Pre-SysNES2: Beta-testing and Submission

Minor NPCs traits list:

Values - NPCs have ONE value, and will get along better with soceities that share their values.
Economy - NPCs may have an economic policy, which will influence their behaviour and slightly who they get along with.
Society - NPCs may have a social policy, which will influence their behaviour and strongly who they get along with.
Volatility - NPCs have a volatility rating, which indicates how persuadable they are, but also how quickly they may change their minds. Running from most to least these are: Stolid, Placid, Calm, Keen, Excitable, Volatile.
Personality - NPCs will have a personality type:
Aggressive: More likely to turn to violence in persusing goals
Passive: Unlikely to resort to violence, or do much at all.
Ruthless: Cold and calculating of best value to them, unlikely to care about differing values and policies.
Sentimental: Loyal to their friends, more likely to get annoyed over differing societal models.
Mercantile: Keen on engaging in trades, will get very untrusting if you break a commercial agreement with anyone
Commercial: Similar to mercantile, but merchents want you to go to them, commercials will try to come to you and try to control trade networks.
Isolationist: Don't want to be bothered by other people.
Industrious: Similar to Isolationist, but have a specific societal mission plan, and are happy to engage in relationships that engage that plan.
Erratic: Will make unpredictable decisions.

For example:
North Korea: Power, Command Economy, Authoritarian, Volatile, Erratic
 
Are there any major NPCs aside from the Consul? (I'm assuming pirate warlords and the like?)
 
Prologue

The wrecked fleet huddled in the orbit of a dying sun. It pumped out just enough radiation to juice the jury-rigged solar panels which were now spoon-feeding electrons into the sputtering mouths of elderly life support components.

A couple million people gasped in relief as the carbon dioxide concentration slowly began to decrease. Some babies had bit it, though. The deaths of their children turned what was mere resentment against the Iris for exterminating their crappy little navy into something...more. A distant apocalypse killing trillions is one thing, but seeing that sad little pale body shudder and give up the ghost to the void...that either broke people or it hardened them.

But those who had made it this far were not susceptible to breaking. Those who were now traversed their own orbits as small satellites orbiting the numerous stars in their wake, a few megagrams of disintegrating electronics to keep them company.

The Commodores were not incredibly happy with this situation. Those with any desire to be a latter-day Elric had long since died in pseudo-glorious fashion in the running skirmishes with pirates and hiders who wanted a fresh stock of unpolluted Second Age genome. The ideological strain of rampant individualists trying to adjust to the necessarily communitarian lifestyle of a migrant spacefleet was arguably worse than the constant hardship and rationing - not like Standard was a paradise to begin with - though a bunch of microcults and pseudocultures had sprung up, and the children's machine tool shops had begun to create some pleasant decorations that lent a bit of color to the cold grey corridors that were their confined lives.

The thing confronting the Commodores today, besides the final battles in the grueling campaign against some nasty bacterium that had killed about a quarter of their livestock, was a strange transmission.

They stood for the tinny anthem and saluted the dead man's slowly-revolving projection on the tripod at the center of the networked conference table they'd salvaged from the freighter they raided during that pirate phase. The cult of personality thing was wearing a little thin, most of them privately admitted, but what else are you going to use for social glue when you don't have a state religion or a brutalist economic policy? Slim pickings.

"So," said Commodore Alvin, steepling his fingers, "This sector's played."

"Chekhov system..."

"Has been blaring high-beam propaganda in all directions for the last two centuries. And our drone didn't even breach the Kuiper belt before something narced it."

"Sector's played." Gregor and Alvin never agreed. The taciturn Commodore's statement was as much a declaration of consensus as anything else.

"Each of our sub-fleets has heard this Iris thing now," said Suji, the youngest guy at the table, too young to remember the war in most of their opinions, even if he technically fought in it. "We need to consider it, because we can't do this much longer. I mean, we can...but we won't be us for very long. I can only stamp out so many cults before one wins."

"I'm prone to reckon," said Commodore Lewis in his thick piedmont accent that the fleet network constantly mocked, "That if they was fixin' to trap us, and they know right where to transmit, there'd a been a coupla Salamanders waitin'."

"We're part pitiful, part entertainment to them," rumbled Gregor.

