Scavengers of the Shattered Empire

Campaign Diaries & After Action Reports (AARs)
Post Reply
User avatar
jygro
Commander
Commander
Posts: 120
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2007 4:34 am

Scavengers of the Shattered Empire

Post by jygro »

I finally felt that I had enough of the changes that I wanted to use finished to start my new solo campaign. It deals with a nation that was cut from the hyperspace universe until just recently. I'm using the ship construction rules from TLADIS (modified of so that each system is 0.9^TL instead of 0.95^TL). I am also playing without any fighter flights of any kind. It is going to be wierd, but in the long run, it should work out.

Of course, I figued that I would have to fudge the die rolls in order to get this campaign moving, but that wasn't the case. On the first month, the exploration fleet located a jump lane and found a system with 2 planets (and an asteroid belt). One is terrestrial with both an ancient derelict and ancient ruins (the ancient ruins is due to a rule for this campaign). It's Capacity is 8 with a RAW of only 2. The second planet is barren with a climate modifier of only 14 (and I'm using 4 statistics) and it's a capacity 6, RAW 9 planet! Perhaps I should name the system "lucky". Of course there was a 2 in 20 chance that there would be a NPE and I rolled a 3.
User avatar
jygro
Commander
Commander
Posts: 120
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2007 4:34 am

Slow Construction times!

Post by jygro »

Construction Macro Tech level is one of the eight macro tech levels that I am using in this campaign and let me tell you, the lower levels are just brutal. Now for this campaign, there are only 10 levels for each macro level so I wanted most player empires to start around level 2 in each.
Construction Macro Tech level: Simply put (since I don't have the rule right in front of me), your build modifier is equal to the TL/4 + 0.5; when determining how long something takes to build, you take the cost divided by the build modifier to get the build time.
So in my current game, I just rolled a 1d3 to determine my construction macro and got a 1. After playing through six months, I knew that I was going to have to get that up a bit higher if I was going to hold onto my sanity! And of course, I needed a 62% to succeed and I rolled a 64% Ahh. another year at the low building rate...

How slow, you ask? The first turn (2250.01), I built a siphoning station that cost 10 EP (I using fuel requirements so those increase a nation's supply). Normally this would take a mere 5 turns, but since my build modifer is 1/4+0.5 = 0.75, it takes me 10/0.75 = 13 turns to complete! In turn 2250.03, one of my scout ships get lost in space and it costs 8 EP. So turn 2250.04, I laid the hull down for a new scout and it isn't going to be complete until 2251.02 (8/0.75 = 11 turns).

I might have to bump up the build modifier to TL/4+1 (which makes the range 1.25 to 3.5), but we will see how this goes for a few more turns before I make a decision.

-Bren
nimrodd
Commander
Commander
Posts: 135
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2007 1:59 am
Location: DFW, TX

Re: Slow Construction times!

Post by nimrodd »

jygro wrote:How slow, you ask? The first turn (2250.01), I built a siphoning station that cost 10 EP (I using fuel requirements so those increase a nation's supply). Normally this would take a mere 5 turns, but since my build modifer is 1/4+0.5 = 0.75, it takes me 10/0.75 = 13 turns to complete! In turn 2250.03, one of my scout ships get lost in space and it costs 8 EP. So turn 2250.04, I laid the hull down for a new scout and it isn't going to be complete until 2251.02 (8/0.75 = 11 turns).
So what happens if on the 2250.12 tech roll, you advance your Construction Macro Tech Level. Does that Scout now appear complete on 2251.01, or does it still take until 2251.02?
Jimmy Simpson
User avatar
Tyrel Lohr
Vice Admiral
Vice Admiral
Posts: 1466
Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2007 3:48 am
Location: Lusk, WY
Contact:

Re: Scavengers of the Shattered Empire

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

jygro wrote:I'm using the ship construction rules from TLADIS (modified of so that each system is 0.9^TL instead of 0.95^TL). I am also playing without any fighter flights of any kind. It is going to be wierd, but in the long run, it should work out.
Let me know how the TLADIS tech system works for you, and how the 0.90^TL works for you. I have been tweaking a few things here and there with the system trying to find some good balancing points.

