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[Nirur Torir]

I was thinking about a small random damage modifier, in the range of 0.8x-1.2x.

Instead of rock-paper-scissors, I could make a guerilla war command for smaller defending navies, letting them trade damage with bigger navies at a more favorable rate and hamper orbital superiority bonuses, at least until supplies run out. Planetary invasion should take a few turns, so this gives a reason for a planetary governor to want to build a small fleet. Of course, a big enough navy or one with no other distractions would be able to hunt them down easily, perhaps forcing them to retreat at a slight loss instead of dealing any real damage.

[NUKE9.13]

I was thinking about a small random damage modifier, in the range of 0.8x-1.2x.

Oh, right. That would probably add just enough uncertainty to make combat feasible.

Instead of rock-paper-scissors, I could make a guerilla war command for smaller defending navies, letting them trade damage with bigger navies at a more favorable rate and hamper orbital superiority bonuses, at least until supplies run out. Planetary invasion should take a few turns, so this gives a reason for a planetary governor to want to build a small fleet. Of course, a big enough navy or one with no other distractions would be able to hunt them down easily, perhaps forcing them to retreat at a slight loss instead of dealing any real damage.

That might be a good idea. Although, I wouldn't make things too complex. Like, how do you model a "big enough" navy hunting down one engaged in guerrilla warfare?
Hmm. Actually, I guess if you make a few different stances that fleets can adopt, it could work. Something like this, perhaps:

  STANCE | EFFECT
  Standard | No change
  Blockade | If fleet strength >= planet size (or whatever), planet is blockaded. Damage dealt reduced by 75%. Blockading fleets cannot dedicate as much time to attacking their foes without breaking the blockade.
  Hide | Only available in friendly system/[region of space]. Damage taken reduced by 90%. Damage dealt reduced by 90%. Secure ports. Hidey-holes. Just running in circles. Avoiding combat, without actually retreating.

With those three, you could have a smaller fleet harassing a blockading fleet and come out on top due to the blockading fleet dealing less damage. However, if the blockading fleet is large enough, it can split off part of the fleet to act as a standard fleet. A fleet could not enter a system and wipe out the defenders quickly before starting an uncontested blockade, because the defending fleet can hide- not forever, but hunting them down would take a long time, delaying the blockade.

[Naturegirl1999]

I was thinking about a small random damage modifier, in the range of 0.8x-1.2x.

Oh, right. That would probably add just enough uncertainty to make combat feasible.

Instead of rock-paper-scissors, I could make a guerilla war command for smaller defending navies, letting them trade damage with bigger navies at a more favorable rate and hamper orbital superiority bonuses, at least until supplies run out. Planetary invasion should take a few turns, so this gives a reason for a planetary governor to want to build a small fleet. Of course, a big enough navy or one with no other distractions would be able to hunt them down easily, perhaps forcing them to retreat at a slight loss instead of dealing any real damage.

That might be a good idea. Although, I wouldn't make things too complex. Like, how do you model a "big enough" navy hunting down one engaged in guerrilla warfare?
Hmm. Actually, I guess if you make a few different stances that fleets can adopt, it could work. Something like this, perhaps:

  STANCE | EFFECT
  Standard | No change
  Blockade | If fleet strength >= planet size (or whatever), planet is blockaded. Damage dealt reduced by 75%. Blockading fleets cannot dedicate as much time to attacking their foes without breaking the blockade.
  Hide | Only available in friendly system/[region of space]. Damage taken reduced by 90%. Damage dealt reduced by 90%. Secure ports. Hidey-holes. Just running in circles. Avoiding combat, without actually retreating.

With those three, you could have a smaller fleet harassing a blockading fleet and come out on top due to the blockading fleet dealing less damage. However, if the blockading fleet is large enough, it can split off part of the fleet to act as a standard fleet. A fleet could not enter a system and wipe out the defenders quickly before starting an uncontested blockade, because the defending fleet can hide- not forever, but hunting them down would take a long time, delaying the blockade.

