IOT Developmental Thread

[Terrance888]

Then make "luxury" goods that only the most affluent can afford? As "standard" consumer spending reaches the limit and even decrease, luxury spending picks up.

 

[Sonereal]

Then make "luxury" goods that only the most affluent can afford? As "standard" consumer spending reaches the limit and even decrease, luxury spending picks up.

Well, the current system allows for different tiers of consumer goods, with higher tiers requiring higher-tech factories, made from higher-tech industrial goods. So, once someone can create Tier-2 goods, those will be in higher demand than Tier-1 goods, and fetch a higher price for it until more factories can produce it.

So, what is luxury, standard, and sub-standard changes as the game goes on. Workers will try to buy higher-quality goods, but will also try to buy up to their "demand", so they will probably buy a combination of luxuries and standard goods, or even just standard or below if their wages are too low.

 

[Sonereal]

Duck and Cover!
A Look at the Silly System

Weapons of mass destruction, Billy! You've probably heard of them, right? Chemical weapons that can melt a guy's lungs. Biological weapons that can kill millions of people on both sides. Both of these weapons are powerful, dangerous to civilians, and yet, don't strike as hard a chord as the flashiest WMD of them all, the Bomb. Yes, the Bomb.

So, we're going to look mainly at the nuclear bomb (and the variants), as well as the other two, which don't really play as big a role.

First Generation Weapons

Spoiler :

For starters, the early-early IOTs had a strict no-go on nuclear weapons. Otherwise, players would roleplay their way to giant arsenals and then roleplay their way into a nuclear war that they somehow magically won because all the other guy's rockets missed. Nuh-uh, my rockets are super fast and impossible to shoot down. POWERGAMER!

So, the early weapons, when they did come, were extremely powerful, small in number, and had devastating consequences when used. Usually consequences in the form of hurt reputation or something like that. Then things started getting real near the end of the first generation.

IOTVI had the idea (though a different game probably had it sooner) of a nuclear program. You can invest points into the program. The more points you had, the bigger your chances of developing The Bomb. The Bomb was expensive; you could only build two per turn while at war.

When it made impact, it would turn the province into black wasteland. And there lies the problem.

The number of provinces, versus the number of bombs you could actually build due to expense, made the power of the bomb rather low.

Second Generation

Spoiler :

And so, an IOT inspired by IOTVI, RIOT, proceeded to create more diverse WMD, with varying degrees of power. There wasn't just the bomb, but the atomic bomb, hydrogen bomb, and X-bomb. There were also different bioweapons and chemical weapons.

Second-Generation WMDs are marked by the fact that they exist in province-based economic games. The power of these weapons are usually to destroy enemy armies and navies (air wings sorta came later). The ecological effects of the weapons were downplayed largely by, at most, causing permanent wastelands. In a pure-province based economy ruleset, this is devastating.

So, the problem comes to adjusting costs of the weapon as well. Second-Gen weapons, like many WMD in other games, were made expensive. This is more of a matter of pragmatism. If WMD were too cheap, then everyone would not only get them, but it would make the largest part of the non-WMD ruleset (the military) almost pointless.

Third Generation WMDs

Spoiler :

These WMD are the more mechanically advanced kind. Instead of just turning a province into wasteland, the WMD system also kills population, destroys industry, and causes a general mess. Chemical weapons became effective tools of killing civilians and granted small tactical bonuses in combat. Biological weapons became possible nightmares, killing hundreds of thousands of people and, if used en masse, having the potential of permakilling the game.

Nuclear weapons became big bombs that killed a lot of people and destroyed a lot of buildings. Overall, WMD took a step forward.

Not to say that there weren't problems. Around this time, player mentality started becoming a problem. In real life, atomic bombs have only been used for war twice. In IOTs, if they're only used twice, it is because people just got them.

Besides biological weapons in some cases, WMD doesn't really have a crippling effect on players not involved. Since domestic economies are usually insulated from trade, players not hit with the bombs would fare very well. At worse, they would lose some trade revenue. No crop failures, no massed waves of refugees, no problem.

