Lost in a Sea of Stars II - 2E Development Update

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Re: Lost in a Sea of Stars II - 2E Development Update

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Tyrel Lohr wrote:
countercheck wrote:Have you considered linking food production to tech? Rther than adjusting the cost, you could have people tech up to increase production.
Linking food production to tech would get pretty nasty, as you would then have to apply the modifier to every single colony instead of keeping it simple to Utilized Agriculture x Biosphere. The colonies themselves have different population increase costs based on their TL (Pre-Industrial through Interstellar), but there's no differentiation between Interstellar population increase costs (again, to keep the rules from getting obnoxiously overcomplicated).

The more modifiers you throw into these rules the harder they get to run. The old morale check rules are a good example of that. Too many modifiers to add and subtract and they just were too cumbersome in practice. On paper they're fine, but when you're managing a half dozen empires... oi.

Now, as for as tech goes, I could see introducing "facilities" that would basically be system upgrades that would increase efficiency. They might come along at a certain TL, or if there's enough of them an empire could choose one at each tech level. For example, and empire could learn how to build a Soil Rejuvenatory that would increase a system's Biosphere by 1 or increase its food production by a certain percentage.
I'm not sure I see why it would be so complex. You total all the agricultural production of the systems, and subtract the total consumption. If you want to add a global modifier...

Oh, I see. I forgot that each colony would have a different TL. Still, all it would require is making it Utilized Ag x Bio x (1+TL/100). But maybe too complex. Facilities that modify the Biosphere or Utilized Agriculture with prices that vary by TL might be a better way to handle it.
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Re: Lost in a Sea of Stars II - 2E Development Update

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mavikfelna wrote:For facilities, I would make the cost 25+25xdistance from a capital. So capitals pay 25 but first ring pays 50. That would probably be good enough to drop the maintenance to 1EP but 2EP doesn't seem out of wack totally.
That does look like the best plan overall. I agree that 2 EP per turn isn't too far out of the realm of possibility, I just worry about smaller empires not being able to actually maintain any facilities. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that, and it would give minor states a very real flavor if they couldn't afford shipyards or supply depots and just had to sit in their home systems and grumble while they shake their fist at the major powers. :D
For the problem with resources, RAW, BIO and perhaps CC, perhaps allow a mega-project with a cost of 50xnew value that can raise one stat by one. Only one project allowed per system, so if you raise BIO you cant ever raise RAW or CC.
I'm on the fence about allowing RAW and BIO upgrades in systems, but I think CAP is a good candidate for terraforming projects to increase. 50 x New Carrying Capacity with a project time equal to twice the new value, perhaps? When it comes to increasing RAW or BIO, I think Iron Sky is on to something that you would have to pay the terraforming cost but then sacrifice one state for another. Otherwise a player would just sit there and jack up his colony's resource values. I guess if the costs were high enough players might be deterred from doing that, though, so it might not be a problem. 50x cost for CAP, 100x for RAW/BIO would make it something you wouldn't do unless you really wanted or needed to.

Terraforming could also be given a flat cost based on CAP that the player rolls on a table for at project completion. Have +1 CAP be the most likely, followed by +1 RAW, +1 BIO, and then a few rare combinations of the three. That way terraforming would become a speculative investment that would always improve a system, but not necessarily in the way that you originally planned. 50 x CAP is a good cost for it, and I think the 2 x CAP build time makes sense.

Example: The NSF decides to terraform Aurora (5 CAP). It would cost 250 EP to initiate the project and would take 10 turns to complete. At the end of the 10 turns the NSF rolls 2D6 on the Terraforming Table, rolling a '4'. The system's CAP increased by 1. The next terraforming mission will now cost 300 EP.

