I'm sorry guys, I forgot I had drinks tonight with people I met through a life- coaching type thing expect more delays but it's getting there I promise!
Thanks for sharing the faction flags / symbols. I'll gradually get them onto the map if I can make decent pixilated versions of them.
The speed is, but there's nothing to stop you carrying on further next turn. its like sending Triemes beyond coastal water in civ 1/2 - increasing risk of accidents as you move out. Explorer ships are less likely to 'sink'.
Within that zone you can be rescued and recovered and repaired.
You'll probably not have to pay full upkeep on ships venturing outside, however.
Edit: bearing in mind that's just your starting tech. Its possible to greatly extend speed/range and even build some kind of jump-gates if you want to research into that.
As a race of sentient beings begins its journey to the stars, and looks back to the story of its own evolution, it may see a series of astonishing coincidences - from planets that were 'just right' for life; to the seeming miracle of life itself, and the laws of physics that almost seem to be carefully calibrated, down to the tiniest detail, to allow something like the physical universe to evolve in the first place.
For the beings in our story, there is yet more coincidence. They find themselves truly set apart from the greater cosmos, their worlds ejected from their parent galaxy as part of a galactic collision several million years ago - a dance that is still playing out in spectacular fashion across one hemisphere of the night's sky. Our story takes place in a galaxy fragment, a comparatively-sheltered group of stars and dust and dark matter, which just happens to be rich in all the materials needed for life.
And there is yet more coincidence to discover - not only have many sentient beings evolved in close proximity to each other, but they have converged on interstellar travel at the same point in time. Who can explain how this is so? But it is perhaps no more remarkable than any of the other coincidences up to this point. For the inhabitants of this miniature-galaxy, all that really matters is the bold new era that lies ahead.
First, the south-east quarter of the galaxy. This is a rather gentle neighbourhood, centred on a pair of large, bright blue newborn stars. From the planet Torhenn - homeworld of a species known as Kowlint - these two stars dominate the night sky, and the surrounding nebula obscures most of the galactic centre. A nearby species known as the Kul'hari are perhaps the most exotic here, having evolved from highly-mineralised biology, with an angular and almost inorganic appearance. Not far away, a world called Hmmaia is home to the galaxy's oldest technological civilization, though one somewhat slow to tackle space travel; this system is an especially strong source of radio noise going back centuries.
The north-west quarter of the galaxy is dominated by a large, dense nebula cloud. Sentient species have evolved on either side of this mass - the Psilocybe and Dscheri have no clear picture of each other's home stars, though radio noise has pieced the cloud - coincidentally, both these species are natural fliers existing in dense atmospheres. The Psilocybe are notable for evolving from a 'second generation' planet that has re-formed following a violent supernova, locked in tight orbit around a white dwarf. A much brighter, young, supergiant star radiates the south end of this nebula, and this spectacular sight dominates the night sky over the jungles of Schreikne Quil, home of the spider-like beings known as Qui.
Nearby, an older sibling star has begun its death-throes, becoming a swollen orange giant. This is the brightest star visible from Tarnakk. home of the feline-like Tarnakki race - noteable for the large number of well-armed, traditionalist clans which are preventing development of wilderness regions far from the main cities.
By comparison, the north-east quarter is comparatively sparse and clear; civilizations here have a much wider view across the galaxy. This corner is also notable for the number of species that have evolved in arid environments. The vulpine race known as Rozu inhabit the arid planet Sureya, but share their home system with another planet that is home to another intelligent race - the frog-like Gelians, who exist in a state of siege, having failed in their armed expeditions to Sureya. For the Rozu, the existence of intelligent life on other worlds shall be little shock.
A nearby race known as Sehoum are notable for being sentient symbiotes; they inhabit the planet Almoth, or to be more precise, they inhabit the bodies of sturdy six-legged animals known as Baloum. With some medical technologies, it is possible that the Sehoum may even make hosts of beings from other planets. Their world, too, is largely arid; the same can be said for Desmong, a planet scorched by twin suns, which nonetheless serves as a cradle for the only partly-aquatic sentient species, beings known as the Flallore, who have used technology to aid their expansion from isolated polar seas.
Finally to the south-east quadrant which, including the Flallore, is home to a particularly diverse group of sentients - these include arboreal, filter-feeding shelled creatures known as Hlur-Baiheen; the insect-like beings known as Yuma, with a complex, hive-based hierarchical society (both these species having countless billions of population); and slug-like beings known as Syruu, inhabiting the planet Andos. Nearby, human-like beings inhabit the planet they call 'Dry Sea', which has been left devastated by an ancient war; their leaders carefully study the remains of a giant war machine called The Beast, convinced - wisely or not - that it played a key role in the events of those times.
