Aurora 4x
Starfire => Starfire Rules => Topic started by: Paul M on April 07, 2013, 03:08:36 AM
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Having just relooked at the rules for this I find a couple of things.
The first is the rules are not at all clear and we having been doing it wrong Starslayer. Pn and Apn (without fXr) can't detect minefields except by flying through them and seeing if they get attacked at our tech level.
The second is once you have fXr, now it says that a small craft with fXr (pn2, Apn, Fx, or ast2) can detect the mines at range 0 and avoid them. But exactly what happens? Can the small craft cross the minefield hex? Can it turn around without triggering mine attacks (that would be my best guess)? Fighters can't see if mines are there or not without fXr and are never engaged anyway.
How have other people handled this?
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As far as I know, pn and ast don't get attacked by mines and can't detect them. But they can detect and attack dsb's and idew, wich I was using them for. I never used pin for minefield scouting. Starships and buyos. GB and GBp have fXr and get attacked.
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See p. 75 3rdR rules...section 27.08.05.8 is the relevevant rule. That is why the CD is an awesome minesweeper when used in quantity.
"Pinnaces and courier drones have drive fields as bright as pods do and are attacked as such unless they have fXr, in which case they can see the mines at range 0 and avoid them."
But it is that whole "see the mines and range 0 and avoid them" that confuses me. As what the heck does that mean for further movement options of the small craft?
Assault shuttles are ignored by mines (see the same rule section): "Minefields ignore fighters, DSB, RD, RD2, cutters and shuttles." Mind you it doesn't say assault shuttles specifically...but I think that is just lumping the shuttle and assault shuttle together.
This is basically a rather borked up section that seems intended mainly to stop you using armed small craft for minesweeping so far as I can figure out.
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Ugh.. ok. I've read Kurt using pin to sweep dsb-L fields left and right, but I guess I overlooked that rule section when applying it myself. I guess i now know why steve uses the sacrificial ships strategy to sweep up dsb-L's when the defenders have been removed by SBMHAWK pods.
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From a practical viewpoint what seems to be happening is that small craft capable of transiting a warp point on their own have a drive field that mines can detect and attack. Any of the small craft that can not make that jump independantly have a drive field that is to weak to draw the mines in to attack. What the fXr adds to the equation is longer range detection of mines. I am guessing here but the justification to me seems to be that the extra sensor capabilities allow the pinnance to keep just beyond the trigger detection range of the individual mines as it crosses the hex. Each hex is after all a lot of empty space (1/4 light second) with the mines only using a small portion of it. Also note that the pinnance is the smallest of the small craft that can trigger a mine and that can have the sensors as well. Courrier Drones may be smaller, but they are very specialized designs without the kind of sensor capabilities needed, while Gunboats are much larger and have a drive field that is targetable by regular shipboard weapon systems.
Brian
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Well the chance to loose a pinnace to the mines is pretty small. It is attacked by a single mine on entry and exit with a 1 to kill. But that at our tech level is the only way a pinnace can determine there is a minefield present.
Brian, thank you, what you are saying is what I figure the rule means. But if the pinnance has to do the slow careful way through the hex I think it should cost two MPs to do that (what 1 pt of EM is worth), what do you think Starslayer?
No one in our campaign that I know of has fXr so it is for the future. I just don't see why fXr has to behave differently than Xr...and why the damn rule just could not have been written without being vague. The whole rule section on the interaction of small craft and mines is nonsensical (pods are "fast, elusive, and hard to detect" but they are killed at the same rate as CDs which are anything but elusive for example) and seems to be there solely to stop the use of armed small craft as mine sweepers. Personally an anti-mine small craft would be high on my list of things to build if I was an admiral in starfire. Hah...in the UTM it is possible come to think on it...a gunboat with its XO racks loaded with 4 BAM-R would do the trick.
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You might want to consider the number of GB lost for the simultaneous transit though. Anyway, TL 13 then offers the ambam pod.. the ultimate in mine sweeping.
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Personally an anti-mine small craft would be high on my list of things to build if I was an admiral in starfire. Hah...in the UTM it is possible come to think on it...a gunboat with its XO racks loaded with 4 BAM-R would do the trick.
fR-BAM mounted on a pinnace is an even lower-tech option.....
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I was thinking about that Mathew...but I don't think you can fit enough warheads onto a fR to make it work. However, you could say count each fR fired and for a certain number of them disable a pattern. I'm a bit of two minds about the BAM-R, BAM-Rc and BAM-G. But still I don't see why even SBMHAWK1 can't be loaded with AMBAM...it is a lot less difficult to target an area in space afterall...or for that matter just make a AMBAM Pod where the thing carries an AMBAMs worth of warheads and a dispersal system...have it move into the hex and do its thing (clearly it is not re-usable). The AMBAM itself is sucidal to use...it also means you have to forgo firing on anything the turn of arrival just to launch a few of them at the minefield. It seems pretty much a system that is only useful for clearing minefields after a battle.
On whacky rules: it says somewhere in the mess that if a fighter or pinnance tried to engage the minefield a pair of mines would attack and destroy them. After it says they ignore fighters...but since it says "fighter or pinnance" on could rules lawyer out and say ast2 can do it! Really the whole thing must be one of those cases of rules being piecemeal updated as you would think the kill chances against pods, pinnaces and CDs would be different.
