Also, I slipped up a bit with the Sigvirion writeup, when I said it wasn't clear regarding their fate in the Second Great War. I double-checked the Omega timeline for the Fifth Cycle, which states that they were knocked out of the war in Y186. Their end came when the Mæsrons and Aurorans teamed up to locate and destroy the Sigs' primary base of operations, along with most of the ships defending it. By the time those two allies were fielding their first "war" classes a year later, the Sigs as a belligerent faction had already been taken out of the picture.

(Those new ships would get their true baptism of fire against the Vulpa, who they would help to defeat by Y189.)

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, July 09, 2013 - 11:49 pm: Edit

In case anyone is interested, I set up a thread discussing one of the groups of three "Omega's Lost Futures" empires, as laid out in the August 2012 memo: the Vulpa, Nucians, and Paravians.

It's too early to try to actually design any of those three empires, but I wanted to gather what is known about them into one thread for future reference. If there's something I've missed from the data published so far, please pop in and post it there.

(I suppose a similar thread could be created to cover the Echarri-Scon-Zosman trio, but there is much less known about any of those empires at this point. In any case, given what Bruce Graw had in mind for the Zosmans according to the CL36 article, it may be as well to do them after the V/N/P trio anyway.)

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, July 10, 2013 - 10:27 am: Edit

I went and posted an Echarri-Scon-Zosman thread, too. Again, please add any thoughts you may have on those factions over there.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, July 10, 2013 - 09:47 pm: Edit

I may have mentioned this at some point before, but I feel that one option that might be worth considering for the tachyon missile-armed empires going forward is to try and work up a few sample "off-the-shelf" TM options, which a player could elect to take rather than having to go through the construction process each time.

For example, over in the FC Omega project, the concept of building each missile is not all that workable, so Barry helped me come up with a set of three missile upgrades that a TM-armed ship can buy, depending on which era of play a given scenario is set in.

Now, those three missile types are built to work in an FC context, so I am not suggesting they be offered as samples here. What I am saying is that a list of missiles could be "pre-cooked" for certain eras (and certain roles, perhaps) and made available on a list for a player to pick up and go with.

The standard construction rules would still be there, but not everyone may feel comfortable turning to them. If an empire as central to the setting as the Mæsron Alliance is being shied away from in some quarters because of the missiles (which are supposed to be a tertiary weapon for them anyway), it might be as well to encourage new players (or older players who are so inclined) to go with a few "here's one I made earlier" options instead.


Perhaps the names for such pre-cooked missiles could be tied to a certain manufacturer or era? Say that such-and-such a missile type was built as Model TM#15632 by a major Tazol megacorporation in the Y150s, or that TM#21343 was built by a particular hidden shipyard for the Vulpa insurgents in the Y180s, or what have you. Just enough to give each "off-the-shelf" missile type a dash of historical flavour, perhaps.

By Michael Kenyon (Mikek) on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 11:15 am: Edit

Gary, while I support the concept of pre-baked TMs as they are far harder to build than drones. I'm not sure that I agree with your logic on the ID and development plan for them. Clearly the TMs are going to be era dependent, but while breaking them down by manufacturer might be historically accurate and good backstory, it wouldn't be useful to me as a player.

I play a little Maesron, a little more Bolosco and a LOT of Kzinti. As I'm doing the drone loadouts for each, I look at who I might be facing (if it's possible to know) and then what situations I might get into and what I need the drones to do for me.

I'd suggest that rather than looking it from a historical standpoint, take a series of 3-5 different "roles" that you could employ and then try to create the best TMs you can do for each of those roles in each of those eras.

A sample set of roles ...
* "Cheap-O" - they cost and it's important to have a base, cheap model to fill in the gaps
* "It's going to hit" - Smallish payload, but full of defensive measures forcing the opponent to dedicate disproportionate resources to stop it or take the hit.
* "Ouch" - Big boom, good on an opponent who blows their wad a little too early in the turn.
* "Speedy" - Sometimes being able to get in under defenses before a turn break is important, as is the psychological factor of speed. There is a guttural standoff factor when you see the speed 32 coming at you, even if it's not really that much faster or scarier than a 22 or a speed 12.
* Race-Specific - I can easily think of TMs for targeting Lyrans, Bolosco, Hydrans/Stingers, etc.

