Post by Spyder on Mar 7, 2009 2:23:42 GMT -5
Alright, this one's a complex bit. Put simply, this is a sci-fi version of Nations, that is it's a roleplay in which you play as an entire civilization instead of an individual. I have, bluntly, stolen this idea. Much of it is a direct ripoff of another's roleplay. Thank you to Mr. Kadaeux over at Roleplayer Guild for that. However, I am much too busy as well as too lazy to write my own damn rules, so I'm stealing what I can, just like the good old DnD DMG tells me to. So, here's how it goes...
Nova Star is set in a typical sci-fi universe. I can't be too specific because the players will set the fundamental parts of the setting themselves. When you get an idea of what you want, post the profile in its own thread in the Nova Star sub-board with the civilization's name as the title.
Representative/Common Technologies:
Hyperspace Technology: The discovery of hyperspace thrust many societies into a whole new era, whether it be war, trade, or diplomacy. This is represented by the capability to travel many lightyears in a surprisingly short amount of time.
Energy Weapons: These are represented by a large amount of lasers, particle beams, plasma-jacket-cannons, and other unique beam and pulse weaponry. (Stock Standard Scifi-guns)
Hypervelocity Kinetic Weapons: Are standard railguns and coilguns fired so that the projectile has a velocity less than 14% the speed of light. Extremely effective against hulls of their targets. This is also represented by charge weapons, which are more powerful versions of today’s projectile weapons that don’t rely on large amounts of energy to function.
Shields: Force Field technology has been a highly refined ‘art’ to many races. There are several grades of shields. 1: Barrier. A solid barrier, if brought down it stays down until its capacitors can be charged fully again. 2: Segment-shields. Shields formed from multiple shields that join at the “seams” harder to drop entirely like a Barrier Shield they tend to be weaker at the seams however. 3: Layer Shields. Perhaps the most effective type of shields. They cover the entire ship like a Barrier shield does, however there are often several layers to the shield and each has to be dropped before the hull can be accessed. While one is taking the damage the downed shields recharge extremely quickly and are back up, hopefully before the last layer is expended. Stronger that Segments but less ‘solid’ than a Barrier shield. All shields are extremely energy intensive.
Artificial Gravity: Simple basic artificial gravity to provide a ship with gravitational normal.
Fusion Reactors: The ubiquitous fusion powerplant is the standard across known space, coming in all shapes and sizes. Superconducting coils are often used to store excess power.
Plasma Drives: The standard sub-light propulsion system in known space, uses high-temperature plasma (often fusion exhaust) to accelerate ships according to newtonian laws.
Missiles: Guided missiles offer some of the best ways to strike an enemy outside his ability to effectively respond. They can also pack a serious punch with low-yield nuclear warheads. However they are fairly bulky and are vulnerable to defensive fire. They are the third leg in the weapons triad.
Armour & Structure: Most warships use multilayer composites for armour, alternating military-grade metallic alloys with inorganic fullerenes and/or ceramics. Civilian ships and installations will typically be built from common high-yield steel with additional radiation shielding on the outside.
Sensors: Most sensors are fairly conventional electromagnetic detectors, though more esoteric wake-disturbance and gravity-wave technologies do exist.
Nanotechnology: Nanotechnology is used by most reasonably tech-savvy civilizations, however the delicate nature of any worthwhile fabricator and the immense processing power required ensures that for most it is only used for high-precision high-complexity objects. Independent 'nanobots' are also manufactured by some companies or governments but tend to require fairly specific environments to function - most commonly blood or other vascular fluids.
Biotechology: With many hundreds of worlds known to host (or having once hosted) life, it proved to be a massive if not terribly difficult task to assemble immense databases on the life sciences. with many biospheres having fairly similar basic building blocks such as RNA and DNA - though details will differ - the techniques of biotechnology proved to be surprisingly easy to transfer between species. Limited genetic engineering is common and most terraforming efforts rely on vast numbers of genetically modified species.
Cybernetics: Artificial augmentation of physical and mental attributes is relatively common in the more martial set. While few willingly undergo extensive cyborgification for the thrill of it, proper parts can improve on almost anything natural. Cyborgification in the more civilized polities tends to be difficult to spot whereas in the more rough-and-tumble regions of space are generally in to functionality and power above all else.
Nation Creations.
Species Type: There is a general categorisation of species, similar species will have an easier time of communication than different, or radically different, species will have. Due to separation and largely isolated colonisation the separate species have generally kept in poor contact, translation ability was lost as well as most diplomatic relations. (EG: Two Ursine species will have an easier time of translation and relations than an Ursine and Porcine species.) NOTE: These are just species TYPES not actual species. You describe your own species, Species "type" is merely a "template" with diplomatic and some other implications.
"Humanoid": A generally primate-like species development. Will usually be quite similar in physiology and psychology to other Humanoid Species. There is no inherent advantage or disadvantage with Humanoids.
"Dogs": Bear-like and Canine-like species generally fall into this category. The 'Ursine (Bears)' are generally larger and more warlike than the 'Canine' The Canine have strong senses of discipline and 'pack-work' communication. Though are almost always smaller in stature. The Canine often have a stricter sense of honour than others.
"Feline": The "cats" of the universe, however they are much closer to "cats" than they are to "cat-girls". Prone to larger tracts of open land, and a "hunter" behaviour.
"Hive": The Insects of the Universe. Unfortunately very very dangerous insects. The "hive" types often react poorly to any other species, including other hives, IF they can get past that hurdle they are often excellent source of labour and cheaper materials. But its a big IF. Usually communicates through scent or visual patterns on the carapace.
"Flights": Anything bird/bat/winged-thing-like. These are the once "flighted" creatures, some still can fly. There are three subcategories. "Peaceful" The "seagulls, pidgeons etc" of space, peaceful, often greedy. Massively mercantile. The "Hawks" are hunters, predators and very vicious and war-like. Then there are the "Bats" a category of sneaky underhanded but very polite political animals.
"Bulls": Herbivores of the universe that evolved to sentience. They can either be the passive, peaceful people sort or the raging bull sort. The former can often become the latter if pushed too far. They however usually have a poor agriculture industries or actual industries due to the amount they consume. Always have a high population base however.
"Fish": Fish evolved to technologists. There are many issues with the Scales that aren't resolved. Most are predatory in some fashion or another. As the saying goes. There are no Herbivores in the sea. However they REQUIRE worlds rich in water and life and literally are unable to settle anything else. That they achieved spaceflight OR sentience is a miracle that confuses many. How the hell do you forge metals without fire?
"Lizards": Lizards and Serpents. Usually aggressive and powerful, but low in population and incapable of taking low temperature worlds or worlds without much moisture. While capable of using standard M class terra-compatible worlds they would be happy if you found a Swamp world. Population kept in check by typically eating young.
Totally Alien: This is everything not above. Creatures so alien that the "normal" species can't comprehend their very existence. Ranging from Gas-giant dwelling jellies to the Tentacle monsters of myth. According to common sensibilities these things can't exist. They're too ugly to have that right! Diplomacy with these species is difficult and strenuous war is not an uncommon result of diplomatic attempts. *Nickname depends on appearance*
Population: Each Nation has a population as one would expect. The population levels are dependant on A: The species and B: The number/size of colony ships sent as that group. The population can have positive AND negative effects on how your nation runs and how many worlds it holds. (Species can effect.) Each "player" Chooses a population base while taking their species restrictions into account.
Class 1: Lowest Population Base. Usually under 20 billion people. (Cannot be taken by "Hive" or "Bulls")
Class 2: Second Lowest Population Base: Over 20 Billion, Under 100 Billion. (Cannot be taken by Hive.)
Class 3: Medium Population Base: Between 100 and 200 billion. (Nothing to Note Here)
Class 4: Second Highest Population Base: Between 200 and 250 Billion. (Cannot be taken by Felines)
Class 5: Highest Population Base: Between 250 and 300 Billion. (Cannot be taken by Felines or Lizards)
Class 6: HIVE ONLY: Between 500 Billion and 600 Billion. (Can only be taken by a Hive Species.)
World Classes and Populations. (Each world has an effect on your nation.)
Agricultural World: A world that specialises in farming. A much lower population than an Industrial world. Where an Industry Planet might have Eight Billion to run it an Agricultural World may have 1 Billion. A nation REQUIRES that at least 1/4th of its worlds are Agri-worlds to sustain itself. (Sustain, not grow.) "Bull" species must have a minimum of half their worlds as Agri-worlds to supply the much more massive needs of their population.
Industry World/Forgeworld: A heart of Industry, especially mega-industry. Often has megastructures, artificial rings and shipyards. Each Industry worlds REQUIRED population is dependent on the population "class" of a nation. (Class 1: 5 Billion minimum. Class 2: 10 Billion minimum. Class 3: 20 Billion Minimum. Class 4: 25 Billion. Class 5: 30 Billion Minimum. Class 6: 150 Billion)
Pleasure World: A world of "pleasures" whether it just be art, brothels, a forest of shiny globes that look like a thousand sunsets at once to a heat-visioned alien. In general while there is some industry and agriculture on these worlds they are mostly dedicated to leisure and loving life. These worlds are not required and Cannot be taken by Hive or Serps.
Capital World: This world is the core of your nation. It doesn't have to have the highest of anything and has a degree of everything. Most importantly its the political and cultural, even spiritual, centre of the nation. Every nation must have one EXCEPT Hive nations. Though Capitals often have the highest population.
