Bay 12 Games Forum

Mines: Makes 2-4 Minerals (1-3 alloys on lava worlds) per turn, depending on mining efficency tech level. Takes up 1 slot. Built with 1 Mineral.
Factory: Makes 1-3 Alloys (2-4 on telluric worlds) per turn using 1-3 (2-4 on telluric worlds) Minerals, depending on metallurgy tech level. Takes up 1 slot. Built with 3 Minerals
Lab: Produces 1-3 Research (3-5 on ice worlds, 2-4 on cold barren worlds) per turn, depending on the research speed tech level. Takes up 1 slot. Built with 2 Minerals and 1 Alloy.
Shipyard: Produces ships on demand using. Takes up 1 slot. Produces 1-3 ships per turn, depending on shipwright tech level. Built with 2 Alloys and 3 Minerals.
Dome: Supports 1 Population. Cannot be built on habitable worlds. Built with 4 Alloys and 6 Minerals.

Minerals: Funny rocks. Used to make buildings and smelt alloy. Comes from mines.
Alloys: Metal bars. Used to make ships. Comes from factories processing minerals.
Research: Abstract resource that symbolises the amount of science you have going on. Comes from labs.
Population: How many folks you have. Comes from habitable worlds. Each population point allows for the colonisation of 1 uninhabitable world.

Each move up to 1-3 starmap tiles each turn, depending on the FTL travel tech level. They return the resources they were made out of when recycled.

Colony Ship: Required for colonising new worlds. Destroys itself upon doing so. Takes 2 alloys to manufacture.

Cruiser: Battleship. It is a ship that battles. Takes 1 alloy to manufacture. It deals and can 1-3 damage depending on weapons and armor tech level. 1-3 of them can be used to invade planets, scaling with planet size.

Scout: Ship thats used to chart unknown systems. Takes 1 alloy to manufacture.

Each has a maximum of 3 levels, starts at 1 and can be upgraded 2 times. Each level up adds a +1 to the associated range/output/damage.

Mining Efficency: Increases mining output of mines.
Metallurgy: Increases alloy production in factories.
Research Speed: Increases research output of labs.
FTL Travel Speed: Extends the range which a ship can move in a single turn.
Cruiser Damage: Increases the amount of damage a cruiser deals to ships and buildings.
Cruiser Hull: Increases the amount of hitpoints a cruiser has.
Shipwright: Increases the number of ships a shipyard can produce in a single turn.

Barren Worlds: Worlds wihout atmospheres
Telluric World: Mercury-like world. Bonus to alloy production.
Selenic World: Moon-like world. No bonuses.
Cryogenic World: Callisto-like World. Bonus to research.

Habitable Worlds: Houses 1-3 population depending on how large it is.
Hot Habitable World: Stereotypical desert/savanna world.
Temperate Habitable World:Earth-like world.
Cold Habitable World: Stereotypical taiga/tundra world.

Fringe Worlds
Ice World: Europa-like world. Bonus to research.
Lava World: The floor is lava. Can be harvested for presmelted alloys.

Gas Giants: Uncolonisable. These exist purely for their large sattelite systems of planetary moons.
Hot Jupiter
Gas Giant
Ice Giant

Way of action

You play as clades of animals, with the goal of speciating, and surviving whatever the world and GM throws at you. There are no teams, everyone will fight for themselves, though you may form alliances if you so desire.

You get 3 actions each turn, with their amount of success determined by a 5-sided dice. You can use your votes for;

     • Causing a mutation on a single species,   
       within reason.
   
     • Speciating a species. This can stack for
        rapid adaptative radiation.
     
     • Improve a previously ineffective/   
        maladaptative/vestigial feature. Roll
        gets a +1 bonus to account for the fact     
        that the requested feature already exists
        in some form.

There is no cap for the times you can use these. You can use all three of your votes on the same exact thing.

