gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
In the name of Democracy, join as Australasia!
Blackened Skies
- Thread starter Nuka-sama
- Start date
Tibet announces program to eliminate un-Tibetan influences
"We won't tolerate their kind any more!"
Bulgarian debt forgiven by British Royal-National Bank
"A friend in need is as friend indeed."
Switzerland mobilizes reserves; begins arming the "Reduit"
"Surrounded by darkness, we will prevail"
...
Hello everyone! No doubt changes in recent months have left some of you a little lost and confused as to how to proceed. It used to be so simple, yeah? You spent some EP, got some stuff, and the game just sort of kept going. Except not, because you never had a good idea of what stuff cost, and feedback on projects was thoroughly unreliable.
No longer! Now we have replaced several of the problems in the old model. The new system is robust and will delectably explain many of what was hidden before. So, let's try to keep things simple. A quick-start guide that EVERYONE can use to get started playing Blackened Skies!
MAKING THINGS HAPPEN
Action Potential and How to Use It
The main currency of action in this game is Action Potential, points that are automatically generated based on your government type. Whenever you want to order anything, as a government, you use AP to do it.
There are two kinds of actions you can order:
Edict - A one-time proclamation, command, or order, something as simple as a command to all soldiers to take "Not one step back!" or something as important and moving as an address at Gettysburg to your tired and triumphant armies. Edicts represent a change in momentum, a usage of political influence to enforce your will.
Edicts do not require any cash backing to help increase or change their effectiveness. They're an announcement by the guy on top: pretty cheap overhead, at least no more than your lawfully-elected benevolent dictator's per diem. However, in each nation there is a natural resistance to all change: the effectiveness of an Edict is reduced in direct proportion to the amount of Inertia in your nation - the innate resistance to social change.
Policy - A long-term government objective codified as a set of commands, colloquially known as a "policy," this is your primary method of exercising your authority. Policies are initiatives that require ongoing care and upkeep, and span an enormous variety of categories from social welfare to secret weapons development.
There are four kinds of government policies: Political, Economic, Socialist, and Classified. You can find a list of sample policies in the link below.
Policies are enacted by spending 1 AP as upkeep, and apportioning IC to the policy as you desire. Each policy will produce increasing effects the more IC are apportioned to them, with a cap on their maximum effectiveness. The short list below shows off many of the extant policies, the IC cost for the base effect (generally, 1 IC produces 1 unit of "effect"), and other details you may need to know.
As an example of how this works, suppose you want to guarantee suffrage. In the link below, Guaranteed Suffrage is a policy for this exact purpose. It improves your Unity by +5% for every 1 IC assigned to the policy. So, to achieve the maximum effect of +50%, you can order the Policy for 1 AP yearly upkeep, which means your government will use 10 IC to put the Policy into effect.
How does your government get IC? All IC costs money, and the base cost of using an IC is given in your government information. Your government has yearly funds, indicated by your Revenue stat. It can use these to cover the costs of buying IC, or using and operating it, for the purpose of funding its Policies.
So, suppose, in our example, your nation has a Base Cost of 0.5 EP per IC. So our policy will cost 5 EP (10 IC * 0.5 EP/IC = 5 EP) in yearly upkeep.
All of the information of how much your policies end up costing, and their projected effects, will be given in the Government Activities Audit at the end of every update. This will save the need for overmuch bookkeeping by players.
RESOURCES, INDUSTRY, AND ECONOMY
Money and stuff
Each nation will have usually a non-zero amount of Industrial Capacity[/bb], frequently abbreviated IC. IC represents the presence of factories, advanced infrastructure, and manufacturing centers that convert "raw" resources into special goods, like steel, consumer electronics, guns, and canned food. In this time, IC is the main engine of wealth creation, and the expansion of IC has been responsible for immense economic growth across the world.
However, IC is not free, and in fact IC cannot turn nothing into something. IC is hungry, both for capital investment - EP - and raw goods - resources.
Each country has, within its borders, Resources that it has access to and gathers each year. There are a number of non-renewable resources as well as renewable resources.
The non-renewable resource are extracted from the ground, and tend to be rare. They are:
Oil. Used in combustion engines. IC naturally demands some oil, as do more developed economies, and oil helps create Energy.
Tungsten. Used as a steel-hardening agent. Helpful in weapons development as well as bolstering the effectiveness of steel alloys.
Chromium. Used to treat steel and make it resistant to corrosion. Useful in industry and infrastructure and any applications where robustness against weather is a concern.
Rubber. Tough and flexible, useful in creating tires and for myriad other industrial uses.
Aluminum. Highly malleable, aluminum is lightweight and easy to work with, making it invaluable in airframe construction.
Iron. Basic iron ore, iron is necessary for smelting steel.
Steel. The essential building block of all industry. Steel is used for building new industry and in all infrastructure projects.
