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[E. Albright]

Logistics are no joke. Playing Emperor of the Fading Suns with Universal Warehouse off was much, MUCH more challenging than with it on even though that still left hammerspace warehousing at the planetary level, and the AI pretty much immediately collapsed into a crying heap when faced with it rather than stumbling along whimpering like it usually did. Shadow Empire does a reasonable mix of logistics by making you at least establish and maintain paths to collect resources even if you don't concretely store most of them, and even there the AI has to use a simplified system.

All of this can work, but once you start down that path you're shifting to a game where logistics are a major focus, and if that's not where you're already at, that'll be a problem both in design and audience reception.

[EuchreJack]

Logistics Master - In the name of the Cogitator!  Move that Geenseed in the 40th Millennium! Learn the Joys of the Adeptus Administratum!

...yeah, don't go down that path.

Shadow Empire, by implementing some logistics, is ALL logistics.  Its based upon several games by the same dev that featured logistics, and it still isn't "right".

[nenjin]

To argue the other side of the coin, a large part of Chapter Master already IS logistics. Companies are already physical containers for "stuff", wot goes on ships, wot exist at points in space and moves around. Hell my first 20 minutes of a new game is moving bruvahs into companies and picking and choosing who goes on what ships. So a lot of what's necessary does already exist to some extent.

The question to ask would be, what do you gain by storing geneseed somewhere specific in terms of gameplay? The risk of losing it or the the ability to secure it in the face of trouble? Essentially that is only making the game harder while also requiring dev work to do it properly and support it with the right features. (I.e. interface.) Where do you even choose to store it that's remotely secure? Space Marines don't typically take over worlds and garrison them. They'd want to build fortresses to store something so precious as their geneseed, and not trust it to a planetary governor no matter how loyal.

[LordBaal]

Ìn deep logistics and granularity are as good as you make them. However for it to be enjoyable to an ample player base and not become a chore you need a good level of automation so the player can either dive in it, make large immediate adjustments  or tweak it and forget it for the most time.

[Blogaugis]

And I mean imagine...if you had to load Geneseed on a cruiser and ship it back to your homeworld so you could use it in recruitment. Sounds great for 40k fiction stories, but in a gameplay context? Sounds like needless busy realism that demands more features so it works.

Logistics are no joke. Playing Emperor of the Fading Suns with Universal Warehouse off was much, MUCH more challenging than with it on even though that still left hammerspace warehousing at the planetary level, and the AI pretty much immediately collapsed into a crying heap when faced with it rather than stumbling along whimpering like it usually did. Shadow Empire does a reasonable mix of logistics by making you at least establish and maintain paths to collect resources even if you don't concretely store most of them, and even there the AI has to use a simplified system.

All of this can work, but once you start down that path you're shifting to a game where logistics are a major focus, and if that's not where you're already at, that'll be a problem both in design and audience reception.

M... Emperor of the Fading Suns... I'll have to see it for myself.
Well, at least I get the reason now. With AI going nuts over logistics... Yeah, that also explains why the Gary Grigsby's world at war, a world divided AI could not handle the advanced supply management. So...
The reason would be to make the currently existing features have a point - like those repositories, lairs and stores on dead asteroids.
Another one is for more fiction stories and relationship related - which gene-seed, if any, to give to the adeptus mechanicus.
Another reason - give apothecaries another purpose - give you the information about each individual gene-seed, accuracy depending on their experience. In this case, You find a gene-seed laboratory, instead saying 'everything is unknown', an experienced apothecary says how many of them, and some educated guess on their origin and current quality. Junior apothecary in this case could just say the number, and whether it is similar to your chapter's gene-seed, or not.

To argue the other side of the coin, a large part of Chapter Master already IS logistics. Companies are already physical containers for "stuff", wot goes on ships, wot exist at points in space and moves around. Hell my first 20 minutes of a new game is moving bruvahs into companies and picking and choosing who goes on what ships. So a lot of what's necessary does already exist to some extent.

