16
Role Playing Public Radio Podcast / Re: One Money Unit!
« on: July 22, 2014, 06:59:21 AM »
May I suggest for the issuing bank: "Bank of Carcosa" ?
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17
RPGs / Re: FATE: Let's like talk about it.
« on: May 28, 2014, 04:49:40 AM »Quote
Also I'm finding it difficult to differentiate stunts from aspects.
The easiest way I found to explain it to my friends was to take the example in FATE Accelerated and following the formula:
"Because I am [insert relevant Aspect], when I do [insert Approach for FATE acc, or specific action] to achieve [create an aspect, or other narrow action], I have a +2."
So for one PC who was a Faerie creature,Prince of the Cats, he had the following stunt:
Because I am [Prince of the Cats], I get a +2 to [Identify aspect] when I am calling the Neighborhood Council of Cats to gather information.
Stunts are free (do not cost Fate point) whereas calling an Aspect DOES cost a Fate point.
There are also stunts that you can only use once per gaming session.
In this case, one character had a Cloack of Thousand Faces and it worked that way:
Because I own [the Cloack of the Thousand Faces], once per game, I can change my [Role]. (In this game, "Role" was defined as what the Faerie character was pretending to be when he was amongst human, it was an temporary aspect that he could call to be more believable and competent when he was playing his human role).
18
General Chaos / Re: What Vidja games are you playing?
« on: March 17, 2014, 04:35:27 AM »
I bought last Friday Scrolls from Mojang (the one who did Minecraft). It is still in Beta, but run already smoothly.
For 15$ you have a very nice card/boardgame.
The principle is that you are a "Scrolldier" dueling other opponent. You have a deck made of 50 scrolls which are either creature/structure, spell or enchantment, costing more or less ressources. They is 4 factions (Order - soldier and paladins, Energy - automaton, gun and catapult, Growth - wolf, druid and beast, Decay - undeads, curse, poisons).
The dueling happens on a board where positionning and strategy is as important as the scroll you are playing.
I really got into this game for various reasons:
- Good mix of strategy (building your deck) and tactics (deploying your ressources efficiently)
- A little part of card collecting without being too overwhelming and rarity does not mean more power.
- Nice interface, nice animation/pictures
- Pay once - you can spent more money to buy more cards, but when you play against opponent (IA or playerys), you are getting gold pieces to make your purchase in line. Base on my initial start, it is enough that you don't have to fork more when playing
- Possibility to play against AI (three level), campaign of increasing challenge allowing you to get more gold in-game, possibility to play draft or constructed.
Negative point:
- The initial learning curve is a bit steep as the tutorial is very brief, missing - amongst other things - the list of every special ability cards have (poison, curse, piercing, about 20 of them).
In my view, better than MtG (much more wallet friendly), better than Heartstone (getter graphics, more strategy).
I recommand it highly.
For 15$ you have a very nice card/boardgame.
The principle is that you are a "Scrolldier" dueling other opponent. You have a deck made of 50 scrolls which are either creature/structure, spell or enchantment, costing more or less ressources. They is 4 factions (Order - soldier and paladins, Energy - automaton, gun and catapult, Growth - wolf, druid and beast, Decay - undeads, curse, poisons).
The dueling happens on a board where positionning and strategy is as important as the scroll you are playing.
I really got into this game for various reasons:
- Good mix of strategy (building your deck) and tactics (deploying your ressources efficiently)
- A little part of card collecting without being too overwhelming and rarity does not mean more power.
- Nice interface, nice animation/pictures
- Pay once - you can spent more money to buy more cards, but when you play against opponent (IA or playerys), you are getting gold pieces to make your purchase in line. Base on my initial start, it is enough that you don't have to fork more when playing
- Possibility to play against AI (three level), campaign of increasing challenge allowing you to get more gold in-game, possibility to play draft or constructed.
Negative point:
- The initial learning curve is a bit steep as the tutorial is very brief, missing - amongst other things - the list of every special ability cards have (poison, curse, piercing, about 20 of them).
In my view, better than MtG (much more wallet friendly), better than Heartstone (getter graphics, more strategy).
I recommand it highly.
19
RPGs / Re: Eclipse Phase
« on: March 11, 2014, 06:20:05 AM »
An alternative is to use the battleship as a campaingn introduction.
The battleship has re-entered the solar system. In six hours, it will be in range of the whatever massive canon. Nobody wants to take any risk, it will be vaporised. No negociation.
Obviously, the PCs are hired (or ordered) for a high risk/high reward mission: sneak onto the ship, retrieve a piece of data from XYZ terminal and return it before complete vaporization. PCs know better not to ask too many questions for this kind of job. They are hired by a suit, hiding very well who is behind the job offer. It is not a suicide mission but a very hard one, they will have good gear, accurate information and mapping (but it could have been reconfigured).
Run the scenario like a lethal race, with all matter of traps, deathbot and Titan tech. To had a twist, another team is present either for the same data or for something else: teamwork, competition or shoot out can happen.
The important bit of this scenario is the data. As an advanced battleship, it contained a prototype of emergency shuttle - possibly resistant to Titan infection. Which means possible survivors - at least stacks. That's the hope of the Man-behind-the-curtain. He/she would like to retrieve a son/lover/last heir or maybe a unique prototype of an awaken animal. But he needed confirmation if the shuttle had been activated.
Assuming they succeed, PCs will be paid and several months might go by and other scenarios can occure. Then, they will be contacted by the same suit to go onto an exploration mission. The data contained the location the shuttle escaped as well as enough navigation vectors to narrow down the possible location to something small enough to be explored. Still, several options exists for its current location: amongst an asteroid belt, within a gas planet, or amongst a vast floating wreckages of many ships, used as supply by some Titans.
So after the initial scenario, it becomes an exploration in an unmap/unknown zone of space. Maybe a forbidden zone. So PCs will have to follow bread crumbs, possibly discovering hidden communities and dangerous places - if they want to hide, these communities have surely good reasons and would like to maintain their secrecy.
Finally, discovery of the missing shuttle. Is it a trap laid by titan ? Did the survivors settle on a place and were able to survive with whatever resources they found ? Are they monitored by titan using them as unwarae lab rats to understand human nature (maybe a world like Dark City - highly recommanded movie for a strange world set in Eclipse phase, there is all the technology to do that). Or what if using the prototype technology of the shuttle the survivors managed to subdue titans or even merge with it creating monstruous hybrids with their own goals, different than Titans, but not human either (like merging both in one hive mind) ?
Okay, I think that's all for now.
The battleship has re-entered the solar system. In six hours, it will be in range of the whatever massive canon. Nobody wants to take any risk, it will be vaporised. No negociation.
Obviously, the PCs are hired (or ordered) for a high risk/high reward mission: sneak onto the ship, retrieve a piece of data from XYZ terminal and return it before complete vaporization. PCs know better not to ask too many questions for this kind of job. They are hired by a suit, hiding very well who is behind the job offer. It is not a suicide mission but a very hard one, they will have good gear, accurate information and mapping (but it could have been reconfigured).
Run the scenario like a lethal race, with all matter of traps, deathbot and Titan tech. To had a twist, another team is present either for the same data or for something else: teamwork, competition or shoot out can happen.
The important bit of this scenario is the data. As an advanced battleship, it contained a prototype of emergency shuttle - possibly resistant to Titan infection. Which means possible survivors - at least stacks. That's the hope of the Man-behind-the-curtain. He/she would like to retrieve a son/lover/last heir or maybe a unique prototype of an awaken animal. But he needed confirmation if the shuttle had been activated.
