Hailing frequencies open (Intro & OOC chat)

FYI, htech has posted a general invite for other players to participate in the space battle, temporarily playing other crewmembers. There's still a gunnery position open. I'm happy to take it if no one else is interested, but I thought maybe not everyone had seen it, given that it was in the 4B thread.

Sorry, I can't post today. I will advance the threads tomorrow.

Moving the spaceflight conversation here.

I understand what was said. But it takes 2-3 turns to generate the CP to take an action, assuming the captain doesn't reduce the CP cost?
The only thing that changes this is the captain?

I didn't see anything in Daryen's math that showed anything different?

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Say Engineering has 0CP

Round 1: Gain 1 CP
Round 2: Gain 1 CP
Round 3: Spend 2CP for action

During a single round, all departments can act.

So, during round 1, for example
Engineering: Do your duty, +1 CP
Bridge: Do your duty, +1 CP
Gunnery: Fire one weapon, -2 CP.

Please note that the Gunnery spent the CP that Engineering and Bridge gave them. Moreover, other ships haven't acted between those departments. Its the same round.

After that, suppose that:
Another ship: Fires all weapons, causing 10 damage.

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During round 2:
Gunnery: Do your duty, 1 CP
Comms: Do your duty, 2 CP
Bridge: Do your duty, 3 CP
Engineering: Emergency repairs - 3 CP.

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So, yeah, it takes 3-4 departments to get enough CP. But that's the same round. The CP is owned by the ship, not by Engineering. When Engineering goes above and beyond, the Gunnery can expend that CP. In the next round, when the ship is damaged, the other departments can give Engineering the CP they need. Moreover, the round always begins with 0 CP for the ship, so you can't accumulate that. If the last department in a round doesn’t spend it, it's lost.

Put another way: CP is pooled for the entire ship. So, Gunnery doesn't have its own CP count. Rather the ship as a whole has a CP count, from which Gunnery may take or contribute.

It's a very interesting and collaborative mechanic. I never played with it in PbP yet, here is my first space battle, but it works amazingly in tabletop.

That seems even less good.
How are we supposed to have CP if they're being used by other departments? Do I have to ask permission for others not to take actions and generate CP so I can?
Is it supposed to be alternating which departments can do things? I'm just trying to understand the momentum of the game.
I know we start with a couple but, that won't last more than a round or two?

Unh... Are your department supposed to use or give CP this round? Its usually obvious. Either by context, by individual actions or as a collective decision.

I don't think I'm really understanding the issue here. Are you cooperating or competing with your fellow crewmates? The mechanic works, I've seen that in other SWN games, as long as the departments in the same ship cooperate, implicitly and explicitly.

I think the real question is: How can we ensure that this happens for this group?

Edit: I'm open to suggestions. =)

I'm not objecting to it, and I believe I understand how it works. It's a fair representation of different departments of big capital ships working together and a fun "manning your stations" mechanism that gives each player something to do.

But I'll make a tangential observation here: PbP is really bad for the sort of quick-discussion-and-reach-agreement interactions that need to happen for this sort of coordination. Such interaction is trivial in real-time, whether played in-person or online, but with each person expecting to post once a day, we're going to have a lot of turns that take a week or more, like this first turn has already shown. I'm not opposed to it and am enjoying it, but it's an example of a mechanic that just doesn't go quickly when played asynchronously. Every back-and-forth that has to happen before an action is performed or story is advanced adds a real-time day to any PbP game's progress.

I think that's what it was, a fiveinute real life discussion can take 2 days on PBP. Especially since one round can take a day or two. We may need to utilize some tools like polls or all decide to be ok when another makes a decision that restricts what we, ourself, planned to do and then leave space for that in the future.

I recommend that we make it a little more "top down" in directives. Meaning the leader gives the general commands (e.g. fire on the opponent), and they everyone tries to meet that the best they can. Gives less chance for the intended collaboration, but limits the back-and-forth that so slows down PbP.

Works for me. In that case, I will let spaceseeker19 also control the Captain and, naturally, it will make it more top down.

The other group that I have seen play, chose the opposite. They adapt each round to whatever the previous players did. They don't plan their moves at all. They don't have expectations for what their characters will do. It's not optimized. For them, it's fun.