There are also renewable resources, which are generated as-needed by available workers automatically. They are:
Food. Catch-all for all agricultural goods, is quite simply necessary for everyone and everything. Food shortages will hurt.
Coal. Although technically not renewable, it is considered plentiful worldwide, or capable of being replaced with renewable alternatives such as charcoal. Coal creates Energy when Oil is not available to do a better job.
Energy. Automatically used by IC, each IC costs 1 Energy. 1 Oil generates 13 Energy and 1 Coal generates 1 Energy. Energy shortages drive up the cost of IC without a guaranteed increase in IC's value!
Each country generates supply and demand of resources: supply indicating what they produce, and demand indicating their consumption capacity. Supply and demand is localized for certain difficult-to-transport goods (food, energy, etc.), but otherwise is "shared" automatically among Trade Groups, where it is assumed natural market forces, plus a little good old-fashioned government arm-twisting, put resources where they need to be. Richer nations get first pick of resources when it comes to satisfying their demand, meaning a shortage for the entire trade group may not be as bad for the richer members (although they will still feel it).
Your trade balances will impact your spending and acquisitions. The balance is shown in your Resource stat, though you should also consider your Trade Group. Except for Reserves, Resources list how much of that resource you produce per turn, the flow of that resource through your economy, and the +/- value besides it indicates whether you are getting enough of it (+) and can export the rest, or you need to import some to make the difference (-) and sometimes that import isnt always available (check your trade group).
All micro-purchase are automatically arranged, so you shouldn't have to worry about counting any beans. What matters is the big picture: What do I need? Do I have enough? Can I get more?
DEBT?
Really?
Yes! Your nation can naturally support a certain amount of debt equal to the overhead imposed by its professional class. Hence in your Resources stat, where you "want" Debt, is the Debt you can naturally support thanks to your civil society. 1 Debt = 1 EP spent beyond your spending. You can "sell" debt, or buy it out, at 1 Debt per 1 EP but with the potential of being charged additional interest rates by the strongest banks in the Trade Group.
Going over your natural Debt support will start to see government spending contract. While this won't cripple you immediately, money spent supporting debt is money NOT spent promoting investment or consumption, and so will probably result in shrinkage of the entire economy.
The minus -Number in Debt indicates how much more debt you can acquire before you start to see problems. So, a Debt: 0 (-1433) would indicate the market can support 1433 EP lending. Natch!
ARMIES, NAVIES, AND AIR FORCES
Toy soldiers and toy boats
I've given this spiel before and there's no need to go over it again. The MILITARY: how you intimidate or kill people until they do what you want. Or, how you defend yourself against evil. Both great options.
The land forces are represented in the Deployment and Army stats. Under Deployment, the percentage amount of reserves currently mobilized is listed. For convenience, the actual number of active combat divisions is also displayed here. As always, more soldiers is usually better. Each division is staffed by about 10,000 men on average.
The force composition of those divisions is given in the Army stat, where six categories are listed. These represent your government's doctrine, or theory of land combat, that instructs the way your army expects to fight battles. There is no right or wrong doctrine: there is only good or bad policy. Does your doctrine do what you need your army to do?
Each Army point is maintained by 1 AP/turn, like a Social Policy. Decreasing Army points will increase your available AP; increasing Army points will decrease your available AP.
The six Army stats are:
MASS: This represents a government focus on build-up, and increasing the "mass" of the army. Each point reduces build-up cost by 10% and increases build-up speed by 10%.
FIREPOWER: This represents a focus on weaponry; its development, usage, and deployment. More firepower indicates more shooting, and each point increases army damage by 10%. (Increases Tungsten usage)
MOVEMENT: This represents a focus on maneuver and maneuverable units like trucks, tanks, and motorized infantry. Each point increases army maneuver by 10%, allowing them to enter and withdraw from combat more easily. (Increases Oil and Rubber usage)
INTEGRATION: This represents a focus on overall quality improvement by integrating different areas of the military. Each point will increase the bonuses received from Firepower, Support, and Air Support by 10%. Each point in excess of the amount of Support points will also increase upkeep cost by 10%. (Reliant on Electric XP)
SUPPORT: This represents a focus on support divisions, like medical divisions, maintenance, combat engineers, signal corps, and others. They keep things working. Each point will increase upkeep and build-up cost by 10%, and improve army damage, army resilience, and maneuver by 10% each. (Reliant on Army XP)
DISCIPLINE: This represents a focus on enforcing obedience in the ranks, and ensuring soldiers follow orders. Each point increases resilience by 10% and improves their Military Police efficiency by 10% also. (Reliant on Paying Soldiers)
That leaves the Navy and the Wings. Navy are boats. You build more of them and you command the seas. Naval forces have been simplified to four stats, each amounting to a count of naval resources:
SCREENS: Basic navy vessels, like destroyers and light cruisers. These are the basic elements of a navy, and consist of the core mass of the navy. Without the screens, the rest of the fleet is sure to perish.