If a biomes species capacity is full, and a speciation happens there, then the weakest of the prexisting ones is instantly replaced by the new one. This may happen as many times as  required.

The Evolutionary Dices

This is going to be pretty self explanatory. Normal dices are;

       5= Very good. The vote grants an
             additional small supplementary   
             feature.
       
       4= Good. It is exactly what you asked for,
             no more, no less.
     
       3= Still good, just mediocre and doesn't
            affects much about the species'
            evolutionary success.
     
       2= Bad, the roll does more harm than
            good to the species involved.
     
       1= Maladaptation. The roll actively   
            harms the afflicted species. May cause
            extinction if the species was already
            endangered

Just because you dice went great, doesn't means you will be automatically successful and beneficial. For example, a turtle-like shell is useless on a fast predator, and a high roll from such will actually harm it.

If an added feature is antithetical to a current one, the pre-existing one will be lost. 

Vestigialism

Senses may lose sharpness, brains may shrink, tusks and horns may lose purpose novel behaviors may be forgotten. If a trait is no longer useful to a species' current niche and ecological situation for too long, it is automatically lost.

This will happen in at least three turns following the feature going vestigial. If you repurpose the vestigial feature with an improvement vote into something useful again, this no longer applies.

Sexual Selection

Due to the particular premise of the this season of the game, all of you will also have a single Sexual Selection Vote -SS for sort- from the get go. It is unlocked when a clade adopts a reproductive strategy that involves gametes, but that is not necessary here. You already have it.

It's success is divined by a 7-sided dice. It must be used every turn, and can be used to make an entirely new species, add a mutation to a new species, or support a single action.

This is an intentional wild card. It may either screw you over,  save your otherwise awful throw, or just create unintended consequences.

It can be used in two ways. It can either be used as a separate vote, or as a modifier for a normal action.

The numbers are here. The former ones happen if the SS is used to support an action, and the latter ones are the standalone effects.

       7= +3 to the action / Over-adaptation.
             The feature is very intensely selected 
             for. It is overpronounced to the point
             of changing the lifestyle of the whole
             species. That change isn't guaranteed
             to be for the better.
       
       6= +2 to the action / Above, but to a 
             lesser extent.
             
       5= +1 to the action / What you wanted + a
             small additional perk.
       
       4= +0 to the action / Exactly what you
             wanted.
     
       3= -1 to the action / The feature is slightly
             broken. Minor Fisherian Runaway.
     
       2= -2 to the action / Significant Fisherian
            Runaway. The feature makes the
            species more vulnerable overrall.
     
       1= -3 to the action / Extreme Fisherian
            Runaway. Pretty much a
            maladaptation kept afloat in the gene
            pool by sexual selection.

The effects of an SS vote can change wildly, depending on the context. It's real effects usually show themselves in highly competitive environments, while places with low competition are much more lax with the repercussion of having bright red fur in an open grassland.

Biome and Ecosystem Mechanics

The word "biome" is loosely defined here. It is pretty arbitrary, and it is only really used to separate different distinct places.

Each biome tab has three subsections for primary, secondary consumers and tetriary consumers; prey, predators and apex predators. Predator population will be determined by the prey count, and prey population will be determined by a non-descript plant abundance value, along with how many predators there are. Apex predator population will be determined by both. There will only be one apex predator for every biome.

Carnivores and omnivores are essentially the same; they generate population debuffs for herbivores through a cursory fitness criterion, and omnivores are mostly there for you to smoothly transition to obligate carnivory and herbivory, their other difference being that they have less prey requirements. Apex Predator just puts maluses on everything and is only there as the peak to fight for.

Overhunting will start to happen if the maluses generated by carnivores exceed the herbivore population count. This may cause the herbivores to go extinct, and bring the whole thing down, like the last time.

Prey populations may also swell too much if unchecked, depleting plant cover and causing ecosystem collapse as well.

