Alliance of the Sacred Suns News

Hello everyone!

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted a development diary, but if you have followed our Twitter you can see that we have been hard at work on the initial beta. Sometime in the next few days, almost 5 years of work will be culminated in the delivery of the first feature-complete beta version of AotSS to my publisher. It's a milestone both long in coming and yet it really only marks the end of the beginning, as they say. So what's next?

Well, with the new UI, while it's a huge improvement over previous versions, we want to really give the game a good UX (User Experience) run. We have some professionals reviewing the design of the game to look for things like:

• How easy is it for the player to figure out what to do?
  
• Is information easily accessible?
  
• Is the information the right information for what the player needs?
  
• How hard/easy is it for the player to get to the information they need?
  
• Are they playing the game on the intended scale?
  

That last is very important. The primary conceit of AotSS is that You. Are. A. Person. You are NOT the grey eminence of other 4X titles working in the shadows. You have a name. Stats. Age. Health. Mental health. Hobbies. Events. Skills. And you are mortal. If you die, the game ends. No passing on the kingdom to your illegitimate 3rd cousin from Iceland here. "L'etat, est moi' has never been more literal. So we really want the player to feel they are looking at their empire from a 30,000 ft (light year?) altitude, and focusing on the big picture of running an empire. While you CAN zoom all the way into a region level (think a country on a planet) as an emperor, you really can't do anything at that scope because you're not involved with city and regional governments - they work on their own. You are responsible for the planet they are on to be safe (provide military infrastructure) well-governed (provide enough adminstration sectors to properly run the planet) and above all, put someone competent in charge. You will run into the situation many times of wishing you could replace someone with someone better, but the House they belong to would be very upset if they were removed, and so is it worth lowering relations with a powerful House just to make one planet more efficient? If it's a provincial capital, maybe it is. That decision, and a flexible way for the player to judge the pros and cons of that decision, is a big part of the UX review.

Sid Meier has a simple design philosophy: every game must be a sequence of interesting decisions. So what interesting decisions can the player have in AotSS, and do they all feel important?

To test this, I did a 'option map' for a reasonably common situation in a game: a system governor who does not belong to your House refuses to open their System trade net to the Empire supply network. Since this is the primary way that the ruling House (you) gets materials like basic, heavy and rare materials, as well as food and energy, this could be consequential. So I made a partial list of the player's options, good or bad, and there ended up being over 60 things you could so, and I'm sure clever players will be able to think of more! (By the way, the list doesn't format well here, but you can see the list if you're interested on this forum post: Link to Quarter to Three

As you can see, clearly the ability to influence the world isn't an issue. In fact, the opposite now becomes: How does the player know *what* to do in order to generate a positive outcome? Certainly some of the options available have serious knock-on effects - you can take a system or planet by force, but can you withstand the combined fury of the other Houses if they throw in with the aggrieved House whose Holding you took? Can you deal with the collapse in popular support in the systems that are affected? Is the Holding worth what you paid to get it if you destroyed half the infrastructure to get it? Again, the player needs to know this information before they commit themselves to a major course of action. And that all comes with a good tutorial and knowledge set.

The next step is to tune the game. We have made the game 'smaller' with fewer Pops and less output in order to have your actions matter more. Now, generating a Farm or a Factory will tangibly affect a planet's output, as opposed to before where there could be literally hundreds of a sector on a planet. Now, planets hold less Pops, and migration from and to planets really matters, and designating a new planet as a colony of the Empire has weight - Pops have free will to move between planets (as long as the empire logistical network connects them!) - does opening a new planet too close to others drain those planets, especially if they are not very nice to begin with? Maybe that's what you want to do to knock down the power of a troublesome House - but you will also hurt the Empire as a whole by doing so. What's the balance?

Opening a new planet, unlike other games, is a really big deal - planets and systems have a lot of weight in AotSS since there are a relatively small number of them. You will get to know them like people - their quirks, their strengths, their weaknesses, and you will learn to get the most out of them - as long as the game allows you to! So keeping the scale smaller and allowing your actions to have more impact is important. We will be experimenting with the amount of AP (Action Points) you have as a player - you should ALWAYS feel that you 'could have done more' each turn, but you have to make decisions about how to spend your time and resources, even if it's on yourself!

