I am sure you have all read the recent CL and the suppliment, so I am working on fleshing out their tech and rules. Ideas are always welcomed.

1) The Quark Cannon is VERY Powerful but has a limited arc and does damage something like a Energy Howitzer to minimize death. HAs a myopic range like the PPD, Disr and Photons. Also when you energize the emitter it "glows" for a couple impluses before you can fire. So the bad guys can tell when it is going to fire, but you can "pump fake" them like an ESG can.

2) the Collective use crew units that are half the size of regular crew units. So they take damage twice as fast as Alpha crew units so the actual losses reamin the same.

3) Collective has no marines. But large numbers of their crew is trained as militia. In effect a Collective Militia crew unit is a "Poor crew quality BP" with the ability to run ship systems. Good in that they can do 2 things, bad in that they suck at BP combat. Seen in the fiction.

4) The quark cloud, seen but not really any effect on the Doomward, is similar to the Alunda plasma cloud, but with a lesser effect and "sticky." This is the thing the Frigate released and manuvered behind while they powered up the superhigh speed drones. Luckily the Doomward just ignored/ avoided the thing.

5) Drones can be accelerated or enhanced with warp power. Faster and/ or larger warhead.

6) They have "deely boppers" as a major part of their operations (which unfortunately don't work in a vortex cloud) which approximate drogues on multi hex range tethers. They can move VERY FAST on the end of the tether, but suffer EW effects when whipped around. So you can maneuver them to be between you and the enemy, or have them wander to hit a down shield that isn't facing you when you go for an overrun.

7) Delta masers are about the same as phasers. I messed with the damage tables, but used excel to make sure the damage curves, including EW shifts, are about the same.

Socially, the best way to think about the Collective is a multi racial empire of militant social workers with guns. Think of the worst exaggerations made about the left and then go about 10 steps more. What makes them so powerful is the prevalence of mass telepathic groups, their science power, and the economic might their "collective partnerships" have as businesses.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, June 08, 2009 - 03:48 pm: Edit

How easy might their tech be to convert into FC?

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, June 08, 2009 - 04:01 pm: Edit

Not there yet.

But I will say that their empires will be more like "terran" empires than huge blocs.

So you'd have the core area, wide neutral zones (approximating oceans) and then allied/ subjugated races would have their own areas.

The collective will be something of an exception, when they take an area, they keep it. Even if it is expensive.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, June 08, 2009 - 04:11 pm: Edit

If you want to have the equivalent of oceans, perhaps one option could be to divide high-density regions with the kind of 'fringe' hexes seen in the Magellanic Cloud.

There, the star density is so low that trying to establish colonies and extract resources can be much harder to do, and the creation of viable 'provinces' is a much tougher task.


(Historically, the Chomak, whose home Cluster is divided from the main Cloud by several hexes of Fringe space, had holdings in the 'northern' portion of the Cloud, but may have had to cross those Fringe hexes back and forth, rather than maintain a contiguous realm.)

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Saturday, June 13, 2009 - 07:53 pm: Edit

SVC,

AFTER Origins, I would like to send you an early draft of my proposal for the Collective, a rather different race. These are the guys that were messing with the Doomward in CL38.

1) My plan is to have the rules in "Official format."

2) I have one real big issue and that is the main weapon damage. I presume you and SPP have a formula in the pickle jar with the BPV formula.

I assume that there is room for a stand alone book (like the Vudar) with these guys.

OK?

Mike

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, June 14, 2009 - 12:36 am: Edit

Oh, Mike - have you settled on where you'd want the Collective to be located?

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Sunday, June 14, 2009 - 06:23 pm: Edit

Dunno.

My idea was they were in a "island" cluster so their home "galaxy" is fairly small, VERY DENSE in stars and resources, and beset with much in the way of interstellar weather (vortexes, dust clouds, nebulae, radiation zones, etc), geology (asteroids and black holes of various kinds) and space time that is very "wrinkly" and ragged. They have some scuffles with their neighbors, but their real problems are the vortexes, wormholes, and such that bring others TO them.

Perhaps they are somewhere that Iridani questors, Magellenics and Triangularians can also come calling in addition to Alphans & Omegans. I want them to be a mystery guest for lots of people..

