Research tree - Installations

[Henry Morgan]

Well - I don't think there is a "right" or "wrong" answer to what SNROTE has become. ...<snip>

 

For some, it is a RPG - for others, a wargame - for others still, an industrial sim <snip>

 

Bold prediction: War will not break out until players are confident enough in their technology <snip>

role-playing game

n.

A game in which players assume the roles of characters and act out fantastical adventures, the outcomes of which are partially determined by chance, as by the roll of dice.

----------------------

 

I'm quite curious if people who call Supernova an RPG have ever played a real RPG. In an RPG such as Dungeons & Dragons or Traveller you play the role of a character. Supernova isn't any more a role playing game than is the new Risk 2210. Granted. both have characters, but in Supernova, you do no acting in-game, don't interact as a character in the game, and don't have a human moderator providing background colour to the game. You may want it to be an RPG, you may want Pete to morph it into an RPG, and you may wish to use RPG stereotypes to paint yourself as good and you enemy as evil, but the game itself isn't an RPG, any more than chess or draughts is.

 

So yes, one need not be a median poacher and can take a stance to define a game, and use a proper definition.

 

For some, war has already broken out.

 

-Governor Henry Morgan

[Henry Morgan]

And how exactly does this method of obtaining installations from an ally fit in with your ideas of role-playing? If someone is role-playing a pacifist or a peaceful empire, should they be allowed to attack an ally's undefended pop group?

 

When Pete gets around to enhancing player to player diplomacy, maybe he can put up some obstacles to this kind of exploit. Something like if you attack another empire (be it a ship, army, pop group or whatever), that should be an automatic declaration of war and cancellation of any other agreements. Furthermore, it should take a long time before you can work back up the diplomatic ladder to more prosporous and advantageous levels. Lots of possibilites here.

I, for one, am a bit disappointed with this "time honoured tradition of transferring PBM assets", such as taking over worlds controlled by an ally who left the defenses down. I know it happens, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

 

I would like to see some type of attrition occur such as a 10% chance of each item, installation, and population unit being eliminated during any hostile (non-diplomacy on neutral) take over. A mandatory state of war for a minimum of many turns (25) also makes sense.

 

This type of activity is much like back in the days of Duelmasters where people threw matches to their own gladiators to build them up, or starweb when players used a second empire to funnel resources to a primary one so that it could win on points.

 

Because everyone's definition of cheating is different, perhaps an official statement/policy as to what is cheating and isn't, and the punishments for the cheaters would help prevent this and other such abuse without much in-game coding needed.

 

-Governor Henry Morgan.

[EternusIV]

Mr. Governer Henry Morgan

 

" but in Supernova, you do no acting in-game, don't interact as a character in the game, and don't have a human moderator providing background colour to the game."

 

I'm going out on a limb and making a guess that we've all played RPGs.

 

More splitting of hairs! :lol:

 

I have received (and send) many in-character emails among fellow players. Many here try their best to project a certain "character." I don't really care if what occurs here isn't a technical aberration of roleplaying....its close enough for me to accept that people are trying to do more than play with spreadsheets and fill out orders...in other words...roleplay

 

I suppoe you would agree? Unless you are, in fact, the REAL Governer Captain Henry Morgan of legend. If so, we have much to discuss :lol:

[Sha'thar of the Gosht Kohr]

n.

A game in which players assume the roles of characters and act out fantastical adventures, the outcomes of which are partially determined by chance, as by the roll of dice.

Well let's see. We've all taken on the roles of leaders of empire, seeking to exist in an imaginary universe where FTL travel is possible and many sentient alien species exist. While there are no dice, certainly fates will be determined by so many variables as to suggest that there -is- a certain amount of providence involved.

 

Sound like it fits the definition of an RPG to me.

 

SN:ROTE is a simulation in that a great amount of work and care has been given to create some sort of industrial base and economic structure. Things have to be built in certain orders. Building your empire is little different from classic Sim Games. You could almost think of SN:ROTE as a galactic SimCity with multiple players and WMDs.

 

So SN:ROTE is both RPG and simulation.

 

Regarding the transfer of installations, there's truth in the statement that RTG didn't seem to build this ability into the game purposefully. On the other hand, they've not chosen to quickly fix the 'bug' as they have with many others. I think this says something as well.

