William, the topic is created.

By Michael Helbig (Admgrraven) on Saturday, September 12, 2015 - 12:50 pm: Edit

Looking at getting back into SFB would be interested in a new campaign

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Saturday, September 12, 2015 - 03:27 pm: Edit

There is one open spot. Likely the Kzinti, but the races haven't been assigned. We will also need battle captains if you'd rather.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Sunday, September 13, 2015 - 01:54 am: Edit

I am reposting the two main posts I wrote that are sort of "teaser-trailers" for this campaign, along with significant new information.

========

One idea I've had is one set in the mid-180s, where everyone is trying to continue the General War, except the ISC are trying to stop them. It is loosely based on F&E ISC War. Players get rewarded for beating up on their enemies, and the ISC gets rewarded when they don't. This campaign would work best with one or two ISC players and as many Galactic players as could be found. I like this because it actually uses the ISC in the way they're meant to be used rather than trying to pretend they were a 160s and 170s power by nerfing all their ships. It's also nice because, while it's a pacification program era campaign, it's not just everybody vs. the ISC - the Klingons would rather be fighting the Kzinti and Feds, and will be most of the time. It's GM-less as well, so I could play (and I would be willing, but not insistent, on playing the ISC). The downside is, you do have to play in the Y180s. Which is not all bad, it's just a limitation. An Andromedan player could possibly be accommodated.

This campaign lends itself well to a "soft time limit." Players keep fighting until there are just too many Andromedans to bother squabbling among each other.

========

What I am thinking of for Andros goes a little like this. The Andros will spend most of the campaign trying to set up bases to function as RTN nodes. Most of the battles will be either Galactics stumbling over the bases, or Andros launching raids for more supplies. (Most of those raids will actually be in the form of "eliminate this squadron of ships so some off-screen bull snakes can load up the dilithium"). Sometimes the Galactics will stumble over an Andro base and fight. Meanwhile, the Galactics will keep trying to figure out how the RTN works. So the Andros need to do everything they can to prevent the Galactics from gaining that information. Once the RTN is discovered, the Andros are in trouble. If the campaign reaches Y195, the Darwin will return from the future and reveal th secret. Maybe, we can play Return of the Darwin to determine if the RTN is revealed or not.

Damage to the RTN slows the Andromedan progress. A well-tuned RTN speeds it. It also, of course, determines how easy it is for the Andros to redeploy their ships.

The Andromedan victory condition is to secretly construct a Desecrator starbase within the galaxy. Once this happens, the ITL opens up and the Andros conquer the galaxy.

The specifics of how easy or hard it is to build, find, destroy, and move Andromedan equipment are undefined at this time and will have to be simulated. I do know that the historical Andromedan arrival schedule of 1 Intruder, 1 Dominator, and a handful of Conquistadors per year is a nice starting point, but Dominators are a lot to handle if we are limiting fleet sizes and so it might end up being like 2xCOQ, 1xINT per year and one or two Dominators total over the course of the campaign.

TBH I think people are more excited about the Andros than anything else!

========

I am not sure if it is appropriate for me to both GM and play as the ISC, and I am currently thinking this campaign cannot be GM-less, although that is subject to change. I would, of course, still be able to play them in battle.

However, it might be possible to move the ISC by automatic rules - as they have capabilities and goals nobody else does, and they are everyone's enemy. It is not unlike the dealer in blackjack in that way. This will make the ISC somewhat predictable, but this might actually make the game better.

Because the war takes place entirely in the outer reaches of empires, there will be no capital assaults, and no way to eliminate another player. The ISC has made it clear to all races that full mobilization for war will not be tolerated. There are, however, only so many ISC ships to go around, and in the absence of a major invasion, they must disperse their fleets to try to force everyone to stay out of the border areas. Generally speaking, the ISC will have about 1/3 of the total ships in the game.

But the border areas are relatively valuable. Because these areas were devastated during the main part of the war, very little development was done on them, and there was not time to develop infrastructure needed to extract the Germanium, as well as the Ironium and Boranium that are necessary for X-technology (Germanium is needed for X-tech computers, fire controls, and power systems, while Boranium is needed for X-weapons, and Ironium for X-ship hulls). The differences between these minerals are not necessarily apparent at the strategic level. It is simply enough to know that everybody needs them, and they can be found in these disputed areas. Holding planets is abstract; you don't have to build factories and deploy ground bases. Simply having ships in the sector is sufficient. The planets will produce a relatively small amount of income for the player. However, holding planets means more of the income they do have will be in the form of X-EPs, which are needed to build, repair, and convert X-ships.

The border areas will be divided into a number of sectors. In general, you can expect each border to be about 3-5 sectors wide. There will be neutral zone sectors (the original neutral zone), border sectors (the outer reaches of each empire adjacent to the neutral zones), and interior sectors ("behind" the border sectors). So each border between races will have about 20 sectors, give or take. However, in any given campaign turn, nothing will happen in most of these sectors.

