Skylar

Sci-fi Colony Defense Council

@Skylar As of right now, most of the population is still being put to labor and just building stuff up.

@ClocktowerEchos

Ok, that works great. Just waiting on your leader profile then.

Just waiting for one more player before we start then.

Sci-fi Colony Defense Council

Okay, now that the guild isn't flaking out on me, I can get to final checks and comments.

@Marquise Faction theme, assets, character, and profile approved. Nice hedonistic transhumans you have.

@Dogematix Faction theme, assets, character, and profile approved. Quite Eudaimondic.

@ClocktowerEchos Very interesting profile and mix of traits and ideology. While a bit more aggressive-minded than I meant for player colonies to be, they do stand as a nice contrast to the other players.

The one little conflict here is that they settled with intent to become a imperialist power, but at game start the player colonies are largely demilitarized and needing to tool-up ASAP in face of the pirate threat with very little off-the-shelf equipment to do so. Maybe in this case they were planning to become space imperialists, but the initial giant pirate attack caught them way ahead of their intended schedule before they meant to begin large-scale militarizing?

Still overall good profile, would approve, just awaiting your faction leader now.

Sci-Fi Colony Defense Council Game Idea (PvE)

OOC is up: roleplayerguild.com/topics/169987-sci…

Sci-fi Colony Defense Council

*Reserved for force profiles*

Sci-fi Colony Defense Council

It is the waning of the Second Space Rush, of the second great diaspora of Mankind from Old Terra and the First Worlds. Of the great rush of the young, the inspired, the hopeful, and the hopeless to escape the stagnation and unthinking order of the Central Authority with the advent of mass-producible hyperlane drives. While the CA initially attempted to control the expansion in the Lockdown War, thousands of new worlds have been settled and explored beyond it's vain attempts at control before internal dissent finally made it bid good riddance to the fools that would leave it's influence and protection.

For many, it is freedom. Freedom to build new societies unimaginable before under the conservative thumb of the CA. Freedom to trade and grow rich without the tight regulations and rules of the First World monopolies. Freedom to do what they wished.....including wage war.

As the time of the Second Space rush comes to a close by the limits of logistics and fuel supply for even the longest-ranged arks, the dangers of freedom are beginning to become evident. With no Star Patrol, piracy and crime has begun to rise with noone to enforce interstellar law beyond the CA. Failed colonies turn to desperation to survive, even preying upon their neighbors for vital technology or even people. Agreements among partner-worlds have begun to collapse with the mysterious disappearance of freighters and colony ships in transit.

The Second Space Rush has ended. The First Frontier War has begun.

On a world far removed from Old Terra called Aio, a collection of settlers and free-thinkers intent upon creating new utopias and societies for themselves have just suffered their first pirate raids upon their defenseless world. With aid unlikely to come from any of the other steadfastly independent worlds, they must face the reality that if they wish to make their future, they must fight to protect it.

* * * * * *

This will be a council-type player vs waves of NPC-enemies NRP where the players are the various leaders of a independent colony world that is about to be put under siege by pirates and hostile neighbors. With no chance of a outside savior or being able to muster a sufficient defense by themselves, the various settlements are forced to form a joint planetary defense force if they are to survive this storm.

Each player can be a leader of a member-settlement of the planet, leading a section of the defenses and resources of the world to stave off invasion and find a way out of this quagmire of war and violence that has engulfed the quadrant.

This will be a stats-lite, narrative-heavy game where every player with have a collection of units and assets they will allocate for every major strategic turn. The strength and effect of those units can be heavily influenced by good roleplaying that can let units push their limits or come up with improvised solutions to challenges.

General aesthetic and tone of the setting is anime-ish soft sci-fi. With stuff like genetic engineering and extensive bodymodding for if you want to play more-than-human cultures, but no true aliens have been discovered yet.

Awaiting four complete and approved profiles before starting.

Faction Profile Sheet

Faction Leader Name:
Appearance: (Description or picture)
Short Bio: (Tell a bit about yourself. Where you came from, Earth or the First Worlds? Why did you leave? What was your plan for your colony prior to the Sack?)
Faction name:
Settlement name: (While your faction may have multiple inhabited areas on the planet, the bulk of your population and infrastructure is still centered around your first city. What is it called?
Colony Theme: Summarize your colony’s founding dream and ideology in a few sentences.
Population Notes: (Human? More-than-human? Talk about your colonial society. Generally colonies that depend upon genemodding and cybernetics are slower to grow due to complexity of augmentation and narrower appeal to immigrants, but make up for it with specialties. General settlement sizes average about a hundred-thousand people before modifiers and critical infrastructure.)

