Re: Campaign

> I think one of the things needed for a campaign is to decide whether
> it's operational scale (turns of perhaps a day or a week), or more
> strategic (turns of perhaps a month or a quarter, allows enough time
> to carry out ground campaigns and build new ships).

I like both. The Siege of Earth would be a grand campaign on the former 
scale. The Third Solar/First Xeno war would be on the latter scale. Both

would be very cool.

> For the latter, I was thinking of having three resources: volatiles,
> minerals, and power; combine one each of V+M+P to get MCr.   I've
> mentioned this on-list before, as I recall.

Its an interesting complexity, but I don't know if its needed. Why not 
just abstract the whole system to MCr production? If you want, base the 
number on the planetary system, but I think the level of detail you're 
proposing is too fine.

> Part two, though, is to allow players to decide where they want to get
> their resources from:
> Gas giant (eg volatiles at half price)
> Habitable planet (eg volatiles free, power costs double)
> Asteroids (eg minerals and power cost half, volatiles cost double)
> This way you'd have reason for trade, and reason not to put all your
> settlements in one place.

Advocating for the Devil:
Seems like all three of these components can be decentralized enough to 
fall below desired strategic granularity. Gas skimming could be like 
coastal fishing - hundreds of entrepreneurs based out of dozens of 
locations. Asteroid mining would be like prospecting/mining of	old. 
Except for outsystem (Beyond 5+ AU in the 23rd century) solar power is 
too cheap and easy to constrain anything, and by the 23rd one might 
expect other sources to be available. In standard, fuel-free FT, we've 
got reactionless (or 'total conversion', or 'zero-point') energy sources

powering our grav drives.

You'd still have reason for trade and multiple settlements, but no one 
Gasport, asteroid, or power station would have high strategic value 
unless you forced bottlenecks with PSB or specific scenario
requirements.