VBAM 2E: A New Hope

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Tyrel Lohr
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VBAM 2E: A New Hope

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

Okay, it has been way too long since I have been on the forums to post and see what was going on. Here is a run down of what is going on:

First, the last month I have been pouring over the 2E material and have come to the conclusion that the rules as written for the book simply try to do too much too fast. I have tried to cram so much of the existing VBAM 1E content into a single book and provide so many options that it is just too overwhelming. For that reason, I have started reassembling and rewriting the rules so that they will be more accessible and manageable than they were before.

Second, after my vacation in late July / early August, I came to the conclusion that there are several conceits from the VBAM 1E days (and early VBAM 2E draft ones, too) that need to go away or else get pushed to another book entirely just to ensure that the core rules are as easy to use as possible.

What does this means? Well, here is a quick overview of where I am at:

1) Campaign Scopes are gone for now. The book will instead focus strictly on a galaxy-level campaign with smaller sectors. The new map will be a single galaxy map and not have separate maps for each sector. This is intended to simplify the map creation rules, which will use a hex-based ring system for basic positioning and layout, and provide a controlled method with which to generate campaign maps.

Rules for adding additional galaxies will likely be included in a future supplement, and the intergalactic lane and associated drive will accompany it to its new home.

2) All non-interstellar jump lanes have been removed from the core book. This boots us back to a 1E situation where all jump lanes are interstellar lanes that connect star systems. Intergalactic and interplanetary lanes will reappear as necessary, but it was determined that their inclusion in the core rules only helped to muddy the waters when it comes to calculating interstellar distances. The sector lane, meanwhile, was just fiddly. It will be converted into an optional rule.

3) The campaign checks... oh how I hate thee. This has been the #1 holdup in this game's entire development. And, after much soul searching, I came to the conclusion that it just isn't worth trying to find that one great, unified solution to all our campaign check needs. So we just won't even do it. Almost every check of note now has its own 2D10 chart. That gives us a handy-dandy bell curve and full customization of effects. The downside is that we have lots and lots of tables. The upside, however, is that we have greater control over what happens on these rolls without trying to account for percentage based results.

4) Colonies have undergone a few fairly massive changes through the last round of playtesting. Probably best to look at each of them in turn:

4a) Census. Census is multiplied times RAW to determine a colony's economic output. Census points are purchased using population points out of the empire's Population Pool. The cost to purchase a Census is equal to 10 times the new Census value. The amount of population points earned when Census is removed is equal to 5 times the old value. Census cannot be moved between colonies. An empire earns a number of population points equal to the total Census of its colonies.

4b) Morale. A colony's Morale relative to its Census determines its current morale state. Morale cannot be purchased; the player must use intel missions to affect this stat.

4c) Productivity. A colony's production capacity is equal to its Productivity x Census; this is the maximum construction cost of units that can be under construction at the colony during the Construction Phase.

4d) Shipyards. A colony's shipyard capacity is equal to its Productivity x Shipyards; this it the maximum construction cost of space combat units that can be under construction at the colony during the Construction Phase.

4e) Agriculture. A colony's Agriculture x Biosphere is equal to the number of agriculture points it produces each turn. Each Census eats 2 AP per turn. Colonies that can't get their required AP will make starvation rolls.

4f) Tech. The total number of tech point that an empire can purchase each campaign turn is equal to the total Tech value of its colonies.

4g) Intel. The value of a colony's Intel infrastructure is the range at which the colony can launch an intel mission.

4h) Supply. A colony's Supply value is the distance it can trace supply routes to friendly units. A blockaded colony can resupply friendly units in its system for a number of turns equal to its Supply value.

5) The empire-wide Morale & Piracy Checks from a former draft of the rules are back in play. Empires are required to make a roll on each of these tables once per turn. More populous empires receive bonuses to their rolls. Depending on the results rolled, the player must roll additional subsidiary morale and piracy checks at colonies and systems in their sphere of influence for specific effects. Morale checks at colonies can lead to Morale increases or decreases; similarly, piracy checks can either spawn new pirate forces and increase Piracy values or else decrease those Piracy values.

6) Pirate forces are now simply placed on the board and act as roadblocks and annoyances that have to be periodically removed from the map. Their presence disrupts trade, but they also automatically perform commerce raiding, which can cost a trade link owner economic points. And, if the pirates capture prize vessels, it can enlarge the size of their raiding fleets.

7) All empires now have a single Empire Tech Level instead of multiple tech levels in each research field. This ETL determines the empire's relative level of technology (Pre-Industrial -50, Industrial -30, Interplanetary -10, Interstellar 0, Ascendant 20, Ancient 40) and how much units cost to build. The cost formula remains the same, and is Base Mass Cost x 0.95^ETL (round up).

