–⊙– Mnemosyne: Discussion & Interest –⊙–

[Humabout]

They move as Foot mobility units do, which move at 16 hex/turn on roads and 8 hex/turn off-road, so yes.  They are still slow to advance, however.

And thanks.  fixing that now.

Lastly, combat stuff is all up.  Next will be unit info most likely.

[Raelifin]

Just wanted to let you know that I've been following your rules. Am I right that the casualty table isn't posted yet? I was surprised that the troop costs were so high, but that's just because I wasn't aware of the population each person would be taxing. Is each turn one in-game week?

[Humabout]

The casualty table isn't posted yet, and I'll get on that now that I've figured out how to post tables in the forum.

Yeah, costs are pretty high, and time to raise won't always be too terribly short, either (as it is based on cost to raise), but each player will begin with cash assets to dispose of as he pleases before play begins (so he can build up his starting city or buy an army, or whatever).  Also, yeah, weekly $ income is based on taxing each individual in the city (populations can range into the millions), so each week, a person could feasibly see incomes from a single city in the 30+ million range (assuming a population of 1M people).  Also, it's worth noting that the cost to raise an element is much, much higher than the cost of that element's upkeep.  So growing a military is very costly, but keeping one going isn't so bad.

Each turn is currently intended to be a week of game time.  I kept it abstract after seeing how SP has varied the length of his turns to rather good effect, once he saw how the game was progressing.  I've yet to set a turn length for this, but I'll probably start with a 1-week turn and see how it goes.  If anything, I may keep the turn lengths a week and give myself a day or two to post the update in between.  I'm not sure just yet.

[Humabout]

Casualty Table up!  Logistic Force information up!

Also, I have a question about Commands.  Right now, I've got four "skills" for commands - Administration (for logistical stuff - should be renamed), Intelligence (for Reconnaissance rolls), Leadership (for maintaining control of a force), and Strategy (for winning battles).  I was wondering if anyone thinks it'd be better to have fewer skills (frex, just one that covers everything) or more skills for things I haven't really considered.  Any ideas?

[Humabout]

All element-related and combat related stuff is up!  Please pick apart and critique!  I am aware that I need to tweak the pricing on the sample elements.  I uncovered a bug in my spreadsheet (which is currently getting quite the alpha test).

[Raelifin]

Each turn is currently intended to be a week of game time.  I kept it abstract after seeing how SP has varied the length of his turns to rather good effect, once he saw how the game was progressing.  I've yet to set a turn length for this, but I'll probably start with a 1-week turn and see how it goes.  If anything, I may keep the turn lengths a week and give myself a day or two to post the update in between.  I'm not sure just yet.

I'm not sure you understood me. Underdeep has a flexible turn length in terms of *real time*, but all the turns in UD are 1 week of game time. I was asking because I'm trying to get a grasp on income/turn (which right now is in terms of $/week).

The other stuff is hard for me to mentally evaluate, and I don't want to build another simulator right now. ^_^

[Humabout]

Ah, sorry.  Yeah, one turn is one week.  I think I made that decision partway through writing stuff and forgot to go back and change all "weeks" to "turns."  Less confusing than worrying about counting actual time.

I expect income per turn to begin in the $30,000 to $300,000 range.  I'll probably still tweak numbers a little as I see how other stuff progresses.  Balancing all of this out isn't the easiest thing I've attempted.  I hope ya'll will poke holes and point out issues as I go along.

[Humabout]

Settlement rules up.

To Do List:

• Orders
  
• Sample Orders
  
• Maps
  
• Psychic Powers
  
• Psychic Rules
  
• Buildings
  
• Complete Sample Faction
  
• Some General Faction Information
  

Am I missing anything?

[Raelifin]

I assume that economy/resources/settlements and things will be covered in "Buildings"?
Is the plan for each player to build their own faction? I've been looking forward to reading faction fluff.

[Rhamnousia]

Doesn't seem that way to me. I'm getting a much better picture of the game with every update and it seems compelling, if a lot more exhaustive than Underdeep. Especially interested in faction information, mostly so I can ruminate on the fluff while you finish the crunch.