The Backlash

Spoiler :

Here is the WMD ruleset from MP2.

Spoiler :

WMD Techs are private, and consist of Biological, Chemical, and Nuclear. They have civilian purposes as well as military. A tier is 1000x, where x is the tier. You have a percent chance of researching the tier until you actually complete it and gain it the next turn.

-Bio kills up to x% of the person's population, where x is the tier. It also has x% of infecting any other country. Bio tech has civilian purposes, boosting pop growth by 1% per tier. 1 T1 costs 25 gold.
-Chemical adds x% to your forces in battle(and cannot be intercepted if used in battle), but can also be launched against enemy cities to kill x population. Chem tech has civilian purposes, boosting pop growth and industry growth by 0.5% per tier.
-Nuclear weapons kill 5x% of a target province's population; fallout will kill a similar amount of population around the target. Half of any industry in those provinces will be lost. Due to the Lacuna Project's efforts, radiation is quickly cleaned up. The energy boosts industrial growth by 1% per tier. 1 T1 costs 50 gold.

Misc. Techs cover the rest

-Espionage determines agent success
-Ballistics weaponises WMD tech and is used to actually launch them. Missiles must be aimed at a specific target(that can be changed once a turn), or suffer a -10% penalty as they were not ready to go.
-SDI gives a chance of intercepting missiles. Can be pooled with your allies; be wary that any ally can shut down the grid and nullify this bonus, at the cost of leaving themselves 100% without SDI.

Here is the WMD ruleset from MP3.

Spoiler :

There is one type of WMD: the eco-friendly kind. Incredibly devestating, but also perfectly green.

Thanks to advances such as Chaos Fusion, WMD technology is so rapid there are no ballistics necessary to fire it, and there are no defense mechanisms capable of intercepting it. It is up to you what your WMD is, though.

You require 1 factory per WMD you produce, though, and that factory can't be used for peaceful goods. WMD price is to be detailed here after their development.

To develop WMD, invest money. That percentage out of your current level determines your chance of researching it. So 10 invested in level 1 (worth 100) has a 10% chance of developing. 10 in level 2 (200) has a 5% chance, and so on.

WMD can only be used tactically barring extraordinary circumstances, as determined by the GM.

Hit with the nerf bat doesn't even begin to cover it. WMD went from being big bombs, to smaller tactical bombs. Players, including myself, turned against weapons of mass destruction.

There are several reasons.

1.) Hard to determine costs. In a game where all players start off equally, and there is little economic interdependence, and the program is cheap, it can be assumed most sane players will have at least thrown money towards development by turn five. If they're too expensive, people simply won't bother.

2.) Fallout: The Aftermath of Use. For the most part, the most complex system of handling fallout and the ecological aftermath of a nuclear war has been IOTIV/Aftermath.

3.) You can't have a Cuban Missile Crisis in the rulesets, because there is no difference been a weapon deployed from Cuba against Florida and a weapon deployed from beyond the Urals against Florida. Mechanically speaking, both end the same way.

4.) Modeling first strikes and second strikes is a...beast. Yes, lets go with that. Making a ruleset that does a decent job making players balance/create first strike and second strike capability would be an interesting.

The Future of Bombs, Bugs, and Gas

Spoiler :

Eh. Who knows? Presuming that economics in IOTs goes the way I think it may, then fourth-gen WMD will be the most powerful ones mechanics wise yet.

In a Fiat Homo system, a nuclear war (if I do add the possibility) would result in widespread death and rippling effects for many turns after even a limited conflict. You can't groundburst a hydrogen bomb on or near a settlement that is a major food producer without causing widespread famine.

Nuclear war kills workers and consumers. It kills valuable leadership, retarding technological growth. It destroys factories that have to be rebuilt. What do starving survivors do? They leave the cities and flee to the countryside or nearby cities that they heard weren't hit or hit as hard. Just because the majority of players weren't hit directly by the bombs in a limited war does not mean they don't have to worry about these new refugees setting up camps, warlordism, and dealing with more mouths to feed.