I'm pretty sure the rules for CDs and pinnaces came first and are there to ensure you don't always get your CDs through mine fields. But the result is that the CD is the worlds best minesweeper. Just program it to fly around the warp point and watch the mines evaporate as they try and stop them. Each CD is attacked by 1 shot with a 1 to kill it...as they can't deactivate the minefield till the next turn you get one turns worth of movement before they can turn off their mines to stop the pointless attacks.
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I was thinking about that Mathew...but I don't think you can fit enough warheads onto a fR to make it work.
Why not - the fR warhead is 2 points in size? Even if you downsized it to a 1 point warhead, it can still mount the BAM-R.
However, you could say count each fR fired and for a certain number of them disable a pattern. I'm a bit of two minds about the BAM-R, BAM-Rc and BAM-G.
I think that the BAM-x series fills a whole in the munitions list that exists prior to the AMBAM.
I mean, the moment MF or IDEW are developed, there should be some kind of weapon used to counter them.....
But still I don't see why even SBMHAWK1 can't be loaded with AMBAM...it is a lot less difficult to target an area in space afterall...or for that matter just make a AMBAM Pod where the thing carries an AMBAMs worth of warheads and a dispersal system...have it move into the hex and do its thing (clearly it is not re-usable). The AMBAM itself is sucidal to use...it also means you have to forgo firing on anything the turn of arrival just to launch a few of them at the minefield. It seems pretty much a system that is only useful for clearing minefields after a battle.
Agreed, on both points.
On whacky rules: it says somewhere in the mess that if a fighter or pinnance tried to engage the minefield a pair of mines would attack and destroy them. After it says they ignore fighters...but since it says "fighter or pinnance" on could rules lawyer out and say ast2 can do it! Really the whole thing must be one of those cases of rules being piecemeal updated as you would think the kill chances against pods, pinnaces and CDs would be different.
Can you remember the rules reference?
I'm pretty sure the rules for CDs and pinnaces came first and are there to ensure you don't always get your CDs through mine fields. But the result is that the CD is the worlds best minesweeper. Just program it to fly around the warp point and watch the mines evaporate as they try and stop them. Each CD is attacked by 1 shot with a 1 to kill it...as they can't deactivate the minefield till the next turn you get one turns worth of movement before they can turn off their mines to stop the pointless attacks.
I believe that Marvin tried to address this, by stating that CD's travel straight lines between the WP's. Of course, if a CD is capable of transiting through multiple WP's, sureley it can circle a WP ad nauseum.....
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I'm not seeing a lot of space in a fR for the multiple warheads and dispersal system but on the other hand you probably could just use multiple fR to do it. It certainly doesn't need to be anti-matter to make gamma and xrays to do soft kills on the guidance system.
I'm of two minds because the AMBAM varient takes forever to get into something you can fire out of a missile launcher (though for some reason only from a Wc...but I can't figure out why that is...or why you need a W to fire a sprint missile...)
I'll look up the rules reference for the 2 mines kill a fighter but it is in this section.
As for CDs and Marvin...it was his attempt to do that idiocy that broke this camel's back. CDs can be programed to fly to a planet in one system, then fly to another planet in that system then to another system and visit 3 space stations, and then to the next system and visit two more planets and then on to another system to visit 12 asteroid belt colony hexes and so on...and you can't program to them to go through a warp point, spin 360° and then go one hex, turn left 60° and move in a circle? Look how they are used in the novels where they fly to a system and then execute a search pattern...that is different exactly how from tooling around in a minefield and attriting it death? I can do this exact thiing with SBMHAWKs it is just rather costly.
I also don't understand why the rules for GB and minefields are different then ships...the pattern should launch 1 mine at each gunboat. Treating each gunboats are nothing more than a size 4 starship basically. Then you make 1 normal point defence versus mine roll per gunboat (or 4d10 per squadron). You can't use multiple shot and datalink doesn't help so it is at the base value. Simple, easy to do but no...it has to be something arcane and difficult. Double fire launches 4 per gunboat and you roll 2d10 per gunboat and see if the point defence stops the mine or not. Doesn't change the number of dice you end up rolling (many many many).
Gaaaah I need to find time to continue reading what you sent me...mea cupia mea cupia maxima...
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The rule section is 27.08.05.8 ...
"Fighters and small craft are unable to engage mines, because is they were to get close enough to to do so, a pair of mines would attack it and automatically kill it (small craft D-equivalent is not effective against MF)."
Most of these rules are pretty much there to stop small craft mine sweeping so far as I can see.
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I'm not seeing a lot of space in a fR for the multiple warheads and dispersal system but on the other hand you probably could just use multiple fR to do it. It certainly doesn't need to be anti-matter to make gamma and xrays to do soft kills on the guidance system.
The BAM-x does not use multiple warheads and dispersal system - so I cannot see any reason why it cannot be mounted on a fR......
<SNIP>
As for CDs and Marvin...it was his attempt to do that idiocy that broke this camel's back. CDs can be programed to fly to a planet in one system, then fly to another planet in that system then to another system and visit 3 space stations, and then to the next system and visit two more planets and then on to another system to visit 12 asteroid belt colony hexes and so on...and you can't program to them to go through a warp point, spin 360° and then go one hex, turn left 60° and move in a circle? Look how they are used in the novels where they fly to a system and then execute a search pattern...that is different exactly how from tooling around in a minefield and attriting it death? I can do this exact thiing with SBMHAWKs it is just rather costly.