Each player may deploy his forces with impunity in the interior sectors. Deployments in your own interior sectors will not accomplish much, but they will not attract the attention of the ISC; they can also react to raids.

Players may also deploy into their border sectors. This may be done in order to control and develop the resources found there, to hunt Andromedans, or simply to occupy the territory and show the flag. If a player holds a border sector, they gain points for holding it (and prevent the ISC from doing the same), earn possible bonuses from planets in that sector, and, optionally, can develop the planets (increasing the bonuses they provide).

There is a wildcard with development in border sectors. The ISC will allow a player to develop a planet in a border sector purely with civilian units. These are non-military and therefore do not provoke ISC retaliation. They also do not defend the planet from raids coming across the border...

Players may launch raids across the border. Cross-border raids can be difficult to pull off, because the raiding forces may be intercepted, either by the player being raided or the ISC. However, players earn extra bonus points for occupying sectors in opposing territory. They also can attack the infrastructure there, reducing the development level of the planets.

Finally, the neutral zone sectors. These are, in a manner of speaking, the ISC's home territory. The ISC will deploy bases in certain neutral zone sectors which serve as supply and rendezvous points. They also, in general, occupy neutral zone planets for resources. Players may attack the ISC bases and attempt to occupy neutral zone planets, but this will anger the ISC. It might, however, cause enough damage to the ISC overall to be worth the trouble.

While the ISC does not have an RTN, their ability to rapidly travel between bases is similar (they just aren't hidden or movable). A destroyed ISC base will prevent the ISC from quickly moving forces across the break in the network. They do have the ability to replace destroyed bases, but only up to a point.

The ISC earns points based on the total number of neutral zone and border sectors which contain no player-controlled ships. This happens whether the players simply deployed no ships there, or whether the ISC defeated them. The ISC earns a bonus (for forcing an empire to "demobilize") if a race has no forces at all outside of their interior sectors. This is on a per-front basis, so for example, if the Romulans are demobilized on the Gorn front but not the Federation front, they would earn the bonus; if the Romulans were demobilized on both fronts, they would earn it twice. The longer a front is demobilized, the more points the ISC earns.

The ISC may commandeer planets in the border sectors. This transfers all the resources from the planets to the ISC, but only for as long as the ISC holds the planet. The ISC has the most ships, but they don't have more than everyone put together; if the ISC commandeers too many planets, the need to defend them all will put them at a significant numerical disadvantage.

The ISC (if using automated rules) will generally follow a pattern of deploying additional forces into "hot" borders, but it will also deploy extra forces if there is a good chance of forcing an empire to demobilize. It will also deploy additional forces when necessary to commandeer planets. Low priority sectors will naturally be those where relatively little is happening.

The interaction of civilian development and the ISC is interesting. It might be a totally viable strategy for a player to just develop everything with civilians and let the ISC take care of defending their border. But the ISC might commandeer their planets, fail to defend the border, or simply sit back and collect demobilization bonuses.

Two borders are special: Gorn-ISC and Romulan-ISC. The Gorns and Romulans may not strike the ISC itself, but will operate similarly on their side of the border. Because of the threat from these barbarians, neutral zone incursions in these sectors will provoke a larger ISC response, potentially forcing the ISC to withdraw forces from other areas. This can be advantageous to the Galactic powers as a whole as it can force the ISC to station unnecessary ships on border patrol.

The ISC can win in a variety of ways. First, if every border is demobilized at once, the ISC wins immediately. Second, the ISC can win by earning a certain number of points through demobilization. The ISC can lose if too many of its bases are destroyed, or of course if the Andromedans win.

Individual galactic powers accrue victory points as described, and in the event that the ISC and Andromedans both lose, the rankings will be in the order of whoever has earned the most victory points.

Finally, the Andromedans. The Andromedans may deploy and upgrade bases in various sectors generally following the pattern given in Module C3. The Andromedans may redeploy ships according to the capacity of RTN links in their sectors (larger bases having higher-capacity links). New Andromedan ships enter via Hydran, Klingon, Romulan, or ISC territory and must disperse throughout the galaxy from there. The Andromedans can earn resources in a similar manner as Galactics, but they cannot be reacted to. They will only have combat if they enter a sector with Galactic forces and either attack or the Galactic mission is hunting Andromedans. Of course, the Andromedans need to attack in order to gather resources. If they just sneak around all day, they'll never get anything done. As before, the Andromedan victory condition remains building a Desecrator. The Andromedans lose if all their entry points to the galaxy are destroyed. Andromedan bases are easy to move and difficult to find until the secret of the RTN is unlocked. After that, they are still relatively easy to move, but a partially-constructed Desecrator can't be moved, putting a very serious cramp in the Andromedan war machine once the RTN is discovered. The Andromedans may work on multiple Desecrators, which is a case of how many eggs they want to put in each basket. If they just have one, it'll be a little easier to build it, but if it's destroyed, they're in trouble. Too many Andromedans in one place will tend to attract the attention of the Galactics, making it more likely that whatever they're doing will be found out. Essentially, the entire Andromedan operation needs to be one big misdirection.