Research World: A planet where the workforce is dedicated to the pursuits of science and advancement at all costs. These worlds often have relaxed laws concerning research and activities.
Hunting Preserve/Training Planet: A world dedicated to a species training methods, originally concepted by a feline species as a method of training its recruits and young in proper hunting methods it was absorbed as a concept by other races. (Increases training levels of troops that train there)(May only have one per 50 Billion People Anyone with less than 50 billion can still take one.)
**Note: You do not have to detail every world under your control, but this gives you a general idea of what you have option-wise.
TRAIT SYSTEM:
Each Nation can choose a single trait from each category below. And four extra traits to spend on any category except for Hyper-Technology and History. For each flaw you take you can take an extra trait.
Some Traits can stack, those that cannot will have an * at the start of the name.
National Traits:
GETTING HUGE!: Your nation has a serious skyscraper, monument and battleship fetish and likes to build big. BIG. BIG.
The Mossad: What you know, I know.
Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti: We have not managed to gather any information on this trait. (KGB)
*Implausibly Efficient Government: Your bureaucrats cut through red tape with machetes.
Fair Dinkum: Your state has a rep as a straight shooter (metaphorically) and an honest dealer (literally).
The only Party in town: The government controls everything. Including you. Especially you.
Free Market Boomtown: The nice thing about a corporate state is there's profits for everyone. The not so nice thing is that you have to go back to your cubicle now.
Industrial Heartland: Tank factories stretch to the horizon and shipyards fill the night sky with waste light.
*New Hollywood: A cultural centre of the galaxy. Everyone who's anyone has made their fame here.
Who Cares About Uzbekistan: Your polity is simply not on the galactic radar and thus avoids a lot of the Bad Shit that can go down. . .
Party Please: Your diplomats are just so good-natured or know so many skeleton-filled closets that they can get into strategically useful alliances much easier than others. Of course, then you need to live up to what you signed . . .
*Cargo Cultist: If freighters were warships, you'd blot out the stars with your fleet. You still do, but there's less gunfire involved.
Load-Bearing State: You remember all those times you beat up a boss and suddenly the castle collapsed? Well, you're kind of like that to the galactic economy.
Population Traits:
*Loyalty: A populace that through some reason or another is loyal to its government, through fear or "cookie day" it doesn't matter, these people are loyal.
*Hive: Through technological, psionic or even natural means these people share a hive-mind. (A hive automatically has this Trait) This makes infiltration almost impossible.
Man-Machine Interface: Thought the looking glass of circuitry and neurons into the uncharted territories of bioelectronic convergence.
Newtypes: The next stage in human evolution; the peak of human mental performance and acuity. (Larger Psionics Population)
SPACE MARINES!: Your people are physically superior specimens, with buff bodies and quick hands.
Cyberize!: Physical cybernetic modifications are rampant in your population. Not limited by mere biology like SPACE MARINES! but likewise not inherent just by being born. Sucks to be a copper.
Heroic Age: Your people see themselves as Spartan Heroes, not Persian Generals. Shame the Spartans made poor civilians . . .
Flag-Wavers: It doesn't matter what you do, you'll always win the elections. You must choose something particularly dear to your population that they wave flags about.
Eureka!: The desire to take things apart and figure out how they work runs deep in your people's blood.
Hard Workers: Your people really roll up their sleeves and work.
Stupidly Brave: Nobody would think of calling your people cowards.
Tough as a Coffin Nail: Your people are just ridiculously tough and can survive true environmental extremes. Requires SPACE MARINES!, Cyberize
Plain Jane: You get one additional National trait, but cannot choose any other Population Trait.
Military Traits:
High Speed, Low Drag: Hit and Run. Really quickly.
Tortoise and the Hare: Slow, steady and durable wins the race.
Network-Paradigm Processor: Communism in warfare? Unheard of!
Battleships!: You've got a lot more battleships than most people. Also comes in other variants. (You could take is "Carriers!" or "Destroyers!" or "Super-Capitals!" potentially)
*Armament De-Regulation: Who puts 16" guns on freighters? You do!
Army General Staff: Your focus is mostly on taking and holding ground with troops, be that planets, space stations or hostile warships.
*Awesome Training: This trait is only worth one, but costs two because people are munchkins.
Death Spiraller: Why buy ten fighters when you can buy one five times as good?
Knife in the Back: You prefer the silence of a SPF strike to the brutishness of a battle line bombardment.
*Strategic Weapons Stockpiler: You put the Strategic Air Command to shame.
Ninja Space pirate: Arr matey! You'll never escape our pirate U-Boats!
Dispersed Operations: All spaceships can go quite a while without resupply and operate without fleets. Yours are optimized for this.
Space Trenches: If it was possible to dig holes in space-time to provide cover for your battleships, you'd do so.
A Penny Saved: Just because a cruiser is two generations behind the state of the art doesn't mean its useless!
Main Guns!: The age of the battleship is back with a vengeance, this time with spinally-mounted cannons for all.
Technical Traits:
*Mechanical Monstrosities: Who needs fighters when you can have giant robots!
Biowanker: Instead of heavy metal, your engineers have gone down the path of biotechnology.
Nanowanker: You have access to economically useful amounts of nanotechnology.
On The Run!: Most people don't strap engines to factories and cram them into carriers. Most people.
Stealth Obsessed: Most people engineer a bit of stealth cladding into their warships. You use it for internal decking.
Flash: Your stuff just has that extra polish that makes it look cooler than everyone else's inferior-looking, blockily-functional equipment.
Plug'n'Play: Modularity is a virtue, so your engineers claim.
Ghost in the Machine: People are a hindrance, so you use machinery as much as possible.
Nazi Superscience: A role for every machine and a machine for every role.
Better Than Your {Keyword}: Don't apply this too broadly or I'll smack you, otherwise it's exactly what it implies.
Hangerize!: Fighters and Mecha are cool (or just an overly important part of your doctrines) so you stick them in everything you can. This provides strike/superiority ability in addition to the usual utility-craft hangars.
Off-The-Shelf Technology: You get one additional Bonus trait, but cannot choose any other Technical Trait.
Historical Traits: (MUST take ONE ONLY)
Warlike: Your History is filled with bloodshed, violence and the genocide of millions, at your own hands or against you. The point is you won’t back down if you don’t have to.
Diplomatic: You have more skill with diplomacy than most species and consider war to be a final option after all others have been exhausted. Fortunately you’ve kept your records better than others and suffer no diplomatic penalties with different species.
Commercial: A long history of commercial profit and trade fills your peoples lessons as children. Your people don’t learn how Aravais defeated the Chonomeri in a great battle but how Elan robbed Geddas of every last coin in exchange for a drink of water in the desert to survive.
Exodites: You people have been persecuted and hated and they have adapted and learnt to move quickly in short spans of time. If you were to ever evacuate a world it would take a tenth the time of a non-exodite.
In Armour Clad: Your people value defence, shields and armour above diplomacy, strategic weapons and other minor concerns. After all what good are their weapons if they cannot harm you?
Hyper-technology: (Must take ONE)
Gravity-Wave Weapons: With a wave of compressed space, one can penetrate standard shielding. Size, complexity and cost ensures that these weapons are rarely seen .
Reactionless Motors: Solid-state energy-to-motion converters, reactionless motors let the equipped ship accelerate without the need for reaction mass or obvious thruster flares. However they are no more inherently stealthy if one knows what to look for.
Reaper Drive: A modified and downscaled wormhole drive, Reaper drives allow the equipped vehicle to make a linear “Spacetime Reap” between two points by folding space between the start and end points. This makes travel instant, but takes time to recharge after use.
PSI Lens: With better understanding of psionic abilities it eventually became possible to construct amplifiers for said abilities. These allowed mental abilities to be massively upscaled.
Cloaking Devices: Varying degrees of stealth are commonly built into most warships, but true cloaking devices are much less common. Fairly delicate and temperamental they need to be properly integrated into whatever is meant to be cloaked, adding to cost significantly.
Advanced Biotechnology: Some polities have taken the sciences of life to its endpoints and gained the ability to breed living structures and starships. While not as efficient as more conventional ships they do have their advantages.
Dark-matter Technologies: Unique and near impossible to replicate by a nation without the Dark-matter technologies are advanced, very very advanced, weapons and shields. They work on little-known principles.
Advanced Anti-matter Technologies: Relatively easy to produce Anti-matter is usually extremely unstable and hard to store and use, as such they are utterly forbidden to anyone without Advanced A-matter tech. This allows it to be manufactured, stored and used relatively safely. Just hope someone doesn’t shoot containment.
Relativistic Weapons: Projectile weaponry fired past 15% of lightspeed. Incredible levels of damage and destruction are capable.
Field Control: The Manipulation of energy fields to achieve unique and hard to replicate results. (Disruption Fields, gravity fluxes, personal "gravity chutes" etc)
*More can be added at request.*
Faults/Weaknesses: (Each Fault, Weakness or Flaw allows you to take one more trait EXCEPT for Historical or Hyper-Advanced.)
Honourable to a fault: Your strategies will never rely on surprise or deception, your ships are painted bright shiny silver and your admirals will always give a speech to the enemy before battle.
