Turn 7 - Technology and ArmiesTechnologyTechnologies will now be operating under
the new system outlined at the end of turn 6. As the last vestige of the old system, all players will unlock lasers (small, medium, and large) in turn 7.
For the first turn, I'll go through this in a bit more detail than normal, to show you all how it works. Each billion gets you a roll of a 12-sided die. Rolls of 4-12 are failures. Rolls of 1 get you the first un-researched tech, rolls of 2 get you the second un-researched tech, and rolls of 3 get you the third un-researched tech.
As the Capellans specified $1B for research without specifying the field, I'm assuming they'll put it into strengthening, since that seems to be the fan favourite this turn. The FWL said 2/5/3, so I'll assume that's in the same M/S/A order as the tech sheet.
MiniaturizationTechs: AC/10, PPC, AC/20. (Note that anyone who rolls AC/20 will receive AC/10 instead, as it's a prerequisite)
Terrans: $5B. Rolls = 2, 3, 11, 9, 3. Gain
PPCs.
Draconis: $2B. Rolls = 6, 10. No tech.
FedSuns: $5B. Rolls = 4, 11, 2, 1, 12. Gain
AC/10.
Capellans: Nil.
Free Worlds: $2B. Rolls = 1, 6. Gain
AC/10.
Lyrans: $1B. Roll = 9. No tech.
Rim Worlds: $1B. Roll = 5. No tech.
Taurians: Nil.
Marians: Nil.
United Hindus: $1B. Roll = 3. Gain
AC/10 (would be AC/20, but prerequisite not met).
Next turn, spreading by adjacency will give the five Great Houses a free 25% shot at PPCs, and everyone except the RWR will get a free 25% shot at AC/10s.
StrengtheningTechs: Improved Ferro-Aluminum Armour, Binary Laser("Blazer") Cannon, Castles Brian
Terrans: $5B. Rolls = 6, 1, 2, 6, 8. Gain
Improved Ferro-Aluminum.
Draconis: $6B. Rolls = 9, 2, 7, 5, 9, 8. Gain
Blazer. (Dracs seem to love themselves some lasers this game.)
FedSuns: $5B. Rolls = 9, 12, 4, 12, 12. No tech.
Capellans: $1B. Roll = 6. No tech.
Free Worlds: $5B. Rolls = 10, 3, 10, 3. Gain
Castles Brian.
Lyrans: $4B. Rolls = 4, 5, 10, 12. No tech.
Rim Worlds: $2B. Rolls = 7, 9. No tech.
Taurians: Nil.
Marians: Nil.
United Hindus: $1B. Roll = 6. No tech.
Next turn, spreading by adjacency will give the five Great Houses a free 25% shot at IFA, the TH/FS/LC a free 25% shot at Blazers, and the TH/CC/LC/MH a free 25% shot at Castles Brian.
AdvancementTechs: Mechs, Naval Gauss, Lithium-Fusion Battery
Terrans: $5B. Rolls = 2, 8, 3, 9, 8. Gain
Naval Gauss.
Draconis: $2B. Rolls = 1, 1. Gain
Mechs.
FedSuns: $5B. Rolls = 10, 8, 10, 7, 8. No tech.
Capellans: Nil.
Free Worlds: $3B. Rolls = 3, 10, 2. Gain
Naval Gauss.
Lyrans: $4B. Rolls = 6, 5, 11, 12. No tech.
Rim Worlds: $2B. Rolls = 5, 9. No tech.
Taurians: $1B. Roll = 8. No tech.
Marians: Nil.
United Hindus: $1B. Roll = 5. No tech.
Next turn, spreading by adjacency will give the four remaining Great Houses and the MH a free 25% shot at NGauss, and the TH/FS/LC a free 25% shot at Mechs.
Castles BrianWith Castles Brian entering the game, I'm going to digress into rules on them. I tried making a few by canon rules, but they were odd beasts. A 15 level deep, 1 hex wide CB with the maximum construction factor has 450 capital HP, and can mount somewhere close to 20,000 tons of capital weapons, which seems passable enough...but it costs $36B before you actually mount anything. That's simply not workable. There are slightly cheaper ways to build them, but not cheaper enough to justify the cost in any plausible setting. So, I'm just going to ignore the rules regarding building costs and say by fiat that a typical CB structure has stats like that, but costs a mere $1B. Because the most useful targets for gameplay(i.e., shipyards) are in orbit, and capital weapons don't have ranges long enough to protect anything in geostationary orbit, CBs are more useful as deterrents than as true fixed defences in the same way as orbital stations are. They're still good for protecting ground targets, and for denying orbital bombardment in the protected areas, however.
A CB will cost $1B to purchase, not $5B the way I originally outlined, because I don't think anyone would spend $5B. The weapon load will be 4x HNPPC, 24x AR-10 (with effectively unlimited ammo for most purposes), 100 of the latest Mech-sized defensive weapons, 100 of the latest PD weapons, and sufficient underground storage space to hide a full regiment and keep it fed and operational for a couple months. They'll also be very difficult to detect from orbit(until and unless they open fire), but if they are found, they'll have 300 capital-scale armour, and 150 capital-scale construction factor, which means they'll remain fully operational until they've taken about 350 capital damage, declining rapidly thereafter. Also, as most CBs will be occupied and maintained by an army regiment, they will incur no maintenance costs in their own right.