I kind of like the feel of that as it makes terraforming low CAP systems more appealing and after awhile you run into diminishing returns that would curtail players terraforming their home systems for a quick buck (unless they were flush with cash and just wanted to do it -- hey, knock yourself out in that case!).
Iron Sky wrote:I like the idea of agricultural worlds being rare and valuable and gives the Filosi more reason to trade with (or be invaded by) the NSF and giving their empires different "flavors".
I'm also think the random number generator is coloring my judgment in this test game. Statistically, the high RAW worlds really should be appearing about as often as anything else, as long as the stars are of the life bearing variety that is. The NSF has had poor luck finding good worlds. Most of the stuff they've found are red dwarfs that are too have good Biospheres. The only life bearing suns I've found are Phoenix (KV Single), Haven (GV Multiple), and Illyria (KIII Binary). Phoenix just didn't luck out with good rolls, Haven is a multiple star system which left it with just one special trait, and Illyria is an orange giant that killed the system's CAP, and being a binary didn't help the situation.

On the other side of the coin, of the five systems that the Filosi Consortium has explored two of them are KV orange dwarfs (one a multiple and one a single). Both are very good and what I would expect for stars of that type. The first has 6 CAP, 2 RAW, 6 BIO while the second has 8 CAP, 2 RAW, 5 BIO. Excellent food production centers.

I do think that at long as the NSF/FC relationship remains largely stable I'm going to have to hammer out a money-for-food treaty with the filosi. The downside right now is that the filosi are down to +5 food per turn because of their rapid population growth in Inkoti outstripping their investment into extra Agriculture infrastructure. They can quickly jack that back up to +17 food per turn, however.
What about a "Mechanized Farming" facility that increases a system's Bio by 1 at the cost of 1 RAW (plus Facility building cost and maintenance, of course). Or maybe allow the purchase of additional food up to a system's Utilized Agriculture at 1 EP each? (Agricultural Investment)
I like the idea of agricultural investment, and it could provide a good stop-gap in situations where empires need population points now but just don't have the food, or they have too many Census and not enough food and just need to cover the shortage in the short-term. It would also be a useful ability for blockaded colonies as it would allow them to spend their economic points to produce more food in case they couldn't otherwise feed everyone.

I just built an orbital farm operating off the principle of it providing +1 food per utilized Agriculture in its system. I'm thinking that might be the fairest way to work some of these facilities to keep them from being too powerful. Before I tried putting it at +1 or +2 utilized Agriculture, but that seemed a bit much. With the current incarnation it at least produces enough food to be worth the 1 EP per turn maintenance.
I like the idea of costs being based off of costs to capitals. That sounds good to me.
It is working out well so far and gives a good reason for having sector capitals as you grow and generally controlling runaway growth. I think the cost for a sector capital is going to become 25 x Range with a minimum range of 3 jumps from the nearest capital. I'm tempted to go 4 jumps, but I think I already need to limit colonization to within an empire's supply range (if it isn't already, it's late and I need to look it up and make sure) and without building extra supply depots that puts 3 jumps being the more natural range.
As a random and un-researched thought, what if the empire's capital got bonus production based off of it's TL. So, if it was TL3, it would get +3 EP, +3 Food, +3 Research, etc, to reflect their improved Technology. Or maybe every colony got it: RAW/BIO x Utilized + TL = EP/food, +1 research, etc. maybe with the TL bonus no more than doubling existing output to avoid a TL10 empire getting 11 food out of a 1 BIO x Utilized system?
As a straight bonus related to TL, that become pretty easy to factor in. But it would also make small 0 Census colonies far more useful, especially as TL increases. As a percentage bonus like with ship production (+10% per TL) you could make it work, but then you run into an economic issue with TL 20 empires earning 3x what another empire would. The economic advantage combined with the tech advantage would turn them into a steamroller and the lesser powers wouldn't have any chance of surviving.

