Okay, so I'm making a terrible decision and going to try GM'ing another Aurora game (my Battlestar Artemis game is probably on permanent hiatus -- just too much that needed a rule overhaul, although I may relaunch it some day if Steve ever gets to releasing the next major upgrade).
I don't want to give too much away about the setting (because yay storyline surprises), but I wanted to get a feel for who all might be interested.
Because it's a nightmare to try running double-blind games with people on the same forum, I'm going to use a different grouping of people I know to provide the adversaries. They won't be privvy to anything you guys discuss, and vice versa.
Couple of in-house rules will be in effect:
1.
Standing Operating Procedures (SOP). Rather than attempt to micromanage battles, players will mostly be assuming the roles of administrators -- production ministers, naval designers, fleet admirals, colonial governors, etc. The Admiralty (players who are fleet admirals) will be responsible for developing a "Rules of Engagement" sort of document for each ship role. If you've played Space Empires IV or V, I'm thinking something like that, only a bit more detailed. Example:
Scout SOP
Movement: Engines are to be run at flank speed (100%) at all times while in motion, or 0% if docked or in orbit. If transiting a known hostile system, engines will run at 1/2 speed (50%) to reduce thermal profile and risk of detection, unless overridden by engagement orders.
Engagement:
A. Unknown Entity
1. If unknown contact is made, vessel will match speed and course to maintain distance between contact and the vessel while communication is attempted. If contact's speed is greater than the flank speed of the vessel, vessel will make flank speed for the nearest friendly system.
2. If contact is stationary (planet, moon, orbital station or vessel at rest), vessel will close to the edge of active radar range, "ping" target for one 5-second burst to acquire detailed EM data, then go passive sensor again. If no reaction is detected, vessel may continue to scout the system at Captain's prerogative. If any reaction is detected (hostile fire, counter-ping, movement of contacts), vessel is to make flank speed for the nearest friendly system.
B. Hostile Entity
1. If a contact is made with a known hostile entity, vessel will record the number, vector and disposition of enemy forces with passive sensors only, then make 1/2 speed for nearest friendly system. If enemy forces attempt to intercept or engage, vessel will increase to flank speed.
2. If enemy forces are able to close to engagement range, weapons are to be used for defensive fire only and vessel should continue to make best possible speed for friendly territory.
Surrender/boarding is not an option. Captain is authorized to initiate self-destruct if escape is impossible. Lifepods should be disabled to prevent crew capture.
This is just an example, and this is the *standard* OP. Individual ships can always be tasked with specific mission orders that override SOP. This will make my life MUCH easier, and is a more accurate way of modelling high-level command.
2.
Limited communications. We're going to assume that FTL communication exists, BUT that it's so large and complicated that it's only on planets/colonies/orbital stations. So, for a ship to receive any kind of change in orders or report in with intelligence, it's going to have to reach a friendly-controlled system (which in this case means a system with at least one friendly colony or orbital station present).
Furthermore -- we're going to assume that ships have a 4 billion km "unencrypted" communication range. This means that any communications to/from a ship at that range can be intercepted by any enemy ships or listening posts (or even spy satellites) within range. Encrypted communications will require docking (moving to the same point), and cannot be intercepted.
Beyond 4 billion km, ship-to-planet or ship-to-ship communication is impossible. (And I may futz around with the idea that at extreme range of say, 3.5-4.0 billion km, the communications may be garbled some.)
Part of the idea here is to make listening posts and things like cloaking/thermal baffling MUCH more important, as well as increasing the need to establish relays and hidden bases. Also, to make it important to have regular patrols and/or very strong planetary sensors to find those enemy listening posts in your "safe" areas.
3.
Personality Traits. They've always been pretty much window dressing, right? NO MORE. Now, personality traits will actually have an impact on how captains respond and how well they follow or deviate from the SOP that you create. I'm still working out the details, but for example an Aggressive captain in a scout vessel might actually attempt to engage a single hostile rather than retreat as the SOP states. A Risk-Taker might try to get in closer to a newly discovered enemy base in order to get better intelligence, despite the warships prowling around the system. A Dynamic captain might break SOP because it makes tactical sense or do something unpredictable, while an Inflexible or Methodical captain will ALWAYS follow SOP, even in situations where it doesn't make good sense.
Before we begin play, I'll provide a list of all the personality traits and the potential in-game effects. Now, you no longer just pick the best numerical stats for the job!
4.
Production Cycles. Colonial Governors (there will be one for each colony) will have to list out their intended production queue for the next 12 months, at least 3 months before the end of the current planned cycle. Changes to an already implemented production queue will instigate a halt in production based on the size of the change before the new production plan can be implemented. This is modelling the fact that governments and militaries are large, unwieldy beasts that don't turn on a dime. If you had planned to build 500 factories and suddenly you need to change up and start building Missile PDCs because OMG THEY'RE COMING, there's going to be some chaos and lost output while the factories lines retool their processes, etc. I'll detail the actual mechanics of this a bit later on. I don't want it to be an exact formula because there needs to be a level of uncertainty and risk involved. You're going to have to put some forethought into what you want to build and when, and how badly you really need to make those changes.
For now, we'll assume that a colonial governor will handle both planetary construction and shipyard construction (if any). If we get a ton of people wanting to play and not enough slots, we can split those out and make the shipyard queues be a seperate thing.
5.
