I guess one way to address that would be to get rid of the universal list, per se, and instead give each empire a unique set of Era -1 units that tick a very specific boxes to ensure that they have something that they can use even if they have nothing else at the start of the game:
- Base for defense
- Explorer
- Assault or Marine unit for invasions
- Supply ship
- Basic ground force
That would leave only one slot free for something else, but then again you could end up combining some of these. to open up some more room. Or keep a universal list but have it be very marginal, and then have the Era -1 as the "Early Interstellar" Era of tech.
And as much as I would like just going Era I, Era II, etc., I do agree with you, BroAdso, that it more clear if it is Era+0, Era+1, etc. so you know how far ahead you are. But the other Era numbering is cleaner looking for presentation
I'll have to decide what makes the most sense.
Thinking about the Eras, I also wonder more and more if it is even worth having special types of low tech empires (planetary, orbital, interplanetary) or if it would be just as easy to just have the least advanced "empire" you find be interstellar, albeit possibly with just a progressively lower Tech Era. Like if you instead rolled 2d6-7 (+-5 Era) and added the highest player Era to get the current. That way early in the game you could run into some pretty pitiful empires, but they'd all be interstellar and at least capable of doing something, even if not very well.
An Era -5 destroyers would only have 6 points to spend, after all. That would probably look something like that given that DV/CR has to be greater than CC:
Junk DD: DV 2, AS 1, AF 1, CV 0, CR 2, CC 1, Atmospheric
I mean, sure, these guys are in space, but it's not like they're going to put up much of a fight.
Their CT would be a complete joke. at 4 points. It would be DV 2, CR 2, and that's it. No guns at all, and all it could do would be to throw on a special trait like Explorer and hope for the best.
That actually seems to work pretty well. But I almost always play 1-2 player solo campaigns and then rely on the random generation to provide new and interesting opponents. Which is why I needed to adjust the sysgen in Galaxies to make the Homeworld result more likely. But that's a whole 'nother topic!
Hmm. So 2d6-7 + Highest Player Era. And then we could just make sure that the sample empires have units from Era -1 to Era 4 or so. Or effectively whatever would fit with art and a description onto a two page handout-style sheet. I think breaking everything down by Era makes more sense at that point, so that you could see each "tech block" together to see what you could research or not. And on a handout having a check box on there to mark when you have unlocked the unit could be handy.
So that would mean a very limited universal list that would only include the bare minimum units that you'd be able to build, and then advancing from there. And giving each empire its own Era -1 section would let it fill in with some crappy units if it wants to have something even older than Era 0 (traditional starting units).
For raiders, this does open up the possibility of having the raiders use units that are an Era or two older than your current Era. For example, if a raid is generated in the Tirelon space and they are at Era+1, then the pirates would be able to use Era-1 or Era+0 units. But that is assuming we want raiders to be using units off of the player force lists and not have them just always be using their own special force list. The raiders could always be included as "special" empire, too, with their own force list, and the raiders have an Era based on the tech level of the system owner where they are raiding. That would effectively add another sample empire to the game, but give a more complete set of raider units that would scale over time. I'm not sure that's really necessary, either, though.