Federation Commander

[JonPerry]

Gambler - what path did you follow to get to that map link?
I'm wondering what else is on this site that i didn't know about.

[mwaschak]

Ok, cool. I think we are close then. I think the WYN doesn't actually reach the Klingon border.

There is a LOT of great material on this website to read and explore. I was using the basic F&E map as the reference. I figured with the WYN and a cartel operating out of the cluster there might actually be more room than meets the eye.

I was also wondering if a generous neutral zone would give us more room for NPE worlds. It is pretty easy to change, and since we are not quite ready to start I don't mind debating the map a bit .



Thoughts?

[JonPerry]

Yeah.....even as I was typing my earlier post i wondered at what added possibilities would be opened up by a wider neutral zone.

My OCD mindset naturally wants the map to scale as closely to the F&E map as possible. If cool options are opened up by a wider neutral zone, though, that is important.

What kind of things could a wider zone buy us?

[mwaschak]

Well, there are bunch of small things that would be important that I can quickly summarize. For one, players would naturally be further away from their own supply lines, reinforcements, and home field advantage. But it also gives us more room to introduce neutral worlds and NPE, and thus more missions and opportunities to interact with them.

Generally speaking, and we might need to adjust this depending on the scenario, sending warships to the neutral zone might increase tension. I need to do some reading and see how the political climate was. A Lyran ship operating near Klingon space might not be too much cause for alarm, but a fleet of warships may.

-Jay

[gambler1650]

JonPerry: If you go to:
http://www.federationcommander.com/
and click on the "About the Universe" button, there's a lot of information.

Jay: I think the last map is pretty close to the 'F&E' universe. My impression, and it might be completely wrong, is that by the time of the General War, the Klingons and Lyrans were firm allies. They'd already gone through the Four Powers war as allies and I don't recall reading anything that suggested there were tensions between the two from that point on. That doesn't mean that there were huge fleets on their mutual borders either, but it might mean that the Lyrans wouldn't mind Klingons in their section of the neutral zone, allowing the Klingons a route to visit the Wyn.

[Scoutdad]

Actually... In Federaiton and Empire, although they are allies, they are not treated as "Allied" during Turn 1.
Lyran ships can not enter Klingon space...
The Klingons can not openly send economic support to the Lyrans (although they could likely hire mercenaries to do so - but this would be on a scale to small for F&E. Now a regional scale Fed Admiral campaign OTOH...)
Klingon ships can not enter Lyran space (nor can they attack the Kzinti).
Klingons can build up border defenses and stack assualt units (but this only serves to alarm the Kzinti - and rightly so)
And so on.

Now on Turn 2, it's a totally different matter.
_________________
Commander, Battlegroup Murfreesboro
Department Head, ACTASF

[gambler1650]

Scoutdad,

I was talking more from the point of view of the neutral zone than Klingons entering Lyran space or vice versa. A Klingon ship following hexes 1310, 1210, 1209, and into Wyn territory might not cause much of a stir among the Lyrans. A Klingon ship going from 1609, 1508, 1408, 1307 might cause a bit more of a stir amongst the Kzintis.

[mwaschak]

Thank you for the input. We should probably decide if we want to go a few years before this (F&E turns are 6 months IIRC), and if we want to assume the galaxy progressed the way it did. I could create all kinds of very open major objectives and see how the game progresses. It is up to you guys .

-Jay

[JonPerry]

In one of the bits of fluff somewhere in the SFU, it is stated that the Fed-Gorn treaty is the only treaty between two powers that is based upon mutual trust and respect. I've always inferred from this that the rest are based more upon balance of power and necessity, and therefore more subject to change.

If you take it back a few years, you can have a time when there is all manner of unease at a local level between the Lyran and the Klinks, even as their higher echelons of gov't are trying to make nice with each other.

Opens up more possibilities.

Or one may simply assume a different political climate and have all three empires be antagonistic toward each other. Or assume a period of recrimination between the Klinks and Lyrans following the end of the 4 Powers War, as each blames the other for their failures in that conflict.

This may only be something to consider if there are enough players to support "plausibly deniable" operations between the Lyrans and Klinks. If there are not, then their border probably doesn't matter.

Oh, and "NPE" = Non Player Entities?

What is a "turn" in a campaign sense? Is it a set unit of time (X weeks or months), or simply an amorphous block of time used solely as a regulator for a sequence of play?

[gambler1650]

I do remember that piece of fluff about Gorn and Feds... I think there was a recent Captain's Log where a question was asked why the Klingons and Lyrans were allies, and the answer seemed to indicate that it was 'common enemy, common goals, respect as warriors in past wars'. It's definitely the case that before the Four Powers War there was tension between the Lyrans and Klingons (and by tension, I mean at least one actual war well in the past... )

http://www.starfleetgames.com/documents/Timeline.pdf

This all said, I have no problems whatsoever with non-historical scenarios.. after all, the moment we turn in our first turns in a campaign, it's non-historical. So any level of tension for the Lyrans-Klingons is fine with me! (Of course, I do plan to play on the Kzinti side, so take that statement as you like).

[mwaschak]

Right, NPE's are Non-Player Entities. This can take many forms depending on how I build up the scenario.

Ok, I am going to have some fun with this. It sounds like the scenario design should show how easily the General War can spring from this situation with more an emphasis on good Klingon/Lyran relations. Of course, once we turn you guys loose in the sandbox who knows what will happen. Even going with the base rules as written, the initial hatred between the Kzinti and Lyrans makes any positive diplomatic actions extremely difficult.

If this map is generally ok I am going to start seeding it with important bases and colonies next. Then we can start recruiting players.

So, before I begin. Any key bases or worlds I shouldn't forget in this corner of the universe.

The base turn in a VBAM campaign is 1 month, and a year is 12 turns. That is the grand scale. So the regional campaign basically divides that by 2, and a gives the turn a length of about 2.5 weeks.

-Jay

[JonPerry]

The map Gambler posted is (to my knowledge) the only 'official' map to go by. Of course, that only shows Starbases, Battle Stations (maybe base stations at this point?) plus major and minor planets.

At a reduced scale, there are all sorts of extra things (colonies, commercial bases, mining stations in asteroid belts, etc) that could get thrown in.

Which makes me wonder about blowing the map up more (making it more bigger in the process) to scale down to a more granular level.

But for the "main" stuff, it's all there in that Federation and Empire map.

[Scoutdad]

[mwaschak]

[mwaschak]

We can probably "unstick" this thread at this point.