Alienations Rules Change questions

[Joey Browning]

1. Why change the way tech was laid out? Before it was very clear what was a 300 vs. 3000 vs. 10,000+ project. Now, it's a lot more vague.

2. So we can only work on 1 R&D project at a time now? This is bad for 1 reason: If you start a really long project, the others, ship tech in particular, can't advance. So if you have to fight before you get that big weapon you are at a major disadvantage. The way it was before you could pump at least a small amount into ship tech each turn and still get new toys. Likewise, you could work on a big project and a small one at the same time and get some advancements as opposed to, well, none for a while.

3. If I have a colony with a production of, say, $10,000, ought I not be able to invest at least some of that into colony growth without needed transport capacity for it?

[Charles Hurst]

1.  Concur, unless removing that information was deliberate, please consider tagging them (s), (v) or (r) (for standard, variant or radical).  Also a few of the names look to have changed, but not sure on that.  I'll check when I do my orders and fix as necessary.  And if you didn't change the actual values, then whoever took the time to save the rulesbook now as an "old-timer" advantage over the rest of the players that did not do that (i.e. they know exactly how much each costs).

2.  Joey, it doesn't say that.  It says put them in order of priority, top to bottom, and Mike will distribute R&D points among them based on that priority.  If you want to get a smaller project done first, you put it at the top and bump down the more expensive project.

3.  Concur, there should be some size at which a colony on a habitable world becomes self sustaining (and maybe even a hostile environment one, as I presume all worlds have to import something, not every planet will be a perfect supply of everything needed for advanced societies).

4.  You changed return on colony in a hostile environment to 6.66% instead of 13.32%, and it's not marked in red.  So now the only point of a colony in a hostile environment is to act as a base for ships?  So you realize the universe is about to be populated by a 

5.  Why change the cost of the Mother Ship component?  You do realize I'm already paying $15 for that one space of capacity on the ship?  So the total cost is $30, which makes it only a 3.33% return on a ship that has to stay every turn in a producing location or it isn't worth building.

6.  Missile technology description incorrectly lists their combat power as ".1" and it should be "1" per the table of weapons.

7.  You changed how ship's damage capacity is calculated - do we need to update our spaceship designs that have armor?

8.  Patrol cruiser space ship design example is wrong, it should be CG1-M1-A5/20 (CG are 0.2 power times 5 is 1).

9.  Is there a good reason (beyond roleplaying or for personal amusement) why someone would build ships with build chemical guns (power=0.2) or gauss guns (power=0.3) if missiles are available (power=1)?  The other weapon systems with power ratings below 1 have some other special capability that might give them some consideration for use.  Is there some aspect of combat that would give those weapon systems an advantage?  All this talking about equitable technology, i.e. we start with chemical weapons and missiles, and gauss guns and laser turrets used to be variants that only cost 300 R&D points.  So I'm not talking about weapon systems that have a power of 1 or better that cost a bigger chunk of R&D investment.

Charles

[Duston Horacek]

Sent from Mytouch4G

Mike stated before various weapin systems have ranges. Beyond that misdiles are subject to PD systems. So balanced ships or atleast fleets with missiles and cannon (energy or projectile) gives one more advantage then one with say all missiles.

> Charles
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Fantasy Nations PBEM" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to fantasy-nations-...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

[ME Brines]

On 9/20/2013 4:07 PM, Joey Browning wrote:
> 1. Why change the way tech was laid out? Before it was very clear what
> was a 300 vs. 3000 vs. 10,000+ project. Now, it's a lot more vague.

It was very difficult to look any particular technology up since there
were three separate lists. Essentially everything's a 3,000 point
project unless it has a pre-requsite or is labeled radical tech

>
> 2. So we can only work on 1 R&D project at a time now?

Where does it say this?

> This is bad for 1 reason: If you start a really long project, the
> others, ship tech in particular, can't advance. So if you have to
> fight before you get that big weapon you are at a major disadvantage.
> The way it was before you could pump at least a small amount into ship
> tech each turn and still get new toys. Likewise, you could work on a
> big project and a small one at the same time and get some advancements
> as opposed to, well, none for a while.

Most players earn 600 or more R&D points a turn. If you list a 300 point
project (or two) first you'll finish them and still put some points
toward your big project. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to drag
five projects out for five turns when you can easily finish one or two a
turn. If you insist on splitting the points six ways you can still do
that, just make a special order for it. I just don't see the sense in
forcing players (most of which don't do this) to set priorities as %
split between five projects. If you insist on splitting your R&D points
you don't get any advancements for a long while and then you get five.
I'm not sure how this is superior.

>
> 3. If I have a colony with a production of, say, $10,000, ought I not
> be able to invest at least some of that into colony growth without
> needed transport capacity for it?

For that colony. Yeah, you probably ought to. But how complicated do you
want the rules to be?
I can make that change if enough people want me to.

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Fantasy Nations PBEM" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to fantasy-nations-...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

--
Does the secret to the origin of Mankind lie within the Great Pyramid of
Mars? Download The Queen's Martian Rifles at
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/102308

[ME Brines]

On 9/21/2013 3:56 AM, Charles Hurst wrote:

1.  Concur, unless removing that information was deliberate, please consider tagging them (s), (v) or (r) (for standard, variant or radical).  Also a few of the names look to have changed, but not sure on that.  I'll check when I do my orders and fix as necessary.  And if you didn't change the actual values, then whoever took the time to save the rulesbook now as an "old-timer" advantage over the rest of the players that did not do that (i.e. they know exactly how much each costs).