What can I say - I totally agree with you.
I also don't understand why the rules for GB and minefields are different then ships...the pattern should launch 1 mine at each gunboat. Treating each gunboats are nothing more than a size 4 starship basically. Then you make 1 normal point defence versus mine roll per gunboat (or 4d10 per squadron). You can't use multiple shot and datalink doesn't help so it is at the base value. Simple, easy to do but no...it has to be something arcane and difficult. Double fire launches 4 per gunboat and you roll 2d10 per gunboat and see if the point defence stops the mine or not. Doesn't change the number of dice you end up rolling (many many many).
I agree - as this would simplify the rules somewhat.....
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The BAM-x does not use multiple warheads and dispersal system - so I cannot see any reason why it cannot be mounted on a fR......
Realy? Then what on earth are they? I assumed they were the same thing as the AMBAM just made out of fusion warheads. Given I just dumped 18K MCr into developing the three flavors of them I'm a bit curious what I spent my hard earned MCr's on exactly. I could fire SM or CM into a minefield hex and detonate them if that is the case.
I agree - as this would simplify the rules somewhat.....
The odd thing about starfire rules is that they aren't complex in the sense that they are difficult to apply. The complexity comes about because they are poorly organized (you are hunting stuff up all over the place), generally poorly written (for rules, for entertainment Webber did a good job as I can't think of any rule set I enjoy reading more than 3rdR), and suffer from the exception to the exception to the exception syndrome.
SFB's rules are more complex and certainly more "vast" but since everything is different in terms of weapons there is no need to have a rule and then a whole crap load of "but in the case of...do this other thing." So far as my memory goes no two weapon systems in the game share anything of any significance.
It is one of the reasons I do recommend 4thE or whatever to newcomers because at least they have done something about consolidating the rules in one place.
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I'm of two minds because the AMBAM varient takes forever to get into something you can fire out of a missile launcher (though for some reason only from a Wc...but I can't figure out why that is...or why you need a W to fire a sprint missile...)
Paul, I think that a lot depends on how one things that missile pods should be structured internally. DW's pods clearly assume that only a very specific type and size of missile can fit into each pod. Frankly, I don't really see why this should have to be taken to this extreme. I could see a couple of ways to do it better.
1. Treat the missile carrying capacity of a missile pod like it was a flying box launcher, and just load whatever missiles you choose to load up to the csp capacity of a given generation of missile pod. I think that this is the most flexible option because all you need to do is define how many csp of missiles the pod can carry, and leave the details of loading the pods to the player, with perhaps the only restriction being that all missiles loaded into a pod have to be of the same exact type.
2. Treat missile pods as being limited in terms of the sizes of specific missiles they could carry, but they could carry any missile of that specific size. This would work better if missile sizes were more consistent (i.e. all missiles that a Rc/Wc fired were 2 csp, all missiles that a W/Wa fired were 1 csp, and so on). This isn't as flexible as option 1, but it would work. A down side would be that you'd have missile pods rated by both the missile size they could fire, and the number of such missiles they could carry.
But speaking of AMBAMs, why bother with putting AMBAMs in missile pods at all? Why not just upscale the AMBAM to drone size and create a warp capable AMBAM-like drone? This seems like the most obvious solution to me. Just send the AMBAM-drone thru the WP, aim it at a given hex, and BOOM, lots of mines destroyed.
I'll look up the rules reference for the 2 mines kill a fighter but it is in this section.
As for CDs and Marvin...it was his attempt to do that idiocy that broke this camel's back. CDs can be programed to fly to a planet in one system, then fly to another planet in that system then to another system and visit 3 space stations, and then to the next system and visit two more planets and then on to another system to visit 12 asteroid belt colony hexes and so on...and you can't program to them to go through a warp point, spin 360° and then go one hex, turn left 60° and move in a circle? Look how they are used in the novels where they fly to a system and then execute a search pattern...that is different exactly how from tooling around in a minefield and attriting it death? I can do this exact thiing with SBMHAWKs it is just rather costly.
Honestly, Paul, I think that using CD's to sweep mines is definitely going against the spirit of the CD rules. Could a CD conceivably fly in circles around a WP? Perhaps, and maybe probably. However, if *I* allowed that, I'd also rule that mines simply ignore CD's, because the intent of CD's is not to act as a minesweeper.
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*chuckle* I am dead certain Paul wouldn't use CD that way, but he sure pointed out that the rules allow for them to be used that way. There was a reason why the 3rd Redesign group had many people innvolved.
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I like the box launcher idea and the ambam pod dodad...frankly the AMBAM itself is useless. If you fire it the ships can't fire on anything and expect to hit, since you are firing on two targets: the minefield and the enemy base/ship. That gives you a -8 to hit. So if you put it on your first ships through they only fire AMBAMs the first round (so long as no lasers are in use else the just blow up). This overall makes it difficult for me to understand how you can use it during an assault. After one is done with they would be useful for clearing the mines from the warp point.
The box launcher concept would simplify the SBMHAWK situation a lot from what I can see since that is what they are by the time you get to the SBMHAWK4 and SBMHAWK5 (and any further varients).