Note that, per the rules below, armies will buy CBs for you. The Army will protect its own areas of responsibility first(mostly important terrestrial cities and some border strongpoints), so a shipyard planet might have fewer CBs than you'd expect if you just let the Army do it. As such, the Navy can buy its own Castles Brian as well. Same cost, same stats.
ArmiesArmies are being modelled now, under more or less the same rules as specified
in my original post on the topic. Here is the full list of Army units:
Infantry regiment: $100m, combat power 1.
Vehicle regiment: $300m, combat power 2.
Mech regiment: $800m, combat power 3. Unlocked by Mechs technology.
Advanced Mech regiment: $2,500m, combat power 4. Unlocked by Mechs and XL Fusion technology.
Aerospace regiment: $800m, combat power 2, fights in space.
Advanced Aerospace regiment: $2,500m, combat power 3, fights in space. Unlocked by XL Fusion technology.
Small DropShip: $300m, carries 1/12 of a fully supplied regiment.
Medium DropShip: $500m, carries 1/4 of a fully supplied regiment. Unlocked by Medium DropShips technology. (Note that large DS are too unwieldy to land, and so are not used by the Army).
JumpShip: $500m, carries 3 DropShips.
Castle Brian: $1,000m. Unlocked by Castles Brian technology. No maintenance.
HyperPulse Generator: $1,000m. Unlocked by HPG technology. No maintenance.
The Army will always receive the same budget as the Navy. Its budget will be spent first on maintenance, which will always be 10% of the cost base of regiments and DS/JS in service. The remainder will be divided evenly between regular procurement and catch-up procurement.
Regular procurement does not take into account the current level of equipment or losses incurred, and merely tries to keep expanding the army. It will always buy new units in proportion to their target weights. This is intended to make sure that new tech doesn't eat the entire budget - medium DS, in particular, would suck away the whole budget if I wasn't careful.
Catch-up procurement, conversely, tries to figure out where the Army is short of targeted equipment levels, and buy that in particular. This is intended to ensure that losses get replaced, and the Army doesn't just try to work without transport for a century because some knucklehead lost the fleet. The algorithm is a touch complex, but the short version is that it'll try to catch up on individual classes that are under-supplied without going too far over on the total category weights.
In cases of rounding errors, infantry regiments will be added or removed to make up the difference.
The category weights are broken up by dollar value.
- Ground units are 30% of the budget (of which 9% is infantry, 9% is vehicles, 9% is mechs, and 3% is advanced mechs).
- Aero units are 35% of the budget (of which 26.25% is standard aero and 8.75% is advanced aero [i.e., a 3:1 ratio]).
- Transport units are 30% of the budget. There will be twice as much spent on medium DS as small DS, and enough JS will be bought to carry them all.
- Installations are 5% of the budget(of which 3% is Castles Brian and 2% is HPGs).
The Army will still be able to impress civilian DS and JS into transportation roles. However, those civilian units will be totally useless in combat, except as decoys in very extreme situations(at which point they will have no weapons and 1/10 the armour of comparable military craft). The number they can impress is equal to their own numbers, so a nation with 20 JS and 60 DS can get another 20 civilian JS and 60 civilian DS to carry troops. Any losses of civilian vessels will be treated as Army losses instead.
Current Army CompositionsAll players will receive an Army with total value equal to five times their current budget, created by this algorithm. No losses from previous turns have been considered, as all were funded from Navy budgets. The ratios will be a bit different than implied by the other post - more ground forces, less aero and transport - but that just means that they're going light on the things that the Navy can do for them if you so choose. To be clear, this is the composition as of the end of player turns on turn 7 - there will be no additional building this turn, but any losses will be deducted from these values.
Terrans: 6,117 infantry, 2,039 vehicle, 1,785 aero, 2,622 small DropShip, 874 JumpShip (=218.5 regiments carried)
Draconis: 926 infantry, 308 vehicle, 269 aero, 396 small DropShip, 132 JumpShip (=33 regiments carried)
FedSuns: 817 infantry, 271 vehicle, 237 aero, 348 small DropShip, 116 JumpShip (=29 regiments carried)
Capellans: 767 infantry, 258 vehicle, 226 aero, 332 small DropShip, 111 JumpShip (=27.67 regiments carried)
Free Worlds: 845 infantry, 282 vehicle, 246 aero, 362 small DropShip, 121 JumpShip (=30.17 regiments carried)
Lyrans: 884 infantry, 295 vehicle, 258 aero, 379 small DropShip, 126 JumpShip (=31.5 regiments carried)
Rim Worlds: 294 infantry, 100 vehicle, 88 aero, 129 small DropShip, 43 JumpShip (=10.75 regiments carried)
Taurians: 179 infantry, 61 vehicle, 53 aero, 78 small DropShip, 26 JumpShip (=6.5 regiments carried)
Marians: 193 infantry, 63 vehicle, 55 aero, 81 small DropShip, 27 JumpShip (=6.75 regiments carried)
United Hindus: 207 infantry, 68 vehicle, 60 aero, 88 small DropShip, 29 JumpShip (= 7.25 regiments carried)
Transition RulesOn your turn 8, you may choose to transfer any of your accumulated JS, DS, and fighter forces to the Army. 160 fighters will equal one aero regiment, to keep costs equal. The Army will pay all maintenance costs on all transferred units from that point forward. However, there will be no returning these units thereafter - once they're gone, they're gone. This is a transitional rule due to the game rules changing, and will not be available thereafter.