In line with the first two items, we are making the design decision to recommend to the player to run their Empire through their Provinces down. Past versions of AotSS focused mainly on the planets, with a 'supply up' type of model. This is still important, but to feel like an Emperor, you need to be working with your large moving parts (i.e. your provinces, Primes, and Council), not your planets. This design shift is a WIP but already the game feels more 'Imperial' as opposed to 'planet micro'. You will still be able to interact with Viceroys but it will be more effective and efficient (provided you have the right people in place!) to deal with your Governors. We have also gone to a 'rank system' for Provinces and Systems - each Province and System is ranked high to low S,A,B,C,D. It is a quick way to see how 'good' your Province/System is - as well as how important it is to the Empire (and how prestigious a post it is to a Character!)

So to sum, we have a genre-changing game IF we do the following:
- Provide the player with the tools and UI to understand the game
- Provide the player with the knowledge to understand their choices and consequences of decisions made in the game, and to ensure that those decisions are interesting and important each turn
- Provide the player with the feeling they are one person in charge of a constellation-spanning galactic Empire

That's what we're going to focus on over the next several months. We know this game could be special, and we want to get this right! So stay tuned, the fun part is about to begin! And for those of you who have been on the ride since Imperia: thank you so much for your support! The game's come a hell of a long way, and if you have the pre-alpha you really should get this .9.2 build. It's light years from where the game was even 6 months ago. And we're really just getting started with pounding this game into shape!

Thanks, and the journey continues!
-Steve

Hello everyone!

With the release of the latest update about a week away, I wanted to continue the military discussion and talk about the ground combat system – how it works, and what you as the emperor can do to ensure success of your ground invasion operations!

The most important thing to realize about ground ops is that planets are not just an all or nothing ball that you can take in a single strike (usually). They are made up of regions, each with their own defense, population, infrastructure, defense/topography, etc. So when you invade a planet, what you are doing is taking control of regions. As you do so, the overall control of the planet changes depending on the value of the regions that are still controlled by each side. It is possible to have multiple armies (3 or more) fighting over the same planet, with all 3 armies (Houses) each claiming a small part of the planet!

Invasions are carried out by space infantry divisions, ala Starship Troopers. They are generated on planets that have barracks – you don’t build them like ships, they are produced by your production system – they work like starship component factories but they use Pops (generally your lowest value Pops like farmers or miners) and convert them into SI. Once they are converted, they no longer ‘count’ as a Pop and do not generate anything (but they consume food and energy).

When you decide to invade a planet, you first have to get through the system defenses. These are basically static emplacements that are meant to cover Lagrange entry points in the system. This is accomplished by a support or combat fleet to soak up some of the damage. You can’t actually attack system defenses per se, but you can attrit them somewhat.

Once you get to the orbital plane of a planet, you then combat drop your SI divisions onto the planet. Your War Prime will work out the most advantageous Regions to attack first – generally the most populous since the value of a Region will contribute to planetary control. The planet may have space cannons emplaced on the surface, meaning that your SI divisions may take damage coming in.

Once they land, SI divisions depending on their role have 1, 2, or 3 Orders they can take each 3 month turn. They can do the following:

• Attack
• Move to a new region
• Reorganize (heal)
• Retreat

As Emperor, you can control when they retreat but your War Prime will determine their Orders depending on the Invasion Plan they are given. Basically, you can give the invasion an aggressive Plan, a normal Plan, or a cautious Plan. This affects at what ratio the admiral in charge will press the attack, the loss tolerance, and the willingness to reorganize vs. press the attack, among other things.

With an Attack Order, a SI division will look to conquer the Region they are occupying. There is always an inherent defense in a region (usually local militia, citizens, and scattered local defense emplacements) as well as the terrain in the region. It is much harder to attack a Mountainous region than a Plains one. Water regions are especially tough to crack as divisions must land on small islands or archipelagos, and amphibious invasions are always tricky. If there are no defending SI divisions in the region, the division will look to inflict 50 points of suppression on the Region. In truth, this represents breaking the will of the residents of the Region to fight, and eventually surrender the Region. When a Region surrenders, the former owner loses all Installations that were there, as well as any Pop output (i.e. they do not pay taxes or generate Build Points, etc).

