StarNES: Interplanetary Intrigue

[Starlife]

StarNES: Interplanetary Intrigue​

Introduction

This never ending story takes place in a single star system that is so massive that it contains several planets that are just as habitable as Earth. Some are more habitable, others are less habitable, but all of the planets in this solar system that can be settled, have been settled. Each player will take control of a single, unique planet within this expansive star system. Players will not control the moons of their planet, and these moons will be decided by the moderator (their existence, purpose, and backstory). Planets, however, can be completely crafted by you, the player. This means that the climate, geography, civilization, history, government, etc. can all be decided by you, the player.

Humanity did not begin on a single planet. Rather, humans developed on several of the planets at around the same time. There were some planets with less advanced or civilized cultures, and others where humans never developed, but were settled early enough by the first interplanetary travelers. Each planet has a different set of flora and fauna, as well as different climates. Some are slightly closer to the sun, others are further away. Some are completely covered in water, others have very little water.

The point of this story is the story-telling process, which is the most important part to me. Having players tell a fine story and act in clever ways will win them props from myself (the moderator), and from the environment we play within.

Here is a brief example of a planet's backstory, which all players must create:

Spoiler :

Freyr is, to put it simply, a planet of farmers. The first settlements on Freyr began as massive farm communities, which evolved into collective farming areas. The first semblances of organized government began in this way. The industrial age on Freyr was much different than it was on other planets. The farming ways of this planet took new industrial inventions and initially used them to make their farms more efficient, much like how other planets did. However, this caused a rift in the communities on the planet, as some Freyrians despised the new technology and thought that it was against the ways of their god (who is shown in the form of a massive boar).

Some farming nations remained farming nations, while others quickly industrialized, opposing the ways of the old god. Eventually, these communities crumbled, as the populace grew ill from pollution (something that Freyrians are quite sensitive to). The large Freyrian cities soon became something of the past.

These cities were eventually resurrected, and large quantities of plant life were planted alongside buildings and throughout the cities. Vines now grow on the buildings and people live in these cities. They have become completely sustainable, and feature tiered farms in buildings, and massive farms on the rooftops of skyscrapers. It was only necessary for them to venture into cities, as the planet became more and more crowded. They took the powers of nature and turned them into making a pollution-free planet. They eventually developed ways to reach the stars through interplanetary means. The Freyrians developed computers and sophisticated technology, modeled after their old industrial cities, but featuring recyclable and reusable materials carefully crafted (it is said that a Freyrian can re-use anything, and that the quality of their high-tech goods are amazing because of their resourcefulness).

The Freyrians discovered space travel through the use of airwood. Airwood is a unique resource to the Freyr-forests. It is a light wood, and when the interior of the wood is scraped, it can allow anything to float in the air or levitate. This wood was known for some time, and creates a strange landscape in the Freyr-forests, as fallen trees rise up and continue to rise until they are burned up, creating flashes of light in the sky. However, it took some time for the Freyrians to discover how to use this in space travel. They began to experiment with creating high concentrations of it, which when placed in special generators (often powered by high quantities of sunlight) can cause even heavy objects and spaceships to float. They then created propelling systems, which allowed the ships to move and navigate.

Currently, Freyr sees itself as a guardian of nature, both on their own planet and on others. As such, they are naturally drawn to be allies with other planets who are at least somewhat respectful of their lands, and frowns upon heavily industrialized planets. To Freyrians, these planets are barbarians.

Goals

The goal of this NES is open-ended. Conquering or diplomatically swaying moons is one big goal that can be accomplished by players. You can also conquer other planets or parts of other planets. Important asteroid mining operations can be interrupted, pirates can be bribed, and so on. This star system is rather complex, complete with religious fanatics, nature-lovers, and war-mongers. Diplomacy and politics will be rather complex as well, as players interact with each other and various NPCs. This will mean that players can solve problems with more than just their spacefleet.

Creating a Planet

The first aspect of creating a planet is the atmosphere and "fluff" of your world.

