Bay 12 Games Forum

Long ago, there was a star-spanning empire. It shined across the stars, and upon its fair worlds were constructions, creation at its highest order; Hundreds, maybe even thousands of Stars were home to trillions of Yaerians. One such star was ours, Cadar.

This world was molded to fit us.  Later, machines tended to our every need. We were given time for higher virtues. That was, until another empire found our species, and annihilated all of our worlds after a very long and drawn-out war. They left our world burned, but not glassed. Some wonder if this is a blessing or a curse.

We are stranded on this world, the world of Niria.

A few of us survived this event. Dreamers, cowards, and survivors, but no heroes, no engineers or scientists. It was a dark age, we lost many wonders. We were separated from another group of Yaerians. We are possibly the only survivors of this galactic calamity, and we are in two groups, the Phoziris Shard, and the Elorius Dynast. Our differences make us incompatible for trade,  regular contact, and peaceful co-existence, but whatever interactions we have are difficult because of the miles and miles of the burned city between us that is interspersed with lethal hazards.

Sometime after we were burned, someone, something created or dropped monsters on our world.

These monsters are Battle-Frames, positronic AI’s housed in casings that were originally dedicated to fighting the enemy are now present throughout the world, having taken over our dead and dying infrastructure.  Their guns fire on us, despite the fact that they seem to be descended from our own benevolent machines. They don't move from their share of the ruins and create a resource scarcity. If they stir, we are behold to cower from their unknowable minds and their lethal guns.

Despite that, we’re rising from the dirt. The sky is no longer clout with clouds of ash that turn lungs black, and the radioactive dust has mostly settled. Most of all, errant nano hives have finally stopped pumping the air with death outside of Pozi Black Zones.

Our technological capacity is widely varied. Our foremost advantage is medicine;  Everything from blood transfusions, basic genetic modification, biochemistry, and basic augmentations such as pacemakers and artificial ears are possible right now.

We have barely returned to using electric or steam engine trains for wide-spread transportation, and the Dynasts managed to activate a singular mag-lev train online for transportation in its cities. The Shard owns the broken end of this planets Elevator and uses it’s varied cargo systems for their own uses. They even have cars.

Neither side has any standardized battle-ready weapons, but plantative projections put our societies to be able to develop them in an advanced level; laser weapons and railguns in  large vehicle sized packages, and complex automatic firearms should be buildable provided effort is applied, but in the long term, anything is possible.

Our main issue is a simple fact that there is no gasoline to power our crude systems, we rely entirely on salvaged systems that develop power through poorly understood methods. Fuel cell systems utilizing hydrogen or other fuels are poorly understood and labor-intensive to produce. Details must be clarified on how our systems are powered. Geothermal energy plants are the center points of both societies, as they utilize cracked tectonic plates to power most of our civilian infrastructure, but it is difficult to store power for vehicles and complex devices as our battery systems are relatively sub-par.

Similarly, complex weapons are hard to produce due to our limited acquisition of rare earths and other resources. Traditional mines are hard to make when the world is almost entirely covered in a city that is filled with hazards.

Our access to orbit is hampered by our lack of fuel, and the existence of KILLSATS-- satellites which exist to deny the orbital space of our world, either used by the battle-Frames in the area or the hated Enemy. It will be very hard to enter the orbital space until both problems are solved.