So let’s look at an example to see how a turn might play out with a specific SI division. They move into planetary orbit and their transport takes 15 damage, meaning that each point of damage a 1D100 is rolled where chance = total damage / 100. They roll 15 times, and take 1 damage on rolls 11 and 14.

Next, they do an orbital drop onto the planet. Keep in mind that while your support ships can order an orbital strike to take out planet defenses, this will significantly raise your Fear level and lower your Support, and Support is much harder to restore than Fear is to lower. Your SI division hits the ground and for their first Order, they Attack. There is no defending SI division in this Region, so they are only fighting local defenses. The Ground Combat rating of this division is 20, and they are using Orbital Support from the Force above (you can select this option as part of your Invasion Plan). This adds 50 to the Attack Rating (similar to ship combat). The general in charge has a 60 Military Skill. With the formula in place, the final Attack Rating of this SI Division is 140, not too shabby!

Now to get the ratio we’ll be working with, we examine the Region defense. The Region is mountainous, meaning that they have a defense factor of 3 (1 is average). They do not have any supporting SI divisions, so they have a 0 base rating. They have a region defense rating of 28, based on the size and population of the Region, and this is amplified by the regional defense factor. Finally, the Viceroy’s military skill is also a 60, so while they do not have a great effect on the defense of a planet, they do have some. The final Defense Rating of the Region is 88.

Now, we have a ratio – 1.6 : 1 in favor of the attacker. This gives them a 72% chance to inflict at least 50% damage (20) on the Region as suppression damage, and a 36% change to inflict a full-damage attack, which is quite good! As long as you have a positive combat ratio, you will always inflict at least 25% of your attack rating. The defenders have a base Region Defense of 9, meaning that they have a 28% chance to inflict 9 points of damage to the attacking SI, and a 72% chance to inflict at least 50% damage.

The attack is made – the attacker rolls a 62, meaning they inflict 20 points of suppression on the Region, and the defenders roll a 22, meaning they inflict 5 points (defense rounds damage up; attackers round down) on the HP of the SI. With that, the first Order is done;
Now, depending on the Invasion Plan, the SI division could Attack again, Reorganize, or Retreat. Since they didn’t take much damage and they inflicted 40% of the needed Suppression, the General chooses another Attack Order.

After 2 more Attacks, the Region falls and the invading House is one step closer to conquering the Planet!

Just for fun, let’s drop a Ground Defense SI Division in the Region to help out, and let’s see what that does to the calculations!

The Attack Rating stays at a 140 for the attacking SI division, but the Defense Rating (thanks to the 35 Ground Defense Rating of the defending SI Division) thanks to the Mountain multiplier, jumps all the way to a 193!!! Now the ratio is .7 to 1, and the chance for the attacking division to inflict full damage drops all the way to 17%! In addition, the defense gets a 66% chance to inflict 12 points of damage (50% of the 15 Ground Combat rating of this division + the inherent 9 points from the Region defenses) and a 33% chance to do a full damage attack (15).

So as Emperor, you want to make sure that your more valuable Holdings have at least a few Ground Defense SI Divisions on-planet. They will automatically be based at the largest and highest-value Regions, but you can designate certain Regions as ‘priority’ for defense (at 1 AP point cost) and when new divisions are generated, any prioritized Regions will get 2 Divisions assigned, other normal Regions will get 1 if they have sufficient value, and low value Regions will not get any (usually outlying or sparsely populated Regions).
We hope to do much more with this system in the future, including a 3D globe that shows the current planetary situation, but we’re excited about the foundations of the system!

-Steve

Hey everyone,

I know I've been pretty quiet for the last few weeks, but when you see the update that's about to be posted, you'll know why. Simply put, AotSS is closer than ever to being the epic 4X/strategy game I dreamed about 5 years ago, and with about 90% of the game now in about about 75% of the UI updated, and much of the new art in, hopefully you will see what the game is becoming. Our next update will have an extensive in-game tutorial, as well as the rest of the military system, but for now... here's what's included in .8.4!
[h2]NEW FEATURES[/h2]

[h3]Military System Updates – Adds approximately 70% of the military system. Some highlights are as follows:[/h3]

• Military UI – Almost all major screens for Military are now complete and implemented, including the Military Nexus, Logistical Networks, System Boxes, Force Mission Select, Force Destination Select, LGN Upgrade, Military Budget Focus Window, Force Details, Ship Details, Shipyards, and Zoom 3 and 4 detail zoom on the Galaxy map. Also includes force boxes with multiple levels of detail and multi function select from multiple Forces in an area. Last remaining screens to do are the planet UI and the ground combat UI, as well as a combat summary screen.
  