Assuming they succeed, PCs will be paid and several months might go by and other scenarios can occure. Then, they will be contacted by the same suit to go onto an exploration mission. The data contained the location the shuttle escaped as well as enough navigation vectors to narrow down the possible location to something small enough to be explored. Still, several options exists for its current location: amongst an asteroid belt, within a gas planet, or amongst a vast floating wreckages of many ships, used as supply by some Titans.
So after the initial scenario, it becomes an exploration in an unmap/unknown zone of space. Maybe a forbidden zone. So PCs will have to follow bread crumbs, possibly discovering hidden communities and dangerous places - if they want to hide, these communities have surely good reasons and would like to maintain their secrecy.
Finally, discovery of the missing shuttle. Is it a trap laid by titan ? Did the survivors settle on a place and were able to survive with whatever resources they found ? Are they monitored by titan using them as unwarae lab rats to understand human nature (maybe a world like Dark City - highly recommanded movie for a strange world set in Eclipse phase, there is all the technology to do that). Or what if using the prototype technology of the shuttle the survivors managed to subdue titans or even merge with it creating monstruous hybrids with their own goals, different than Titans, but not human either (like merging both in one hive mind) ?
Okay, I think that's all for now.
20
RPGs / Re: Eclipse Phase
« on: March 11, 2014, 05:02:08 AM »
My first reaction would be that despite all the goodies that could be inside, it is before all a Titan threat. Considering the danger it represents, there should an excellent reason not to blast it in pieces and shower it with EMP/plasma combo.
Greed is not enough to prevent government/corps to take immediate counter-measure. To have the spaceship avoid immediate destruction, it means that every single faction (government, corps, secret society...) with some modicum of resources would decide to hold on. Also it means that teams which would be send to explore would also need some form of guarantee that one of those faction is not going to pull the trigger wheb they are playing minecraft in the spaceship.
So I believe you need to find a good reason for people to believe it is not an immediate threat or it could be contained. It is probably severly damage, possibly large chunk of the hull did loose its protection against solar radiation which acted as intense EMP, therefore frying most/all of the exurgent threat.
Also, to had some tension, the major factions agreed not to blast it into pieces until it reaches a certain point in the solar system. It had an element of time constraint ("once it reaches coordinate omega-one, all orbital weapons will blast it including any ships leaving it). It also adds a dimension of diplomacy to build official expedition teams (but also secret one), or you can also see negociation of salvage rights for various section of the ship.
What if, contraray to your initial statement, the ship is considered "mostly free" from Titan threat as it entered the solar system, it flew through a massive ionic storm frying acting as intense EMP. The "rightful" owner of the ship (whether it is a governement, the shipyard which built it or a merc group or an insuurance company) does not want or have the resources to salvage it, but auction salvaging rights for a share of the findings ? It will give a feel similar to a gold rush.
... until, deep inside the hull, some titan monster is awaken. Or maybe it is a trap and tiny basiliks are creeping into the minds of salvagêrs and at a given time will turn everyone into the crew the ship need to accomplish its last mission: although it looks like a piece of derelict, it is fuctional, like a Deathstar.
So you can several phases:
1: Auction of salvaging rights - the players are a small independant company trying to score big but have to trade favours to get one precious salvaging license. The whole derelict battle ship is stabilised in a far orbit by additional reactors crudely fitted on its frame
2: The gold rush - the team lands, starts to explore andmine and retrieve goodies - and needs to face other teams with slightly more devious methods. Or poassibly a cult who wants to blast the whole thing. Maybe a small "bartertown" is created orbiting around the huge battleship. This phase should last for months. Unknown to everybody salvagers are getting slowly contaminated - especially after several months of exploration without incident, the teams are more laxed and control procedures are getting looser.
The reason exploration would last so long is because the whole hull is unstable and people are not supposed to bruteforce their way in.
As exploration progress, you can start to drop hints: a ship engineer could find the progress towards the system core much slower than expected... almost like the wreckage had been designed to slow down the team. Some "treasure trove" are regularly found be teams. Interestingly, after a thorough examination, those boxes or rooms had in their structure a radiation protective mesh acting like a Faraday box against EMP... some of the goodies are not what it seems.
3: The hidden monster. It is a decoy to encourage people to sent more resources. Some "minor" Titan threats are unleashed but after inflicting some casualties are neutralised. People should feel confident that they have neutralised the last remaining threat. To make it more believable, those threats where partially damaged and less effective that fully operational "monster" to support the hypothesys that the ion storm had a cleansing effect. Of course, those threat could only be found in the deepest of the hull where the likelyhood to be protected was the highest.
Again careful "autopsy" of the remains could detect that those flaws and partial damage were engineered - but it can takes several weeks for experts to reach those conclusions, delaying the warning.
It is the rush to the core. Teams are getting reinforced, working around the clock to be the first one to hit the system core and retrieve the mother payload. Caution is thrown to the window, sabotage becomes another routine activity - more people are contaminated and maybe strange dreams or behaviour are happening from time to time. At the same time, some people are getting a bit suspicious - the players because of what they have found or they are approached to investigate on behalf of suspicious people (and because PCs are on site since the beginning they will blend easily and have connections with others teams). If they are trying to raise the alarm, they will face some surprising resistance: disbelief ("you want to stop the salvaging for your own benefit because your team is behind"), or even assassination attempt from one salvager who left the field earlier (contaminated earlier). They need solid proofs as it has become a very profitable operation.
4: The race to the core. The hull seems to become more unstable, but it is a matter of day until the core system can be accessed. How careless are willing to be the salvagers to win the race ? And new teams arrived: one is planting bombs, the other has the task to stop any team to reach the core. However, no faction has yet decided to pull the trigger as the threat is not clearly identified. It is believed to be some exsurgent threat which can still be contained.
5: Deathstar in action. All contaminated men are turned into drones. Hidden machines and nano-bots start repurposing the battleship for its final mission (Luna ? Mars ?). Uncontaminated men needs to escape before getting turned into drones. Rescue mission to save an important executive or the stack of the son of an influent man - but is he contaminated ? what could do the Titan with the information kept in their brains ? Maybe it is a race to prevent a tachyon communication towards other Titan base ?
6: Destroying the Deathstar: if the cannons and other big missiles are ineffective, a suicide team has to plant the device which can neutralised definitely the battleship before it is fully functional.
One important point to keep in mind, for the Titan to escape all scanning and detection and for the trap to work, it had to keep it presence minimal and very well hidden. So until phase 5, the Titan is not aware of what is happening everywhere in the battleship, it has not spread and activated its nano-bots otherwise even the most basic scan would have trigger warning and massive strike would have followed before the Titan could reactivate any effective defense. This is important that although it is a lethal trap, because of the paranoia around titan infection and safety protocol, it is by no means omnipotent and omniscient otherwise the trap would never has a chance to work.
Phase 6 is obviously action packed - the reason the PCs are hired is because they are the one left knowing the most how to navigate into the hull. If the do not have enough fighting and destruction skills, only one or two of the are hired as guide and other players are running the core of the suicide strike team (of course their ego have been safely backed up before).
I hope it will give you food for thought.