There are a few things needed to create a planet:
1. Planet Name (obvious)
2. Climate/Geography (what does your planet look like? is it hot, cold, warm?)
3. Backstory/History (give a backstory or history of your planet)
4. Government (detail your governing body)
5. Religion (is this even important for your planet? if so, what kinds of mythology exist on your planet and how does this effect society?)
6. Foreign Policy (how do you react to other planets, and what kinds of planets are you looking to for friends, what kinds do you look down on, etc.)
7. Space Travel (each planet should have one single special resource that it uses to travel through space; this is one of the unique aspects of each planet and their respective military)

The second step to create a planet is figuring out your various statistics.

[this section coming soon after discussion/further thought]

This section will include Economy and Military. I am still in the thought process of how to figure out these important aspects of the game.

- - - - - - -

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. Please give any and all input you might have. And please note that I will make this ruleset a lot "prettier" as I develop it more and more.

 

[Starlife]

Hold.

 

[Starlife]

Hold!

 

[Starlife]

Hold hold hold.

 

[Starlife]

Blah.

 

[Starlife]

That should be enough. I designed this thread by looking at other NESes. I hope that it's so far so good. Let me know what else I should do besides the obvious (like develop the rules ).

 

[Starlife]

Oh and this thread is for discussion of the topic and ruleset development. It isn't so much for gameplay.

 

[Abaddon]

Hello!

How do you plan to place these planets within the system, and how many moons will be around said planets?


If you had a complete map for us, and we then "paint" it with our descriptions.. i think it would be good.

People also get excited claiming spots and working out strategies by what else is around them.

 

[Abaddon]

As for economy. I suggest having each planet and moon have a "current" and "max" economy stat.

For instance your planet is (2/5) this means it currently produces 2 economic points a turn, but has the potential to be developed to level 5 (cost to do that we will have to think about)

The "harder" to use planets will have a lower max, or perhaps much higher development costs.

 

[Starlife]

Both excellent ideas, Abaddon. I am still working on developing a map - it's in progress, though. I want players to decide the size of their planets, though, so it will be changed beyond its preliminary showing. I haven't decided the advantages of larger and smaller planets. I am thinking right now that population and land area will matter in some way (larger planets might be harder to defend, but offer more room/more people/more economy?/more recruits for military/not necessarily more resources though). Is this wise, or is it over-thinking? There would also be massive planets that cannot produce anything / sustain life at all of course. Smaller planets would be easily defendable, could have high deposits/concentrations of resources (so maybe large or small, there should be no difference in economy for that reason), they would not be able to hold as many people meaning less recruits for military (potentially) and some other implications.

Another route is easier: all planets are created equally. They were going to be anyway, but with some stats being able to raised as some sort of per-player feat at the beginning. Any other implications on how physical planet size would affect things? Or should it not even matter beyond fluff?

Your economic idea is great as well, and similar to what I had in mind. I definitely want further development to be possible, and capping it is wise. I was thinking that some planets could go beyond that cap, at the expense of their people's happiness or something.

 

[Abaddon]

I think that your space fleet will be the only really defence.. unless we allow space bases lazer weapons and mines and wot not

i guess citizens can resist and mean you do not get much money from a captured planet til you deal with that.

Also, modern tech will mean size of planet doesnt matter compared to population...

I want other nesers to chime in.

 

[Justo]

You can probably count me in. When creating planets players should perhaps have limits or spending points. For example 10 spending points.(more would probably be better although this shouldn't be so extreme.

Spending points can then go towards size, number of moons, population, native wildlife, resources etc. The more you put towards something the greater it will be however at the expense of other things. IMO population should be the limit on the industry maximum for each planet but then population is also limited to planet size. Technology can of course raise the size of each over time.(e.g initially 1 pop allows for 1 industry but after researching automation 1 pop can allow 1.2 industry etc) Moons should then be tied in with each planet providing resources, living space and various other bonus's.

Each industry point should then require 1 resource point(to give a reason for expansion and to allow players to trade). So players can have infinite industry but if they don't have the resources to feed them it won't matter. Resources can be bought in from the home planet, traded for or bought in from moons and asteroid belts etc. Technology will also be able to boost this in time as well.