Good ideas

[Nirur Torir]

I'll probably use those. If someone tries to attack a blockading fleet, they'll only get a small damage advantage for the first round, and the planet will remain blockaded unless the numbers drop too far.
Hostile fleets too small to blockade will be able to interdict traffic, reducing trade income by 50% and reducing the effect of special resources.
Being blockaded negates all trade income and resources. This will be bad if the planet is reliant on food imports, but should mostly be an annoyance. The real threat is that it damages ground troops over time. I'd like it if a fleet spends 2-3 years blockading a planet, but larger fleets will still be able to take undefended planets in just a single turn.

Ground troops will be similar to ships. 1 str fleet can carry 1 str of troops (or 1:2 in transport configuration).
Planets will get free garrisons based on their Planetary Development Level(PDL), likely half, rounded up.
They'll get 1 free fortress, which can safeguard 1 str worth of ground units from bombardment, and be upgraded to keep pace with ground unit strength.
I plan to have industry slots based on PDL. Governors can build Planetary Defense Grids in them, for more fortresses, garrisons, and orbital defense systems. The latter acts like a small fleet.

Planetary Development Level is an abstraction of population. You can pay more to make it increase faster, but can't directly buy more instantly. Fluff-wise, this is either encouraging population, or increasing automation so your limited population can do more work. It will be limited by planet quality, and grow more slowly on lower quality worlds.

[NUKE9.13]

So, a problem I'm seeing is that if the game starts with a single colony ship, it will take a long, long time for the population to even reach a point where founding new colonies makes sense. Like, I'm assuming the colony ship will not be carrying millions upon millions of colonists, and that the growth per year will not be more than 10% (if we're being very generous).
If it takes decades before expansion begins, everyone is going to lose interest. It's realistic, given the setting, but sometimes one has to consider the realities of the forum-game medium; turns will take at least 48 hours (if all players are very active and post their actions on time), and more likely a week. It would take months of dull gameplay managing a single small colony before things started to get interesting.

I can see two solutions to this problem (at least, I think it's a problem):
-Don't start with a colony ship, start with an established colony that is capable or nearly capable of expanding. Expansion will still be slow, but at least there'll be stuff to do.
-Have immigrants (from Earth?) show up on the regular, allowing population to grow at a much faster rate. This would require tweaking the setting, probably. You still get the experience of starting small, but you get to fast-forward the dull parts. Downside: have to explain why Earth (or wherever the immigrants are coming from) doesn't exert control over the colony, since there would have to be FTL communication in order for immigrants to keep making the trek.

[Naturegirl1999]

I think part of the reason expansion won’t be happening right away is that the game is probably going to be about maintaining what we have, making sure the colonists survive and don’t feel the need to rebel against us

[Ardas]

I would be interested.

If I may actually add my 2 cents: I think the rules do need to be simple enough to keep players engaged in the politics sphere but we should be able to do what we did in past games - pass laws, make up constitutions, etc.
I think starting on Earth, or with a migration fleet rather, so that there are enough colonists to play with would be best. Keeping it all to a single capital world at the beginning would be better as well as it would encourage more plotting and politics.
I think we also need to have a strong economic component so that there is an incentive for people to actually colonize new planets for mining and then trading between worlds. Businesses would have interest in lobbying and players would have interest in either taxing them or building up their own businesses.
As far as players go, I think three stats would be best served - military skill, business skill, people skills.
Rest, as far as rules for combat and colonies go, happy with whatever.

[Levity]

I'd register! Love me some space opera.

[Naturegirl1999]

I would be interested.

If I may actually add my 2 cents: I think the rules do need to be simple enough to keep players engaged in the politics sphere but we should be able to do what we did in past games - pass laws, make up constitutions, etc.
I think starting on Earth, or with a migration fleet rather, so that there are enough colonists to play with would be best. Keeping it all to a single capital world at the beginning would be better as well as it would encourage more plotting and politics.
I think we also need to have a strong economic component so that there is an incentive for people to actually colonize new planets for mining and then trading between worlds. Businesses would have interest in lobbying and players would have interest in either taxing them or building up their own businesses.
As far as players go, I think three stats would be best served - military skill, business skill, people skills.
Rest, as far as rules for combat and colonies go, happy with whatever.

