optional rules on crew grade, then do XXXX, otherwise do YYYY".

I'm not sure that it must be that way, but you're right that it's certainly a possibility.  That said, arguably, an "advanced players" rule product could handle all of that stuff. if those things were written properly.


Regardless, I fully expect that there'd be differing opinions on what is "core" and what is "non-critical". I might say that the CFN rules are non-critical, and other people might go ballistic at the thought of the CFN rules being yanked from the "core" rules.  Or crew grade.  Or the NPR Race/Gov't type rules from SM#2.  I shudder to think what people might say if I yanked out the things that *I* consider non-critical, given my pre-SM#2 Starfire background.   

[Paul M]

Hi Paul.  I don't own GSF.  It's the only version of Starfire that I don't own.  However, I will say that there's something to be said conceptually for tech trees.  Maybe not exactly as they exist in Ultra (which I presume to be very similar to those in GSF), but conceptually.  And its R&D model does create more uncertainty because you don't really know when you'll succeed, whereas with the ISF model, you have a pretty decent idea how long it'll take with average rolls to complete whatever project you're working on, be it a TL research or developing some tech system.

As for the weapons feeling homogenized, well yeah, a lack of good fluff will do that, won't it? 

It is a lot more than a lack of good fluff in GSF, though the one piece of fluff in the captial e-beam tree is just outright wrong as the range and damage of the Ec is less than the that of the E-whatever.  The weapons are all essenially identical in terms of damage and range (given how short range the beams are) and the long range weapons are lots of dice rolls with little effect due to poor to hit numbers.  It isn't quanititively true what I am saying but looking at the charts the only thing that springs out is that the beam weapons are ordered L-F-E in terms of best to worst due to the fact that L skip shields, while E take now 2 hits to do 1 shield point and then only skip so many A, plus cost more and are larger then L or F.  F skips nothing and the range advantage is minimal at best.  Develop L, ignore the rest if you are min-max type person otherwise it isn't going to matter much.  The long range weapons are pretty much what you like as the differences are even more minimal.

For me I don't see any hook to get the player interested.  I certainly can't see people getting passionate and arguing about weapon mixes.

I understand what you're talking about here, Paul.  But I don't think that increasing costs solves any problems, though some of your suggestions I agree with.

I personally think that the root cause of the problem is any sort of aggressive population (and thus economic) growth.  I know that supposedly Marvin believed that people didn't like the slow growth in pure ISF and changed that in SM2.  However, it is that growth model that creates the economic explosiveness that you correctly point out.  And I don't think that the problem with a broken economic model can be fixed by throwing bucketloads of band-aids at it.  I think that the real solution is to attack the root cause of the problem head-on.  However, in doing so, would people willingly accept that they'd have to give up any degree of quick growth as the price for solving the economic problem that so many seem to understand exists?

I agree with you that the root cause needs fixing.  My suggestion is basically the one that CIV uses (corruption) to cause your empire to have increased costs as its size increases.  The problem in SF economics is that the cost of running your empire increases very slowly (if at all) while your income grows essentially linear to size.  This is where the problem comes from.  A real empire runs into the problem that simple administration starts costing the world.  Starfire has no "cost of empire" due to using a simple compound interest model coupled with extremely fast growth.  Look at starslayer's and mine game and you can see the effect of dramatic reduction in growth and ship building speed.

I'm not advocating increasing the costs of things, that is the solution of GSF, it just pushes the can down the road.  What I want to see is a "cost of empire" and removal of all the no maintenance objects in the game.  I understand why that was done but it is a case of solving one problem and causing or exagerating another.  The best solution is to start with a fresh approach to the economics in my view, but then the question is the balance between complexity and ease of play.

[crucis]

It is a lot more than a lack of good fluff in GSF, though the one piece of fluff in the capital e-beam tree is just outright wrong as the range and damage of the Ec is less than the that of the E-whatever.  The weapons are all essentially identical in terms of damage and range (given how short range the beams are) and the long range weapons are lots of dice rolls with little effect due to poor to hit numbers.  It isn't quantitatively true what I am saying but looking at the charts the only thing that springs out is that the beam weapons are ordered L-F-E in terms of best to worst due to the fact that L skip shields, while E take now 2 hits to do 1 shield point and then only skip so many A, plus cost more and are larger then L or F.  F skips nothing and the range advantage is minimal at best.  Develop L, ignore the rest if you are min-max type person otherwise it isn't going to matter much.  The long range weapons are pretty much what you like as the differences are even more minimal.