The question to ask would be, what do you gain by storing geneseed somewhere specific in terms of gameplay? The risk of losing it or the the ability to secure it in the face of trouble? Essentially that is only making the game harder while also requiring dev work to do it properly and support it with the right features. (I.e. interface.) Where do you even choose to store it that's remotely secure? Space Marines don't typically take over worlds and garrison them. They'd want to build fortresses to store something so precious as their geneseed, and not trust it to a planetary governor no matter how loyal.

Yeah, the game already is logistics. At this point it is just a question whether the logistics aspect be turned to 11, leave as is, or go back to simplifying it.
And frankly, I prefer to go to 11 - not sure about requisition though: making it a resource that takes up space would require dedicated transport ships in game. But, if we see requisition as a social capability to convince someone to give you stuff, well, alright. Transport ships would still be useful though - we will need them to transport serfs and guardsmen in renegade/traitor playthroughs.
Also, another thing...

Sounds great for 40k fiction stories

What chapter master game is, if not a 40k fiction story simulator? What the game would be about, without it?
Still, I personally would want to simulate my fanfiction of Perturabo getting tired of this endless war and bickering, deciding that playing Factorio would be better, but realising that he has to deal with his brothers and nephews first - one way, or another... Family reunion is the ideal of it all.
However, for my fanfiction to at least be somewhat accurate and to the point, the game needs:

• Possibility to play as a traitor Legion from the get-go.
• Existing location: Terra.
• Other chapters in game, or at least a simplified 'amalgamation' of loyalist chapters.

That would be the bare minimum, that should be possible in the game with fairly minor modifications. Primarch is not even necessary for a hypothetical siege of Terra. After taking Terra, you can pretty much run the event of 'amalgamation' trying to take it back. I bet Choas SMs are also not going to be too pleased about Perty doing a thing of his own, but at least they already exist in the game. After some time, when 'amalgamation' all dies, you win.
In visual novel terms, this would be a bad end - as Perty basically kills them all... Well, bad end would be Perty dying, but... evil ending, then.
So, for a more positive in this otherwise grimdark setting:

• Diplomatic interactions between other Legions/chapters + capability to have SMs from other chapters/legions.
• Chaos/Emperor worshipping mechanics.
• Existing location: Eye of Terror.
• Existing location: homeworlds of all Legions/1st founding chapters.

Right, we're entering the Visual Novel and Role-Playing-Game territory, folks. The most interesting part of it would be the interactions between brothers and chapter masters. Normally, the primarchs are expected to fight to the death, but, Perturabo WILL, NOT, BE, DENIED! So obviously, he takes them alive or unconscious, for the upcoming family reunion. Audience with the Emperor awaits them all. If you want to read my fanfiction in more detail - you can join chapter master discord.
Worshipping mechanics are needed to reduce the hostility of other chapters/legions. Gifts from choas gods/Emperor can also be an interesting source of artifacts and/or special units.
Eye of Terror existing... Well, last I heard, Perty had a base there. And other traitor Legions tend to hang out there too. Our adventure has to start somewhere after all...
Homeworlds are... well, where else are loyalists going to be hanging around, if Perty's not gonna go straight to Terra from the get-go? Spoilers: he shouldn't. Another reason is that Perty needs a bit of a character growth at Olympia, near his step-sister's grave:
"I'm sorry." It seemed as the Emperor had smiled upon his son after so long... "I should've turned you into a servitor(-ess), instead of blasting you to pieces." ... only to turn into something similar to Jontron's WTF meme...
So, yeah, good ending is this way.

[Blogaugis]

But fine, a whole legion can be a bit too serious undertaking, so let's get back to loyalist chapter/ (renegade/traitor) warband level and stay in 1 sector, for a petty Imperium.
Possibility to start as a traitor/renegade warband from the get-go would be a nice thing anyway.