CAPITAL SHIPS: Large navy vessels, like battleships and heavy cruisers. These mount large guns and help give a navy extra damage, but are dependent on Electric and Navy XP for true effectiveness, and by themselves don't last very long.
CARRIERS: These vessels serves as floating airbases for deploying light aircraft and bombers. They can help bring air forces to bear in a fight.
SUBMARINES: These undersea vessels are sneaky and devastating against undefended targets, such as civilian shipping, but don't add much in a stand-up fight.
Wings, or Air Forces, are flying machines with guns or bomb bays. They have also been simplified to four stats:
TAC. BOMBERS: Small or medium bombers that drop bombs. Most inexpensive airframes, can perform close air-support with good integration, and more general bombing otherwise.
STG. BOMBERS: Very large bombers, the most expensive airframes capable of climbing to high altitudes and dropping lots of ordnance. Strong and difficult to intercept by enemies with inferior Air XP, they can lay waste to industrial centers when left undisturbed.
LT-FIGHTERS: Lightweight airframes with machine guns. Usually metal unibodies though sometimes made of wood and canvas. Low-range, but good pilots can take advantage of their maneuverability.
HV-FIGHTERS: Heavy airframes with bigger machine guns. Always metal unibodies with long-range capabilities. Can escort bombers or fight for air superiority.
To build these, you create a special Project rather like a Policy. The IC and resource cost of these projects, and their yield per year, are given in the Social Policies list too.
EXPERTISE
The knowledge of a people
The mechanic known as Expertise, sometimes abbreviated XP, refers to the total industrial, technical, and scientific learning and aggregate knowledge in your nation. For each XP type, you have a Global Share, representing roughly how much of the total knowledge you have, and the XP gained over the past year. XP decays automatically at a fixed rate (2% of total) that goes down with increasing Inertia, however Inertia will also decrease the amount of XP gained each year.
XP feeds directly into the market model to determine the value of IC in your nation. In addition to being useful for processing raw resources, IC can produced finished manufactured goods, whose final value is dependent on how competitive your manufacturer is in some field or area. Competitive (higher) XP values will greatly increase the value, allowing for growth to occur. Weaker competition (lower) XP values will not increase the value, and may even decrease the value if the XP is low enough.
The Government Activities Audit at the end of each turn will list the XPs gained and the expected value due to using them with IC. In your Exp. stat, you will see your Competence-rating at each XP. Positive numbers means you're more competent than the global average - yay! - negative numbers mean you've got some catching up to do.
Whenever an IC creates a finished product using XP for any reason, be it to sell back to the economy for consumption or to sell to the government to fulfill weapons contracts, that value is counted in determining your yearly GDP. The sum of all such transactions will be listed in the Market Log, a list of every Trade Group's trade balances. High SND values (Supply 'N' Demand) mean that resource is in high supply, so it's cheaper to acquire, but also worth less. Low SND values, under 1, mean that resource is scarce, or in shortage, making it a more expensive commodity.
You will note most Trade Groups have very very high demand for IC. That is normal, as demand for IC will drive entities to build more factories to seek to satisfy that demand.
Bottom Line: Resources, industry, and expertise will all contribute to increasing the value of your economy. Keeping your industries supplied with the resources they need, and ensuring that they keep developing their expertise to remain competitive, will go a long way to making your industry functional.
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI)
Or: the most important thing to know
This quick-start guide is not meant to explain every bit and detail of the Blackened Skies game system - it's only meant to initiate you into the idea of the game and explain some of the core mechanics. It's perfectly natural to still have some questions, or to want to know more in the context of the game.
Those of you who have maintained regular correspondence with Nuke and I throughout the course of the game can probably attest to the usefulness of keeping regular contact with us. As the GMs, we are your cipher to the world. This is a feature we feel helps make Blackened Skies more fun and engaging, and it's also fun for us to role-play as your advisers.
For all information pertaining to the world, or questions existing completely within the context of the narrative, inquiries should take the form of Requests for Information, or RFI. RFI is just a fancy word for "a private message you send us asking for info."
RFIs are in-character actions that do not cost action points but pose a question for your advisers. They can be as simple as "How many troops do I have in Egypt?" or as complex as "How viable would a complete nationalization of the steel industry be?" Or, as involved as "What would be the cost of a project to build more drydocks?" We will reply with in-character replies from your advisers helping to guide your decision-making and provide additional insight.
In order to send an RFI, send us a PM (preferably with "RFI" in the subject line). Be as detailed as you feel is necessary. And we will be able to provide projections and make estimates about the impacts of your proposed policies.
Other questions, pertaining to rule mechanics or other OOC info, does not have to be framed as an RFI, and shouldn't. In fact it's more helpful if you ask those questions in the Pre-Thread. RFI is for IC-information only.