 

It fits into my concept of an RPG this way: Rules in these games/simulations are by need finite. Not every nuance of game-play can be defined or explained. Anything that happens outside the current constraints of the rules are defined by the players and, when needed, by the game master. Sometimes it's decided that an action doesn't fit into the scope of the game and is disallowed. But in some other cases, players are awarded for their clever interpretation of game rules and mechanics. I think transfer of installations may be one of these cases, but I'll wait for Pete or Russ to chime in.

 

As far as valuable trade items are concerned, that's simple. Anything you have that the other fellow doesn't is a potentially viable trade item. High-end ship tech of all sorts, such as advanced Warp Survey Sensors, Science Labs, Sensors of all sorts... these all qualify. Also, resources aren't distributed teh same throughout the Universe, so there will be instances where one Empire will have easy access to resources which are both valuable and rare to another. It may be nothing for one Empire to churn out 500,000 tons of Advanced Fuel a turn, while another one within NTWD range is struggling to get half that. Who knows? It's pretty open. out there.

 

A note on Role Playing. When I log onto this forum, my major purpose is to interact with the rest of the SN community, of course. Since I happen to look at SN:ROTE as, among other things, a role playing game, I do a little role playing here.

 

I don't think my concern over empire positions who shoot first and ask questions later are out of character for either me or Sha'thar. As a player, I do have some concern over spending huge amounts of cash on a PBM. But I do understand that this is a game, and stuff happens. I just hope I have a chance to explore trade options and alliances before being plunged into a battle for survival, but (ahem) that's just a roll of the dice. I had no control of where the position was in the universe, or who my potential neighbors were.

 

In character, I'm simply showing the concern any leader might. ICly, I don't relish the thought of war, but will defend the realm when needed, and support my allies when required.

 

Anyway, enough and onward!

[RTGPete]

True, the "time-honored PBM tradition" of forgetting to defend one's assets for the benefit of an ally is questionable at best. There is, however, no way to prevent clever players from getting around any arbitrary ruling to try and prevent it.

 

If one empire could build installations directly into another empire's pop group on the same world, there would have to be a way to use up the target empire's population or this would just be another way to transfer pop and we'd be back to that issue again. I think it would be interesting for one empire to be able to construct, say, Improved Industries for the benefit of an ally - using the ally's population but the builder's construction materials. There would have to be a flag set by the receiver to allow the use of his unemployed population in such a fashion - he'd gain the installations and could scrap them later to get his pop back (and the construction materials, which could have been transferred directly to him in any event), but it could be that he isn't allied to the builder or otherwise doesn't want the installations so a flag would seem to be necessary.

 

Other good examples would be Fusion Power Plants, Subterranean Cities or Imperial Medical Centers. I'll admit that it does seem kind of a shame that it isn't possible to build those kind of cool installations for an ally - it's not exactly trade, but comes close by providing value to an ally.

 

Thoughts?

[Kurassier]

Slightly different topic, but similar. Currently, when a neutral is taken over, you can't add pop to that pop group. However, I happen to have taken over a neutral on a planet that has ideal conditions according to a CSV. Why shouldn't I be allowed to land colonists on that same pop group?

I own the group, they are mine, and much like colonists the new and old will eventually assimilate together. Especially if the 'neutral' has a total pop of 6 and I transfer 50 colonists?

Thoughts? After all these neutrals did join me through Beer fest, errrrr, peaceful diplomatic negotiaions, not hostile takeover.

 

Just curious.

[octagon999]

Other good examples would be Fusion Power Plants, Subterranean Cities or Imperial Medical Centers. I'll admit that it does seem kind of a shame that it isn't possible to build those kind of cool installations for an ally - it's not exactly trade, but comes close by providing value to an ally.

 

Thoughts?

If you simply don't require that a person own a pop group to build an installation there, but require that this empire be a certain level of diplomatic status in order to build in an ally's pop group, I think that could work.

 

Essentially, all you are doing is being the architect. You build the building but there is no transfer of knowledge.