However, in order for this to properly work, we still need some more extrasector stuff - one of the oddities that are present in this game, is that only the hostile (to the loyalist chapter) factions can invade a sector. There simply is no response from the other parts of the Imperium when most of your sector is overrun by, say, orks. Where is the Imperial relief effort? A small relief force to... evacuate the sector governor, for example? Rogue traders, at least? I get that the Imperium is corrupt, inefficient and so on, not capable to keep everything in order for each world in the imperium and maybe a couple of solar systems, but a whole sector? You're missing out on those tithes!
I suppose in-game explanation could be that you're on some backwater sector, hardly relevant to the Imperium, and... Why are you here then, chapter master? Bureaucratic inefficiency aside, why is the inquisition so picky around these hardly relevant parts?

Now, back to logistics...
If turning it to 11, leaving as-is, is not acceptable for wider audience (if this game is targeting at a wider audience... I think it needs a lot of changes), then how would a simplified/minimized/removed logistics would look like?
I think the very first thing which would happen is the removal of travel in space. Just selecting a location which to attack/move to, once per turn. Ground combat ensues. I suppose it could be left for AI and other factions, for the sake of enjoying how the map looks and seeing the deployment of other forces in the sector. No more annoying Naval battles - this would truly make you feel that you are a commander of special forces, fighting via unconventional means.
Next thing would be that you no longer control which individual marine carries what. It can be automated at this point. I suppose in terms of ground combat - you just select what % of your chapter to send to the location to attack/defend from enemies.
Gene-seed and requisition... are they even needed as resources at this point? At this point you can probably choose whether to go with quality or quantity here, like, collecting 1 resource point per turn, and using that point to either - fortify a world, improve the equipment of your chapter, raise the number of marines in your chapter or bombard a hostile world.
The main question is - Do You folks even find these ideas as remotely fun, engaging or interesting?

[Ramirez]

I personally think involving logistics too heavily would just overcomplicate the game without any real actual benefit. The depth vs busywork ratio just really doesn't work out. All players will end up doing is setting aside a couple of frigate for courier duty to bring things back to the Fortress-Monastery and adding a few more clicks onto every turn without adding any real decision making. It might be fine if we were making a Rogue Trader game where shipping goods around is the core focus, it might even work out for Imperial Navy squadrons or a titan legion as their general scale is somewhat different, but for a Chapter Master the amount of materiel they require is so small relative to the scale of the ships. The important thing for gameplay isn't so much where the stuff is, but what stuff there is; this is particularly relevant as managing resources even at an abstract level still involves a lot of the same skill set when combined with the locations of your marines but without most of the busywork that would come with tracking every single item, component or unit of raw material as players still need to plan ahead, keep track of enemy movements and have a good sense of the layout of the sector and its potential threats.

Besides, we do already have a fair amount of logistics in where each of our marines are, as already stated in the thread, plus things like relics need to be taken back to either a Battle Barge or the Fortress-Monastery to be added to the pool. The marine location is the big one though, as the game is all about managing your dudes and making sure you have the right dudes in sufficient quantity in the right places to take care of problems.

You don't see much interaction with the other parts of the Imperium beyond the sector lore-wise because the Imperium is remarkably slow at achieving things. It normally takes decades for relief forces or reinforcements to arrive even after they realise the sector has fallen, with the knowledge that the sector has fallen requiring years or even decades to reach someone with enough authority to do something about it. Any reinforcements you encounter were ordered into the sector by the Administratum long before you became Chapter Master. And is the sector a backwater part of the Imperium? To be honest, outside of a few very key regions of strategic importance, everything in the Imperium is considered to be pretty backwater. The Imperium is so large that most sectors are barely even a footnote on a record of tithes and there's a approximately 1000 Chapters active at any given time, most of which are off doing their own things and fighting wars that the majority of the Imperium will barely even hear about.

Rather than busywork like supply chains and whether you accidentally left that crate of ceramite on whatever moon or not, the game should focus on the core gameplay of your dudes, diplomacy, making questionable decisions with long term consequences, deploying forces and managing your dudes.