One Second-Generation Bomb had the capability of destroying all of Africa. A Fourth-Generation bomb would only need to be able to destroy a city to achieve the same economic effect.

Likewise, more complexity dealing with nuclear weapons are possible. ICBMs, MIRVs, SLBMs, IRBMs, strategic bombers, artillery, and even suitcases would become ways to deliver the weapon, each with pros and cons. The "first strike" is someone who can build the infrastructure, delivery system, and weapons capable of wiping out their enemy before they even have a chance to fire.

Second-strike capability will be the submarines patrolling invisibly off the coasts capable of delivering city-shattering weapons with little response time.

Time will play a factor in the future. Rulesets, once they go down the path, will make speed a factor in determining how many people, how many soldiers, and how much equipment survives the initial conflict. Creating strategic reserves of important resources will be important in determining the chance of the government to survive after the war.

Biological weapons grow in power as well. A contagious, deadly weapon that can b e deployed in secret could kill large numbers of people and cause just as much economic damage worldwide as nuclear bombs as trade grinds to a halt to prevent the spread and mutation of a disease.

But unlike the economic rulesets, no hard Fourth Generation WMD has been written yet.

 

[Tani Coyote]

I developed a distaste for actual, fission-based nuclear weapons; this is my reasoning there's not many effects from WMD use in my games.

Though granted, even if you're using clean bombs, all that destroyed infrastructure and probably natural resources will still be devastating.

 

[JohannaK]

I'm looking forward to 4th Gen WMDs. Perhaps it can be the first time I invest in WMDs.

 

[Robert Can't]

Just wanted some input on this point, not so much a mechanical one but still important as regards as to how Chiron's going to work. For the seven factions each update there will be included information about their military and domestic situations which some players might not want other factions to see so do you think there should be several social groups for this or just leave in in the thread because leaks are unavoidable anyway these days
Similarly to Sonereal, you offered to take a few of the NPCs a while back. Even if it isn't you I think some sort of Co-GM to manage the NPCs would be useful (a Puppet master of Grand Minister of NPCs of some sort) especially if there are allegations of GM favour flying about or whatever.
Also - tech tree visible from the beginning or keep it hidden (Post level 2 I'm having blind research so I'm leaning towards the second option).

And to confirm - this does mean that I have now finished the Chiron Ruleset and it will be up in probably January (after my Exams and Christmas Holidays).

 

[JohannaK]

I didn't understand a thing of that post.

 

[Terrance888]

Spoiler :

Just wanted some input on this point, not so much a mechanical one but still important as regards as to how Chiron's going to work.
He wants suggestions.
For the seven factions
in each update
there will be included information
about their military and domestic situations
which some players
might not want other factions to see Period
so do you think there should be several social groups for this
or just leave in in the thread
because leaks are unavoidable anyway these days Period

There are seven factions.
In each update, information will be included.
This information will be aobut their military and domestic situations.
Some layers would not want other factions to see their private info.
Question: should there be several social groups, or just leave it in thread.
Qualifier: Things will be leaked anyways.

My suggestion: we had a honor system that worked well for us NESers, but then it really depends on people trusting each other. If worst comes to worst, have the posted update be general knowledge, rumors, and unavoidable events like battles. The rest can be sent via pms or social gorups.

Similarly to Sonereal, you offered to take a few of the NPCs a while back.
Even if it isn't you
I think some sort of Co-GM to manage the NPCs would be useful
(a Puppet master of Grand Minister of NPCs of some sort) I understand everything up to here
especially if there are allegations of GM favour flying about or whatever. I am confused

Sone offered to take a few (multiple) NPCs.
Robert thinks idea of co-GM is useful
This co-GM will manage NPs
This will avoid accusations: GM favor flying about or whatever.
Having a co-Mod/GM to send basic NPC plans/Manage NPCs for you is an EXCELLENT idea.

Also - tech tree visible from the beginning or keep it hidden (Post level 2 I'm having blind research so I'm leaning towards the second option).

Blind from the beginning: no culture shock to worry about.
[

Glad to help.