SUMMARY
That wraps up this Quick-Start guide! I hope you found this guide helpful, and if you're a long-time player or short-time player, I also hope you're as excited about the future of Blackened Skies as I am!
Resources List (reference)
Government activities last year
Pre-Patch Stats (reference)
*Some of the XP stats may seem a bit off, but overall they should still be accurate. If they change at all, it will only be in absolute terms, not proportional terms, so you should still keep an apparent advantage if you have it.
**This is a nominal projection to next year sans any policies or actual growth or investment.
"We won't tolerate their kind any more!"
Bulgarian debt forgiven by British Royal-National Bank
"A friend in need is as friend indeed."
Switzerland mobilizes reserves; begins arming the "Reduit"
"Surrounded by darkness, we will prevail"
...
Blackened Skies
QUICK-START GUIDE
QUICK-START GUIDE
Hello everyone! No doubt changes in recent months have left some of you a little lost and confused as to how to proceed. It used to be so simple, yeah? You spent some EP, got some stuff, and the game just sort of kept going. Except not, because you never had a good idea of what stuff cost, and feedback on projects was thoroughly unreliable.
No longer! Now we have replaced several of the problems in the old model. The new system is robust and will delectably explain many of what was hidden before. So, let's try to keep things simple. A quick-start guide that EVERYONE can use to get started playing Blackened Skies!
MAKING THINGS HAPPEN
Action Potential and How to Use It
The main currency of action in this game is Action Potential, points that are automatically generated based on your government type. Whenever you want to order anything, as a government, you use AP to do it.
There are two kinds of actions you can order:
Edict - A one-time proclamation, command, or order, something as simple as a command to all soldiers to take "Not one step back!" or something as important and moving as an address at Gettysburg to your tired and triumphant armies. Edicts represent a change in momentum, a usage of political influence to enforce your will.
Edicts do not require any cash backing to help increase or change their effectiveness. They're an announcement by the guy on top: pretty cheap overhead, at least no more than your lawfully-elected benevolent dictator's per diem. However, in each nation there is a natural resistance to all change: the effectiveness of an Edict is reduced in direct proportion to the amount of Inertia in your nation - the innate resistance to social change.
Policy - A long-term government objective codified as a set of commands, colloquially known as a "policy," this is your primary method of exercising your authority. Policies are initiatives that require ongoing care and upkeep, and span an enormous variety of categories from social welfare to secret weapons development.
There are four kinds of government policies: Political, Economic, Socialist, and Classified. You can find a list of sample policies in the link below.
Policies are enacted by spending 1 AP as upkeep, and apportioning IC to the policy as you desire. Each policy will produce increasing effects the more IC are apportioned to them, with a cap on their maximum effectiveness. The short list below shows off many of the extant policies, the IC cost for the base effect (generally, 1 IC produces 1 unit of "effect"), and other details you may need to know.
As an example of how this works, suppose you want to guarantee suffrage. In the link below, Guaranteed Suffrage is a policy for this exact purpose. It improves your Unity by +5% for every 1 IC assigned to the policy. So, to achieve the maximum effect of +50%, you can order the Policy for 1 AP yearly upkeep, which means your government will use 10 IC to put the Policy into effect.
How does your government get IC? All IC costs money, and the base cost of using an IC is given in your government information. Your government has yearly funds, indicated by your Revenue stat. It can use these to cover the costs of buying IC, or using and operating it, for the purpose of funding its Policies.
So, suppose, in our example, your nation has a Base Cost of 0.5 EP per IC. So our policy will cost 5 EP (10 IC * 0.5 EP/IC = 5 EP) in yearly upkeep.
All of the information of how much your policies end up costing, and their projected effects, will be given in the Government Activities Audit at the end of every update. This will save the need for overmuch bookkeeping by players.
RESOURCES, INDUSTRY, AND ECONOMY
Money and stuff
Each nation will have usually a non-zero amount of Industrial Capacity[/bb], frequently abbreviated IC. IC represents the presence of factories, advanced infrastructure, and manufacturing centers that convert "raw" resources into special goods, like steel, consumer electronics, guns, and canned food. In this time, IC is the main engine of wealth creation, and the expansion of IC has been responsible for immense economic growth across the world.
However, IC is not free, and in fact IC cannot turn nothing into something. IC is hungry, both for capital investment - EP - and raw goods - resources.
Each country has, within its borders, Resources that it has access to and gathers each year. There are a number of non-renewable resources as well as renewable resources.
The non-renewable resource are extracted from the ground, and tend to be rare. They are:
Oil. Used in combustion engines. IC naturally demands some oil, as do more developed economies, and oil helps create Energy.
Tungsten. Used as a steel-hardening agent. Helpful in weapons development as well as bolstering the effectiveness of steel alloys.
Chromium. Used to treat steel and make it resistant to corrosion. Useful in industry and infrastructure and any applications where robustness against weather is a concern.
