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BigJKU316 wrote:

Mikey wrote:I'm intrigued, but I'm concerned about time constraints forcing me to hold things up.

Generally I would advise you either try a team or smaller power. Really, it takes as much or as little time as you want depending on just how much diplomatic/military stuff is going on. Needless to say the Federation player will likely be busier than say someone playing the insular Breen.

My estimate of the time involved after you do your initial setup is less than 20-30 minutes a week at most to do the bare minimum. Now you could invest more if you are doing a lot of stuff with other players (or are just one of those people who feel compelled to name every ship in your fleet just because you are that into it), but overall it is designed to be as easy as possible to do.

I was thinking Cardies, perhaps. By time constraints, I meant more to the fact of being AWOL for a whole weekend at times, but if you're cool so am I.

Yeah, it can be made to work.

I love the rules written up so far. They seem to be reasonable and possible. Especially since I won't be doing all of the work.

stitch626 wrote:I love the rules written up so far. They seem to be reasonable and possible. Especially since I won't be doing all of the work.

Thanks. I have the planet and economics spreadsheet and the fleet management spreadsheet each done and just need to integrate them. There are bits an pieces I need to see if I can add. I am a bit hung up on trade (what do people trade when everything can be replicated? I really don't want to get into resource mining as it just gets really complicated to do it any justice.) so it may or may not make it.

Ground Forces management needs to be added but that should not take me all that long.

The only thing I am still working on in my head is how to manage Starbases and planetary defenses.

I am sure something will come up, as it always does on first runs through, but it should be interesting I think.

Just an update.

As far as the tracking sheets go I am pretty much good to go I think. The Feds tested out well. Tonight I will input the Romulan and Klingons and make sure it works for them as well and make any tweaks necessary to the economics engine.

An FYI for people is that trade is simply being excluded. You can loan people money and make a rate but that is about it. The Ferengi a bunch of bonuses to reflect this and will have a bunch of excess cash they can't possibly spend on what they call a military so they have lots of money to lend out.

Also, and I hate doing it, but fighters and runabouts are very simplifyied. They are attached to planets and space-stations only and are simple represented in the fortification levels you can build to. Simply put, it was not worth tracking all the shuttles and fighters and runabouts. Plus we have no data at all on what anyone outside the Feds might have.

But other than that things are about ready to go I think.

Just so you know, everythi9ng cannot be replicated. Things like warp coils have been stated to be unreplicatable, as well as liking things. Also latinum.

And I'm ready whenever. Just PM me so I know, or email me at aswitz87@gmail.com.

stitch626 wrote:Just so you know, everythi9ng cannot be replicated. Things like warp coils have been stated to be unreplicatable, as well as liking things. Also latinum.

And I'm ready whenever. Just PM me so I know, or email me at aswitz87@gmail.com.

Yeah, I am aware, just was unsure of how to do it in a way that was simple and would not overwhelm the player. I think I figured a way to fudge it basically by having players be able to trade their excess industrial capacity to one another. So either you can build new capacity (which is very expensive upfront) to build more ships or you can pay someone not using all of their capacity to use it (in the real world they would basically make components for you allowing you to build more finished units, in the game you just get their points for that year). This is likely cheaper, but it presents issues for players.

Would the Klingons or Federation want to help the Romulans? If you lean to heavily on others to make up your own shortfalls you are sort of at their mercy as well.

One more update and a couple of questions for the group.

First everything appears to work across powers, though I am still tweaking R&D to try and account for the Scimitar (what were they thinking with that one...). Romulans work pretty well. Klingons will be tested tomorrow and then the Ferengi and Cardassians and Breen.

Anyway, the question is this.

Anyone have a clue what the populations of the various empires are?

I am using 985 Billion for the Federation, based on the fact that it is on the map I propose using.

For the sake of the game lets say that is correct. How many people would one guess that the Romulans, Klingons, Cardassians, Breen and Ferengi would have?

I was going to go with 500 Billion each for the Romulans and Klingons, 250 Billion for the Cardassians and Breen and 100 Billion for the Ferengi. Those are total shots in the dark though so any input or sources would be welcome.

For game purposes, those figures sound fine. They don't have to be correct to the letter, just enough to give the right flavor of proportion. I'd have thought the Breen might be smaller compared to the Cardies, but I wouldn't know whether to adjust the CU upward or the Breen downward. In all honesty, I wouldn't even know where to begin trying to find even a comparative figure for the Ferengi, but I think you're correct in attempting to make them a a more mercantile, less militant power.

Mikey wrote:For game purposes, those figures sound fine. They don't have to be correct to the letter, just enough to give the right flavor of proportion. I'd have thought the Breen might be smaller compared to the Cardies, but I wouldn't know whether to adjust the CU upward or the Breen downward. In all honesty, I wouldn't even know where to begin trying to find even a comparative figure for the Ferengi, but I think you're correct in attempting to make them a a more mercantile, less militant power.

I went ahead and worked those numbers around. I think they will work for the game.

As an aside one of the funny things I have found is that the main problems I have getting the ships to make sense with one another are almost all related to many of the things people gripe about on the show. Dealing with the scaling issues of the Klingon Warbird about drove me nuts today. I don't love the solution but it works.

Whomever takes the Federation will have fun playing with fleets by the way. I tried about 30 different combinations because I kept running into problems. I mean what good is having Sovereign and Intrepid class ships if they get mashed up with some Ambassadors in a fleet? You waste all that speed. So the juggling aspect was pretty interesting there.

Today's update is that the Klingons and Romulans both work. Onto the Cardassians.