8) Tech advances cost 10 x Census (as of this writing), and are paid for using tech points out of the empire's Tech Pool. This is the cost for the first tech advance of a year; each successive one increases the cost of the advance by 10 x Census (2nd: 20 x Census, 3rd: 30 x Census, etc.). This helps to curb rapid tech growth in situations where a power's Tech-to-Census ratios is imbalanced.

9) I am making final tweaks to changes to the CSCR and core unit statistics. Anti-Ship has been replaced with Attack Strength as the main offensive stat, and Anti-Fighter has been eliminated in favor of Point Defense. PD can be used to fire at Flights, but it can also be used to increase friendly formation levels, making them harder to hit. This makes the single-use stat more useful and relevant even in settings that lack fighters. The space/ground specific techs (Anti-Ground, Anti-Air, etc.) are now gone. Engines and Mobility will also likely be added to the bone pile. I am still debating a final change to these stats. They are likely to be combined into an Evasion or similarly named stat, which will provide the baseline formation bonuses for a task force.

10) The final CG should end up including in the ball park of 100 technologies. This weekend I am going to go through my list of available technologies and whittle them down to a short list that can be adapted to the new CSCR and provide the widest range of special abilities possible.

11) The last major change that I have to report on is a sweeping modification to how intel missions work. Each colony is now allowed to launch a single intel mission per turn, out to a range equal to its Intel value. Missions cost 5 EP + 1 EP per distance to perform. The results of these missions are determined by rolling 2D10 against that intel mission's result table. Right now there are no modifiers to these rolls; however, I am still testing allowing the following modifiers:

* If launching colony's effective Intel in system (Intel - Distance) is greater than twice the target's Intel, +1
* If launching colony's effective Intel is system is less than half the target's Intel, -1
* +1 per colony participating in mission

These modifiers try to simulate the offensive/defensive intel interchanges from 1E, but they add additional overhead that I don't think is really worth the effort. Probably more effective to have the Intel/Counter-Intel missions provide these bonuses, which in turn would force a player to use Intel to institute short-term bonuses/penalties to intel missions initiated against specific systems or colonies.


-Tyrel
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Post by MarkG88 »

Sounds promising Tyrel. 8)
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Post by Tyrel Lohr »

The plan is to start posting some walkthroughs this weekend and getting discussion in place for the final rules assembly. Like I mentioned in the last post, I am picking through the last two years or notes and drafts and assembling the final pieces, and if Sean is interested in running a B5 playtest with the new rules (as they are) then I need to get cracking!

-Tyrel
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Post by BLHarrison »

Will there be a general relese, like the earlier version for evaluation, or will it be limited to those who have actual announced campaingns going?
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Post by Emiricol »

Will the more detailed, category-based tech rules be in an expansion and what priority will that be after the publication of the core 2E rules? Honestly I'm going to wait until those are out before tackling a new campaign, but I understand why those are being stripped out for the core rules.
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Post by Tyrel Lohr »

To answer both questions:

1) An evaluation version of the game will be posted for review before we send the game to the printers so there will be time for us to make any last minute corrections or address surprise game balance issues.

2) The research field-based tech rules will be included in the core book as optional rules, unless there is not enough room at which point they will instead be posted to the website instead. They don't require a lot of extra rules, just more rule overhead than your average player is probably going to care about. The major differences between the two are that tech advancement is split into specific categories and unit design requires one miniaturization calc per field instead of one overall calc.

-Tyrel
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Post by aelius »

Are you going to make electronic versions of the game available? Like through DrivethruRPG?
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Post by Charles Lewis »

Absolutely. Just like everything else we've released, a PDF version will be available from our store and some of the more popular outlets (RPGNow, etc.)
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Post by aelius »

I looked through the x version. I realize much has changed since it was let loose on us here at the forums, but most of the changes from it that Tyrel has mentioned I can say that I like.
1, I love the change to Intel missions
2, Asteroid Belts are back in. Yay.
3, I like the new Shipyard Infrastructure. But this leads to a question; can atmosphere capable ships be built using productivity?
4, It seems that the technologies will account for most of the special abilities from 1E, but what about things like Biological or Transformable units? Will these techs be in the Engineering Manual?
5, I also like that Empire checks will have their own table, the rolls in the x version were rather cumbersome.
6, As I prefer the Admiral level sysgen for my campaigns I am glad that it (or its equivalent) will be available in the campaign guide.
7, One of Tyrel's posts said that Command Cost would be used in determining construction time and maintenance. I hope this has been discarded. I like the mechanism of cost + size. That works great.
8, Tyrel said he was on the fence about the Commerce Infrastructure, I like it ok. Just my $0.02
9, I can deal with the math, but I do have a problem with the fact that ^2 means squared and ^1.2 means square root of 1.2. If I don't know ahead of time what you mean I would be inclined to use the square root of 2. Two different symbols would be much appreciated. (I realize its probably too late for that, but I just got here)
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