Pre-SNES XI: The Pieces

[SKILORD]

The answer is that computers can't scavenge, they can find things, but they can't scavenge them. You also put most of your computers on other assignments. Pickup from refugees/expansion probably should have been higher, but, well, I'm sorry to say it wasn't.

 

[Abaddon]

MEANWHILE 4 other computers can be scanning other major Brazilian and Egyptian cities. We want people, weapons, a HYPER SPANNER, anything, lets get some computers on the job and find it. Send out the troops to claim these areas, I want my blob to grow considerably!

 

[SKILORD]

Delta Squardon in Paraguay has a hyperspanner, but they watched the Puumons in Brasilia get bum rushed last turn and also what happened in Giza. They are frightened of you. If you had sent troops then Delta Squadron would have shot at them with their Fighter (I think they have a fighter). Requires diplomacy of some sort to calm them down, or just a straight attack.

Montevideo humans are friendly to your cause but cannot affiliate with you while they are still under attack, granted this one is my mistake for sometimes irrationally slowing factions down, talk to Seon about Los Communado.

You probably could have gotten plenty of high end electronic loot out of Giza, that is true, but somebody broke it all with a cyberattack.

There was also a quieter mystery group somewhere. All of this is in your part of the update.

Your blob did grow, but that growth was spread over 2 continents.

 

[Omega124]

He also has that beastly reputation.

Which reminds me, how did I get that, especially being in a region noted for its low reputation? My stories aren't that good, so I don't see it coming from that. Is the bonus from being an actual nation (The only one in the world. ) so big that it just destroys any penalties I might had? Did my open borders policy just made my nation look good? Mod bias?

 

[SKILORD]

The European Reputation penalty and the North American Reputation Bonus basically affected starting statistics, they are not permanent and all encompassing things. On top of this, your choice of a nation state started you with positive rep anyways, I think it was like 3, so it was basically equivalent to starting as an Independent Group on another continent.

Your stories did do it. I understand when you say they aren't "that good," but I don't really spend to much time weighting the "literary value" of stories, the 1-4 system is about how many details are there, how much time it looks like was spent on it. It is true that, say, Iggy writes these long detailed stories that give a good feel for how his race operates on Earth now and in general one of his stories gets closer to a 4 than one of your stories. Most of your stories get a 1 or a 2. But you write a lot of them, and I count each story individually for Reputation (not for science) so if you did a little intro story to your diplomacy it got, say, 2 points, Then you write another story and it gets 2 or 3 points, and then you do some diplo with an intro story that's another 1 or 2.

It adds up.

Yes, there is a strong Mod Bias in this game. I prefer factions who are involved in the game, the ones who send coherent orders, their dreams tend to come true even if I do make them jump through a hoop or two on the way.

Let's take a hypothetical example. Say you started on North America with a starting stat rep bonus as an independent organization. Let's say you never wrote stories, rarely responded to diplomacy and always in the least committed ways, in addition to this let's also imagine that the only thing you ever sent for orders was "Build more soldiers," nothing else, no explanation as to what to do with these soldiers. Well, in this hypothetical example your rep would still be only like 6, which is like 1 more than it started.

You would be a pretty minor power, even if such a faction did exist, would it be anything more than hypothetical?

open Borders also helped, but it added to several other people's reps too. Taking a Major City also lifted multiple reps.

 

[SKILORD]

Ever since people began trying to hybridize the essential "fairness" of a board game NES with story components they have been faced with a problem of "how to reward stories without making them overpowering."

When you give straight economy for stories then you will have this problem, you have to limit the "literary merit" of what you accept and how you reward it.

The way it works in this game it just gives you rep, not economy, so I don't have to worry about how much I hand out. I have a rough idea of how much you need to do certain things (assimilate a faction on another continent, impress an NPC with a Wonder), but all that it does is affect a random reward generator that I like to call the NPC's.

For a model like this, multiple short stories is an extremely lucrative strategy and it should be. I'm not asking you to block big amounts of time around this game, just to get on, look at the update, maybe write a couple of IC sentences/paragraphs every now and again just to let us know how your faction thinks about things, what the surrounding NPCs should expect out of you and send orders that reflect that you read the update. I am not looking for the Odyssey, I was looking to run a game that incorporated fun little stories I could read and reward.

Blaze's rep would easily be as high as yours or freemans, except most of his stories are R&D.

 

[SKILORD]

Using Computers/Uplinks

So you got your Hardware and you've figured out how to remote view loot or scout out turf, it's been cool. But maybe you're wondering, what else can I make these things do?

This is the Advanced Section for Hardware utilization. It was not included up front because it was not written yet. As the game progressed and people started using computers in certain ways I developed methods of determining success that I feel can now be codified so we can all understand them.

These actions have a probability for success or failure based on how much hardware is put to the task and what the task is. Low risk tasks include getting information, planting false information, and spreading propaganda these will generate between a 1 and a 5 with a more gradual understanding of success than the others, meaning that if you generate a 1 and devoted 1 computer to it instead of abject failure you would learn very little. Medium risk tasks, like temporarily shutting down a transport or jamming an NPC's communications will generate between a 1 and a 10. High risk tasks include taking remote control of an encampment or stopping the electronic elements of an enemy's attack in defense and will generate between a 1 and 20.

Now I take the maximum number for the task at hand, let's say you want to take remote control of an enemy's encampment, as a high risk task that will generate up to a 20. I subtract the amount of hardware you devoted to this task, say you put 2 Computers and 5 ET Uplinks towards it I subtract 7 from 20 and get 13. In order to succeed, when I generate the random number between 1 and 20 you must get a number higher than 13.