A challenge to doing so is frankly in the versatility of the TM. With drones, speed is independent of payload, but with TMs, one affects the other. You have to include in your calculations trying to get all of the TMs down to a small number of speeds, and thereby force people to play the guessing game. I fully agree that that's more an issue in a fleet scenario where you might be able to mass a reasonable wave of TMs.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 11:39 am: Edit

I'm not sure if empire-specific missiles would need to be worried about. By and large, from an historical standpoint, the Mæsrons build (or develop) most of the missile types, and the others who build (or purchase or steal) missiles for their own use follow whatever the Mæsrons are doing.

The only thing you might need is a list stating which "pre-cooked" missile is available to which empire in which year. Sort of like how things are for Magellanic mass driver warheads in Module C5, which lists when the Baduvai and Maghadim each gain access to a certain warhead type (and includes a blanket note stating that the Jumokian pirates get them three years after the Baduvai warhead introduction dates). Only in this case, you'd have Mæsron, Vulpa, FRA, Bolosco, and Zosman YIS dates to offer. (I think that's it, in terms of TM users?)

By Michael Kenyon (Mikek) on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 12:43 pm: Edit

I'm not sure if you followed. I wasn't suggesting missiles MADE by specific empires, I was suggesting missiles made to TARGET specific empires.

If you're hitting a Lyran, you may want a few slug-like missiles, for fighter heavy races, there are a number of tactics you can incorporate into the build to target them. If you're planning on fighting the Bolosco, anti-tractor is quite possibly more important than armor.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 12:51 pm: Edit

In that case, I'd be concerned at just how far you're planning to go. If you try to offer something for every potential enemy, and for multiple time periods, you'd be at serious risk of over-egging the pudding.

If the idea is to avoid having to oblige a player to go to the DIY missile workshop (especially if it's for someone new to a TM-armed empire), I would sooner cut things back to a more limited set of options, and allow the player to experiment with the construction rules once they feel more comfortable with the "pre-cooked" missile options.

But then the question becomes: How many is too many? Would a dozen options be enough, or would half-a-dozen be better? And how do you decide which eras to cover?

(In FC, I went with three eras of missile upgrades; one for the "middle era" through the end of the Third Cycle, one for the "transitional era" of the Fourth and Fifth Cycles, and one for the "late era" of the Invasions and the Mæsron Renaissance. But, again, there's no particular need to use those specific era divisions here; if a more comfortable fit exists for an SFB context, I'd be all for it.)

By Michael Kenyon (Mikek) on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 06:27 pm: Edit

I agree with you in that regard. I just added it to my list of "roles" because probably half of the roles I generally end up with are to negate features of specific kinds of empires.

Generally, it's not necessarily a 1:1 gambit, however.

Slug TMs which were would be useful for Lyrans, LDR, probably Phon as well (don't have rules in front of me).

Plug a TM chock full of phasers (esp. if you're Bolosco) and it's a heck of a way to beat up on all the plasma races.

You don't necessarily need one per possible opponent, but there are some key scenarios (anti-plasma, anti-fighter, anti-ESG/asteroid, etc.) where there's a lot of power to be had.

Of course, you don't NEED them in the basic set. They tend to be on the costly side and as you say too many options dilutes the value. They do increase your combat value in specific situations, which if you're lucky enough to know what you'll likely face is a good thing.

By Ken Kazinski (Kjkazinski) on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 07:10 pm: Edit

Is this any different from the YIS dates for the drone modules by empire?

If I am reading your posts correctly you both seem to be saying the same basic things. Each empire will get TM's at different times.

By Michael Kenyon (Mikek) on Friday, July 12, 2013 - 02:08 pm: Edit

Ken,

I think Gary's point is that he wanted to make a set or recommended "template" TMs, similar to the templates you get to start with in SFBOL.

Like drones, there's a lot of different modules, different size drones and different speed options.

UNLIKE drones, all of those variables are dependent. If I make the drone faster, the fuel cuts into the space I have for payload, etc.

So, while there's a couple "big dates" in drone development - mostly driven by speed increases - there are a LOT of interesting dates in TM design. You could have probably 20 different TM templates that just had explosive payloads if you wanted to handle the different speed and payload size time breaks.

So, in summation, I think Gary's proposing that you give people a couple interesting TMs to start with at say 3 points in history so that you don't have to scare TM newbies with the slide ruler on their first day.

It's a great idea. The current Maesron TC gives you two options, they're kinda blah. The original Maesron TC I think gave you 5 or 8. It was a lot for opponents to keep in mind and I'm not sure why they got pulled - balance or over-complication.