This would then allow players to forge a solar system which can all tie together. Resource rich planets will trade with industrial planets for ships and advanced equipment and so forth.

Anyway these are just some thoughts I had. It may be taking the NES away from where you picture it.

 

[Starlife]

No, not at all - those ideas are great and take the NES in a good direction. I definitely want players to trade. Also, players will not have control over their own moons initially (as stated earlier). I am debating this, though - I might change my mind about it, but I'd rather them be autonomous entities, at least to start.

I was also thinking that each planet have a unique resource that allows space flight, but now I am thinking that the whole solar system should rely on a single resource that accounts for what powers industry and ship-making (which would obviously be related). This single resource, for now let's call it "Dust" would be found on the interior of planets in this solar system. The backstory would be that the solar system was originally forged by this strong and powerful material, and sent planets whirling out, which began to orbit around the big sun, etc. Dust is found only through heavy mining to the cores of planets or stellar bodies (moons, asteroids, etc.). Dust is therefore lucrative and has a variety of uses.

I don't want a typical sci-fi space environment where we all have fusion reactors and ships that look the same. The way you tap into your planet's "Dust" reserves should mean something, and I like having a unique resource in our fictional solar system that provides space flight/massive amounts of power. Each planet has a different way of mining and a different way of burning Dust to provide power. Technology will allow cleaner or more effective methods.

How do you all like these ideas?

I am still forging a ruleset, but it will definitely include the trading of resources, and an industry dependent on population. I also might have a "Sustainability" factor, which is how much you pollute your planet, and there will be advantages to not tapping all of your Dust resources, or something along those lines. At this point I'm thinking planet size won't matter at all. It will be a purely fluff sort of thing. I think technology will be advanced enough to where small planets could theoretically hold just as many people.

 

[Justo]

Sounds quite good.

Larger and Smaller planets should still have advantages and disadvantages. Larger planets would likely have more dust and potential however perhaps initially these planets are still not fully developed/settled and so start out costing more or are just not as developed. Also with the same technology they would still be able to have more population overall. They would also cost more to defend in the event of attack.

It would also be interesting if perhaps dust is starting to become difficult to extract or rare on many of the starting worlds(perhaps the smaller developed planets) which is what is forcing each planet to expand outwards. Initially trade might be the only way to get enough dust until technology grows to allow space mining and colonization.

 

[Starlife]

Justo,
Excellent - thanks for your input. Yeah I think trading is essential, because I really want there to be role-playing. I don't want this to be a shoot 'em live or die space game.

Do NES games ever use random statistics? Like if I used an online program where I can randomly select a number from 25-50 or something like that, is it acceptable? I am thinking that "Resources" will be completely decided by the moderator for each planet, and I'm thinking of doing it completely randomly.

 

[Justo]

Random is used in most NESes as far as I understand. Although when it comes to player starting spots most moderators like to keep a balance. If nation x has less resources he will have more economy or whatever to counteract it.

Another thing I was thinking since at the moment "Industrial" planets won't have much to trade for resources is that Industry be used to produce Goods. 1 Industry can create 2 Goods for example. 1 pop could then consume 1 Good to create a circular economy. (Pops > resources > Industry > Goods > Pops etc) Goods can represent anything from industrial equipment, parts, food etc. consumer goods in a way it can represent wealth. If the pop doesn't get its goods then they can become rebellious, less productive and so forth to represent lack of food and/or machinery. Pops could even be tied into resource/dust extraction in this way. Of course planets would limit how much is available overall. Maybe pops will need to be managed so that so many pops go into resource extraction and so many towards industry.