It's theoretically possible for Andromedans, ISC, and two other empires to all have forces trying to fight in the same sector at the same time. In a case like this, as fun as a huge four-sided melee would be, it's likely better to resolve this as two separate battles, followed by a fight between the two victorious forces.

========

Current player list:

Me (GM)
Andromedan
Neonpico
Metaldog
Vandor
JonB
Petercool
Devil
Admgrraven

Races are not assigned yet, but I think everyone's preferences are largely compatible. I'll contact everyone by email, probably tomorrow (Sunday), to start that process.

Formal rules are making some progress. I still expect to have them in a usable state sometime this coming week.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Sunday, September 13, 2015 - 04:02 pm: Edit

Wow... I like this set up. Very nice the ISC with the automated rules would work fine as You playing them. As running the game and playing the ISC is compatable that way. Mind you players with out battles of there own could captain a ISC fleet against a other players race. (they would want the ISC to win.)

I am guessing we(the players) are the admiral in charge and at the mercy of the civilian governors on how much money we get for are forces?

By Michael Helbig (Admgrraven) on Sunday, September 13, 2015 - 07:39 pm: Edit

I would be very happy taking Kzinti

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Sunday, September 13, 2015 - 09:02 pm: Edit

I am not 100% sure on economics yet except that I favor simple economics.

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - 12:30 am: Edit

Wilson; consider pre-designing what people get, a-la the FnE build orders. Then give people a certain amount of BVP to play with for variants, refits, or extra goodies.

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - 02:52 am: Edit

I have considered both standardized build schedules as well as doing something like the F&E system. Both of those suffer from flaws, of course. As does BPV. But then, BPV is the SFB system; it's flawed too, but they're OUR flaws. Heh.

If anyone has really great concepts I'm listening (or if there is consensus that things should be done a certain way), but right now am leaning toward good old fashioned BPV-based ship costs.

The ISC will probably have a more or less fixed build schedule.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - 06:10 pm: Edit

I like Jon Berry above. We get a fixed amount of ships for each of are boarders(facing a player?) Some extra BPV that we the Admiral of that boarder can buy/order special ships. Each boarder should be one fleet. I think that would keep battle sizes down for playing on SFBOL. With replacement ships to be ordered after each game turn. Not sure if players could switch ships from one boarder to another. Just a few thoughts not sure in helpful are not

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Thursday, September 17, 2015 - 11:32 am: Edit

Gregory, you may want to check your auto-correct. It repeatedly replaced "Border" with "Boarder".

Are you subtly implying that you will capture all the ships you face, or that you are a pirate in disguise? ;)

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Thursday, September 17, 2015 - 06:00 pm: Edit

Sorry about the typo really. My spelling is atrocious. Spell check helps but well. I am a shipyard worker

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Thursday, September 17, 2015 - 10:44 pm: Edit

A "Shipyard Worker" who boards things, huh...

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Friday, October 02, 2015 - 01:59 am: Edit

Hi all,
Just wanted to check in - have had a pretty hectic couple of weeks here. Did not lose interest, find an insurmountable problem, get turned into lamb chops, etc etc. Just too busy to do much SFB lately. But I am back and will work on the rules this weekend. Sorry for the delay.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandor) on Friday, October 02, 2015 - 03:40 pm: Edit

Is ok Sheap. Busy as well... and now OH NO!!! hurricane coming. Going to bounce out to sea me thinks tho. Poor east coast going to get lots of rain.

By Michael Kenyon (Mikek) on Thursday, October 15, 2015 - 11:43 pm: Edit

Sheap, You need any more players?

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Friday, October 16, 2015 - 06:46 pm: Edit

We might! All the official slots are full, but we definitely need captains and I'm still not 100% sure on the ISC automatic rules, so they might be available.

To all, sorry I haven't posted an update recently. This weekend is dedicated to rules writing!

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Saturday, October 17, 2015 - 12:18 pm: Edit

Sheap, don't write so much you start to use blood for ink. It smears so much!

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Saturday, October 17, 2015 - 07:02 pm: Edit

Don't worry, I'm used to writing things in blood.

By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Sunday, October 18, 2015 - 12:21 am: Edit

You're a LAWYER?!?!?!?!?

By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Sunday, October 18, 2015 - 03:39 am: Edit

Only a rules lawyer. Which might be worse.

By Michael Kenyon (Mikek) on Sunday, October 18, 2015 - 10:29 pm: Edit

Let me know if you need anything. Glad to help in whatever capacity.