OOC Chat

[SWSF Hale]

Independent up to now. Planetary Draft Round 1 results being posted in 3.... 2.... 1.....


Additionally... ALL initial Capital Ship specs have been released. As well as the first Rules volume.

[XCALIBYR]

So.. the CP limit seems really really low and the SU cost for maintenance seems really really high. 

[SWSF Hale]

Players are going to have to start small again in this Episode, kinda like we did in GCWI. This game is all about resource scarcity and managing production. If you use a simpler fleet comprised of smaller ships first that get the job done and do some initial empire-building, you'll be ready for the big ships in no time. Unlike in GCWII, ships in this episode are NOT disposable. This is a new galaxy, and each faction has to make due with limited resources. PDFs are lighter as well, so the scale is proportional.

Smaller PDFs (easier to conquer) + smaller Player Fleets (easier to manage) = WIN WIN

Hero abilities are also going to drastically affect the way your individual gaming experience is. You can opt for a very strong and powerful fleet, or take a more managerial approach that focuses on wealth-building. Here are a couple templates for you guys:

CEO
Executive Management (+10% Industrial Output / +1 SU)
Commercial (+1 SU per system)
Industrial (-10% KC cost to everything)

God of War
Admiral (+10% weapons, shields, and armor to entire fleet)
Engineering (+10% weapons, shields, and armor to onboard ship)
Tactical (+1 UCR to onboard ship)

Supreme Commander
Strategic Leadership (+1000 Command Points)
Commercial (+1 SU per system)
Admiral (+10% to Fleet specs)


Those few should get you thinking/started on some unique combinations, but the idea is that our characters have "grown up" and in GCWIII are now specialized in how the exercise command and leadership.

[SWSF Hoppus]

Also note you can take your PDF fleets around with you, which can add a lot of support ships.

[RanesDsane]

So, after the first read of the rules, here are my initial thoughts:

Overall:  Seems a lot more math and accounting is involved this time around.  Not necessarily a bad thing, but I'm a little concerned it will get in the way of story simply from the amount of time it takes.

CPs:  The number does seem a little low (particularly with having to account for every unit on the ship as well), but I will reserve judgement on that until I run some actual numbers on fleets.  I am curious what PDF fleet limits are going to look like.

SUs:  In concept, I'm good with these, but I wonder if having to track exactly where the SUs are and move ships to get them actually adds to the experience/play/story or is just accounting.  As a personal opinion, I think the underlying 'industrial network' associated with having a faction would be able to move these things around as necessary, negating the need to do a bit more accounting.  That said, perhaps I'm missing something and someone can point out what I'm missing to me.

Please, take this as constructive feedback.  I'm really looking forward to the sim.  And, if I work out any helpful spreadsheets for doing calculations, I'll be sure to share with everyone.

For now....the rain in Paris has stopped and it's about time for me to get out again and see what I can see.

[SWSF Hoppus]

As per CPs,

A player fleet will be 6000, or 7000 CP if they use the bonus in the leader trait. This is enough to field an IDS fully loaded. This is pretty much identical limit to GCWII.

But now, players can ALSO take their PDF fleet ships along in their main fleet when they want to - and on those units they pay no maintenance, either.

A system can add a few smaller ships each, and then players have the choice of using their CP for their player fleet on one big unit or smaller units, too. You actually have MORE ships in GCWIII to play with.


In terms of math (as far as combat goes), this isn't the case. I don't believe combat math has changed at all. Math for setting up your fleet (a one time thing), might be more involved, but it also results in a more fair accounting for what players have in their fleets.

Before you had units like ISDs with massive ground contingents and full of TIE Advanced costing the same CP as weaker vessels in the end because we didnt take into account onboard units fairly. This new way of looking at it accounts for how you set up top to bottom -> if you set up an ISD with TIE Fighters, and "cheap" aux and troops, etc, you can probably use the leftover CP for another small support ship or two. If you want to be that guy who loads it up with 6 TIE Defender Squads, 10k Royal Guards and 50 AT-AT ... well, its going to be very expensive, and probably eat up all if not exceed your CP limit

[SWSF Eidolon]

Looks great overall I'd say so far, I'm optimistic.  SU balancing, worth and seeming destroyability? >=) and maintenance costs is nice touch with great economic appeal.  I'm super anxious to get some SF/AUX/GAV/INF CP costs so I can start mapping out the Granee Armada and my planetary forces!  

