Perfect Campaign Rules I have begun work on a new set of campaign rules for
FT. I am unhappy with my current set and would welcome suggestions and 'wish
lists'. I think that 'Perfect Campaign Rules' is potentially a very useful
topic
of discussion for all of us.
Speed of Communications What model do you use or imagine for your campaign
settings? There seem to be four main models (unless someone knows better...):
I. Age of Sail (or Traveller) with slow communications only as fast as a ship
and slow response times. II. Age of Steam. Late Nineteenth Century. Quick
communication to
planets (Hyper-Telegraph?) but slow to ships. Huge planet bound
communicators become a key target for raids. III. Modern. Instant
communications. Ships can receive fresh orders at
any time, command can be 'real-time'.
IV. Instant communications and very fast ships. Ships are fast enough to be
sent out as reinforcements to join an ongoing battle. A movement rate
of at least one parsec per combat turn. I think this is faster than even
modern air battles but I am not sure.
Actually what you may want to do is put together something like the GURPS
genre books. (Like the GURPS Space book). Each background choice for a
campaign gives unique problems and oppertunites, depending on the various
technologies available. I started to put some stuff together once, but have
since lost the disk. If you need some ideas just let me know.
Randy
> II. Age of Steam. Late Nineteenth Century. Quick communication to
This one's my choice - for no particular reason, except that I think it
makes for a more layered, interesting strategic system. Gives an actual reason
to 'waste' fleet points on courier ships, when they're manifestly useless in
any fight...
I'd say even the 'Hyper-Telegraph' (great name!!) be rare - lots of
colony worlds without a HyperSpace CommStation in orbit, who depend on the
monthly (less?) courier ships and passing merchantmen for information.
(Maybe I'm just a frustrated Colonials player, hiding in SciFi
clothing...:))
--Quote--
II. Age of Steam. Late Nineteenth Century. Quick communication to
planets (Hyper-Telegraph?) but slow to ships. Huge planet bound
communicators become a key target for raids.
This one's my choice - for no particular reason, except that I think it
makes for a more layered, interesting strategic system. Gives an actual reason
to 'waste' fleet points on courier ships, when they're manifestly
useless in any fight...
--Unquote--
I also like this technology level. I usually add FTL communicaitons with a
limited range (10 light minutes) using a tachyon laser or some other PSB. This
way ships can coordinate fire and tatical information but not call for
reinforcements.
I also do not allow ships to "hover" in hyperspace (ala B5). I make hyperspace
such that ships need to spend energy to avoid going faster toward some other
constant. Think hyper inertia: objects in motion tend to increase in velocity.
Or I make Jump Drives that spend NO time in transit.
Brian, I must agree with you, the courier ship makes for a much more
interesting background than instant communication.
Bye for now,
-I'd say even the 'Hyper-Telegraph' (great name!!) be rare - lots of
-colony worlds without a HyperSpace CommStation in orbit, who depend on
-the monthly (less?) courier ships and passing merchantmen for
-information.
This sounds a little like the Renegade Legion universe, though, as I recall,
there was intersteller communication of 'limited' range(few parsecs) for
standard communication, but large system installations, (VLCA? Very Large
Communication Arrays?) for 'long' distances, and these were PRIME targets.
These were necessary for the very centralized TOG government.
Please forgive me doing this from memory; I'm actually at home, but too
lazy to do the digging to find the source material right now. ;->=
The_Beast
I too like this method, and I've been tinkering with some campaign rules to
use it. The biggest problem I've had dealing with it is the actual playability
of it.
Let's say you've got a moderated campaign game with Admiral X and Admiral Y.
Admiral X attacks Admiral Y's fleet A in an area where he has no FTL comm
(other than courier ships). Admiral Y sends a courier for help to fleet B
which is several turns away. How does one keep Admiral Y from taking actions
with fleet B (or other units) that would work to his advantage in a situation
that fleet B doesn't technically know about yet?
I'm very curious to see how others have tackled this one.
Later, Nathan
[quoted original message omitted]
Nathen,
For the given scenario to work at all the 'fleet B' needs to
be in a system. If 'B' is moving then the 'A' commander will not
know its location and cannot direct a messenger to contact 'B'. The campaign
game is by its very nature limited to 'systems and planet possesion' due to
the necessity to collect recources to continue the conflict. Deep space
battles would be an accident of movement more than of planning.
Bye for now,
-- Quote --
Let's say you've got a moderated campaign game with Admiral X and Admiral Y.
Admiral X attacks Admiral Y's fleet A in an area where he has no FTL comm
(other than courier ships). Admiral Y sends a courier for help to fleet B
which is several turns away. How does one keep Admiral Y from taking actions
with fleet B (or other units) that would work to his advantage in a situation
that fleet B doesn't technically know about yet?