Greed is not enough to prevent government/corps to take immediate counter-measure. To have the spaceship avoid immediate destruction, it means that every single faction (government, corps, secret society...) with some modicum of resources would decide to hold on. Also it means that teams which would be send to explore would also need some form of guarantee that one of those faction is not going to pull the trigger wheb they are playing minecraft in the spaceship.
So I believe you need to find a good reason for people to believe it is not an immediate threat or it could be contained. It is probably severly damage, possibly large chunk of the hull did loose its protection against solar radiation which acted as intense EMP, therefore frying most/all of the exurgent threat.
Also, to had some tension, the major factions agreed not to blast it into pieces until it reaches a certain point in the solar system. It had an element of time constraint ("once it reaches coordinate omega-one, all orbital weapons will blast it including any ships leaving it). It also adds a dimension of diplomacy to build official expedition teams (but also secret one), or you can also see negociation of salvage rights for various section of the ship.
What if, contraray to your initial statement, the ship is considered "mostly free" from Titan threat as it entered the solar system, it flew through a massive ionic storm frying acting as intense EMP. The "rightful" owner of the ship (whether it is a governement, the shipyard which built it or a merc group or an insuurance company) does not want or have the resources to salvage it, but auction salvaging rights for a share of the findings ? It will give a feel similar to a gold rush.
... until, deep inside the hull, some titan monster is awaken. Or maybe it is a trap and tiny basiliks are creeping into the minds of salvagêrs and at a given time will turn everyone into the crew the ship need to accomplish its last mission: although it looks like a piece of derelict, it is fuctional, like a Deathstar.
So you can several phases:
1: Auction of salvaging rights - the players are a small independant company trying to score big but have to trade favours to get one precious salvaging license. The whole derelict battle ship is stabilised in a far orbit by additional reactors crudely fitted on its frame
2: The gold rush - the team lands, starts to explore andmine and retrieve goodies - and needs to face other teams with slightly more devious methods. Or poassibly a cult who wants to blast the whole thing. Maybe a small "bartertown" is created orbiting around the huge battleship. This phase should last for months. Unknown to everybody salvagers are getting slowly contaminated - especially after several months of exploration without incident, the teams are more laxed and control procedures are getting looser.
The reason exploration would last so long is because the whole hull is unstable and people are not supposed to bruteforce their way in.
As exploration progress, you can start to drop hints: a ship engineer could find the progress towards the system core much slower than expected... almost like the wreckage had been designed to slow down the team. Some "treasure trove" are regularly found be teams. Interestingly, after a thorough examination, those boxes or rooms had in their structure a radiation protective mesh acting like a Faraday box against EMP... some of the goodies are not what it seems.
3: The hidden monster. It is a decoy to encourage people to sent more resources. Some "minor" Titan threats are unleashed but after inflicting some casualties are neutralised. People should feel confident that they have neutralised the last remaining threat. To make it more believable, those threats where partially damaged and less effective that fully operational "monster" to support the hypothesys that the ion storm had a cleansing effect. Of course, those threat could only be found in the deepest of the hull where the likelyhood to be protected was the highest.
Again careful "autopsy" of the remains could detect that those flaws and partial damage were engineered - but it can takes several weeks for experts to reach those conclusions, delaying the warning.
It is the rush to the core. Teams are getting reinforced, working around the clock to be the first one to hit the system core and retrieve the mother payload. Caution is thrown to the window, sabotage becomes another routine activity - more people are contaminated and maybe strange dreams or behaviour are happening from time to time. At the same time, some people are getting a bit suspicious - the players because of what they have found or they are approached to investigate on behalf of suspicious people (and because PCs are on site since the beginning they will blend easily and have connections with others teams). If they are trying to raise the alarm, they will face some surprising resistance: disbelief ("you want to stop the salvaging for your own benefit because your team is behind"), or even assassination attempt from one salvager who left the field earlier (contaminated earlier). They need solid proofs as it has become a very profitable operation.
4: The race to the core. The hull seems to become more unstable, but it is a matter of day until the core system can be accessed. How careless are willing to be the salvagers to win the race ? And new teams arrived: one is planting bombs, the other has the task to stop any team to reach the core. However, no faction has yet decided to pull the trigger as the threat is not clearly identified. It is believed to be some exsurgent threat which can still be contained.
5: Deathstar in action. All contaminated men are turned into drones. Hidden machines and nano-bots start repurposing the battleship for its final mission (Luna ? Mars ?). Uncontaminated men needs to escape before getting turned into drones. Rescue mission to save an important executive or the stack of the son of an influent man - but is he contaminated ? what could do the Titan with the information kept in their brains ? Maybe it is a race to prevent a tachyon communication towards other Titan base ?
6: Destroying the Deathstar: if the cannons and other big missiles are ineffective, a suicide team has to plant the device which can neutralised definitely the battleship before it is fully functional.
One important point to keep in mind, for the Titan to escape all scanning and detection and for the trap to work, it had to keep it presence minimal and very well hidden. So until phase 5, the Titan is not aware of what is happening everywhere in the battleship, it has not spread and activated its nano-bots otherwise even the most basic scan would have trigger warning and massive strike would have followed before the Titan could reactivate any effective defense. This is important that although it is a lethal trap, because of the paranoia around titan infection and safety protocol, it is by no means omnipotent and omniscient otherwise the trap would never has a chance to work.
Phase 6 is obviously action packed - the reason the PCs are hired is because they are the one left knowing the most how to navigate into the hull. If the do not have enough fighting and destruction skills, only one or two of the are hired as guide and other players are running the core of the suicide strike team (of course their ego have been safely backed up before).
I hope it will give you food for thought.
21
RPGs / Re: BaseRaiders
« on: January 29, 2014, 02:42:01 AM »
Unfortunately, I believe the system is glitchy as you said.
I had similar experiences and I believe Ross aswell.
I do believe that the system is quite ok as long as you take trapping link together, but it becomes less reliable when there are gaps.
For NPC, it is okay since DM enjoy the All-Mighty license to do whatever (it still allows to guesstimate the power of NPCs), but for PC creation, I believe paper and pen is more accurate.
I had similar experiences and I believe Ross aswell.
I do believe that the system is quite ok as long as you take trapping link together, but it becomes less reliable when there are gaps.
For NPC, it is okay since DM enjoy the All-Mighty license to do whatever (it still allows to guesstimate the power of NPCs), but for PC creation, I believe paper and pen is more accurate.
22
RPGs / Re: BaseRaiders
« on: December 16, 2013, 06:20:16 AM »Quote
yes 10 points. many typos. such sorry. wow
If you used the Kerberos calculation sheet, it adds by default Information and Network, for an extra 2 points. So if you forget to remove them manually, you end up with a skill worth 2 points more.
Now I remember reading somewhere that power costed an additional 2 points, but I cannot find where and it is definitely not used in the example given with the IT Guru, so I might be mixing up thing.
23
RPGs / Re: BaseRaiders
« on: December 11, 2013, 03:38:19 AM »
I feel a bit embarrassed with my basic questions...
I am preparing for my Friday game and I saw the Upsilon drug (p147), with a cost of 5 skill points.
If I follow the trapping process, I get: shoot (2) + Rangex2 (2), for a total of 4. Minor snag:-1, hence a total of 3 points.
The superhuman tier remove refresh, but does not impact the skill point.
Do I miss something ?
I am preparing for my Friday game and I saw the Upsilon drug (p147), with a cost of 5 skill points.
If I follow the trapping process, I get: shoot (2) + Rangex2 (2), for a total of 4. Minor snag:-1, hence a total of 3 points.
