SWA: Yavin - Q&A

[Lordmaligan]

Are the staff and crew rules too complicated ? Would we be better simplifying or doing away with them ? As the game progresses I could see sides with 40 ship/vehicles and a lot of side characters to manage and tally points etc. If this is too complicated it could be out undoing as the initial excitement wears off and we are spending 1-2 hours with an excel spread sheet moving staff and crew points up and down. 

Lets say 3-4 of us choose Galactic Empire ... my guess is we all work together? Perhaps we take the lead on different campaigns depending on how character roles etc. Does the Galactic Empire ships/bank acct/planets stay they same throughout all the campaigns ?   My understanding is like this .... next week we have Battle of Yavin campaign and perhaps the GE sends fleet 1 and 2 that I control ...  Our other fleet might be at another distant system on stand by and engage in the next campaign if it falls within there jurisdiction or based on what the emperor desires ?

The above questions may reveal my misunderstanding of the campaign system. I will participate in whatever but id be interested in having the results of each campaign carry over into others. For example if the Hapan group loses a battle and 5 Major ships that impacts them in future conflicts ... and how they need to interact with other groups in the sim. We can have "campaigns" in order to prevent unfair advantages if some groups have more members or time etc but Id love to see the sides develop long term strategies throughout the campaign and get into some good storylines.

From memory the undoing of sims was typically complex minutia rules that do not add much to the game ... but involve a lot of time. Id rather see a simpler game format and more time invested in good storylines

[Bishio]

I always side for simpler with creative flexibility when it comes to table top type games.  But I am not afraid to give this a chance.  I would be lying though as I look over it I have to say I am worried I will be having to develop quite an excel spreadsheet just to figure out whats going on and then to keep track of everything and that of course ends up sounding like work.

[SWSF Eidolon]

A: Nay

  I'd vote 1:2 dynamic if it were an option.  1 Large or Heavy, 2 Meds or Smalls. Fleets of 7 seems quite large.  If we have at least 3v3 players which it looks like we definitely should, thats pretty big battles still and less management to lighten potential for confusion and discouragement.  Although if shrunk down I don't know if the combat system stays balanced as well as you planned it for with the existing large fleet sizes or of course the whole cost/crew system would end up needing a slight reskew if max ships/forces per player were minimized some.

[Lordmaligan]

Could the 3 fleets be 3 single ISDII without support apparatus? Instead of a 1:2 just a 1 fleet. I like that allowance .. will allow more participation and potentially player character ownership over a ship.

1:6 option could be useful for a single player character versus three player character enemy. It will allow the ONE fleet to maximize SV and stand a chance versus THREE fleets.

[Lordmaligan]

Read the rules a few times over. Looks good. Thanks for putting this together ! If this sim works Ill send you a bottle of something you like hah. I see your wisdom in a lot of the areas I originally critiqued. The one area I still feel we could do without is the "STAFF" element. Im not sure this adds much and how it will look in the game is a bit confusing to me.

I put some questions/ideas below. PLEASE do not feel compelled to respond to them. I know you are busy. I just want to highlight some of my confusions as they may highlight an issue with the rules. If my confusions will be removed during our mock campaign than I can wait patiently hah.

1) The training and storage of crew is a bit confusing to me. It sounds like it would make sense to train and store crew, officers etc at a well defended planet so they can be pulled to staff ships immediately for new campaigns. But I guess we would need to bring the ship to that planet and then hyperspace to the campaign ?

2) It sounds like that team (rebel, GE, etc) may have other ships at other planets being held for *PDF* purposes. For example if my player character is on VSD, and both my character and ship are not needed for a campaign I could be in orbit around another planet. As a result, my team could store several ships we previously purchased for PDF at different planets and not have that impact our SV for a specific campaign. But if the enemy decided to start a campaign against that planet they would be immediately ready to defend and not have to hyperspace in from wherever they were previously. At that point the PDF ships would NOT count as a fleet or against our SV.

3) Diplomacy aspect of taking over a system. It seems like ultimate take over could be time consuming. And requires one player character to be a consular and remain following the 24 hour reduction in SV. If the enemy starts another campaign attack during this the player character is unable to participate. Maybe the process could be simpler or done through an honor system story line post?