Charter Discussions

Ooh, ooh, pick me, pick me
(sorry, I've tried to do something like this several times in other contexts)

Why not invent a map or three and have several planets that can be colonised with your space fleet and then used as a base from which to attack other spacefleets? You'd also need a map of travel between the planets. My temptation to throw in some basic resources got off each planet to build more spaceships is probably a bad one. If I bring it up again, do try to dissaude me.

Oh, and some of Fides' spaceship ideas could actually work under this ....

If not planet maps, at least a map of the space area around us and planets we could land on. It would be fun to make this semi-official, though it'd probably be too 'unrealistic' for the GSOS

That's where to fight sorted then.

As for what to fight with and how to fight ... I'd suggest a system similiar to Anunia/SNARL. Actual recwarring should be able to be run practically the same whether you have medieval technology, modern technology, magic or sci-fi. The basic "post your backstory and action, 24 hours to reply, work out damages" etc that's been tried and tested should work fine for sci-fi too. The Anunia/SNARL system of basic point cost on relative strength is also a good one (in my opinion, anyway), as it ensures that other people using this will be at a fair strength with their opponents - not on whether they can work out a valid dollar-cost-to-strength ratio for each units and invest in the best one.

With that in mind, I'd also suggest that Interplanetary warfare be almost entirely separate from planetary warfare. Apart from infantry with lasers as a boarding crew, you shouldn't need anything other than space ships (of varying sizes) for interplanetary fights. A spaceship should not be able to hover in the lower atmosphere, fire a vast laser and destroy half a normal orbat of tanks in one shot. Interplanetary stuff shouldn't fight on planet fights, and vice versa. Sure, you can use spaceships to transport planet stuff (ie all existing recwar units) to other planets, but you shouldn't allow spaceships to interfere with existing battles - nor allow those transported units to try and fight in space. If we do that, it saves all the problems of trying to adequately cost things comparatively (believe me, Toketi's tried, trying to cost a space ship relative to tank is just impossible, the space ship is too powerful), and we can just cost interplanetary stuff relative to eachother. In a war across several worlds, then, each participant might get 25000 on planet points and 25000 inter-planet points (depending on how we cost things in interplanet points), for example.

As to actual costing, apart from Starwars I don't know too much about space ships types and I'll leave that to you guys. The simple Anunia idea of putting costs for the generics and basing off that should work fine here too though. You might, for example, put generic laser infantry at 1, tiny ships like tie fighters might be at 20, something millenium falcon size at 100, Imperial Destroyers size at 5000, say. If you want a specific type of TIE fighter then (say one with bonus shielding) you'd work out its cost based off the tiny ship cost of 20 (with shielding it might be 22, say).

I agree with SNARL as well. Although I'll need a copy of the rules if someone can link me please.

As for starting points: We can use the Hurmu Gate. I'm planning on having my "home base" for Universalis on Micras and a colony on Aura once she's up and running. So you could potentially "blockade" my home base so that I have to launch from Aura. Although that doesn't solve all the problems, it gives a basis. Plus we could use the dead Giess system. Giess went Ceti Alpha V and died and the system is a dead husk, so we could launch from there. My old space station Vi'Ix was also located in another system. Once we start mapping things out we can have a few "sister" systems to utilize.

I'd assume we would vest some power in the MAS in that regard. Although we should probably have a mini-council for that so people don't whine.

How do you impose a tech limit on sci fi? Can't we just regulate things on a case-by-case basis to keep people from godmodding?

perhaps to reduce staffing needs, any questionable technologies can be voted on by the members of the chartered society before such recwars take place. if no one thinks a Doomsday Machine is any fun to fight then they would just vote it a non-combat status.

however this would limit the element of surprising the enemy with said Doomsday Machine... coz then we would all know to just carry a spare derelict spaceship around with us....

The "Force" is somewhat magical in nature. I don't see why we can't have a little bit of magic. Vulcans look like Elves anyways.

I don't think the GSOS will have a problem with working with the MAS. As I've said, it's a way to bring two separate groups together without an all-out merger. Which will work out better in the long run, I think.

As for costs - why not just replace the names and descriptions for units in the present charter with new ones but keep the prices the same? Or, do the same as above but increase the costs across the board x10 or something. I only say this because the current system is well-tested and properly tiered, and any new pricing will have to be rebalanced.

Also, as far as death stars and nukes go, I'm totally for banning those outright. Logistically speaking there is only so much we can build, and that is beyond the capabilities of any of us. I think we should max out the size/power of a vessel at the equivalent of an Imperial Star Destroyer.

And I do have other maps I was designing for other planets. Desert worlds and such. I don't see why we can't map them. My MS Paint maps are simple enough for us to work with.

In many ways i think magic should be excluded, however are we going for more 'future space wars' eg, 500 years time or science fiction.