The superhuman tier remove refresh, but does not impact the skill point.
Do I miss something ?
24
RPGs / Re: BaseRaiders
« on: December 10, 2013, 04:56:48 AM »
I liked how the Base Raiders campaign started and I am going to blatantly steal the story :-). It is for a one-shot game, with players not knowing the FATE system, so I will keep it low power.
However, I need to build a few items/serums to "populate" the base with items to loot. I used the link for strange skill generators so point-wise, the powers value should be OK. I just need input/suggestion regarding those powers (the game will be on Friday), especially suggestions regarding side effects as obviously, characters will be suffering from burn. I would like to let the player propose side-effect, but coming with a list of possible problem will help them since they are not used yet to the system.
Super-Soldier Serum: Resist Damage, Stress (Health), Strength, Leap, for a total of 8 points, likely Superhuman Tier. Possible side effect: appearance (skin colour, massive size, strange proportion)
Chimera Serum (gecko): Move (unusual - can walk against any solid surface), Dodge, Jump + Range, Stealth, for 10 points, likely Superhuman tier. Side effect: obvisously appearance, any other suggestion ?
Peak Performer / Pheromons booster - The Great Gatsby: Insight, Examine, Menace, Information, Network, for 10 points. The person develop an uncanning perception (something like "The Mentalist") but also the ability to be incredibly assertive and convincing by unknowingly releasing pheromons. Possibly only Extraordinary tier. I added Menace, to have one offensive power working on something else than Health and I thought it would fit the theme, although I am unsure about Network (how a drug could give that ?) - maybe replacing it with Guile or Convince ?
What side effect could be interesting or appropriate ?
An old artifact: The Ring of the City of Brass. Shoot + spray + zone, Parry (unusual - small shields of brass appear out of nowhere). The beared is able to control fire and use it as a weapon. Pretty basic. Side effect ? Hear the will of the Sultan of the City ? Powder turned off if wet ?
A modern high-tech item: The Engineer's Gloves: Repair, variable (scene) x2, for 9 points, Extraordinary tier. Initially designed by a genius mechanic who did not want to bother with carrying is huge toolbox. Now it is the first time I am dabbling with the variable trapping, so I want to see if I got it right.
Two variables trappings can "buy" for a scene the equivalent of 2 points worth of trapping or extra right ?
Hence, they could turn the nail gun into a real gun (shoot: 2 points), or the saw blade and the wrench into more appropriate hand-to-hand weapons (Strike and Parry, each worth a point), or turn into powerful piston actioned-pikes (climb for 1 point or Move + unusual for 2 points); or even huge claws (Physical Force). Finally, they could easily do Dismantle or Craft (each worth a point).
Could it even turn into a kind of pseudo-workshop by using Workshop+Unusual to simulate that the Gloves can easily convert nearby materials into appropriate tools to Repair stuff (since Repair is one of the base trapping) ?
Finally, a classical: The Rocket Boots, with Dodge (minor snag: only in flight), Move + Unusual (fly), Resist damage (minor snag: only in flight), for 8 points, Extraordinary tier. After a few painful landings and unfortunate contact with large advertisment panels, the original builder improved the base model with a small shield force.
My idea is to prepare small cards to hand to the player who is injecting/drinking/doning any of this items, with a short description, and let him fill the blanks for the side effect.
I will hand to the players pre-made PC sheets - heavily inspired from Ross'game - including a few extra character points unspent. Assuming that they don't use all of them and they do not try to acquire more than one power, they should only suffer from minor burn, having to select one side effect from the miscibility table.
However, I need to build a few items/serums to "populate" the base with items to loot. I used the link for strange skill generators so point-wise, the powers value should be OK. I just need input/suggestion regarding those powers (the game will be on Friday), especially suggestions regarding side effects as obviously, characters will be suffering from burn. I would like to let the player propose side-effect, but coming with a list of possible problem will help them since they are not used yet to the system.
Super-Soldier Serum: Resist Damage, Stress (Health), Strength, Leap, for a total of 8 points, likely Superhuman Tier. Possible side effect: appearance (skin colour, massive size, strange proportion)
Chimera Serum (gecko): Move (unusual - can walk against any solid surface), Dodge, Jump + Range, Stealth, for 10 points, likely Superhuman tier. Side effect: obvisously appearance, any other suggestion ?
Peak Performer / Pheromons booster - The Great Gatsby: Insight, Examine, Menace, Information, Network, for 10 points. The person develop an uncanning perception (something like "The Mentalist") but also the ability to be incredibly assertive and convincing by unknowingly releasing pheromons. Possibly only Extraordinary tier. I added Menace, to have one offensive power working on something else than Health and I thought it would fit the theme, although I am unsure about Network (how a drug could give that ?) - maybe replacing it with Guile or Convince ?
What side effect could be interesting or appropriate ?
An old artifact: The Ring of the City of Brass. Shoot + spray + zone, Parry (unusual - small shields of brass appear out of nowhere). The beared is able to control fire and use it as a weapon. Pretty basic. Side effect ? Hear the will of the Sultan of the City ? Powder turned off if wet ?
A modern high-tech item: The Engineer's Gloves: Repair, variable (scene) x2, for 9 points, Extraordinary tier. Initially designed by a genius mechanic who did not want to bother with carrying is huge toolbox. Now it is the first time I am dabbling with the variable trapping, so I want to see if I got it right.
Two variables trappings can "buy" for a scene the equivalent of 2 points worth of trapping or extra right ?
Hence, they could turn the nail gun into a real gun (shoot: 2 points), or the saw blade and the wrench into more appropriate hand-to-hand weapons (Strike and Parry, each worth a point), or turn into powerful piston actioned-pikes (climb for 1 point or Move + unusual for 2 points); or even huge claws (Physical Force). Finally, they could easily do Dismantle or Craft (each worth a point).
Could it even turn into a kind of pseudo-workshop by using Workshop+Unusual to simulate that the Gloves can easily convert nearby materials into appropriate tools to Repair stuff (since Repair is one of the base trapping) ?
Finally, a classical: The Rocket Boots, with Dodge (minor snag: only in flight), Move + Unusual (fly), Resist damage (minor snag: only in flight), for 8 points, Extraordinary tier. After a few painful landings and unfortunate contact with large advertisment panels, the original builder improved the base model with a small shield force.
My idea is to prepare small cards to hand to the player who is injecting/drinking/doning any of this items, with a short description, and let him fill the blanks for the side effect.
I will hand to the players pre-made PC sheets - heavily inspired from Ross'game - including a few extra character points unspent. Assuming that they don't use all of them and they do not try to acquire more than one power, they should only suffer from minor burn, having to select one side effect from the miscibility table.
25
RPGs / Re: BaseRaiders
« on: October 23, 2013, 03:58:46 PM »
The calculator works great, thanks.
I might still need help to craft certain strange skills.
Here is my first one, for Domino, Last Heir of Those-Who-Whisper-in-the-Shadow
I named it "Shadows are my world", with Stealth+Unusual, Move, Dodge, Leap+Unusual+Range, Environment.
This strange skill allows Domino to walk in the shadow, to "jump" from shadow to shadow (a short range teleport with Leap+Unusual+Range; I am pretty sure I got this one right since it is in one example).
Stealth+unusual is to allow him to hide where there is no place as long as there is a shadow - here, I am less sure.