Design Cycles. Some players will be naval designers. Your only real job is to come up with designs for the navy to request and the production ministers to start building. But, ship design in Aurora is far too easy and instant a process. Real-world design processes are a NIGHTMARE of budget overruns and delayed timelines. And making changes to incorporate some new technology can set you back months or years. To model this, a design won't be buildable until it finishes the prototype and design phase (PAD). This will be a semi-random number of 5-day increments based on the ship size, its similarity to existing designs (as measured by the lowest upgrade cost), and the amount of "new" technology being used (i.e. components that have not been used in any other production design), plus a random fudge factor (some designs look simple on paper but turn out to be a nightmare to implement before being eventually scrapped altogether). Making changes to a design which is still in PAD phase will set the approval back a certain amount based on the component construction cost (swapping in a better sensor package, not a big deal; swapping in an entirely new engine type, big deal), plus it will reroll the fudge factor.
"
We kept having all sorts of problems with the lasers scrambling the communications array for minutes after firing, until the brass had us use the new Q-36 instead. Turns out the Q-36 has much better shielding, and all those problems just went away!"
I'll be up to the navy guys to provide requirements (8,000 ton scout; must be jump-capable; top speed of 6000 km/s) and then the designers have to figure out how to get those requirements into a working design. You may well have to miss a requirement or two, or lobby the tech guys to come up with some new components that would work.
When the design reaches the end of the PAD phase, it will be posted for the Navy players to make comments on and ultimately approve or reject. If approved, it'll be available for production ministers to retool a shipyard. If rejected, it may be rejected with a request for modifications (i.e. "we like the overall design but it's undergunned. See what you can do to fix that.") or the project can be scrapped altogether.
Each designer player can only be engaged in up to one military project and two civilian projects at a given time. This is why the Navy may decide to scrap a project altogether -- it's going nowhere and taking up a design slot that they need to use for something else.
6.
Research Cycles. Already pretty well implemented. Each colony that has research labs will have a research administrator that decides what to research, how many labs to allocate, etc. The Administrator will also design and research components, either at their own behest or as requested by other players.
7.
Personnel Administrator. Each side will have a Personnel Administrator that ultimately decides what NPCs get assigned where (i.e. which scientists go to which Research Administrator, which colonies get which administrator -- this is different from the PC "Colonial Governor", etc.) The Personnel Administrator will NOT control military personnel. That will fall to the Admiral of the Navy, or whomever he/she designates to handle personnel matters. NOTE: Personnel (civilian *and* military) will not be teleporting to their new assignments. There will be a number of civilian "courier" ships that will physically load them on and deliver them to their destination. These courier ships will be potentially vulnerable to attack and means that you may wind up requesting a less-brilliant researcher or less-skiller officer because he's already in-system and you don't have to wait two months for him/her to shuttle halfway across the empire to get there. You can also load them up on any ship that already happens to be around and happens to be going that way...
8.
Roles. So obviously, everybody is going to have a relatively narrow role to play. This makes it easier for you guys in terms of what you have to keep track of personally, and it means LOTS of roleplay and arguing/haranguing/internal politics as you all jockey for limited resources and unlimited demands but ultimately have to cooperate to ensure victory.
On the civilian side, there will be a
Head of State who has sort of the big "picture" job. He has authority over all the civilian players. He has no authority over naval players but has to work with the Admiral of the Navy and can apply pressure by directing Production Ministers/Researchers/etc away from making or researching what the navy wants.
The Head of State has only two real powers: he can remove any civilian player from their job and he can appoint a civilian player to any vacant job. This doesn't kick them out of the game, it means they just have to choose another available job. If there's not one available, they can always ask to join the military players.
On the military side, there will be an
Admiral of the Navy with similar corresponding roles and powers. The AotN can assign any military officer to any vessel, remove an officer from a vessel, and change what Fleet Admiral is in charge of what branch.
Additionally, he decides where new ships get placed in the Order of Battle (yes, we're actually going to use the OOB feature in Aurora!)
Fleet Admirals will be in charge of specific branches of the OOB and issuing missions for vessels in their branch. I'm going to leave it to you guys to decide how that will be organized. You may do it functionally or geographically or a mix of the two -- whatever makes sense and fits however many players you have.
Ground forces will fall under the naval OOB (we're going to consider them an adjunct branch of the Navy, like the US Marine Corps). So there will be military players in charge of tending to those as well (and eventually that branch may include their troop transports, and even strike craft, fighters, etc!)
The civilian roles have already been discussed above:
Colonial Governor -- In charge of creating production queues for their colony and any associated shipyards.
Research Administrator -- In charge of assigning research queues and designing/researching components.
Naval Designers -- In charge of designing new ships and PDCs per requests from the Navy and/or colonial governors.
Personnel Administrator -- In charge of assigning civilian personnel based on requests from Governors and Research Administrators. Mostly this will be just giving people what they asked for, but you will also be the final arbitrator if there's a dispute (say, three different research administrators want Dr. Einstein assigned to their labs).
Obviously, the
Head of State and
Admiral of the Navy are the most demanding positions and require somebody who isn't going to disappear for six months without warning. The rest of the positions won't have nearly as much time requirement to them. I'll try to process one-month increments (will most likely be longer initially) between updates. Since you're not controlling individual space battles, the update schedule doesn't need to be as granular.
So....anybody interested or does this sound like a failtastic clusterfuck waiting to happen?
