~-~ The Intergalactic Collision of Entities ~-~

Essentially, this is just a science fiction roleplay with fantasy elements. Ships will fall into regular, modern categories, FTL will be balanced thoroughly- none of that instant-teleport to wherever you want. I've been in the Star Empires reboots, the Andromeda whatevers and all that. Combat is inevitable, and instantly leaving whenever you want just isn't very story-like. Well, let me put in a series of points, rather than just paragraphs of junk.

A) First of all- this takes place in the Milky Way Galaxy, and the Andromeda galaxy. Humans are allowed, but there will be a maximum of three independent nations of man. No exceptions.
B) Second of all- alien races must be balanced. No hyperintelligent brutes that are cunning, fast, and strong, and are quick learners. You can have something that may not necessarily be balanced, but they cannot be perfect. Make it realistic, not overpowered.
C) Third- I don't want any unreasonable actions. If you're human, then you'll likely do anything, but you'll still care about your power which comes from the people- so that means you'll have to be intelligent about this. No declaring war just cause. Declare war because you made a series of accidents that you 'prove' to be someone else's fault, without giving any way for realistic denial. That means politics in the like. So- be intelligent, be realistic, be reasonable. Personal disputes can be carried into the roleplay- you wanna kill someone cause they insulted you in OOC, fine, do whatever- but again, actually make a reason. A rebel group that's rising, perhaps.

D) Ships will fall into traditional rolls, with exceptions for your race. For example, destroyers may have powerful weapons that are more of a special weapon than anything, while having agility, speed, and lighter armor. Battleships and dreadnoughts are heavy-hitting bullet sponges, that are slow brutes. Also be realistic with weaponry- Kinetic weaponry can be dodged, but firing at even higher-than-norm speeds (anti-capitalship railgun speeds being the norm) will take exponentially more energy and equipment. A destroyer will not have the ability to put a slug through an entire heavy ship. They will likely have better effectiveness on shields- while lasers and other instantaneous energy weapons would be less effective against shields, and more effective against armor.

E) FTL will be limited. You can have quite a few types of FTL, sure, go ahead. But make them balanced. You will NOT have an FTL drive that can activate on a moment's notice without any traces to destination or location, or without any apparent cooldown or heat signature. The way I see it, an FTL drive will likely produce very high amounts of heat, while using a great deal of energy. There is a single alternative kind of FTL drive that I will allow, and it's far, FAR better than a normal FTL drive, but is far, FAR more limited, and must be learned from an NPC nation that I'll control. Think of the stuff near the end of The Xenocide by Orson Scott Card.

YOU are supposed to make a unique nation that is technologically and culturally advanced- or not. Most nations will have to be FTL-able, or close to it. I'll only allow maybe two nations that are still pre-FTL, such as the Nouvellians in one of the previous reboots, who were in a WWII-technological era (I think). I'll allow a nation like that for every four or five spaceworthy nations.

Before I elaborate any more than I have already- is anyone interested?
Ships and fleets will not number in the thousands, or the hundreds, even. Rather, a very large fleet would be two dozen ships. Maybe in later stages, it'll get to the point where hundreds and thousands of ships are possible, but right now, I'd rather have people focus more on less kill-all strategy.

Interested

I can dig it.

Tentative interest, I'd like some more info on what we'd actually be doing

Tentative interest, I'd like some more info on what we'd actually be doing

You'd be doing anything. You make a nation, and you do whatever that nation does to advance itself. You can try to form an intergalactic coalition to try and build up political power, be the military-centric war machine, produce goods and ship them to whoever you can find, whatever.

There will be an 'Ancient' race that is an NPC type thing- jump gates leading between the galaxies allow access between the Milky Way and Andromeda. Too far for a regular FTL drive to make, after all.

[generic expression of interest]

Tentative interest.

I suppose I'll make an OOC sometime today or tomorrow, then.

A) First of all- this takes place in the Milky Way Galaxy, and the Andromeda galaxy. Humans are allowed, but there will be a maximum of three independent nations of man. No exceptions.
B) Second of all- alien races must be balanced. No hyperintelligent brutes that are cunning, fast, and strong, and are quick learners. You can have something that may not necessarily be balanced, but they cannot be perfect. Make it realistic, not overpowered.
C) Third- I don't want any unreasonable actions. If you're human, then you'll likely do anything, but you'll still care about your power which comes from the people- so that means you'll have to be intelligent about this. No declaring war just cause. Declare war because you made a series of accidents that you 'prove' to be someone else's fault, without giving any way for realistic denial. That means politics in the like. So- be intelligent, be realistic, be reasonable. Personal disputes can be carried into the roleplay- you wanna kill someone cause they insulted you in OOC, fine, do whatever- but again, actually make a reason. A rebel group that's rising, perhaps.

