Hi!


I was flicking through GPD4 looking for information for a new fiction piece I'm working on, and I noticed the map on page 135 showing the various zones of influence of the 11 major Orion Cartels in the Alpha Octant - and it got me thinking...

What if a campaign could be set up with multiple Orion players struggling for influence on the F&E map?

Orion players would start off with the zone of influence shown in GRPD4, generate resources from hidden miing operations, raids on regular shipping and so forth, while seeking to nudge each other out of the way in search of the best shipping routes to prey on.

The Coalition, Alliance and neutrals would be treated either as NPCs (essentially, automated in their response to Orion raids in the way Orions themselves can be automated in regular F%E campaigns) or factored into the EPs which the Orions 'acquire' each turn.

A few Cartel-specific rules could be put together - Cartels operating in Romulan space can use a limited number of cloaks, for example.

The map could be broken into specific regions - so, for example, the Omega, Kublai and Cirentus-Ta can squabble over who gets the choicest cuts of the ISC...

In the example above, rules for using National Guard, Local Defence or Police ships (as seen in Module R8 for SFB) could be allowed if a player chooses to play as the government whose territory is being preyed on - so the ISC Forces of Civil Order can teach those ruffians a thing or two! (This would probably only work if there were only one or two governments' territories were being fought over, though.)


Sound crazy?


Gary

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Saturday, July 08, 2006 - 02:47 am: Edit

Not really, seeing that one of the options for the STARFLEET COMMAND - ORION PIRATES computer game is to do exactly that.

Of course, they don't use the F&E map or SFB's list'o'cartels, but otherwise that's one option of the game. And it is very playable!

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, August 07, 2006 - 12:58 pm: Edit

Well, how best would/could such a scenario be set up?

Perhaps start off with a specific section of the map and go from there - the example of the three ISC-annoying Cartels for one.


(Indeed, it may be an interesting way to flesh out ISC War - have the police ships and local defence units trying to flush out the rival Cartels, while the Crion facitons have a go at each other in the meantime)

Perhaps the importance of worlds such as Circle Trigon could be raised as important 'nodes' of cross-faction trade (they won't always be fighting each other)?


Gary

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Saturday, December 17, 2011 - 05:08 pm: Edit

In my campaign "Apocalypse Part Two", this time I'm including the Orion Pirates on the F&E map. I'm using Cyberboard, which makes it way easier to manage everything.

Basically, each cartel is played by either the Alliance or the Coalition player by very strict rules on how the cartels interact with each other and the Galactic Empires.
It uses a combination of (504.0) and (529.0) rules, which I will post shortly.

In the meantime, here is the map: MAP

I apologize for the crudity of my outline. I am NOT an artist, and I wanted to just get it done.
I tried as best I could to transfer the cartels in as close to the same shape as they are in R8.0

Feedback welcome!

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Tuesday, December 20, 2011 - 08:36 pm: Edit

Wow, tough crowd.

Anyone have any comments about the MAP?

By Andrew Bruno (Admeeral) on Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - 09:41 pm: Edit

Hehheh. It's getting a bit tuff to find current posts in this topic... my phone won't access map link but I look forward to checking it out when I get home.

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Thursday, December 22, 2011 - 02:19 am: Edit

Randy, I went to the site link but there's no preview available and the file is 64mb. Can you shrink the file down some??

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Thursday, December 22, 2011 - 06:15 am: Edit

I too have had thoughts of a scenario like this.

An overlay onto the map of sorts can be arranged in digital formats for trials.

Varied scenarios could then be portrayed and tested. From a standard F&E game with Orions involved (where players, using the rules, draw limited forces from the cartel in the area each turn). To an Orion stand alone scenario.

The ideas need to be fleshed out privately really and brought to ADB in the proper formats for them to consider how best to develop it. If it is posted freely in a semi-developed format you will likely lose the ability for it to be financially feasible for ADB to support and thus the idea will be DOA.

Just be careful fellas there is good stuff here and it should have a chance to come out in some format like a CL or mini module.

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Thursday, December 22, 2011 - 07:35 pm: Edit

Ah, good point, Lar. I'm writing up the rules as we speak. An untimely breakup with my girlfriend put it on the back burner, but now I can focus again.

Do you want me to send them to you when I'm done, and maybe you can critique it a bit and then once it's hammered out a bit, I can send it to ADB?

As far as the bitmap size goes, I suppose I could try to shrink it, but it is Cyberboard's .bmp output. I could try to make it into a .jpg, so let me try that and see if that works.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, December 22, 2011 - 10:40 pm: Edit

Randy, I took it into PaintShop Pro and scale it to 50%, then saved as JPG. It went from 64MB to 1.7MB Still large but not excessively so.