And I added Environment, because I would like him to be able to see in the dark, here I am not sure at all. Maybe I need to add Unusual. My initial thought was that since the whole skill is about the shadow, I do not need to add the unusual feature since Environment will not apply to anything else.
I will balance with a Minor Weakness (light) and a Major flaw (snag): Domino is colour-blind (argument could be made for this being a minor flaw, but I feel in our modern world with all the technology, colour-blind is a major handicap).
And to round that, he would have another power:
"Black blood": Menace+Zone, Major Snag (need to pour his own blood). He would bleed, but instead of dripping on the floor, black tendrils of smoke would take the shape of terrifying nightmares, scaring everybody around.
I could find another Flaw, but I found it well suited for the theme. Now how could I translate that in game term. The easy answer is a Fate point, I was wondering what about some Stress ?
It is really pumping my creative juice
I might still need help to craft certain strange skills.
Here is my first one, for Domino, Last Heir of Those-Who-Whisper-in-the-Shadow
I named it "Shadows are my world", with Stealth+Unusual, Move, Dodge, Leap+Unusual+Range, Environment.
This strange skill allows Domino to walk in the shadow, to "jump" from shadow to shadow (a short range teleport with Leap+Unusual+Range; I am pretty sure I got this one right since it is in one example).
Stealth+unusual is to allow him to hide where there is no place as long as there is a shadow - here, I am less sure.
And I added Environment, because I would like him to be able to see in the dark, here I am not sure at all. Maybe I need to add Unusual. My initial thought was that since the whole skill is about the shadow, I do not need to add the unusual feature since Environment will not apply to anything else.
I will balance with a Minor Weakness (light) and a Major flaw (snag): Domino is colour-blind (argument could be made for this being a minor flaw, but I feel in our modern world with all the technology, colour-blind is a major handicap).
And to round that, he would have another power:
"Black blood": Menace+Zone, Major Snag (need to pour his own blood). He would bleed, but instead of dripping on the floor, black tendrils of smoke would take the shape of terrifying nightmares, scaring everybody around.
I could find another Flaw, but I found it well suited for the theme. Now how could I translate that in game term. The easy answer is a Fate point, I was wondering what about some Stress ?
It is really pumping my creative juice
26
RPGs / Re: Dnd 3.5 penalty for dying
« on: October 23, 2013, 07:40:04 AM »
Let's also not forget the consequence for the DM. If death is punished by a weaker character, the whole group might not be able to be as efficient, thus able to complete the adventure. Agree, half a level is unlikely to make a big difference. But if at the end, the group ends up being too weak, what can do the MD ?
Keep the same encounters, with the risk of butchering the remaining of the group. And then what ? start again ?
Or adjust the rest of the adventurem lowering the difficulty, which in this case means a lot of work for no real benefit - the players nor the DG will have more fun. Then what's the point of doing it.
On the other hand, I understand that death should come with a cost since it is rarely the only cause of one bad roll. But it is akward to talk about "punishement and rewards" for a hobby that we practice for fun (at least, that's my take on it).
Keep the same encounters, with the risk of butchering the remaining of the group. And then what ? start again ?
Or adjust the rest of the adventurem lowering the difficulty, which in this case means a lot of work for no real benefit - the players nor the DG will have more fun. Then what's the point of doing it.
On the other hand, I understand that death should come with a cost since it is rarely the only cause of one bad roll. But it is akward to talk about "punishement and rewards" for a hobby that we practice for fun (at least, that's my take on it).
27
RPGs / Re: BaseRaiders
« on: October 22, 2013, 09:21:23 AM »
I got my book ten days ago (I live in Switzerland), in good conditions and went through it quickly. Excellent job! I was very please with the creation rules of "strange skills", and already had some fun building "Domino", the last Heir of "Whom-who-whispers-in-the-Shadow", a colour-blind adept, and Scarecrow and his hords of tiny hungry pumpkins, an ecologist, who was looking for way to undo accidents like Three-Miles-Island meltdown and other man-made ecological disaster.
I will post later some specific questions to check if I understand well the Strange skills creation mechanism - I would like to run soon a game, with initially some pre-gen to introduce both Fate system and Baseraider.
I will post later some specific questions to check if I understand well the Strange skills creation mechanism - I would like to run soon a game, with initially some pre-gen to introduce both Fate system and Baseraider.
28
General Chaos / Re: Potential FTB Minecraft Server Up
« on: October 16, 2013, 04:00:24 AM »
Since almost everything except Thaumcraft required energy (MJ or EU) to power most of the machine, I would suggest to set up a forestry tree farm (go look at sengir forestry site, it contains allt the basic information you need especially the farm structure and shape). It is a bit ressource demanding to start up, but once establish, it will provide with a strong, renewable energy source, with low maintenance.
Also, it does not require too many different resources: copper, tin, iron, redstone a few diamonds and some gold.
Here is how it will work and what you will need:
- For the farm, start with a small size farm (3x3x4=36 farm blocks), which will allow you to have a 72 blocks crop. If you have more ressource, then consider the 3x5x4 farm (demanding 60 farms blocks for a 156 blocks crop).
- Each farm block is simple to make, but making 36 of them takes up ressources, as you will need 2 copper ingots, one tin electron tube, 2 wooden slab and 1 stone brick, or 1 bricks or smooth/chiseled sandstone (all 36 blocks needs to be of the same block)
- To make the tin electron tube, you will need to build a thermionic fabricator (a simple machine from forestry), which you will have to power will a little bit of energy, typically a stirling engine should be enough. You will need glass to run the thermionic fabricator and redstone and tin ingot to make the eletron tube (2 redstone and 5 tin ingot will give you 4 tubes).
-You will need to make a three specific farm block (farm valve, farm hatch and farm gearbox), but those are simple to make once you have the basic farm blocks
Once you have made all those blocks, set up your farm!
You will need a either 72 or 156 (depending on your farm size) case block where your crops will grow, those blocks can be of many variety, but are not basic blocks (like cobblestone or stone).
You will also need the same quantity of dirt to start of your farm (but you don't need to lay it done, the farm will convert them in humus and lay it for you).
You will also need to find some sand and apatite to make fertiliser, and obviously some sapplings - ideal are apple oak sapplings. Apatite is not so easy to find, but once you hit a veins you will have more than enough for a while.
We are almost done, you will need a pump to water you farm - if it is not a desert, you can try to water it initially manually with bucket of water until you can automate the water supply with a pump.
Then power the farm to start it - later the farm will supply its on energy, but initially, a combustion engine or a couple of stirling engine will be needed - maybe a clockwork engine can do the trick, I never tried since it is quite new.
Second step - the energy plant
Now that you tree farm is running, you will have abundant supply of woods and sappling. Both can be converted into energy.
Assuming that you have a apple oak tree farm (basic tree), you want a squeezer and a fermenter then at least one energy machine, a biogas engine (for MJ) to start with, then a bio generator (for EU) or more biogas engine.
You also want to automate a bit the flow of all those material, so you will need one diamond pipe, several wood pipe (basic, for liquid and for energy), cobblestone pipes, energy gold pipe and several redstone engine.
Connect a wood pipe to the farm hatch, then a diamond pipe to sort in three flows the output of the farm: wood toward a chest (for now), apple towards the squeezer, sappling towards the fermenter.
The squeezer will convert apple into juice with mulch as by-product. You need both. With the right pipe, feed the juice to your fermenter. Do the same with the mulch.