For me I don't see any hook to get the player interested.  I certainly can't see people getting passionate and arguing about weapon mixes.

I don't disagree with what you're saying here.  The differences between generations are very minor, and heck, the differences between the weapon types are small too.  I think that you're probably right about L being the best.  I know that Dawn Falcon has told me that L is his favorite (I think) but that he also likes developing E so that when he runs into someone who has strong defenses against laser-using races, he can switch over to E-armed ships and catch'em by surprise.

I agree with you that the root cause needs fixing.  My suggestion is basically the one that CIV uses (corruption) to cause your empire to have increased costs as its size increases.  The problem in SF economics is that the cost of running your empire increases very slowly (if at all) while your income grows essentially linear to size.  This is where the problem comes from.  A real empire runs into the problem that simple administration starts costing the world.  Starfire has no "cost of empire" due to using a simple compound interest model coupled with extremely fast growth.  Look at starslayer's and mine game and you can see the effect of dramatic reduction in growth and ship building speed.

I'm not advocating increasing the costs of things, that is the solution of GSF, it just pushes the can down the road.  What I want to see is a "cost of empire" and removal of all the no maintenance objects in the game.  I understand why that was done but it is a case of solving one problem and causing or exagerating another.  The best solution is to start with a fresh approach to the economics in my view, but then the question is the balance between complexity and ease of play.

Honestly, I don't think that the solution you describe is a root cause fix.  I see it as a band-aid.  If the problem is growth, then it's grown that must be fixed.  of course, you then do go on to talk about reduced growth.  I think that the real solution needs to be something along the lines of no growth, or very low growth, perhaps on the order of 1% per year (or 0.1% per month).

Cralis has told me that one of the reasons that Marvin put in such high growth in SM2 was that players didn't like the nearly non-existent growth in ISF and supposedly wanted to see their colonies grow into large populations.  But that explosive population growth produces explosive economic growth.  Thus, I think that the game is better off accepting very low (or no) population growth as the price for maintaining a more reasonable level of economic expansion.

As for complexity and ease of play, I don't envision any of my potential ideas being any more complex than what exists now, and perhaps even less complex.  


EDIT:  One other option for tweaking growth that I probably wouldn't use, but is worth mentioning is requiring population growth to be based on PTU's rather than on PU's.  I think that it's safe to say that in the PU/PTU model, PTU's are the real measure of population whereas PU's really are an economic measure.  If growth were based on PTU's, players would see aggressive economic growth in colonial populations, and then start to see economic growth slowing when population are more mid-range (i.e. Small and Medium), and then growth much more slowly once populations become Large and Very Large. 

But the cost of this model is that you'd have to convert each population's PU total to PTU's, apply growth, and reconvert back to PUs, which would be a serious pain in the arse for monthly growth and only slightly less so for yearly growth.  But it would probably be one solution that would help curb explosive economic growth.

And it might also help reduce economic explosiveness to ban growth on non-habitable (i.e. Desolate and Extreme) worlds.  And if in parallel with PTU based growth, this would ease the burden on the number of calculations needed during growth periods, if only habitable worlds could grow.

[crucis]

Honestly, I don't think that the solution you describe is a root cause fix.  I see it as a band-aid.  If the problem is growth, then it's grown that must be fixed.  of course, you then do go on to talk about reduced growth.  I think that the real solution needs to be something along the lines of no growth, or very low growth, perhaps on the order of 1% per year (or 0.1% per month).

Cralis has told me that one of the reasons that Marvin put in such high growth in SM2 was that players didn't like the nearly non-existent growth in ISF and supposedly wanted to see their colonies grow into large populations.  But that explosive population growth produces explosive economic growth.  Thus, I think that the game is better off accepting very low (or no) population growth as the price for maintaining a more reasonable level of economic expansion.