Creaky Military: The military is under-budgeted, under-equipped and underfed. Kind of like the Russian fleet circa 1995. You simply don't have much in the way of a military. This flaw hits hard enough to provide two (2) bonus traits.
There Is No Internet: Your computers and electronics are like 2000s vintage. This sucks.
Third World: Even in the future, the third world is not known for technological superiority. While not as horrible as There Is No Internet, it's far more broad-based. Kiss your shields and artificial gravity good-bye for everything but the flagship.
Soylent Green Is People!: You have a giant elephant-sized skeleton in your closet. (You must describe this big nasty secret. Though only your nation knows it and even the best spies would have difficulty finding it.
Government Red Tape: This request cannot be processed at this time. Please take a number.
*Cult Of {Keyword}: All Hail Xenu!
*Hilariously Fail: Someone - a lot of someones - doesn't have much going on upstairs. Unfortunately they're disproportionately represented in your government and military.
Public Outcry: Your people have deep and strong opinions on some issues you'd really rather they didn't.
Wimpy: Maybe they're a low-gravity race or just didn't drink milk when growing up. No matter the cause, your people are short, skinny and weak. This is a bigger disadvantage than it sounds, as your fighter pilots will not be able to handle nearly as many Gs and your ships will likewise be relatively sluggish.
Paranoia!: In a universe full of planet-destroying aliens, a healthy dose of paranoia is only natural. It might make diplomacy difficult but at least they won't sneak up on you!
Trade Dependent: Exactly what it says. A good example is a Mars-like world that must import significant food to feed its populace or a civilization that focuses completely on outside trade for their gross income.
*Psychic Nulls: Something in the (recent?) past has eliminated any trace of psychic ability from your population, probably botched genetic tinkering. While this doesn't affect their quality of life, it does mean that you're an open book to any telepath and probably find neural interfaces difficult to use.
The following is OPTIONAL information, but may be required later if things get ridiculous.
Militaries: Fleets
Not surprisingly, fleets are the dominant way of enforcing one's will on another - or avoiding having another's will enforced on oneself. While ultimately warships cannot take or hold ground and thus rely on the armies to do so, they can still dominate the spaceways and render an unprepared planet helpless.
Building a Fleet
In this RP there is no set naval organization, but in general usage ships are split between a few types; Super Capital ships, Capital Ships, Frigates, and Fighters. Super-Capital ships mass at least a million tons, Capital Ships 70,000 to 800,000, Frigates up to 60,000 tons, and Fighters up to 100 tons.
The typical size ranges are listed below, in metric tons. Numbers in brackets are the average size.. (k=thousand, so 100k = 100’000 metric tons.)
Note that carriers generally carry approximately 50 Squadrons at 150kT, 75 at 200kT and 100 at 250kT, typically with a few additional craft for support roles. (Light, Medium and Heavy Aerospace)
As a baseline, each nation's fleet has 50 MILLION registered tons per Industrial World. (Nations without an Industrial world have a mere 10 Million Tons.
Fleets may not start with more than one Super Capital, unless they have GETTING HUGE in which case they have no limits on number of Super Capital hulls beyond that imposed by the rule below.
- In no case may a fleet register more than 40% of its tonnage to capital + super ships, as escort ships are too useful and too in demand to be neglected.
- Combat aerospace craft count against the registered tonnage limits for capital ships if they are embarked on a capital/super ship; in effect they add to the actual tonnage of the carrier. The exception to this is Hangerize!, which makes all combat aerospace craft count against escort, not capital tonnage.
- Apply flat increases/decreases first, them apply any percentage modifiers. All divisors are added to a base of 1, thus a divisor of 0.5 actually means 'divide by 1.5'.
- GETTING HUGE, Battleships!, Carriers! or Destroyers! apply a 0.5/level divisor to the appropriate ship type's Registered Tonnage. Thus a power with Battleships! would pay 2 Registered Tons for every 3 tons of battleships in its fleet, while one with Battleships! II would pay 1 Registered Ton for every 2 tons of battleships. Note that Destroyers! applies to all escorts that do not carry combat aerospace craft.
- Death Spiralled militaries multiply the RT cost of all units by 4 but all units are Category X quality. Yes, this means that they only start with an effective 12.5 million tons of warships.
- Biowanker get a 0.5 divisor/level to all Registered Tonnages, to represent their ships being individually less effective by weight but overall easier to manufacture (or, to be more accurate, grow).
- Polities that engage in Knives In The Back and Ninja Spacepiracy are less fond of using large warships and thus may only start with 20% of their fleet as capital/Super Capitals.
- Implausibly Efficient Governments and Free Market Boomtowns add 1 million Registered Tons per level to the fleet registry due to more efficient use of resources and/or more resources available overall. (Per Industry World)
- Nanowankers add 0.5 million Registered Tons to the fleet registry or 2 million if you are also Death Spirallers thanks to the ease of manufacturing precision components with nanotechnology.
- Hard Workers and Industrial Heartlands add 5 million Registered Tons per level to the fleet registry due to economic over productivity and also get a bonus to productivity. (Per Industry world)
- Third World fleets get 50% extra Registered Tons in Surplus Cast-Offs (Category C)
- Militaries who have A Penny Saved get an extra 50% Registered Tons in Category B units.
- Creaky Militaries eliminate half of your final tonnage (ouch!).
Advanced and Reserve units (Space Only)
Not all weapons are created equal. This is particularly acute during times of rapid technological innovation or rapid military build-up (the latter being far more common in Nyxfall than the former). Within a couple decades what was cutting-edge becomes yesterday's cast-offs. However, just because something is no longer the latest and greatest doesn't mean that it is no longer useful. Many militaries will hold onto expensive equipment such as armoured vehicles, aerospace craft and starships for many years. Training, spares, second-line roles . . . to do all this with continually refreshing equipment would be impossible for even the largest economies.
Category A: Most mainline troops and vessels are Category A. Well-trained and equipped they are the backbone of any nation's military.
Category B: Typically seen as reservists or low-priority formations, Category B troops typically have older equipment. However, it can still be effective in the right situations and can free up more expensive equipment for priority missions.
Category C: There is no argument about the age of this equipment or the skill of the crews. However for less well-off states this is sometimes all that can be fielded in any quantity.
Category X: Few militaries can afford Category X equipment; its effects scale while its cost scale even more rapidly. For most nations this is limited to the most elite formations.
Category EX: The airy heights where cost is no concern, category EX represents the pinnacle of unit power. Few polities have the ability to even construct such superlative equipment; most times they are unique one-offs of unprecedented power.
Ground Forces./Armies.:
Special Traits: (May Choose ONE. Isn’t Required.)
Horde: Infantry rush. Can take 80% of allocation as Infantry.
Tankers: Armoured Cavalry. Can take 40% of allocation as Armour
Its Raining Death: Your Artillery block the skies… with explosions. Can take 40% of Allocation as Artillery
Your Shield Generators Are Ready: Your support pieces are plentiful and effective. Can take 30% of Allocation as support.
Your Walls are Thick: Shields and Thick walls protect your cityscapes. Can take 60% of Allocation as Structure
Our Planes shall fill the skies!: Planes, Bombers and Aircraft are plentiful. Can take 30% of Allocation as Air Force.
You Armies and Ground Forces are the ones that have to take the worlds of your enemies should you choose to do so, or worse. Defend them!
Ones Military on a planet consists of several Items. Each planet has 10% of its population as a dedicated military force, this can be upped to 50% in special Circumstances.
Restrictions/Bonuses:
The History trait “Diplomatic” halves the available military forces where “Warlike” doubles it. (E.g., a world with 1 billion people will have 100 million normally as its military, a Diplomatic nation would have 50 million and a warlike nation 200 million.
The History trait “In Armour Clad” gives your nation an extra two million of support and artillery each.
Now an Army may be allocated as stated here. You may come to a total of 100%.
40% Infantry.
20% Armour.
20% Artillery.
10% Support.
30% Structure.
10% Air Force.
EXAMPLE: The example above leaves a standard nation with 100 million men to allocate. Here it is allocated as shown by its owner..
30% Infantry = 30 Million Men.
20% Armour = 20 Million Men.
20% Artillery = 20 Million Men
10% Support = 10 Million Men
10% Structure = 10 Million Men
10% Air Force = 10 Million Men.
Total = 100 Million Men.
You then use your “men” to purchase units. The “Cost” includes support personnel and the equipment to maintain and run the “men”
Infantry.
Conscript Regiments: 10’000 Men with basic weapons and next to no training. (Cost: 12’000 Men.)
Infantry Regiment: 4’000 Men with standard Training and equipment. (Cost: 5’000 Men.)
Elite Guard: 2’500 Men with excellent training and equipment. (Cost: 3’000 Men.)
Shock Troopers: 2’000 Men with Excellent Training and equipment, specialise in dropping behind enemy lines. (Cost 3’000 Men)
Cybernetic Infantry: 4’000 Men with Great Training and Great Weapons and Cybernetic enhancement. (Costs 6’000 Men) (Requires Cyberize!)
Space Marines: 4’000 Men with Great Training, Great Equipment and Genetic Super-Enhancement. (Costs 6’000 Men) (Requires Space Marines!)