The fermenter will convert sappling into biomass. You need a liquid and mulch to do the conversion. As liquid, you can use water, but if you use juice, your yield increase by 50% and since you should have abundant apple, use it !
Finally, connect fermenter to the biogas engine. You will need a couple of lava bucket to start the biogass engine, but once it runs, it won't consume lave anymore.
The squeezer and the fermenter need MJ to run, so once the biogass is ready to run, connect it to both equipment and phase out the stirling or combustion engine you used to kickstart the line.
Congratulations, you are self sufficient with renewable energy!
Fine-tuning and improvement:
- adding a few intermediate tanks as buffer for the juice and biomass is recommended;
- balancing the flow of all output/input is a tricky exercise. With one squeezer, you will probably not be able to process all the apples, so a second one can be an option. You will definitely produce more mulch than you can handle, and frankly, I have not find a suitable use for it.
Where to go after ?
Well, you will quickly notice that one biogas engine does not absorb all the biomass than even a single fermenter can produce, so build more of them. The big advantage of a biogas engine is that it cannot explode! So go for it. You should be able to support at 7 biogass engines with the smallest farm, which will deliver about 35 MJ/t, enough to make quarry run at max speed and support a few other equipments.
Until the latest update of forestry, the largest farm tree (180 blocks crop) was supporting 28 biogas engines without problem, so quite enough to support many lasers for an assembly table.
You will notice also that you are producing large, very large amount of wood. You can convert all that into charcoal with a little bit of piping and automation with ovens. And all this charcoal can be used to power combustion engines to provide even more energy.
Once you have a large supply of energy, you can decide to do more or less what you want...
Also, it does not require too many different resources: copper, tin, iron, redstone a few diamonds and some gold.
Here is how it will work and what you will need:
- For the farm, start with a small size farm (3x3x4=36 farm blocks), which will allow you to have a 72 blocks crop. If you have more ressource, then consider the 3x5x4 farm (demanding 60 farms blocks for a 156 blocks crop).
- Each farm block is simple to make, but making 36 of them takes up ressources, as you will need 2 copper ingots, one tin electron tube, 2 wooden slab and 1 stone brick, or 1 bricks or smooth/chiseled sandstone (all 36 blocks needs to be of the same block)
- To make the tin electron tube, you will need to build a thermionic fabricator (a simple machine from forestry), which you will have to power will a little bit of energy, typically a stirling engine should be enough. You will need glass to run the thermionic fabricator and redstone and tin ingot to make the eletron tube (2 redstone and 5 tin ingot will give you 4 tubes).
-You will need to make a three specific farm block (farm valve, farm hatch and farm gearbox), but those are simple to make once you have the basic farm blocks
Once you have made all those blocks, set up your farm!
You will need a either 72 or 156 (depending on your farm size) case block where your crops will grow, those blocks can be of many variety, but are not basic blocks (like cobblestone or stone).
You will also need the same quantity of dirt to start of your farm (but you don't need to lay it done, the farm will convert them in humus and lay it for you).
You will also need to find some sand and apatite to make fertiliser, and obviously some sapplings - ideal are apple oak sapplings. Apatite is not so easy to find, but once you hit a veins you will have more than enough for a while.
We are almost done, you will need a pump to water you farm - if it is not a desert, you can try to water it initially manually with bucket of water until you can automate the water supply with a pump.
Then power the farm to start it - later the farm will supply its on energy, but initially, a combustion engine or a couple of stirling engine will be needed - maybe a clockwork engine can do the trick, I never tried since it is quite new.
Second step - the energy plant
Now that you tree farm is running, you will have abundant supply of woods and sappling. Both can be converted into energy.
Assuming that you have a apple oak tree farm (basic tree), you want a squeezer and a fermenter then at least one energy machine, a biogas engine (for MJ) to start with, then a bio generator (for EU) or more biogas engine.
You also want to automate a bit the flow of all those material, so you will need one diamond pipe, several wood pipe (basic, for liquid and for energy), cobblestone pipes, energy gold pipe and several redstone engine.
Connect a wood pipe to the farm hatch, then a diamond pipe to sort in three flows the output of the farm: wood toward a chest (for now), apple towards the squeezer, sappling towards the fermenter.
The squeezer will convert apple into juice with mulch as by-product. You need both. With the right pipe, feed the juice to your fermenter. Do the same with the mulch.
The fermenter will convert sappling into biomass. You need a liquid and mulch to do the conversion. As liquid, you can use water, but if you use juice, your yield increase by 50% and since you should have abundant apple, use it !
Finally, connect fermenter to the biogas engine. You will need a couple of lava bucket to start the biogass engine, but once it runs, it won't consume lave anymore.
The squeezer and the fermenter need MJ to run, so once the biogass is ready to run, connect it to both equipment and phase out the stirling or combustion engine you used to kickstart the line.
Congratulations, you are self sufficient with renewable energy!
Fine-tuning and improvement:
- adding a few intermediate tanks as buffer for the juice and biomass is recommended;
- balancing the flow of all output/input is a tricky exercise. With one squeezer, you will probably not be able to process all the apples, so a second one can be an option. You will definitely produce more mulch than you can handle, and frankly, I have not find a suitable use for it.
Where to go after ?
Well, you will quickly notice that one biogas engine does not absorb all the biomass than even a single fermenter can produce, so build more of them. The big advantage of a biogas engine is that it cannot explode! So go for it. You should be able to support at 7 biogass engines with the smallest farm, which will deliver about 35 MJ/t, enough to make quarry run at max speed and support a few other equipments.
Until the latest update of forestry, the largest farm tree (180 blocks crop) was supporting 28 biogas engines without problem, so quite enough to support many lasers for an assembly table.
You will notice also that you are producing large, very large amount of wood. You can convert all that into charcoal with a little bit of piping and automation with ovens. And all this charcoal can be used to power combustion engines to provide even more energy.
Once you have a large supply of energy, you can decide to do more or less what you want...
29
RPGs / Re: Space Tycoon (working title)
« on: June 05, 2013, 03:29:24 AM »
You're welcome crash.
I had more to say, but I did not want to post such a long wall of text.
Some other suggestions:
Skills in RpG can be handled with % or any other numbering value. However, it can quickly add a lot of rolls during a turn and slowdown the gameflow.
An alternative is a skill give a flat advantage if you have it, no roll required.
Example:
Mechanics: for Pilot, allows to negate a penalty due to an event during a mission
Mechanics: for Shipyard, decrease the base cost of building a ship
Ace pilot: extend the autonomy of any ship by one
Politics: allows to triggers political event influencing Economy status
Marketing; allows to increase profit for entertainement and resources mission
Science: more chance to discover new tech during scientific mission.
That's just some examples
Good luck with your design.
I had more to say, but I did not want to post such a long wall of text.
Some other suggestions:
Skills in RpG can be handled with % or any other numbering value. However, it can quickly add a lot of rolls during a turn and slowdown the gameflow.
An alternative is a skill give a flat advantage if you have it, no roll required.
Example:
Mechanics: for Pilot, allows to negate a penalty due to an event during a mission
Mechanics: for Shipyard, decrease the base cost of building a ship
Ace pilot: extend the autonomy of any ship by one
Politics: allows to triggers political event influencing Economy status
Marketing; allows to increase profit for entertainement and resources mission
Science: more chance to discover new tech during scientific mission.
That's just some examples
Good luck with your design.