  
• Ship Component System – Adds a ship component stockpile to each House, which are generated from Ship Component Factories, which are staffed by SC Engineers – a new high-planet value Pop with high values in High Tech and Engineering. They are not common in the AotSS world, so don’t let them leave for a rival House! SCs are generated with Heavy and Rare materials, and serve as the building blocks for Ships.
  
  
• Shipyards – Come in 4 sizes, Small, Medium, Heavy, and Capital. Use SCs to build ships by generating SP (Ship Points). Can be upgraded, turned on and off to save money and SCs, can be crash stopped all at once when your economy is in the tank, and with an imminent update will be able to be changed to a different ship. All Houses can build Shipyards.
  
  
• Forces – Ships are the building blocks of Forces, which are the equivalent of wet water fleets. They have several different roles depending on the mission that they are designed for, and are built around force templates. Players will be able to select a size (small, medium, heavy, capital) and a mission (scout, combat, system defense, interdiction, etc.) and will then be able to build new Forces from their existing Ships that are not already part of a Force but are in reserve. These Ships are basically mothballed with no weapons and minimal systems, and are then fitted for the role required in the Force template. For example, a Combat Force may call for 2 Scout Frigates, so 2 Frigates would be pulled into the Force and fit specifically for the Scout role – they have limited weapons, but greater speed and sensors, giving a bonus to engagement and offense for other ships in the Force.
  
  
• Logistical Networks have been completely reworked for the military system. They are now stationed in deep space, and have a variable effective radius depending on the size and the funding for the network. Essentially, as long as networks touch, they form a chain that can allow ships to go anywhere the network is contiguous, but if there is a break they can not go outside that. Scout and Construction ships have extended range. LGNs can be upgraded 3 levels, they can be shut down for budget (or diplomatic) reasons, and can be built anywhere in space by Construction Forces. With the new network rules, now if a planet/system is not covered by a LGN their Pops can not emigrate, nor can other Pops move there. They can only move to systems in the network that contains their system.
  
  
• Scouting is now not a Project, but a mission that you assign a Force. Scout Forces have an extended range and are faster than normal roles, but have almost no offensive capability and will do very poorly if attacked. Forces will be able to Scout a specific Planet or an entire System. System Scouting Missions increase the Intel Progress of that System, while Planet Scouting will increase the atmosphere and planet scans of that planet to determine the planet’s mineral, energy, and Bio values. Each Scouting Point generates 3 Intel Progress points towards the target.
  
  
• Space Combat System – Engagements take place at 3 distances: long, medium, and short range in 3 ‘rounds’ of combat. Essentially, ships target a similar roled ship on the other side, and they generate an Attack Rating at a certain range. The target generates a Defense Rating depending on their Tactics and Speed rating, and based on the interaction of the two, damage occurs (via HPs) or not. After the short-range engagement, the forces break off. If one Force is destroyed or is forced to retreat due to being < 25% Effectiveness, the other Force controls the area (planet/system) Using this system, it is entirely possible for small, fast, heavily sensored and armored ships to survive against larger ships, even if they won’t do much damage themselves.
  
  
• Missions are now assigned to Forces through the Mission Assignment screen when you select a target. You will be able to select a scouting or move mission currently (attack missions are coming soon) and you will see the various costs, including Fear/Love/Power consequences for success/failure. You will see a dynamic ETA line and can cancel the mission at any time before it is assigned – but once it is assigned, you can not control a Force until it has arrived at its destination!
  
  
• LGNs are now built through a Construction Mission instead of a Project, as well.
  
  
• Orbital Kinetic Strikes are now no longer a Project, but a mission of a Terror Force and can be given an order to strike a planet.
  
