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[Doubloon-Seven]

Doom? What next, are you nuts going to hold the world hostage for one million dollars?

[Chiefwaffles]

So, the 1955 operations report is out and with it, I have a note and a rule change.

Human Power Inc. Preferred Strategy
Both nations have realized that all-out gunfights between trained government soldiers in highly populated urban areas is not a good idea. Human Power Inc. will prefer more balanced strategies both this phase and in the future. Gunfights are still highly viable (especially compared to the Global League), but both agencies will now try to avoid such high-scale confrontations.
The difference is fairly minor and this phase would have gone the same regardless of whether this was kept (as naturally both nations would want to cool off for a bit after such a confrontation regardless), but I'm letting everyone know in case it affects any plans.

For reference -
Global League requires extreme secrecy, as both agencies are operating in what's supposed to be a neutral place, under the eyes of the entire world.
Human Power Inc. is more "freeform", but both agencies want to minimize collateral damage and avoid highly controversial strategies and events in such highly populated areas.
Singleton Arms, being in very sparsely-populated areas relatively, is open to more obvious gunfights thanks to the isolation from most citizens, police, and the like.
Astria and Merkan's preferred tactics depend entirely on the Skills & Techs used by the agencies, though the defending side does have a home field advantage.

And of course, the methods of engagement can change as both sides develop new Tech and Skill. These are more-so the "default" strategies. Both pure stealth and aggression are viable in all theatres, given the right methods of enacting it.


Operations Phase Orders
I will allow both sides to optionally choose a very basic "plan" for individual theaters. If they don't have a consensus, I'll just choose what I feel the agency in question would choose in their (IC) eyes.

This plan is basically just choosing what skills and tech to use and which ones to not use. Not providing a gm For example -
GOOD: "In Human Power Inc., Use the Invisible Entry skill and the Invisible Objective skill. Bring the Invisible Cloak and nothing else."  or  "Use the Invisible Entry and Death Ray entry. Bring the Death Ray and Invisible Cloak techs."
BAD: "Have our operatives stealthily enter then use their death rays on the guards and then ...!"

This is just to allow for more specialized skills and to avoid me having to predict what skills a side would want used.

[evictedSaint]

Having done an arms race with three dice rolls before, I would strongly, strongly, strongly, strongly recommend you drop it to one single dice roll and adopt Sensei's "Easy-Normal-Hard-V Hard-Impossible" system.  I promise you that it will be much less headache for you.  If nothing else, drop the Expense roll and just make judgement calls, otherwise you're going to end up with weird shit like exploding pens being Very Expensive and U2 Spy Planes being merely Expensive.

Also, you should figure out how Expense works with relation to a teams resources - otherwise one team will develop a Blackbird at NE with one design, and spend the next three revisions revising it down to normal cost. Maybe a single resource like "Espionage Spending" can be used based on control of the companies and League, and the deficit cost can determine the Expense (like in Sensei's arms race)? 

Edit: I would also suggest using a "deck" of dice-rolls, too.  Maybe a deck of 24 cards for each side that goes 1-6; this way each side gets the same average.  You don't run into one side getting all 6's and the other all the 1's.  But mostly I just recommend not rolling for expense.

[Chiefwaffles]

I've created a Shadow Race Discord in case people care about that. Standard fare - a private channel for each side, and you just get me to add you to the appropriate channel.
Also of note is that revisions for both sides will be coming soon unless there's any change in votes.


evicted, I definitely see what you're talking about. I've been thinking about adopting Sensei's system, though I do like having multiple points of success/failure in a design and making it less likely to just either be a 1 and "nope you get nothing" or 6 and "yup you get everything".
Expense has already been a headache for me in Planetary Arms Race. I'm considering removing it but even if I don't, I plan on using the expense roll as more of a suggestion for a judgement call.

I like the deck of dice-rolls idea, though. And will probably be using that for rolls.

[Chiefwaffles]

More rule changes!

1.) The amount of agents per theatre is decreasing. This is minor, but still there. "Cheap" will mean about 5 agents. "Expensive" is something like 2 and maybe 3. "Very Expensive" is 1 and maaaybe 2 (but can be applied to every theatre), and "National Expense" is 1 agent in 1 theatre. This overlaps - barring any extra factors, there'll be ~5 agents max per theatre.
2.) Operations are longer-term. Each theatre (most of the time, at least) will no longer be based around teams of agents coming in at the same time. It'll be based on more traditional spywork.
3.) Agents are now kept track of. Each theatre, you have 5 agents. This can temporarily decrease if agents are killed in gunfights or if they're arrested by security forces/the other side.
4.) Agents can be killed or arrested and interrogated. Like the above. Agents can (easily) be killed if they enter into engagements, and can be captured by 3rd party security or the other agency. They can also be interrogated, increasing effectiveness in that agent's theatre if the interrogation is effective.