Rubber. Tough and flexible, useful in creating tires and for myriad other industrial uses.
Aluminum. Highly malleable, aluminum is lightweight and easy to work with, making it invaluable in airframe construction.
Iron. Basic iron ore, iron is necessary for smelting steel.
Steel. The essential building block of all industry. Steel is used for building new industry and in all infrastructure projects.
There are also renewable resources, which are generated as-needed by available workers automatically. They are:
Food. Catch-all for all agricultural goods, is quite simply necessary for everyone and everything. Food shortages will hurt.
Coal. Although technically not renewable, it is considered plentiful worldwide, or capable of being replaced with renewable alternatives such as charcoal. Coal creates Energy when Oil is not available to do a better job.
Energy. Automatically used by IC, each IC costs 1 Energy. 1 Oil generates 13 Energy and 1 Coal generates 1 Energy. Energy shortages drive up the cost of IC without a guaranteed increase in IC's value!
Each country generates supply and demand of resources: supply indicating what they produce, and demand indicating their consumption capacity. Supply and demand is localized for certain difficult-to-transport goods (food, energy, etc.), but otherwise is "shared" automatically among Trade Groups, where it is assumed natural market forces, plus a little good old-fashioned government arm-twisting, put resources where they need to be. Richer nations get first pick of resources when it comes to satisfying their demand, meaning a shortage for the entire trade group may not be as bad for the richer members (although they will still feel it).
Your trade balances will impact your spending and acquisitions. The balance is shown in your Resource stat, though you should also consider your Trade Group. Except for Reserves, Resources list how much of that resource you produce per turn, the flow of that resource through your economy, and the +/- value besides it indicates whether you are getting enough of it (+) and can export the rest, or you need to import some to make the difference (-) and sometimes that import isnt always available (check your trade group).
All micro-purchase are automatically arranged, so you shouldn't have to worry about counting any beans. What matters is the big picture: What do I need? Do I have enough? Can I get more?
DEBT?
Really?
Yes! Your nation can naturally support a certain amount of debt equal to the overhead imposed by its professional class. Hence in your Resources stat, where you "want" Debt, is the Debt you can naturally support thanks to your civil society. 1 Debt = 1 EP spent beyond your spending. You can "sell" debt, or buy it out, at 1 Debt per 1 EP but with the potential of being charged additional interest rates by the strongest banks in the Trade Group.
Going over your natural Debt support will start to see government spending contract. While this won't cripple you immediately, money spent supporting debt is money NOT spent promoting investment or consumption, and so will probably result in shrinkage of the entire economy.
The minus -Number in Debt indicates how much more debt you can acquire before you start to see problems. So, a Debt: 0 (-1433) would indicate the market can support 1433 EP lending. Natch!
ARMIES, NAVIES, AND AIR FORCES
Toy soldiers and toy boats
I've given this spiel before and there's no need to go over it again. The MILITARY: how you intimidate or kill people until they do what you want. Or, how you defend yourself against evil. Both great options.
The land forces are represented in the Deployment and Army stats. Under Deployment, the percentage amount of reserves currently mobilized is listed. For convenience, the actual number of active combat divisions is also displayed here. As always, more soldiers is usually better. Each division is staffed by about 10,000 men on average.
The force composition of those divisions is given in the Army stat, where six categories are listed. These represent your government's doctrine, or theory of land combat, that instructs the way your army expects to fight battles. There is no right or wrong doctrine: there is only good or bad policy. Does your doctrine do what you need your army to do?
Each Army point is maintained by 1 AP/turn, like a Social Policy. Decreasing Army points will increase your available AP; increasing Army points will decrease your available AP.
The six Army stats are:
MASS: This represents a government focus on build-up, and increasing the "mass" of the army. Each point reduces build-up cost by 10% and increases build-up speed by 10%.
FIREPOWER: This represents a focus on weaponry; its development, usage, and deployment. More firepower indicates more shooting, and each point increases army damage by 10%. (Increases Tungsten usage)
MOVEMENT: This represents a focus on maneuver and maneuverable units like trucks, tanks, and motorized infantry. Each point increases army maneuver by 10%, allowing them to enter and withdraw from combat more easily. (Increases Oil and Rubber usage)
INTEGRATION: This represents a focus on overall quality improvement by integrating different areas of the military. Each point will increase the bonuses received from Firepower, Support, and Air Support by 10%. Each point in excess of the amount of Support points will also increase upkeep cost by 10%. (Reliant on Electric XP)
SUPPORT: This represents a focus on support divisions, like medical divisions, maintenance, combat engineers, signal corps, and others. They keep things working. Each point will increase upkeep and build-up cost by 10%, and improve army damage, army resilience, and maneuver by 10% each. (Reliant on Army XP)
DISCIPLINE: This represents a focus on enforcing obedience in the ranks, and ensuring soldiers follow orders. Each point increases resilience by 10% and improves their Military Police efficiency by 10% also. (Reliant on Paying Soldiers)
That leaves the Navy and the Wings. Navy are boats. You build more of them and you command the seas. Naval forces have been simplified to four stats, each amounting to a count of naval resources:
SCREENS: Basic navy vessels, like destroyers and light cruisers. These are the basic elements of a navy, and consist of the core mass of the navy. Without the screens, the rest of the fleet is sure to perish.
