In this game, the players as a whole form the body of the Board of Directors for a trans-stellar fleet. Their choices reflect policy and assignments, and are represented to the Universe as a whole through the body of the Fleet Admiral, who is more or less a non-entity aside from a small percentage of fleet share. The players themselves, however, are individual Captain-owners, commodores, merchant captains, pirates, Space Marines, or whatever other role they like. They handle missions and decide tactics, and otherwise execute (or defy!) the will of the Fleet.
There's several factions, a long history of cooperation and competition, and a huge variety of ships, weapons, strategies, etc. Hundreds of combinations, if not more.
While this is a roll game, I am looking at a role playing game, to be clear.
a) JoiningFirst off, decide the following:
Proposed Fleet Name:
Player Character Name:
Origin:
Terran Alliance:
+20% Missile damage
-10% Missile size
+5% ship missile capacity (Missile weapons have 5% ship mass "free" space)
- 15% cost for ships equal to or above Battle cruisers
+5% cost below
Special: Missile Pods (Once per battle/deployment, Missile damage and to-hit doubled)
Galactic League:
+10% Missile
+10% Energy
+10% Weapon Capacity
- 15% cost for ships equal to or below Assault Cruisers
+5% cost above
Special: Armed Freighters (Faster, tougher, secretly armed merchant ships)
Kai Dominion:
+30% Energy
-10% Energy Size
+10% Marines
+10% Marine Capacity
+10% Ship Cost
Special: Infestation (Can enslave other forms of life)
Merope Formation:
+30% Energy
+30% Missile
- 10% HP
+20 Ship cost except for Carriers
Special: Strength In Numbers (cumulative boost based on nearby friendly)
Synthetic Civilization:
+20% Speed
+20% HP
+10% Missile Size
-25% Energy Size
+10% ship cost
Special: Sentient Ships (Cost x4, HP & Weaponry x2)
Rift Conglomerate:
+10% Speed
+10% Electronic Warfare
-10% Component Size
+10% Light Cruisers and above cost
-20% Ship Cost for Cargo Ships, Carriers, Frigates and Below
Special: Rift Drive: All ships move 1 hyper band faster than they previously could.
Octav Hegemony:
+15% Range
+20% Missiles
+10% Missile Capacity
+15% Accuracy
-20% HP
Special: Grav Cannons: Extremely long range but slow spinally mounted 'artillery' weapons, requires specially built ships, only one per ship.
Coalition of Monarchies:
+10% HP
-10% Ship Cost(all)
+10% Energy
-10% Energy Size
+10% Defensive Systems
-10% Speed
Special: For The Kings/Queens: Ships retain large amount of effectiveness even when heavily damaged
Red Star Empire:
+20% Marines
+20% Marine Capacity
+20% Energy
+15% EW
+10% Cost
Special: EW Specialists
Captain Specialty: Up to 20% of one feature and 5% of another. See Examples below.
XO Specialty: Up to 15% of what your Captain specialty is. See Examples below. This is for when your character is the XO instead of the Captain.
Crew Bonus: Up to 5% of what your Captain specialty is. This is for when you are aboard a ship, but not the Captain or XO.
Reputation: From -5 (notorious pirate) to 5 (well-respected Galactic citizen)
Bio:
From there, I will roll 1d12+2d6 to determine your starting funds, and then you get to the shipbuilding process. Yes, your origin determines what warships you can buy outside of standard ships. You can buy civilian spacecraft from anyone, as well as components for 10% above base price for members of their Nation.
b) Building A ShipCheck out your funds. Look at the list, and decide what you want. Consider recruiting another player to join you as an Executive Officer, pool your funds, and buy a better ship. Recruit several people and build a Superdreadnaught, if you like. Also consider these to be average figures. You can fudge a little provided you offset it - if your ship is a bit bigger, it's also probably a bit slower. So on, so forth.
Captain:
Exec:
HP:
missile/hit/countermissile:
energy/hit/sidewall:
sensors:
ew/ecw:
marine:
accel X / X hyper
cost X bc
b2. Ships
These are what base ship you purchase. If you pick a variant side, then you put those bonuses or penalties over the unmodified category.
b3. Weapons
The first weapon purchased replaces your base weapon. The second of the same kind are additional missile tubes or laser clusters to increase your rate of fire.
b4. Components
Components are everything not a weapon. This can range from missile defense to sensors to industrial modules to electronic warfare systems. These also take up cargo space.
c) Limits and Explanations (sure to expand later)0.8c or 80% of light speed is maximum speed in sidereal space or .6c in hyper.