Note that the brightest star in this galaxy shines in space between the homeworlds of the Flallore and Hlur-Baiheen, bright enough to be seen in broad daylight from these worlds; it is an unstable supergiant destined for a cataclysmic death within the next few million years - by which time, we suspect, this galaxy will be much transformed...
MAP:
Spoiler:
STATS:
*Stats Here* (first page - experimental formatting - planet details to be separated out at a later date)
NOTES and MUSINGS: (first page to be updated very shortly)
In my naivety I did realise and rework a few things getting this set up, especially in light of the number of players.
Spoiler:
Colonisation Expanded
You'll note the rule system I've gone with for colonising star systems. It may be confusing, but hopefully will be robust and easy to look up.
Firstly, Freighters will be a viable alternative, especially in the early game - I'm now allowing them to grab one or two resources from most unclaimed systems. All you have to do is send them there. But the resources in some systems may not be accessible to casual gathering, not to mention that you must pay upkeep for Freighters and keep them safe, as they are rather vulnerable. Nor do they help to extend your range. For this you must build colonies.
Basically there's now two costs involved - the Environment cost, which is a base cost for building anything on the main planet in that system (the 'foundations' for anything, including defensive guns, or expensive Developed World upgrades), and the Resource cost, which is the cost for setting up any resource gathering (which translates into 1EP a turn, provided there is enough demand), with the Env cost to pay on top of that each time. A world may be easily habitable, but its resources may be very hard to access - or vice-versa.
The Env cost will vary between races - for each 'tag' that you can match with your factions' natural habitat (see this in your stats), and thus the closer you can get to living in that environment without special protection, you can deduct 1EP from the base cost. This cannot go below 0EP, naturally. As it happens, as we start the game, each race does not have to pay any Env cost on its homeworld due to having good adaptations to conditions there.
Also note that these things will be flexible over time - a faction could gain or lose adaptations, or planets could gain or lose traits.
Maxing out resources?
You'll also note in the stats that many homeworlds have room to grow - there could be a little more mining or farming. But watch out for blowback if you try to do this - aside from sparking protests and native unrest, there could be disruption of farming, or disruption of mineral production. In general it will be hard to completely max out and keep all resource production on a planet, IF it has a mix of resources AND particularly if it has natives / tribal leftovers / scary life-forms to cause problems.
Sharable Luxuries and Oddities
To begin with at least, I will change how I was going to handle Luxuries and Oddities, so now each icon represents the source of a unique luxury or special research subject, and this one thing can be shared with all other races in the galaxy if needs be. They are not 'consumed', though you still profit from each source you have access to (provided you have demand for it - also note that Freighters or similar units are needed to make this happen, to represent logistics). What this means is that you can now profit from allowing foreign scientists to study your ancient ruins, or foreigners to share in your culture's fabulous luxuries (for those who start with a luxury resource, do feel free to give it a unique description or flavour).
Special Traits, Colonisation and Upkeep
We're now at the point of filling in some hard EP rules for the special traits.
Engineer, Brooder, and Survivalist traders shall all be 'wildcards' that reduce the Env cost by 1EP; Engineer further reduces the cost of mineral extraction by 1EP, and Gardener will reduce the cost of all food extraction by 2EP (again, the bare minimum cost will be 1EP).
Traits that reduce upkeep for ships/troops now reduce it by 25% each, or .25 EP (which ever is biggest). Whereas the 'Trader' trait reduces upkeep for Freighter-type ships in particular by 50%. But note that apart from special circumstances, nothing will ever have less than .25EP upkeep (or you could uncontrollably spam the whole map with units).
"What are Resources anyway?"
A space-faring civilization will not really face starvation or material shortage as it will always be able to synthesise things, given enough time and energy. But that is the point - the way I like to think of it is this (aside from gameplay reasons): you are saving said time and energy by getting those resources straight from the environment, freeing up your collective effort for other things. You may also like to think of the 'Food' resource as being access to natural, outdoor environments, and recreation.
Luxuries may stimulate society, improve morale and provide incentive and/or the means to work harder.
Oddities similarly stimulate the cultural and intellectual sphere, and by studying them you may discover many miscellaneous insights that have useful applications - the many things you can learn from nature, from ancient relics, etc.
REMINDER: Renaming Rights
You have the right to rename anything that is in your range on the map, including nebulas and empty regions of space. Where things are contested, I'll make a judgement call on what name to use The boring default star names are just handles for you to use in ordering ships around; most likely, every civilization already has its own star catalogue.
IMPORTANT: 'Fast Colonising'
To speed up the pace of the game, I'll allow people to put money upfront to auto-colonise a new system the same turn it is surveyed by a ship. IE, you could have a colony by the end of Turn 1. Simply state how much EP you're willing to allocate (3-4EP recommended minimum), and if you have a preferred type of resource (such as Minerals or Food), and if it is possible, you'll get a colony straight away that will add at least +1EP a turn.