The Hero/Companion/Leader Unit system is excellent.  Greatly looking forward to implementing


Query: do the lists of economic features have any further explanation or use as pertaining to the galaxy list and a given planets traits?


 Ranes I can see your concern but most all that math in what's up there now is just set up stuff, so when it comes to actual battling wouldn't matter a whole lot.  Once we got it individually set it's set, the character applications potentially fuel story more so, it makes working towards killing a particular character have a tangible motivation  

[SWSF Hale]

Support Unit specs and the rest of the rules will come next week.

Monday we'll begin ROUND TWO of the draft.

The economic features DO NOT have any usage outside of what is listed so far. Behind the scenes they went into computing the total Industrial Output and Supply Production of a system, but other than that, they don't have any extra bonuses.

SUs will be hard to come by in this game. But with the right systems, and the right Special Units to give you some bonus SU generation on the side, everyone should be good.

When factoring in your total CP amount, it's really a one time accounting process. If anything, this gives players more flexibility to field a wider variety of fleets because you could use an Acclamator without any ground troops, for instance, but when you're ready for an invasion you can reconfigure your fleet and be ready to go. More math, initially yes, but more options in terms of ships and units whereas in GCWII it was simply one ISD/MC90 and you're pretty much done.

[SWSF Eidolon]

Regarding Start Up resources, do we begin with our total possible alottments or are those ceilings and start up values yet to be addressed?

Is it possible to get a rough estimate of a range of costs to expect for Support Units?  just a rough example of a fighter a gav and a troop to be able to slightly begin further planning?



Round Two better come with a ring girl!  



EDIT - Slight concern about the SU maintenance levels upon further inspection, they are VERY exhausting, especially as would be to any player with Negative SU worlds.  Looking at the handy Maintenance Chart (thank you!) the SU Maintenance demand is equivalent to initial build demand.  This seems in principle excessive.  In practice remaining to be seen.  And well understood a need to not have the resource pool just flooded, but with SUs so scarce it could become difficult to buy them from others when in need as well, leading to an excess of cash but no materials.   You will have to start printing SUs that have no tangible value backing! =)

  We could also raid neutral worlds with excess SUs and fly away with them couldn't we?  Suppose you didn't want to conquer a world or simply weren't in a position to but you needed some extra SUs fast, couldn't you hit up a low KC neutral world with excess SUs, push their defenses aside and take the booty?  Likewise with worlds held by another player, albeit probably more difficult!

[SWSF Hale]

We'll make sure everybody gets a lucrative stockpile of credits and supplies before the game begins. Everyone's priority early on should be expansion, not warfare. Also, as was the case with GCW I and II, in III you will get your initial 6000 CPs worth of units for free. The idea is that we're "continuing" a story from GCWII that picks up a year later, not beginning one.

Official cost estimates for "stock units" you can stake your Fleet on:
1 Infantry Squad = 1 KC
1 Vehicle = 10 KC
1 Auxiliary = 20 KC
1 Starfighter Squadron = 100 KC

For example:

Clone Wars Fleet

Venator Star Destroyer (1105)
8 SF (800)
36 AUX (720)
500 Infantry (500)

Acclamator Assault Ship (810)
2 SF (200)
36 AUX (720)
1000 Infantry (1000)
60 Vehicles (600)

TOTAL CP = 6455

As you can see, it's not so bad. If you drop the Infantry onboard the Venator, you'll actually be within the 6k CP limit.

Saavy?

[RanesDsane]

So, some clarifications from me.  My concern with the math comes from it not really being a 'once and done' type thing.  Every time I take a fleet out I need to consider what exactly I'm doing and reconfigure the fleet to fit that, which means math every time I take a fleet out.  That said, I do agree that there was an imbalance last time with not counting on-board units at all.  It's a minor concern, really, and something I'm sure I can work around with a few spreadsheets.