 

[GhostWriter16]

I was thinking of making an IOT based on "Now" with all the major powers and borders basically equivalent to modern day borders (I'd play some of the smaller nations nobody wanted to play, and combine others so I don't have to play 100 NPCS). Everything, including military strength, WMDs, territory, government systems, exc. would be based on right now and you'd basically play as a nation in the current world (You could change things over time, of course.) Would anyone be interested in a game like this?

 

[Sonereal]

Just wanted some input on this point, not so much a mechanical one but still important as regards as to how Chiron's going to work. For the seven factions each update there will be included information about their military and domestic situations which some players might not want other factions to see so do you think there should be several social groups for this or just leave in in the thread because leaks are unavoidable anyway these days

Social groups still. Just stick with the "no posting screencaps in thread" rule.

Similarly to Sonereal, you offered to take a few of the NPCs a while back. Even if it isn't you I think some sort of Co-GM to manage the NPCs would be useful (a Puppet master of Grand Minister of NPCs of some sort) especially if there are allegations of GM favour flying about or whatever.

I'm better at nation NPCing. Character NPCing leaves me dazed and besaddened.

Also - tech tree visible from the beginning or keep it hidden (Post level 2 I'm having blind research so I'm leaning towards the second option).

I was thinking of making an IOT based on "Now" with all the major powers and borders basically equivalent to modern day borders (I'd play some of the smaller nations nobody wanted to play, and combine others so I don't have to play 100 NPCS). Everything, including military strength, WMDs, territory, government systems, exc. would be based on right now and you'd basically play as a nation in the current world (You could change things over time, of course.) Would anyone be interested in a game like this?

See how Marmot goes before exporting this on a larger scale.
Hidden.

 

[CivOasis]

@GW:
I've tried to GM one before. Without combining powers.
I ditched RL gov'ts and relations, to spare myself headaches.

Let me tell you, managing nearly 200 nations, NPC or not, is a massive headache. I'd like to do it again, but I'd suggest you'd do it whenever you have the most free time (if you're a normal person, summer vacation. I don't qualify for that).

I'd also heavily discourage WMDs. I had them in, but they tend to get abused.

 

[Sonereal]

-Purged-

 

[Double A]

Dibs on emperor.

 

[Terrance888]

Interesting.

So can we safely assume that Kings and such have unofficial power, like demanding Princes and such to promote or demote certain people?

 

[Sonereal]

In theory. I posted that part for Mech since he asked for it. The overall ruleset it is from is for CivIV.

 

[Tyo]

All the rules thus far regarding the upcoming space game: Great Journeys.

The Galaxy
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/236084main_MilkyWay-full-annotated.jpg
http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2...rneys_galaxy_map_by_romspersecond-d5hlq6t.png

The first map is the reference map. It will detail just how “big” each race is. It also shows the galactic equivalent to continents, Galactic Arms. Traversing across these huge bodies will require strenuous effort in any of the two ways you go about it. One way would be by researching a more high-tech means of travel. This will require many resources, but well worth it considering the only other way to travel, which is by traversing the core systems into another arm. Traveling across the core systems is dangerous because, as it is widely known, the core systems are FULL of black holes. Many if not all the ships you send to the core will likely be obliterated, to be blunt. There will be a map showing which arms are available to be traveled to from your positions, so don’t worry about how you’d know where and how to travel from place to place.

The second map is the map you’ll be actually planning in. Controlled systems will be marked by your race’s color. A system’s colonizable bodies can be dominantly barren, icy, incredibly large, have a small atmosphere, molten, have a large atmosphere, or may simply have an incredibly hostile biosphere. All these concepts will be explained in detail later.