As for CDs. You have to consider I came up with this while discussing a theoretical assault on a closed warp point defended by an absurdly huge amount of mines. 20,000 patterns or some such moronic number. In this case I had to start thinking out of the box and noticed the rules for CDs and Pn in terms of mines. That it is NOT what the rules intended was clear, and the fix was simple: change the number of mines required to kill a CD from 10 to (2 or 1). But as the 3rdR rules are written you can very effectively sweep mines with CDs. It is cheesier then sin and as Starslayer points out I would not do it. But then so to is 20,000 effen patterns of mines (or equally absurd numbers) on a closed warp point. However, possibly Starslayers bricks would an effective solution as well (CLs that are basically 90% armour). It isn't by the way a cheap solution to use CDs...they cost somewhat more than the patterns of mines but it is pretty much even as it takes 5 CDs to take out a pattern so 15 MCr of CDs vrs 12 MCr of mines.
AW in 3rdR is that they pay no maintenance for reasons that I've never sorted out. It isn't that hard to track how many patterns you have even in a PnP game and simply pay 10% of their value. It would stop cold things like 20,000 paterns of mines and make them far less of a no brainer solution to every problem. But as it stands you are loosing ships that have a value of Build Cost*(1+TurnsActive*0.15). This means the economic value of an active ship increases continously. And loosing a ship that you paid 100 turns of maintenance on to something that pays no maintenance is a big win for the other side. That is why I am so negative on things that pay no maintance killing ships.
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I like the box launcher idea and the ambam pod dodad...frankly the AMBAM itself is useless. If you fire it the ships can't fire on anything and expect to hit, since you are firing on two targets: the minefield and the enemy base/ship. That gives you a -8 to hit. So if you put it on your first ships through they only fire AMBAMs the first round (so long as no lasers are in use else the just blow up). This overall makes it difficult for me to understand how you can use it during an assault. After one is done with they would be useful for clearing the mines from the warp point.
The box launcher concept would simplify the SBMHAWK situation a lot from what I can see since that is what they are by the time you get to the SBMHAWK4 and SBMHAWK5 (and any further varients).
The "flying box launcher" concept would simplify things for missile pods. A gen 1 pod might have a capacity of, say, 3 csp. Gen 2 might have a 4 csp capacity, and so on. Something simple like that. And just use those csp how ever you want. Also note that I haven't ignored the issue of the # of pods that could link. I actually haven't written up anything "official" yet on this, but this is the direction I'm headed.
And an "AMBAM" anti-mine drone makes total sense too. If you can build drones and missile pods (and pinnaces) that transit WP's, why not create a drone pack with antimatter to sweep mines? It's so obvious, at least to me. The one thing that slightly concerns me about the idea is that it might be "too easy" to use. That is, just make transit and fly into the adjacent mined hex and blow up. It almost turns minefields into a situation where the defender pays X MC's for his minefield, and the attacker pays Y for his anti-mine weapon, and whoever spent more (depending on the efficiency of the anti-mine attacks) has something left over.
As for CDs. You have to consider I came up with this while discussing a theoretical assault on a closed warp point defended by an absurdly huge amount of mines. 20,000 patterns or some such moronic number. In this case I had to start thinking out of the box and noticed the rules for CDs and Pn in terms of mines. That it is NOT what the rules intended was clear, and the fix was simple: change the number of mines required to kill a CD from 10 to (2 or 1). But as the 3rdR rules are written you can very effectively sweep mines with CDs. It is cheesier then sin and as Starslayer points out I would not do it. But then so to is 20,000 effen patterns of mines (or equally absurd numbers) on a closed warp point. However, possibly Starslayers bricks would an effective solution as well (CLs that are basically 90% armour). It isn't by the way a cheap solution to use CDs...they cost somewhat more than the patterns of mines but it is pretty much even as it takes 5 CDs to take out a pattern so 15 MCr of CDs vrs 12 MCr of mines.
No prob. ;)
AW in 3rdR is that they pay no maintenance for reasons that I've never sorted out. It isn't that hard to track how many patterns you have even in a PnP game and simply pay 10% of their value. It would stop cold things like 20,000 paterns of mines and make them far less of a no brainer solution to every problem. But as it stands you are loosing ships that have a value of Build Cost*(1+TurnsActive*0.15). This means the economic value of an active ship increases continuously. And loosing a ship that you paid 100 turns of maintenance on to something that pays no maintenance is a big win for the other side. That is why I am so negative on things that pay no maintance killing ships.
Preaching to the converted here, Paul. I suspect that the reason for not having maintenance on them in the first place was simplicity. But in this case, not requiring maintenance, or some other mechanism, only allows to minefields to run wild. Not to mention that in 3rdR/SM#2, laying mines was made too easy IMHO when you could just use the CFN. At least in pure ISF, when you had to use actual FT minelayers, you had to pay to build them (expending money and yard space), maintain them or mothball them in peace time, and when needed, you had to actually ship your mines to the WP that needed them. All of that taken together would slow MF growth considerably.
With maintenance required, I think that it would create an incentive to only use mines in war time, or at a very few ultra critical WPs that were worth the cost of maintaining MF's.