Feel free to post orders in the thread at this point, I will of course accept PM's as well.
And yes, I am also 'playing' with my own faction and this will serve as a handy example to get going:
Hurrunn Agreement Orders for Turn 1
Hurrunn Agreement: Daftpanzer
Survivalist Collectors
Habitat: Med-Grav, Thin-Atmos, Terrestrial, Arid, [Survivalist*]
100% Hurrunnunn population
Culture is considered Interesting
Morale is High
Society is Stable
We have another potential mineral slot on our homeworld, but we won't use it for now, I don't want to risk social problems or to potentially disrupt my food income, especially given the complete lack of any kind of police force. Plus, we should focus our efforts on space!
Thus, one exploration ship will head to Zen-2 while another will head to Kar-7.
Yes, we've heard radio signals from the galactic north, but we're not in any hurry - we'll get there soon enough!
I am committing 4EP to auto-colonisation this turn and special preference will be given to any Oddities we may be able to start studying.
Psilocybe : Immaculate
Watcher Hunters
Habitat: Lo-Grav, Thick-Atmos, Cold, Mountainous, Mineral-Rich
100% Psilocybe population
Culture is considered Interesting
Morale is Adequate
Society is Somewhat Stable
Indeed a copy-paste error, I've updated the stats, however this now gives you quite a serious upkeep issue!
You can indeed spawn unlimited new units at your capitol, however be aware of mounting upkeep costs.
You'll most likely encounter some systems with asteroids or airless rocks that are suitable for space mining by freighters, this will be noted when you reach them. It will be a case of simply having one or more freighters there to get the minerals flowing. Permanent bases could also be built in those systems though the Env costs will probably not be nullable.
Non-explorer units CAN explore systems, but the survey will be incomplete and/or inaccurate on the first turn, potentially leading to abortive colonisation efforts.
Send an explorer to Sass 17. 4 EP will be devoted to auto-colonization, with special emphasis on food, food, and food again. If the planet we find is unable to support farming endeavors, we'll save the funds and move on to the next.
Torrhennian Confederacy : filli_noctus
Scavenger Engineers
Habitat: Med-Grav, Med-Atmos, Terrestrial, Mountainous, [Engineer*]
100% Kowlint population
Culture is considered Adequate
Morale is Adequate
Society is Stable
Explorer and diplomat to DAK-515, auto colonise with 4EP.
Instigate project - World Ring, an artificial ring orbiting the equator of the planet containing loading docks, dry docks and crew quarters, connected to the surface by multiple space elevators. Reduces construction and operating costs of vessels in the system. 1EP/turn.
Front page updated and tidied up. Hopefully this is all making some sense. I've been doing some dithering and agonising over how to make the map and stats easy to update... Hopefully, now that all of this is in place finally, we can have some quick-fire updates while people are making their first colonies.
The biggest pressing issue for me at the moment is how to keep track of all the special planets people will be exploring... If we should have one big list in alphabetical order? Its not really feasible to have private lists of known worlds for each player, so I favour doing something public for all (bear in mind you won't be able to colonise worlds that you don't know about in-game). If you have any suggestions for that let me know.
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@filli_noctus, I'll get back to you about how exactly I'd interpret your project idea. My first instinct is not to allow reductions to the cost of new units, ships in particular, as it opens a can of worms when you come to scrap them and expect money back from recycling. But a global upkeep reduction is doable.
Hi christos, glad that you're still here! I didn't want to force you to start with space ships, so that would be the first step for you if you want to explore. I'm not sure if I've actually written this in the rules, but I didn't want to have units being used the same turn they are being built... So there's not a huge amount you could do this turn. On the plus side, you start with more money and veteran ground forces.
I'm raring to go. But also conscious of the start-up delays and want to give people time to check in.
Moderator Announcement: I've re-thought the rules for Freighters again:
Firstly, Freighters will be a viable alternative, especially in the early game - I'm now allowing them to grab one or two resources from most unclaimed systems. All you have to do is send them there. But the resources in some systems may not be accessible to casual gathering, not to mention that you must pay upkeep for Freighters and keep them safe, as they are rather vulnerable. Nor do they help to extend your range. For this you must build colonies.
Fighters: 1EP to build, 0.5EP upkeep
FTL - capable attack craft
Capable in attack, relies on speed for defence
Short range and lacks endurance for battles away from base
Aerospace capable, can attack enemy Troops and planets
Transportable
Follow-up question:
What does it mean, "transportable"? I thought they are FTL-capable- why do they need transportation?