[E: 2/2; P: 0/2]District 7: The Unyielding Bunkers of Elorius
[E: 4/4; P: 0/4] Elevator Base (1)
The base of one of two Space Elevators that were on this world. Its cord has long since rotted, but impact scar crater is one of the larger craters that lead all the way to the Sea. Surrounding it is razed cityscapes and looted spaceports, tarnished only by intense infighting and neglect as the centuries went on.
[E: 4/4; P: 0/4] Scraper Kill Hills (2)
Heavy city development, the ruins of which have only been recently cleared. Unlike the Arcology, this is many, many buildings that all amalgamate against each other as wreckage that has compacted into something like hills and valleys.  Watch your step.
[E: 4/4; P: 0/4] Collapsed V. Farms (3)
What was once a burgeoning vertical farm now lies as a massive mound of soil, mutated crops, and strange intoxicating monsters set in a bog. Raider gangs live here, with an eclectic set of gear they terrorize the countryside and are renowned for their accuracy with their war-bows, strung with threading from the Elevator.
[E: 2/4; P: 2/4] Deteriorating Arcology (4)
The center of our world, The largest Arcology of the planet. Its name has been forgotten, and the only reason it stands was that the Hated Enemy coveted it. Inside it is miles of corridors and unscavenged loot, as well as ticking machines. Sometimes the dying reactor inside the Arcology manages to power some of the sub-systems inside, including internal and external defenses.
+1 Energy
[E: 2/4; P: 2/4] The Metro (5)
A dozen tunnels go directly underneath the Arcology, allowing for truly horrific tunnel fights between both factions as well as the active menace of Battle-Frames directed by the equivalent of an autonomous sub-way and construction authority. It’s already dying, but its dreams dictate when its legions will march
+1 Minerals
[E: 0/4; P: 4/4] Ruined Park (6)
Massive fields of gardens, forests, and microbiomes grow un phased here. One of the few places on the planet without city development.  A rebellion from the Phozirus Shard had arrived here after a mutiny a long time ago, and they have come to be ruled by the Metro’s Construction Authority. They are vicious and cunning about doing their masters bidding, which often makes no sense what so ever.
[E: 0/4 P: 4/4] Glass Crater (7)
What was once a massive stretch of the city has been obliterated to the foundations by a particularly devastating hydrogen bomb. Nothing grows here, and nothing stirs besides interloping Yaerians, for it is a hollowed grave of millions of the dead. In the center of the crater is a monumental pile of corpses stacked up by the Battle Frames. Sometimes they visit, but unlike other areas, they seemingly do so to mourn rather than to patrol. This is one of the few places where  Battle-Frames do not open fire upon Yaerian forces upon detection, and it is perhaps one of the most terrifying places to be in. If you die here, your body is added to the pile.

[E: 0/4 P: 4/4]Cleared Metropolis(
This part of the city was spared by the wide-spread bombardment th most of the world was hit with, and the vast majority of buildings are still intact. People might actually live here in the coming years, were it not for the unsettlingly close Black Zone.
[E: 0/2; P: 2/2]District 6: The Shining Spires of Phoziris
Black Zone (9)
The Black Zone is a hellish city-scape of active Battle-Frames, malfunctioning nano hives, radioactive craters, and other equally horrible things. Only Special forces equipped with defense against chemical, biological, radiological and nano-scale threats (CBRN-S) can traverse this zone safely and a semblance of control over this zone will provide a bonus towards attacking Sectors  3, 4, and 7.
The Shining Sea(10)
Generations ago,  the local Battleframes used a series of what was later discovered to be thermonuclear charges to turn this area into a basin, which the sea now resides. No one knows why, but the Frames had a planet shaking conflict with each other in what was once Sector 8. This conflict ended when the Zone had been terraformed, the area was sunken down and entirely flooded. The conflict ultimately leads to the formation of an inland sea as vast amounts of material were cratered into the surrounding area as well as a concerted effort by the Battleframes themselves. The water is unsafe to drink and is sterile, but it is incredibly convenient that the vast majority of nuclear materials have sunk to the floor of the seabed, and only requires minor filtration to become drinkable. Most of our water is projected to come from the Shining Sea as it is easier to filter water than to reclaim it. Control over this zone will provide a bonus towards controlling Sectors 2, 5, and 6.

Transportation Capacity: 0
Resources: 1 Minerals, 2 Energy

Weapons
Salvaged Weaponry: Most scouts and some veteran personnel managed to get their hands on hand-crafted or pre-annihilation weapons that use a variety of methods of delivery. Logistics for these variable effectiveness weapons will be a headache until a standardized loadout is made. A vast majority of these weapons are lovingly crafted by the scavengers, and as such are chemically accelerated.  The few energy weapons in this mix are terrifying examples of what was our might, but we do not yet have the technological nor industrial might to recreate them, or even put them back together if we dismantle them. (N/A)

Misc. Equipment
Survivalist uniform: Our troops are issued all the equipment they need to, in theory, survive the toxic air and deadly cold of some parts of the city. Given in the form of whatever can be found, but the standard is a gas mask and a coat in our colors, a green-ish.


