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[Silverthrone]

That would be very nice. Aurora does have room for roleplay, mostly. It is less of a race for an optimal design, unless you want it to be. Having participating players vying for contracts and research grants and what-not would be amusing.

Not to mention, reader/player participation could come in other ways, too, like short little stories and art-work, if the setting gives enough to work with.

[forsaken1111]

Would probably be very frustrating and time-consuming, but by an order of magnitude less than running a PvP game. That's like a play-by-snail mail game of Stars with an order of magnitude more complexity, and you get to be the person acting as a routing hub that has to transcribe everything manually multiple times.

I don't think it would be too bad so long as we set some basic rules. I have seen more complex forum games run just fine. At that poing Aurora would basically be a visualizer and database more than anything, and I would use SM mode to edit stuff accordingly if we do something outside of the game's capacity.

many things would end unused, having players being the political class. stellaris seems a better framework for that. aurora forum game would probably be more !fun! with players running corporations, handling research, module production and eventually shpyards..

In my head the way I see it going is every bay12 member directly participating plays as one of the ingame characters. Administrators are voted into office by popular vote open to anyone on the forum. Military would be different. The top level military staff would be appointed by the politicians or something and then the military leaders would build out the fleet and command structure. Still working out the rules and how it would play but I think it would be a blast. Anyone who didn't want to roleplay could just submit stories or events (within reason). It would be up to me as GM to moderate and handle it all.

That would be very nice. Aurora does have room for roleplay, mostly. It is less of a race for an optimal design, unless you want it to be. Having participating players vying for contracts and research grants and what-not would be amusing.

Not to mention, reader/player participation could come in other ways, too, like short little stories and art-work, if the setting gives enough to work with.

Exactly so. It would be a cooperative exercise in world building as well.

[Lord Shonus]

Might be fun to roleplay a democracy style government with a GM running a game. Have the various administrators and officers be played by bay12 members with orders passed and laws made, etc

There's a guy over on SA that's been doing exactly that for several years now.

[forsaken1111]

Might be fun to roleplay a democracy style government with a GM running a game. Have the various administrators and officers be played by bay12 members with orders passed and laws made, etc

There's a guy over on SA that's been doing exactly that for several years now.

Huh. Does he have a set of rules and such that they operate by?

[Lord Shonus]

Some goons are filling the roles of department heads, others are role-playing as officers and scientists, and some are participating in other ways. The guy running it is also running the other Solar power. I'll throw up a link later, but I don't know if the paywall is up.

[forsaken1111]

I think I found the one you're talking about. What I had in mind is a bit more structured but essentially the same.

[Lord Shonus]

Sounds like you found it, but here's a link anyway. I really need to get around to catching up on the thing.

[Retropunch]

That SA game is crazy! I'd heard about it before, but great to look into it. From what I understand though, there were a lot of problems between IRC and non-IRC users. Stuff was agreed in IRC and forum only people got a bit left out of decisions, and as the IRC was 24/7, some stuff was discussed in different time zones etc. etc.

If you do start it, probably best to restrict it to only forum discussion.

[Lord Shonus]

I'm pretty far behind on the SA thread, so I don't think I've encountered what you're talking about.

I have been toying with the idea of setting up an Aurora Arena Challenge (in the vein of the Dwarf Fortress Arena Challenges they have over there), but I think it would be better to wait until the rewrite is done.

[forsaken1111]

If I do it, it will be restricted to a thread on this forum and will have some guidelines to follow. As far as I can tell the SA game has no real rules or guidelines, just whatever the guy likes he goes with.

[EuchreJack]

How exactly do you play Aurora in a multiplayer fashion?

One person acts as GM and runs the game, relaying information to the players of each faction.

Yes, exactly. Every turn (which tends to be about a year), I ask players for their orders (research, ship movements, installation construction, ship designs, whatever). Then I run the turn with their specifications. If something unexpected comes up, like meeting a new alien race or them being attacked, then the turn pauses until I can reach the player and determine what they want to do.

I would be interested in playing either the Americans or the Rebels.  Would it be possible for you to create a new thread in the Let's Play section of these forums and share the non-classified info?  You might get more recruits there as well.

I would probably also leave general instructions so that you would be able to resolve some surprise situations without pausing to contact.

[Retropunch]

Standing instructions are a must.

I once played an email based game (of our own devising) with a lot of people who definitely would not be able to check in regularly. As such, we all left standing instructions which allowed for most situations to be tackled in their absence.

I'd also recommend 'sealed' instructions. We had a number of likely major scenarios like 'war with x' which each player wrote out their response to before hand - these were kept on a server and the head of each delegation only opened it if a major event arose and the person couldn't be contacted within a set time. It was a bit of a trust exercise that they didn't just look through everything, but it worked out well.

After we had played together a lot longer, some people designated surrogate voters which also worked to move things along. A lot of trust was required with that though, and there were some unhappy decisions.

