Bare bones Strategic level of Play

[aramis]

I'm still working through how strategic movement and combat occurs. Instead of an actual strategic map, I'm thinking of a "mission" architecture, where players assign ships to different missions--exploration, commerce protection, commerce raiding, colonization, recon in force, world defense, and world attack. There'd be scenarios for each of these, with in game consequences for success or failure.

Makes me think of some of the mini-campaigns from Star Fleet Battles.

[thesmiths4]

I'm still working through how strategic movement and combat occurs. Instead of an actual strategic map, I'm thinking of a "mission" architecture, where players assign ships to different missions--exploration, commerce protection, commerce raiding, colonization, recon in force, world defense, and world attack. There'd be scenarios for each of these, with in game consequences for success or failure.

Makes me think of some of the mini-campaigns from Star Fleet Battles.

Ah, I wondered where that came from in my head, or to quote Ruk, "That was the equation!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7VkjA8IQxE at 1:40

Yeah, that was where I was going. Trying to map out an empire in a "barebones" strategic game is probably not worthwhile.

[nukesnipe]

You don't like having to build mutiple RDS on a planet? I was expecting you to say that you don't like a limit on facilities so you have to build them in multiple systems. I guess I don't understand the fundamental difference between having to build more RDS as "slots" or getting free "slots" based on pop size. The other difference is that SFIII doesn't have support requirements (FSP)

Cralis,

I didn't word my thought very well....

Or, perhaps I don't know what I'm really trying to say...

I get overwhelmed by the number of research projects you can have in the works at Turn ~100. I remember in one game, I was actually researching EVERYTHING that was open for me to research. There was no real R&D strategy involved. No "hard" decisions to be made.

I like having major complexes that have to protect, so having a huge research facility on a planet could make a good strategic target. Ditto for shipyards. Perhaps I didn't realize that I don't like the planetary limit on facilities.

If the limit was removed, folks would be free to either create massive R&D centers, or smaller, distributed enclaves. Perhaps that is worth a thought?

[Cralis]

I get overwhelmed by the number of research projects you can have in the works at Turn ~100. I remember in one game, I was actually researching EVERYTHING that was open for me to research. There was no real R&D strategy involved. No "hard" decisions to be made.

In Solar Starfire? How many RDS and SA did you have?? Granted, R&D is less about managing money and more about managing your navigation through knots and branches; unless you really have more RDS and SA than you need, you should have feast periods after making a new EL where you have too much research and famine periods when you are near the end of your EL when you don't have to be as choosy.

That said, since the underlying rules are based on Ultra Starfire, I think that research is too fast. All research, but especially EL research.

I like having major complexes that have to protect, so having a huge research facility on a planet could make a good strategic target. Ditto for shipyards. Perhaps I didn't realize that I don't like the planetary limit on facilities.

If the limit was removed, folks would be free to either create massive R&D centers, or smaller, distributed enclaves. Perhaps that is worth a thought?

The issue I have is that this allows a player to completely fortify his important facilities in system where they are completely safe from anything short of a galaxy-wide war. If you are willing to pay for it, you can still double and triple facility use in a heavily populated system and have dozens of facilities there. But it has a cost compared to lazily spreading out facilities to the corners of your empire. Possibly exposing them to a hostile invader. And even so, we allow for a fair anount of flexibility in how and where you can place those facilities in a system.

And that's meaningful choice you have to make. And we think half of the fun in a strategy game is finding solutions to those choices.

[PracticalM]

Been busy so showed up late to this thread.

Things needed:
Tech progression: Preferably multiple tracks but consider something where a player gets to draw x cards from a deck and then can research one of them over time. Each EL add a few more cards to the that can be researched.

Spending money: On ships, tech, building new colonies, building defenses, building infrastructure

Ground Combat: Simplify or ignore

Surveying: Simplify it so the survey fleets are 2-5 vessels instead of groups of 30

As for amount of money, my group had a good time with having a single planet at EL 6 or 8 and starting there. Funds were tight with only a few ships available in the battle fleet. Most fleets were under 10 ships (BBs to DD). I would have to find the old files to see what the incomes were. This was the Ultra rules.

[aramis]

Been thinking on this over the last few days.

A system for building ships
A tactical module for fighting those battles generated
A system for the exploration process
A system for generating the terrain (systems, starless nexus, etc)
Some method of changing ownership of worlds.
Some method for planting colonies.

SF III is pretty much the right level of complexity... but not the right level of system realism. ISF get systems pretty well ... except that the titus-bode relationship is not actually holding up in real astronomy.

The real problem is that the budgets are just WAY too high in the existing.