Critical Infrastructure (Besides various civilian habitation and light economic industries and resourcing operations, you have six core pillars of your colonial society, economy, and relevant resources for planetary defense. At the start of the game you have your governing district, a space asset, and four write-in assets of your choice. At the moment none of them are militarized or turned to war-work yet, and if you lose too many your colony will collapse.)
Governing District (Describe a bit about what your center of leadership and administration is like. Architecture, design, purpose, any specialities your administration has achieved so far.)
Space Asset (Your colony has at least one asset in space. This can be a moonbase, a major asteroid mining operation, communication satellites, a group of freighters under direct colonal charter, or other useful things in orbit.)
Write-in Assets (You can devise up to four other major assets that form the core identity and structure of your colony. Must state if ground or space based.)

Sample Critical Infrastructure and benefits:
Heavy Industrial Sector: A district of automated factories and heavy manufacturing power that fabricates everything needed for a growing colonial society. Can be converted to war industry. Space versions tend to be larger and quicker to expand than ground-based ones, but are more exposed in orbit and harder to protect.
Hab-Support Sector: A district turned over to water purifiers, power stations, hospitals, and a dozen other systems for sustaining a large colony. While most colonial habitation has equivalent systems, they are small-scale and may not have enough surplus capacity to fuel war industries or accommodate sudden influxes of refugees or disasters. This district does.
Asteroid Mining Operation: Your colony has a large mining ship dwelling in the asteroid belts drilling for precious ores and fuel elements. While slow and STL-only, it provides a bounty of industrial resources.
Hab-Complex: A high-density habitation complex filled with tens of thousands of people. Manpower is a precious resource on a colonial world to crew factories and man starships, and your colony has a considerable surplus.
Monument: You have a major center of cultural activity, espousing your ideology and brightening your skylines. Cultural output can yield new reasons for immigrants to come to your colony, bringing new ideas, specialists, and people.
Specialized Heavy Industry Complex (X): While generalist fabricators and factories are regularly used, some technology is best made by purpose-made facilities, like starship parts.
Spaceport: While every colony has landing pads and basic air control for receiving shuttles, your colony has a actual space station to accommodate incoming freighters in orbit and support a chain of heavy lifters to move cargos rapidly.
Freighter Shipyard: While simple freighter designs can be built on the surface or assembled in spacelifted prefab modules, larger freighters require dedicated yards in orbit. Your colony has one and it’s a major center of your economy’s industrial power.
Lucrative Consumer Good: Your colony has several factories and facilities dedicated towards a unique and high-value consumer good in high demand. Be it a unique medicine, awesome mediamemes, or useful civil-servobots, you have something you can really trade.

Sci-Fi Colony Defense Council Game Idea (PvE)

Huh, three flavors of cyborg-centric colonies. It fits, given the Central Authority kept some hard limits on the powers and capabilities of transhumans in it's territory as best it could, but yeah may want to vary up Clock. Still glad to see you join and you definitely have the right mindset towards making a interesting colony. Building a Titan is a bit of a stretch though, possible but a very challenging project to undertake when under fire.

I'm going to set up a formal OOC in a bit to try and attract some last interest. Once we have three-four profiles finalized, we can start the game.

Sci-Fi Colony Defense Council Game Idea (PvE)

Just wondering what we know about our neighbors, pre-hostilities breaking out?

@Marquise

At the moment not much besides names and places and short bios on a few immediate neighbors that were relayed from free-trader navigation records. There is no formal courier service among the independent worlds and they are pretty spread out, so any information Aio does have is likely out of date. And there were a lot of independent colonies that went dark, both deliberately and not.

Having a established trade company and freighter convoy that does regular trade to a specific neighbor world is a potential asset pick, with the GM providing some specifics on the returns ad their bio.

Faction Name: Illuminated Ascendancy, commonly known as Luminaries. (SUBJECT TO CHANGE!)

@Marquise

This is edging a bit larger-scale in construction than what the average colonial society would be capable of, but does fit into the kind of resources and tech a Old Terra originated colony with a large automated workforce would be possible of. Very good concept that I approve of so far.