Mines really are a pain in the butt though... I tried rewriting the 3rdR MF rules to simplify them and cut their length. And I think that I probably only succeeded in half of that. I think that I cleaned up the rules, but they're still just as annoyingly long. Makes me wonder if they're worth the effort. :-\
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Starslayer and I are using the rules that Steve was testing in SFA 7.1. It adds two systems: mine rack and mine deployer (or something like that). This requires pretty much that you use military hulls for these ships, and we added in a rule requiring a tender for each system with deloyed mines/bouys. My FT4 design is used a lot for that as it basically can deploy 12 mines (or in this case replace the odd mine failure).
It is infrastructure costs like this that tend to drive up the "cost of empire." And it is a failure to have such a thing that makes 3rdR/SM2 economics basically explode since the cost to run a big empire is approximately the same as a small empire. This is the same problem they ran into in the original Civillization games, and is the reason for things like corruption and the various government types and so on. Procyon has some ideas of his own for keeping the cost of running an empire high so that the empires remain "balanced" over time. It really doesn't matter how you do it but if you don't do something. Sword of the Stars has that intial cost to terraform the planet which can eat into your income but I noticed that as you get bigger that becomes less and less a constraint...though at least it does mean that you don't willy nilly colonize every rock you find. I find most of these 4X games have to face this problem somehow or else the bigger empires just richer and richer, faster and faster. And at some point money (or MCr) just ceases to be either an issue or a break. And for me when you no longer need to thnk about decisions then a big part of the game goes away. At least to me the challenge comes from presenting the player with multiple paths to victory where each decision you make is important. I really despise max-min solution games...or min-max character design or min-max anything actually. There never should be only 1 path...but many with trade offs.
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It is infrastructure costs like this that tend to drive up the "cost of empire." And it is a failure to have such a thing that makes 3rdR/SM2 economics basically explode since the cost to run a big empire is approximately the same as a small empire. This is the same problem they ran into in the original Civilization games, and is the reason for things like corruption and the various government types and so on. Procyon has some ideas of his own for keeping the cost of running an empire high so that the empires remain "balanced" over time. It really doesn't matter how you do it but if you don't do something. Sword of the Stars has that initial cost to terraform the planet which can eat into your income but I noticed that as you get bigger that becomes less and less a constraint...though at least it does mean that you don't willy nilly colonize every rock you find. I find most of these 4X games have to face this problem somehow or else the bigger empires just richer and richer, faster and faster. And at some point money (or MCr) just ceases to be either an issue or a break. And for me when you no longer need to think about decisions then a big part of the game goes away. At least to me the challenge comes from presenting the player with multiple paths to victory where each decision you make is important. I really despise max-min solution games...or min-max character design or min-max anything actually. There never should be only 1 path...but many with trade offs.
It'll only drive up the "cost of empire" if you're laying and maintaining a lot of mines.
I understand what you're saying, Paul, but I have serious philosophical problems with rules that punish success. I'm not against trying to keep incomes under control, but I simply will not punish players for being successful and having grown larger empires. I'd rather find a way to manage things in a different way that doesn't punish success.
Also, I'm not particularly enthralled by promoting the colonization of every rock you come across. I know that some will counter by talking about "stay at homes" (more appropriately "forced to stay at homes"), but the problem I see is that anything that a "stay at home" can use, a races that's still expanding can use as well. Note that this isn't to say that I intend to get rid of non-habitable colonization, etc. I just don't intend to assume that it should take the form that it currently takes.
One area where I've come up with an idea for controlling income in a different way is the paradigm that one automatically assumes that an increased EL/TL increases one's income. Now, in theory, this *is* probably true. But there's an economic vector that's been left out of the game. probably for the sake of simplicity, but is still missing ... and that's inflation. The cost of everything increases over time as well as do incomes.
So the idea that I've for a simple solution is to make the broad assumption that the degree to which incomes increase over time (due to EL advancement) is fully offset by the degree to which costs increase over time (due to natural inflationary forces). While a simplistic solution, it avoids having to try to insert inflation into the game with increased costs on everything. It's a lot easier to just say that EL-based income increases are fully offset by time based inflationary cost increases, and thus rule that there are no EL based income increases, as would be reflected in an increased TLF using an SM#2-like model or no EL Growth using an Ultra-like model. While some might be disappointed to not get a bump in income at a new EL, this could be a very simple solution for keeping incomes in check (to a degree) as well as guaranteeing that any investment made at EL1 has the same return as one made at EL10, since there'd be no TLF involved.
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Well I don't see it as "punishment" I see it as "reality"...it is more expensive to have a bigger anything essentially. The infrastructure costs of large empires are historically what tended to cause their collapse.
In starfire the cost of say the CFN, which is the only thing that seems to exist in terms of infrastructure is just a purchase cost unless you use bases with CC. So that means that effectively the "infrastructure" to running a big empire costs the player 0 MCr per turn. Look at ISF: where every planet needed either a PDC with a space port or a space station with cargo handling facilities, where you needed imperial freighters, where you had delays in income use (it wasn't one big slush fund), where shipyards cost extra maintenance rather than being maintenance free, where the shipyards and workshops had to be upgraded, etc. All of these were things that cost you more and more money the more of them you had. So biggere empires tended to have a bigger cost associated with them.
Income is proportional to size. Available income is that less maintenance. So it is clear that the bigger you are the better off you are under the SM2 system.
As for no income increase with EL...didn't they do this in 4thE with increases to planet population limits? It is something that I'd have to playtest to see how it works...though Proycon might have some comments from his game. I can't make sensible comments based on the idea without seeing hard numbers I'm afraid...or better put I'd rather not comment on what I don't really have any hard data on.
