... I suggest we actually start the game with a basic military (or at least PDC/OWP) setup. Having these major colonies out there with absolutely zero defenses just seems silly.
Agreed. I motion for OWP over PDC as they generally provide better point defense fire.
... I think we'd best avoid a jump capable navy right off the bat...
Agreed. Two standardized classes such as a destroyer and a frigate that are designed to work together.
To prevent something like this to happen at a start of a game one could also turn off precursors and star swarm at the beginning and turn it on again after the setup is finished, couldn't you? Then theoretically these systems shouldn't have aliens in them.
Good point.
I might suggest to add jumpgates between the systems if we get non-jumpable (war)ships...
Agreed. Allows for trade right away, otherwise we'd be sitting around for two years or so before we can actually begin trading with each other. I imagine that will take up a good portion of the early game anyway, and could cause some interesting situations while everyone builds up forces. Alliances based on who controls which resource etc.
I'd like to support a restart as this is honestly kinda bleh, but under the following conditions.
First: The restart begins with Hangar Bays and (Maybe) box launchers. If you want, we'll trade a tech for these; Is anyone particularly attached to 25cm railguns? But these two things will make cheap defense actually possible, which means we can handle these situations ourselves. Additionally, this means that we can produce Fast Attack Craft (500 tons) planet-side and store them in hangars as planetary defense forces. So, Brown water navy vs Blue water navy.
Second: In addition to the above, I think you should go ahead and give everyone a 4 ship task force which includes two missile combatants, a flagship/jump ship, and a point defense ship. This way we have mobile forces beyond the range of FACs that we can use to support one another, and we would have some initial forces to work off of. If you're unwilling to SM in the parts for all our custom designs, then just give us a standard design that's kind of crappy. Make them like, 7200 tons, with inferior technologies to what we have now. We don't need a huge task force, but giving each Admiral an actual task force that we can use will go a great deal towards improving the initial stuff we can do. Right now it's kind of... wait several years for ships to be built and trained, then do stuff.
Third: Before we do a restart, I'd like for all the admirals to get together and agree on a STANAG agreement for missiles, fighter sizes, and maybe fleet standard speed. It seems like we all had wildly different opinions here, and so it just seems easier to talk about it, you know? Get things set up before hand instead of trying to do it in the middle of an alien invasion.
1. I wouldn't be against this tech being onhand right away. It would definitely allow for some more creative designs.
2. I would say keep it simple. No flagship or jump ships (or combination). Simplified destroyer/frigate combo would be best, probably utilizing railguns or missiles depending on what tech we get. This way, the ships are able to act as a limited point defense platform while also being able to engage hostiles offensively (although it would be limited). Again, these designs are meant to be crappy and scrapped as soon as we start designing some of our own.
Another option would be to give each admiral a certain number of research points for component design to create their own ships. Then give them a certain number of build points so that everyone is on the same footing. This would actually create some interesting gameplay right off the bat as no one would know the others designs and everyone would already be wondering what the other admirals have designed/are hiding away.
3. Agreed. Standardization is nice and makes everything pretty.
Starting the game off with a meeting between the admirals (and president) would make sense, too. Before time advances at all, I mean...
I wouldn't be against this. Set the ground work for how things will play out.
1) Reset completely, and set it up better this time. I'm not entirely fond of this option because I've spent some effort analyzing the game as it is. Well, that and I got the best extrasolar colony. >_>
2) Pull back time and SM in forces capable of stopping precursors. Again, while I'm not against resets, I spent a bunch of time analyzing the situation, and I'd rather it didn't change significantly.
3) Continue as is. Hey, there's no reason we can't. It's just not what anyone here really expected, and the story isn't going so great either.
The really nice thing about how it was supposed to be is that everything would get built up from an even start. Want a tech? Research it. Want a 20kt ship? Make the yard. The problem is that nothing much happens in the first years, and of course, we had no defense for the first months. In my opinion, random tech was helpful. Instead of having a setup that somebody has used before, we got something that was new to all of us. So what if you can't do something off the bat? That doesn't make it impossible! All the critical techs are cheap, any single admiral could research em easily enough.
Getting policies, agreements, etc. before time starts might make sense. With the way it was supposed to be, spending the first few years mostly discussing (as nothing else would be happening) would have worked out.
1. Agreed. No reason to restart completely.
2. I think this is the best option. Restart the game as is with SMed forces.
3. Disagree. There are too many things that were unexpected and have already ruined the flow to the story. It doesn't make sense that we have 1 billion people on planet and then all of a sudden they were nuked out of existence. It doesn't make sense that we don't have jump gates between colonies to allow the movement of that many people to five different colonies. It doesn't make sense that we don't have some form of protection so that the colonies aren't suffering massive penalties from this lack of protection.
While starting from scratch may not have been bad, this is still a multiplayer game. With nothing happening the way it is, and the length of turns for even one year, it would probably have taken well over a month (real time) before the first ship was even constructed. There's no reason to SM absolutely everything we want in immediately, but it makes sense to give each player a little bit of something to work with so that things stay interesting.
As I see it. All colonies need a good number of OWPs (or PDCs if we choose that option) not only for protection from immediate threats, but for the PPV they provide. Every single colony would have become severely hampered by a lack of PPV, and wouldn't have been able to get anything done. It would have taken 6 of the Great Wall Mk.IRs (or 4 Great Wall Mk.IGs) to
just barely meet the minimum PPV for any of the colonies. Within a month, the colonies would have started suffering again due to population growth.
I actually really like the idea of giving each admiral a set amount of RP for component design and a set number of build points for them to create their own ships to be SMed in at the beginning. These points should be limited so that each admiral only has enough for 1 good (or maybe 2 crappy) designs and enough build points to build 3~4 ships. Maybe a bonus to Sol (I'm not biased or anything
).