Infrastructure

ProtoBatteries: Batteries that were reclaimed from civilian equipment and recharged from the nearest power generator and carried over to where it is needed There is no power grid, only a courier network. To say unreliable is an understatement. (1 Energy)


Mag-Lev Station: A single station in the Cleared Metropolis is the most civilian authorities are willing to give to move the troops out, as they are not willing to risk the singular mag-lev train that runs throughout the city. It will not run if the Cleared Metropolis is contested. Every day, they battle with the licensed part requirements and incredible maintenance tasks that are required to keep it running, by the simple virtue that almost every single component is a DRM-Licensed/ fabbed part, meaning that jury-rigging is required until our fabricator is loaded with the proper license.

Schedule 1 Fabricator: One of the simplest fabricator designs in existence that was looted from the cache, Schedule 1 Fabricators are able to create simple devices on a large scale without configuring. Their black-box nature precludes us from tampering without a mythical Yaerian Official present- if they exist at all. Our licenses include objects standard for survival in the cities, as well as basic industrial technology. Low throughput means that smaller items can be produced in larger batches, and our industry is using it to bootstrap themselves into a higher power. For reference, it is the size of a large semi-truck, and it is perhaps the most advanced device we own.[/s]

Transportation Capacity: 0
Resources: 1 Minerals, 2 Energy

Weapons
Salvaged Weaponry: Most scouts and some veteran personnel managed to get their hands on hand-crafted or pre-annihilation weapons that use a variety of methods of delivery. Logistics for these variable effectiveness weapons will be a headache until a standardized loadout is made. A vast majority of these weapons are lovingly crafted by the scavengers, and as such are chemically accelerated.  The few energy weapons in this mix are terrifying examples of what was our might, but we do not yet have the technological nor industrial might to recreate them, or even put them back together if we dismantle them. (N/A)

Misc. Equipment
Survivalist uniform: Our troops are issued all the equipment they need to, in theory, survive the toxic air and deadly cold of some parts of the city. Given in the form of whatever can be found, but the standard is a gas mask and a coat in our colors, a Purple-ish coloration.

Infrastructure
ProtoBatteries: Protobatteries is the terminology for Batteries stolen from the civilian network or salvaged from the ruins. They are currently recharged from civilian infrastructure or from the failed grid and jury-rigged into any-would be military equipment. To say unreliable is an understatement. (1 Energy)

Schedule 1 Fabricator: One of the simplest fabricator designs in existence that was looted from the cache, Schedule 1 Fabricators are able to create simple devices on a large scale without pre-configuration. Their black-box nature precludes us from tampering without a mythical Yaerian Official present-- if they exist at all. Our licenses include objects standard for survival in the cities, as well as basic industrial technology.  Low throughput means that smaller items can be produced in larger batches, and our industry is using it to bootstrap themselves into a higher power. For reference, it is the size of a large semi-truck, and it is perhaps the most advanced device we own.[/s]

Sky-Thread Base: One of the “lesser” achievements of our species exists in our territory, the amputated space-elevator is in the center of what was once the world's largest mercantile sector. Although the miracle of the thread is long gone, it’s surrounded by dozens of armatures and cargo unloading hardware that has been jury-rigged into transportation inbetween the jagged buildings of the Elorious.

An Arms Race game is a 2-team "suggestion" game about designing new weapons, items, and other objects for your nation's military. These designs will be routinely compared to the other team's arsenal in Battle Reports. The game is split into three phases:

Phases
A turn (0.25th of a cycle) is divided into phases. The Battle Report, at the end of the Battle Phase, takes place starting at the beginning of the next cycle.
1.) Design Phase: In the Design phase, everyone on a team can submit proposals for new designs, and vote for one (and only one) design to be submitted. This chosen design then has a set of dice rolled in order to determine how well the R&D of this design goes. Depending on how high the dice result is (more on this in the "2d4 System: Rolls & Design/Revision Difficulty" spoiler), the submitted proposal will result in a design of varying usefulness. Designs are practically anything new to your military.
2.) Revision Phase: In the Revision phase, everyone on the team can submits revision proposals and vote for one to be submitted - this phase is identical to the Design Phase in every way but what you can do with your proposal. Revisions are exactly that - revisions. They're modifications to existing technology or designs. Revisions can tweak or improve designs, fix flaws, or even introduce new variants of designs. Revisions don't have to be modifications of existing Designs - they can be based on any technology your nation has, whether or not it's listed as a Design.
3.) Battle Phase: This is where you wait to receive the Battle Report, which details the impacts of your designs, how combat is played out in various regions, and the gaining/losing of any territory. This all depends on what designs you have - different terrain has different impacts on your designs' effectiveness.