D) Ships will fall into traditional rolls, with exceptions for your race. For example, destroyers may have powerful weapons that are more of a special weapon than anything, while having agility, speed, and lighter armor. Battleships and dreadnoughts are heavy-hitting bullet sponges, that are slow brutes. Also be realistic with weaponry- Kinetic weaponry can be dodged, but firing at even higher-than-norm speeds (anti-capitalship railgun speeds being the norm) will take exponentially more energy and equipment. A destroyer will not have the ability to put a slug through an entire heavy ship. They will likely have better effectiveness on shields- while lasers and other instantaneous energy weapons would be less effective against shields, and more effective against armor.

E) FTL will be limited. You can have quite a few types of FTL, sure, go ahead. But make them balanced. You will NOT have an FTL drive that can activate on a moment's notice without any traces to destination or location, or without any apparent cooldown or heat signature. The way I see it, an FTL drive will likely produce very high amounts of heat, while using a great deal of energy. There is a single alternative kind of FTL drive that I will allow, and it's far, FAR better than a normal FTL drive, but is far, FAR more limited, and must be learned from an NPC nation that I'll control. Think of the stuff near the end of The Xenocide by Orson Scott Card.

YOU are supposed to make a unique nation that is technologically and culturally advanced- or not. Most nations will have to be FTL-able, or close to it. I'll only allow maybe two nations that are still pre-FTL, such as the Nouvellians in one of the previous reboots, who were in a WWII-technological era (I think). I'll allow a nation like that for every four or five spaceworthy nations.

Before I elaborate any more than I have already- is anyone interested?
Ships and fleets will not number in the thousands, or the hundreds, even. Rather, a very large fleet would be two dozen ships. Maybe in later stages, it'll get to the point where hundreds and thousands of ships are possible, but right now, I'd rather have people focus more on less kill-all strategy.
nation, and you do whatever that nation does to advance itself. You can try to form an intergalactic coalition to try and build up political power, be the military-centric war machine, produce goods and ship them to whoever you can find, whatever.

There will be an 'Ancient' race that is an NPC type thing- jump gates leading between the galaxies allow access between the Milky Way and Andromeda. Too far for a regular FTL drive to make, after all.

Ehm, a number of these limitations and rules are actuallyless reasonable than you'd think. I list them:

Depending on how weapons scale with size and what's reasonable in the setting a destroyer can have as much firepower as a dreadnought...just with less rate of fire, less weapons and other functions sacrificed in order to get that one weapon. Sure, the Dreadnought can mout an even bigger weapon but would it worth it?

Lasers are worse against armor than kinetic penetrators. There are literally orders of magnitudes of a difference, MJ range APFSDS projectile can take out tanks while MW-range lasers aren't even a realistic threat against that much armor (unlesss you are really patient). Although some kind of exotic energy weapon which induces a fission chain-reaction in the target is plausible, albeit it only work against a limited number of materials. actually, unless there's an unique quality to the shields both lasers and kinetic penetrators would strain them about the same. Although typical force fields are more likely to be penetrated by massive projectiles (because they have far more momentum for the same energy).

Dozens of ships barely makes sense for even a single-planet interstellar nation. Realistically given the astronomical distances and number of civilian ships to protect overall you MAY need thousands of ships. unless they can casually cross the galaxy. Or well, overall the number of ships would depend on how fast/convenient is your FTL and how large area they need to patrol. My Morteans with slow warp drives only able to cross a few lightyears a day needed literally thousands of frigates just to keep their 7 star systems covered. If a race could cover the same distance within seconds then they sure can allow to concentrate their forces far better.
Perhaps instead of number or size (baring the true extremes) an aggregate powerlevel should be measured. Having thousands of weak ships against dozens of superfast OP dreadnoughts would measure about the same.

Overall I like the intentions you have for a balanced game where people won't get to powerplay. Thoise are all good ideas and may prevent the inevitable decay of space NRPs we repeatedly experienced.
Depending on how my time allow it I could participate in this game, too.

Tentative interest.

Interested. Willy does raise interesting points though.

@Willy Vereb


Okno.

But I get what you mean- I'd just rather have something that makes it more... tactical. Opening fire with a hodgepodge of everything isn't as effective. A mass driver would be better used first, since it can do more damage to shields faster and better than a laser, but is more likely to miss. Missiles might be better for hitting areas where the armor has been stripped away by a series of lasers, so that it can do more damage, or you can load special armor-penetrating missiles, or something to take out shields.