"So if they like us or pity us, fine!" said Suji. "For all we know they have the entire fleet bugged. They know we're not a threat! This Alnitah situation...we can be useful to the Iris."

The Commodores fight over trying to look the most disgusted with the prospect.

"Suji is correct in this expostulation," said Commodore Toric, the fleet brain. Toric spoke rarely so the Commodores clammed up at once. A few LEDs in its scalp sparkled.

"Publically accessible data on Segmentum Alnitahum correlates backwater status lack of urban metroplanets ample growth opportunities previously considered inaccessible due to assumed Apeilic hostility however given remaining fuel stocks acceptance of Iris mandate would provide best known conceptual framework for survival"

"tentatively," it finished.
 
Cool story, though I don't think the Apeilics would be precisely keen on all the riff-raff moving in: they're extending law to the frontier as part of a prestige and profile-raising activity, and to secure the very long range shipping opportunities offered by the giant star.

Also be an extensive soldiering history would lead to being biologically young, with lots of chronological time spent in the unaging transverse between stars - the more you know!
 
They probably measure youth by more intangible methods then, like number of campaigns fought.

The Standards are, in this story, currently debating 'technically' rebranding themselves subjects of the Iris to avoid extermination, also betting that whoever let them get away from the War will continue to patronize their existence.

Edit: I have no idea if the list of buildings on page 9 is the complete starting list, but it would seem strange that fusion reactors are available for ship design but not for terrestrial power plants.
 
Thlayli said:
They probably measure youth by more intangible methods then, like number of campaigns fought.

The Standards are, in this story, currently debating 'technically' rebranding themselves subjects of the Iris to avoid extermination, also betting that whoever let them get away from the War will continue to patronize their existence.
Click to expand...

No one is trying to exterminate them? The Iris is pretty guilty over the whole war thing and concerned about its image and its coalition. What would be the point of killing all the refugees - they're like Finland; sure they were on the wrong side but who gives a damn post-war?

Edit: I have no idea if the list of buildings on page 9 is the complete starting list, but it would seem strange that fusion reactors are available for ship design but not for terrestrial power plants.
Click to expand...

It's not
 
Considering each turn is roughly a year or more, one can make an almost arbitrarily large number of surface-to-orbit and back again trips in a year, correct? This would considerably simplify the micro of orbital construction if so; if not, things get ugly.
 
Symphony D. said:
Considering each turn is roughly a year or more, one can make an almost arbitrarily large number of surface-to-orbit and back again trips in a year, correct? This would considerably simplify the micro of orbital construction if so; if not, things get ugly.
Click to expand...

Which aspect of it? I suppose you could say if the ground settlement has a spaceport they can construct things in orbital regions adjacent to them...
 
Disenfrancised said:
Which aspect of it? I suppose you could say if the ground settlement has a spaceport they can construct things in orbital regions adjacent to them...
Click to expand...
I was thinking more if you had a ship ferrying components up into orbit and back again. Doing it all in one shot would take about the maximum possible Cargo Bays that you can manage to get off a standard planet with the incompressability of m and v.

If it's possible for spaceports to construct stuff immediately above them to get rid of the micro of needing an Engineering Bay equipped ship, that's cool too.
 
However that hardly matters if the ship is also being built on the planet.
 
Thlayli said:
One would think that a cargo ship that can't land on the surface of the planet can still load up with that planet's stock of resources if there's a spaceport on the planet.
Click to expand...

One would think wrong. Big ships need an orbital dock.

You're also missing the point of the conversation, which is about ships taking multiple surface to orbit trips and thus moving more than their cargo bays holds per year. On the one hand I'm not that worried about the management building your first orbital platform entails as a) the 1st 100km of getting to space is the hardest and b) it makes said platforms much more valuable and players make the decision about bothering or not (rather than having an unvarying build order).
 
How trade works, something vaguely like Europa Universalis, my primary aim is to create excitement and strategy from non-military types of contest:

Interplanetary Markets

A System of inhabited regions will generate potential markets for the three types of trade service (Shipping, Finance, Data). The value of each of these markets is drawn from a large number of sources, but to put it simply; larger economies with geographic differentiation of economic type produce more trade, trade goods also greatly aide trade value (more on them later). Trade is system wide and between npcs and player societies. You can choose to close oneself off from trade, but synergy does produces more value, so a fragmented system market is less than the sum of its parts (also its more work for me, so I dislike it ;)).