And for what it's worth, I had the same idea a long time ago about having mulitple Orion players.


Garth L. Getgen

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Friday, December 23, 2011 - 01:42 pm: Edit

Hey Garth, good catch. No reduction in resolution?
I didn't think of that when I posted it - the sheer size that is.

I'd like to collaborate with Lar and you (and anyone else who may be interested in my new pirate rules). You game? (pun intended)

By Lee Hanna (Lee) on Friday, December 23, 2011 - 01:56 pm: Edit

I've always wanted to experiment with pirate-y stuff, myself. I'll playtest with you, if that's what you're looking for.

Scenario-wise, you could even run this outside the General War, before, after, whatever. I've long wondered what a peacetime F&E game would look like-- 1 player for a fleet commander, 1-2 pirates, wandering monsters and Andros, and a few cross-border raids to make things lively?

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, December 23, 2011 - 05:13 pm: Edit

Randy, 50% reduction is still very legible. Reduced to 33% is a little blurry, but it shows what you're trying to convey.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, December 23, 2011 - 05:16 pm: Edit

My thought was to slash the empire fleets to a quarter or less of the existing pre-war OOB with one Police boat per province (not per hex), and have on-map counters for freighters moving "cargo" from planet to planet. Perhaps a card-deck of supply & demand (ala the railroad games). And the the pirates get to hunt the convoys while the empires try to protect them.


Garth L. Getgen

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Friday, December 23, 2011 - 07:28 pm: Edit

Ok, here's a new MAP

Old link no longer works. Use this one. Smaller JPG file.

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Friday, December 23, 2011 - 07:35 pm: Edit

Interesting concept, Garth.
I wasn't thinking in terms of a pirate only game, but the idea is very intriguing.
The manuscript I'm writing is meant to replace (504.0) and (529.0) rules, and combine them together with the extra stuff I'm adding in. Like Independent Pirates (indies) who are never played by another player, but everyone wants them in their Cartel. Orion Bases. Territory expansion rules, etc.

(5AP) - Advanced Pirate rules.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, December 24, 2011 - 07:23 pm: Edit

Randy, that's about as far as I've gotten with the idea. Nothing on paper.

Regarding Orion bases, here's what's been bouncing around inside my head:

BATS: 9-12(6)/5-6(3)
BS: 8-10(6)/4-5(3)

Each Orion Cartel receives three BATS and five BS at the start of the game. The BS may be upgraded to BATS, of course. The bases are located deep with asteroid fields or inside gas clouds and thus are hidden from casual view. Fleet Intelligence knows the general location of the Orion bases, but not the specific location within the hex.

The Orion players will place a counter marking the location of each of their bases, which must be within the Cartel's operational area, must not be in the same hex nor adjacent hex to any planet or regular empire's base (exception: may be adjacent if it's located in a Neutral Zone hex), nor within two hexes of any starbase, and must be no closer than five hexes to nor further than nine hexes from other Orion base of that cartel.

If a regular emprie starship (or Orion ship from another cartel) enters the Orion base's hex, it does not automatically "see" the base. The ship's owner has the option to stop in the hex (or spend one movement point) and roll dice to find the base. Only one search may be conducted per turn, except if during combat as noted below. Roll two six-sided dice; if the result is a TWELVE, the base is located. Add one to the dice roll for every previous attempt (from prior turns), and add one for each scout ship (up to three) in the searching fleet. Once found, that base's location is known, so no further searches are required for that player.

If an Orion base has been located, it may be attacked as normal. If the bases has not been found but there are Orion ships in that hex, they have to option of offering an approach battle or to stay hidden at the base.

If an approach battle is offered and a subsquent round of combat would normally be fought at the base, the Orion player can retreat from the hex (leaving the base's location hidden), or fall back to the base for more combat. If they fall back, the enemy must roll dice to find the base. Again, add one for each previous attempt (including the one from when entering the hex this turn), one for each scout ship (up to three), and add one for every three (round UP) Orion ships falling back to the base. The enemy must have at least one ship survive the battle to report the base's location back to the rest of the fleet; otherwise that player must continue to roll to find the base in future turns.

In theory, an Orion cartel could be allied with a regular empire, and as such the Orion ships may lead friendly ships to their base, thus revealing the base's location to that player. If this happens after an approach battle, the enemy gains plus one to the dice roll for each non-Orion ship falling ack to the base.


Orion ships and stealth bonus: Orion ships counters are placed on the map and move per normal rules during the operational movement phase. However, enemy fleets without a scout ship cannot react to the Orion ship, and those with a scout / at a SB/BATS can "see" and react to Orion ships one hex (not two) away.