Starting Out
We’ll discuss exactly what your race is in the next section, but for now I’m gonna give you the guidelines on exactly how to pick your system. It doesn’t matter what system you pick mechanic-wise. Once you pick it, you choose what kind of environment it has and all starting systems start as Tier 3 on the resource scale, which will be detailed later. To actually pick your system, I ask that you post it on a full galaxy map and state which part of the gird its on. For example, the Lowe system is in grid T-P. If you pick it, I expect a map with the Lowe system colored with your desired color, along with its grid location of T-P. You can rename your system to almost whatever you want. If you’re basing your race off a race in a game or something and know where it is in the galaxy, I can make a new system for you. Now besides picking a species class, you’ve just about made your civilization! Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. No starting on Sol. Your species can’t be human, either.

Species Classes
Every civilization will be a certain class of species, each detailed below. The Galaxy is sure to be diverse, so these classes will be general and pretty non-restrictive.

Spoiler Humanoid :

These life-forms are bipedal and have human-like skeletal structures.Every person is an individual, and has their own beliefs and opinions. This means that chances of revolt are possible and is weighed more by small decisions than Synthetics. The economy and society is completely monetary-based. Humanoids have no problem with manpower so long as the economy is strong. Humanoids, being able to individually learn their own way around things, are much more crafty than the other races. This means that this class of life has various bonuses in technology and slight bonus in combat.

Spoiler Aquatic :

Aquatic life-forms generally non-bipedal organisms. They absorb the gases in liquid solutions to “breath”. The societies of aquatic species usually does not differentiate from humanoid species. However, Aquatic species are generally at a disadvantage in terms of combat; they can only live outside of liquid solutions with the help of technology. They in most cases are frail compared to other species and have many difficulties with interstellar construction. However, once a colony is founded, they tend to be instrumental at setting up infrastructure and planetary-based structures in general. These species can only have home planets that are mostly aquatic, and are quite adept at holding onto aquatic worlds. It is also of note that they - inversely from all other species - find it easier to exploit materials other species find harder, but find it hard to exploit materials others exploit easily [Explained in detail in the resources section].

Spoiler Insectoid :

These life-forms are exoskeletal, insect-like organisms usually ruled by a or several Queen hive-minds. The Queens are indeed sapient creatures, and its drone children are usually its conduit to contact other races. Drones have no minds of their own. If disconnected from their mothers, the drones usually devolve into an aggressive and animalistic beast that has no way of neutralizing barring death. Other than being disconnected however, there is no way to remove a drones’ loyalty to its race’s Queen(s). While the hive has no real society other than some races having multiple cooperating queens, monetary economy is somewhat required for this race to have a presence in galactic society due to certain limitations. The hive mind makes this species the least trained in terms of military, so the hive must make up to that fact with pure numbers Insectoids, along with plants, have a unique “rapid evolution” trait. This gives bonuses comparable to technology based on the species’ actions. Bad management, however, may lead to a negative mutation that can spread to be permanent in the species if certain steps are not taken.

Spoiler Plant :

Sentient plant life is an incredibly rare occurrence, usually tribal in nature. The chiefs are always the oldest - and therefore usually the largest - plants in the society. Plants can live upwards of thousands of years. Plants don’t rely too heavily on monetary economy domestically, like insectoids, but do require capital due to limitations. Like aquatics, plants have a difficult time building in the vacuum. But once a colony is founded, rapid growth is normal and they can usually begin resource exploitation before most other species. Like aquatics, they find exploitation of normally hard-to-exploit resources easy and normally easy-to-exploit resources difficult. Generally speaking, plant life is to insectoids as aquatics are to humanoids.

Spoiler Synthetic :

These species are robotic intelligences initially created by organics. These intelligences aren’t a hive mind like most insectoid species, but have a strong sense of “one for all”. This is to say that every one of the synthetic units sees itself as an image of the entire race. Synthetic domestic society has no need for monetary systems. This society is completely manpower-based. All synthetics in a race are simply given an area of directive and proceed to work in it. Synthetics don’t reproduce in any sense biologically, but construct more intelligences of their likeness themselves to suit repopulating or expanding needs. All synthetics are self-sufficient, thus don’t need to use the galactic monetary system for domestic economies usually. Synthetics therefore can only get involved in the galactic economy through trade of what they build and discover. Every Synthetic race’s individuals have their own opinions on where the race should go. That means that each relatively large decision is voted on by all members of that race. A large split in a decision could mean that a race could potentially break in two if the situation isn’t handled properly.