My biggest problem in my Trek-based solo campaign is that the TLADIS system doesn't work well for those kinds of ships, at least not how I think they should operate at the tech level I started at. For the TLADIS universe, though, they felt right.

Playing without fighters is interesting. Most of my pure VBAM Trek games (pre-defined force lists) didn't have any fighters at all present, so going between those and B5 campaigns was definitely a change of pace!
jygro wrote:On the first month, the exploration fleet located a jump lane and found a system with 2 planets (and an asteroid belt). One is terrestrial with both an ancient derelict and ancient ruins (the ancient ruins is due to a rule for this campaign). It's Capacity is 8 with a RAW of only 2. The second planet is barren with a climate modifier of only 14 (and I'm using 4 statistics) and it's a capacity 6, RAW 9 planet! Perhaps I should name the system "lucky".
WOW! That is all that I can say. Ancient ruins, alien derelict, AND a RAW 9 planet. That is nothing short of amazing. The closest I have ever seen to that in my games is a planet in my Third Age campaign that I named Orion: Capacity 12, RAW 10. Fabulous planet, and was located about midway between the Cardassian and Wookiee empires. Many a battle was fought over Orion, until my wiley Cardassians fought the Wookiees back to their home territories and secured a peace treaty.
User avatar
jygro
Commander
Commander
Posts: 120
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2007 4:34 am

Re: Slow Construction times!

Post by jygro »

nimrodd wrote: So what happens if on the 2250.12 tech roll, you advance your Construction Macro Tech Level. Does that Scout now appear complete on 2251.01, or does it still take until 2251.02?
Hmm. Good question. The easiest way would be that the build time is set once the full payment is paid. The second way is to recalculate based on the new build modifier and the remaining EP cost. The final way would be to recalculate the build time with the complete cost and use that.

Example: current tech is 1 and the cost is 10. 5 turns into it, you increase to tech 2 and...
option 1: it will still take 8 addional turns to complete
option 2: it will take 6 more turns to complete (3.75 of the full 10 is finished so the remaining 6.25 will take 6 turns).
option 3: it will take 5 more turns to complete.

My gut tells me to use the first option since it is easier, but I'll probably use the second option since it is more 'realistic' (but requires a bit more math).

-Bren
User avatar
jygro
Commander
Commander
Posts: 120
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2007 4:34 am

Re: Scavengers of the Shattered Empire

Post by jygro »

Tyrel Lohr wrote: Let me know how the TLADIS tech system works for you, and how the 0.90^TL works for you. I have been tweaking a few things here and there with the system trying to find some good balancing points.
So far it is going good, but I haven't done any major 'design breaking' to say. I really like the 0.9^TL since it gives a better range and makes macro tech advancements a bit better. Of course, that means that I only have 10 levels per macro, but I don't see that as a problem (mainly due to the fact that the higher levels have a cost modifier).

The only thing that I might look into is limiting any one value to be twice (or three times) the DV value so you can't make DV 2, AS 15 ships (not that I think this will be an issue in my game). The other idea was to state that the nominal value for design points was the DV^2. Ships that break that pay extra for being 'advance' designs.
Tyrel Lohr wrote: WOW! That is all that I can say. Ancient ruins, alien derelict, AND a RAW 9 planet. That is nothing short of amazing. The closest I have ever seen to that in my games is a planet in my Third Age campaign that I named Orion: Capacity 12, RAW 10. Fabulous planet, and was located about midway between the Cardassian and Wookiee empires. Many a battle was fought over Orion, until my wiley Cardassians fought the Wookiees back to their home territories and secured a peace treaty.
With the asteroid belt (1 RAW) in the system, I can raise that planet to RAW 10 quite easily. It's an amazing find and I hope that this is just a fluke and not an issue with my system generation (it's a cross between commodore and admiral) . Only time will tell

-Bren
Post Reply