-- Unquote --
I usually have one fleet per player.
Alternately have the player be a Fleet Admiral (Grand Mof ;-) ) incharge
of more than one task force. Play of the task forces (except in combat) are
under the judges control but under the Fleet Admiral's orders that arrive via
courier.
Now the question becomes "how will the courier know where to go?" The answer
is that the courier would need to go to a planet with a
"Hyper-Telegraph" or to the expected location of task force B. I would
have the player give expected "patrol" paterns for each task force. If task
force B deviates from the expected path, they may not get the message at all!
Probably each task force would have a "tail" of 5 or so courier ships to help
maintain communications between a task force and the nearest planet
with a "Hyper-Telegraph".
The further you are from "friendly space" the harder it is to maintain
communications and logistics.
It will also be improtant to keep track of where resupply ships are. Those
small missile boats may be in big trouble during an extended campaign into
"hostile space". Also, these resupply ships (convoys) will become major
targets.
How do you handle FTL travel? If it is not instantanious, how long does it
take to travel in hyperspace? If it is instantanious (jump) how far
can you jump? Can you leap-frog star systems or do you have to visit
each system along a given path?
I usually prefer the BattleTech style solution: limited range jumps and must
recharge for a given amount of time before another jump.
On Saturday, April 04, 1998 10:50 AM, Michael Blair
> [SMTP:amfortas@hotmail.com] wrote:
I would like the look and feel of the Weber book "A Short Victorious War" this
is a great story of a very short campaign. What I liked was the shell game
aspect of deploying the fleets to the various star systems, this could lead to
a tense and interesting campain game. Of your choices its more like 'Age Of
Steam'. The interstellar transits took about 10 days. In system one side had
FTL sensors the other didn't. IIRC Courier ships were used to send
interstellar messages.
> Nathan wrote:
> I too like this method, and I've been tinkering with some campaign
Standard Starfire procedure:
* All fleets must have orders to move anywhere. If they don't have orders,
they aren't allowed to move on the strategic scale.
* Orders can be given by
- Imperial Command Centers (district capitals, whatever)
- Experienced Admirals (who are reasonably confident that the
court-martial for
breaking the orders won't convict them if their actions prove beneficiary)
* Orders can be changed once per month, unless a report (usually of an enemy
attack) arrives at the order-giving authority (in which case new
orders can be issued immediately). (Each Strategic Turn in Starfire is one
month; it is
sub-
divided into shorter turns.) The moderator/Space Master is authorised
to
countermand non-sensical orders - like, for instance, sending fleet B
on "training excercises" to the system attacked by Admiral X prior to the
arrival of Admiral Y's couriers, if the attack occurs just before the end of
one strategic turn (thus making these new orders possible).
Basically, this problem is one of the reasons to have a Space Master...
Michael Blair asked:
> Speed of Communications
I've been thinking of a campaign set in a star cluster where the stars are
close together, and travel to the nearest stars would take a few months.
Communication would still be at the speed of light, say a few days to the
nearer stars. This then would be fast communication to planets and ships but
ship travel would be slow, though your II. Age of Steam would work also.
How close are stars in a dense star cluster? Would they be as close as a few
light days?
Enjoy,
> Nathan wrote:
> I too like this method, and I've been tinkering with some campaign
It seems to me, that assuming the players are playing fairly (the only kind to
play with!), Admiral Y can't move fleet B in fleet A's direction until the
courier arrives.
Essentially, a fleet can not respond to a threat until it recieves word of it.
With couriers, that means you have to track which systems the courier passes
through, and only be able to activate those units it passes.
In Fifth frontier War (an old GDW board game set in their Trvaeller universe)
each admiral was given a plotting number representing their
strategic planning - good admiral factor of 0; bad admiral factor 3, for
example. Players had to plot the next x moves for their fleets, so the
good admiral wouldn't write orders each turn, the lesser admiral would be
working 3 tuns in advance, etc.
This also meant that communications of any sort had to be sent via courier to
where you expected the recipient of your messages to be.
my 2d worth
I really like the Traveller model, between 5th Frontier War and Trillion
Credit Squadron, there is a wealth of detail and easy to modify rules.
Michael Brown
http://www.wco.com/~mkkabrow
On Mon, 6 Apr 1998 09:20:55 +0100 Tim Jones <Tim.Jones@Smallworld.co.uk>
writes:
> On Saturday, April 04, 1998 10:50 AM, Michael Blair
Sounds like the strategic movement system in the old Dwarfstar Game
_Star_Viking_. The Federation player allotted his forces to any or all
of the 10 system tiles he had. Then the Viking player put his raiding forces
on the tiles he was attacking, without knowing what the Feds had there until
he arrived. There was no movement between systems during an
attack--you fought with what you had, or you ran away. Very nice system,
and one that I like as a basis for a campaign game.