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Well I don't see it as "punishment" I see it as "reality"...it is more expensive to have a bigger anything essentially. The infrastructure costs of large empires are historically what tended to cause their collapse.
In starfire the cost of say the CFN, which is the only thing that seems to exist in terms of infrastructure is just a purchase cost unless you use bases with CC. So that means that effectively the "infrastructure" to running a big empire costs the player 0 MCr per turn. Look at ISF: where every planet needed either a PDC with a space port or a space station with cargo handling facilities, where you needed imperial freighters, where you had delays in income use (it wasn't one big slush fund), where shipyards cost extra maintenance rather than being maintenance free, where the shipyards and workshops had to be upgraded, etc. All of these were things that cost you more and more money the more of them you had. So bigger empires tended to have a bigger cost associated with them.
Paul, I see these as two vastly different things. I see the "bureaucracy" idea as grossly punishing because it's sort of an anti-success tax. I will not countenance such a rule in Cosmic.
But what you describe above in your comparison between the CFN and ISF's requirements is what I suppose you could call infrastructure... just the cost of doing business for integrating a new planet into the empire's commerce system. Honestly, I never had a problem with the way ISF handled things in this regards, but no doubt some people did. Otherwise, I doubt that things would have changed as they did in SM#2.
But I'm not sure that we can reasonably expect to be able to drop back to a situation where there's no CFN, and you had to use Imp FT's to move all MC around the empire, for all colonization, and so on. In a number of ways, it'd be a pain, at least for some people.
Also, I'm not sure that it really should be necessary to use FT's to ship "money" around the empire as if it was bulk cargo. Look at the modern banking system. Money is just data. Why would it be any different in the future? Now, if one suggested that it should only be possible within an empire and not between 2 different empires, due to the lack of a common currency, and all sorts of other details, that would be a strong argument, I think. OTOH, I suppose if two empires had a trade treaty (or M&T) or were partnered, they must have the ability to do currency exchanges, so transferring money wouldn't be difficult ... possibly. OTOOH, if you've invaded some planet and want to pillage a bunch of MC, well, you're probably pillaging actual goods and stuff that you'd need to ship as cargo. But I think you get my drift here...
As for things like cargo handling and space ports, I don't think that those things should be really necessary as explicit tech systems. Generally speaking, I tend to think that it's best to keep this sort of thing as abstract as possible. What could be a reasonable alternative would be a fee to incorporate the planet, moon, or asteroid belt into the empire's CFN, possibly one based on the economic potential of the body in question. OTOH, one could just increase colonization costs a little under the assumption that you're having to build these facilities as part of the colonization effort. I suspect that there are many different ways to do this that don't involve creating annoyance to the player.
But regarding your examples in general, they all seem like relatively minor costs that didn't occur all that often, except for shipyard and machine ship maintenance, which would, of course, be ongoing. Minor costs like that may be more of an annoyance to track than for the actual cost involved or the actual "value" of the cost to the game.
Income is proportional to size. Available income is that less maintenance. So it is clear that the bigger you are the better off you are under the SM2 system.
This is probably true regardless of whether you're talking pure ISF, SM#2, or 4E, though perhaps with some slightly different caveats.
As for no income increase with EL...didn't they do this in 4thE with increases to planet population limits?
No. In GSF+ (GSF, Ultra, and Solar), you get an EL Growth bonus when your reach a new EL, which produces an increase in income, though not as severe and with some annoying limitations. The idea here would be that there would be no increase in income linked to an increase in one's EL/TL under the broad and simplistic assumption that any increase tied to an increase in productivity (due to increased EL) would be offset by increases in inflation (hence, costs).
It is something that I'd have to playtest to see how it works...though Proycon might have some comments from his game. I can't make sensible comments based on the idea without seeing hard numbers I'm afraid...or better put I'd rather not comment on what I don't really have any hard data on.
No prob. It's only really an idea at this point.
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In reading the above I realize I wrote CFN and what I meant was ICN (Interstellar Communications Network). The construction of such a thing is the only thing that remains as a infrastructure cost and it is largely (after HT4) is a single purchase. So in principle an empire of 100 starsystems has pretty much the same infrastructure cost as one with 10 (essentially 0). This means that at no time will a player go "Should I explore further?" or "Is the cost of expansion worth it?" The answer in both cases is: "The bigger the better..."
Single purchase items are not "limiting" in Starfire (or in most other 4X type games). There is also the point that to some people (including myself) "Building an Empire" should involve something being built, not just automatically assumed to exist. So by "abstracting" this sort of thing out of the game, you also abstract out the "fun" for a portion of your potential customer base. Plus the economy should not be so simple that you should never have to think about things, and in starfire the economy is just that simple. I think the player should have to make decisions continously and not just follow a brain dead reciepe to sucess.
I won't be around for around a week to a week and a half so there is no need to reply in a hurry.
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A slow down on Expansion might be to double CFN costs.. makes the Long distance forcing of colony sites more expensive. Especially when coupled with slower growth rates. 12 STMP is about the limit in our current game. Also note than naturally growing colonies about reached 400 - 450 PU after 200 turns.. So no new sources of people further away from homeworld.
Still 12 STMP from homeworld can cover a huge amount of Systems.
