SysNES 1: A Murky Pool of Light

[Ynkling]

OOC:

Found the society modifiers here if anybody else needs them.

Hopefully there's room for one more in this NES for me- I've got a fun clone centric idea lined up!

EDIT: Thanks Thlayli!

 

[Thlayli]

For when dis comes back, I'd like to lodge a protest against the impending trend of packing a ship full of computational modules and sensors so that it gets virtually unlimited dodge and is therefore impossible to hit. The dodge gain from this needs to be capped somewhere to keep ships like this from breaking the game. The only alternative is that every ship design will be forced to conform to the floating supercomputer model or die, which would not be very fun.

There are a variety of reasonable solutions to this, but I'll leave it up to the mod to find the right one.

Also, I'm not really sure what the function of the Pebble Defense component is; it seems redundant with the Computational Modules/Sensors combination, and is more expensive for no additional gain.

 

[Kal'thzar]

For when dis comes back, I'd like to lodge a protest against the impending trend of packing a ship full of computational modules and sensors so that it gets virtually unlimited dodge and is therefore impossible to hit. The dodge gain from this needs to be capped somewhere to keep ships like this from breaking the game. The only alternative is that every ship design will be forced to conform to the floating supercomputer model or die, which would not be very fun.

There are a variety of reasonable solutions to this, but I'll leave it up to the mod to find the right one.

Also, I'm not really sure what the function of the Pebble Defense component is; it seems redundant with the Computational Modules/Sensors combination, and is more expensive for no additional gain.

I won the challenge by breaking the rules again!

The largest problem is the multiplication of sensor and comp modules dodge. I seem to recall it being implied somewhere that it was only meant to work with one sensor, otherwise yes this could easily kill the game. (I even have a ship design for it in case its NOT a broken model, but I assumed it was 1 sensor)

There are a host of other issues, but I put that down to technological retardation in some areas and the end of the Laser as King of the ships (its a sucky design too!)

 

[Thlayli]

Didactic:

The wax and wane of imperial power on a linear timescale cannot be accurately represented as a wave function oscillating between order and chaos, as is commonly surmised, as human organisms are required to inhabit ordered systems. The technological sophistication and size of these units fluctuates substantially, but humans never depart self-ordered systems en masse. The particle-like functions rather than the wave-like functions of light serve as a superior exemplar for imperial power; there is a constant stream of political energy (here called power) emitted by a given population cluster, and the societal entropy costs for storing this power rise exponentially as the share of the total amount of power held by a governance unit increases. This power manifests itself as the ability to integrate individual organisms into the governance unit.

Analysis:

Redundant authorities seeking to provide similar or identical services attempt to eliminate one another due to mere astrographic and ethnoculturally constructed disparities, in large part due to the ingrained primate instinct to amass superior troves of resources. The ritual dominance conflicts of politics and war are two examples of this drive to acquire the static resource power, both within and without the redundant governance sub-units, respectively. The insatiable drive to expand the governance unit necessitates natural factors arising from within the human system to prevent the governance unit from attaining unsustainable and self-destructive growth. The governance units label these self-correcting elements 'criminals' and 'pirates.'

Conclusions: Commonality Aerospace Initiative 2b (Outer Sector Occupation Schema) should be terminated immediately. Furthermore, hindrance of neo-fringe state formation should be interdicted."

Quallion II, Procedurally Generated Summary of Human Activity, c. High Commonality

And in the dark gray city
Lined with neo-liberal columns
I was given to wondering
How arbitrary matter shaping
Is achieving progressions.
And I bemoaned the lack
Of available Vitamin B.
I consider myself a casualty
Of the death of morality.

ALI HIAOIO, DO YOU KNOW ME?

Lee Aston, The Final Poet, c. Early Third Age

 

[Disenfrancised]

Yes, the sensors are only meant to provide the *[Comp Module] bonus once, with additional sensors confiring no benefits, there's an error in the spreadsheet due to a crtl-D mishap .

Also having the processing power advantage really should correspond with an effectiveness bonus, and ramming on computation modules will see degrading performence due to increasing ship mass and power demands. I might adjust computation modules to give them a heat management cost as well.

The pebble defence does potentially give very high dodge scores if you really pack it on, but unlike the sensors bonus its bonus only works against missiles.

@New Chaps: Part of what makes this NES quite good (IMO) is the frequency of updates, and what makes that possible is the very short player list. To that end I am still waiting on a reply from another potential player who messaged me earlier - if that person doesn't get back to me then Morning Star has a choice of a created society or the 'Al and Yngling can take the other, if they do then whichever one of you wants the 'Al more can happily take them and the other will have to wait unfortunately.

@All: I'll get round to reading the number of PMs tomorrow morning and then send replies.

 

[Kal'thzar]

Yes, the sensors are only meant to provide the *[Comp Module] bonus once, with additional sensors confiring no benefits, there's an error in the spreadsheet due to a crtl-D mishap .

Also having the processing power advantage really should correspond with an effectiveness bonus, and ramming on computation modules will see degrading performence due to increasing ship mass and power demands. I might adjust computation modules to give them a heat management cost as well.

