SWSF: Starting Conditions

[SWSF Eidolon]

I think its a little tight on capships at start definitely. Maybe go 15 and 15 to encourage some of those extra 5k caps to be stationed around for pdf.

But in addition we should get.our 1st income cycle after start up purchase not to be used in conjunction with, otherwise we have no building for 1st whole month?

If you were to add a generic sf space defense platform and 1 generic golan, i would say increase the pdf start cash but otherwise maybe leave as is.  I think two basic plats would be nice tho, garrison bases in space n all.  If theres maintenance on them, then the level of planetary pdf should still be modest.

  250 sounds good.to.start, if seems tight can always go up to 300 eventualltly. Easier to give than take away.

[gallpizi]

I think its a little tight on capships at start definitely. Maybe go 15 and 15 to encourage some of those extra 5k caps to be stationed around for pdf.

But in addition we should get.our 1st income cycle after start up purchase not to be used in conjunction with, otherwise we have no building for 1st whole month?

If you were to add a generic sf space defense platform and 1 generic golan, i would say increase the pdf start cash but otherwise maybe leave as is.  I think two basic plats would be nice tho, garrison bases in space n all.  If theres maintenance on them, then the level of planetary pdf should still be modest

I don't disagree with the 15 and 15. I found my defenses being pretty decent although with the new price changes my facility buying was not what I wanted it to be by far nor was my fleet so maybe a 17.5 and 12.5 or 20/15?

That being said, if we all got the month of July's income with it not being a part of starting funds but also not being hit with a maintenance fee that could mitigate some of that as well.

[RanesDsane]

Caveat:  I haven't reviewed the new pricing, which may change this opinion.  I will come edit/reply to this post if it does.

My earlier opinion stands.  25k or 30k, either way, but place a maximum of 10k spent on Capital Ships, no other restrictions.  This leaves 15k-20k for ground defenses, construction infrastructure, upgrades, or savings.

As it stands(stood, perhaps) I will be delaying some of my construction infrastructure until my first build cycle because I ran out of space with 25k.

- Ranes

[RanesDsane]

Okay, those changes are absolutely massive...  At least for common tech, I haven't really looked at Imperial/Rebel tech in depth enough to have a feel for how much those changed, but I imagine it was similar.

I went from an "okay, not really what I want, but I can live with this and do some construction" with a 1 MC left from the starting costs to "I don't even know where to start now" with a -9,101.63 balance (still based on a 25k starting cost)....    At the previous prices I had already slashed 2-3k in ships that I'd prefer to have, but just couldn't fit.  Even at an increase to 30k I have no idea where I'm going to slash another 4,101.63 MC worth of stuff without decimating my fleet or ~4 planet's PDFs completely.

I guess I'll wait to see what those changes do to other people's plans, but I'm basically back to the blank drawing board.


Edit:  Fixed a calculation error (over-calculated some troops on planets for a net 300MC difference).

[RanesDsane]

(sorry, this is going to be a long one)

Okay, so I've sat down and done some basic calculations below that I think match most people's assumptions.

Planets (Total:  25184)
Homeworld (Total:  7499)
- Heavy Hanger (2052)
- Ion Cannon (1372)
- OSD III (2643)
- Space Dock (645)
- Starfighter Plant (270)
- Ground Weapons Plant (209)
- Troop Training Facility (308)

Other 9 Worlds (Total:  1965 x 9 = 17,685)
- Light Hanger (1345)
- OSD I (620)

With the new price increases, just in basic non-fleet costs with no upgraded units, we're looking at 25,184.  We could reduce that to 19,604 if we left the space around the "other 9" planets empty and removed the OSD Is (an idea I'm very much not a fan of).  This, to me, seems like an an absolute minimum.  Anything less and we're just going to be trading planets back and forth because we can't defend them and rebuilding would be difficult at best, again discouraging fights.  Alternatively, I guess, we end up spreading our fleet so much (well, those of us not going for a single ship fleet ) to protect planets that we can't amass enough force to actually fight.