2.  Joey, it doesn't say that.  It says put them in order of priority, top to bottom, and Mike will distribute R&D points among them based on that priority.  If you want to get a smaller project done first, you put it at the top and bump down the more expensive project.

3.  Concur, there should be some size at which a colony on a habitable world becomes self sustaining (and maybe even a hostile environment one, as I presume all worlds have to import something, not every planet will be a perfect supply of everything needed for advanced societies).

4.  You changed return on colony in a hostile environment to 6.66% instead of 13.32%, and it's not marked in red.  So now the only point of a colony in a hostile environment is to act as a base for ships?  So you realize the universe is about to be populated by a

It was changed last turn. It made no sense than colonizing a hostile environment world was easier and had a better return than just adding more to your home world.

5.  Why change the cost of the Mother Ship component?  You do realize I'm already paying $15 for that one space of capacity on the ship?  So the total cost is $30, which makes it only a 3.33% return on a ship that has to stay every turn in a producing location or it isn't worth building.

The ship costs you $15 for no ability other than being able to move. Adding $1 production costs $15 which is a 6.66% return, the same as a hostile environment colony. The $15 you spent for the ship allows that production to move. The former cost ($8) gave a 12.5% return. This was more efficient than building a factory on the ground on your home world, which makes no sense at all. Motherships are not reasonable or an efficient use of resources compared to colonizing planets. It's included because a player wanted that ability.

6.  Missile technology description incorrectly lists their combat power as ".1" and it should be "1" per the table of weapons.

They are .1 unless you also have nuclear weapons (which everybody already has)

7.  You changed how ship's damage capacity is calculated - do we need to update our spaceship designs that have armor?

I didn't change it at all. But half the players were doing it wrong so I re-worded how it was calculated so you'd do it correctly.

8.  Patrol cruiser space ship design example is wrong, it should be CG1-M1-A5/20 (CG are 0.2 power times 5 is 1).

Thanks, I'll fix.

9.  Is there a good reason (beyond roleplaying or for personal amusement) why someone would build ships with build chemical guns (power=0.2) or gauss guns (power=0.3) if missiles are available (power=1)?

Point defense and lasers can drastically reduce the effectiveness of a missile attack. There's nothing short of shields that can affect guns

 The other weapon systems with power ratings below 1 have some other special capability that might give them some consideration for use.  Is there some aspect of combat that would give those weapon systems an advantage?  All this talking about equitable technology, i.e. we start with chemical weapons and missiles, and gauss guns and laser turrets used to be variants that only cost 300 R&D points.  So I'm not talking about weapon systems that have a power of 1 or better that cost a bigger chunk of R&D investment.

Charles

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Fantasy Nations PBEM" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to fantasy-nations-...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

[Joey Browning]

Regarding R&D priorities...OK, so you can still work on multiple projects but we have no idea now how the points will be allocated - just that they will be in order. Is it a fixed amount (in which case it'd be nice to know) or by GM fiat? How is this better than the old way? If people were doing 20 projects at 5% each, then just put a cap on the total number to keep your sanity.

[ME Brines]

I was going to put them into the first project until it was done, then the carry over into the second and so on. Most players have been able to do 2 of the smaller projects a turn and have change left over. The larger projects take a long time.

It's better than the old way which most people weren't using anyway. A lot of the players simply listed one project or two. I'm simply adjusting the rules to what people were doing anyway.

From my perspective, for the two or three players who had multiple projects with R&D allocations split by percentages, I had to calculate the total R&D points, split them by the percentages, add the percentages, this invariably over-spent the points, so then I'd have to figure out the amount left over, then allocate that further. For players who had five projects and allocated 10%, 20% or 30% to each, this resulted in five calculations for the initial %, then five more to add the points, then two or three more to calculate the excess points, then more calculations to allocate those. It was taking longer to allocate R&D points than to do the rest of the packet. And pointlessly, since most players can complete 2 smaller projects a turn and the longer ones take 5 turns even if you concentrate on them. Splitting your points between five or six projects - other than draining the batteries on my calculator - how is this advantageous?

Doing it that way takes longer to finish all the projects. Instead of completing two per turn you complete six  three turns later, and you drag the more complex projects out for decades instead of years. And most players recognized this and did something else, namely a prioritized list of projects like I've suggested.

To any of the players who adamantly insist on doing %. Fine. Be my guest. Specify that's how you want to do it and I'll keep doing it that way. But I'm not going to force the other players to do it that way.

On 9/21/2013 7:44 AM, Joey Browning wrote:

Regarding R&D priorities...OK, so you can still work on multiple projects but we have no idea now how the points will be allocated - just that they will be in order. Is it a fixed amount (in which case it'd be nice to know) or by GM fiat? How is this better than the old way? If people were doing 20 projects at 5% each, then just put a cap on the total number to keep your sanity.

On Sat, Sep 21, 2013 at 12:32 PM, ME Brines <s...@cox.net> wrote:

[Joey Browning]

Like I said, my concern was that if someone started a 10L project, that will take a while. You don't get ANY ship tech during that tie, meaning your drives and sensors and stuff get hopelessly out of date. I want at least a bit of advancement on that front consistently. I'll just do a single project henceforth and specify a bit to be put into ship tech.