The pebble defence does potentially give very high dodge scores if you really pack it on, but unlike the sensors bonus its bonus only works against missiles.

I knew it

But I Don't think Dodge is the power of a comp fleet; I think its Int.

 

[Thlayli]

I still wish there was some sort of cap to the bonuses, both initiative and dodge, offered by computational model spam. Or that *will* become the default ship design in order to get any chance of determining range or winning hit rolls.

It also makes command decks rather irrelevant.

 

[Kal'thzar]

I still wish there was some sort of cap to the bonuses, both initiative and dodge, offered by computational model spam. Or that *will* become the default ship design in order to get any chance of determining range or winning hit rolls.

It also makes command decks rather irrelevant.

Technology is the salve; I'm sure that the social and math trees are hiding useful ship components to both those issues. Especially since those tech trees are under-researched in comparison.

 

[Matt0088]

There's always using enough pebble defense to counter any of the computation module spam ships using missiles, which all of the current designs being tossed around seem to have.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Okay heres the rules changes which will come into play after the next update for your consideration

Ships

• Int bonuses to contest rolls for moving between close and long range now max out at 2. Makes IP drive speed more important, Command Decks very relevent for the fleet bonus.
• Int bonus from Computational modules now has diminishing returns (of ^0.75).
• Dodge bonus from having a set of sensors with computational modules also has diminishing returns (of ^0.75).
• Dodge rolls against particle weapons, being jets or streams of particles rather than short pulses, only get a third of the ships dodge bonuses. A EM>Particle>Missile>EM core relationship might be desirable .

Tech development

• Being one tech level behind someone you have peaceful contact with will give you a 10% reduction cost in that field.
• Being two tech levels behind someone you have peaceful contact with will give you a 5% reduction cost in that field.
• Being three tech levels behind someone you have peaceful contact with will give you a 2.5% reduction cost in that field.
• Having a trade route with them or being in the same system will triple these bonuses.
• Contact with multiple groups gives cumulative bonuses, but all tech bonuses together will have a maximum ceiling of 40% in any one field.
• Arrogant and paranoid factions get only 75% of the bonus from each contact, but still can fill up their entire 40% reduction scheme with enough contacts.
• Factions with antipathies for a field only get 50% of the bonus from each contact, but still can fill up their entire 40% reduction scheme with enough contacts.
• Even after concluding a war it will take 3 years before relations are close enough for the contact bonus to resume.
• A sufficently close relationship can give an additional slight bonus on contact trade.

This will all be automatically calculated btw, do you guys want a printout of the relationship matrix with each update?

Unrest will be replaced with a numeric function named 'Social Stress', reducing social stress of one habitat by 1 will require 4e and 4s. Advances in Social tech will reduce the cost of reducing social stress.

All the PMs should be answered now.

 

[Thlayli]

Diplomatic relationship matrix would be great. I endorse the rules changes also.

 

[Kentharu]

I'm not a fan of the tech rule change. It makes developing techs first more expensive and rewards people for waiting for you to research something, and then just following in your foot steps. A situation could arise where a player simply observes who is researching what and finds out how so they will finish(everyone already does that), and then just researches it after a player. Considering how many people are researching each field a nation (except for maybe the Gardeners ) will be behind someone in some tech, always, thus they can simply choose to play catch up always instead of actually researching something.

Perhaps there should be some type of bonus for researching a tech first (outside of... getting it first). On a side note, I don't want this trade relation matrix to slow down updates!

 

[Matt0088]

I approve of everything, especially the new tech rules. We should get them implemented ASAP.

 

[Kal'thzar]

Having already done a deep analysis of the ship tech I can say that its quite a good balance

 

[Thlayli]

I'm not a fan of the tech rule change. It makes developing techs first more expensive and rewards people for waiting for you to research something, and then just following in your foot steps. A situation could arise where a player simply observes who is researching what and finds out how so they will finish(everyone already does that), and then just researches it after a player. Considering how many people are researching each field a nation (except for maybe the Gardeners ) will be behind someone in some tech, always, thus they can simply choose to play catch up always instead of actually researching something.

Assuming you're advanced and you don't want your neighbors (or specific neighbors) to catch up to you in technology, you could just refuse to trade with them, and convince others not to trade with them as well.

@dis: How will cultural centers affect social stress?

 

[Kal'thzar]

This will all be automatically calculated btw, do you guys want a printout of the relationship matrix with each update?

I would love the matrix. You know, So I can break it and make the game better.

@dis: How will cultural centers affect social stress?

I would guess that there will be some effect based on how they are designed but in general they would alleviate social stress.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Still missing the Gardeners Order set

 

[Disenfrancised]

Cool everyones is in. Unfortunately I will probably not get it done today, as there is rebuilding work happening at work and I need to go sort out my machines, and I have to go to a wedding at the end of the week. Hopefully thursday evening eta, or failing that, saturday evening.

 

[Thlayli]

What do you do, dis? Sounds mechanics/computer-science related, whatever it is.

 

[Disenfrancised]

I craft SCIENCE!