I'm basing this off of the rather balanced mechanics of both FTL: Faster Than Light, and from World of Warships, because it's more than words. FTL from Fractured Space.

I'm having the kind of thing that this_does_this_better. That way, for example, my Cirrus lightships would have reduced effectiveness against heavily shielded targets- which are likely to high priority targets. It's as much for me as it is for others. Take, for example, the warping/teleporting/jumping of Fractured Space. You can activate at any time, though the cooldown is significant compared to how fast combat progresses. And in Fractured Space, you have to get away and out of range to jump somewhere without taking extra heavy damage. Even the heaviest ship in the game can be quickly destroyed when it activates its jump drive.

FTL would have to be overall, quicker, but during combat, a few minutes' charge could be like hours, and plenty of time to be destroyed.

Combat has always been a problem, because while relying on everyone to just be a good roleplayer, people, including mean, do get a little too competitive. It doesn't turn out to be "what will sound better," it turns out to be, "Who will win."

Putting SOME rules down for that kind of thing means that there is a bit more to go on than just people's word and rough estimation of what should happen.

Dozens of ships rather than thousands is what I want, because I don't want these supermassive nations with hundreds of planets and massive fleets. I'd rather have it so that most systems may have one or two smaller ships, and simply call for help. That way actual strategy takes place, rather than

"I seen an enemy! Ready the 10,000 ship defense fleet!"
"We're attacking! Bringing in another 100,000 ships as reinforcements to the original 50,000!"
"Shit! They have more! Call for reinforcements! Bringing in 150,000 extra ships!"
"Oh dear! They have more ships! Call in for more help from our allies!"
"Crap! They brought in another 200,000 ships from one of their allies! Call for help from OUR allies!"
"Crap! They brought in 150,000 more ships! Quickly, rush them! Our strategic and tactical expertise is no match for them!"
"Crap! They're rushing straight into our guns! Fire everything, blow everything up, call for more reinforcements!"
"Crap! They brought in more ships, call in for more ships, have them all rush in!"

Which is, to be honest, how most battles go.

@Willy Vereb


Okno.

But I get what you mean- I'd just rather have something that makes it more... tactical. Opening fire with a hodgepodge of everything isn't as effective. A mass driver would be better used first, since it can do more damage to shields faster and better than a laser, but is more likely to miss. Missiles might be better for hitting areas where the armor has been stripped away by a series of lasers, so that it can do more damage, or you can load special armor-penetrating missiles, or something to take out shields.

I'm basing this off of the rather balanced mechanics of both FTL: Faster Than Light, and from World of Warships, because it's more than words. FTL from Fractured Space.

I'm having the kind of thing that this_does_this_better. That way, for example, my Cirrus lightships would have reduced effectiveness against heavily shielded targets- which are likely to high priority targets. It's as much for me as it is for others. Take, for example, the warping/teleporting/jumping of Fractured Space. You can activate at any time, though the cooldown is significant compared to how fast combat progresses. And in Fractured Space, you have to get away and out of range to jump somewhere without taking extra heavy damage. Even the heaviest ship in the game can be quickly destroyed when it activates its jump drive.

FTL would have to be overall, quicker, but during combat, a few minutes' charge could be like hours, and plenty of time to be destroyed.

Combat has always been a problem, because while relying on everyone to just be a good roleplayer, people, including mean, do get a little too competitive. It doesn't turn out to be "what will sound better," it turns out to be, "Who will win."

Putting SOME rules down for that kind of thing means that there is a bit more to go on than just people's word and rough estimation of what should happen.

Dozens of ships rather than thousands is what I want, because I don't want these supermassive nations with hundreds of planets and massive fleets. I'd rather have it so that most systems may have one or two smaller ships, and simply call for help. That way actual strategy takes place, rather than

"I seen an enemy! Ready the 10,000 ship defense fleet!"
"We're attacking! Bringing in another 100,000 ships as reinforcements to the original 50,000!"
"Shit! They have more! Call for reinforcements! Bringing in 150,000 extra ships!"
"Oh dear! They have more ships! Call in for more help from our allies!"
"Crap! They brought in another 200,000 ships from one of their allies! Call for help from OUR allies!"
"Crap! They brought in 150,000 more ships! Quickly, rush them! Our strategic and tactical expertise is no match for them!"
"Crap! They're rushing straight into our guns! Fire everything, blow everything up, call for more reinforcements!"
"Crap! They brought in more ships, call in for more ships, have them all rush in!"

Which is, to be honest, how most battles go.

I usually prefer quality over quantity in space fleet games.
Reason why I seemed to always play to cautiously. It's expensive rebuilding a single ship several times.