Ubermensch: 2’000 Men with Incredible Training and Incredible weapons. Cybernetically and Genetically enhanced. (Costs 5’000 Men) (Requires “Tough as Coffin Nails”)
Mechanized Infantry: 1’200 Men. 100 Ten man squads and 100 Vehicles controlled by 2 Men each. Theses are your fast hitting infantry with some basic heavy weapons. (Costs 4’000 Men)
Psionic Infantry: 50 Men. Use their psionic abilities to try and interfere with the enemy while gathering intelligence. (Costs 1’000 Men)(Requires Newtypes)
Networked Infantry Regiment (Modification): Uses any of the above regiments but doubles the cost. (Does not increase number of soldiers in unit, just cost. (REQUIRES Network Paradigm Processor)
Armour. (Tanks can be taken in a “Mech” version.)(NOTE: Only the Crew itself is ever present at a battle (unless defending) the rest are support personnel that wait behind the lines to take care of the vehicles under their care.)
Light Tank Regiment: 2’000 Tanks with light guns. (Anti-infantry or anti-armour.) Effective in numbers but outweighed by heavier tanks. (Costs 10’000 Men. *3 Crew, 2 Mechanics each*)
Medium Tank Regiment: 1’500 Tanks with medium firepower. Are your “average” armoured cavalry. (Costs 7’500 Men. *3 Crew, 2 Mechanics Each*)
Heavy Tank Regiment: 1’000 Heavy Tanks. (Anti-infantry or anti-armour.) Effective at most roles but slower than Medium or Light Armour. (Costs 8’000 Men *5 Crew, 2 Mechanics, 1 Systems Management.)
Super-Heavy Tank Regiment: 100 Of the Heaviest “average” Tanks. (Anti-infantry or anti-armour.) Effective at Killing men or tanks regardless of its weapons. (Costs 2’000 Men *12 Crew, 6 Mechanics 2 Systems Management.)
Gigadeath Tank Regiment: 10 of the Heaviest Tracked vehicles ever conceived. Each one is a match for 100 Medium tanks with ease. Almost always shielded. (Costs 1’000 Men *40 Crew, 20 Mechanics, 20 Systems Management, 20 Electronics Warfare Management*) (Requires “Getting Huge!”)
Super Gigadeath Tank: The Heaviest Vehicle Known to exist on the ground. (Costs 1’000 Men *400 Crew, 200 Mechanics, 200 Systems Management, 200 Electronics Warfare Management*) (Requires “Getting Huge!”) It is the direct equal to an entire Regiment of Gigadeath Tanks.
Networked Tank Regiment (Modification): Uses any of the above regiments but adds 1 Man to the cost of each piece. Adds *1 Network Specialist* to each vehicle.. (REQUIRES Network Paradigm Processor)
Artillery:
Mortar Regiment: 2’000 Suitably sci-fi man-portable Mortar-like units. (Costs 4’000 Men, two men to each mortar.) (It doesn’t have to be a mortar, just semi-short ranged and carried by men.)
Heavy Mortar Regiment: 500 Mortar-like Carrying Vehicles. (Costs 2’000 Men, *Crew 3, Mechanic 1*)
Light Artillery Regiment: 2’000 Non-mobile Artillery pieces. (Have to be towed.) (Costs 6’000 Men *Crew 3*)
Medium Artillery Regiment: 1’500 Non-Mobile Artillery Pieces. (Have to be towed.) (Costs 4’500 Men. *Crew 3*)
Mobile Artillery Regiment: 1’000 Mobile Medium Artillery Pieces. (Costs 5’000 Men. *Crew 3, Mechanics 2*)
Super-Heavy Artillery Piece: 10 Mobile Artillery Piece. Super-heavy with high firepower. (Cost 1’000 Men *60 Crew, 20 Mechanics, 20 Engineers, 20 Systems Management.*)
Rocket Battery Regiment: 500 Multiple Rocket Launching System Vehicles. (Cost 2’000 Men *Crew 3, Mechanics 1*)
Networked Artillery Regiment (Modification): Uses any of the above regiments but adds 1 Man to the cost of each piece. Adds *1 Network Specialist* to each vehicle or artillery piece. (REQUIRES Network Paradigm Processor)
Support: All support unit personnel remains with their vehicle.
Anti-Air Artillery Regiment: 2’000 Mobile Vehicles with Railguns or Beam weapons configured and designed for anti-air work. (Cost 6’000 Men. *Crew 2, Mechanic 1*)
Anti-Air Missile Battery Regiment: 2’000 Mobile Vehicles with Anti-Aircraft Missiles. (Cost 8’000 Men *Crew 3, Mechanic 1*)
Light Shield Battery: 1’500 Shield Projector Vehicles. (Cost 9’000 Men *5 Crew, 1 Mechanic*)
Medium Shield Battery: 1’000 Shield Projector Vehicles. (Cost 8’000 Men *6 Crew, 1 Mechanic, 1 Systems Management*)
Heavy Shield Battery: 500 Shield Projector Vehicles. (Cost 8’000 Men *10 Crew, 2 Mechanics, 4 Systems Management*)
Light Transport Regiment: 1’000 Unarmoured and unarmed Trucks for transporting men and supplies. (Costs 2’000 Men *Crew 2*) NOTE: Crew doubles as mechanics. (Trans Capacity 10 Men)
Medium Transport Regiment: 1’000 Armoured Transport Vehicles, unarmed. (Costs 4’000 Men *Crew 2, Mechanics 2) (Trans Capacity 8 Men) (Mechanics do not remain with vehicle.)
Supply Battalion: 20’000 Men dedicated to feeding and supplying up to 4 Million Men. (Costs 20’000 Men, 50% Cooks 50% Supply) (NOTE: Critical! For Offensive Force, A Defensive force can conscript if required enough to do this role.)
Radar/Sensor: 1’000 Vehicles Designed to provide portable Sensor/Radar coverage. (Costs 10’000 Men *Crew 4, Mechanics 1, Systems Management 5.*)
Networked Support Regiment (Modification): Uses any of the above regiments but adds 1 Man to the cost of each piece. Adds *1 Network Specialist* to each vehicle. (REQUIRES Network Paradigm Processor)
Structure.
Wall: Each City can be surrounded by a combined wall/shield. (Costs 500 Thousand men Per Wall. *Maintenance and repair.*)
Fortress: A well defended and shielded structure armed to the teeth. (Cost 10’000 Men.)
Super-Fortress: Even Better build and with shields capable of repelling Orbital bombardment for a time. (Cost 150’000 Men)
Theatre Shield: A facility that provides a shield 2’000 Kilometres wide protecting against Orbital Bombardment and attack from Orbitally launched craft. Is also Walled. (Costs 500’000 Men) (Cannot be within a city due to the size of the structure. *Very very big.*)
Planetary Shield: A Colossal “paired” facility that provides planet-wide shield against Orbital Bombardment and attack from Orbitally launched craft. Both Facilities are Walled. You can have a maximum of 4 Planetary Shields. (4 = Almost impenetrable.)(Cost 4 Million Men per paired facility)
Sensor Network. Planet-wide sensor network, imperfect multiple sensor networks increase reliability and coverage. Maximum of 10. (Cost 500’000 Men. *Each Structure has 1’000 Men*)
Planetary Network Coverage: (Maximum: 1) Networks all your networkable units and regiments present on a planet with one allowing a general on the other side of the planet to co-ordinate the whole worlds defence down to each individual soldier with a networking upgrade. (Costs 600’000 Men *Each ‘Network Hub* is run by 1’000 Men) (REQUIRES Network Paradigm Processor)
Air Force. Each Group has 10 “Wings” each “Wing” has 4 Squadrons, each Squadron has 12 craft.
Interceptor Group: 480 Interceptors. Each Interceptor is equipped to intercept enemy bombers, they are very fast and sleek but not very nimble. (Costs 3’000 Men *1 Pilot, 4 Mechanics, 1 Systems Management {Tower control}* 120 Miscellaneous Personnel)
Fighter Group: 480 Fighters designed as an all-purpose craft to hunt and kill enemy aircraft of any type. Fast, sleek and nimble with decent weaponry. (Costs 3’000 Men *1 Pilot, 4 Mechanics, 1 Systems Management {Tower control}* 120 Miscellaneous Personnel)
Heavy Fighter Group: 480 Heavy Fighters designed to kill anything that enters their range and doesn’t flash their IFF. Fitted with light shields. (Costs 3’500 Men *2 Pilots {Pilot/Gunner}, 4 Mechanics, 1 Systems Management {Tower Control}* 140 Miscellaneous Personnel)
Ground Attack Group: 480 Fighters designed as a ground attack craft to strafe enemy ground forces.. Heavily armoured, heavily armed, low speed. (Costs 3’000 Men *1 Pilot, 4 Mechanics, 1 Systems Management {Tower control}* 120 Miscellaneous Personnel)
Bomber Group: 480 Bombers designed to destroy enemy ground formations and troops. (Costs 3’500 Men *1 Pilot, 1 Munitions Handler, 4 Mechanics, 1 Systems Management {Tower Control}* 140 Miscellaneous Personnel)
Heavy Bomber Group: 480 Heavy Bombers designed to wipe out enemy formations, structures and if lucky super-heavy vehicles. (Cost: 10’000 Men *10 Crew, 4 Mechanics, 5 Munitions Management, 1 System Management (Tower Control)* 400 Miscellaneous Personnel.)