Also, note, that the spending above (1x Heavy Hanger, 9x Light Hangers, 1 Ion Cannon) exceeds the proposed 15k for ground units by 529MC.

At this point, I think it's safe to say that 25k isn't going to be enough as starting funds with the new pricing.  Even if we went with the reduced planetary deployments, we're looking at only a little more than 5k for a fleet.  Again, that's also all base, no upgrades.  I assume most are going to want to at least upgrade some of their troops.

It sounds a bit crazy on the surface, but I would say that with the new pricing, we need to look closer to "35k and a minimum of 15k spent on ground assets" as being our start condition.  Alternatively, we could say 30k but give a free 'starter package' which would include the basic industrial facilities.  Or 30k + July's Income and no upkeep until August 1 (when August Income comes in).

Finally, if any of my recommendations in the previous paragraph are taken, then I think we're fine at leaving planetary income where it is.  Otherwise, I think it needs to be 3k.

- Ranes

[SWSF Hale]

We seem have a problem of "too many systems and not enough cash to go around for all of them." If the intent from the beginning was to start out small and grow big, then maybe we should just drop the number of starting systems down to 7 or 8, and keep the current starting purse at 25K but with none of it earmarked. The concerns we've always had in these games is the inclination for players to "turtle up" rather than expand because they fear getting what little they do have blown up in battle, thus leaving them exposed to other player assaults. If we want to keep 10 systems, then that extra 5k in cash - unearmarked - should help everyone out. If the goal is to get players outside of their homeworld and doing PvP, then having some meager defenses left behind should help with that. Hopefully everyone has seen my "Exchequer" thread and seen what I got going. I'm stretched thin - and that's not just because I picked an SSD to start with. So, I can only imagine how everyone else must be feeling, especially the SSC and IG with inherently more stretched out system holdings across the galaxy.

[SWSF Hoppus]

What Is The Goal Of This?

TL;DR

- Make units precious
- Make defense of worlds 'realistic' - an ISD at a typical world is in trouble
- Prevent every little world taking large & massive expensive fleets to conquer
- ... While still having open possibility for massive fleet v fleet engagements when it counts!
- Force player v player action over player v pdf action
- Avoid tit-for-tat scenarios
- Keep stockpiling of cash/units down (keep units precious)
 

One of the biggest problems with traditional sim games we played all revolved around PDF. Worlds had quite a bit, for free. Enough to slow down/defeat most decent sized fleets. So when I attacked one world, that player just went and attacked one of my worlds, relying on his PDF and hoping to get me to retreat. Every. Single. Time. In the end, we lost our ships downing throwaway fighters and platforms no one cared about, cause it was free PDF that regenerated. Boring.

Read the books, and only a few worlds had Golans - Coruscant one of them, I believe Sluis Van. These were exceptionally rare. Most of the worlds out there had a few fighter squadrons to scramble and prayer via distress call. That's the reality. Important worlds had ISDs patrolling them (Scarif) or Mon Cal Cruisers parked in orbit. That was the defense.

The goal, then, for this economy and rule set, is the following:

- An ISD is a true siege weapon. If an ISD shows up at an *average* planet, it is in trouble without any help. It will smash the local SFs then land its 50 GAVs and 10,000 Stormies and win.
- ISDs are expensive! Just to keep them provisioned and fighting should consume the funds contributed by 2 *average* systems to the faction.
- Players with LARGE fleets should be near broke just paying their maintenance with only 10 worlds. Players with average fleets should have enough savings to replace losses of support units and pay for repairs. Together with the long build times of big ships, this makes units precious. You don't just throw them away. You withdraw when you don't see an angle to victory. This in hopes of those battles to the death just because ships were easy to replace and meant nothing.
- The maintenance fees on a reasonable fleet, keep players from stockpiling cash and building and building and building without playing - this is a game about attacking and defending and interacting! - and it also keeps units precious (hard to replace!).