My counter was that the challenge is finding a small enough set that it's manageable, but a large enough set that tactically useful and doesn't make a very useful system out to be something considerably less than it is. You can reasonably not teach prox. loaded photons to a new player on day one, but if you don't teach overloads then you're probably undercutting the system ... at least if you're teaching everyone else their overload functions. Need to find the same sort of balance with the TMs.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, July 15, 2013 - 09:35 pm: Edit

I did the last trio from the August 2012 memo: the Jindarian Freehold, the Loriyill Splinter Collective, and the Hiver Unihive.

In short, I would recommend only giving the Freehold Jindos those "post-Y1" units they would be liable to develop in the Omega Octant proper (gunboats, X-ships, and whatnot) and leave it at that for them.

The Splinter Collective and Unihive could be done up as a handful of weapon variants each, or you could simply add them as optional variants into those "standard" Loriyill and Hiver SSDs each group would be capable of fielding (like how the LDR are shown on the Lyran Empire Ship Cards in FC). This would eliminate the need to do either of them separately at all.

That would free up whatever space they aren't using in a new module to do more ships and support units for the 21 published empires, who will need all the space they can get and then some.


So, you'd only have two full "lost futures" modules (V/N/P and E/S/Z), but room for four "more stuff for old empires" modules (with the Freehold SSDs showing up as a bonus somewhere).


Any thoughts?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, August 18, 2013 - 11:03 pm: Edit

One thing I mentioned in a previous post was the idea of an Iridani "plus refit" offering a means why which the Clipper could, perhaps, be converted into a true Fast ship (with two of its FEBs converted into PW-1s, perhaps).

However, even leaving the Iridani example aside, there was a broader question I thought worth asking: is there a point prior to the onset of first-generation X-technology when any of the native Omega empires should gain the ability to build and operate "Fast" ships?

And if so, what kind of form would such ships take? Would one be more likely to see fast light/war cruisers, or CFs (or NCFs) instead; or would it vary depending on the operating empire? And what about light dreadnoughts; should they be possible, and if so, how might they be constructed?

Or, on the other hand, would the vagaries of warp technology in the Omega Octant be such that true Fast ships (as they are understood in the Alpha Octant) simply won't be a factor in the TL 12 era?

It should be noted that out in the LMC (where the ships published in Module C5 are stated as having the same transit speeds as Andromedan ships obliged to operate off the RTN), no true Fast ships exist. (The Baduvai CL is said to have been used in an equivalent role, but would still count as a "fast-for-its-setting" ship rather than a "true" Fast ship.) That is not to say that there may never be Fast hulls for the C5 empires, but the potential window for them seems to be rather narrow at best.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Monday, August 19, 2013 - 04:14 pm: Edit

There are so many things Omega needs before fast warships, IMHO.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Monday, August 19, 2013 - 05:04 pm: Edit

The next thing done for Omega should (imo) include speed 32 warships, for all races, including (if space permits) war construction (cw/dw etc) and attrition unit carriers and escorts (if any) to make it something more usable against the standard races. This will make it more usable in player campaigns and non historical pick-up games. Historical omega ships only please, there are far too many empires involved to waste pages on conjectural designs.

I am also interested in fast ships and x-ships, but not before the above is done.

The existing published races should get these things before any non-published empires get worked on, imo. Worry about the non-published empires after the current ones are made more workable against non-omegan units.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - 12:24 pm: Edit

Richard,

I don't get it. Why should Omega have speed-32 warships? No one (other than some "monsters") have those. Even X-ships and "fast" ships in Alpha are speed-31, tactically.

Is the "32" in your post a typo? If you meant to say that Omega should get speed-31 warships; I don't have a problem with that. But if you are actually advocating for Omega to get speed-32 ships you need a much more complete explanation of how and why.

By Nick Samaras (Koogie) on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - 12:29 pm: Edit

Well, Omega is supposed to be different

By Michael Kenyon (Mikek) on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - 12:45 pm: Edit

Alan,

I think Richard was talking about "General War" level ships with 30 warp. Most SC3 Omega ships cannot hit that speed, regardless of how much power some of them may have.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - 01:03 pm: Edit

Michael,

I suspected that might be the case, hence my question whether "speed-32" was a typo and whether he intended to say "speed-31".

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - 01:29 pm: Edit

Well, techncally you can go speed 32 in FC, but how and ever...


Personally, while I agree that it may be wise to have one of the "new ships for current empires" modules as the next choice for Omega, I'm not sure if all of them need to be done before moving on to any of the "lost futures" modules.