<Snipped quote by WilsonTurner>

I usually prefer quality over quantity in space fleet games.
Reason why I seemed to always play to cautiously. It's expensive rebuilding a single ship several times.

My point exactly.

I'd rather have people play cautiously because each ship is costly to replace, and leaves up greater risk, rather than just have people throw everything at a problem and just replace all lost without a sweat.

<Snipped quote by Kimiyosis>

My point exactly.

I'd rather have people play cautiously because each ship is costly to replace, and leaves up greater risk, rather than just have people throw everything at a problem and just replace all lost without a sweat.

I like to bring up a phrase we used in a game called "Battle Nations".
"...instead of throwing Mega Tanks and Assassinators until everything goes up in a red mist."

Plodding down some interest.

@WilsonTurnerAlright, I wanted to make a long post about strategies and tactics but it may come off a little insulting.
The long story cut short is that your intentions and proposed rules don't match.
Writing engaging battles is up to the player and their pool of creativity. Weapons and tech limitations almost don't matter.
Same with numbers, I personally can effectively write with any number of ships.
Though because of the influence of LotGH, I prefer playing with large fleets, using formations, flanking an all the other fun tactics you can just barely taste with only a few dozen ships.
There are tons of other issues I can talk about but really there are way too many directions I can approach this thing and it'd only turn into a tl;dr mess.
Let's just say your ideas are based on Hollywood and other popular media instead of level thinking.
If you want to avoid the insane messes space NRPs apparently come down to then you don't need rules, you need action.
When somebody gets lazy and engages in a war of numbers and doesn't even think about where or how these come from, warn him.
It's an effective method, even if admittedly management-intensive.

<Snipped quote by Kimiyosis>

My point exactly.

I'd rather have people play cautiously because each ship is costly to replace, and leaves up greater risk, rather than just have people throw everything at a problem and just replace all lost without a sweat.

That's a misunderstandment of the scale here.
Shall I list how many fighters and ships we produce right now with boorish modern day technology and industry which doesn't involve all the delicious ways to get resources in abdunance?
The setting of most Space NRPs is very much an utopia compared to what we have now.

It's an issue if people get overboard but the cold fact of warfare is that practically everything is repalceable.
It'd hit the nation/civilization's economy and I'd love if players RP that but in effect replacing hundreds of ships in years, months or even days (depending on tech assumptions) is a cold fact with the scale we are all working at.

Even a single-planet civilization is pretty damn huge and can afford plenty of resource or industrial capacity.
Again, it seems to come back to using rules when it should be the responsibility of the GM.

EDIT:
Alright, so a few hard numbers.
- You have a civilization with billions of people.
- You live on a dirt ball with roughly 6 zettatons of mass.
- Assuming the solar system as average you have roughly 4 yottatons of matter to gather, not counting the Sun itself
- You have easy access to devices which generate at least megatons of energy (over thousands of times more than what the entire modern world produces altogether).
- You have ships that are efficient enough and have enough fuel to use these megatons/second or PW range reactors non-stop
- You have ships that not just capable of reaching any of the planets in your star system which each but even travel to other systems.

So yeah, what is really stopping you? I'm not even considering the various tech niceties like matter replicators.
This is more or less the utopia we want and you wonder that civilizations can handle loses in battle?

@WilsonTurnerAlright, I wanted to make a long post about strategies and tactics but it may come off a little insulting.
The long story cut short is that your intentions and proposed rules don't match.
Writing engaging battles is up to the player and their pool of creativity. Weapons and tech limitations almost don't matter.
Same with numbers, I personally can effectively write with any number of ships.
Though because of the influence of LotGH, I prefer playing with large fleets, using formations, flanking an all the other fun tactics you can just barely taste with only a few dozen ships.
There are tons of other issues I can talk about but really there are way too many directions I can approach this thing and it'd only turn into a tl;dr mess.
Let's just say your ideas are based on Hollywood and other popular media instead of level thinking.
If you want to avoid the insane messes space NRPs apparently come down to then you don't need rules, you need action.
When somebody gets lazy and engages in a war of numbers and doesn't even think about where or how these come from, warn him.
It's an effective method, even if admittedly management-intensive.

<Snipped quote by WilsonTurner>That's a misunderstandment of the scale here.
Shall I list how many fighters and ships we produce right now with boorish modern day technology and industry which doesn't involve all the delicious ways to get resources in abdunance?
The setting of most Space NRPs is very much an utopia compared to what we have now.

It's an issue if people get overboard but the cold fact of warfare is that practically everything is repalceable.
It'd hit the nation/civilization's economy and I'd love if players RP that but in effect replacing hundreds of ships in years, months or even days (depending on tech assumptions) is a cold fact with the scale we are all working at.