But let's say that you are on the other end of this unhappy situation, someone is trying to take control of MY City you may say, outraged, and without even sending proper soldiers! If you suspect your enemies would resort to this craven ploy (especially dangerous for cities with a large amount of electronics) then you can devote your own computers to defending against these things. Let's say you saw the player from the first example coming and put 4 of your own computers to the task of running interference on cyberattacks. I add that 4 to his 13 and all of the sudden he has to generate a number over 17 to pull it off.

Creating Viruses: Viruses can be purchased for 2 EP, but they then require a number of computers to be devoted to them to increase their offensive power, these are designed to either attack groups of your opponent's hardware (10, gradual returns) or to attack some of their more military hardware while it is still safe at home (20, absolute success/failure).

Anything damaged by cyberattacks can be repaired with a Hyperspanner. This means that if someone has taken remote control of a city that you occupy with people they can reclaim their city pretty easily unless the cyberattack is followed up with more force.

 

[Blaze Injun]

Hey,

Can you tell us a little about the use of the Teleporter?

I took away from our PMs that I would at least get something through the Teleporter but had a 20% not to get what I was after?


Blaze Injun

 

[SKILORD]

Do you still have those PMs? Can you send them to me? I have lost them and I was honestly looking for them.

As it is, let me just say that the number that was generated for that mission represented an incredibly sloppy performance, hence the lack of abduction.

 

[Blaze Injun]

Hey,

Do you still have those PMs? Can you send them to me? I have lost them and I was honestly looking for them.

As it is, let me just say that the number that was generated for that mission represented an incredibly sloppy performance, hence the lack of abduction.

Forwarded back at you.


Blaze Injun

 

[SKILORD]

Hey,

Can you tell us a little about the use of the Teleporter?

I took away from our PMs that I would at least get something through the Teleporter but had a 20% not to get what I was after?


Blaze Injun

On a turn a teleporter can teleport 1 friendly unit either to the teleporter site or from the teleporter site to anywhere in the world.

If you chose to use the teleporter to steal enemy equipment I generate a number between 1 and 100, it has to be over 70. If it is between 70 and 85 then the enemy soldier who is equipped with it comes with it and might attack.

From my rereading of what we talked about this is consistent with what we were talking about.

 

[Blaze Injun]

Hey,

Solid rule. I understand now. Just 2 different ideas before the turn.

The way I read them was you can steal a unit but had a 20-30% chance of getting the wrong target. Not that the Teleporter had a 70% chance of returning nothing at all.

For example. APlayer trys to steal 1 soldier from a base that has 1 soldier & 1 militia.
There would be a 30% chance I would get the Militia & a 70% chance I would get the soldier. Not get anything at all & a wasted turn of Teleport use.


Blaze Injun

 

[Blaze Injun]

Hey,

Tinfoil hats & gas masks. Any Rules on production or looting or free?


Blaze Injun

 

[SKILORD]

Gas masks? Who knows?

Tinfoil hats.

It is totally reasonable to assume that your population has some sort of access to tinfoil and could construct such things cheaply.

But the effects provided by tinfoil hats are a little overwhelming to allow mass production, unless I changed it to a situation where you need multiple tinfoil hats and you had to equip them (as, you see, I did with gas masks since they can only be produced) (at the moment they don't require being equipped since they are a Hyperspanner-esque utility tool and the assumption is that all troops have access to it). I might do that, it makes sense, but at the moment the strategy for getting tinfoil hats would be to seek them out using your computers.

Let's say for now, unless I am impressed with the balance of gas masks as it works out here, I will keep the rules for tinfoil helmets the same under the explanation that "these tinfoil helmets are very carefully crafted by the finest lunatics in the land and you lack their deft hands for the task."

 

[Blaze Injun]

Hey,

I haven't read the whole post just about he Chemicals. NO!!!!!!!!

We talked about that. No chemical warfare was fine with me. I was talking about the Succubi and the influential pheromones.


Blaze Injun

 

[SKILORD]

Succubi and their influential pheromones is story fluff. If you wanted fluff gas masks that is fine with me.

Unless there is a call for Chem War. I'll take the post down and put it somewhere safe. If I come back this afternoon and everybody is like "hey, let's do chemical warfare" then I will be tempted to repost the tech and construction costs. Then you wouldn't have fluff gas masks, you would have fluff "some other form of immunity."

 

[Blaze Injun]

Hey,

Thanks for always answering the questions.

I better get a fluffy gas mask story real quick.



Blaze Injun

 

[SKILORD]

In preparation for the inevitable militarization of space people who wish to equip weapons to their Satellites may now do so for no cost. Take a weapon out of your stockpile, weld it onto an unlaunched Satellite (as shoddily as possible and with no regard for wiring) and boom, attack Satellite capable of defending itself in the event that there are in the near future orbital stations built of salvaged Rafiki goods.

 

[Blaze Injun]

Hey,

I was wondering the soldier or militia required for operating the various larger units.
I know that Naval Units & ET APCs need a unit to drive it. Do tanks need outfitted with a soldier or militia? How about Jets & ET Fighters do they need a control unit?

I need 1 Jet & 1 Sony Satellite at Matsue in my stats.


Blaze Injun

 

[SKILORD]

Yes. Universally yes. And militia can't.

I'm on it.