So that is the goal here. In my mind, If you want to hold a world, you either park your larger ships at it, or you have larger ships near by that can get there soonish. This is different in traditional sims handled it. I hope it means more player v player battles that matter, not just PDF turkey shoots. It also means that, hopefully, you don't have to show up with 4 ISDs at every battle and risk losing them to win a planet that can't even pay to build one in a whole year of income! You can send a SINGLE ISD, or equivalent, to take a planet. The defender has to run the risk of leaving themselves exposed if they overcommit to defense. HOPEFULLY, this means more battles of reasonable size (not 1000 vs 1000 ships), but also leaves the door open for some really big show downs for important, huge battles.

So, the price algo changed prices around. I haven't had time to really look at the numbers yet. I will today at some point and post again my thoughts. But I hope this post communicates a bit my vision for the game and how a typical approach might play out for most players.

To that end, a single Light Hangar on each of 9 worlds, seems perfectly reasonable. In my plans, I'm generally looking to fortify worlds that are far from support (1-world in the sector), and leaving worlds with multiple planets int he system less defended as they can count on speedy responses.

Anyway, I will post again soon!

[RanesDsane]

I'm on the same page with you Hoppus, mostly because we talked about this before when I was crunching numbers.  My previous posts were with that all in mind.  I absolutely agree that we don't want free/infinitely regenerating PDFs.  We should absolutely have to pay for the defenses of the planets.  While certainly not everywhere had a Golan, many had some kind of small space station and nearly everywhere had some light combat ships around (customs, security, or occupying force).  A non-homeworld/headquarters planet that has a single light hanger and a couple of ships in space makes perfect sense.  An OSD I doesn't have much in the way of firepower, it's more of a deterrent from sending in a very light force, OSD III is more like a golan platform, though probably still somewhat less well armored and no starfighters.  You could swap out the OSD in my numbers for a couple smaller ships and end up with the same basic costs and still appropriate flavor.  OR even have some with the OSD And some with ships.  In any case, you're looking at a base cost of at least 20k before even looking at any kind of ships, whether the be "PDF" or fleet, or doing any upgrades.  (The OSD is actually pretty horrible as a defense platform, but I realize that's not what you intend them to be and they have other advantages.)

I think the maintenance fees are actually just fine, even post algorithm change, just for the record.

Let me know if there's number sets in particular you want me to crunch for you.  The other spreadsheet is still shared, but I haven't updated any prices except in a couple of the tabs I was using for personal planning and the posts earlier today.

[Bishio]

Rules are clearly designed to create a slow burn into a raging firestorm over time.  Which is good.  Last thing we want is 3 factions wiped off the map in the first day for example.  At least that is how I see it.  Letting time into the equation let's story, politics, tech, and economics to form and have meaning beyond the calculations.  I like this.

[SWSF Eidolon]

15/15. Build the rest.

Leets go already!

[SWSF Hale]

I think the solution is to either give us another 5000 credits at startup -OR- reduce/eliminate the earmarking mandate and let the free market decide.

If players want to drop all their cash on defenses and go for the slow-grow wildfire, so be it.
If players want to go heavy on space forces and put on a fireworks show, so be it.

[gallpizi]

You would say let the free market decide. .


Whatever we are doing I just want a decision so I can get to work making my plans solid

[SWSF Hoppus]

The final decisions will be made by end of day.

It will probably include all surface-based defense facilities (hangars, garrison bases mostly) being 'half-priced' as the home system will match credit-for-credit spending on its own defenses.

Most likely it will look something like:

15,000 MC earmarked for Ground/Facilities (only Hangars/Garrison bases are 1/2 priced if you want to do calc, not OSDs, SF MFG, emplacements, etc).
12,000 MC Additional Spending.

Or possibly just give you a 27,000 MC purse to do whatever you want with.. though I'm a be worried we'll see a proliferation of SSDs.

[SWSF Hale]

ISD-II x2 = 6446
VSD-II x3 = 3291
TOTAL = 9737

MC-80b x3 = 6927
GR75 x6 = 1242
NEB x3 = 1500
TOTAL = 9669

I think those are fairly complementary fleets. Obviously the Imperial player would send in the ISD-IIs for invasions and leave the VSD-IIs behind for defense, whilst the Republic player would send in a pair of MC-80s and the GR75s in for attacks and leave one MC-80 and the NEBs (or whatever) behind for defense.