Even a single-planet civilization is pretty damn huge and can afford plenty of resource or industrial capacity.
Again, it seems to come back to using rules when it should be the responsibility of the GM.

I had basically expressed this entire sentiment to catchamber in the chat, but not raised it as an issue mostly due to me awaiting further development.

Having GM'd quite a number of NRPs before, I can say creating these artificial rules only invites people to break them whether intentionally or not. Letting the shape of the setting develop more organically in the early stages is much more appealing. For example, if the players/GM felt I'd made a fleet to big, and asked me to address it, as a player I'd be more than happy to. Setting out harsh restrictions from the start just insinuates players are either ill-mannered or idiots and sets about a bad tone from the word go. Again this is just my opinion.

I also find the need to classify space vessels in strict naval terms rather contrary. It's a nice analogy to use so we all have a sense of a ships position in a fleet. But restricting them to specific roles assigned to naval vessels which operate essentially in a 2D plane vs the 3D plane of space warfare seems a bit silly.

Tl;dr Have some faith in players apply, approach issues as they arise.

<Snipped quote by Willy Vereb>

I had basically expressed this entire sentiment to catchamber in the chat, but not raised it as an issue mostly due to me awaiting further development.

Having GM'd quite a number of NRPs before, I can say creating these artificial rules only invites people to break them whether intentionally or not. Letting the shape of the setting develop more organically in the early stages is much more appealing. For example, if the players/GM felt I'd made a fleet to big, and asked me to address it, as a player I'd be more than happy to. Setting out harsh restrictions from the start just insinuates players are either ill-mannered or idiots and sets about a bad tone from the word go. Again this is just my opinion.

I don't mind certain limitations, actually.
While space is huge and poor gasp on this is the major gripe in sci-fi NRPs, managing actual extensive galactic powers with millions or billion of star system would just prove Wilson's point.
War becomes nearly meaningless because you can sacrifice thousands of planets and it doesn't bother you the slightest bit.
People in general like if the battles at least have a meaning.

So making player nations relatively small is understandable.
My only problem is that Wilson misunderstands the scele even with these "small" empires.
Even in other NRPs thousands or at times millions of soldiers fight. And these are from the same country or continent.
In WW2 thousands of tanks fought and while replacing them impacted the nation heavily these numbers were eventually replenished.
Space ships are the same. They are just weapons of war and something you must sacrifice to gain something.
Wilson only needs to intervene when somebody tries to BS their way out of the consequences or ignore the tiny but still important factor of time.

I also find the need to classify space vessels in strict naval terms rather contrary. It's a nice analogy to use so we all have a sense of a ships position in a fleet. But restricting them to specific roles assigned to naval vessels which operate essentially in a 2D plane vs the 3D plane of space warfare seems a bit silly.

Tl;dr Have some faith in players apply, approach issues as they arise.

More interestingly aside from maybe the battleships, the role of ship classes changed a ton over the centuries.
The distinction between these changes along with the advances in tech and military doctrines.

Frigates were used to be scout ships and shooting at them was considered a violation in the rules of war (unless the frigate shot first).
Nowadays our heaviest ships for combat are usually the frigates with battleships are pretty much being retired.
Destroyers? They were torpedo ships and while retained some of this role they also double as anti-submarine vessels and the second largest practical type of warship in modern fleets.

Motherships are also a good theoretical example. They launch aircraft so most of their surface are flight decks. But what if aircraft would barely require any space to land or take off? Then the only difference between motherships/carriers and the common warship that the former would spend more internal space to house aircraft.
And what if aircraft can float at only minimal energy expense and follow the mothership? Then only the existence of larger maintenance/resupply facilities is the only difference between the mothership and any other warship. Because there isn't even a need to keep the aircraft within the ship. At this stage the mothership would be just a better armed mobile refuel station.

Technology and the style of combat changes everything.

@Willy Vereb
When I get the OOC setup, do you mind being the co-GM for the reasons you and @Darkmatter brought up? And if not, then @Darkmatter, would you be the co-GM?

The OOC will include everything you've said, btw. But I'm still going with more... restricted fleets. Look at the world today- there aren't more than two dozen aircraft carriers total, in the entire world.

I'll also be including the fact that habitable worlds are rare. Population centers- and therefore, large-scale industry and economics- will be spread out more than usual, and colonies would more common. Planets outside a liquid water zone that don't have an atmosphere, but may be ideal in size and resources, would have to have dozens of terraformers constantly going to keep the planet stable, with a stable global climate. Again, it puts a bit more emphasis on strategy- controlling terraformers means essentially controlling the planet's surface.