Another option along those same lines would be to give a colony a +1 utilized infrastructure bonus for every full 10 tech levels it is above TL 0. That way the bonuses would only really apply to the high tech powers, but there again you run into the runaway leader syndrome that is a major problem in 4X games. Sigh.
virtutis.umbra wrote:The Kishok sound like a fun addition to the mix. Do they share a border with the filosi? Are you using AIX values for all empires, or all but the Novese? What are the values?
I'm uploading a copy of the diary and map for people to take a look at. The kishok are located on the NSF's downspin border, with a contact point at Elysium. I ended up helping lay tile and then asleep on the couch most of the afternoon so didn't get any further, but the kishok and novese will be making contact on Turn 45 when the kishok dispatch their scout cruiser into Forge to see where that explored jump lane goes (they found the already explored lane in Elysium when they explored the system and were going "WTF?").

As for the players in our little show and their AIX values:

Nova Solar Federation (AG 50, IN 50, XE 50 - Player Empire - TL 1)
System Income 70, Commerce Income 9, Maintenance Expense 24, Food Production +8
5 Colonies, 17 Census
91 Military Units (450 EP)

Filosi Consortium (AG 39, IN 12, XE 12 - NPE - TL 2)
System Income 29, Commerce Income 4, Maintenance Expense 11, Food Production +5
3 Colonies, 9 Census
37 Military Units (169 EP)

Kishok Star Empire (AG 58, IN 51, XE 65 - NPE - TL 2)
System Income 20, Commerce Income 6, Maintenance Expense 9, Food Production +5
1 Colony, 8 Census
17 Military Units (98 EP)

The NSF was the only empire to receive 10 x System Income for starting points, thus why they have such a large military. Of course, as the sole starting player empire, they also have the most territory to patrol and the maintenance isn't keeping up with their income that regards. The NSF can safely outspend most of their potential enemies, but if they ended up in one or two protracted conflicts they'd start taking some pretty heavy losses. It's important to note that the NSF military count includes 21 Sentry FF and 15 Javelin LF, so their military isn't quite as big as it might seem from those numbers. Their definitely set up for system patrols and not interstellar warfare.

As you'll notice from the map, it's starting to look very likely that the Filosi Consortium is located in a pocket without any access to the rest of the map. This is very worrying, and I'm desperately hoping that the system beyond Inkoti is going to give them some more exploration options. I'm also tempted to note explore the Debrune/Kharte jump lane just so that if I ever get attacked there won't be an issue connection between the two chains -- but I'll probably explore it just to be a completionist. I had been hoping that I would find a loop back to NSF space from one side or the other but it just didn't happen.

It should be noted that Aristos and Silence are a different color because both of those systems are uninhabitable and completely worthless. I'm glad I've only had a few systems like that, but in a way I need to find more worthless systems with giant stars in them so that I can find more jump lanes!

The arrival of the Kishok Star Empire really throws a wrench into my plans for the NSF. The Vulcan rim territories have already proven to be a wash with only one possible exit point left to explore. Not great odds of finding anything more up there. That only left the plethora of jump lanes down near Forge and Elysium as possible expansion routes for the Federation. Now at least half of those routes are cutoff by the kishok forces. They're almost definitely going to take Elysium (10 CAP, 4 RAW, 2 BIO), which means I'm going to have to fortify Forge and Illyria to maintain a claim to those jump routes.

I'm not sure what the outcome of the kishok first contact event is yet, but if it ends up going badly we're almost definitely going to end up in our first shooting war. The NSF has a military and economic advantage (they have no way of knowing that, however), but the kishok home system has a spatial anomaly (third rolled this game!) that doubles the free tech points per turn from Research infrastructure. That gives them +16 tech points for free every turn, and they're already half way towards TL 3. That tech advantage could give them just enough of an edge that when combined with the region's distance from Nova it could become a hard fight for the NSF. Now that the NSF has a fleet of Perseus repair tenders they can do field repairs at the front, but any larger ships that get damaged (*cough* supercarrier *cough*) would still have to limp home to Nova for repairs.