Goods can then be spent on various things. Maybe 20 Goods could be used in creating 1 Industry the goods representing all the machinery required for this and whatnot. If players want to build spaceships they need to spend a certain amount of goods combined with Industry to refine the goods into ships and whatnot.(The greater the ship or building being constructed the more goods and industry it will need) Technology like with everything else will be able to expand good production and reduce consumption.(recycling techs, Good Production efficiency etc)

Such a system could be used to slow growth initally which I think is best(too many spaces NESes have quick expansion). Players will need to focus on trade and keeping their economy afloat and will not have much free to spend on colonization and military equipment initially. Once more advanced technology is discovered industry and goods will be freed up for such things.

To stop players from hording resources/dust and goods as mod you will need to enforce a supply and demand system. Much like in our world if double the amount of coal is produced compared to what is comsumed and traded for the price of coal would drop and extraction would fall. If planets start gaining massive stockpiles(depending on consumption) their resource/dust extraction rate should reduce until demand picks back up.

The whole goods system may overcomplicate the NES although I think it would be quite interesting.

Edit: Warfare could work this way as well. Rather than having to invade a planet which would require huge amounts of men a fleet will blockade a planet and crush its industry. The planet will be unable to produce goods for its people. Once out of goods(maybe for a few turns) the planet will then fall/surrender.

 

[Starlife]

Here is more of what I have now:

- - - - - - -

Each planet will get two random numbers for statistics. These will be in the Resources and the Physical Size fields. In addition to this, each planet will begin with 100-X points to distribute at the very beginning of the game (X being minus your random statistics). The categories which you must distribute these points within are the following:

Resources
Physical Size
Population
Sustainability

1 point in Population = 1 Industrial/Economic point. However, for every Industrial point you create, you must have 2 cubits of "Dust", the resource that initially created our solar system and that exists at the core of each planet (represented by the Resources statistic). That means that even if you have 30 Population, you must have Resources of 60 to fully extract the amount of Dust you need for spending. Each Dust cubit is converted into an EconPoint (or Credit). Physical Size will effect the cost of your planet's upkeep and will also represent your Population limit over time. Here is an example for a planet, with random numbers 23 and 15 (23 for Resources, 15 for Physical Size):

Spoiler :

Resources: 23
Physical Size: 15
Population: 10
- - - Industry: 10
Sustainability: 20

Resources = amount of Dust produced per star-year.
Physical Size = diameter in kilometers by the thousand (so this planet is roughly 15,000 kilometers in diameter).
Population = billions of people per population point. This planet has 10 billion people, and can only support a total of 30 million people (thus has a cap of 30 Industrial points after full development, and 60 Resources). Population is limited by x2 your Physical Size.
- - - Industry = ability to turn your Dust resources into viable Industry, and thus economic points (credits).
Sustainability = upkeep of your current population/population growth.

The above example planet has a surplus of 3 Dust and a surplus of 10 Sustainability. Dust can be kept in Dust Reserves, or traded. Excess Sustainability can be used to grow your population (5 points of extra Sustainability will increase your population by 1 for the next year, but that means that for this planet, 11 Sustainability will be required for upkeep next year, as opposed to 10). Sustainability can also be traded. This planet can rely on itself at the beginning, but eventually it will need to grow its population/industry, and then more Dust will be needed. It will have to find more Dust to trade for Sustainability eventually as well, because if it grows to 20 population, it will need at least 20 Sustainability to upkeep that population.

And let's have another example:

Spoiler :

Resources: 19
Physical Size: 21
Population: 20
- - - Industry: 20
Sustainability: 40

This planet is far different than the one above. First of all, it only produces 19 cubits of Dust per year, which is only enough to power 9 of its 20 potential Industry points. It needs to acquire a total of 40 Industry points to be at maximum. It has a massive surplus of Sustainability (+20), meaning that it can potentially trade much of this for more Dust with another planet or moon.

(So I am thinking that per star-year, I can give the player some more points to distribute. How does 10 sound? Is it too few/too many? Also is 5 Sustainability points for +1 billion population adequate? I was torn between 3 or 5. I know a billion is a lot of people, but think of migrations, and large planets having a lot of babies.)