Any hyper translation causes an 80% loss in velocity, whether upwards or downwards.
You must go through each hyper band in order to reach the following.
Sensor range is 10 light-minutes per sensor value; double it for active search for a total basket of 20 light minutes.
Missile range is 2 light-minutes and changes to-hit at the rate of 1% per light-second; this means a basket of 4 light minutes.
Energy range is 5 light-seconds and changes to-hit at the rate of 10% per light-second; this means a basket of 10 light-seconds.
Base defense is 10%. Base ECW is 0%.
Logistics score is cost per month to operate. Don't spend your whole wad of money and have a ship you can't afford.
Cargo insurance rate is 0.5bc per 100bc of cargo, minimum of 10bc.
Ships are supplied for a six month deployment.
d) Limited Background and ContextA long time ago...- Merope contact humans and share the secret of "FTL" travel
- Humans begin tech drive
- Kai invasion of humans and formation of First Terran Alliance
- Synthetic Civilization spawns as the result of a massive Kai-Merope-Mercenary space battle on the galactic fringes
- Human Civil War almost immediately after Kai beaten away
- League forms of outer worlds, Alliance from Core Worlds (Earth, Mars, etc), others go on Diaspora to form their own star empires with blackjack and hookers
- Merope lose key forward systems to Kai
- Rift Conglomerate forms; Monarchy worlds colonized
- Synthetics design Suncrusher weapon from Octav tech as a hypothetical
- Kai Insurrection between Tech Kai and other castes
Distant Past- Coalition of Monarchies forms
- Humans take nearest Kai systems and begin terraforming
- Synthetics and Tech Kai non-aggression pact and shared research
- Human Armistice; Uplift of non-human Terrans begins (I hope you guys have read this series.)
- Synthetics/Tech/Octav Empire purge Body Kai from the Galaxy
- War Kai smash Synthetic Prime Fleet, Synthetics sell Suncrusher to Merope
- Merope take out loans from the Alliance, Monarchies, Rift, and Red Stars, and go to full production
- Synthetic withdrawal from the Kai War, mercenary fleet sales to keep fighting anyway
Past- Grand Fleet assembled, including Tech Kai ships. Merope and Synthetic Mercs assault League territory in exchange for Alliance concessions
- Red Star Empire leads sneak attack on Octav Hegemony
- Grand Fleet upgraded to Suncrusher Fleet; Terran non-humans achieve 24th-century levels after Uplift. "Terrans" replaces "Humans", for the most part
- Grand Battle; Kai home solar system and War Caste destroyed. Galactic views on the Merope slide back dramatically. Octav sever diplomatic ties in protest and expel Merope ships from Octav space.
- Alliance finishes Uplift programs and begins construction of Home Fleet against other Human civilizations and the possible Red Star menace
Recent History- Short war between Alliance and League due to political interference; Home Fleet's Earth Megadreadnought 15
Gaia vanishes on route to the then-current League Capitol-Designate
- Synthetic and Merope skirmishes
- Empire and Hegemony reach armistice
- Galactic Federation formed between Terrans, Merope, and Synthetics; mostly a trade organization but also establishes basic rules of war beyond "don't indiscriminately bomb planets or blow up suns for shits and giggles"
Current Situation - Semi-cold war between Federation members, including Synthetic protests about TechKai being excluded despite obviously peaceable intention and actions; Octavs and Rift against wormhole tariffs; Alliance complaints about League piracy and the hijacking of
Gaia;
- Collapse of the Federation; game starts roughly about here
e) PlayersCheesecake - Dominion
Kevak - Dominion
Rolepgeek - Coalition
Kash - League
Q - League
Knave - League
Oz - Rift
Tyrol - Rift
Ebbor - Alliance
f) Ships of the Fleetg) The FleetCorporation Name: none yet
Reputation: 0.5 ("Probably okay")
Fame: 0 ("Who are these people?")
Friendly:
Neutral: Everyone
Hostile: