Re: FT: Stellar Conquest Campaign

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the feedback.  

Jeff Lyon wrote:
> 
> At 09:17 AM 11/14/98 -0500, you wrote:
> >Well guys,
> >
> >Here's what I'm thinking of doing.  I'm going to be using Stellar
> >Conquest as campaign system.
> 
> Good idea!  I used it the same way for Starfire a number of years ago.
 I
> believe I used a conversion rate of about 1:10 for the economics.

I'm doing 1:1 for FT, and 1:100 for DS

> >Every fourth turn has a production phase.
> 
> You can easily change that if seems more appropriate.  I had an
economic
> phase every turn and it worked fine, but that's more in keeping with
> Starfire.  YMMV.  Every third turn would also work, giving you
"quarterly"
> economics phases and monthly combat phases.

I like the production phase once every three or four turns.  This forces
players to plan ahead.	I'm going with the game's every fourth turn.

> I also ditched the game's tech tree in favor of Starfire's.  Any
thoughts
> on how to handle it for Full Thrust?

I'm going to use a heavily modified Stellar Conquest tech tree. 
Starting economics will discourage players from building the best
possible.  They simply will not have the points to do so.
> 
> >Ship maintence per turn is going to be the NPV/12.  From one
> >economic phase to the next, the maintence cost will be 1/3 the
> >cost of the ship.
> 
> Or 100% of cost annually.  Might be a trifle steep.

I'm assuming one year is four turns.  This makes annual production 33.3%

> >All hulls include one months endurance built in.  Each mass of
> >cargo can carry 10 economic points for all purposes, including
> >supply.
> 
> Very reasonable.  What about colonists?  Since populations are counted
in
> the millions, that's a whole lot of cargo ships.  One problem you're
going
> to run into is that you may find the cost of colony ships
unrealistically
> low compared to FT ship costs.  IIRC, a colony can essentially
"bootstrap"
> itself by building enough ships in one economic turn to transport all
of
> their people.

Colonists have to be transported on FT frieghters at a rate of 1
colonist to 10 mass of cargo.  There will be no population bonus, but
population growth is modified as follows:  T 1 per 5, ST 1 per 10, MT 1
per 15, and B 1 per 20.  

> In some of the computer adaptations of these basic rules, they allow
> colonists to be turned into troops which were used to conquer enemy
> planets.  Any thoughts along those lines or do you plan to stick to
the old
> "surrender to any warship" rule?

"Surrender to any warship?"  You must be joking.  If you want that
planet, your going to have send your marines DirtSide!	 Each population
point provides 1 team of militia.  This means attacking a fully
populated T 80 planet is going to be a blood bath.  Also, every 10
population or fraction there of is going to represent one "city."  Any
number of cities can be attacked in one turn, but one individual unit
can only attack one city per turn.  This will draw out campaigns on
worlds with large populations.	
> 
> >Any comments, suggestion, or insults???
> 
> Sounds good.	Couple of questions/comments/suggestions from my
experiences:
> 
> How are you handling FTL, both in and out of Nebulae?  Any combat in
deep
> space?  Will you be using nebulae rules for fights in a nebulae?

Nebulas are going to be just like they are in Stellar Conquest.  I
probably will make up some nebula rules, but I'm not sure yet.	
> 
> I built in a construction delay for ships (buy now, build, get later)
which
> meant that it was possible to raid enemy construction facilities and
try to
> knock out ships before they could be completed.

There will be a delay, but I'm thinking that ships will be built in the
following order:  Hull, Primary Systems, Drives, Weapons.  A incomplete
ship my be able to escape, but it will not be an effective combat
vessel.
> 
> Occasionally, the defender could also use a partially finished ship in
the
> defense.  You might do sort of a "reverse threshold" system for this;
if
> using you stick to the economics every four turns model, then you
could
> have a partially completed ship with a proportional number of damage
boxes
> and roll thresholds prior to the battle to see what systems are
online.
> 
> I note that missile bases cost about half what a ship of similar
firepower
> would.  That might be a good thing to keep.  Or you might have them be
> non-FTL defense ships.

Planetary defenses are going to be starbases built by the FB rules...
> 
> I also found it useful to determine how much collateral damage weapons
fire
> at a planet will do.	Something like "X number of points of damage to
> destroy 1 million colonists" would be useful.  For Starfire, I think I
used
> 10 (or was it 100?) points of damage per million colonists.  You might
also
> just limit it to certain weapons like missiles and ortillery.

I'm planning on only Ortillery being effective.  Each Ortillery will be
able to conduct one orbital bombardment per turn, if it isn't used for
ground support.  They will be treated like beam weapons: roll 1d6, and
1-3 none, 4-5 one population, 6 two population.  Note that all Industry
associated with those population will also be destroyed.  
> 
> Any thoughts on how to handle planetary shields?  Those tend to force
the
> game to a conclusion in the original, but that may not be something
you
> want in a campaign game.

They will have to be built for each "city" on a planet and will act like
level 3 shields against orbital bombardment, but the first hit that gets
through in a volley damages the shield, dropping it to level 2, etc.  

> Sounds good!	I'm looking forward to hearing more.
> 
> Jeff