To make up for these changes, each side will be getting a Design Credit, though with the conditions that it specifically lacks violence, shooting, etc..


Here's an example Operations Report:
Operations Report, 195X
Objective: KOSMIC and MOLE must find and capture a mole person-who's-willing-to-expose-both-governments.
(Perspective: MOLE)

Spoiler: Fictional KOSMIC Tech+Skills (click to show/hide)

Hidden Radio
Poison Injector Pen

Disguise
Widespread Information Gathering
Martial Arts

KOSMIC Agents: 3

Spoiler: Fictional MOLE Tech+Skills (click to show/hide)

SpyCar
Tracking Dart

Disguise
Simple Investigation
Trickery
Leech Investigation
Desperation Attack

MOLE Agents: 4

Finding the target has proven difficult. His last known location was a downtown bar in Merkan. We sent an agent to that location to find out more. We encountered 3 KOSMIC agents sweeping the sight in a slightly less subtle fashion, but thanks to Disguises and Trickery he was able to remain undetected by hostile forces. The fact that they just had three agents there instead of the normal five indicates that they're likely not as effective as they could be - due to KOSMIC losing those agents in last year's shootout. Though But via use of the Leech Investigation skill, the agent was able to use his Tracking Dart and SpyCar to follow the Astrian agents to their location.

The police are on the lookout for our agents due to the one being captured last year by police, making the agent's life harder. It looks like the captured agent ratted out without any training against interrogation. Luckily, the stealthy advantages of the SpyCar allow our agent to pursue detection this year at least.

At the location the problem became evident. KOSMIC forces had evidently spread out using a similar investigatory tactic in order to find the target, whereas our last agent never had the opportunity to get backup as they had to follow the KOSMIC agents before they could find the target. The Astrians were remarkably well coordinated in their search too. Our agent spotted them moving the target into custody and, in accordance with our "Desperation Attack" skill, decided to attempt to wrestle the target away instead of running as that'd result in mission loss. The Astrians seemed remarkably well trained in hand-to-hand combat, and overpowered our own agent.

Astria gains further control of Human Power Inc.
We lose 1 agent in Human Power Inc.

[Taricus]

Okay, that just seems like a direct nerf to Astria which I would say is the result of Merkan bitching when they should actually take a good look at what they are designing, as this really removes the advantages of a lot of Astrian tech.

[Chiefwaffles]

It's not, believe me. I heavily considered the implications for both sides. And the extra design credit is to ensure that neither side is caught off-guard.
Hell, if we did last Operations Report with these rules, Astria would still win in most of the theatres. And while Astria's starting set is more suited towards aggressive operations nerfed by these rules, Merkan's starting set doesn't get anymore benefits from these new rules than Astria's set does. And for designs/revisions made since the game started, the same should be true.
EDIT: Basically, Astria's starting set is "what if we sent a small squadron of well-armed soldiers into this building?" and Merkan's is "what if we sent a small squadron of poorly-armed soldiers into this building?". Both playstyles are equally less effective.

If it didn't completely destroy confidentiality, I'd go through each Astrian/Merkan design (like I already have, privately) and state how neither side should be receiving a net advantage from these new rules.


The main reason for this is that Shadow Race simply isn't what I intended it to be. Right now it's "black ops shootouts" when it should be much more about traditional spycraft.

[Chiefwaffles]

If anyone's looking to drop in and play, now's the time to join Astria!

They're actually greatly outnumbered right now, so if anyone happening to be joining the game would pick Astria, that would help both sides out.

[Kashyyk]

I've been considering joining this for a little while, so sure. All hail Astria!

[Chiefwaffles]

Some addition rule updates. This will likely be the end of any major changes. The OP has been modified to reflect the new rules and has additional details on every one of them.
1.) Expense is now done in simple numbers (and National Effort). Expense will now be shown in numbers - "1x, 2x, 3x," etc. with the number representing the number of agents per theatre able to use this design. "National Effort" still exists but should be very rare, and represents something that can only be used by one agent in one theatre. These are the conversions from the old expense values: Cheap -> 6x, Expensive -> 2x, Very Expensive -> 1x.
2.) Design rolls are now based on Sensei's ICAR and NUKE9.13's BFA. Designs + Revisions are assigned a difficulty that determines the modifier, there's only one roll, and that roll uses a 2d4 dice. See the Core thread OP for more details.
3.) There are completely new Theatre Control Bonuses. See the Theatres spoiler in the Core thread OP or the latest Operations Report for either side for the details.