Admiral-level campaign, some help required

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murtalianconfederacy
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Admiral-level campaign, some help required

Post by murtalianconfederacy »

Yep, I'm running an Admiral-level exploration campaign (don't know what possessed me to try it with pen and paper), but I have a couple of questions:

1) I've seen some campaign reports that have Commodore or Admiral-level system generation and trade fleets. Is it okay to use them, and if so, should a change be made in the rules for trade fleets so that a trade fleet returns 10% of the TDP from three zones? I think that would be a good idea, as it means that a homeworld is the only source of trade income possible if you want to exploit all three zones, and makes it slightly more interesting.

2) Can a transport fleet transport RAW from a planet (not asteroid belt) if the planet is uninhabited and/or has no Productivity? I've got a hostile planet with a RAW of 4 but a capacity of 2, and the barren planet has a RAW of 2 only. If I could, that would really help matters...

3) Regarding IND-X powers (specifically IND-2 and IND-3). I know that IND-3 powers should, in theory, be able to travel the system they are in. But could an IND-2 power travel beyond its planet of origin, even within its own zone, and would it still halve its Productivity? I don't think it would be able to travel, and I think its Prod. would still be halved, but I'd like a heads-up as my NPE-activating gift/curse has generated one.
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Tyrel Lohr
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Re: Admiral-level campaign, some help required

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

1) I've seen some campaign reports that have Commodore or Admiral-level system generation and trade fleets. Is it okay to use them, and if so, should a change be made in the rules for trade fleets so that a trade fleet returns 10% of the TDP from three zones? I think that would be a good idea, as it means that a homeworld is the only source of trade income possible if you want to exploit all three zones, and makes it slightly more interesting.
A trade fleet works the same in Commodore and Admiral as in the other system generation detail levels, in that it services the entire star system that it visits. However, there is no reason why you couldn't change the rules so that a single trade fleet can include a maximum of three orbital zones (not star systems) along its trade route.

Another thing to consider is to adopt a rule similar to what Federation Admiral and Second Edition will be using, in which each trade fleet (trade link in those books) simply "activates trade" in a single system -- so instead of setting up routes the 1E method, you just move a trade fleet into the system and leave it there to collect 10% of the output of the colonies in the system that you can trade with.
2) Can a transport fleet transport RAW from a planet (not asteroid belt) if the planet is uninhabited and/or has no Productivity? I've got a hostile planet with a RAW of 4 but a capacity of 2, and the barren planet has a RAW of 2 only. If I could, that would really help matters...
It is not strictly allowed in the basic rules, but I have done this before in some game situations where the empire just really needed the extra income. The way I ruled it was that you had to have a transport fleet at the source and destination colonies (plus a transport fleet in each star system in between, if transporting between systems) to siphon the RAW back home. This has the effect of increasing the raiding chance in the affected system, making it a bit riskier to setup a lot of RAW pipelines -- unless you have the military resources to protect the system from the inevitable pirate attacks.
3) Regarding IND-X powers (specifically IND-2 and IND-3). I know that IND-3 powers should, in theory, be able to travel the system they are in. But could an IND-2 power travel beyond its planet of origin, even within its own zone, and would it still halve its Productivity? I don't think it would be able to travel, and I think its Prod. would still be halved, but I'd like a heads-up as my NPE-activating gift/curse has generated one.
IND-2 powers are intended to be those that have a level of technological sophistication anywhere from Earth circa the launch of Sputnik to whatever indeterminate point in time we have routine space travel to Mars. If your IND-2 power is fairly late in its development cycle, you could allow it to have built up some orbital infrastructure (starbases, etc.) and have a bit more Productivity, but it should still be less powerful than a IND-3 power.

This question reminds me that the situation will be more clear-cut in 2E, as we have actual propulsion technologies that have to be researched that will provide a hard limit on these low-tech empire's ambitions. For example, your Industrial empire will be largely planet-bound until it develops Defense technology (allows construction of Starbases & Satellites), and it is not until Engine technology is unlocked that it can build Starships and Flights.

-Tyrel
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Post by murtalianconfederacy »

Thanks for the heads-up. I've had a really bad cold (still got it, actually) so I haven't been able to drag myself to the library, and I stopped the campaign--Admiral-level campaigns are too hard. But my mind has once again circled around to thinking about running a non-exploration campaign in an Admiral-level generation system...
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Post by Tyrel Lohr »

Admiral-level campaigns seem to work best when you have about a dozen star systems or thereabouts to work with. You might also have better luck with a pen-and-paper Admiral-level exploration campaign if you start with a fixed number of starting empires and then make exploration much more difficult. That will force the majority of the campaign action to take place in a controlled environment, but still leave the possibility of expansion elsewhere.

You could also handle the map a bit differently, and instead of having one large, expansive jump lane network instead break the map into small star clusters -- kind of how the back history from the Mass Effect game is setup. That way you could have "Mass Relay" equivalents spread around space, with each relay linking itself to another destination relay in another star cluster. By doing it this way, you could even make it so that an empire has to pay economic points to activate the new mass relays, and then just use exploration ships to map the clusters that they find.

For these destination clusters, you can just add a penalty to the jump lane result chart roll so that each system has fewer jump lanes attaching to it. This will make it more likely that each cluster will contain only a few star systems. You would also have to add a roll in to have a chance per system of discovering another mass relay, but that might be as simple as rolling 1D10 and placing a new relay in the system on a roll of 10+. I would add a cumulative +1 modifier for each system explored in the cluster in order to increase the odds of finding an "exit point" out of the cluster, though this modifier would reset to zero after each new relay is discovered.

Most of my exploration campaigns are played at the Captain level because the extra star system details at the Commodore and Admiral levels do tend to be overkill for the kind of game experience I am looking for.

-Tyrel
[i]"Touch not the pylons, for they are the messengers!"[/i]
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