CAPITAL SHIPS: Large navy vessels, like battleships and heavy cruisers. These mount large guns and help give a navy extra damage, but are dependent on Electric and Navy XP for true effectiveness, and by themselves don't last very long.
CARRIERS: These vessels serves as floating airbases for deploying light aircraft and bombers. They can help bring air forces to bear in a fight.
SUBMARINES: These undersea vessels are sneaky and devastating against undefended targets, such as civilian shipping, but don't add much in a stand-up fight.
Wings, or Air Forces, are flying machines with guns or bomb bays. They have also been simplified to four stats:
TAC. BOMBERS: Small or medium bombers that drop bombs. Most inexpensive airframes, can perform close air-support with good integration, and more general bombing otherwise.
STG. BOMBERS: Very large bombers, the most expensive airframes capable of climbing to high altitudes and dropping lots of ordnance. Strong and difficult to intercept by enemies with inferior Air XP, they can lay waste to industrial centers when left undisturbed.
LT-FIGHTERS: Lightweight airframes with machine guns. Usually metal unibodies though sometimes made of wood and canvas. Low-range, but good pilots can take advantage of their maneuverability.
HV-FIGHTERS: Heavy airframes with bigger machine guns. Always metal unibodies with long-range capabilities. Can escort bombers or fight for air superiority.
To build these, you create a special Project rather like a Policy. The IC and resource cost of these projects, and their yield per year, are given in the Social Policies list too.
EXPERTISE
The knowledge of a people
The mechanic known as Expertise, sometimes abbreviated XP, refers to the total industrial, technical, and scientific learning and aggregate knowledge in your nation. For each XP type, you have a Global Share, representing roughly how much of the total knowledge you have, and the XP gained over the past year. XP decays automatically at a fixed rate (2% of total) that goes down with increasing Inertia, however Inertia will also decrease the amount of XP gained each year.
XP feeds directly into the market model to determine the value of IC in your nation. In addition to being useful for processing raw resources, IC can produced finished manufactured goods, whose final value is dependent on how competitive your manufacturer is in some field or area. Competitive (higher) XP values will greatly increase the value, allowing for growth to occur. Weaker competition (lower) XP values will not increase the value, and may even decrease the value if the XP is low enough.
The Government Activities Audit at the end of each turn will list the XPs gained and the expected value due to using them with IC. In your Exp. stat, you will see your Competence-rating at each XP. Positive numbers means you're more competent than the global average - yay! - negative numbers mean you've got some catching up to do.
Whenever an IC creates a finished product using XP for any reason, be it to sell back to the economy for consumption or to sell to the government to fulfill weapons contracts, that value is counted in determining your yearly GDP. The sum of all such transactions will be listed in the Market Log, a list of every Trade Group's trade balances. High SND values (Supply 'N' Demand) mean that resource is in high supply, so it's cheaper to acquire, but also worth less. Low SND values, under 1, mean that resource is scarce, or in shortage, making it a more expensive commodity.
You will note most Trade Groups have very very high demand for IC. That is normal, as demand for IC will drive entities to build more factories to seek to satisfy that demand.
Bottom Line: Resources, industry, and expertise will all contribute to increasing the value of your economy. Keeping your industries supplied with the resources they need, and ensuring that they keep developing their expertise to remain competitive, will go a long way to making your industry functional.
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI)
Or: the most important thing to know
This quick-start guide is not meant to explain every bit and detail of the Blackened Skies game system - it's only meant to initiate you into the idea of the game and explain some of the core mechanics. It's perfectly natural to still have some questions, or to want to know more in the context of the game.
Those of you who have maintained regular correspondence with Nuke and I throughout the course of the game can probably attest to the usefulness of keeping regular contact with us. As the GMs, we are your cipher to the world. This is a feature we feel helps make Blackened Skies more fun and engaging, and it's also fun for us to role-play as your advisers.
For all information pertaining to the world, or questions existing completely within the context of the narrative, inquiries should take the form of Requests for Information, or RFI. RFI is just a fancy word for "a private message you send us asking for info."
RFIs are in-character actions that do not cost action points but pose a question for your advisers. They can be as simple as "How many troops do I have in Egypt?" or as complex as "How viable would a complete nationalization of the steel industry be?" Or, as involved as "What would be the cost of a project to build more drydocks?" We will reply with in-character replies from your advisers helping to guide your decision-making and provide additional insight.