Strategic Bomber Wing: 48 of the Super-Heavy strategic bombers. These drop the strategic bombs like Nukes. (Cost 5’000 *Crew 20: Support 20* Miscellaneous Personnel 200)
Networked Air Force Regiment (Modification): Uses any of the above regiments but adds 1 Man to the cost of each piece. Adds *1 Network Specialist* to each Aircraft. (REQUIRES Network Paradigm Processor)
Nova Star is set in a typical sci-fi universe. I can't be too specific because the players will set the fundamental parts of the setting themselves. When you get an idea of what you want, post the profile in its own thread in the Nova Star sub-board with the civilization's name as the title.
Representative/Common Technologies:
Hyperspace Technology: The discovery of hyperspace thrust many societies into a whole new era, whether it be war, trade, or diplomacy. This is represented by the capability to travel many lightyears in a surprisingly short amount of time.
Energy Weapons: These are represented by a large amount of lasers, particle beams, plasma-jacket-cannons, and other unique beam and pulse weaponry. (Stock Standard Scifi-guns)
Hypervelocity Kinetic Weapons: Are standard railguns and coilguns fired so that the projectile has a velocity less than 14% the speed of light. Extremely effective against hulls of their targets. This is also represented by charge weapons, which are more powerful versions of today’s projectile weapons that don’t rely on large amounts of energy to function.
Shields: Force Field technology has been a highly refined ‘art’ to many races. There are several grades of shields. 1: Barrier. A solid barrier, if brought down it stays down until its capacitors can be charged fully again. 2: Segment-shields. Shields formed from multiple shields that join at the “seams” harder to drop entirely like a Barrier Shield they tend to be weaker at the seams however. 3: Layer Shields. Perhaps the most effective type of shields. They cover the entire ship like a Barrier shield does, however there are often several layers to the shield and each has to be dropped before the hull can be accessed. While one is taking the damage the downed shields recharge extremely quickly and are back up, hopefully before the last layer is expended. Stronger that Segments but less ‘solid’ than a Barrier shield. All shields are extremely energy intensive.
Artificial Gravity: Simple basic artificial gravity to provide a ship with gravitational normal.
Fusion Reactors: The ubiquitous fusion powerplant is the standard across known space, coming in all shapes and sizes. Superconducting coils are often used to store excess power.
Plasma Drives: The standard sub-light propulsion system in known space, uses high-temperature plasma (often fusion exhaust) to accelerate ships according to newtonian laws.
Missiles: Guided missiles offer some of the best ways to strike an enemy outside his ability to effectively respond. They can also pack a serious punch with low-yield nuclear warheads. However they are fairly bulky and are vulnerable to defensive fire. They are the third leg in the weapons triad.
Armour & Structure: Most warships use multilayer composites for armour, alternating military-grade metallic alloys with inorganic fullerenes and/or ceramics. Civilian ships and installations will typically be built from common high-yield steel with additional radiation shielding on the outside.
Sensors: Most sensors are fairly conventional electromagnetic detectors, though more esoteric wake-disturbance and gravity-wave technologies do exist.
Nanotechnology: Nanotechnology is used by most reasonably tech-savvy civilizations, however the delicate nature of any worthwhile fabricator and the immense processing power required ensures that for most it is only used for high-precision high-complexity objects. Independent 'nanobots' are also manufactured by some companies or governments but tend to require fairly specific environments to function - most commonly blood or other vascular fluids.
Biotechology: With many hundreds of worlds known to host (or having once hosted) life, it proved to be a massive if not terribly difficult task to assemble immense databases on the life sciences. with many biospheres having fairly similar basic building blocks such as RNA and DNA - though details will differ - the techniques of biotechnology proved to be surprisingly easy to transfer between species. Limited genetic engineering is common and most terraforming efforts rely on vast numbers of genetically modified species.
Cybernetics: Artificial augmentation of physical and mental attributes is relatively common in the more martial set. While few willingly undergo extensive cyborgification for the thrill of it, proper parts can improve on almost anything natural. Cyborgification in the more civilized polities tends to be difficult to spot whereas in the more rough-and-tumble regions of space are generally in to functionality and power above all else.
Nation Creations.
Species Type: There is a general categorisation of species, similar species will have an easier time of communication than different, or radically different, species will have. Due to separation and largely isolated colonisation the separate species have generally kept in poor contact, translation ability was lost as well as most diplomatic relations. (EG: Two Ursine species will have an easier time of translation and relations than an Ursine and Porcine species.) NOTE: These are just species TYPES not actual species. You describe your own species, Species "type" is merely a "template" with diplomatic and some other implications.
"Humanoid": A generally primate-like species development. Will usually be quite similar in physiology and psychology to other Humanoid Species. There is no inherent advantage or disadvantage with Humanoids.
"Dogs": Bear-like and Canine-like species generally fall into this category. The 'Ursine (Bears)' are generally larger and more warlike than the 'Canine' The Canine have strong senses of discipline and 'pack-work' communication. Though are almost always smaller in stature. The Canine often have a stricter sense of honour than others.
"Feline": The "cats" of the universe, however they are much closer to "cats" than they are to "cat-girls". Prone to larger tracts of open land, and a "hunter" behaviour.
"Hive": The Insects of the Universe. Unfortunately very very dangerous insects. The "hive" types often react poorly to any other species, including other hives, IF they can get past that hurdle they are often excellent source of labour and cheaper materials. But its a big IF. Usually communicates through scent or visual patterns on the carapace.
"Flights": Anything bird/bat/winged-thing-like. These are the once "flighted" creatures, some still can fly. There are three subcategories. "Peaceful" The "seagulls, pidgeons etc" of space, peaceful, often greedy. Massively mercantile. The "Hawks" are hunters, predators and very vicious and war-like. Then there are the "Bats" a category of sneaky underhanded but very polite political animals.
"Bulls": Herbivores of the universe that evolved to sentience. They can either be the passive, peaceful people sort or the raging bull sort. The former can often become the latter if pushed too far. They however usually have a poor agriculture industries or actual industries due to the amount they consume. Always have a high population base however.
"Fish": Fish evolved to technologists. There are many issues with the Scales that aren't resolved. Most are predatory in some fashion or another. As the saying goes. There are no Herbivores in the sea. However they REQUIRE worlds rich in water and life and literally are unable to settle anything else. That they achieved spaceflight OR sentience is a miracle that confuses many. How the hell do you forge metals without fire?
"Lizards": Lizards and Serpents. Usually aggressive and powerful, but low in population and incapable of taking low temperature worlds or worlds without much moisture. While capable of using standard M class terra-compatible worlds they would be happy if you found a Swamp world. Population kept in check by typically eating young.
Totally Alien: This is everything not above. Creatures so alien that the "normal" species can't comprehend their very existence. Ranging from Gas-giant dwelling jellies to the Tentacle monsters of myth. According to common sensibilities these things can't exist. They're too ugly to have that right! Diplomacy with these species is difficult and strenuous war is not an uncommon result of diplomatic attempts. *Nickname depends on appearance*
Population: Each Nation has a population as one would expect. The population levels are dependant on A: The species and B: The number/size of colony ships sent as that group. The population can have positive AND negative effects on how your nation runs and how many worlds it holds. (Species can effect.) Each "player" Chooses a population base while taking their species restrictions into account.
Class 1: Lowest Population Base. Usually under 20 billion people. (Cannot be taken by "Hive" or "Bulls")
Class 2: Second Lowest Population Base: Over 20 Billion, Under 100 Billion. (Cannot be taken by Hive.)
Class 3: Medium Population Base: Between 100 and 200 billion. (Nothing to Note Here)
Class 4: Second Highest Population Base: Between 200 and 250 Billion. (Cannot be taken by Felines)
Class 5: Highest Population Base: Between 250 and 300 Billion. (Cannot be taken by Felines or Lizards)
Class 6: HIVE ONLY: Between 500 Billion and 600 Billion. (Can only be taken by a Hive Species.)
World Classes and Populations. (Each world has an effect on your nation.)
Agricultural World: A world that specialises in farming. A much lower population than an Industrial world. Where an Industry Planet might have Eight Billion to run it an Agricultural World may have 1 Billion. A nation REQUIRES that at least 1/4th of its worlds are Agri-worlds to sustain itself. (Sustain, not grow.) "Bull" species must have a minimum of half their worlds as Agri-worlds to supply the much more massive needs of their population.
Industry World/Forgeworld: A heart of Industry, especially mega-industry. Often has megastructures, artificial rings and shipyards. Each Industry worlds REQUIRED population is dependent on the population "class" of a nation. (Class 1: 5 Billion minimum. Class 2: 10 Billion minimum. Class 3: 20 Billion Minimum. Class 4: 25 Billion. Class 5: 30 Billion Minimum. Class 6: 150 Billion)
Pleasure World: A world of "pleasures" whether it just be art, brothels, a forest of shiny globes that look like a thousand sunsets at once to a heat-visioned alien. In general while there is some industry and agriculture on these worlds they are mostly dedicated to leisure and loving life. These worlds are not required and Cannot be taken by Hive or Serps.
Capital World: This world is the core of your nation. It doesn't have to have the highest of anything and has a degree of everything. Most importantly its the political and cultural, even spiritual, centre of the nation. Every nation must have one EXCEPT Hive nations. Though Capitals often have the highest population.
Research World: A planet where the workforce is dedicated to the pursuits of science and advancement at all costs. These worlds often have relaxed laws concerning research and activities.