As a GM, both options make sense for me.

I admit the top-down approach kills some of the interactivity, but it does streamline things, which I understood to the be issue raised.

Do realize, of course, that just because the leader stated the goal doesn't mean it will necessarily be followed. Each person involved still has to pick what they are going to do.

I agree. =) Was just saying that they don't really interact, like in tabletop. It is streamlined, though. They just act individually, considering the context, the current CP and the information they have available, whenever they post.

There are no plans. No expectations for their or someone else next actions. No optimization.

Now... I don't think it will work with this group =D

@arthur12320,

Just want to touch base on this OOC before our characters actually meet. During your interview with Hank, it is likely to come out that you are psychic. At that point, Peter is likely to figure out that Hank is psychic, too. However, Hank is not "registered" or terribly experienced with it. (Seriously. Prior to about a week ago in in-game time, it was a curiosity to him. Now it's already almost killed him *and* saved him and two friends.) And he certainly isn't interested in being "registered". As such the characters will need to reach a quick accommodation. I'd really like if we could do that in the interview. But Peter has to act first because Hank will say nothing until he figures out Peter knows.

@daryen i think it’s great to set things straight before role playing, but I do not think come up that easily in conversation that I’m psionic, specially since I will not disclose my current position with the psi-operatives, not sure if I would disclose that up front, but I actually have metapsionics so I could maybe sense that you were also before opening up about it. And about the "being registered", I think Morgan would be keeping an eye on you, but wouldn’t press on you registering yourself if he didn’t notice you being a harm to others.

@arthur12320, Hold on. Just re-checked the rules. You can freely detect other psychics starting at Level-2 of metapsionics. (It doesn't even take Effort. You can do it at will; no limits.) Level-0 only allows you to detect the use of psionics. I think you are only at Level-1, so until Hank uses his power (which is rare) in your presence, you will not know he is psychic. OK, problem solved. For now. 😁

@daryen Yep, that is correct, actually I’m not even level 1, level 0 still, you got time 😂.

@spaceseeker19 I have added a Space Combat section in Douklan's character sheet, with the actions available for the Pilot/Bridge during space combat.

I think I will do the same for the other PCs as well, (Hank, Corbin, etc), but let me know if it works and is useful for you first.

On a completely independent note, unconnected with anything, after looking through equipment (and stuff) in SWN, I see that the default assumption for SWN is a setting where an interstellar civilization reached unimaginable highs, but then is taken down brutally by a systemic change in the actual universe. The setting itself is then what is built up on that wreckage. And, while the current time has recovered a tremendous amount of technology (called postech), there are still many wonders that are out of its reach (call pretech). However, this all doesn't really fit our setting. So, here's what I would like to propose:

- This setting is TL4 (postech). Pretty much everything in it is fully available without limits. There will be some things that get limited, but that is case-by-case decided by the GM. But, anything that is TL4 is available.
- Nothing that is TL5 (pretech) is available at all. Since there was no collapse in the last century or two, there is no leftover tech or leftover TL5 foundries sitting around. TL5 (pretech) equipment as described in the book is not available.

Given the above, there are two exceptions for the second point above:
- Some items are not "true" TL5 technology, but rather advanced TL4 technology. Any of these exceptions would work exactly as given in the book (including effects and cost), but are really TL4+, not "true" TL5. Which items qualify for this have to be decided on a case-by-case basis by the GM, but, in general, assume it just isn't available.
- "True" TL5 technology is actually Elder technology. So, in some ways it is even better that SWN TL5 because it lasts for way, way longer. But, for the game effects, they work exactly as the TL5 stuff is described in the book. (Costs can be ignored, as they are literally priceless.) So, it becomes really pretech!

By doing this, it keeps almost all of the TL5 stuff completely out of circulation, only allowing some few reason exceptions and those fully earned by finding Elder technology. However, if ever found, they work as described in the book.

As this relates to AI, that means the most advanced stuff available is Virtual Intelligence (VI) as described in the book. Synths are just low-end VI, and the stuff that Slaine is dealing with is advanced VI with no blocks. What the advanced SWN rulebook calls "true" AI does not exist at all. (As far as we know. The Elder either had it or were it, so it can always pop up. But no one has knowingly ever run across it.)

Does that sound reasonable?