In order to send an RFI, send us a PM (preferably with "RFI" in the subject line). Be as detailed as you feel is necessary. And we will be able to provide projections and make estimates about the impacts of your proposed policies.
Other questions, pertaining to rule mechanics or other OOC info, does not have to be framed as an RFI, and shouldn't. In fact it's more helpful if you ask those questions in the Pre-Thread. RFI is for IC-information only.
SUMMARY
That wraps up this Quick-Start guide! I hope you found this guide helpful, and if you're a long-time player or short-time player, I also hope you're as excited about the future of Blackened Skies as I am!
Resources List (reference)
Government activities last year
Pre-Patch Stats (reference)
*Some of the XP stats may seem a bit off, but overall they should still be accurate. If they change at all, it will only be in absolute terms, not proportional terms, so you should still keep an apparent advantage if you have it.
**This is a nominal projection to next year sans any policies or actual growth or investment.
Robert Can't
Éponine
Extract from Let There Be No More War by Dr Victoria Brown
Colin Hay, General of the British Army in India found himself walking through the corridors of an environment that was truly alien to him. Bombay University Physics Department was a bustling hub of young British and India students rushing from room to room but the business was totally unlike the ordered hubbub of a Military encampment. It was chaotic, without discipline and so so much less formal. Students and Lecturers chatted as if equals at every doorway. He spotted a wily post-grad student drawing odd diagrams on a blackboard in heated argument with a large and authoritative looking man.
This was a place of discourse and freedom. For a moment he thought how he was glad that the Army didn't recruit from places like this, but then he remembered why he was here.
He proceeded along the corridor to a small seminar room where a bunch of people were coming out. They looked older, more serious and spoke in hushed voices. He knew already that these academics were all secretly part of Project Lancing, but it was the man in the room they had just left that he wanted to speak to.
Sitting by the blackboard rubbing it down with a yellow cloth was a tall thin man with a well kept moustache. He didn't look like an Academic and had a forlorn demeanour like someone who recently lost something very dear to him. Hay knocked on the door, the man turned and smiled "Come in Colin, its good to see you." he said in his obviously colonial accent.
Hay walked in briskly and in his typical military style of efficiency got to the point very quickly. "George Pendleton has called for me to shut down Project Lancing. Dr Swift has already been informed."
The man stood aghast for a moment he spoke as if not really caring about the words just needing to say something "I doubt he took it well eh?"
"Nope," replied Hay as he sat down on one of the desks closest to the board. "And I didn't think you would either."
"You're damned right I won't." the man replied now breaking out of his stupor to get to the predicted anger. "Pendelton is being a fool, he doesn't know how important this research is."
"I know."
"We've all seen the writing on the wall." The man threw the yellow cloth down to the floor "Italian scientists in Russia..."
"I know."
"If.." the man bit his lip in frustration "If the Russians build a death ray before we do, before anyone else does..."
"I know."
"Think what that would mean!" He grabbed a chalk and started writing numbers on the board, big numbers. "This many, dead already." he scratched out another number "This many would die in Eastern Europe." another number "This many in China."
He began writing more and more numbers accompanied by "London, Edinburgh, Bombay, Calcutta..."
"I know"
"You keep bloody saying I know Colin." The man threw down the chalk, it broke with a crack. The brilliant sunlight streaming in through the large window illuminated the chalk dust in a haze of particles swimming in the air.
"I know." The man glared at him but Colin continued "That's why I'm not going to close down the project, just take it off the books."
The man looked quizzically at him "But we're already off the books?"
"I'm going to take us off the books that George and Gunfleet and the Lady Storrin can see. I'll be folding the project into the army recruitment initiative."
The man was becalmed he looked back that the board with all the numbers on it and picked up the cloth again. Hay continued "We'd need someone to oversee the recruitment aspect, someone with experience in the education business, someone who can sell this idea to the young graduates of the world and someone who truly believes in the project."
"I'm too high profile," the man said now rubbing off the numbers, erasing their deadly potential "People know me and know that I'm a failure. You don't want that stigma attached with this and Grumman simply wouldn't allow it, I'm confined to that bloody bungalow and everyone in the world thinks I'm a traitor." The man began to look deflated and morose he sat back down at the front of the room.
"That's why I need you. You aren't high profile at all, you're confined to a Bungalow with no political power anymore. No one would suspect you and we need your expertise in running this."
The man nodded, Hay continued "I'll tell Swifty that you're up for it. We have a lot of work to do."
Hay stood up and began to walk to the door. The man called out behind him "Collin," he said "Thanks, this means a lot to me."
Hay turned and smiled and just before leaving he said "Oh, and Marcy. Not everyone thinks you're a traitor. Me, Mattie, George, and Emily, even Grumman. We all know the truth. You're a good man Marcy Barge."