Still, any NPC which stuck at home.. by choice or galactography is falling behind fast. Only those with multiple planets are in the run still. (Ok, we also don't use asteroids for colonisation, else all income gets a huge boost by that.).
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A slow down on Expansion might be to double CFN costs.. makes the Long distance forcing of colony sites more expensive. Especially when coupled with slower growth rates. 12 STMP is about the limit in our current game. Also note than naturally growing colonies about reached 400 - 450 PU after 200 turns.. So no new sources of people further away from homeworld.
Still 12 STMP from homeworld can cover a huge amount of Systems.
Still, any NPC which stuck at home.. by choice or galactography is falling behind fast. Only those with multiple planets are in the run still. (Ok, we also don't use asteroids for colonisation, else all income gets a huge boost by that.).
Starslayer, thanks for adding your 2 cents worth.
One thing that I don't like in the current rules (including Ultra/Solar) is the fact that you have to pay for CFN usage in full month increments. This has the effect that colonization gets broken into 4 StMP groupings, i.e. 0, 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16, and so on. Why should a location that's 5 StMP have to pay as much as one that's 8 StMP away? Of course, I should also state to be fair that I've never been a fan of the CFN, and probably never will be.
As for races stuck at home, that doesn't bother me. I see that as evolution at work. Grow or die. It seems to me that getting too creative in allowing for solutions that allow races that stay in cul-de-sacs to be competitive with vibrant, growing races is producing a very contrived and fake situation.
One thing that's worth noting is that if population growth rates are kept low, and you can't generate major population centers other than the homeworld, this will slow down outward expansion, as it will become increasingly costly to colonize as those new enclaves are further and further from the HW. The question becomes ... will people keep on expanding, or will they stop at some distance (12 StMP? 16 StMP?)? I find such a decision to stop expansion sad, as the decision is likely an utterly cold economic assessment, which indicates to me that the situation has become too focused on economic analysis and returns and not on expansion and military conquest, which is the game I want to be playing.
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Well, it's more having to weight your Investments in a low income.low growth game. Colonisation will not return your Investment so fast, but you have to invest anyway to grow. On the otehr Hand, covering a large empire (borders 12 STMP away) needs a military investment, especially ships and bases and ship yards.. and that rapidely eats up the avaiable money, too.
Overall a much more interresting game than the 'piles of money' games we had before. Unfortunately, the tighter the money in a game, the more powerfull no maintenance defenses like mines and dsb-l's become :( I really wish there was an Option in SA to add a 1 MCr cost per mine or buoyo per turn.
(we use the Option in SA to pay for CFN by STMP, so the costs differ between 5 and 8.. but hiering for an aditional month still is more expensive amd blocks the CFN, and due to slow growth new Centers Close to the frontier don't open up as fast.)
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In reading the above I realize I wrote CFN and what I meant was ICN (Interstellar Communications Network). The construction of such a thing is the only thing that remains as a infrastructure cost and it is largely (after HT4) is a single purchase. So in principle an empire of 100 starsystems has pretty much the same infrastructure cost as one with 10 (essentially 0). This means that at no time will a player go "Should I explore further?" or "Is the cost of expansion worth it?" The answer in both cases is: "The bigger the better..."
Single purchase items are not "limiting" in Starfire (or in most other 4X type games). There is also the point that to some people (including myself) "Building an Empire" should involve something being built, not just automatically assumed to exist. So by "abstracting" this sort of thing out of the game, you also abstract out the "fun" for a portion of your potential customer base. Plus the economy should not be so simple that you should never have to think about things, and in Starfire the economy is just that simple. I think the player should have to make decisions continuously and not just follow a brain dead recipe to success.
I won't be around for around a week to a week and a half so there is no need to reply in a hurry.
Little did you know that real life events would conspire to have me not reply to you for over 2 months... Oh well.
Paul, I think that a problem here is that you and I have considerably different points of view about what the game is really about. I won't say that either of us is wrong. It's just the way it is. I've always seen the game as a war game, first and foremost, and that empire building was about expansion and conquest and so forth, not for the sake of "oh, isn't it cool ... I'm building an empire", not for the sake of saying my empire generates more more MC than anyone else's, etc.
As for the "do I expand further?" my answer would always be yes, yes, yes, absolutely yes! Expansion and conquest! I'm not interested in a game that asks "can I afford to continue expanding?". That game sounds like a real yawner to me.
You speak to the idea of abstracting out the fun for a portion of the potential customer base. But I could answer in reply that what one person sees as "fun" another may see as unnecessarily complex rules that lead to boredom. Those conflicts are all over the place. Personnel point rules. CFN vs. using Imperial FT's to carry various cargoes. Dealing with missile tracking. And so on. And from what I've seen, there often isn't even any consistency in which complexities or abstractions various people like. And I'm often a weird place where I see things that people think are complex that I think are nor complex at all, and look at the abstractions that others think simplify the game and think that they actually complicate it instead.
But this leads up to an important philosophical question. When the designer is designing the game, does he create the game that he'd want to play or the game that he thinks that the existing (or even new) customer base wants to play? I have to tell you that everyone that has given me an answer to this question has said that the designer should create the game that he would want to play, because that is what inspires him. Otherwise, you may just be going through the motions.
Anyways, that's all for now.