Forge (4 CAP, 6 RAW, 1 BIO) is going to have to be built into a major mining and fleet base. I had been holding off hoping to find something better or put the effort into Elysium, but now it's just imperative that I get the system colonized and prepped to be a major base. I had really wanted to setup Elysium as a sector capital :(

I should also mention that each of the empires has a fleet gimmick that I'm using to test special abilities. The NSF are fighter heavy, the Filosi Consortium uses gunboat tenders (carriers, but for non-FTL starships) and builds massive starbases (24 EP ones!), and the Kishok Star Empire has a combination of fighters (about 1 flight per ship), expendable weapons (AS boost), and deflector shields (absorb damage and recharge between battles). The pirates have been playtesting marine boarding parties, too.

I fully expect one of the next systems that I come across to have prewarp natives just to complicate my life a bit more. It's just karma for the NSF at this point to find a disagreeable alien either upspin off of Vulcan or in one of the systems off of Illyria. I can just feel that it's going to happen.

I do have to say that I think the empire sizes in these last few iterations of the 2E rules feel about right. I'm happy with the amount of space the NSF was able to explore and take control of before they ran into other alien species. I can also see where the emerging empires rule really lights a fire underneath a player to explore before someone else comes in on your doorstep. I really should have been exploring more rapidly and not worrying about building a supercarrier, but them's the breaks.

Oh, and that supercarrier... what an albatross. It's taken forever to build, but I'm almost done with it! What will happen to it? Probably be unceremoniously dumped into reserve status because it costs 1.3 EP per turn to maintain. :(

I still need to tweak some rules before posting a new playtest doc, but I should have that ready tomorrow night.
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Re: Lost in a Sea of Stars II - 2E Development Update

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

countercheck wrote:Oh, I see. I forgot that each colony would have a different TL. Still, all it would require is making it Utilized Ag x Bio x (1+TL/100). But maybe too complex. Facilities that modify the Biosphere or Utilized Agriculture with prices that vary by TL might be a better way to handle it.
Spreadsheets would solve that problem, but I'm still mindful of players that are trying to do all of this with a pen and paper and that are deathly scared of math. Trying to keep things simple enough for basic mental math and quick calculations on the fly is key.

I think having facilities handle the functions is key, and if you want to vary their effectiveness via TL you could. At that point you're at least paying for the privilege of the benefit instead of getting it for free.

The hard part with most of these 4X games is that you need to build the rules so that the game doesn't break completely as empires start out teching their opponents. Most 4X I've played have huge problems in this regard. Yes, the higher tech empire should have a definite advantage, but most empires tie tech advancement to resource generation in such a way that the empire with the most resources techs the fastest and can build up their military the fastest, and it all leads to a runaway leader situation that is honestly not much fun for anyone that isn't the leader. That's why I'm a proponent of the static resources but variable unit quality by tech. That way the advanced units get to enjoy their advantage but they can still be out produced or ganged up on and overwhelmed.
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Re: Lost in a Sea of Stars II - 2E Development Update

Post by Iron Sky »

So what about the Empire getting bonus resources of each type equal to its TL: a TL 5 power would get +5 EP, +5 food, +5 research, etc. Not much of a bonus, but a nice little ancillary benefit with the advantage that it helps smaller empires more as a percentage of their total income.
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Re: Lost in a Sea of Stars II - 2E Development Update

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

Iron Sky wrote:So what about the Empire getting bonus resources of each type equal to its TL: a TL 5 power would get +5 EP, +5 food, +5 research, etc. Not much of a bonus, but a nice little ancillary benefit with the advantage that it helps smaller empires more as a percentage of their total income.
As an empire-wide bonus that works pretty well. As you say, this would benefit small powers the most and would give them a bit of a shot in the arm. I like it. It's still useful for the larger empires, too, albeit not as big of a deal. I'll run some numbers and see if there are any problems with it, otherwise it'll probably be included as an optional rule in the book.
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Re: Lost in a Sea of Stars II - 2E Development Update