To tap into the potential trade value you must make commerical action rolls in the battle calc. You can create a market share, or contest an existing one. There are only 5 potential market shares available (a necessary abstraction), creating them is progressively more difficult a task on the battle calc. Thus there are 15 potential market slots per system one can have. You can evict someones market share by force, but you don't get it yourself - those service relationships simple evaporate, and only the first (easist to create) market share can be gifted.

Shipping Markets can be created and contested by Commercial Agents or Spaceport/Dock/Yard buildings (though if the latter is not backed up with a stock exchange its liable to crumble)
Finance Markets can be created and contested by Commercial Agents or Stock Exchange buildings.
Data Markets can be created and contested by Analysts and Network buildings.

When a specialist has a market share, its owner needs to designate one of their Stock Exchanges/Networks somewhere else for when the trade value captured is to be deposited. With these specialists you can create and contest markets in systems you don't even have any other physical presence in (though a supply arrangement is obviously needed), and act as the backbone of a commercial empire.

Sometimes the value of a trade market is less than the upkeep and opportunity costs of a specialist or trade building, don't build them then!

Interstellar Markets

Interstellar Markets work a litte differently. Your merchent fleet runs supply routes to all your colonies automatically, but you can also tell them to operate trade routes between two systems you have a presence in (commercial agents count as a presence). You can order as many trade routes as you like, even making all your supply routes trade routes, but your merchent fleet strength is averaged between your trade routes, so you may be out competed on profitable lines if you spread yourself too thin.

Once trade routes have been set up, interstellar trade flows. The value of interstellar trade come from three components: a) sheer size of economies connected, though this is a very weakly weighted component, b) differential in the surplus and demand for an economic element (emva), c) trade goods. Thus the most high value routes are those between a system with a demand for a resource and a one with a surplus of that resource, and routes between two systems with a lot of trade goods.

This value is capturable at the two termini, and added at every system along the trade route (it is averaged between all the intermediate systems). It can then be created and contested for in the commerice battlecalc just like interplanetary markets. Having the strongest merchent fleet running a route automatically gives you one of the market shares in each system, and being the sole operater grants you two.

In addition, once a trade route is being established, any society can move their goods by it as they would be able to via their own supply routes. If someone has the local shipping sew up, it might be prudent to slim down your own merchant fleet and use the upkeep money elsewhere.

Trade Goods

Trade goods are abstractions that greatly increase the value of trade that includes them, that than having explicit descriptions its up to you how you interpret the ones you get story wise. Trade goods come in three catagories:

Rare Materials: Familiar from SysNES1, these are rare products that can be extracted from the enviroment - exotic gases, rare earths and so on. They exist as qualities of region and you need specialists to survey for them, even starting up regular mining or extraction operations may not reveal them.
Luxuries: Luxuries are the rare products of biospheres and societial arts and crafts, will turn up randomly in developed worlds and rich biospheres, generally have a half life of a few decades as fashion changes. One luxury is also a building - the tourism region, which you can choose to use as a luxury or not (increases foreign stress). Luxuries can be destroyed by war, espionage and bombing, but cannot be copied.
Products: Products are bits of clever technology that everyone wants but only yours are of high enough quality or novel design to be in demand. Products randomly generate at a very very rate, which is improved with the appropriate social choices, or by being ahead of the pack in a particular tech field (encouraging specialisation). Products also only have a few decades before being obselete or swamped with knockoffs. A product template can be stolen and used by another society (either by physical theft or espionage), but this greatly hastens the products demise as a good driving trade.
 
Disenfrancised said:
Spoiler trade :
How trade works, something vaguely like Europa Universalis, my primary aim is to create excitement and strategy from non-military types of contest:

Interplanetary Markets

A System of inhabited regions will generate potential markets for the three types of trade service (Shipping, Finance, Data). The value of each of these markets is drawn from a large number of sources, but to put it simply; larger economies with geographic differentiation of economic type produce more trade, trade goods also greatly aide trade value (more on them later). Trade is system wide and between npcs and player societies. You can choose to close oneself off from trade, but synergy does produces more value, so a fragmented system market is less than the sum of its parts (also its more work for me, so I dislike it ;)).