And the management of your dudes is also why I don't feel that the game can support a significant increase in scale, such as managing a whole legion or including direct management of auxiliary forces. The current 1000ish marines is a lot, but it is just about within the realms of keeping things personal and for players to get attached to their forces. This is particularly important, as the original concept the game was basically some kind of hybrid between Dwarf Fortress and Chaos Gate, both games in which players tend to get attached to their favourite Dwarves/Marines. Sure, some degree of automation can help streamline things, but relying exclusively on automation to be able to play the game drives a wedge between the player and their marines.

Rather than making marines just a number, I'd say the game should go the other way and make them more individual, make them more like a RPG character with skills, specialties, rivalries, friendships, personality traits, weapon preferences etc. You haven't just lost a tactical marine after a skirmish; you've lost Brother McMally of the 3rd squad of the 7th Company, veteran of the 2nd campaign for Revalen IV against the Orks, slayer of Warboss Ur'Brakken, bolt drill instructor for the 7th Company, specialist in target priority against Tyranids, adept in maintaining chain weaponry, aspirant-mate of Brother Kirril, long-term squad-mate of Brothers Lorno and Pedrus, owner of a bionic left arm, suffered from an underactive Ossmodula and his progenoids have been recovered and the Ossmodula issues are not deemed to be hereditary.

It's also why I would like to see increased amounts of chapter organisation customisation, including the ability to customise after chapter creation. Want to assemble a specialist Ork hunting force? Create a specialist company outside the normal command structure. Remarkably well-equipped and have special weapons in abundance? Create special weapon squads that are fully equipped with melta guns, plasma guns and flamers, replacing some tactical squads in battle companies and replacing the entire 6th company. Unusually close ties to the Mechanicus, resulting in huge quantities of Techmarines? Make every devastator squad include an attached Techmarine. Obsessed with Gene-Seed purity and are looking to reclaim and analyse every Progenoid? Ensure an apothecary in every squad by merging the roles of sergeant and apothecary.

To make a game have a reasonable appeal for a player base, you don't need to simplify and streamline everything; you just need to streamline enough to remove the inconsequential busywork, but not so much that it cuts into the actually important decisions. With that in mind:

Now, back to logistics...
If turning it to 11, leaving as-is, is not acceptable for wider audience (if this game is targeting at a wider audience... I think it needs a lot of changes), then how would a simplified/minimized/removed logistics would look like?
I think the very first thing which would happen is the removal of travel in space. Just selecting a location which to attack/move to, once per turn. Ground combat ensues. I suppose it could be left for AI and other factions, for the sake of enjoying how the map looks and seeing the deployment of other forces in the sector. No more annoying Naval battles - this would truly make you feel that you are a commander of special forces, fighting via unconventional means.
Next thing would be that you no longer control which individual marine carries what. It can be automated at this point. I suppose in terms of ground combat - you just select what % of your chapter to send to the location to attack/defend from enemies.
Gene-seed and requisition... are they even needed as resources at this point? At this point you can probably choose whether to go with quality or quantity here, like, collecting 1 resource point per turn, and using that point to either - fortify a world, improve the equipment of your chapter, raise the number of marines in your chapter or bombard a hostile world.

This is a very good example of streamlining too much and effectively removing most of the potential gameplay in the name of simplification. Rather than being some kind of Dwarf Fortress / XCom / Stellaris hybrid, that sounds more like a little mobile game for someone to spend 15 minutes messing about with on their lunch break (and probably spend £2.50 on premium currency to get extra relics and bonus action points); it's basically a strawman argument. I presume by "wider audience", people generally mean "fans of strategy, management and procgen story games" rather than "Fortnite and Candy Crush aficionados".

[Blogaugis]

...