Pinned to a Noticeboard in a University in Europe
Colin Hay, General of the British Army in India found himself walking through the corridors of an environment that was truly alien to him. Bombay University Physics Department was a bustling hub of young British and India students rushing from room to room but the business was totally unlike the ordered hubbub of a Military encampment. It was chaotic, without discipline and so so much less formal. Students and Lecturers chatted as if equals at every doorway. He spotted a wily post-grad student drawing odd diagrams on a blackboard in heated argument with a large and authoritative looking man.
This was a place of discourse and freedom. For a moment he thought how he was glad that the Army didn't recruit from places like this, but then he remembered why he was here.
He proceeded along the corridor to a small seminar room where a bunch of people were coming out. They looked older, more serious and spoke in hushed voices. He knew already that these academics were all secretly part of Project Lancing, but it was the man in the room they had just left that he wanted to speak to.
Sitting by the blackboard rubbing it down with a yellow cloth was a tall thin man with a well kept moustache. He didn't look like an Academic and had a forlorn demeanour like someone who recently lost something very dear to him. Hay knocked on the door, the man turned and smiled "Come in Colin, its good to see you." he said in his obviously colonial accent.
Hay walked in briskly and in his typical military style of efficiency got to the point very quickly. "George Pendleton has called for me to shut down Project Lancing. Dr Swift has already been informed."
The man stood aghast for a moment he spoke as if not really caring about the words just needing to say something "I doubt he took it well eh?"
"Nope," replied Hay as he sat down on one of the desks closest to the board. "And I didn't think you would either."
"You're damned right I won't." the man replied now breaking out of his stupor to get to the predicted anger. "Pendelton is being a fool, he doesn't know how important this research is."
"I know."
"We've all seen the writing on the wall." The man threw the yellow cloth down to the floor "Italian scientists in Russia..."
"I know."
"If.." the man bit his lip in frustration "If the Russians build a death ray before we do, before anyone else does..."
"I know."
"Think what that would mean!" He grabbed a chalk and started writing numbers on the board, big numbers. "This many, dead already." he scratched out another number "This many would die in Eastern Europe." another number "This many in China."
He began writing more and more numbers accompanied by "London, Edinburgh, Bombay, Calcutta..."
"I know"
"You keep bloody saying I know Colin." The man threw down the chalk, it broke with a crack. The brilliant sunlight streaming in through the large window illuminated the chalk dust in a haze of particles swimming in the air.
"I know." The man glared at him but Colin continued "That's why I'm not going to close down the project, just take it off the books."
The man looked quizzically at him "But we're already off the books?"
"I'm going to take us off the books that George and Gunfleet and the Lady Storrin can see. I'll be folding the project into the army recruitment initiative."
The man was becalmed he looked back that the board with all the numbers on it and picked up the cloth again. Hay continued "We'd need someone to oversee the recruitment aspect, someone with experience in the education business, someone who can sell this idea to the young graduates of the world and someone who truly believes in the project."
"I'm too high profile," the man said now rubbing off the numbers, erasing their deadly potential "People know me and know that I'm a failure. You don't want that stigma attached with this and Grumman simply wouldn't allow it, I'm confined to that bloody bungalow and everyone in the world thinks I'm a traitor." The man began to look deflated and morose he sat back down at the front of the room.
"That's why I need you. You aren't high profile at all, you're confined to a Bungalow with no political power anymore. No one would suspect you and we need your expertise in running this."
The man nodded, Hay continued "I'll tell Swifty that you're up for it. We have a lot of work to do."
Hay stood up and began to walk to the door. The man called out behind him "Collin," he said "Thanks, this means a lot to me."
Hay turned and smiled and just before leaving he said "Oh, and Marcy. Not everyone thinks you're a traitor. Me, Mattie, George, and Emily, even Grumman. We all know the truth. You're a good man Marcy Barge."
Pinned to a Noticeboard in a University in Europe
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
monarchy happened
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
I'm afraid condoms don't work against choosing an inferior system of governance
Robert Can't
Éponine
India Mobilises to 70%
Get ready ya scrubs
Get ready ya scrubs
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
The Han Republic formally requests to join the Monroe Association trade group.
Robert Can't
Éponine
Why not my trade group? :'c
I saved you from Russia that one time...
I saved you from Russia that one time...
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Don't they need more assault rifles and people willing to throw themselves at the Zhao waves?s
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
There are more mysteries between the heavens and the Earth on this planet...something something Hamlet.
Robert Can't
Éponine
...Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy"
and its there are more things in heaven an earth
But close enough.
Also Australasia is of course involved in this war as are all the British Dominions.
We will be protecting British assets in China to ensure that are not damaged by the conflict.
and its there are more things in heaven an earth
But close enough.
Also Australasia is of course involved in this war as are all the British Dominions.
We will be protecting British assets in China to ensure that are not damaged by the conflict.
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Now apply that to Australasian Guns and Chinese bodies to throw at each other in a brutal, merciless civil war between two hell-bent states that want to turn into one big Chinese blob.
