General Concepts
Game
Basically the game is an Empire building game. Each player will start with a single star system, and go from there. They can use any means necessary to expand into the cube taking worlds as they go they might be friendly to others, all the while carefully planning for the stab in the back. If you've ever played Civilization style games (or Master of Orion) they you should feel right at home in this game.
Space
Contains 1 of 3 items:
Black Holes are instant/undetectable death for all ships entering a Black Hole Cube.
Systems (planet) Each system will contain (ONE) planet, each planet will have a max population. The three types of planets are: Fertile (max population = 9), Average (MP = 6), Barren (MP= 3)
Open Space - This cube contains nothing...
Cubes
Each location in the SpaceCube is called a cube, there will be 64 cubes per a sector (4x4x4 cubes), there will be 8 sectors in the SpaceCube. Whenever a player's ship move through the edge of the large cube, it will be destroyed. The entire play area (universe) will be 8x8x8. For a total of 512 locations.
Production Points
Each unit of your population on a planet will be called a peep, to borrow a term from Chris Sawyer's Roller Coaster Tycoon games. Production will use a term "Peep-Year"(think Man-Year). A planet can only hold so many Peeps (there are always exceptions to each rule). If a planet has 9 Peeps, think of each peep as 1 million citizens or the total population as 9 million Citizens. A player assigns Peeps population to the tasks (Building (ships/infrastructure)).
Building
Note: each planet will now only handle 1 task at a time.
When building an item (ex. Scout(spaceship) = 10 BT), for every Peep assigned to that task, 1 unit of the Build Time(BT), is accomplished each turn. So, in this example, 10 peeps could build a scout in 1 turn. 5 peeps could build a scout in 2 turns, and 2 peeps could build a scout in 5 turns. If a player had 6 peeps assigned to build a scout, they could accomplish it in two turns, but, during the second turn, the extra 2 peeps 'effort' will go to waste.
Note: If a player moves all peeps currently assigned to a Building Task, they lose any resources paid to initiate that task, and all effort put in by the peeps.
Here is a list of the Ships. BT = Build time
Ship Types:
Scout BT: 10 used to explore out area, no offensive abilities.
Colony BT: 20 ( Population: 2) - no offensive/defensive capabilities. Used to set up a new colony on a new planet.
Combat Ship: BT: 30
Infrastructures
Most players will be busy building ships, but player may also assign their systems to build Infras (infrastructures). These are planetary bound facilities that improve your other two tasks (on this planet). These might be called "Shipyards-1", "Shipyards-2"..., "Hydro-farms-1", "Hydro-Farms-2",...each level of Infrastructure would improve that planets ability to produce the other three Tasks (Building ships, Building Infrastructures or Growth of population). My current thinking is that each level of infrastructure would improve the peep efforts by (+2). So a planet with 6 peeps and a level two Shipyards, could build a scout in 1 turn (6 + (+2) (+2)) = 10, or a colony ship in 2 turns. If you build 3 levels of farm on a world, it bumps that world's type to the next higher one (Barren->Average->Fertile) Fertile worlds can't be bumped up...But, it also cancels out the farms built (so that the next farm built would be a level 1 farm)
Growth
RECENT CHANGE: no longer will player need to assign their population to "growth", the generic growth rate will be 5% per turn. Infras (Farms), increase your growth rate +2% per farm. EAch third farm upgrades your world to the next higher planet type (and resets your farms to 0).
Exploration
Players will spend significant time "finding" each other while they explore.
Trade
Players can trade any item in the game with another player: Colonies, Ships, or Information.
Combat
Combat will be basically a game of numbers. If one player has 5 ships in a fleet, and another has 3 then the player with 5 would win and be left with 2 ships left. No retreats.
Order Format
TBD. Excel (or a spreadsheet program that can open Excel files) will be required for each player to have so they can receive their personalized player (star)maps.
Cutomizable Factions
Each player will start with 1 Fertile [Homeworld] (max pop=9), with a population of 5 and 1 scout ship.
At the beginning of the game, each player will "bid" on which items they want. Some of the concepts would be unique in that one one race could get a improvement, while others wouldn't be "unique" so any number of races could buy those. Any points spent bidding on a Unique Modication would be lost (if that player didn't win that bid. Points spent on Non-Unique Modifications would be garenteed, but maybe not as valuable.
Unique Modifications:
- Extra Starting system (closest system to their homeworld, population of 2)
- Faster War-Ships (able to move 2 cubes per turn instead of just 1, 40 BT)
- Stronger War-Ships (Count double in battles, 2 strong ships could defeat 3 normal ships 40BT)
- Faster Growth rate (+5% the growth as normal races)
- Faster Ship Builders (+1 per peep on a planet assigned to building a ship) 5 peeps of this race could build a scout in 1 turn.
- Faster Infra builders (+2 per peep on a planet assigned to building an infra)
- Higher pop. density on Planets (all planet types can hold +1 pop. (ie. Fertiles MP = 10, instead of 9
Non-Unique Modifications:
- Extra Scout (1 point for 1 extra) (2 points for 2 extra)
- Starting Colony Ship (4 points)
- Extra population on Homeworld (+1 pop per point spent)
- Starting level 1 Infra (type of your choice) on Homeworld (2 points)
If anyone has any other ideas for possible Unique or Non-Unique Modifications, let me know.
Each player will have a certain number of points to spend to the customination of their race. For Example:
Each player might have 12 race points at the beginning of the game. So a player could bid 8 points for Stronger Ships, and spend the rest of his points buying non-unique improvements.
Other than those modifiers, all players can create whatever race they wish...call it anything they wish, create any "back-story" they want...etc. From the eyes of the GM, this will be transparent, in that there will not be certain races who have certain abilities, etc.
Schedule
Each turn will take one week to complete. There will be no deadline extensions. Players (should/could) have conditional orders for every possible situation. There will be 3 deadlines per week (Tuesday, Thursday and Monday)
Tuesday - Task Orders for all Systems (Build(Ships and/or Infrastructures)/Growth)
Thursday - Move Orders for all ships (fleets), Players will have a maximum number of fleets of 26 (fleets will be lettered) After the Thursday deadline Contacts are announced to each player. They have until Monday to attempt a peaceful resolution to the contact. If either player says "Fight" then on Monday the contact will be decided through battle. There is no retreats.
Monday - Battle Orders are due.
Alliances--There are no formal alliances in the game.
Winning
How to win:
Capture a majority (5 including your own)of the Homeworlds. So, you'll want to guard your home world with a sizable defenisive fleet. Players who lose their homeworlds aren't "out" of the game, if they have other colonies, etc. They can re attempt to take their homeworld back.
Players so far:
Greg
Shoup
Joe
Gregg
(3 spots available)
Paul?
Topics for discussion:
-How many points for the initial modifications?
-If you bid all your points for a Unique Mod and don't win it, do you lose those points, or do you get to spend them on non-unique mods?