Economy
The domestic economies of most races are based on five things. Four of these are resources, and the last is capital. Money is mainly a humanoid and aquatic thing. They are literally where all the money comes from. All other races and species produce no capital domestically, as their societies simply have no uses for it. There are two major economic types: monetary-based and manpower-based. Each should be easily distinguishable.

Monetary economies are based on several domestic factors. Stability, war, diplomacy, trade, and resources all help drive the monetary economy and so long as you’re good in most of those areas, you should experience economic stability and eventual economic expansion.

Manpower economies are simply based on manpower. So long as you have enough resources to support your population, you’re free to assign portions of population to do other tasks. All species have natural manpower growth except synthetics, but synthetic manpower is not as costly to maintain. Manpower can be assigned to various tasks in place of currency, but requires more manpower than a monetary economy to do the same tasks; conversely, monetary economies have less manpower to go around. So as monetary economies can better specialize, manpower economies are a lot more flexible. So long as you have the manpower and resources, they can be assigned to do anything domestically. Manpower-based economies can earn capital through diplomacy and trade. Generally, they cannot import unless resources in equal value are sent back, as they have no money to pay for these imports. Exporting more than importing to a monetary-based economy creates a monetary revenue for them. Money can then be used as a medium for trade instead of hard exports.

Unlike manpower in the manpower-based economies, manpower in monetary systems cannot be simply assigned. After the first turn, where you ARE free to do just that, reassigning manpower can only happen through social and economic reforms. Roleplay and investment, in other words. Depending on your actions, manpower can also gradually change to fit what their species is doing on the grand scale, but this is a lot less obvious.

Technology
Technology is the second most important part of the game, after colonization. Technology will be a major factor in every aspect of this game. From military, to economy, to diplomacy, tech is almost THE deciding factor. There are many applications of technology. The possibilities are nearly endless, but here are some you should know about that are hard-coded into the game. Also note that all technology eventually distributes itself across the galaxy, exempting the

Spoiler Space Travel :

Traveling is a key aspect in this game. As detailed in the bit about maps, travelling off your slice of galaxy(The Galactic Arm your home system is on) can only be done once enough research in Galactic Travel has been done. At the most basic Travel technology, a fleet can travel in any direction one square. The advancement of this is theoretically endless, but the cost of the advancements start to get very costly very fast. But, independence from the practical jumpgates does yield large and obvious tactical and strategic advantages.

Jumpgate technology is completely separate from the standard means of traveling around. How jumpgates work is simple. They connect star systems directly. Star systems connected by jumpgates only take a turn for ships to travel between. Jumpgates must be placed in pairs, one in the sending system and one in the receiving system, and the system does not need to be colonized. From there they can be used both ways. In early tech levels, jumpgates can only send and receive from one connection. For example, say a race at an early jumpgate tech makes two jumpgates. They connect two systems with those gates. If they build a third, they cannot connect it to the existing two and will need to build a fourth to be able to make use of the third. Alternatively, it is possible with further jumpgate research to find a way to connect a single gate to multiple other gates. Jump gates are the only way for practical trade to exist, especially when races start researching the travel technology required to travel between arms. Numerous systems connected by a network of jumpgates can be traversed over a single turn, but this is dependent on whether or not it is foreign, the distance between the systems, technological limits, and other variables; it is generally a case-by-case thing, but I will have a reference up indicating how much “jumpgate line” a ship can travel in one turn for general purposes.