So in terms of the numbers, I think the current startup conditions "work" - it really depends if we think players should have just a tad more standing defenses. If two systems are selected to be the primary/backup production centers, then not a whole lot is left over for much of anything by way of tangible PDF.

I think a third solution might be to expand the specs to include sensible things like:
1. Orbital Starfighter Platform (2 squadrons) for interdiction/space traffic control, also to house spillover starfighters built at SF plants. Limit 2 per system.
2. Infantry Barracks (20 companies) to house spillover companies trained at training grounds. Limit 2 per system.
3. Vehicle Garage (50 vehicles) to house spillover vehicles manufactured at factories. Limit 2 per system.
4. Independent hyperdrive equipped Heavy AUX/Light CAPs that fill the gap between shuttles and CORVs. The Gozanti-class Cruiser for the Empire would be great! So would XS-class Freighters or the YT-1300 Freighter for the Republic. This would allow factions to maintain a meager "local defense" force at most systems without having to drop too much cash.

My vote/voice in this debate shouldn't be tainted by the SSD I've invested in. I'm assuming a considerable amount of risk, which is part of the "hidden costs" associated with it. Who knows -- I might just make the SSD a storyline ship only and flip flop to the ISD-II x2 + VSD-II x3 fleet. =)

[SWSF Hoppus]

I want to be careful not to cross a line with defenses. A light hangar gives you a 2 SF squads, 50 vehicles, and 6500 Troops. That's a pretty solid ground defense, though granted 2 SF Squads won't help much in space. If I were to add SF platforms that are (of course) much cheaper, what I'm afraid happens is that each world suddenly has 8, 10, 12 squadrons... and now you need more ships to conquer a typical world, which means the cost of battle goes up beyond what is reasonable (you lose so much, its not worth conquering another world).

Without using artificial limits, having defenses 'bundled' into installations that have a mix of everything seems the best way to keep everything on an even keel. If you want to have more space defenses, park a Bulk Cruiser there. Park a VSD. I don't see the need for special, immobile space defenses that will cost the same - and if I lower price to account for the immobility, it screws up scale of cost of battle again.

ISD-II x2 = 6446
VSD-II x3 = 3291
TOTAL = 9737

MC-80b x3 = 6927
GR75 x6 = 1242
NEB x3 = 1500
TOTAL = 9669

I think those are fairly complementary fleets. Obviously the Imperial player would send in the ISD-IIs for invasions and leave the VSD-IIs behind for defense, whilst the Republic player would send in a pair of MC-80s and the GR75s in for attacks and leave one MC-80 and the NEBs (or whatever) behind for defense.

So in terms of the numbers, I think the current startup conditions "work" - it really depends if we think players should have just a tad more standing defenses. If two systems are selected to be the primary/backup production centers, then not a whole lot is left over for much of anything by way of tangible PDF.

I think a third solution might be to expand the specs to include sensible things like:
1. Orbital Starfighter Platform (2 squadrons) for interdiction/space traffic control, also to house spillover starfighters built at SF plants.
2. Infantry Barracks (20 companies) to house spillover companies trained at training grounds.
3. Vehicle Garage (50 vehicles) to house spillover vehicles manufactured at factories.
4. Independent hyperdrive equipped Heavy AUX/Light CAPs that fill the gap between shuttles and CORVs. The Gozanti-class Cruiser for the Empire would be great! So would XS-class Freighters or the YT-1300 Freighter for the Republic. This would allow factions to maintain a meager "local defense" force at most systems without having to drop too much cash.

My vote/voice in this debate shouldn't be tainted by the SSD I've invested in. I'm assuming a considerable amount of risk, which is part of the "hidden costs" associated with it. Who knows -- I might just make the SSD a storyline ship only and flip flop to the ISD-II x2 + VSD-II x3 fleet. =)