  
• Military Budget – The Military Budget system has been completely reworked and now is allocated to 3 different areas: LGNs, Forces in the field, and Shipyards. You can change these allocations at any time (at a cost of 1 AP) as needed. Your Military has an overall Efficiency depending on how well it is funded. Defund your Shipyards and they will take forever to build new ships; defund your Forces and they will start to lose effectiveness, and may even disband! Defund your LGNs and their reach will be a tiny fraction of their normal reach, potentially cutting off systems and constellations, which will make Houses in those systems very unhappy!
  
  
• War Prime – Now give bonuses/maluses to Production and Force Efficiency, as well as limiting the number of Forces that can be active. A Force Cap is in place equal to 2 + the War Prime’s Administration Rating. Forces that are built over this Cap will suffer a significant (and escalating) Efficiency rating, meaning that they will perform much more poorly but cost the same amount of money.
  
  
• Supply System – All ships use Supply Point (SPs) per turn; very few if they are in a logistical network, more if they are actively performing a mission, and a tremendous amount if they are no longer in a LGN (for example, if it is cut off or defunded while a force is in transit) A Force that is out of aggregate SPs is considered to be Stranded, and can not move or perform any actions until they are disbanded or are under the umbrella of a LGN. One Supply Point is one Food unit and one Energy unit.
  
  
• Admirals – Generated during Force generation, they will soon be able to be selected during Force generation by the player. They provide bonuses/maluses to their Force in efficiency and Attack/Defense/Scout/Construction ratings.
  
  
• Influence – Forces now generate Influence if they are stationed in system defense of an unclaimed system. They can be used to bolster Influence enough temporarily to Claim a system before building something more permanent.
  
  
• Fear – Forces that orbit a non-House-owned System generate Fear among the planet’s populace proportionate to their combat ability and size. Conversely Forces that orbit a House owned- System generate Love (the Pops feel protected)
  
  
• Military Tradition – You can now put points into Military Tradition. The more points in this category, the better your Admirals will be and the more starting Shipyards and Forces/Ships your House will have.
  
  
• AI – The Houses can build and maintain Forces and Ships, and have current limited ability to move them to systems that they want to claim or keep for defense. Houses with a high Military Tradition will have more ships, Forces, and shipyards.
  
  
• Other small UI tweaks are forthcoming in future incremental updates of .8.4.
  

[h3]Project System Update – The Project System has been completely reworked from the ground up, and all UI has been added and integrated to support this change.[/h3]

• Summary: Now, all Houses generated pooled ADM from their Holdings. When a House wants to do a Project, they use the pooled ADM and divide it by the number of Projects they have active. ADM flows from the Throneworld of the House that initiated it to the Project Leader to the Province Governor to the System Governor of the planet or system that the Project is located on. The ADM is reduced by the respective Admin Skill of these Characters, and further reduced if the Project location is in a system or province that is not administered by the same House.
  
  
• ADM Generation: Your House generates ADM for the pool, and any Allied Houses contribute 100% of their ADM to this pool. Cooperative, Neutral, and Cold War relation Houses contribute 50%, and Limited and Total War relations do not contribute anything!
  
  
• You now have a Project Summary window that you can use to monitor active Projects of you and the other Houses, depending on your Intel level with them. You can also stop your Projects (new) to reassign the ADM and Leader to something else, but you will lose the materials and money allocated to that Project.
  
  
• Projects are now accessed through the Project Bar, just above the Command Mode bar. They are contextual depending on the zoom level and Command Mode, with all new art.
  
  
• Houses will now act more in line with their personalities – Houses with aggressive Personalities will be very upset when you leave them out of a Project, and will let you know by comming you immediately. Houses that you perform Projects for (e.g. building a starbase, retail hub, etc) will be grateful and you will see a significant Reputation boost.
  
  
• Projects have been rebalanced to be slightly less expensive due to the increasing amount of things in the AotSS universe at this point in the game.
  

[h2]OTHER ITEMS[/h2]

• UI Update – Most UI screens have been updated at this point except for the nexus screens (Except military), and the character screen (in progress). Also added is a turn summary that shows your victory progress, your current goals, and events from last turn that are filtered and categorized into 5 levels of importance. You also have a new Alert Bar on that right that will take you to the relevant issue (i.e. events, Comms, etc). They have new Event art and look great!
  