To tap into the potential trade value you must make commerical action rolls in the battle calc. You can create a market share, or contest an existing one. There are only 5 potential market shares available (a necessary abstraction), creating them is progressively more difficult a task on the battle calc. Thus there are 15 potential market slots per system one can have. You can evict someones market share by force, but you don't get it yourself - those service relationships simple evaporate, and only the first (easist to create) market share can be gifted.

Shipping Markets can be created and contested by Commercial Agents or Spaceport/Dock/Yard buildings (though if the latter is not backed up with a stock exchange its liable to crumble)
Finance Markets can be created and contested by Commercial Agents or Stock Exchange buildings.
Data Markets can be created and contested by Analysts and Network buildings.

When a specialist has a market share, its owner needs to designate one of their Stock Exchanges/Networks somewhere else for when the trade value captured is to be deposited. With these specialists you can create and contest markets in systems you don't even have any other physical presence in (though a supply arrangement is obviously needed), and act as the backbone of a commercial empire.

Sometimes the value of a trade market is less than the upkeep and opportunity costs of a specialist or trade building, don't build them then!

Interstellar Markets

Interstellar Markets work a litte differently. Your merchent fleet runs supply routes to all your colonies automatically, but you can also tell them to operate trade routes between two systems you have a presence in (commercial agents count as a presence). You can order as many trade routes as you like, even making all your supply routes trade routes, but your merchent fleet strength is averaged between your trade routes, so you may be out competed on profitable lines if you spread yourself too thin.

Once trade routes have been set up, interstellar trade flows. The value of interstellar trade come from three components: a) sheer size of economies connected, though this is a very weakly weighted component, b) differential in the surplus and demand for an economic element (emva), c) trade goods. Thus the most high value routes are those between a system with a demand for a resource and a one with a surplus of that resource, and routes between two systems with a lot of trade goods.

This value is capturable at the two termini, and added at every system along the trade route (it is averaged between all the intermediate systems). It can then be created and contested for in the commerice battlecalc just like interplanetary markets. Having the strongest merchent fleet running a route automatically gives you one of the market shares in each system, and being the sole operater grants you two.

In addition, once a trade route is being established, any society can move their goods by it as they would be able to via their own supply routes. If someone has the local shipping sew up, it might be prudent to slim down your own merchant fleet and use the upkeep money elsewhere.

Trade Goods

Trade goods are abstractions that greatly increase the value of trade that includes them, that than having explicit descriptions its up to you how you interpret the ones you get story wise. Trade goods come in three catagories:

Rare Materials: Familiar from SysNES1, these are rare products that can be extracted from the enviroment - exotic gases, rare earths and so on. They exist as qualities of region and you need specialists to survey for them, even starting up regular mining or extraction operations may not reveal them.
Luxuries: Luxuries are the rare products of biospheres and societial arts and crafts, will turn up randomly in developed worlds and rich biospheres, generally have a half life of a few decades as fashion changes. One luxury is also a building - the tourism region, which you can choose to use as a luxury or not (increases foreign stress). Luxuries can be destroyed by war, espionage and bombing, but cannot be copied.
Products: Products are bits of clever technology that everyone wants but only yours are of high enough quality or novel design to be in demand. Products randomly generate at a very very rate, which is improved with the appropriate social choices, or by being ahead of the pack in a particular tech field (encouraging specialisation). Products also only have a few decades before being obselete or swamped with knockoffs. A product template can be stolen and used by another society (either by physical theft or espionage), but this greatly hastens the products demise as a good driving trade.
Click to expand...

And here I thought that my specialisation in m production was a potential weakness. This is a very good way to shore that up, my weakness in f and v and my high consumption will put that into demand, my large amounts of m produced gives a slight boost to that but others will likely demand it, everyone else seems to have bonus's elsewhere thus my trade routes might be specially productive....

In short, this is an excellent route to shoring up a weakness other than conquest (and a potentially more productive route than autarky).

Q. If you inhabit an entire system with no foreign input (excepting foreign commercial agents/analysts) is there an automatic bonus? or do you simply have the opportunity of developing the trade into something you have total control over?

Also I cannot wait for the economic calculator...
 
Dis will there be anything like the diplo relations matrix in SysNES affecting things like trade or tech trade/specialist fun?

@Kal, fairly sure each resource will have multiple people with large surpluses. :)
 
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