As for complexity and ease of play, I don't envision any of my potential ideas being any more complex than what exists now, and perhaps even less complex.  


EDIT:  One other option for tweaking growth that I probably wouldn't use, but is worth mentioning is requiring population growth to be based on PTU's rather than on PU's.  I think that it's safe to say that in the PU/PTU model, PTU's are the real measure of population whereas PU's really are an economic measure.  If growth were based on PTU's, players would see aggressive economic growth in colonial populations, and then start to see economic growth slowing when population are more mid-range (i.e. Small and Medium), and then growth much more slowly once populations become Large and Very Large. 

But the cost of this model is that you'd have to convert each population's PU total to PTU's, apply growth, and reconvert back to PUs, which would be a serious pain in the arse for monthly growth and only slightly less so for yearly growth.  But it would probably be one solution that would help curb explosive economic growth.

And it might also help reduce economic explosiveness to ban growth on non-habitable (i.e. Desolate and Extreme) worlds.  And if in parallel with PTU based growth, this would ease the burden on the number of calculations needed during growth periods, if only habitable worlds could grow.

I took a look at PTU growth in a spread sheet.  It's amazing how well basing growth on PTU, rather than PU, curbs explosive growth!  As you move up from one bracket to the next, relative PU expansion rates decline, though as you grow WITHIN a given bracket, the relative PU growth rate increases until you flip to the next larger bracket.  I attribute this to the PTU to PU conversion (the part of the conversion that factors in the PTU's of the next lowest bracket into the conversion process) adding a little wackiness into the overall mix. 

Using the Ultra pop table and a 20% yearly PTU growth rate, it took 11 years for a Medium to become Large, 15 years for a Large to become Very Large, and 12 years for a VLg to max out at 3000. (This is ignoring any floating PU caps, and no EL considerations.)  I suspect that the reason for the Large's rather high time was due to its PTU conversion rate.  I suspect that if its PTU conversion rate was tweaked a little, it'd be entirely possible to make it so that a Lg grew to a VLg in 11-12 years, same as Medium and VLg.  Oh, and also, it took 8 year for a Small to grow to a Medium (assuming a minimum Small pop of 201 rather than 181).  Again, I attribute this speed to the PTU conversion rate.

Of course, doing PTU based growth may be more of a hassle than some players are willing to put up with, if they're playing P&P.  (With computer support, it's entirely invisible, of course.)  However, I think that there's a way around it that's a bit less painful.  It would involve having a separate PU Growth rate for each bracket that represented an average PU growth rate based on the actual PTU growth rate.  That is, if one assumes a 20% yearly PTU growth rate (or about 2% monthly), for a Medium population that translated into average PU growth rate of about 6.55% yearly.  Or 3.45% yearly for a VLg.  Or 4.85% yearly for a Large.  Or 12.3% yearly for a Small.  (And 20% yearly for Settlements and below, since 1 PU = 1 PTU for those brackets.)  Note that with this method, there is no built-in way to handle transitioning from one pop bracket to the next as is the case with strict PTU based growth.  (And BTW, note that these are very rough numbers for the PU Growth rates.)






And another thing that could be used to limit growth on top of this is to get rid of free colonization PTU's.  Force players to take PTU's out of their population to get new colonists.  However, it's worth noting that this isn't as big a sacrifice as it may sound, particularly for a Very Large population.  One might lose all the PTU's you need for colonists in the rounding during a PTU to PU reconversion after growth, given that each VLg PU = 500 PTU's in Ultra, or 450 PTU's in SM#2.  Obviously, in populations smaller than VLg, with their lower conversion rates, rounding losses would produce fewer "excess" PTU's (i.e. due to FRD rounding). 

Still, I think that isn't a bad thing.  It would show that VLg pops can afford to give up population to colonization without any serious impact, whereas Large pops or smaller would feel an impact if they sent out colonists.

[MWadwell]

EDIT:  One other option for tweaking growth that I probably wouldn't use, but is worth mentioning is requiring population growth to be based on PTU's rather than on PU's.  I think that it's safe to say that in the PU/PTU model, PTU's are the real measure of population whereas PU's really are an economic measure.  If growth were based on PTU's, players would see aggressive economic growth in colonial populations, and then start to see economic growth slowing when population are more mid-range (i.e. Small and Medium), and then growth much more slowly once populations become Large and Very Large. 