30
RPGs / Re: Space Tycoon (working title)
« on: June 04, 2013, 05:53:18 AM »
After reading your notes, it is still unclear to me if you are looking at a kind of boardgame, or if you want to be RpG based, with a kind of Yukon gold-rush feel in space ?
Whatever approach you are targetting, for most of your question, I would abstract or summarize it with several "blackboxes" concept.
For example, to simulate demands for some outer space goods, go with the black box:
"Economy", ranging from "1920 recession style" to "Booming growth" (with as many level in-between you see fit), each them associate with a profit margin (let's say from -70% to +300%). The economy value should only drift by one level (eitherway) between each turn, to prevent from being too random.
This will affect the profit made a "mission". The player having a mission returning home rolls a test of "Business competence" simulating how accurately the manager/player predicted the situation and decide of the most profitable goods to collect. The quality of this results (ranging from "pinpoint accurate" to "abyssmally flawed"), compound by the current economic downturn will determine the final profit (or losses) the mission is making (either a modifier on the "Economy" profit margin value of a double entry table).
You can also add a level of complexity by providing broad categories of mission players have to select when launching their mission:
Ressources gathering (bringing pure cash, very sensible to economic conditions),
Scientific exploration (lower profits, but lower risks as the mission is subsidised by government, industry or university), with the possibility to discover or benefit from new technologies (testing prototype, discovering new alloys, etc), which can then improve the Spacecraft, or even the possibility to find a place to settle a colony (which can translate is a permanent source of income).
Entertainment (whether space camping, space cruise, or shooting the equivalent of "Deadly catch" or "OCC" in space, or even some version of Survivor in a tough space colony/space station) - lower budget required, more successful during bad economical downturn as it "distracts" people from their depressing everyday lifes. This missions differs from the other as they always have a defined duration (people go on holidays for a given duration, not as long as the ship flies
.
If you want to add another business complexity, you can allow the possibility to use ressources (cash) to stimulate demands/interest or grants by spending money in communication campaign (advertisement for the latest show/gadget, lobbying for mining rights, promoting new Six-star hotel in the Stars and so on). Skills tests could also be used and again you can be as complex as you want if you want to simulate the various options possible (politics for lobbying, mass marketing for advertisement,...)
This takes care of the "how successful a mission is" part.
Now the shuttle design:
Two parameters can summarise a shuttle construction: ressources & time
Time will determine how many turns/months the team need to wait until it can be used for a mission.
Ressources is how much cash is needed to complete the building process. You can either decide it is a lump sum of money that needs to be put upfront or it is certain amount which need to be paid each turn otherwise the building does not progress (the second model allows more interesting decision making, like starting the building of a shuttle with only half of the money in bank, but betting of a soon returning mission to provide the missing cash).
If investment is turn-based, and that a team for some reason does not want/cannot pay for a month, a certain fees needs to be paid (20% ?) for the maintenance and storage of the half build shuttle.
Now time and ressources will be determined by the design of the spacecraft.
Size: will determine the capacity of the shuttle and should be considering as a modifier for mission which rely on size (mining, transport of goods, settlers or tourists)
Autonomy/speed: length a shuttle can run before returning home or how fast it can reach its destination. Either a straight modifier for determining the success of mission or the number of turns the mission can go on allowing a test each turn to check for mission completion or not. You could consider differentiating autonomy from speed, but then you run into the issue of having to define distance to accomplish mission (otherwise speed does not matter), then defining the benefit of being able to go further and so on. By combining it in a single "blackbox", you simulate that a faster/more autonomous shuttle has simply nmore chance to come back successfull.
Specialisation: going from "jack-of-all-trade" (able to do any job, not very efficiently, basic costs, -25% to profit, but easily refitted between mission), specialised (initially designed for one of the three types of missions - resources gathering, entertainment, scientific research; more expensive (+XX%), more efficient (+25% profit), but cannot easily be reffited (25% of the initial cost), which make it good at that, but not so good at any other; optimised (same as specialised, except it cannot be reffitted, more expensive (+YY%), more efficient (+50%).
Then you can add "options" to increase mission chance of success:
- Probes (3 levels (plus the basic one that equips any ship): improved probes, military grade probes, latest prototype), in increasing order of price & bonus to mission test - should be in absolute value since it is mostly electronics, size of the ship should not matter. It should be the most expensive options since it gives a flat bonus no matter what mission type.
- Quality (3 levels - plus the standard): improve the ship for one type of mission (ressources, entertainment, science), with better tools equipment or luxury suits; price and profit bonus increasing with each level, in % as the bigger the ship the more there is to adapt.
- Multipurpose ship: the ship is designed in such a way that it can accomodate two types of missions at the same time, however the capacity is obviously divided between the two roles. Cost of the designed is significantly increased (+50%), but the ship can take on two different types of mission at a time. The profit is calculated based on the success of each mission, divided by 2 (because only half the capacity of the ship can be dedicated to one mission). This option can only be applied on "Jack-of-all-trade" ship.
The cost to build a ship will be calculated with a formula like: Base value (ship size)+modifiers due to autonomy/speed+modifier due to specialization+modifier for various options, either in % or absolute value.
This gives the base value to build the ship.
If you give that to a standard shipyard, it will take (Cost of the ship/a certain number to be defined) turns to be built.
You can give it to build to more performing shipyard to build, decreasing the building time, but increasing the cost (but not the value of the ship).
It could be possible to buy some predifined type of ship with a rebate, but no possibility to customise it in anyways, with a delivery time of a turn.
Then the sequence of a mission would look like:
- Selection of mission type, possibly to select one with a risk modifier (penalty on the mission check, but increased profit, only available for scientific research and resources gathering mission)
- Take off - same turn as the mission selection (it takes one turn to reach the area of space where the mission can start)
- Mission check - one turn (depending on how details you want to be, you can say that only a "piloting skill test" is needed, simulating that at the end, the most important skill is to find its way into the great void, or you can create a set of skill more or less detailed to cover the various type of mission). The test is modified by the ship equipment. For added complexity, you can add random modifiers (like solar storm jamming sensor; meteor shower reducing the autonomy of the ship (forcing it to return earlier to base), but possibly yielding interesing mineral (bonus for mining mission),...). Based on the marge of success (or failure), the capacity of the ship is more or less filled with mineral/scientific samples & measurement
- As long as the ship autonomy is not reduced to 0, and the cargo not full the mission can go on.
- Landing - one turn.
- Profit and losses - calculated the same turn as the landing using the current Economy situation and the overall success of the mission.
By having take off and return taking one full turn, the shortest mission is three turns. It pushes the player to invest in bigger ships, with more autonomy as it is more profitable. However, the longer a mission, the more risk that it comes back in an unfavorable economy situation. Adding a interesting level of complexity in the decision process.
It leaves you room to add mechanism to control the economy environment - like lobbying for free trade agreement, triggering a war and so on. Each of this event can be started with either resources expenses (following the equation money = power) or some skills test. Those events might have the possibility to switch the economy by more than one degree. Cooperation of player can haste the process, competition of player can block it.
Regarding the initial start of the game, you will have to decide if the player play single person or a group/corporation.
If it is a single character, you can make the choose if it is the captain, which could give them the option to change a mission on the fly if it can be more beneficial or to have some skills which translate in bonus for the mission test.
If it is the manager, it stays on earth, but it can influence the market with lobbying, advertisement, can command additional ships. The option need to be balance to make sure than each role can equally impact the game.