Hunting Preserve/Training Planet: A world dedicated to a species training methods, originally concepted by a feline species as a method of training its recruits and young in proper hunting methods it was absorbed as a concept by other races. (Increases training levels of troops that train there)(May only have one per 50 Billion People Anyone with less than 50 billion can still take one.)
**Note: You do not have to detail every world under your control, but this gives you a general idea of what you have option-wise.
TRAIT SYSTEM:
Each Nation can choose a single trait from each category below. And four extra traits to spend on any category except for Hyper-Technology and History. For each flaw you take you can take an extra trait.
Some Traits can stack, those that cannot will have an * at the start of the name.
National Traits:
GETTING HUGE!: Your nation has a serious skyscraper, monument and battleship fetish and likes to build big. BIG. BIG.
The Mossad: What you know, I know.
Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti: We have not managed to gather any information on this trait. (KGB)
*Implausibly Efficient Government: Your bureaucrats cut through red tape with machetes.
Fair Dinkum: Your state has a rep as a straight shooter (metaphorically) and an honest dealer (literally).
The only Party in town: The government controls everything. Including you. Especially you.
Free Market Boomtown: The nice thing about a corporate state is there's profits for everyone. The not so nice thing is that you have to go back to your cubicle now.
Industrial Heartland: Tank factories stretch to the horizon and shipyards fill the night sky with waste light.
*New Hollywood: A cultural centre of the galaxy. Everyone who's anyone has made their fame here.
Who Cares About Uzbekistan: Your polity is simply not on the galactic radar and thus avoids a lot of the Bad Shit that can go down. . .
Party Please: Your diplomats are just so good-natured or know so many skeleton-filled closets that they can get into strategically useful alliances much easier than others. Of course, then you need to live up to what you signed . . .
*Cargo Cultist: If freighters were warships, you'd blot out the stars with your fleet. You still do, but there's less gunfire involved.
Load-Bearing State: You remember all those times you beat up a boss and suddenly the castle collapsed? Well, you're kind of like that to the galactic economy.
Population Traits:
*Loyalty: A populace that through some reason or another is loyal to its government, through fear or "cookie day" it doesn't matter, these people are loyal.
*Hive: Through technological, psionic or even natural means these people share a hive-mind. (A hive automatically has this Trait) This makes infiltration almost impossible.
Man-Machine Interface: Thought the looking glass of circuitry and neurons into the uncharted territories of bioelectronic convergence.
Newtypes: The next stage in human evolution; the peak of human mental performance and acuity. (Larger Psionics Population)
SPACE MARINES!: Your people are physically superior specimens, with buff bodies and quick hands.
Cyberize!: Physical cybernetic modifications are rampant in your population. Not limited by mere biology like SPACE MARINES! but likewise not inherent just by being born. Sucks to be a copper.
Heroic Age: Your people see themselves as Spartan Heroes, not Persian Generals. Shame the Spartans made poor civilians . . .
Flag-Wavers: It doesn't matter what you do, you'll always win the elections. You must choose something particularly dear to your population that they wave flags about.
Eureka!: The desire to take things apart and figure out how they work runs deep in your people's blood.
Hard Workers: Your people really roll up their sleeves and work.
Stupidly Brave: Nobody would think of calling your people cowards.
Tough as a Coffin Nail: Your people are just ridiculously tough and can survive true environmental extremes. Requires SPACE MARINES!, Cyberize
Plain Jane: You get one additional National trait, but cannot choose any other Population Trait.
Military Traits:
High Speed, Low Drag: Hit and Run. Really quickly.
Tortoise and the Hare: Slow, steady and durable wins the race.
Network-Paradigm Processor: Communism in warfare? Unheard of!
Battleships!: You've got a lot more battleships than most people. Also comes in other variants. (You could take is "Carriers!" or "Destroyers!" or "Super-Capitals!" potentially)
*Armament De-Regulation: Who puts 16" guns on freighters? You do!
Army General Staff: Your focus is mostly on taking and holding ground with troops, be that planets, space stations or hostile warships.
*Awesome Training: This trait is only worth one, but costs two because people are munchkins.
Death Spiraller: Why buy ten fighters when you can buy one five times as good?
Knife in the Back: You prefer the silence of a SPF strike to the brutishness of a battle line bombardment.
*Strategic Weapons Stockpiler: You put the Strategic Air Command to shame.
Ninja Space pirate: Arr matey! You'll never escape our pirate U-Boats!
Dispersed Operations: All spaceships can go quite a while without resupply and operate without fleets. Yours are optimized for this.
Space Trenches: If it was possible to dig holes in space-time to provide cover for your battleships, you'd do so.
A Penny Saved: Just because a cruiser is two generations behind the state of the art doesn't mean its useless!
Main Guns!: The age of the battleship is back with a vengeance, this time with spinally-mounted cannons for all.
Technical Traits:
*Mechanical Monstrosities: Who needs fighters when you can have giant robots!
Biowanker: Instead of heavy metal, your engineers have gone down the path of biotechnology.
Nanowanker: You have access to economically useful amounts of nanotechnology.
On The Run!: Most people don't strap engines to factories and cram them into carriers. Most people.
Stealth Obsessed: Most people engineer a bit of stealth cladding into their warships. You use it for internal decking.
Flash: Your stuff just has that extra polish that makes it look cooler than everyone else's inferior-looking, blockily-functional equipment.
Plug'n'Play: Modularity is a virtue, so your engineers claim.
Ghost in the Machine: People are a hindrance, so you use machinery as much as possible.
Nazi Superscience: A role for every machine and a machine for every role.
Better Than Your {Keyword}: Don't apply this too broadly or I'll smack you, otherwise it's exactly what it implies.
Hangerize!: Fighters and Mecha are cool (or just an overly important part of your doctrines) so you stick them in everything you can. This provides strike/superiority ability in addition to the usual utility-craft hangars.
Off-The-Shelf Technology: You get one additional Bonus trait, but cannot choose any other Technical Trait.
Historical Traits: (MUST take ONE ONLY)
Warlike: Your History is filled with bloodshed, violence and the genocide of millions, at your own hands or against you. The point is you won’t back down if you don’t have to.
Diplomatic: You have more skill with diplomacy than most species and consider war to be a final option after all others have been exhausted. Fortunately you’ve kept your records better than others and suffer no diplomatic penalties with different species.
Commercial: A long history of commercial profit and trade fills your peoples lessons as children. Your people don’t learn how Aravais defeated the Chonomeri in a great battle but how Elan robbed Geddas of every last coin in exchange for a drink of water in the desert to survive.
Exodites: You people have been persecuted and hated and they have adapted and learnt to move quickly in short spans of time. If you were to ever evacuate a world it would take a tenth the time of a non-exodite.
In Armour Clad: Your people value defence, shields and armour above diplomacy, strategic weapons and other minor concerns. After all what good are their weapons if they cannot harm you?
Hyper-technology: (Must take ONE)
Gravity-Wave Weapons: With a wave of compressed space, one can penetrate standard shielding. Size, complexity and cost ensures that these weapons are rarely seen .
Reactionless Motors: Solid-state energy-to-motion converters, reactionless motors let the equipped ship accelerate without the need for reaction mass or obvious thruster flares. However they are no more inherently stealthy if one knows what to look for.
Reaper Drive: A modified and downscaled wormhole drive, Reaper drives allow the equipped vehicle to make a linear “Spacetime Reap” between two points by folding space between the start and end points. This makes travel instant, but takes time to recharge after use.
PSI Lens: With better understanding of psionic abilities it eventually became possible to construct amplifiers for said abilities. These allowed mental abilities to be massively upscaled.
Cloaking Devices: Varying degrees of stealth are commonly built into most warships, but true cloaking devices are much less common. Fairly delicate and temperamental they need to be properly integrated into whatever is meant to be cloaked, adding to cost significantly.
Advanced Biotechnology: Some polities have taken the sciences of life to its endpoints and gained the ability to breed living structures and starships. While not as efficient as more conventional ships they do have their advantages.
Dark-matter Technologies: Unique and near impossible to replicate by a nation without the Dark-matter technologies are advanced, very very advanced, weapons and shields. They work on little-known principles.
Advanced Anti-matter Technologies: Relatively easy to produce Anti-matter is usually extremely unstable and hard to store and use, as such they are utterly forbidden to anyone without Advanced A-matter tech. This allows it to be manufactured, stored and used relatively safely. Just hope someone doesn’t shoot containment.
Relativistic Weapons: Projectile weaponry fired past 15% of lightspeed. Incredible levels of damage and destruction are capable.
Field Control: The Manipulation of energy fields to achieve unique and hard to replicate results. (Disruption Fields, gravity fluxes, personal "gravity chutes" etc)
*More can be added at request.*
Faults/Weaknesses: (Each Fault, Weakness or Flaw allows you to take one more trait EXCEPT for Historical or Hyper-Advanced.)
Honourable to a fault: Your strategies will never rely on surprise or deception, your ships are painted bright shiny silver and your admirals will always give a speech to the enemy before battle.
Creaky Military: The military is under-budgeted, under-equipped and underfed. Kind of like the Russian fleet circa 1995. You simply don't have much in the way of a military. This flaw hits hard enough to provide two (2) bonus traits.
There Is No Internet: Your computers and electronics are like 2000s vintage. This sucks.