Jumpgates are merely called such from leisure. Your jumpgate can be whatever you want. Want to make it a Mass Relay? Go ahead. Want it to be a long-range teleporter? Knock yourself out. I want every species to be unique. Making your jumpgate a different flavor from everyone else’s is promoted by me and will probably receive some sort of unique bonus. Note that the default, “unflavored” jumpgates are generally universally usable. Hostiles could use your jumpgates against you and hit your rich systems if your frontier settlements are not defended enough. Flavored, unique jumpgates can only be accessed with those that have that specific technology. Other species can obtain the “keys” to your specific jumpgates mainly by three means. Trading. This one has your consent; you trade the secrets of your jumpgate technology with another species in some trade deal or maybe even as a gift. Espionage. A species can use espionage to obtain the secrets over time as research notes are discovered and sent back to be replicated. Reverse Engineering. If one of your ships is disabled, any species might be able to reverse engineer access to your jumpgate technology, but probably won’t be able to replicate the jumpgates. Reverse engineering can also engineer other technologies, but this is one application. Also, there is the natural technology distribution over time; your technology can eventually be as obsolete as the default jumpgates.

Spoiler Fleets :

Your fleets are directly responsible for everything that happens outside your atmospheres. There are three kinds of fleets:

• Trade Fleets: These are your fleets you use as a medium to do trade deals. Generally, trade deals won’t be instant one-turn things. The regular, every-turn trade deals will be more reminiscent of trade pacts. You send x amount of that resource, your trade partner sends y amount of this resource and z amount of credits. Details of these are discussed between all involved parties. The only stat associated with trade vessels is capacity. Capacity for the standard trade vessel is 1, which means they can carry 15 units of the resource being traded at a time. Standard trade ships do not have any kind of weaponry and cannot travel without using a jumpgate. Of course, unique designs can change both of these. More specific trade deals, like those involving technology and ships, are done pretty much automatically; they send their blueprints over using FTL communications, you send the slice of your fleet that they wanted in return. Done deal.
• Navigator Fleets: These are your fleets that find systems suitable for colonizing. Navigation ships are generally lightly armed and armored to make space for survey equipment and engines to get them far; this means that navigation fleets can travel twice as far as your standard military fleet. Navigators have several stats associated with them. They have one stat to survey every kind of resource, a stat to increase chance of discovering an anomaly, a stat to tell what kind of planet you’re looking at, and lastly a stat for engines. Early navigators will take several turns to tell you all there is to know about a planet and its system, but you may send a colony mission right when you discover that the system in question is worth colonizing (which can be told from the system making an appearance on the galaxy map.). Navigators can also be used strategically as scouts, being small and agile they can easily outrun enemy fleets in many cases and can use their planet surveying tools to get intel on alien planets, thus helping any military campaigns or espionage missions.
• Military Fleets: These are your fleets you use to wage wars. See the Military section below for further reading[yet to be made].

And that’s it. But you probably have some questions. I’ll try to address all I could think of here. You might be thinking, “That’s it? Surely there is more to technology than engines, fleets, and military stuff.” …And you’d be correct. These hard-coded technology is only there to be a guideline for those specific areas. The limit to your technological ideas is equal to the limit of your imagination. Well, your imagination and your Civilization Tier. Your Tier dictates how advanced your species can feasibly become given all of its resources and research. Your resources (The 5 actual resources and money) decides your advancement directly rather lightly though. Your true indicator is research. Basically, the more you have on annual domestic spending/distribution into research, the better your species can advance in the future. Also, creating unique designs gives you healthy bonuses to your advancement. In other words, coming up with a new, innovative space station design paves the way for newer, more innovative space station designs. This includes designing new jumpgates, ships, and military units. By the way, space station designing, along with almost everything else you’re thinking of space-wise except that of the above, is NOT hard coded. Yes, you can do projects equitable of something like a Halo Ring or the Citadel or a Death Star or something just as grand eventually. Or, you can do something smaller that you have in mind.

I also want to say that I only seem to be emphasizing that construction=advancement because there are a lot of good examples that come to mind. Keep in mind that research projects to make theories such as the Mass Effect work in-universe to drive that mass-based civilization of yours are possible. Or perhaps you want to base your technology off light. That is fine too. You can do whatever you want with your technology as feasible with your Tier. Always remember that. Just don’t forget that being radically inconsistent with your own technology will probably do you more harm than good; having all your weapons based on mass drivers and then turning around with domestic technologies being based on nuclear fusion is a very inefficient way of going about it.