Just to be clear, by "synthetic" what kind of aesthetic and type of synthetic are we talking about? Are vat-grown biosynth clones or robotic androids the majority? Both are viable, but they will influence your available starting units and ability to convert assets to the situation at hand. Extensive automation and low manpower focus will mean you are VERY good at what you are tooled for, but may have trouble adjusting for the unexpected on short notice.

The primary constraint I need to put on your colony is against mass-producible sentient AI. Common industrial taskmaster expert-systems can be cranked out in factory lots, but human-grade sentient AI simply takes a lot of time to program and nurture in this setting. Otherwise having anti-aging drug factories, a hedonism and pop culture district, and a automated mining ship are perfectly viable options that are nicely thought out.

EDIT: One last thing, what is your leader's title?

I'll get cracking on a map soon. A note for peeps wanting to be lower-tech colonies than this: Still a perfectly viable choice.

Sci-Fi Colony Defense Council Game Idea (PvE)

Soto improve morale I assume you can train units/upgrade them? (Like militia quality with whatever hunk of rusted metal they can find or make to elite mechanized infantry with high quality gear?
Also I assume while this rp claims pve it can also be pvp?

@caliban22

Yes you can upgrade and improve units that survive battles. It will generally be easier to train-up militia into regular troops than to try to improve already-elite units. Combat degredation is also a potential factor when casualties mount, your elite unit won't be so elite when they run out of micromissile ammo and their powered armor breaks down.

For the moment I'm locking it to PvE. You don't have the margin to fight invading pirates and your fellow settlement leaders at the same time, and the extrasolar invaders don't make distinctions between landlubbers.

Sci-Fi Colony Defense Council Game Idea (PvE)

Time to talk combat mechanics a bit.

The core assets at your command will be ground and space units to defend Aio and your colonies. Each unit will have a hidden strength stat rating, which will be reflected in their description of morale and combat skill. But you will not be able to exactly judge how tough a unit is until it breaks, which is not a good thing.

1st Example Battalion
Type: Medium Infantry
Strength: Nominal
Morale: Confident
Quality: Regular
Description: The 1st Examplers are iconic examples of a medium infantry unit. 200 soldiers equipped with pulse-rifles, kineticweave bodyarmor, and a modest assortment of missile launchers and tribarrel-blasters for support weaponry, they can handle a wide range of threats.

(This unit is in good condition and can fight respectably well against light, medium, or heavy targets to a extent. Still no reason to throw infantry against tanks, but they can muster some response if one does surprise them.)

SDV Redshirt
Type: Space Gunboat
Strength: Limited
Morale: Shaky
Quality: Green, undercrewed
Description: The SDV Redshirt is a older system defense gunboat design taken from a First World's surplus yards, with a single mixed battery of pulse-lasers and grapeshot launchers to protect it's charge. Presently the Redshirt is undercrewed and in new hands, limiting damage control capability, but it still has a full gun crew and can put up a fight against any pirate scrap-ship while the simple design of the gunboat makes it repairable from even civilian spacedocks.

(This unit isn't in good condition and will have trouble trying to survive in combat.)

Pirate Lander
Type: Space Armed Freighter
Strength: Nominal
Morale: Eager to be looting
Quality: Regular
Special: Troop-carrier (Battalion)
Description: A number of pirates start out as mining operations that went wrong and the survivors using their ship to prey on others to survive, others because of the opportunity for quick cash with less labor. Regardless of the origins, they all tend to share a common mentality of stacking a laser battery on a freighter and filling the cargo holds with lifter shuttles to drop swarms of troops and haul back plunder.

(This is an enemy. You kill them. You can receive general intel profiles over time from a various number of potential sources to better plan for incursions)

When a unit hits strength 0 (which tends to mean high casualties, ammunition exhausted, heavy equipment damage), a unit may have a chance to not be destroyed (with a higher chance for highly experienced ground units and spaceships). This leaves the settlement with a choice on whether to invest in rebuilding or to repurpose the remains to patch up another unit or use it for something else (turning remains of a mobile unit into static bunkers, etc)

The units initially available for your selection will depend upon the mix of assets your settlement have, with a selection to be made at the start of the game specific to each settlement's composition of industry-manpower-culture-wealth. Choose your core assets wisely, no one settlement faction can support all core pillars of defense on their own resources.