If each player play a group, then they might have a certain number of point to distribute between various skills.
That's what I could think off on the fly as my experiment is running in my back.
Whatever approach you are targetting, for most of your question, I would abstract or summarize it with several "blackboxes" concept.
For example, to simulate demands for some outer space goods, go with the black box:
"Economy", ranging from "1920 recession style" to "Booming growth" (with as many level in-between you see fit), each them associate with a profit margin (let's say from -70% to +300%). The economy value should only drift by one level (eitherway) between each turn, to prevent from being too random.
This will affect the profit made a "mission". The player having a mission returning home rolls a test of "Business competence" simulating how accurately the manager/player predicted the situation and decide of the most profitable goods to collect. The quality of this results (ranging from "pinpoint accurate" to "abyssmally flawed"), compound by the current economic downturn will determine the final profit (or losses) the mission is making (either a modifier on the "Economy" profit margin value of a double entry table).
You can also add a level of complexity by providing broad categories of mission players have to select when launching their mission:
Ressources gathering (bringing pure cash, very sensible to economic conditions),
Scientific exploration (lower profits, but lower risks as the mission is subsidised by government, industry or university), with the possibility to discover or benefit from new technologies (testing prototype, discovering new alloys, etc), which can then improve the Spacecraft, or even the possibility to find a place to settle a colony (which can translate is a permanent source of income).
Entertainment (whether space camping, space cruise, or shooting the equivalent of "Deadly catch" or "OCC" in space, or even some version of Survivor in a tough space colony/space station) - lower budget required, more successful during bad economical downturn as it "distracts" people from their depressing everyday lifes. This missions differs from the other as they always have a defined duration (people go on holidays for a given duration, not as long as the ship flies
.If you want to add another business complexity, you can allow the possibility to use ressources (cash) to stimulate demands/interest or grants by spending money in communication campaign (advertisement for the latest show/gadget, lobbying for mining rights, promoting new Six-star hotel in the Stars and so on). Skills tests could also be used and again you can be as complex as you want if you want to simulate the various options possible (politics for lobbying, mass marketing for advertisement,...)
This takes care of the "how successful a mission is" part.
Now the shuttle design:
Two parameters can summarise a shuttle construction: ressources & time
Time will determine how many turns/months the team need to wait until it can be used for a mission.
Ressources is how much cash is needed to complete the building process. You can either decide it is a lump sum of money that needs to be put upfront or it is certain amount which need to be paid each turn otherwise the building does not progress (the second model allows more interesting decision making, like starting the building of a shuttle with only half of the money in bank, but betting of a soon returning mission to provide the missing cash).
If investment is turn-based, and that a team for some reason does not want/cannot pay for a month, a certain fees needs to be paid (20% ?) for the maintenance and storage of the half build shuttle.
Now time and ressources will be determined by the design of the spacecraft.
Size: will determine the capacity of the shuttle and should be considering as a modifier for mission which rely on size (mining, transport of goods, settlers or tourists)
Autonomy/speed: length a shuttle can run before returning home or how fast it can reach its destination. Either a straight modifier for determining the success of mission or the number of turns the mission can go on allowing a test each turn to check for mission completion or not. You could consider differentiating autonomy from speed, but then you run into the issue of having to define distance to accomplish mission (otherwise speed does not matter), then defining the benefit of being able to go further and so on. By combining it in a single "blackbox", you simulate that a faster/more autonomous shuttle has simply nmore chance to come back successfull.
Specialisation: going from "jack-of-all-trade" (able to do any job, not very efficiently, basic costs, -25% to profit, but easily refitted between mission), specialised (initially designed for one of the three types of missions - resources gathering, entertainment, scientific research; more expensive (+XX%), more efficient (+25% profit), but cannot easily be reffited (25% of the initial cost), which make it good at that, but not so good at any other; optimised (same as specialised, except it cannot be reffitted, more expensive (+YY%), more efficient (+50%).
Then you can add "options" to increase mission chance of success:
- Probes (3 levels (plus the basic one that equips any ship): improved probes, military grade probes, latest prototype), in increasing order of price & bonus to mission test - should be in absolute value since it is mostly electronics, size of the ship should not matter. It should be the most expensive options since it gives a flat bonus no matter what mission type.
- Quality (3 levels - plus the standard): improve the ship for one type of mission (ressources, entertainment, science), with better tools equipment or luxury suits; price and profit bonus increasing with each level, in % as the bigger the ship the more there is to adapt.
- Multipurpose ship: the ship is designed in such a way that it can accomodate two types of missions at the same time, however the capacity is obviously divided between the two roles. Cost of the designed is significantly increased (+50%), but the ship can take on two different types of mission at a time. The profit is calculated based on the success of each mission, divided by 2 (because only half the capacity of the ship can be dedicated to one mission). This option can only be applied on "Jack-of-all-trade" ship.
The cost to build a ship will be calculated with a formula like: Base value (ship size)+modifiers due to autonomy/speed+modifier due to specialization+modifier for various options, either in % or absolute value.
This gives the base value to build the ship.
If you give that to a standard shipyard, it will take (Cost of the ship/a certain number to be defined) turns to be built.
You can give it to build to more performing shipyard to build, decreasing the building time, but increasing the cost (but not the value of the ship).
It could be possible to buy some predifined type of ship with a rebate, but no possibility to customise it in anyways, with a delivery time of a turn.
Then the sequence of a mission would look like:
- Selection of mission type, possibly to select one with a risk modifier (penalty on the mission check, but increased profit, only available for scientific research and resources gathering mission)
- Take off - same turn as the mission selection (it takes one turn to reach the area of space where the mission can start)
- Mission check - one turn (depending on how details you want to be, you can say that only a "piloting skill test" is needed, simulating that at the end, the most important skill is to find its way into the great void, or you can create a set of skill more or less detailed to cover the various type of mission). The test is modified by the ship equipment. For added complexity, you can add random modifiers (like solar storm jamming sensor; meteor shower reducing the autonomy of the ship (forcing it to return earlier to base), but possibly yielding interesing mineral (bonus for mining mission),...). Based on the marge of success (or failure), the capacity of the ship is more or less filled with mineral/scientific samples & measurement
- As long as the ship autonomy is not reduced to 0, and the cargo not full the mission can go on.
- Landing - one turn.
- Profit and losses - calculated the same turn as the landing using the current Economy situation and the overall success of the mission.
By having take off and return taking one full turn, the shortest mission is three turns. It pushes the player to invest in bigger ships, with more autonomy as it is more profitable. However, the longer a mission, the more risk that it comes back in an unfavorable economy situation. Adding a interesting level of complexity in the decision process.
It leaves you room to add mechanism to control the economy environment - like lobbying for free trade agreement, triggering a war and so on. Each of this event can be started with either resources expenses (following the equation money = power) or some skills test. Those events might have the possibility to switch the economy by more than one degree. Cooperation of player can haste the process, competition of player can block it.
Regarding the initial start of the game, you will have to decide if the player play single person or a group/corporation.
If it is a single character, you can make the choose if it is the captain, which could give them the option to change a mission on the fly if it can be more beneficial or to have some skills which translate in bonus for the mission test.
If it is the manager, it stays on earth, but it can influence the market with lobbying, advertisement, can command additional ships. The option need to be balance to make sure than each role can equally impact the game.
If each player play a group, then they might have a certain number of point to distribute between various skills.
That's what I could think off on the fly as my experiment is running in my back.