Guns, tanks, even knives. Weapons have shaped the world from their invention. Trillions of dollars are invested into the manufacturing, development, and spreading of these most wonderful creations. Why not take your own cut of this glorious business?
You are an arms dealer. Not only does that mean you sell weapons, but you must invent them. Design them. Find the right balance between power, accuracy, weight, fire rate, and hundreds of other factors to make the perfect weapon. If you fail, then your competition will sweep you aside. It is a cut-thought business in this world, even a perfect design might fail as a squad of mercenaries bursts into your laboratories and torches every design. Perhaps you are a mercenary as well, selling the weapons along with the skills to use them. You wouldn't be the first or the last in this world to do so, and a practical demonstration definitely puts faith in your wares.
This is a world like our own only on the surface. Technology is much the same, and there is no doubt similarities between cultures, but beyond that there is little alike. The world has a different layout, the geography, politics, and history has been scrambled. If you where to look up at the moon, you would see craters in all the wrong places. Much of this world has been split up, small nations clambering over each other. So small, in fact, many do not even have their own standing army. Essentially, their defense contract is sold, corporations and companies taking over the defense of nations out of the hands of governments. To you, that just brings more opportunity for profits. The only people who will at all attempt to stop you are other arms dealers, the world is your oyster.
Can you survive in this planet, forging out your own Empire of lead and steel? Or will you be swallowed alive in a hail of the same? Only time will tell.
Please read the OOC for more.
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The main portion of this game is designing weapons. Each weapon will have certain "stats", depending on how clever you where when you designed them. Detailed applications are appreciated, giving more detail on the workings of the weapon will typically make a superior product, but are not strictly necessary. You do, after all, have workers clever enough to figure out what you mean even by generic designs!
For example, lets say that two Companies are in an arms race, each trying to outdo the other.
Company A decides to make an AK clone. His exact orders are "I will make a design, based on the AK-47. First we will replace all the furniture with modern polymers, hoping to improve how they act in climates better. Forged receiver, hoping to improve quality. Add in a five round burst, so it can be used without spraying but the poorly trained troops of this country can still use the tactics they are familiar with. Finally, make a higher-quality weapon cleaning kit standard, to raise the reliability."
Company B decides the same thing, giving more vague orders. "Could I make an AK, but lighter and even cheaper?".
The first guy would get what he designed almost exactly, with hidden stats according to his reasonable suggestions. The second would get the stats he asked for, but with a greater cost to other stats, as his men struggle to make a weapon to his specifications without sacrificing something. Of course, even if you don't know a lot about weapons, if you make interesting designs and specify exactly what you want, you may still come out ahead.
For all the hidden and semi-hidden stats, there is one that is open. "PPU", price per unit. This is how much it takes to create one of the object, thus indirectly how much it takes to make a profit on it. You might make a reaaaaly neat rifle, handmade with top-quality materials and a ton of fancy accessories, but you still aren't going to sell any if they cost as much as a tank. The price per unit is not static, and is easily changed. For example, if you find out that country C has a large supply of high-quality wood, you may add in a wood deal in your contract, lowering the PPU for that gun. If, however, a rival companies mercenaries steal the wood shipment for themselves, their own PPU would go down for a turn while yours rises to normal.
Now for the next important thing after designing the weapon: selling the weapon. To sell anything, you need to make a "Contract" with a country. The countries generally have the upper hand in this, and will put in place rules that will give them an advantage in negotiating. Typically, they ask for a free sample to try out, or some other demonstration to make sure the weapon works the way you say it does. They will typically offer a price, stating what they are impressed with or dissapointed with. They may or may not be lying to get a better price, but arguing too much will just cause them to go somewhere else. The most common contracts are simple, a certain number of weapons for a certain price each, but you may specify anything else in your contract, such as "Ill lower the price, but in return you must agree to never deal with company X". They may or may not agree, but it would be unthinkable to actually break a contract. Breaking a contract means that a country has effectively made itself a pariah in the arms dealer circle, with no one offering to defend it it will no doubt be torn apart by its many enemies. Breaking a contract on your end, even by no fault of your own, often makes it much harder to deal with countries unless you make it up in some way.