Third World: Even in the future, the third world is not known for technological superiority. While not as horrible as There Is No Internet, it's far more broad-based. Kiss your shields and artificial gravity good-bye for everything but the flagship.
Soylent Green Is People!: You have a giant elephant-sized skeleton in your closet. (You must describe this big nasty secret. Though only your nation knows it and even the best spies would have difficulty finding it.
Government Red Tape: This request cannot be processed at this time. Please take a number.
*Cult Of {Keyword}: All Hail Xenu!
*Hilariously Fail: Someone - a lot of someones - doesn't have much going on upstairs. Unfortunately they're disproportionately represented in your government and military.
Public Outcry: Your people have deep and strong opinions on some issues you'd really rather they didn't.
Wimpy: Maybe they're a low-gravity race or just didn't drink milk when growing up. No matter the cause, your people are short, skinny and weak. This is a bigger disadvantage than it sounds, as your fighter pilots will not be able to handle nearly as many Gs and your ships will likewise be relatively sluggish.
Paranoia!: In a universe full of planet-destroying aliens, a healthy dose of paranoia is only natural. It might make diplomacy difficult but at least they won't sneak up on you!
Trade Dependent: Exactly what it says. A good example is a Mars-like world that must import significant food to feed its populace or a civilization that focuses completely on outside trade for their gross income.
*Psychic Nulls: Something in the (recent?) past has eliminated any trace of psychic ability from your population, probably botched genetic tinkering. While this doesn't affect their quality of life, it does mean that you're an open book to any telepath and probably find neural interfaces difficult to use.
The following is OPTIONAL information, but may be required later if things get ridiculous.
Militaries: Fleets
Not surprisingly, fleets are the dominant way of enforcing one's will on another - or avoiding having another's will enforced on oneself. While ultimately warships cannot take or hold ground and thus rely on the armies to do so, they can still dominate the spaceways and render an unprepared planet helpless.
Building a Fleet
In this RP there is no set naval organization, but in general usage ships are split between a few types; Super Capital ships, Capital Ships, Frigates, and Fighters. Super-Capital ships mass at least a million tons, Capital Ships 70,000 to 800,000, Frigates up to 60,000 tons, and Fighters up to 100 tons.
The typical size ranges are listed below, in metric tons. Numbers in brackets are the average size.. (k=thousand, so 100k = 100’000 metric tons.)
Note that carriers generally carry approximately 50 Squadrons at 150kT, 75 at 200kT and 100 at 250kT, typically with a few additional craft for support roles. (Light, Medium and Heavy Aerospace)
As a baseline, each nation's fleet has 50 MILLION registered tons per Industrial World. (Nations without an Industrial world have a mere 10 Million Tons.
Fleets may not start with more than one Super Capital, unless they have GETTING HUGE in which case they have no limits on number of Super Capital hulls beyond that imposed by the rule below.
- In no case may a fleet register more than 40% of its tonnage to capital + super ships, as escort ships are too useful and too in demand to be neglected.
- Combat aerospace craft count against the registered tonnage limits for capital ships if they are embarked on a capital/super ship; in effect they add to the actual tonnage of the carrier. The exception to this is Hangerize!, which makes all combat aerospace craft count against escort, not capital tonnage.
- Apply flat increases/decreases first, them apply any percentage modifiers. All divisors are added to a base of 1, thus a divisor of 0.5 actually means 'divide by 1.5'.
- GETTING HUGE, Battleships!, Carriers! or Destroyers! apply a 0.5/level divisor to the appropriate ship type's Registered Tonnage. Thus a power with Battleships! would pay 2 Registered Tons for every 3 tons of battleships in its fleet, while one with Battleships! II would pay 1 Registered Ton for every 2 tons of battleships. Note that Destroyers! applies to all escorts that do not carry combat aerospace craft.
- Death Spiralled militaries multiply the RT cost of all units by 4 but all units are Category X quality. Yes, this means that they only start with an effective 12.5 million tons of warships.
- Biowanker get a 0.5 divisor/level to all Registered Tonnages, to represent their ships being individually less effective by weight but overall easier to manufacture (or, to be more accurate, grow).
- Polities that engage in Knives In The Back and Ninja Spacepiracy are less fond of using large warships and thus may only start with 20% of their fleet as capital/Super Capitals.
- Implausibly Efficient Governments and Free Market Boomtowns add 1 million Registered Tons per level to the fleet registry due to more efficient use of resources and/or more resources available overall. (Per Industry World)
- Nanowankers add 0.5 million Registered Tons to the fleet registry or 2 million if you are also Death Spirallers thanks to the ease of manufacturing precision components with nanotechnology.
- Hard Workers and Industrial Heartlands add 5 million Registered Tons per level to the fleet registry due to economic over productivity and also get a bonus to productivity. (Per Industry world)
- Third World fleets get 50% extra Registered Tons in Surplus Cast-Offs (Category C)
- Militaries who have A Penny Saved get an extra 50% Registered Tons in Category B units.
- Creaky Militaries eliminate half of your final tonnage (ouch!).
Advanced and Reserve units (Space Only)
Not all weapons are created equal. This is particularly acute during times of rapid technological innovation or rapid military build-up (the latter being far more common in Nyxfall than the former). Within a couple decades what was cutting-edge becomes yesterday's cast-offs. However, just because something is no longer the latest and greatest doesn't mean that it is no longer useful. Many militaries will hold onto expensive equipment such as armoured vehicles, aerospace craft and starships for many years. Training, spares, second-line roles . . . to do all this with continually refreshing equipment would be impossible for even the largest economies.
Category A: Most mainline troops and vessels are Category A. Well-trained and equipped they are the backbone of any nation's military.
Category B: Typically seen as reservists or low-priority formations, Category B troops typically have older equipment. However, it can still be effective in the right situations and can free up more expensive equipment for priority missions.
Category C: There is no argument about the age of this equipment or the skill of the crews. However for less well-off states this is sometimes all that can be fielded in any quantity.
Category X: Few militaries can afford Category X equipment; its effects scale while its cost scale even more rapidly. For most nations this is limited to the most elite formations.
Category EX: The airy heights where cost is no concern, category EX represents the pinnacle of unit power. Few polities have the ability to even construct such superlative equipment; most times they are unique one-offs of unprecedented power.
Ground Forces./Armies.:
Special Traits: (May Choose ONE. Isn’t Required.)
Horde: Infantry rush. Can take 80% of allocation as Infantry.
Tankers: Armoured Cavalry. Can take 40% of allocation as Armour
Its Raining Death: Your Artillery block the skies… with explosions. Can take 40% of Allocation as Artillery
Your Shield Generators Are Ready: Your support pieces are plentiful and effective. Can take 30% of Allocation as support.
Your Walls are Thick: Shields and Thick walls protect your cityscapes. Can take 60% of Allocation as Structure
Our Planes shall fill the skies!: Planes, Bombers and Aircraft are plentiful. Can take 30% of Allocation as Air Force.
You Armies and Ground Forces are the ones that have to take the worlds of your enemies should you choose to do so, or worse. Defend them!
Ones Military on a planet consists of several Items. Each planet has 10% of its population as a dedicated military force, this can be upped to 50% in special Circumstances.
Restrictions/Bonuses:
The History trait “Diplomatic” halves the available military forces where “Warlike” doubles it. (E.g., a world with 1 billion people will have 100 million normally as its military, a Diplomatic nation would have 50 million and a warlike nation 200 million.
The History trait “In Armour Clad” gives your nation an extra two million of support and artillery each.
Now an Army may be allocated as stated here. You may come to a total of 100%.
40% Infantry.
20% Armour.
20% Artillery.
10% Support.
30% Structure.
10% Air Force.
EXAMPLE: The example above leaves a standard nation with 100 million men to allocate. Here it is allocated as shown by its owner..
30% Infantry = 30 Million Men.
20% Armour = 20 Million Men.
20% Artillery = 20 Million Men
10% Support = 10 Million Men
10% Structure = 10 Million Men
10% Air Force = 10 Million Men.
Total = 100 Million Men.
You then use your “men” to purchase units. The “Cost” includes support personnel and the equipment to maintain and run the “men”
Infantry.
Conscript Regiments: 10’000 Men with basic weapons and next to no training. (Cost: 12’000 Men.)
Infantry Regiment: 4’000 Men with standard Training and equipment. (Cost: 5’000 Men.)
Elite Guard: 2’500 Men with excellent training and equipment. (Cost: 3’000 Men.)
Shock Troopers: 2’000 Men with Excellent Training and equipment, specialise in dropping behind enemy lines. (Cost 3’000 Men)
Cybernetic Infantry: 4’000 Men with Great Training and Great Weapons and Cybernetic enhancement. (Costs 6’000 Men) (Requires Cyberize!)
Space Marines: 4’000 Men with Great Training, Great Equipment and Genetic Super-Enhancement. (Costs 6’000 Men) (Requires Space Marines!)
Ubermensch: 2’000 Men with Incredible Training and Incredible weapons. Cybernetically and Genetically enhanced. (Costs 5’000 Men) (Requires “Tough as Coffin Nails”)
Mechanized Infantry: 1’200 Men. 100 Ten man squads and 100 Vehicles controlled by 2 Men each. Theses are your fast hitting infantry with some basic heavy weapons. (Costs 4’000 Men)
Psionic Infantry: 50 Men. Use their psionic abilities to try and interfere with the enemy while gathering intelligence. (Costs 1’000 Men)(Requires Newtypes)
Networked Infantry Regiment (Modification): Uses any of the above regiments but doubles the cost. (Does not increase number of soldiers in unit, just cost. (REQUIRES Network Paradigm Processor)
Armour. (Tanks can be taken in a “Mech” version.)(NOTE: Only the Crew itself is ever present at a battle (unless defending) the rest are support personnel that wait behind the lines to take care of the vehicles under their care.)