Combat & Control
In the Battle Phase, the different areas of your soldiers fight in are represented as Regions - different parts of the "continent" which are strategically important for whatever reason. Regions are organized in lanes, indicated by the blue lines in the map. In order to begin assaulting a region, a nation must have complete control of the previous region in the same lane. Regions are internally divided into four zones each, representing how much control if it each nation has. Winning in a region advances your control over it by one zone.
The Cities, District Six and Seven, are unique types of regions in that they only have two zones. But as soon as a nation loses their city, they lose the game.

Almost literally copy-pasted from Chief Waffles Mad Arms Race. His system works well.

Most pieces of equipment have a resource cost, expressed in Mineral and Energy. For examples, see the starting equipment below. Minerals represent the total amount of mining or salvaging effort which an item costs and Energy represents the energy required to create or use it. If something is big or uses rare metals, it will have a high Mineral cost. If something burns a lot of fuel, or uses very complex manufacturing processes or requires an excess of electricity or logistical power to field it, then it will have a high energy cost. Costs represent what is needed to supply your entire army, roughly 20,000 men. This means that prices given might be for 20,000 rifles, 5000 motorcycles with sidecars, or 500-1000 tanks or planes, or even a couple of ships.

Your nation has limited resources: A city (representing the area around it) starts with 2 Minerals, 1 Energy, and enough of what may be called wood to not be requisitionally insignificant. You can gain resources by taking certain sections of the map then holding them for one turn without losing ground, or from acquiring it from more esoteric means. The map spoiler describes the resources available. If a design costs resources which you don't have, it becomes expensive, and can't be issued to everybody. The total amount of resources a design costs more than you have is called the Resource Deficit. A design with no resource deficit is Cheap, this means it can be issued to every soldier, or as often as your generals decide is tactically sensible. A resource deficit of up to 2 makes a design Expensive, meaning it can only be issued to officers, or 1 in 10 men. A resource deficit of 3-5 makes a design Very Expensive, available to only about 1 in 100 men. A resource deficit of 6-9 makes a design a National Effort, you can only field one at a time - so this is only worthwhile if it's something like an enormous battleship, a nuke, or mecha-godzilla. A resource deficit of 10 or more is Theoretical, and cannot actually be built. Some technologies are Complex, being new and difficult to manufacture, and designs featuring them become one level more expensive. Consider expenses when planning your designs! If you lose access to resources, any designs which become more expensive will immediately see the effects - equipment which doesn't have enough fuel and spare parts will need to be decommissioned.

There are also Special Resources. Currently, none exist, but as designs grow more and more outlandish, they may begin requiring newly-unearthed resources from the map or ones provided by designs/revisions with the intent of providing that resource. Your new autonomous drones may end up requiring salvaged AI cores, a new resource. It may pop up as a resource in one of the regions, or it may require a design - like an AI-signal scanner - to be acquired.

You have a limited Transport Capacity (Note: You have 0 TC at the beginning) which determines how much resources you are capable of claiming from other territories you control. Your TC is given from the single vehicle each in air, ground, underground(railway), and water which gives the highest TC. Your homeland's resources do not consume transport capacity

This system is ripped off largely based off of Chief Waffles Mad Arms Race. (Aratam is better by the way.)

The results of designs and revisions are decided by the use of two four-sided die (or "2d4") yielding in a result in the range of 2-8. This allows for a bit less common extremes, meaning you won't commonly have your designs become completely useless.
Roll (Probability): Result
2 (1/16): Utter failure. You get nothing except the knowledge of what not to do.
3 (1/8): Buggy mess. Whilst you managed to make something, it isn't really usable.
4 (3/16): Below average. It works. Not especially well, but it works.
5 (1/4): Average. You get what you asked for, more or less.
6 (3/16): Above average. It works, and somewhat better than might be expected. Statistically, at least.
7 (1/8): Superior craftsmanship. It does its job and it does it perfectly. Its performance is exceptional and it is as reliable as clockwork.
8 (1/16): Unexpected boon. Not only does it work, but it does things you never even expected it to. If no 'bonus features' make sense, then you just get experience with some related field.