  
• House Diplomacy – Houses will now react to your building up of Forces in proportion to their own. Allies will be far less concerned than neutral or Cold War. They will react very poorly to Forces orbiting their Holdings, even if they are not explicitly attacking the planet, especially if they are Cold War or less relationship.
  
  
• Economic Rebalance – With all the additional things that a House/Emperor can spend money on in the game now, the economy has been made more robust. Planets will generate more Trade, Pops will generate more Income based on their Class (i.e. farmer, miner, etc) and the base multiplier of the Gross Planetary Product has been increased to generate more base income.
  
  
• Events – More Events have been added into the game, and more will be added with each incremental update. Most of them have 8 unique outcomes, depending on your Prime’s skills and your own. Also greatly reduced the event generation percentage – now you should never see more than about 20-30% of the game events in a single complete game.
  
  
• Province Mode – Now you can enter a specific Province Mode by clicking on the Constellation that a Province is located in. This will allow you to access Province-level Projects, talk to the Province Governor, and isolates the view to only systems belonging to the Province. To break out of this view, simply right click or pan away from the Province.
  
  
• UI Fixes/Updates – Revamped the Galaxy View controls/camera – now zoom takes place at just 2 levels – a ‘wide range’ view that hides the system labels but shows trade and logistical networks, as well as Forces, and a ‘short range’ galaxy view that will show system labels, more Force information, and additional info depending on the Command mode. The zoom is much smoother and zooms directly into the center of the screen. Also fixed ‘sticking’ issues with panning to the top of the galaxy in a far zoom mode.
  
  
• Lotso Bug Fixes – Concentrated on null/data errors (that will crash the game) and UI/Control issues. Think at this point there are very few, if any, major bugs left. The military system is less tested due to the scope of the system but I will be working on any issues over the next week or so as they are reported, as well as balance issues.
  
  
• Optimization – Huge improvements to the game speed. Most turns now take about 5-10 seconds, and generating a new universe takes about 6 seconds on my development computer (which is admittedly fast) but great work has also been done with optimizing the economic screen (there was a lag when the planets would populate on the budget list) that is all but gone.
  

That's the big stuff... if you haven't dove in for a while, check it out!

-Steve

Hello everyone! Wanted to take a few minutes and talk about the military production system, with a focus on how you build new Forces (since everyone wants cool shiny warships!)

So first: You have to research the shipyard technology – once you have it, you will be able to build shipyards of 4 sizes: light, medium, heavy, and capital. Each ship type of the same class can be built at the appropriate size shipyard and smaller – so you could use a heavy shipyard to build light or medium class ships as well.

Shipyards will generate shipyard points (SPs) which are similar to build points (BPs). The larger the shipyard, the more SPs it will generate, meaning that larger shipyards could be used to build more smaller ships, but they would not be used for larger ships. They are built as an orbital on a Holding, and they can be targeted and destroyed, or captured if the Holding they are orbiting is captured as well. Each ship type costs a base amount of SPs to build, and are then 'kitted out' for specific roles depending on the Force they are assigned to - more on that shortly!

Shipyards use ship components as their resource, which are generated by ship component factories. Each House has a global ship component pool (it is assumed that within a given 3 month turn, ship components can be transported as needed to shipyards) which is filled by ship component factories. These are staffed by space engineers (a new Pop Class) which are on par with engineers as far as the effect on Planet Value and GPP. Ship components are generated with heavy and rare materials, so having a solid supply of heavy and rare materials will now become important if you want to focus on a strong military.

As Emperor, you can set the build of any shipyard you control – but it will cost 1 AP to change and 1 turn plus 1 turn per size class change. In other words, if you had a Capital shipyard building light ships, and wanted to change to dreadnaughts (Capital size ships), it would take 4 turns (1 year) to do so. If you wanted to simply build a different light ship, that could be done in 1 turn.

You can only build ships that you have the research completed for. This is found under what is currently called practicals but will be soon be renamed to military research vs. social research (formerly reforms).

Houses can also build ships, and they can build shipyards, but they can only build ships that the Empire has researched, and then only if at least on cold war terms. Houses that are at limited or total war can not gain any research benefits, but they can do their own research (they will never contribute to the Empire at that point) and will focus exclusively on military research.