Also, I'm interested in hearing from the other potential players and what, if anything, ya'll had in mind.

[Humabout]

I'm brewing some faction ideas in my head.  I'll post a handful and see who likes what and what they'd like to see.  So far, Superbright has been PMing me multiple times a day with ideas about creating her own faction.  My own will include a generic "Mnemosyte" faction (the units posted belong to this faction already).  I'll probably toss up a another one or two who are native to the world.

Economy and resources are covered under Economy.  Settlements are covered under Settlements.  Actual structures will be in Buildings with statistics, prices, and explanations.  Most structures will be generic.  A particular faction may have a couple of faction-specific structures, but I want to keep resource and military production structures genericly statted to keep things balanced across factions.  Fluff can certainly vary, of course - e.g., Training Grounds vs. Brood Womb, Housing vs. Hive, Permafrost Mine vs. Subterranean Pool, etc.

[EDIT]
Okay, it looks like people are waiting more on fluff than on rules.  I'll work on getting something up next for that.  I was trying to get rules up so people could poke holes or otherwise point out things I've missed.  Also, so when I post units and associated fluff, they were in some context.  So, without further adieu, I'm off to write some fluff!

[Raelifin]

Economy and resources are covered under Economy.  Settlements are covered under Settlements.

I had not seen that you added settlements. By "economy" I was thinking about things like resource generation/collection. I should've specified.

[Rhamnousia]

So far, Superbright has been PMing me multiple times a day with ideas about creating her own faction.  

See, this is why total player freedom is a double-edged sword: potential for huge variety, but the guarantee of Superbright hounding you to make sure her variety isn't too various

[Humabout]

Yeah, Rael, resource buildings will go up eventually.  Frankly, I'm most worried about balancing that mess.  I'm sure I'll still have to tweak numbers, but I'm hoping to at least get relative prices fairly well set against each other, so it'll all just boil down to scaling everything to fit together nicely.

Superbright, quit PMing me and post your ideas here!  There's a lot of really awesome stuff there that I'm sure others would want to poach for their own creations.  You really get this setting, by the way.  You're getting me really excited to run this game!

Lastly, Three Factions Posted!  Working on more!

[Rhamnousia]

Sorry Humabout!

Okay, so at their insistence, the faction concept I'm currently leaning towards playing is a motley multi-species band of mercenaries known as Bastard's Bastards, lead by the eponymous Captain Boudicca Bastard (aka the Bitch-Queen of Angmar. Maybe.) Boudicca herself is sort of a mashup of Tank Girl, Col. Hunter Gathers, and George Armstrong Custer, strained through a lens of Fremen, and I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a teeny hint of Daenerys Targaryen in there too. Very punk/dieselpunk/old-school scifi. The Bastards either wander the world in an enormous salvaged (and nuclear-powered!) war-machine/sandcrawler called The Filibuster, or else have their base of operations in some ancient monolith/apartment block (If you've seen the Farscape episode "Thank God It's Friday, Again", it's something a lot like that.) In a metagame sense, the Bastards are basically an army for hire; I'll probably be leaning less towards territorial expansion and more towards keeping everyone alive so I can keep getting paid.

But that's not all! I've got a few other ideas for factions that ya'll should feel free to discuss and/or poach:

A tribe of nomadic androids that cover themselves in layers of robes and wrappings Tusken Raider-style and distill biomass and water into alcohol-based fuels, with even their non-humanoid war-machines possessing defined personalities and considered full members of the clan (think the Tachikoma).

Maybe some Goa'uld style god-parasites, extradimensional or not.

Intelligent, semi-parasitic fungus. Or, alternatively, sentient tumors originally caused by exposure to a spectrum of otherworldly radiation.

Masters of the remaining biotech that engineer all manner of living war-beasts.

The anthropophagous Ghoulherds of Mnemosyne with their cyber-mummified cattle and their necro-autonomous yurts.