This is a very good example of streamlining too much and effectively removing most of the potential gameplay in the name of simplification. Rather than being some kind of Dwarf Fortress / XCom / Stellaris hybrid, that sounds more like a little mobile game for someone to spend 15 minutes messing about with on their lunch break (and probably spend £2.50 on premium currency to get extra relics and bonus action points); it's basically a strawman argument. I presume by "wider audience", people generally mean "fans of strategy, management and procgen story games" rather than "Fortnite and Candy Crush aficionados".

Rogue trader, Imperial Navy or Titan Legion simulator... Hm...

Alright, so it is better to leave as-is, with a few more improvements. Very well.
Gene-seed number basically would represent the amount of them you have access to at the given time. I suppose tracking each and every one of it's status is not the priority? Because in some ideas You mentioned, like specialised squads, maybe gene-seed also could have certain mutations that could help or hamper in the role the said marine is partaking in?

About the extrasector stuff... I find it odd, that Your chapter can take part in an extrasector crusade, but not some other chapter having a crusade in Your sector. Oftentimes, the moment you become renegade, the sector seems to be left for dead. While speaking about the Gary Stues - Ultrasmurfs - of course their 500 worlds can rely on the numerous Smurf chapters to keep them safe, but not in this game. It is even a question whether we want some lore in game, or just a grimdark SM simulator. In the latter case, I think we should just remove the 1st founding chapters as a starting option, and make everything random/custom. 1st founding chapters should probably be made as 'special scenarios' or even training missions, showing players how to play.

We have problems with loyalist-renegade-traitor thing though...
So, is it better to remove the possibility to even betray the Imperium, whether it was your own choice or not, basically locking you into the role of chapter master, greatly simplifying the diplomacy and bugginess?
In this case, game loses a lot of the appeal for me, at least, at the first glance. Maybe, I'll be proven wrong, but still.
IF we do leave the option to go to renegade path... should it be playable, or is it just masochism at this point? We probably need renegade playthrough to be... pretty much a mirror-image then, with 'renegade' faction, that will be the substitute for the Imperial Guard/Navy. At least, if we take the statement "game cannot support a significant increase in scale" as true, then the choas should also be divided into several sub-factions at this point.
Which frankly... sounds a bit odd, isn't it? It's basically the same thing, with a few minor differences...
At this point, maybe it is better to make loyalist as the default and only way to play, at least for now, with daemonically possesed artifacts automatically given to the inquisition, and just a few sliders on how much info are you going to give to the inquisition and other factions (since they all have their bits of grudges and compatitions against each other, you can focus on 1 or 2, improving their relations, and not worry too much about the rest, or try to balance between them all)?

Also, I'm not sure if 1000 marines are really fitting into a 'startegy' aspect... Sure, the sector map is fairly large, and it can be considered as strategy, but... in the scale of the vast Imperium, it is probably 'tactics' at this point...
Plus, you can't go with personalization that much, with startegy involved... Limited personalization, with customizing your leaders, giant war machines and a few special troops? Yes. But if you want to personalize everything - you need those 11 logistics...

[EuchreJack]

...

This is a very good example of streamlining too much and effectively removing most of the potential gameplay in the name of simplification. Rather than being some kind of Dwarf Fortress / XCom / Stellaris hybrid, that sounds more like a little mobile game for someone to spend 15 minutes messing about with on their lunch break (and probably spend £2.50 on premium currency to get extra relics and bonus action points); it's basically a strawman argument. I presume by "wider audience", people generally mean "fans of strategy, management and procgen story games" rather than "Fortnite and Candy Crush aficionados".

Rogue trader, Imperial Navy or Titan Legion simulator... Hm...

Personally, I wish someone would make a Rogue Trader simulator based on the 40K Rogue Traders.  Best of all, it would be easy to avoid the copyright issues. I'd also love an Imperial Guard Regiment simulator.

Gene-seed number basically would represent the amount of them you have access to at the given time. I suppose tracking each and every one of it's status is not the priority? Because in some ideas You mentioned, like specialised squads, maybe gene-seed also could have certain mutations that could help or hamper in the role the said marine is partaking in?