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The Trouble is, if expanding is a simple equation of who invests the most at the start, leads forevermore, the game becomes very simple and linear. Starfire in theory has the Balance of hostile NPRs, but these like exploration luck are a luck of the dice bit. Civilisation eg. had this way better, by having civic unrest as a factor limiting armies, and later empire sizes, making for a more complex and interresting game. A simple exponential growth curve soon leads to the death of campaigns around turn 150 when income and fleet sizes explode and make for huge, unmanageable battles (judging by the campaign reports written by Kurt and Steve respectively, and my own experiences with a multiple Player campaign with an accelerated economic start).
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Starfire so long as you are playing a scenario from one of the campaign books is a tactical wargame. The moment you add in ISF and do a new empires campaign it becomes a management game exactly like all 4X or RTS games are. The problem with SM2 and later editions is that they have trivial economic models. Trivial in the mathematical sense as they are nothing more than compound interest growth. This means eventually money stops mattering. Worse the only brake on this growth is fleet maintenance. This is double catastrophe since it means that first your money grows continously, and second that the fleet you can support without impacting your economic expansion grows continously. Eventually as Starslayer points out around turn 100-150 in a SM2 game your game implodes as your money is such that tossing 100,000's of MCr at things becomes an automatic act and your fleet size has gotten to the point your battles start resembling ISW4 and those sorts of battles are pretty much unplayable.
My point was that in ISF Webber went though a lot of trouble to add in "cost of empire"...you had to pay to refit SY, you needed (SP), you had to build and transport missiles, colonization was expensive, you needed imperial freighters for lots of tasks, you had PPs, etc. All of this added up to an ever increasing cost of having a big empire. That has all been removed...my point was to put it back in because bigger empires should have more "costs" then smaller empires. Just like the cost of operating a town of 2000 is less than the cost of operating the city of New York. As Starslayer also points out the people behind the Civ series of games worked this out years ago. That is why they introduced among other things "corruption" to make it so that your massive empire has a few drawbacks. In real life it is the cost of operation of large empires that has caused most of them to in the first case stop expanding and in general to collapse eventually.
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Also one Point wich fairly rarely gets taken into account though ISF provided it is the travel speed of information. your frontline System may be invaded, but even your sector capital may not know for a month or two, handing some Advantage to the invader.
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My point was that in ISF Webber went though a lot of trouble to add in "cost of empire"...you had to pay to refit SY, you needed (SP), you had to build and transport missiles, colonization was expensive, you needed imperial freighters for lots of tasks, you had PPs, etc. All of this added up to an ever increasing cost of having a big empire. That has all been removed...my point was to put it back in because bigger empires should have more "costs" then smaller empires.
The problem is, that there is also a "time management cost" (i.e. the time required to play out a turn) that has to be paid for by the player - and adding all of the above items more then doubles that cost.
That was one of the benefits of SM#2 - it cut the time required to run the empire dramatically, and allowed players to focus more on strategy/planning and on the battles, and less on micromanagement.
I'm not saying that these items can't be added back in - merely that to do so, you'd need to either add them in as an abstract percentage cost (i.e. such as corruption in Civ), or implement some kind of automated support (such as SA, or custom spreadsheets) to reduce the burden on the player.
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Also one Point wich fairly rarely gets taken into account though ISF provided it is the travel speed of information. your frontline System may be invaded, but even your sector capital may not know for a month or two, handing some Advantage to the invader.
Agreed. As many games lack a SM, the information time delay is often not enforced.
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Agreed. As many games lack a SM, the information time delay is often not enforced.
Sorry for the delay Matt, my reply yesterday got foxed by the network connection. The issues with turn taking more time in ISF compared to SM2 is clearly important. I assume right from the start you have something like SFA to play the game. If you don't then the game will collapse from paperwork overload relatively quickly. I've written spreadsheets to handle stuff and even that rapidly gets out of hand. Admittedly if you work to keep the money low and the fleets small then you can push the turn numbers upwards. But in a standard SM2 game you quickly run into mega-economies and even in a 4th Edition game I ran into trouble rather quickly (30 turns in or so).
But regardless of the problems with micromanagement (and I am not fan of it) you need something to stop the "rich get richer, faster and faster" syndrome that Starfire's SM2 rule changes produces. As that kills the game just as dead. That computer game Sword of the Stars tried to deal with this...clearly they were thinking about the problem. I think just about every modern 4X game looks at how to deal with exactly this issue. Starfire has to do it as well.
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But regardless of the problems with micromanagement (and I am not fan of it) you need something to stop the "rich get richer, faster and faster" syndrome that Starfire's SM2 rule changes produces. As that kills the game just as dead. That computer game Sword of the Stars tried to deal with this...clearly they were thinking about the problem. I think just about every modern 4X game looks at how to deal with exactly this issue. Starfire has to do it as well.
G'Day Paul.
I couldn't agree more. With flat costs (i.e. R&D) and an exponential population growth rate, the amount of free cash an empire has increases exponentially.
And without some kind of custom PC support (i.e. SFA), then the game quickly becomes unmanageable. Even with PC support, the point of "unplayability" exists, it is just further away.
My preference to address this, would be to move away from PU/PTU's, and to introduce costs that are based on the empires income (rather then flat costs). This would have the effect of further slowing down reaching the point of unplayability.
Fixing the game so that this point never arrives, though, is beyond me.....