[kytuzian]

I would be interested in playing either the Americans or the Rebels.  Would it be possible for you to create a new thread in the Let's Play section of these forums and share the non-classified info?  You might get more recruits there as well.

I would probably also leave general instructions so that you would be able to resolve some surprise situations without pausing to contact.

Alright, I've created a new thread here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=162598

The rebels have already been taken, so you have the choice of either the Democratic Union of America or Taulandia.

Standing instructions are a must.

I once played an email based game (of our own devising) with a lot of people who definitely would not be able to check in regularly. As such, we all left standing instructions which allowed for most situations to be tackled in their absence.

I'd also recommend 'sealed' instructions. We had a number of likely major scenarios like 'war with x' which each player wrote out their response to before hand - these were kept on a server and the head of each delegation only opened it if a major event arose and the person couldn't be contacted within a set time. It was a bit of a trust exercise that they didn't just look through everything, but it worked out well.

After we had played together a lot longer, some people designated surrogate voters which also worked to move things along. A lot of trust was required with that though, and there were some unhappy decisions.

We have been playing with "Battle Orders" (in the case of a battle, as one might imagine) in addition to the regular orders, but so far every player has elected to control his/her own empire, although I suppose that is certainly an option for any player to utilize at their discretion.

[Retropunch]

We have been playing with "Battle Orders" (in the case of a battle, as one might imagine) in addition to the regular orders, but so far every player has elected to control his/her own empire, although I suppose that is certainly an option for any player to utilize at their discretion.

My recommendation for getting standing orders/sealed instructions in early is that most of the time people think they'll be free, but then become busy pretty much out of the blue, and don't have time to sit down and write out all their orders at that point.

If you make it sorta mandatory (as in, just ask if people can send them in) that people have some standing orders, it stops drop outs being an issue for all involved. The GM can play for them for a while and they can drop back in if they wish, or someone else can take over later without the other players having to stop playing.

It doesn't take long to set up; just work out the 5 most likely scenarios (war with mars etc) and their responses, and then ask what they'd like to do if there isn't anything actively happening (expand infrastructure, build up research capabilities etc.).

[Silverthrone]

Right. Things were going well. I made a battle fleet; small missile ships and a cruiser for company. It had laser turrets for medium-range defence, each ship had a swarm of counter-missiles. I thought it was a relatively decent design, and that I would have more of a chance with it than previous ones. I thought I had learned a lesson and were getting somewhere.
Did not matter one little bit. The fleet still got turned into scrap by the NPR super-duper ships the game doled out.

[Here follows a brief, irritated rant over the engagement, somewhat edited.]

In battle with approaching enemy vessels and trying to reach engagement range. As often, EMC lowers my targeting range.
Their long-range missile swarms begins to appear. "No matter", thought I, "because I have learned, and I have not only four dual-laser turrets and CIWS, I have anti-missiles ready to go."
Nothing happens, no lasers, no missiles. The fleet gets to tank the first salvo. Only the CIWS does what it should, and limits the pain.
"Right", says I, fiddling with the combat settings; the most obscure and unhelpful panel in the game. It, and its cousin on the individual ship page, is vague, unclear and no amount of re-shuffling can convince my so-called brave voidsmen on the Point Defence systems to fire.
Targeting the missile salvoes manually is not an option, for the bloody buggery things do not show up in the contact box.
Fiddle -> Increment Time -> Bugger-all happens -> Time -> Boom-boom-boom -> Fiddle -> Time -> Nothing but boom-boom-boom...
"Right. Very well." Give up, quit and feel miffed and faintly cheated.

I am quite irritated with the game now. Quite irritated, indeed. I shall have to trouble-shoot what went wrong and why at some point, when I feel like it. Right now, I am too irritated to do that since it would feel like it is my fault (which it is). That is, I suppose, the backside of such a complex game. Things goes wrong even when they seemingly ought not to, and sometimes, it can feel like the game is not giving you a chance, shitting out superior designs for the aliens, while all those designs you yourself sunk care and calculation into simply will not work, for reasons that the game is not eager to tell. It it just not always being very reasonable.

Now, possibilities for why it did not work:
Did I do something wrong during the weapon assignment and setting the Point Defence systems? Perhaps, but I cannot see what it would be. The combat settings are such an obscure mess that it is impossible to see if what you change and assign and fiddle with had for effect, let alone if something is wrong.
Did the aliens have some sort of Super-Duper ECM system on their missiles, making them immune from being targeted and fired upon by more advanced PD? (Yes, probably a realistic possibility when it comes to ship combat, but it does not really give you much of a chance, does it?)

I wish there was a concrete way to limit the NPR tech somewhat... It could be me simply not being fit for Aurora, but it just does not feel very fun when ridiculously superior ships just seems to pop in and destroy everything you send at them. Getting good at making ships and missiles just does not seem to be leading anywhere, not when it can just spawn in immensly better ships and torpedoes as it likes. But as always in this lovely/bloody game, it is difficult to tell if it is my lack of skill or the game being unreasonable due to its complex nature.