When combat happens, the players will have a choice of zones to allocate units to based on probable invasion corridors in space and targets in the invader's line of action. During combat rounds, you will receive reports and requests for priority orders as the battle evolves.

Inbetween combat rounds posted by the GM (me), you can write from the perspective of your troops to illustrate their actions and going above the call of duty to fight for victory (or just their own survival against the odds). Good collaborative roleplay between multiple players can counterbalance bad on-paper stats with determined valor, well-laid tactical plans, or cunning jury-rigged solutions.

Inbetween battles, you will have downtime to manage your colonies, gather resources, and seek solutions to your problems and the ongoing threat of pirates and more.

Any questions so far?

Sci-Fi Colony Defense Council Game Idea (PvE)

I too would like to throw my hat into the ring.
I'm up for being either a settlement leader or a major officer depending on what is needed.

@Lone Wanderer

Great to have you aboard! I've decided to have all the players be settlement leaders at this time so everyone is on equal footing to contribute.

Here is the faction profile sheet to fill out:

Faction Leader Name:
Appearance: (Description or picture)
Short Bio: (Tell a bit about yourself. Where you came from, Earth or the First Worlds? Why did you leave? What was your plan for your colony prior to the Sack?)
Faction name:
Settlement name: (While your faction may have multiple inhabited areas on the planet, the bulk of your population and infrastructure is still centered around your first city. What is it called?
Colony Theme: Summarize your colony’s founding dream and ideology in a few sentences.
Population Notes: (Human? More-than-human? Talk about your colonial society. Generally colonies that depend upon genemodding and cybernetics are slower to grow due to complexity of augmentation and narrower appeal to immigrants, but make up for it with specialties. General settlement sizes average about a hundred-thousand people before modifiers and critical infrastructure.)

Critical Infrastructure (Besides various civilian habitation and light economic industries and resourcing operations, you have six core pillars of your colonial society, economy, and relevant resources for planetary defense. At the start of the game you have your governing district, a space asset, and four write-in assets of your choice. At the moment none of them are militarized or turned to war-work yet, and if you lose too many your colony will collapse.)
Governing District (Describe a bit about what your center of leadership and administration is like. Architecture, design, purpose, any specialities your administration has achieved so far.)
Space Asset (Your colony has at least one asset in space. This can be a moonbase, a major asteroid mining operation, communication satellites, a group of freighters under direct colonal charter, or other useful things in orbit.)
Write-in Assets (You can devise up to four other major assets that form the core identity and structure of your colony. Must state if ground or space based.)

Sample Critical Infrastructure and benefits:
Heavy Industrial Sector: A district of automated factories and heavy manufacturing power that fabricates everything needed for a growing colonial society. Can be converted to war industry. Space versions tend to be larger and quicker to expand than ground-based ones, but are more exposed in orbit and harder to protect.
Hab-Support Sector: A district turned over to water purifiers, power stations, hospitals, and a dozen other systems for sustaining a large colony. While most colonial habitation has equivalent systems, they are small-scale and may not have enough surplus capacity to fuel war industries or accommodate sudden influxes of refugees or disasters. This district does.
Asteroid Mining Operation: Your colony has a large mining ship dwelling in the asteroid belts drilling for precious ores and fuel elements. While slow and STL-only, it provides a bounty of industrial resources.
Hab-Complex: A high-density habitation complex filled with tens of thousands of people. Manpower is a precious resource on a colonial world to crew factories and man starships, and your colony has a considerable surplus.
Monument: You have a major center of cultural activity, espousing your ideology and brightening your skylines. Cultural output can yield new reasons for immigrants to come to your colony, bringing new ideas, specialists, and people.
Specialized Heavy Industry Complex (X): While generalist fabricators and factories are regularly used, some technology is best made by purpose-made facilities, like starship parts.
Spaceport: While every colony has landing pads and basic air control for receiving shuttles, your colony has a actual space station to accommodate incoming freighters in orbit and support a chain of heavy lifters to move cargos rapidly.
Freighter Shipyard: While simple freighter designs can be built on the surface or assembled in spacelifted prefab modules, larger freighters require dedicated yards in orbit. Your colony has one and it’s a major center of your economy’s industrial power.
Lucrative Consumer Good: Your colony has several factories and facilities dedicated towards a unique and high-value consumer good in high demand. Be it a unique medicine, awesome mediamemes, or useful civil-servobots, you have something you can really trade.