Actually, most gene seed mutations are generally "bad".  Technically, it should be thrown out as tainted by chaos.  But it's too rare, so you dump it into recruits anyways and hope for the best.  I think the game should however track the various mutations.  I mean, it's not like it all goes bad at once.  So specializing it out so as to limit the risk makes sense.  Although it goes against the whole "Band of Brothers" vibe of a Space Marine Chapter.  They're warriors, not technocrats!

About the extrasector stuff... I find it odd, that Your chapter can take part in an extrasector crusade, but not some other chapter having a crusade in Your sector.

Agreed, although I always figured other chapters were meant to show up in your sector later in development.  Otherwise the Parent Chapter and Chapter Diplomacy makes no sense.

[LordBaal]

Adeptus Munitorum. The game.

It would be very interesting.

[E. Albright]

(Nvm)

[nenjin]

Adeptus Munitorum. The game.

It would be very interesting.

It's like Papers Please, only you get to immediately shoot people.

[EuchreJack]

Adeptus Munitorum. The game.

It would be very interesting.

It's like Papers Please, only you get to immediately shoot people.

Uh, no.  You're not the Inquisition, flailing your gun around and doing whatever you please.  You are an Administrator.  You shall not act without proper authorization in triplicate.  And you don't sully your hands with "menial gunplay".  You authorize others to shoot people.

Actually, it reminds me of a game that I had thought up, that I think would authentically capture the job of an Army Officer:

War Desk:
You can have anything you want, so long as you fill out the forms properly.

You play a newly-minted Captain of an Infantry Company in a warzone.  You have 150 soldiers under your command, which means 150 bodies between you and the wrong end of the enemy's guns.  Keep them alive, or die with them.

Your goal is to WIN THE WAR...ha ha ha, no.  Your goal is to live.  You can't affect the war if you're dead, right? 

You have been given a Desk, upon which you can Make Requests from HQ.  Artillery, Air Power, Reinforcements, Supplies, all these things are yours, should you fill out your forms properly._{Forms not necessarily included with the desk, hey maybe that 1000 page army manual has something...}

But thou must also follow orders, or you become one of those bodies on the _very front lines standing between the enemy's fury and HQ. Most orders consist of filling out paperwork.

Maybe you need to activate Paper Storm, wherein you try to do as much paperwork as possible to hopefully overwhelm HQ and the enemy!

Or perhaps Surgical Pen Strike, wherein you make sure THAT ONE FORM is absolutely correct, is more your style?

But you are not alone!  Your men (and women?) need your guidance!  Should you Enforce Discipline or Boost their Morale? (Imagine the scenes from MASH where Corporal Klinger is brought before the Colonel, and you can see where I'm going here)  Your men need both to be an effective unit!

Maybe your men can be MORE helpful.  Imagine what that private forging 3-day passes could do if you made them handle the REAL forms! Make him your Company Clerk, and set him loose on those forms!
And what does the JD mean at the end of the name of your cheeky Lieutenant, who actually found the "Request for Appeal of Combat Assignment Form"? He's a Lawyer*! Set him to work finding you more forms as your General Counsel, and let some other Lewy pretend to command the men! (Probably provided for free and gives advice at Beginner difficulty.  At higher difficulty, probably also giving advice, but you already figured it all out before finding them and generally ignore them)

It's a great idea, but I can't/won't program.

*Not technically true, JD means Juris Doctorate, aka Law Degree.  But "close enough", especially since the implication is that he got drafted before becoming an actual attorney, but again is "close enough" for a fumbling Army Captain desperately hunting down the illusive "Discharge from Active Duty - Undeniable Reason" Form.

[E. Albright]

(...)

[EuchreJack]

For a game, I liked the idea of the player starting as Company Commander and getting Promoted to Battalion Commander, and getting as their reward 3x everything (work and men) and literally nothing else.  It also explains why the player is all alone in the HQ and has to obtain the support staff "organically" rather than starting with the normal support staff.  So yeah, probably not 1000% authentic.