 

The one area *I* find most disappointing is not being able to "hire" mercenaries. For example, I convert a neutral to my cause. I'm a poor combat race. I train them as soldiers and use them in my army. As I understand it, they become the same worthless troops as my own race. (Note: This does not apply to The Rathe, but for example only) It would be nice if the army structure was different so that you could have mercenary-type units. I could recruit Huge Red Dragons, and if I was an ocean sponge race, thats what the dragons turn into. /sigh I guess this simply cannot be fixed.

 

I agree with some above posts that if two empires fight it out, there should be diplomatic penalties that are LONG lived. Perhaps in order to allow two empires to fight it out for informational purposes, there could be a "Wargames" order, where a mock battle is fought between two empires, but there is no actual damage. This would allow information gathering without endangering diplomatic status.

 

JM2CW,

Tom

[Kurassier]

Oh, and to comment on the RPG status, yes this is not the typical RPG as far as D&D Traveller etc., but one is playing the Role of a Race and one can 'role play' that as much as they want.

[woolfe99]

SN:ROTE is just as much or as little an RPG as you want it to be. I don't really play it in a manner that emphasizes roleplaying, so for me it's more of a military/economic strategy game. But I could just as easily do a lot of roleplaying. It's just that the mechanics do not make roleplaying in any way a necessity.

[HumVie]

Hi Eternus,

 

A long long time ago I used to both GM and play in the Chaosium in house campaign for Runquest and Cthulu. Did some fun GMing of D&D and Champions but my first love has always been strategy games.

 

Good Cheer,

Rick

[Laserwolf]

I'll admit that it does seem kind of a shame that it isn't possible to build those kind of cool installations for an ally - it's not exactly trade, but comes close by providing value to an ally.

 

Thoughts?

Having the Full Alliance flag would be sufficient. This is a wonderful addition, incorporating the inadequacies of your colony bonuses and allowing architects as well. Imagine dropping a shipfull of contractors down for the sole purpose of building the new, way-cool antimatter power farms on your ally's HW!

 

Do it!

[Azuth]

SN:ROTE is what you make it. RPG, Sim, Wargame, etc. Whatever it is, you go for it. This game allows you to play it anyway you want to. So don't worry about what type of game SN:ROTE is cause whatever it is, its just a "game".

[ShadowKitsune]

Other good examples would be Fusion Power Plants, Subterranean Cities or Imperial Medical Centers. I'll admit that it does seem kind of a shame that it isn't possible to build those kind of cool installations for an ally - it's not exactly trade, but comes close by providing value to an ally.

 

Thoughts?

I'd like to see Total Allies being able to do such things, even if they'd have to build a special Construction Battalion of 'Engineers' in order to do so.

 

I would also like to be able to hire 'alien' mercenaries, too.

 

M2CW,

-SK

[EternusIV]

I played D&D when I was a kid and even watched a player on this board play with my odler brother whn I was a kid every once in a long while (when I could actually successfully SNEAK into the basement for such affairs which required a successful percentile dice roll....) But I digress

 

 

 

My Brief and Probably Myopic Thought on the Rules for Cross-Breeding Installations

 

Mind you, I am sheerly approaching the issue from a "game fluff" perspective. I dare not use the term "roleplay" perspective in fear of not having my little opinion herein overlooked by semantics.

 

My instincts tell me that an empire's installations are unique to the race of that empire.

 

I can't imagine a Gremloid at the controls of the Spawn's Industrial Complexes - as I doubt it would understand the fine nuances of organic machinery.

 

Installations are a true reflection of an empire's scientific progress. Its one thing to deliver alien goods to another empire - but quite another to deliver a large building with switches made for tentacles, paws, claws, hands, petals or what have you - that require an advanced understanding of the underlying science to operate.

 

The same argument could be had for weapons I suppose....but installations seem a more intimate reflection of an empire. Besides, its one thing for a caveman to eventually use a gun - quite another for him/her to operate an air traffic control tower

[Ixitixl]

Octagon999 had a great idea about hiring "alien" mercenaries for your ground forces. I however enjoy if for more of a role-playing aspect of it. I had spent a lot of points in making my race superior in ground combat, and would only "hire" alien mercenaries to add more flavour. I doubt the two races come close to my bonuses, but imagining a human-like squad combined with a tentacle alien squad mixed in with my own insect like troops gives me all sorts of glee.