43 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Or deploy squads 2 at a time, up to your command value of ships on the table? Middle ground between GCW and vanilla.

I was thinking the same thing. You deploy squads 2 at a time, can't have more squads on the table than squad command value already deployed, and must adhere to the rules concerning placement near ships up to the max of that ship's squad value. Seems fair, and thematic: A ship drops out of hyperspace, opens the hangers, and the fighters fly out. Another ship arrives, and deploys it's fighters, etc.

Sounds thematic and good to me! (And slightly helps my 4 defenders ) thanks Ras

On 3/1/2018 at 4:01 PM, Undeadguy said:

@MandalorianMoose @CaribbeanNinja @Visovics @BrobaFett @rasproteus @GhostofNobodyInParticular

Hey guys, I'm been thinking of some updates to the rules.

1. Commanders, titles, and the extra cost for aces will not count towards your fleet points. So Biggs will cost 13 points. This lets you squeeze more into 500 points.
2. Objectives are reduced to 3 as normal.
3. Standby would allow fleets to move to a contested planet. So if you're ally is 1 fleet down, like Rasproteus is now, you could move a fleet to that planet and support them.
   1. This is to encourage people to commit to battles instead of fleeing because they accidentally stumble upon 2 fleets.
   2. I would limit 1 fleet per player to go on standby. This would effectively allow you to explore with the power of 2 fleets, but still defend your shipyard in case it gets attacked.
4. The squad value for a fleet is increased by 1.5, or remove the rule all together.
   1. If you happen to lose a lot of ships and reduce your squad value, you also won't be able to deploy those squads if you fight another battle. This is a compounding loss to a fleet, because you lose the ships AND the squads, despite the squads still being in a fleet. I'm not sure how to fix this and make it feel enjoyable and thematic.

These changes would happen BEFORE round 6. So nothing changes right now.

Hey guys, so all of these changes will be implemented now at the start of round 6.

Also, the fleet cap will be removed. Sorry for being wishy-washy on that, but a few people are getting larger fleets and I want to maintain their cohesion. For combat, fleets will still be limited to 1000 points and 1500 for attacking a shipyard. This is to not prolong the game any longer than it needs to be. I'll also allow people to change the command of a fleet before a battle, but not after you reveal fleets.

For example, JJ and Vader are commanded by the same player and are both 500 point fleets. Both fleets move to a planet and encounter 2 other fleets, likely 1000 points. The player decides to shift 2 ISDs under JJ to Vader for control, and 2 Raiders under Vader to JJ. This is a temporary change of command only for the battle. I think this feels thematic while also allowing for greater strategic variety. Imagine at the Battle of Endor where Ackbar controlled the entire fleet, but there were other admirals who led battle groups, like Madine taking on the SSD.

Are we still waiting for something for next round?

Also, what's the final decision regarding squad cap?

14 hours ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

Also, what's the final decision regarding squad cap?

Increase by 1.5X of the fleet.

Deployment will also be changed, so you can deploy up to the ships squad command before placing another ship.

1 minute ago, Undeadguy said:

Increase by 1.5X of the fleet.

Deployment will also be changed, so you can deploy up to the ships squad command before placing another ship.

But still two at a time, as normal, yes?

1 minute ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

But still two at a time, as normal, yes?

Yes.

42 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

But still two at a time, as normal, yes?

GNIP, we gonna fight this round?!?!

Uh. . . we'll engage, I am not sure if my mine is worth a fleet. Sorry to delay you, but it will have to be after or on the 24th of March from 7 PM GMT.

Rules have been updated. Sorry for any confusion.

Rules have been updated. Sorry for any confusion.

Perhaps it would make sense to choose fleets for attack and reserve, rather than moving and standby?

Can we keep the fleets attacking/defending anonymous until both sides have chosen?

The order would be like this:
1) Players choose which fleets are attacking and where, and which are defending.
2) Players are notified where battles are going to take place, but not the names of the enemy fleets involved
3) Players can allocate reserve fleets as desired among the battles taking place, within the fleet size limitations.
4) Fleets involved are revealed and battles take place.

In the previous round, I got to make the decision on where to send my reserve fleet based on the size and strength of the opposing fleets. Under these rules, I would have to decide based on the strength of my own fleets and the importance of the battle.

20 minutes ago, rasproteus said:

Perhaps it would make sense to choose fleets for attack and reserve, rather than moving and standby?

Can we keep the fleets attacking/defending anonymous until both sides have chosen?