Population

The criterion used are the Wildlife Status symbols used worldwide, and abstract numbering from 1 to 100.

      LC/>60: Least concern. This species
      enjoys their high and healthy
      population counts. Not in any direct
      threat.

      NT/60-41: Near Threatened. Not quite in
      danger, but could be in a better
      situation than it is.

      VU/40-21: Vulnerable. This species is at     
      the limit from enough, to not enough.
      Needs to get better at survival a bit.

      EN/20-11: Endangered: The danger of
      extinction is close to this species.
      Needs to adapt to whatever is
      causing its decline.

      CR/10-1: Critically Endangered: This   
      species is at the very cusp of going
      extinct. Something must be done, and
      quick, or else...

      EX/0: Extinct. This species has no living
      members. If you hit this, you lose   
      this species entirely. If it was your
      only/last, then you have to branch out
      of someone else.


Environmental Dices

Every turn, an event occurs. Three dices determine the strength, length of time, and the temperament of the said event.

Strength dice:
 
      0-25= Nothing Happens (Makes the other   
      two values N/A)
      26-70= Minor Event
      71-90=  Major Event
      91-100= Very Major Event

Timeframe Dice:
       
       0-10= A single Turn
       11-14= Two Turns
       15-17= Three Turns
       18-19= Four Turns
       20= Permanent Effect

Temperament dice:

      7= Awsome stuff
      6= Good stuff
      5= Convinient stuff
      4= "Meh" stuff
      3= Inconvinient stuff
      2= Bad stuff
      1= Awful stuff


The Environment

You play on an archipelago of three islands and its surrounding waters. The entire place is devoid of life, save for the shallow waters around the largest island. There are plenty of algea growths there, along with a single animal species that may seem out of place for some of you.

You start with Tiny Dropcovy, a small, herbivorous, piscine animal that resembles a water droplet with fins.

The setting is an isolated archipelago on an ocean. You start as a pinecovy descendant on shallow coastal waters.

No more teams. It is a deathmatch.

You still can be "plantimals". I like the concept. But as soon as they become more plant than animal, they will fall from the games focus, as they would have became plants. They may still have an impact on the game as background plants though, if the event dice coincides or the context is right.

The SS vote is now more versatile.

Vestigialism is there so I have an excuse to clean up the useless things in species bios. You don't need them. I know it for a fact that you'll never re-purpose them. I just know you that much. This removals may include pretty much everything that goes unused for a while. So if you don't wanna lose them, you better keep them updated according to the species' niche and lifestyle. How exactly you do that is your business.

To prevent the great spannings of uneventful boredom from happening again, I have decided to add a new roll called Event Longevity. It is a 20-sided roll that determines the lenght of time which the event occurs, allowing me to create events with overarching effects that take place in  geological timeframes and still roll throught them, like ice or hothouse ages.

Biomes are now more complex with separated predator and prey sections, along with more prominent population calculations. It is going to matter how much prey and plants there actually are.

And finally to make sure the ecosystem population thingie makes sense, I have introduced the three classical niches. This is also to prevent you guys from destroying the ecosystem again. We can't have a biome full of omnivore predators. Someone has to be the loser that gets eaten, it is inevitable.

notquitethere

Tricmagic

The Canadian Kitten

Knightwing64

flazeo25

brangerlon

Blood_Librarian

Crystalizedmine

FiveBalesOfHay

Turn 0: A brand new world...
Turn 1: Aaaaand pandemonium begins...
Turn 2: Then the overpopulation hits...
Turn 3: Pink, pink everywhere...
Turn 4: Now it glows at night...
Turn 5: Prairies to forests...
Turn 6: The pink is everywhere...
Turn 7: Something's coming, something big...
Turn 8: The fish people have emerged...
Turn 9: It's the keepers...
Turn 10: All I want for Christmas...
Turn 11: The Islands are alive...
Turn 12: The Landfall is now close...
Turn 13: W.I.P