Post by virtutis.umbra »

if you did want empire tech based resource bonuses to scale up slightly for bigger empires, you could tie it to imperial and sector capitols - say, full TL bonus for the imperial capitols and half for the sector caps.
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Re: Lost in a Sea of Stars II - 2E Development Update

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i like that idea, of a static bonus due to tech. Or, if you wanted to get slightly more complex, a bonus = TLx SQRT(Number Colonies), rounded down, which is easy enough to do mentally. THat way, larger empires get a larger bonus, but not a MUCH larger bonus. It doesn't quite even out the effect of the larger population of a multi-system power vs a single system power, but it starts to.

I could see facility cost getting linked to TL. 50-TL/5, or something like that, with a floor of 25. I donno. TL advancement is so entirely linked to military power, that it doesn't really seem like there's any incentive for an non-expansionist power to tech. I'm just trying to think of civilian and intelligence applications. I mean, for a non-expansionist power that doesn't invest all that much in building new units, the advantages of high TL (Low unit construction cost) aren't that big a deal, because the more important factor is maintenance cost, which isn't affected at all. High TL lets you field units that are individually more powerful, giving higher mobility and greater concentration of power, but STL monitors have such mass savings from avoiding FTL drives that they'll remain serious combatents long after their supposed obselesence, and those are the kinds of ships pacifists will build.
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Re: Lost in a Sea of Stars II - 2E Development Update

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countercheck wrote:i like that idea, of a static bonus due to tech. Or, if you wanted to get slightly more complex, a bonus = TLx SQRT(Number Colonies), rounded down, which is easy enough to do mentally. THat way, larger empires get a larger bonus, but not a MUCH larger bonus. It doesn't quite even out the effect of the larger population of a multi-system power vs a single system power, but it starts to.
I think the static bonus as a per capital thing as per virtutis' post probably would be a good compromise here as then the bonus that the empire receives would scale based on its size, with larger empires gaining a larger bonus. I would be tempted to have each capital produce the same economic, population, and tech bonus in that case, again to keep the math simple. That way if I'm a TL 6 power with 2 capitals I can expect to receive +12 EP, +12 PP, and +12 TP every turn in addition to anything else my systems generate.

The downside to this is that it breaks at the higher tech levels and also diminishes the usefulness of Research infrastructure (as the free tech points largely overpower what the infrastructure would give you normally). I can also foresee some issues with small empires then being able to tech a bit too rapidly, especially as their Census decreased (which is solved by having minimum tech advancement costs, but right now that's not really that much of a problem).

As an optional rule, though, I think it has merit.
I could see facility cost getting linked to TL. 50-TL/5, or something like that, with a floor of 25.
The lower tech powers are going to usually have less territory and fewer economic points to spend each turn, which kind of evens that out to a certain extent. You can encounter emerging empires with a fairly significant amount of territory (on good rolls) that is still fairly low tech, but for the most part they're going to have explored ~3 systems and have colonies in one or all of them (one of them being their home system). That in and of itself makes the facilities fairly costly for them to be build and maintain.
TL advancement is so entirely linked to military power, that it doesn't really seem like there's any incentive for an non-expansionist power to tech.
Their incentive to tech is so that they can build better defensive units, probably focusing on starbases or (as you said) non-FTL monitors that they can cart back and forth using tenders, tugs, or jump gates. Having high TL defense units is still useful, especially if you need a higher concentration of firepower in smaller scenarios. Given that starbases cost half as much to maintain as a comparable starship, the higher TL bases are going to be very cost efficient ways of keeping your systems safe. The Filosi Consortium has adopted this defensive strategy, and that's why they have 2 x 24 EP starbases in their home system. In case the NSF attacked they could probably take down all of the filosi mobile units, but winning a defensive scenario against the filosi starbase network would be pretty doubtful. They might win, but they'd lose the majority of their fleet in the process.
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Re: Lost in a Sea of Stars II - 2E Development Update

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Tyrel Lohr wrote: I think the static bonus as a per capital thing as per virtutis' post probably would be a good compromise here as then the bonus that the empire receives would scale based on its size, with larger empires gaining a larger bonus. I would be tempted to have each capital produce the same economic, population, and tech bonus in that case, again to keep the math simple. That way if I'm a TL 6 power with 2 capitals I can expect to receive +12 EP, +12 PP, and +12 TP every turn in addition to anything else my systems generate.