1) They beat the pants off the Andros though. Gotta love a race that can deploy the equivalent of a couple dozen Cruiser sized survey ships with heavy weapons, a squadron of fighters and PFs to sniff out the intruders.

2) I am currently about done with version 1 of the "Social Network" called the Collective.

3) They have a TON of unique tech. Like perhaps 20+ pages in a rules/ R section SSD book.

4) Their society is really incompatable with the term empire or race. What binds them together are mass empathic and telepathic philosophical/ social/ polical debates. So, as my offical version.0 reviewer was told, think of them as "militant social workers, with guns and Eurail passes to the universe. YOU have to change your ways..." They would be a darn joke (as individually they are not too "legendary" despite the power of their tech) if they had't organized and gotten to superpower status before their neighbors.

5) If SVC goes for it, my plan is to have their rules and SSDs be a complete book. like the Vudar and Jindos have. from soup (basic ships) to nuts (the fighter/ PF/ bases)

6) They suffere quite a few strange disadvantages that you can sorta compensate for and have some odd advantatge/ interactions that make them (in my head at least) fun to play and fight.

And next the Steampunkers! I am still at the dream a dream stage...

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, June 14, 2009 - 10:33 pm: Edit

Hmm.

Well, if you want a relatively close, yet still small-ish home galaxy, the Greater Magellanic Cloud might be an option.

It's big enough to perhaps fit a fair number of empires in it, while being in the same neck of the inter-galactic woods as both 'our' side of the Milky Way and the Lesser Magellanic Cloud.

(The GMC is about 160kly from the Milky Way, compared to the LMC's 200kly, plus the two are about 75kly apart. Also, both are connected to each other via the Magellanic Bridge, and to the Milky Way via the Magellanic Stream.)


Plus, maybe it could have one (or more) dense regions akin to the LMC's radiation-shelled Core, or smaller 'captured' groupings of stars akin to the Chomak Cluster beyond the LMC's Fringe.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Sunday, June 14, 2009 - 11:25 pm: Edit

I wish there was a "canon" map of SFB geography.

I mean I know where the Alphas are (our galaxy is a clock lying face up on the desk, from 5 to 7 oclock more or less) Omegans (4 to 5 oclock) are, but where are the Triangularians and Magellenics?

SVC?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, June 14, 2009 - 11:46 pm: Edit

The Magellanic empires from Module C5 are in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud (the smaller of the two Clouds) while the Triangulum factions from the playtest Module E2 are set in the Triangulum Galaxy (M33, about 3 million light years from the Milky Way).


There are maps of the Local Group here, if you want to check them out.


Also, if you don't have it already, I highly recommend Module C5. It's really cool.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, June 15, 2009 - 01:06 am: Edit

Have them all.

But WHERE are the LMC and Triangulan galaxies.

Above the clock? Below?

I looked and perhaps the Sagitarius Dwarf?

Sorta on the way from the LMC to Milky Way.

And that would fit in with my ideas.

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Monday, June 15, 2009 - 01:20 am: Edit

If Tholia is 12:00 on the clock. Then the clouds are about 2:00 on the ecliptic. And they are about 2:00 ABOVE the ecliptic.

Triangulam? Can't help on that

regards
Stacy

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, June 15, 2009 - 01:54 am: Edit

The Clouds are both 'below' the galactic plane, and are closer to 'our' (Alpha/Omega) side of the galaxy.

Sagittarius Dwarf seems closer to the Sigma or Xork side, in comparison.

Also, there's a CL35 article called 'A Bridge Between Galaxies' which might be worth checking out.


(Oh, and the program Celestia might help, too.)

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, June 15, 2009 - 07:32 am: Edit

This should help. You can go in and out. ADB uses this too. I've used it for a number of things.

http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/sattelit.html

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, June 15, 2009 - 05:40 pm: Edit

Actually, given how much cool stuff is in the Greater Cloud - not least the Tarantula Nebula - I'm surprised that there isn't more of a clamouring among the local would-be galaxy-builders to have their project/s claim the GMC as home!

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Sunday, June 21, 2009 - 07:51 am: Edit

First draft of first rule proposal off to SVC for him to demolish during the drive to Origins.

Deely Boppers. You know the sparkly things the "killer bees" wore in the SNL skit? http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/the-killer-bees/29161/

ha