Colonizing
The very lifeblood of this game. Colonizing. Generally, planets will have these traits:
Volcanic-Aquatic-Frozen
Strong Gravity-Average Gravity-Small Gravity
Hostile Biosphere-Earthlike-Barren
Dense Atmosphere-Average Atmosphere-Weak Atmosphere
These are all the kinds of systems you’ll be colonizing, and you’ll pick one of these as your home system. Your home system and every other system in the galaxy can be almost any combination of these, within reason. No life is going to spring up in a low gravity lava planet with a dense atmosphere, so that kind of system won’t be your home world. All of you start off roughly on the same foot more or less, but a really nice joining post will get you some brownie points.

You actually colonize by sending an exploration fleet to find a suitable system. If and when one is found, you may explore it further to get specifics, costing more resources, or simply land a series colonization missions and go at it from there. From there, you have to fund your colony to get its feet off the ground... or don’t, the colony may succeed on its own possibly. They won’t like you too much, though. From there, you can let it naturally grow as it sends resources and (depending on your species) capital or be more involved and dictate what is done how and where. This part is discussed more in Planetary Management[Yet to be Made].

Resources
Resources are literally and figuratively your material to build your empire. Or republic. Whatever you want to call yourself. There are five resource types.

• Common Metals: These resources are the easiest to obtain for most species. They exist on virtually every world, and thus can be harvested from virtually every world. They are used in both planetary and orbital construction and construction of ships. Common metals never effectively exhaust on any planet. Common metals of the best quality come from volcanic and Barren; mining on these will yield a larger gain than on other worlds. They can be refined to create more durable alloys using refineries that you design.
• Energy: Energy is widespread throughout the galaxy, and is the second easiest resource to obtain. They are used for just about every activity and project, as everything uses energy. Energy you “harvest” is not energy in its pure form. Rather, it is material that you can send to reactors (that you design) to become energy. Energy material can be found on any planet in relative abundance, except frozen planets.
• Rare Materials: Rare materials are the median in rarity, but energy and metals are both vastly more common. This resource is mostly used in technological advancement, and in conjunction with energy is to Synthetics what biological resources are to organics. Rare materials won’t be found on most volcanic and are otherwise rather rare everywhere else. However, frozen and barren planets tend to have the best quality. Rare materials are generally not refined.
• Biological Resources: Biological Resources are the second rarest kind of resource. They are essential to keeping your populace healthy, and are otherwise important in research. All Biological Resources worth being called such are of the same quality in general, and can only be found on Hostile Biospheres and Earthlike planets. They generally do not have to be refined, but there are applications of biomass one can discover that isn't just for the consumption of the populace.
• Element 0: Element 0 is not essential to any economy technically; it has no domestic market value. But it is the rarest resource in the galaxy. So why is it so important? It drives technological advancement like no other. The exact properties of this are not known. What makes it come about is not known. Why it even exists is not known. But it is instrumental in technological design and has had very positive effects in the evolution of organic life. It is easily the most valuable resource in the galaxy. Valuable enough to fight a war over? That’s up to you to decide. This resource can be randomly discovered anywhere in the galaxy. But more often than not, its properties cause the harvest sites to become VERY hostile, making it very hard to obtain after you’ve found it. Do note that technology is not and never will be dependent on this resource, but it is a healthy driver and many will pay top dollar for it. Little is known about this resource; there is no known way to refine it or if refining it is even possible.

 

[Osmowstroyer]

looking good

 

[Mosher]

Your IOT is like a beautiful lady

 

[Double A]

None of us have a chance with it except CivO?

 

[CivOasis]

Well, I see a lack of solid numbers (which I suppose probably bothers most people less, but I would like to know the baseline mechanics).

And I'm not a fan of your colonization categories - as I noted before, what's easy for a synth to colonise should not be easy for an aquatic or humanoid to colonise, and vice-versa.

Now jumping into my complaint about most/all sci-fi with aliens: They're too similar to what we know. That being said, I suspect you neither care nor agree with me, so to each their own