The order would be like this:
1) Players choose which fleets are attacking and where, and which are defending.
2) Players are notified where battles are going to take place, but not the names of the enemy fleets involved
3) Players can allocate reserve fleets as desired among the battles taking place, within the fleet size limitations.
4) Fleets involved are revealed and battles take place.

In the previous round, I got to make the decision on where to send my reserve fleet based on the size and strength of the opposing fleets. Under these rules, I would have to decide based on the strength of my own fleets and the importance of the battle.

So instead of fleets names, I'll just put enemy detected? And 2 of them if there are 2 fleets?

You'd rather have a true fog of war instead of the partial we have now?

I'm up for trying it, we'll see how it goes.

18 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

So instead of fleets names, I'll just put enemy detected? And 2 of them if there are 2 fleets?

You'd rather have a true fog of war instead of the partial we have now?

Not even necessarily two of them. There's little motivation in the current rules to send two attacking fleets anyway - assuming I encounter someone, I can always reinforce with my reserve fleet. If I don't encounter someone, then I can use my reserve fleet to defend somewhere else.

Since I can reinforce my own attacking fleet, the "two inbound fleets" instead of "inbound fleet" is a little meaningless - the one could very easily become two by the time the battle is joined.

We could experiment with providing approximate fleet sizes: "task force" at 100-300 and "battle group" or "fleet" for larger, but again, that could change very easily between the initial inbound fleets and the actual scale of the battle. I could send a 200pt task force to an Imperial mine and reinforce it with a 1000pt fleet just before the battle is joined.

14 minutes ago, rasproteus said:

Not even necessarily two of them. There's little motivation in the current rules to send two attacking fleets anyway - assuming I encounter someone, I can always reinforce with my reserve fleet. If I don't encounter someone, then I can use my reserve fleet to defend somewhere else.

Since I can reinforce my own attacking fleet, the "two inbound fleets" instead of "inbound fleet" is a little meaningless - the one could very easily become two by the time the battle is joined.

We could experiment with providing approximate fleet sizes: "task force" at 100-300 and "battle group" or "fleet" for larger, but again, that could change very easily between the initial inbound fleets and the actual scale of the battle. I could send a 200pt task force to an Imperial mine and reinforce it with a 1000pt fleet just before the battle is joined.

So I should just say which planets are being attacked and not list if an enemy fleets moves to an unoccupied planet? And if you are being attacked, you just get an attack notification?

26 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

So I should just say which planets are being attacked and not list if an enemy fleets moves to an unoccupied planet? And if you are being attacked, you just get an attack notification?

In general, yes? You could introduce a galactic scanner or something - ancient technology, the owner of which gets some information unavailable to the other side about fleet deployments. More things to fight over would be good.

14 minutes ago, rasproteus said:

In general, yes? You could introduce a galactic scanner or something - ancient technology, the owner of which gets some information unavailable to the other side about fleet deployments. More things to fight over would be good.

I'll try to create some discover-able things on each planet that gives a buff.

• Mineral rich - +10 RP
• Optimized ship building - reduce ship building by 1 round
• Orbital squadron factory - gain 1 free basic squadron per round (pack 1 or 2)
• Asteroid belt - +5 RP and add 3 additional asteroids to the play area
• Long range scanner - reveal a planet each round

And more stuff.

21 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

I'll try to create some discover-able things on each planet that gives a buff.

• Mineral rich - +10 RP
• Optimized ship building - reduce ship building by 1 round
• Orbital squadron factory - gain 1 free basic squadron per round (pack 1 or 2)
• Asteroid belt - +5 RP and add 3 additional asteroids to the play area
• Long range scanner - reveal a planet each round

And more stuff.

This could easily turn into some sort of Vassal Stellaris...

2 minutes ago, rasproteus said:

This could easily turn into some sort of Vassal Stellaris...

My ideas are based off Sins of a Solar Empire haha. I've never played Stellaris, but ideas from both games are welcome.

14 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

My ideas are based off Sins of a Solar Empire haha. I've never played Stellaris, but ideas from both games are welcome.

SOASE:R's mod Galaxy at War had a Galaxy Gun. . . we could damage each other's shipyard from across the board every round. . .

Empire gets a death star in their home sector that can't function and never does anything and Rebels get a plucky farm kid that can't be killed and one shots any structure.

GNIPs if you don't want to fight thats ok, 10 days is a ways to wait.

5 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

GNIPs if you don't want to fight thats ok, 10 days is a ways to wait.

A battle will take place, I hope. Unless you don't want yo wait. Which is, as you said, understandable. I'd prefer to not let my mine go without a fight