My main concern is with the SUs and having to keep track of how many are where and move them.  I guess we'll see how much of an issue that is, but it just seems unnecessary complication to me.  Again, just intended as constructive feedback.

[SWSF Eidolon]

Gotcha dude, I dig the SU thing a lot myself.  The maintenance need creates another tangible target, supply lines and such.  Destroying ships that carry supplies.  Also could create a couple Freighter specs, give them higher capacities of SUs, used to move them to other parties or supply fleets.  Then attackable, I'd love to blow up somebody elses freighters forcing them to go crawling back home! =).  Imaginably if you've got a main player fleet deployed far away for awhile you need to keep getting SUs out there.  On the plus side it means that if you've got an enemy faction encroaching on you you've got more than one means of getting him leave.  Sustainability on a drawn out conflict could force him to pull out too soon to accomplish anything.

With the ability to "borrow" ships from System Defenses (negating the FREE maintenance on them) fleets can actually swell in size, but the bigger you want to support the more logistically complex the SU management definitely.  Lesser SUs will help keep things of digestible size then anyways presumably.  All together it forces you t o plan ahead as well and think, you'll have to stockpile supplies to carry on a war.  A heavy ship itself will still be able to carry enough surplus to sustain itself for a degree of time.  And it seems we all have at least one craft fitting that bill, so we then likely most end up using that as the centerpiece and changing PDF ships in and out based on our individual SU situations.  Creates very interesting dynamic between factions as well.  Imagine one faction with a lot of extra SUs, using them to supply another faction that is carrying on a war against a third player.  That'd make me mad at the supplier ;p  Oh what a tangled web it will weave =D    I will pay anybodies SU cost to attack any Hapan entity for the Honor of the Granee Kajidic!
    
All together I don't anticipate it to be all that much more to keep track of, or at least I think anyways what there is to keep track of is a fulfilling dynamic from the perspective of the potential it adds to why and how we move game pieces around.  With everything else as streamline and simplified as it is, and character uses so rich, I'm highly optimistic it will all balance out, creating AWESOME battling and EPIC storying.

[SWSF Hale]

SU Storage on Capital Ships has been increased from 1/500m to 1/200m. You're welcome. =)

[RanesDsane]

On a second reading, with the clarifications here, and looking through what I have already available to see, I'm getting more comfortable with the rules.  I'll give moving the SUs around a chance and see how it goes.

That said, I did come up with a question.  For the Plants/Factories/Grounds are the heavier ones able to build light as well?  i.e. Can the Heavy Production Plant produce both Heavy SF/Aux and Light SF/Aux, or only Heavy SF/Aux?  Also, I'm hoping we will have the opportunity to build/develop and add facilities to our planets for those that we lack.  Perhaps even the ability to build facilities that help negate negative planetary SU.

Looking forward to digging through the rest of the rules and such next week!

[SWSF Hoppus]

There are no facilities. If you want to expand your production capabilities, you need to find a world that has it, and use diplomacy or force to add it to your faction.

Players choose systems based solely on $ $ $ income are going to be disappointed, if they aren't careful to look for worlds that cater to their other needs (production, namely).

The idea behind this is that in previous versions of games players tend sit on their asses behind their capitol world's massive (and impossible to defeat) defenses, then war or negotiate a few neutral worlds nearby into their sim, then build up facilities further on their capitol and make themselves untouchable. By this point, the game is dead because NO ONE HAS INTERACTED WITH ANY OTHER PLAYER in months!

GCW III wants to incentivize ACTION. You need production capabilities? Go find a system. You want to cripple your enemy? Destroy his fighter production capacity before launching a larger assault on his territories.

It is no longer enough to collect a pay check and build endlessly on your capitol, where no one can ever threaten your production capacity. Now your production capacity is (most likely) spread out between different worlds, each capable of different feats. The days of building a single capitol fortress with a massive defense system and every single facility for production are over. And we hope these changes will let the game focus more on interaction - players have to leave their bases to interact with NPCs, Neutrals, and other Players to accomplish their goals, rather than just collect pay checks and build at home.