I like all of these ideas

[Nirur Torir]

I would be interested.

If I may actually add my 2 cents: I think the rules do need to be simple enough to keep players engaged in the politics sphere but we should be able to do what we did in past games - pass laws, make up constitutions, etc.

Of course, that's most of the fun!

I think we also need to have a strong economic component so that there is an incentive for people to actually colonize new planets for mining and then trading between worlds. Businesses would have interest in lobbying and players would have interest in either taxing them or building up their own businesses.
As far as players go, I think three stats would be best served - military skill, business skill, people skills.
Rest, as far as rules for combat and colonies go, happy with whatever.
[/quote]

So, a problem I'm seeing is that if the game starts with a single colony ship, it will take a long, long time for the population to even reach a point where founding new colonies makes sense. Like, I'm assuming the colony ship will not be carrying millions upon millions of colonists, and that the growth per year will not be more than 10% (if we're being very generous).
If it takes decades before expansion begins, everyone is going to lose interest. It's realistic, given the setting, but sometimes one has to consider the realities of the forum-game medium; turns will take at least 48 hours (if all players are very active and post their actions on time), and more likely a week. It would take months of dull gameplay managing a single small colony before things started to get interesting.

I think starting on Earth, or with a migration fleet rather, so that there are enough colonists to play with would be best. Keeping it all to a single capital world at the beginning would be better as well as it would encourage more plotting and politics.

Like I said, I was going to use Planetary Development Level to abstract away population and automation as a single number and not track population. But if that's confusing or too gamey:

A) [Nuke's idea] We start off with a time-skip, to just before the colony re-develops space-fairing capabilities, and votes in new government officials.

B) Some time after we left, a faster colony ship was launched at our system and arrived before us. Due to catastrophic damages and cost-cutting, they didn't have the ability to maintain their tech level, but the planet was inhabitable enough to grow their population. The players will have to gain control over the planet, by pen or by sword.

I think we also need to have a strong economic component so that there is an incentive for people to actually colonize new planets for mining and then trading between worlds. Businesses would have interest in lobbying and players would have interest in either taxing them or building up their own businesses.

In addition to more colonies meaning more taxes, there will be specific trade goods - Exotic luxury furniture to raise taxes, abundant metal to reduce ship building costs, or special weapon crystals to improve ship damage.

I could do weird complex things with a trade network, increasing the generic trade income for everybody the more planets are in the network. It would have to be range limited so it's not too powerful, and would give more incentive for someone with a fleet to defect and hit a key point for all the money, but might add to much reason for players to remain part of the empire.

[a1s]

Registering my interest in this.

[Naturegirl1999]

I vote B

[notquitethere]

B adds an interesting (harrowing colonialist) political spin on it, having expected an empty world but now it is inhabited.

My suggestion would be throw up a tentative set of rules and setting, take any questions, revise and run.

[Ghazkull]

I would go with A since your original idea was a Space Game ala Mandate, the conversion from global politics and the "simulation" of nations on one planet to an interstellar politic game is rather difficult. I repeatedly ran into those problems myself, especially in Houses of the Rising Suns II, when players went from fighting over one planet to suddenly all possessing starships and getting inquisition support and then started spreading out.

Keep it less complicated for you and go with A) or make B) an entirely seperate game, going from B) to interstellar is in all probability going to be a massive nuisance for you as gm or its gonna make the "stuck on a regressive colony"-phase rather boring.

[Ardas]

I agree with Ghaz. It doesn't have to be Earth again, but A) is the best start - the colony started as colonized by a STL ship and after a century or so the people are ready to go back up in space and see if the rest of humanity made it as well. Makes everything simpler and focused on the scale we wanna be engaged with, instead of bogging us down in the early colonization that has little politics going on.