Every design and revision is assigned a Difficulty when they're rolled. Difficulties assign a modifier (+/- #) to the roll, changing the effective result. The following is a list of the difficulties, their modifiers, and when they usually pop up. This is a very rough guide as the situations surrounding designs & revisions cannot be predicted.

• Trivial (+2): Actions where no notable challenges, small or big, are solved. Often assigned to actions based on using existing established (non-theoretical) knowledge in a new but not unusual way.
• Easy (+1): Actions where some minor challenge is found.
• Normal (+0): Actions often involving new concepts or technology and progress in the field, but no major breakthroughs are intended.
• Hard (-1): Actions often entirely involved in entirely novel concepts, but that have a decent foundation and basis in current knowledge.
• Very Hard (-2): Actions where you have some idea of what you're doing, but are largely attempting to play with things you don't understand.
• Ludicrous (-3): Actions where you have no idea what you're doing but that are theoretically possible given your current knowledge

Impossible is another difficulty which means failure no matter what the roll is. High rolls on an Impossible design may result in experience towards whatever you were trying to do.

Transportation Capacity: 0
Resources: 1 Minerals, 2 Energy

Weapons
Salvaged Weaponry: Most scouts and some veteran personnel managed to get their hands on hand-crafted or pre-annihilation weapons that use a variety of methods of delivery. Logistics for these variable effectiveness weapons will be a headache until a standardized loadout is made. A vast majority of these weapons are lovingly crafted by the scavengers, and as such are chemically accelerated.  The few energy weapons in this mix are terrifying examples of what was our might, but we do not yet have the technological nor industrial might to recreate them. (N/A)

Misc. Equipment
Survivalist uniform: Our troops are issued all the equipment they need to, in theory, survive the toxic air and deadly cold of some parts of the city. Given in the form of whatever can be found, but the standard is a gas mask and a coat in our colors, a green-ish.


Infrastructure

ProtoBatteries: Batteries that were reclaimed from civilian equipment and recharged from the nearest power generator and carried over to where it is needed There is no power grid, only a courier network. To say unreliable is an understatement. (1 Energy)


Mag-Lev Station: A single station in the Cleared Metropolis is the most civilian authorities are willing to give to move the troops out, as they are not willing to risk the singular mag-lev train that runs throughout the city. It will not run if the Cleared Metropolis is contested. Every day, they battle with the licensed part requirements and incredible maintenance tasks that are required to keep it running, by the simple virtue that almost every single component is a DRM-Licensed/ fabbed part, meaning that jury-rigging is required until our fabricator is loaded with the proper license.

Schedule 1 Fabricator: One of the simplest fabricator designs in existence that was looted from the cache, Schedule 1 Fabricators are able to create simple devices on a large scale without configuring. Their black-box nature precludes us from tampering without a mythical Yaerian Official present- if they exist at all. Our licenses include objects standard for survival in the cities, as well as basic industrial technology. Low throughput means that smaller items can be produced in larger batches, and our industry is using it to bootstrap themselves into a higher power. For reference, it is the size of a large semi-truck, and it is perhaps the most advanced device we own.

[E: 2/2; P: 0/2]District 7: The Shining City of Elorius
[E: 4/4; P: 0/4] Elevator Base (1)
[E: 4/4; P: 0/4] Scraper Kill Hills (2)
[E: 4/4; P: 0/4] Collapsed V. Farms (3)
[E: 2/4; P: 2/4] Deteriorating Arcology (4)
+1 Energy
[E: 2/4; P: 2/4] The Metro (5)
+1 Minerals
[E: 0/4; P: 4/4] Ruined Park (6)
[E: 0/4 P: 4/4] Glass Crater (7)
[E: 0/4 P: 4/4]Cleared Metropolis(
[E: 0/2; P: 2/2]District 6: The Shining City of Phoziris.
[No Control]Black Zone
[No Control]The Shining Sea