You can't have an Empire without resources! This will include currently produced equipment, buildings, and where they are. Buildings must be staffed in order to produce anything, but end up helping a lot with whatever it is they do. You can *technically* do work without buildings, but it is hardly effective. Having some poor worker piece together guns in an empty parking lot is not nearly as time-effective has having the same worker in a factory. This area also includes what you have already produced. So if you wanted to make 500 guns for future contracts, arming your mercenaries, or just showing off, this is where they would go. While it is assumed that the steel, lead, wood, or other resource is purchased locally at varying prices, this will also show any contract you have for cheaper materials.
Building location, on the other hand, is relatively important. Having your building in a hostile country would hardly work out very well for you, after all, while having it build in a friendly one could save it. Location effects how difficult it is for the buyer to ship the equipment, how expensive some materials are to get, how difficult it is for enemies to sabotage you, among other things such as public relations with the country you are in. Some contracts include the ability to build in the country for cheap, and some even require that certain buildings are built by you.
Building list:
HQ: Acts as a free design lab (25 points), base (25), and meeting room (25). You can only make one of these, unfortunately, and it is fairly small.
Factory: $15,000. Can produce one kind of item, such as "Ammunition", at a power of (25).
Design Lab: $10,000. Helps your men finish your designs faster, and lets them work on multiple designs without tripping over each other. (25)
Base: $5000 A bunker-like defensive structure. It allows mercenaries or other combatants to defend a certain area, giving them a combat bonus. (25)
Meeting Room: $20000 A pleasant, showy place that puts diplomats and liaisons off their guard. Makes making contracts easier, as the pampered and content man is more likely to do what you want. (25).
More may or may not come as I think of them. (Gods, I hope I didn't make this broken...). The number in the (parenthesis) is how much "point value" they help produce per turn, per person. They can only hold so many people of course, and you will hear complaints from the workers if they are too overcrowded to work at their full potential. The prices are variable as well, a friendly nation will be happy to have one of your Bases to help defend it, and offer you a price break to build there. A hostile one will either tax you to oblivion, or make it so difficult to build that it will cost much more.
The empire is nothing without its people, and having loyal workers can make the difference between failure and success. There are two types of manpower that can be used, "Generic" and "Leader". Generic example would be buying the contract of "25 workers", because your factory needs numbers to keep production up. "Leaders", on the other hand, are skilled individuals who make other individuals work better, but often have their own faults that also get passed on to the rest of the workers. You can by a "Leader" in any category of manpower, simply quadrupling the price and stating what qualities you are looking for. Filling a factory full of leaders would be pointless, as they are all confident enough in their own skill that they won't take after each other, but two or three with generics will still help to a lesser degree.
Each individual is purchased under a "Contract", a one-time payment. They may ask for more, or try getting out of it if they want out of the business, but this only comes in rare cases. Each also has several semi-hidden values of "skills" rolled at creation, and they generally improve as time goes on or they are trained. Highly skilled workers will generally produce higher quality, higher quantity, or generally better work. On purchasing, you may spend as much extra money as you want to add bonuses to their skill roll. Especially skilled generics might even pick up their own positive traits like leaders, allowing them to get better even at obtaining maximum skill.
Manpower List:
Worker: $1000 Factory workers and other builders, capable of making equipment.
Design Technician: $1000 Help make your designs come to life, with testing and minor jiggling to get things juuust right.
Mercenary: $5,000 Fighters who will die for you. They can be used for almost anything, from fulfilling contracts to sabotaging enemies to far more inventive things.
Salesmen: $5,000 Play Golf, wine and dine, and otherwise help you form better contracts easier.
As always, the numbers are almost completely untested and subject to change.
Company Name:
Specialty: (Ex: Handguns, Assault-rifles, Light Vehicals, Aircraft, Mercenaries etc. Keep it small, please!)
History:
Current Designs: You can choose one simply design to start off with. You are still capable of building simple things, like AK-47s, that almost any factory could be capable of doing, but this is something unique to your company.
Current Resources: This will be a list of buildings, equipment, and their location. Don't have any yet, until I finalize the buildings that will be here.
Current Manpower: The workers, mercenaries, salesmen, and other people who make your company run. They will each have individual skills, often effecting the quality of any outcome.
Contracts: A list of the defense and sales contracts that are currently pending for you.
Money: The king, what you are working towards. Everyone starts with $100000, which will later be invested into buildings and designs.
All of these are subject to change at any moment, but are out there for now. Ill get back to work, finalizing them a bit.
Author
Topic: Empire of Arms: Weapon Design IC (Read 6120 times)