Also, what is a 'base' (a developed world, or any colony)? Or any planet at all? Or a carrier?
Can you compare how a fighter would be used vs. how a warship would be used?
Also,
Missile: 1EP to build, 0.25EP upkeep
FTL-capable guided missile craft with heavy warhead
Target enemy capital ships or large fleet concentrations
Can do considerable damage to planets
One-shot weapon!
Transportable
Jeez, picking my rules apart man Bearing in mind I wanted our civilizations to have to experiment and work these things out as they go - because nobody has fought an interstellar war before.
But basically yes yes yes - from a claimed planet or from a carrier/freighter/warship in deep space, they can go FTL from there, but you should really launch from wherever it is at the start of the turn, I should clarify. I'll be happy to plonk down some range counters on the map if needed, over and above the normal supply radius. Note that missiles in particular are very likely to fail if you send them on a journey lasting more than one turn.
The limit on movement is time-based, so as your carrier moves, its also reducing how far the missiles (of fighters) can get before the end of the turn. So if you want certainty, launch at the start of the turn! I will be flexible on this however - say if you are moving your carrier near to an enemy planet and then firing the missiles off at close range, that's an acceptable tactic. I hope that makes sense...
EDIT: I didn't really answer your question. The concept is that the FTL drive in Missiles isn't designed for repeated use. Its pretty much a compact, cheaper, one-way, one-use system. So no, you shouldn't really fire them between your own planets - which is where the transports come in.
Fighters are different, and they can happily fly between planets. Their issue is running low on energy / weapons load, which is why having carriers nearby is handy for offensive actions away from home planets.
I think I covered this already as much as I want to spoil it - fighters will be fast strikes, hit and run, disrupt and disperse, but won't be able to 'hold ground' in the way that the big warships can. You probably don't want a fighters-only fleet to blockade an enemy world or to completely wipe out an enemy fleet. Fighters will tend to lose hitting power throughout the turn unless they are fighting on top of their carriers / bases.
The whole launching / carrying thing is the same idea for FTL Missiles - either send them off at the start of the turn, or expect them to be close to the carrier. Allowing them a short CAP radius around carriers as they move is OK, however.
EDIT: its really up to the players whether weapons technology will go pro-Fighter-craft or pro-Big-Warships.
The Drok Imperium: Everblack
Philosopher Warriors
Habitat: Avg-Grav, Avg-Atmos, Terrestrial, Arid, Hot
100% Drokmohx population
Culture is considered Somewhat Interesting
Morale is High
Society is Slightly Unstable
Tech Projects: 1 project slot empty
Economy:
1 Fortress World
1 Food eaten, +1 wanted
1 Minerals used, +2 wanted
1 Luxuries enjoyed, +1 wanted
0 Oddities explored, +1 wanted
0 goods traded (nothing to trade)
= 4 EP income
Costs:
1 Explorer (x1)
1 Troops (x0.5)
= 1EP upkeep
=3 EP banked, treasury is now 6EP
Tazo I: hot desert world with limited ocean and diverse native life
Env (4EP): Avg-Grav, Avg-Atmos, Terrestrial, Ocean, Arid, Hot
Resources (3EP): 2x Minerals, 2x Food, 1x Luxuires (Golden Sand)
Hazards: indigenous lifeforms (!!)
-With the message from Darhrols elders clear we advance into the stars above to begin colonizing worlds for the Imperium. The first step to this is for our Explorer to Oro-2.
-To further advance our colonzing goals 4EP will be put into auto-colonisation this turn with the need of Minerals in mind. the last 2EP will be banked for later use
Yes. The more resources you have access to, the less energy/effort you need to spend on synthesizing things, and thus the more energy/effort you have to use on other things. But only up to a point when you have all the resources you can possibly use right now.
I think I know what you mean - yes, its by resource type, not all of them at once. You have to pay separately to increase minerals, food, luxuries, oddities separately. And it is a long-term investment as they won't make a profit until 3-4 turns usually. But you might be surprised how quickly that can snowball (based on my solo game testing).
Jaar'ar Federation: christos200 Economist Collectivist
Habitat: Avg-Grav, Avg-Atmos, Terrestrial, Mountainous, Forested
100% Jaar'ar population
Culture is considered Boring
Morale is Adequate
Society is United
Tech Projects: 1 project slot empty
Economy:
1 Fortress World
(1 Economist Bonus)
1 Food eaten, +2 wanted
1 Minerals used, +2 wanted
0 Luxuries enjoyed, +0 wanted
0 Oddities explored, +2 wanted
0 goods traded (nothing to trade)
= 4 EP income
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expect more delays 
but it's getting there I promise!
The boring default star names are just handles for you to use in ordering ships around; most likely, every civilization already has its own star catalogue.