Orion ships can use stealth to attempt to evade contact / combat. This can be done either as an attempt to retreat after battle, or to advoid being pinned if the enemy reacts during movement. The enemy rolls two dice, and will find the Orion ships on a TEN or better, adding one for each scout ship (up to three) and one for every three (round UP) Orion ships attempting to evade. If the Orion ships sucessfully evade during movement, they may continue into the next hex (if they have points left), or stop in that hex "hidden". They must retreat out of the hex after combat rounds, and could be detected and forced into a retreat battle.


Those are just a few ideas off the tips of my fingers. I'm not saying they're completely thought out and may need some kinks worked on.


Garth L. Getgen

By Stewart W Frazier (Frazikar2) on Saturday, December 24, 2011 - 07:34 pm: Edit

Garth, I think that the Orion BS needs to lose one more AF (7-10) as both bases have the same 'loss' (6 Ph-4 -> Ph-1)...

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, December 24, 2011 - 08:00 pm: Edit

Stewart, perhaps. We'd have to look at the SSD to be sure. But as I said before, the loss of the PH-4's range is off-set by the base being in terrain, which forces the enemy ships in closer into range of the Ph-1s and heavy weapons ... hence why I did NOT go with Chuck's suggestion of BATS = 6-12 or BS = 5-10.


Garth L. Getgen

By Matthew Potter (Neonpico) on Saturday, December 24, 2011 - 10:04 pm: Edit

Caveat: I don't have F&E Deluxe, but I have F&E '89 (or whatever the really early stuff was). This means I don't have the rules to which I refer.

It seems to me that your rules for finding bases take too much away from the empires. Though I recognize it's because to do them justice would put the whole idea of secret pirate bases out of business.

Could you use the same mechanic that was used to find Andromedan bases? The Andros didn't have stealth, but it still took a scout without all the extra fleet mumbo-jumbo.

Would that mechanic work? This way you don't have to confuse players with Yet Another Mechanic

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, December 24, 2011 - 10:13 pm: Edit

The rules to find an Andro base required a fleet to sit on a hex until they had built up 80 points of dice rolls, using up to 5 dice per turn. If the fleet leaves, all the points are lost. That seemed too much, even if the points aren't lost. I wanted something that allowed one to find a base first try, but odds are it would take three or four tries.


Garth L. Getgen

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Sunday, December 25, 2011 - 12:55 am: Edit

Actually, the rules I'm proposing require a survey ship to be deployed in the operating territory of the particular Cartel. It's basically considered a raid, and is performed in the raid step.
On a 2 from 2d6, the survey ship finds the hex A base is in. The following turn, it moves to that hex and a further 2 on a 2d6 locates the base itself. Modifiers are generally from multiple ships in the hex, information from "indies", etc. (Which is why the Cartels don't want to anger the Independent Operators.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, December 25, 2011 - 03:17 am: Edit

Randy, that works if you don't have the bases marked on the map, but rather written down as "hidden deployment". I was going to go with something like that, but then I remembered all the times I've played games where something was "hidden" by not having a counter on the map. It's too easy to lose track of them. (And we won't mention the time we caught someone cheating by having two or three different notes written down.)

My next idea was to place a counter on the map, but the base could be in that hex or an adjacent one. Again, that seemed overly complay and subject to abuse.

I forgot about survey ships. Let me modify my suggestion by allowing survey ships to count in the three scouth limit, but add two for each instead of add one to the dice roll. Also, let me drop the record keeping of recording previous search attempts. Three survey ships makes one able to find the base with a six or better on two dice -- plenty easy. Almost too easy.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, December 25, 2011 - 03:41 pm: Edit

Now that I had a chance to look at the map closer, I see I have to dial back the deployment restrictions for Orion bases. The way I had it, there are very few hexes that as two hexes away from planets or bases. Ergo, allow me to change the rule to "not in same hex as any other base or planet, and not in adjacent hex to any starbase, and no closer than three hexes away form another Orion base (of the same cartel)".


Garth L. Getgen

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Sunday, December 25, 2011 - 08:40 pm: Edit

Garth,

Right. The rub is that when you're pulling a survey ship off for Pirate base hunting, it's not doing other survey type duties to expand the Empire. We can fiddle with the percentages to come up with something workable. (Still working on the draft proposal.)

The base deployments (currently) are based on the six hex rule for normal base deployments for other empires. Pirates cannot have an operating territory hex that is more than six hexes away from a base, as it's currently written. Base deployments are expensive, and for an empire to hammer a base, means there's a possibility of a vacuum of no pirate operations in a given area, which can cause problems with supply because Indies will charge WAY more than cartels to keep Empire fleets in supply. (410.341)