But the cost of this model is that you'd have to convert each population's PU total to PTU's, apply growth, and reconvert back to PUs, which would be a serious pain in the arse for monthly growth and only slightly less so for yearly growth.  But it would probably be one solution that would help curb explosive economic growth.

PTU growth is a good idea, and as to the "cost" - Two words - PC Support.

I mean, seriously, when you can get Monopoly on the PC, why can't you get Starfire?

You can play Starfire online (through StarfireOnline) - why not modify that to enable single player gaming?

Spreadsheets are O.K. as a minimum, but if Steve can make SA into what it is - why can't a much smaller program be developed to handle the strategic side?

And it might also help reduce economic explosiveness to ban growth on non-habitable (i.e. Desolate and Extreme) worlds.  And if in parallel with PTU based growth, this would ease the burden on the number of calculations needed during growth periods, if only habitable worlds could grow.

I don't have a problem with this....

[Paul M]

Starslayer and I apply growth at the per turn rate but use growth turns (in other words it is a factor of 10 slower).  We don't allow colonization of asteroids.  The growth rate of non-habitables is very low: 50 PU grow by 1.7 PU every 10 turns.   We have both got full population home worlds but only by forcing growth have we been able to achieve medium populations on planets that have been settled 170 some turns.  It costs nothing to break down PU to make new colonists, I've been doing it all over the place (including on smalls) as it generates significantly more population.  The free ptu aren't really a major issue for a player race, only one race in our game has sufficient population centers to avoid PU breakdown.  We could have had medium worlds sooner but only by shipping population to them...something neither of us could afford to do until say the last 50-70 turns.

Our income is well behind what Steve or Kurt achieved in the same time.  We have had also halved ship construction rates and for the last 20 turns have cut the rate of tech advance in half.  It has led to a very different expansion then is typical.  We have both had pauses where we consolidated, and frankly when it takes 3+ months to get colonists to a world you start slowing down your expansion.  The CFN costs start to become increasingly steep.

Yes just increasing costs is a band aide solution but I only recommend it if you are going to stick with the existing model.  I'd rather see a new model that avoids all the mess the at the moment is in the game.  As Matt says "computer support."  The only thing I don't want to see is some sort of convoluted economic model like victoria 2, that would not be good....but just about anything else would be an improvement.

[crucis]

Starslayer and I apply growth at the per turn rate but use growth turns (in other words it is a factor of 10 slower).  We don't allow colonization of asteroids.  The growth rate of non-habitables is very low: 50 PU grow by 1.7 PU every 10 turns.   We have both got full population home worlds but only by forcing growth have we been able to achieve medium populations on planets that have been settled 170 some turns.  It costs nothing to break down PU to make new colonists, I've been doing it all over the place (including on smalls) as it generates significantly more population.  The free ptu aren't really a major issue for a player race, only one race in our game has sufficient population centers to avoid PU breakdown.  We could have had medium worlds sooner but only by shipping population to them...something neither of us could afford to do until say the last 50-70 turns.

I have to admit that I like the idea of having to break down PU's into PTU's to get colonists.  It forces the players to decide between maximizing growth at home or colonization. 

The only "free" PTU's I like are the ones that FRD rounding at growth time might cause to be lost due to that rounding.  I have no particular problem with using those rounding loss PTU's for colonists.

Our income is well behind what Steve or Kurt achieved in the same time.  We have had also halved ship construction rates and for the last 20 turns have cut the rate of tech advance in half.  It has led to a very different expansion then is typical.  We have both had pauses where we consolidated, and frankly when it takes 3+ months to get colonists to a world you start slowing down your expansion.  The CFN costs start to become increasingly steep.

Paul, i have to admit that I'm not really a fan of slowing things down.  I like the faster action.  Of course, I'm not really a fan of the CFN either.  I'm really old school in that regard.    (But don't worry.  In spite of not being a fan of it, the chances that I'd dump it are slim to none.)