Light Tank Regiment: 2’000 Tanks with light guns. (Anti-infantry or anti-armour.) Effective in numbers but outweighed by heavier tanks. (Costs 10’000 Men. *3 Crew, 2 Mechanics each*)
Medium Tank Regiment: 1’500 Tanks with medium firepower. Are your “average” armoured cavalry. (Costs 7’500 Men. *3 Crew, 2 Mechanics Each*)
Heavy Tank Regiment: 1’000 Heavy Tanks. (Anti-infantry or anti-armour.) Effective at most roles but slower than Medium or Light Armour. (Costs 8’000 Men *5 Crew, 2 Mechanics, 1 Systems Management.)
Super-Heavy Tank Regiment: 100 Of the Heaviest “average” Tanks. (Anti-infantry or anti-armour.) Effective at Killing men or tanks regardless of its weapons. (Costs 2’000 Men *12 Crew, 6 Mechanics 2 Systems Management.)
Gigadeath Tank Regiment: 10 of the Heaviest Tracked vehicles ever conceived. Each one is a match for 100 Medium tanks with ease. Almost always shielded. (Costs 1’000 Men *40 Crew, 20 Mechanics, 20 Systems Management, 20 Electronics Warfare Management*) (Requires “Getting Huge!”)
Super Gigadeath Tank: The Heaviest Vehicle Known to exist on the ground. (Costs 1’000 Men *400 Crew, 200 Mechanics, 200 Systems Management, 200 Electronics Warfare Management*) (Requires “Getting Huge!”) It is the direct equal to an entire Regiment of Gigadeath Tanks.
Networked Tank Regiment (Modification): Uses any of the above regiments but adds 1 Man to the cost of each piece. Adds *1 Network Specialist* to each vehicle.. (REQUIRES Network Paradigm Processor)
Artillery:
Mortar Regiment: 2’000 Suitably sci-fi man-portable Mortar-like units. (Costs 4’000 Men, two men to each mortar.) (It doesn’t have to be a mortar, just semi-short ranged and carried by men.)
Heavy Mortar Regiment: 500 Mortar-like Carrying Vehicles. (Costs 2’000 Men, *Crew 3, Mechanic 1*)
Light Artillery Regiment: 2’000 Non-mobile Artillery pieces. (Have to be towed.) (Costs 6’000 Men *Crew 3*)
Medium Artillery Regiment: 1’500 Non-Mobile Artillery Pieces. (Have to be towed.) (Costs 4’500 Men. *Crew 3*)
Mobile Artillery Regiment: 1’000 Mobile Medium Artillery Pieces. (Costs 5’000 Men. *Crew 3, Mechanics 2*)
Super-Heavy Artillery Piece: 10 Mobile Artillery Piece. Super-heavy with high firepower. (Cost 1’000 Men *60 Crew, 20 Mechanics, 20 Engineers, 20 Systems Management.*)
Rocket Battery Regiment: 500 Multiple Rocket Launching System Vehicles. (Cost 2’000 Men *Crew 3, Mechanics 1*)
Networked Artillery Regiment (Modification): Uses any of the above regiments but adds 1 Man to the cost of each piece. Adds *1 Network Specialist* to each vehicle or artillery piece. (REQUIRES Network Paradigm Processor)
Support: All support unit personnel remains with their vehicle.
Anti-Air Artillery Regiment: 2’000 Mobile Vehicles with Railguns or Beam weapons configured and designed for anti-air work. (Cost 6’000 Men. *Crew 2, Mechanic 1*)
Anti-Air Missile Battery Regiment: 2’000 Mobile Vehicles with Anti-Aircraft Missiles. (Cost 8’000 Men *Crew 3, Mechanic 1*)
Light Shield Battery: 1’500 Shield Projector Vehicles. (Cost 9’000 Men *5 Crew, 1 Mechanic*)
Medium Shield Battery: 1’000 Shield Projector Vehicles. (Cost 8’000 Men *6 Crew, 1 Mechanic, 1 Systems Management*)
Heavy Shield Battery: 500 Shield Projector Vehicles. (Cost 8’000 Men *10 Crew, 2 Mechanics, 4 Systems Management*)
Light Transport Regiment: 1’000 Unarmoured and unarmed Trucks for transporting men and supplies. (Costs 2’000 Men *Crew 2*) NOTE: Crew doubles as mechanics. (Trans Capacity 10 Men)
Medium Transport Regiment: 1’000 Armoured Transport Vehicles, unarmed. (Costs 4’000 Men *Crew 2, Mechanics 2) (Trans Capacity 8 Men) (Mechanics do not remain with vehicle.)
Supply Battalion: 20’000 Men dedicated to feeding and supplying up to 4 Million Men. (Costs 20’000 Men, 50% Cooks 50% Supply) (NOTE: Critical! For Offensive Force, A Defensive force can conscript if required enough to do this role.)
Radar/Sensor: 1’000 Vehicles Designed to provide portable Sensor/Radar coverage. (Costs 10’000 Men *Crew 4, Mechanics 1, Systems Management 5.*)
Networked Support Regiment (Modification): Uses any of the above regiments but adds 1 Man to the cost of each piece. Adds *1 Network Specialist* to each vehicle. (REQUIRES Network Paradigm Processor)
Structure.
Wall: Each City can be surrounded by a combined wall/shield. (Costs 500 Thousand men Per Wall. *Maintenance and repair.*)
Fortress: A well defended and shielded structure armed to the teeth. (Cost 10’000 Men.)
Super-Fortress: Even Better build and with shields capable of repelling Orbital bombardment for a time. (Cost 150’000 Men)
Theatre Shield: A facility that provides a shield 2’000 Kilometres wide protecting against Orbital Bombardment and attack from Orbitally launched craft. Is also Walled. (Costs 500’000 Men) (Cannot be within a city due to the size of the structure. *Very very big.*)
Planetary Shield: A Colossal “paired” facility that provides planet-wide shield against Orbital Bombardment and attack from Orbitally launched craft. Both Facilities are Walled. You can have a maximum of 4 Planetary Shields. (4 = Almost impenetrable.)(Cost 4 Million Men per paired facility)
Sensor Network. Planet-wide sensor network, imperfect multiple sensor networks increase reliability and coverage. Maximum of 10. (Cost 500’000 Men. *Each Structure has 1’000 Men*)
Planetary Network Coverage: (Maximum: 1) Networks all your networkable units and regiments present on a planet with one allowing a general on the other side of the planet to co-ordinate the whole worlds defence down to each individual soldier with a networking upgrade. (Costs 600’000 Men *Each ‘Network Hub* is run by 1’000 Men) (REQUIRES Network Paradigm Processor)
Air Force. Each Group has 10 “Wings” each “Wing” has 4 Squadrons, each Squadron has 12 craft.
Interceptor Group: 480 Interceptors. Each Interceptor is equipped to intercept enemy bombers, they are very fast and sleek but not very nimble. (Costs 3’000 Men *1 Pilot, 4 Mechanics, 1 Systems Management {Tower control}* 120 Miscellaneous Personnel)
Fighter Group: 480 Fighters designed as an all-purpose craft to hunt and kill enemy aircraft of any type. Fast, sleek and nimble with decent weaponry. (Costs 3’000 Men *1 Pilot, 4 Mechanics, 1 Systems Management {Tower control}* 120 Miscellaneous Personnel)
Heavy Fighter Group: 480 Heavy Fighters designed to kill anything that enters their range and doesn’t flash their IFF. Fitted with light shields. (Costs 3’500 Men *2 Pilots {Pilot/Gunner}, 4 Mechanics, 1 Systems Management {Tower Control}* 140 Miscellaneous Personnel)
Ground Attack Group: 480 Fighters designed as a ground attack craft to strafe enemy ground forces.. Heavily armoured, heavily armed, low speed. (Costs 3’000 Men *1 Pilot, 4 Mechanics, 1 Systems Management {Tower control}* 120 Miscellaneous Personnel)
Bomber Group: 480 Bombers designed to destroy enemy ground formations and troops. (Costs 3’500 Men *1 Pilot, 1 Munitions Handler, 4 Mechanics, 1 Systems Management {Tower Control}* 140 Miscellaneous Personnel)
Heavy Bomber Group: 480 Heavy Bombers designed to wipe out enemy formations, structures and if lucky super-heavy vehicles. (Cost: 10’000 Men *10 Crew, 4 Mechanics, 5 Munitions Management, 1 System Management (Tower Control)* 400 Miscellaneous Personnel.)
Strategic Bomber Wing: 48 of the Super-Heavy strategic bombers. These drop the strategic bombs like Nukes. (Cost 5’000 *Crew 20: Support 20* Miscellaneous Personnel 200)
Networked Air Force Regiment (Modification): Uses any of the above regiments but adds 1 Man to the cost of each piece. Adds *1 Network Specialist* to each Aircraft. (REQUIRES Network Paradigm Processor)