Tradable Statistics

There are two "statistics" that can be traded: Resources and Sustainability. Resources represent trading Dust, the valuable and all-powerful resource in our solar system. Trading Sustainability represents a number of things: cultural relics, objects, or other significant items from your culture that are in demand (that would make other people happy), or foodstuffs and other types of objects that might represent sustainability.

 

[Abaddon]

In the future, there will be several vital resources that can be tradable.

WATER, FOOD, DUST, etc.. think of as many as you can.

Each planet does not have to list its quantities, simply if it is lacking, or booning in anything.. that way it will drive trade between different planets as people try to "balance" their planet.

Unbalanced planets suffer to their productivity.

.............

Don't give more points to distribute each turn.. that defeats the point of having an economy. You have as many points to spend each turn as your industry generates. Simple as that.

With your industry you can increase pop, industry, military units etc

You cannot have more industry than pop. Your planet limits the amount of pop you can have.

Thus, when claiming a new planet.

first you spend to import population
then you build industry, from this industry you can expand and grow.

----------
Perhaps population should grow at a certain rate (unless people do something to modify it) this will push expansion and feed to new planets.

 

[Justo]

I was thinking under the Goods economy I suggested that population be tied to Goods. If enough goods are received and there is room population will grow. If say 4/5 of goods is received pop will stagnate. If 3/5 pops will become unhappy. If 2/5 pops will decline severely and become even unhappier.

 

[Starlife]

In the future, there will be several vital resources that can be tradable.

WATER, FOOD, DUST, etc.. think of as many as you can.

Each planet does not have to list its quantities, simply if it is lacking, or booning in anything.. that way it will drive trade between different planets as people try to "balance" their planet.

Unbalanced planets suffer to their productivity.

.............

Don't give more points to distribute each turn.. that defeats the point of having an economy. You have as many points to spend each turn as your industry generates. Simple as that.

With your industry you can increase pop, industry, military units etc

You cannot have more industry than pop. Your planet limits the amount of pop you can have.

Thus, when claiming a new planet.

first you spend to import population
then you build industry, from this industry you can expand and grow.

----------
Perhaps population should grow at a certain rate (unless people do something to modify it) this will push expansion and feed to new planets.

"Sustainability" represents water and food, but not space Dust. That is why it is important to trade for this item, and you need it to maintain your population.

Industry points are used to buy things like military units, technology, infrastructure improvements, or something like that. If a planet has 10 Industry, it requires 20 Dust to power the industry/make it viable for use. That means that if all Industry points are being used (if that planet has 10 industry), the planet will have 10 Industry points per turn. These can be used to purchase military units, maintain your current military, improve infrastructure, etc. Population is not grown with industry, though - rather it is grown with surplus Sustainability points. 5 surplus points = 1 population point (or one billion people) added to your planet via migrations and births.

Resources and Physical Size are unchanging. They can never be changed. However, certain techs can be researched that make your Resource level more efficient (convert to Industry points easier). Industry points can be used to increase Sustainability, which can be used to increase Population, which will thus increase Industry (this is what I initially meant - sorry for the confusion earlier).

As per Justo's suggestion, I think I will allow Sustainability to be less than Population during some turns, but basically 100% Sustainability=Population will produce larger amounts of happiness. If you have 50%, it will create problems on your planet. Anything less than 50% would be considered a slave planet, which you can have, but you must have the military to enforce it - and the gusto to anger a bunch of NPC moons. Thus the Sustainability stat represents the "Goods" system you had in mind, Justo. Sustainability = goods for maintaining your populace/your people's happiness. That means you must go above 100% to grow your population - and that means allocating 5 points past your total Sustainability needed to grow your population by 1 billion. In the same vein, anything below 50% might actually decrease your population.

Please note that I do not want this to involve colonization. Everything is colonized and settled that can be colonized and settled. The point is trade and asteroid mining. Dust will be in tall order, but so will Food and Water (Sustainability) - that is the point. Trading these items is essential (or conquering NPC planets and moons for them). Each player's single planet should have an interesting backstory and unique culture.

Thanks for all of the suggestions so far. It doesn't seem like there is much interest in this, though.