Yes just increasing costs is a band aide solution but I only recommend it if you are going to stick with the existing model.  I'd rather see a new model that avoids all the mess the at the moment is in the game.  As Matt says "computer support."  The only thing I don't want to see is some sort of convoluted economic model like victoria 2, that would not be good....but just about anything else would be an improvement.

Well, I suppose it depends on what one means by "existing model".  I tend to think that the very nature of PU/PTU economics changes drastically when pop growth is based on PTUs (either directly or inferentially, i.e. using PU growth #'s that reflect PTU growth #'s).  Growth in smaller pop brackets can be rather quick and but it slows as populations move up thru the brackets.  The underlying growth rate of the PTU's may remain constant, but the PU/PTU conversion factor causes PU economic expansion to slow down seriously as the conversion factor increases.

[Paul M]

We break down PU to make PTU all the time (or so I would assume for Starslayer), the 10 free ptu you get for a very large world is a drop in the bucket.  Even the 100 free ptu for a max sized world isn't sufficient when I go to push my people out, and breaking down a PU isn't a big deal (loss of 2 MCr income compared to gaining 100+ MCr).  As for small populations for worlds that are poor or very poor I break them down all the time and shove the people out to the moons.  But it took us well over a 100 turns to reach the point where we even had a shot at making a medium population world by forced growth and those to me are worth more as places I can pull 3 PU from to give me 150 PTU for further expanision after letting them grow a few times.  Getting 1 PTU free per turn is ok but it doesn't break anything.  It is possible this is different in ultra or something but 3rdR free ptu growth is basically icing on the cake. 

We wanted a game that played more like the Stars At War and less like the typical Starfire game, as we have done two campaigns before that and we have lots of experience with exploading economic growth.

As for the model...what I mean is that the whole of starfire is based on a compound interest growth formula.  The only question is your "rate of return" that you stick in the interest part of the formula.  Every investment yields an automatic positive return.  The only brake on the system is maintenance costs and that doesn't work particularily well (as Kurt's and Steve's mega-economies can attest to).  It is possible to do it in our game (the RM and the Squids both had issues) but that is because our technology was not slowed down right from the start and our tech level is high for our income.  I would prefer to see an economic system that is divorsed from a pure MCr economy.  But the trick to that is balance...I like a lot of things in Steve's Aurora that way.

The CFN...I first played Starfire with the 2nd edition rules for empire building and had my own freighters.  The issue with the CFN is that it is again something that facilitates rapid, easy and cheap expansion of the empire.  More to the point it makes it so you settle every rock you find (why not?).  It also allows for too many other things (movement of mines, dsb, supplies, etc).  Why the colonization rebate is there is a good question.  It is a good idea as it minimizes one form of book keeping (logistical book keeping) but it has the effect over time of producing a large and extensively settled empire which generates a book keeping nightmare if you are doing this with a spread sheet, and of course if you look at the above statement generates a further driver to the compound interest growth terms.

I understand why Marvin did these things because for the games he likes they are probably net benificial but in longer running campaigns the effect is death by bookkeeping, death by fleet growth, and death by the economy getting to the point that MCr costs are just not relevant to player decision making.  Even implementing those things Steve was trying out in SFA (mine laying systems and supply lines) makes a big difference in terms to keeping stuff under control.

[Starslayer_D]

I am very happy with the growth rates, and ship building times. Prototyping though takes allmost too long, usually a war is over before your prototype hits .. and then you still ahve to build more than 1 of the class. Research slowdown was needed, else, you sually had gained a TL by the time the prototype was done.

Actually, once my homeworld hit 3200 I rarely had broken down PU and just used the free PTU. I gained a second center by amalgenation, but it's in such a deadend location it's usually one turn further away from allmost everywhere. .

Seems Paul is far more busy colonising moons. I just went for trice his number of survey fleets and hunted habitables, but 3+ turns to deliver colonists now lead to a consolidation phase for the empire, where I now pile people on worthwhile benigh vr's to make them medium and pay attention to the internal fortification of my gains.

Also noteworthy is that shared populations between partners are much more viable in this game as I started developping some between NPC's and then adopted this for the Thebans and their partner recently. As you sure won't fill up even a benign world in along time, two small populations allmost double the income from the world. (Though it's only in the last 10 turns I really started doing this at all)