diplomacy and tech, are they necessary?

[Dave]

I'm looking at using VBAM with Starmada. Essentially I'd like to use it for keeping track of my resources, my fleets and my fleet movement, as well as determining what is participating in a given Starmada battle.

Are the tech and diplomacy stuff strictly necessary? Having not played with VBAM yet will I be missing anything from these phases that might have an effect on what I hope to use it for?

Has anyone done anything similar to this that I could take a look at?

[Gareth_Perkins]

Neither are necessary,

VBAM: FASB (Napoleonic Warships) does away with diplomacy for a lot of scenarios (the assumption is that you are the senior officer in charge of the theatre, and therefore not entitled to declare war, negotiate peace, etc without authority from above),

And the Tech system can easily be ditched (although I gather it might be possible to integrate it into Starmadas tech system),

What you'll be left with (assuming you don't ditch anything else) is a system that'll let you construct, maintain and repair your fleets, move them around, conduct espionage and sabotage as well as determine your local cash flow and ability to manufacture new ships,

[Charles Lewis]

If you have access to the VBAM:StarmadaX book, you get a revised tech system that allows you put limits on what options each race has to build its ships. But as Gareth said, you don't have to use any tech system. The advantage of VBAM's modularity is that it is very easy to customize to give you the game experience you want.

[Dave]

Thanks guys. That's pretty much what I'm after Gareth.

So now the challenge becomes figuring VBAM, is there a simple VBMA campaign out there that was designed with Starmada in mind? I have the Campaign Guide and Starmada Edition.

Any tools that people would recommend as well?

[Gareth_Perkins]

I don't play Starmada I'm afraid, so I can't really help you with anything specific,

What I would recommend is playing a simple game over a few turns - either solo or face-to-face with a friend before you jump into anything big. That should get you used to the day-to-day running of a campaign (and give you a chance to figure out cashflow, intel, etc),

You could certainly do that with the basic races from the VBAM: CG (even if it's not Starmada, it will still acclimatize you to the rules) and possibly you can do something similar with VBAM: Starmada anyway.

Then a lot depends upon how you plan on running the game - the games I've GM'd have been by email, so we've used Excel to pass orders between player and GM (as well as to automate some of the calculation). But if you're just getting together once a week to run through a turn then pens and paper (plus a calculator) should be enough for you to manage most things you'll need, unless the game gets especially big,

[Dave]

Is there any kind of quick reference sheet that walks you through all the phases?

[Charles Lewis]

To be honest, I don't think there is. There are some flowcharts and summaries for encounter resolution on the Yahoo group (when it's not coughing up hairballs), but nothing for the entire sequence of play.

[Gareth_Perkins]

Individually the phases are pretty simple,

The hardest part is that you need to understand 90% of the rules when you write your orders each turn so that you can make educated decisions,

That said, if you play face-to-face a "non-serious" game, with small empires (a couple of (small income) systems each over a map of five or six systems, with four or five spacecraft and a shipyard) and plod through a couple of turns (with a copy of the rules in front of you), you should pick most of it up fairly quickly,

Fundamentally the rules are all simple - it's just that there are a lot of them to take on board quickly...

[Charles Lewis]

That's actually a pretty fair assessment, and something we're working on improving upon in the future.

[Dave]

I agree as well, it's a lot of info to absorb and is rather daunting. There seems to be a lot of text suggesting what to do with a GM, or suggesting best practices but there's nothing like a quick outline saying "do this, then this and this in this phase". If that makes any sense.

[Gareth_Perkins]

I have in the past found that a printout of the turn sequence is invaluable for GMing the game, but part of the problem is that different games use different rules, and so one consolidated summary is tricky,

Beyond that I suppose you could break it down like this:

1) Income phase (p. 27)
i) Calculate total planetary Income (Util Prod x RAW).
ii) Calculate Trade income (from fleets in operation during last turn, System Income x 10% per system in one or more trade route).
iii) Total planetary and trade income - this is your Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
iv) If using the Wartime Economics rules, multiply your GDP by the relevant percentage (p. 87).
v) Add on funds remaining from the previous turn.
vi) Calculate Upkeep costs.
vii) Pay upkeep (destroy vessels or units whose upkeep is not paid).

2) Turn Orders Phase (p. 29)
Write out detailed orders for construction, intel, diplomacy, tech investment, fleet movements, supply orders, trade routes, bombardment (and bombardment type), colonise, productivity increases, etc
Any ordered new construction is under construction from this point onwards.

3) Tech Phase (p. 31)
i) Convert any invested EP into RP and total with the previous turns total.
ii) If it's the year end roll for Tech advancement (100 x RP / Tech Target = % chance of a Tech improvement, multiple levels are possible with heavy investment. The Tech. Target = GDP / 2)

4) Intel Phase (no particular order)
i) Perform diplomatic actions (create or break treaties, make declarations). (p. 33)
ii) Perform Intel missions (Espionage, Sabotage, Insurgencies). Basic Intel range = 2 links. Mission Failure Percentage (MFP) = 100 x [Mission Difficulty / Intel](p. 37)

5) Movement Phase (p. 40)
Move all vessels and ground units. Each unit may only move once.
Units travelling past each other through transport routes may create scenarios in the Encounters phase if the diplomatic situation warrants.
If using the VBAM rules all fleets may jump through two major links or one minor link. Only Military fleets may travel through restricted routes.

6) Combat Phase
i) Supply Phase: Check each units supply route. If not in supply add one Out Of Supply (OOS) level and check to see if the unit is destroyed. (p.44)
ii) Encounters Phase: Check each system to see if a raid occurs. Generate specifics of encounters (fleets involved, type of encounter). (p. 46)
iii) Fight Space Battles Phase: as generated in ii) (p. 51)
iv) Orbital Bombardment: Carry out any Orbital Bombardment started last turn. (p. 71)
v) Fight Ground Battles: Fight one round of ground combat in each system as necessary. (p. 73)

7) Construction Completion Phase(no particular order)
Any construction scheduled for completion this turn (including IP) is now finished. Note that this will be all ordered construction unless using extended construction times. (p. 78)
Also carry out any mothballing, reserve, scrapping or activations at this time. (p. 81)

8) Update Assets Phase (p. 84)
i) Increase the Productivity of systems if purchased
ii) Carry out any needed morale tests
iii) If it is the end of the year check for population growth on each inhabited system
iv) Carry out any "Colonise" orders

9) End of Turn

<edit> Page refs added

[Dave]

Thanks Gareth, that's a big help.

[mwaschak]

Thanks Gareth, that's a big help.

Indeed. Well done! That would be a good copy and post to the Yahoo group too.

-Jay