For example, of the groups of three new factions in the August 2012 memo, the Vulpa-Nucian-Paravian trio would only need to wait until whichever module expanded upon the Mæsron Alliance. (The Vulpa would need to know what to work with based upon their own Mæsron design heritage, the Nucians' own tech tree might not necessarily be too far away from that of their ethnic Vulpa relatives, while the Omega-Paravians would fit in with these other two factions in terms of technology.)

On the other hand, I'd argue that only one of the two other "lost futures" groupings would work as a full module. The Echarri-Scon-Zosman file might need to wait a bit longer, so probably ought to be shuffled further down along the queue - but perhaps not quite to the very end. On the other hand, the proposed Jindarian Freehold/Loriyill Splinter Collective/Hiver Unihive trio might not be worth doing as a module in and of itself; but there should be enough Jindarian Freehold designs to be worth doing as part of a general "reinforcements" module, which perhaps could add in new toys like fast cruisers and battleships to the mix. (The Splinter Collective and Unihive may or may not be worth doing as SSD variants, since neither is really a full-on separate fleet in terms of starship design.)


So, in my view, one order of preference module-wise could be:

1) Second Great War*: Union (Mæsron-FRA-Probr-Koligahr-Hiver-Chlorophon-Branthodon),
2) Lost Futures: Vulpa-Nucian-Paravian,
3) Second Great War: Bloc + Mercenaries (Sigvirion-Trobrin-Vari-Alunda-Worb-Iridani-Bolosco),
4) Lost Futures: Echarri-Scon-Zosman,
5) Second Great War: Non-Aligned Factions (Drex-Loriyill-Souldra-Ymatrian-Singer-Ryn-Qixa),
6) "reinforcements" module: Jindarian Freehold, battleships, fast cruisers, etc.

Not counting any of the earlier (or later) ideas, such as Early Years or X-ships or whatnot.

Oh, and to re-iterate, I would argue that as much space as possible should be saved for actual new hulls (like the Vari Wing Cruiser) in these upcoming modules. If any of the pre-existing hulls are to be given "plus refits" (akin to that which allowed the Hydran Ranger to go speed-31 in the General War), I would ask for those upgrades to be worked into the currently-published SSDs, as and when the five modules' SSD books are revised and updated. (Perhaps for release on e23?) That would help significantly in terms of freeing up more space for things like "war" classes, transports, and bases.


*The August 2012 memo suggests doing the current crop of 21 empires in groups of seven. I would recommend using the Second Great War as the means of allocating factions to each module, as a strong theme by which to bind the series together.

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - 02:15 pm: Edit

Yeah, sorry, meant speed 31 warships.

I think the order of modules proposed by Gary is a terrible idea, which would make sense considering my suggestion.

Filling out the fleets of the published empires should take priority over publishing more empires. Omega already has arguably too many empires and those that exist need attention.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - 02:22 pm: Edit

By all means feel free to propose your own order of preference, if you hate mine so much.

How would you split the 21 current empires into groups of seven? (And which groups would you want done when?)

Once those are done, how would you prioritise the "lost futures" empires?

And once those were done, where would you want Omega to go next?

By Richard B. Eitzen (Rbeitzen) on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - 02:31 pm: Edit

I've already explained my priority in my post on aug 19 at 5:04 pm, and do not need to add more at this time.

By Andrew Harding (Warlock) on Friday, August 23, 2013 - 05:57 am: Edit

Concur with making existing races campaign capable before adding more. Perfect balance against all of alpha isn't achievable (after all, many alpha matchups have balance issues, especially non-historical ones) but simply having a selection of speed 31 designs would be a great start.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Friday, August 23, 2013 - 11:46 am: Edit

I can understand wanting to get more of the current published empires up to speed. But of the groups of seven I proposed above, I'm not convinced that all three of them need to be a priority before starting to tackle the "lost futures" empires.

Even if the Union and Bloc+Mercenary files were done first, would the non-aligned powers be in such high demand as to need to be done before starting on the Vulpa, Nucians, and Paravians?

(Plus there's the issue of fighting for slots on the SFB production schedule. Much as I would love to see the next batch of modules all be for non-Alpha settings like Omega, Triangulum, and the LMC, even I am not so optimistic as to think that is going to happen. How many more years need there be before any of the "lost futures" get their chance at being "found"?)


Now, I should note that just because I want to use the Second Great War as a means of allocating each group of seven current empires doesn't mean that other divisions aren't out there to be considered. If there has to be a limit of seven empires done at one time (in accordance with the August 2012 memo), are there any other ideas as to how to assign them into each module?