The downside to this is that it breaks at the higher tech levels and also diminishes the usefulness of Research infrastructure (as the free tech points largely overpower what the infrastructure would give you normally). I can also foresee some issues with small empires then being able to tech a bit too rapidly, especially as their Census decreased (which is solved by having minimum tech advancement costs, but right now that's not really that much of a problem).

As an optional rule, though, I think it has merit.
Agreed. I think Viritutis posted while I was typing. His idea is way simpler and more elegant than mine! And a quick fix to the problem of tech infrastructure being overwhelmed by the tech bonus is just make it a bonus to EPs and APs, not Intel or Tech. Though Intel would make sense.

Tyrel Lohr wrote:
I could see facility cost getting linked to TL. 50-TL/5, or something like that, with a floor of 25.
The lower tech powers are going to usually have less territory and fewer economic points to spend each turn, which kind of evens that out to a certain extent. You can encounter emerging empires with a fairly significant amount of territory (on good rolls) that is still fairly low tech, but for the most part they're going to have explored ~3 systems and have colonies in one or all of them (one of them being their home system). That in and of itself makes the facilities fairly costly for them to be build and maintain.
I'm not convinced this is true, that low tech powers are likely to have low incomes. A highly expansionist power is likely to grab a bunch of systems and pump out PPs and EPs like there's no tomorrow, but unless they invest heavily in tech, they'll fall behind there, but their shere economic power will dwarf that of a more conservative empire. The passive earning of TPs from infrestructure is an excellent fix to prevent tech from being overshadowed by other concerns... I just think civilian applications would make peaceful play more possible. If that's a design intent, that is.
Tyrel Lohr wrote:
TL advancement is so entirely linked to military power, that it doesn't really seem like there's any incentive for an non-expansionist power to tech.
Their incentive to tech is so that they can build better defensive units, probably focusing on starbases or (as you said) non-FTL monitors that they can cart back and forth using tenders, tugs, or jump gates. Having high TL defense units is still useful, especially if you need a higher concentration of firepower in smaller scenarios. Given that starbases cost half as much to maintain as a comparable starship, the higher TL bases are going to be very cost efficient ways of keeping your systems safe. The Filosi Consortium has adopted this defensive strategy, and that's why they have 2 x 24 EP starbases in their home system. In case the NSF attacked they could probably take down all of the filosi mobile units, but winning a defensive scenario against the filosi starbase network would be pretty doubtful. They might win, but they'd lose the majority of their fleet in the process.
[/quote]

I'm not convinced. Teching requires a huge opportunity cost in infrastructure (every 2 tech infrastructure could be generating 1EP elsewhere, not to mention the cost if you start spending EPs to boost it). The cost of prototyping is exorbitant unless multiple units are being planned. I could see a peaceful, isolationist nation pumping out giant TL0 station after giant TL0 station, that could easily fight TL5 battleships to a standstill, but require only a fraction of the maintenance. Sure the construction cost of a giant TL0 station is going to be higher than that of a battleship, but when you factor in all the savings from not having to upgrade the capital and all the colonies, from not investing in tech or tech infrastructure, I think I'd bet on the TL0s. Of course, the only way to figure out for sure is to test it in a game. I could be completely mistaken =)

On a completely different topic, I think you might want to reprice Guided to 3, since it takes 1PD to block it, and inflicts 1 hit, rather than rolling 1d6/10xGuided.
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