As ships are built, they are kept in the system that they are built in a reserve area. From there, they can be added into Forces that are generated by your admirals either at your request (e.g. build a Capital sized assault Force; build a light sized scouting Force, etc) or automatically to carry out certain functions like defense, garrisoning, exploration, etc.)

You will have what is essentially a preset TOE (table of organization and equipment) template for various types of Forces, depending on their size and role, and how well they are filled out depends on whether the ships are available. You will be able to set a priority from very low to critical as far as how important a Force is when a ship is built and it needs to be used to fill out a TOE slot for a specific template. This system will allow fielding ‘incomplete’ Forces that will not be as effective as a Force that is fully equipped, but sometimes having a partial Force is better than no Force at all!

As an example: A Heavy Combat Force would consist of 4 Light ships, 4 Medium ships, and 8 Heavy ships, with optimal roles within each size class. Within that Force template, the type of ship that actually fills the slot will make a difference in how effective the overall Force is. All Forces need scouting and recon abilities, and if none of your Light ships that are allocated to the Force have good scouting ratings, then the Force will suffer. This could happen because you didn’t build any light ships that are good at Scouting; e.g. cutters or frigates. Destroyers are heavier, and they will provide a Force more offensive firepower, but at the cost of scouting ability.

The types of ships you build will ultimately determine what your Forces are capable of, and while a Force will always be able to do standard missions (scouting, space combat, interdiction, piracy suppression, planetary bombardment, planetary oppression) they may not be very good at it. You don’t want a heavy cruiser trying to scout, nor do you want a cutter as a ship of the line in a combat Force. If you don’t have a ship that can fill a specific role in a Force template, the next-best match will be selected, and sizes can be substituted within one size class (e.g. if no suitable Heavy ships are left, the Force will try to pull a Capital ship first, then a Medium ship, and if neither type of Ship are available the slot will be left blank)

With this change to Force missions will also come a change to how scouting/exploration is done. Before, you would set up a Military Project to scout a system, and then it would be done once the Project was complete. This was always a temporary system. Now, you will send Scout Forces out to do that. Scout Forces will have a total Scouting rating, which will determine how much Intel Progress is made every turn in a system/planet target. This is both more realistic and more '4X'y, while still keeping the process somewhat abstract (simply select the Force, set the mission (Scout System), and click the destination system!) And if you don't have any Scout Forces... you can't explore new systems very effectively, since they are the only Forces that can move beyond your empire's Logistical Range (they are assumed to have no weaponry and carry vastly extended fuel supplies, allowing them to move a certain range past the Logistical Range)

Forces also need Command ships to be most effective. Command ships generate Command Points (CPs), and each type and role of ship requires a certain amount of CPs to be effective. Again, you can field a force with less CPs than required, but it will have severe attack and defend penalties depending on how far the gap is. A good admiral can make up for this, but only somewhat.

As the player, you will be able to see every template, and you will even be able to design unique templates yourself (at a significant AP cost). This represents you as the Emperor getting personally involved in the military more than normal, and costs to create unique templates will increase the more you create.

Let’s show an example, using the aforementioned Heavy Combat Force. Here is the TOE template for that Force:

• 2 Light Scouts
  
• 2 Light Space Combat
  
• 4 Medium Space Combat
  
• 2 Heavy Interdiction Ships
  
• 4 Heavy Combat Ships
  
• 2 Heavy Command Ships
  

Here are the ships that you have in reserve:

• 1 Frigate (light)
  
• 3 Destroyers (light)
  
• 2 Light Cruisers (medium)
  
• 2 Heavy Cruisers (medium)
  
• 5 Battleships (heavy)
  
• 1 Dreadnought (capital)
  

So, based on the ships that are available in reserve, this is how the Force is filled out by your military:

• 2 Light Scouts: 1 Scout Frigate, 1 Scout Destroyer
  
• 2 Light Space Combat: 2 Combat Destroyers
  
• 4 Medium Space Combat: 2 Combat Light Cruisers, 1 Combat Heavy Cruiser (one slot empty)
  
• 2 Heavy Interdiction Ships: 1 Interdiction Battleship, 1 Interdiction Heavy Cruiser
  
• 4 Heavy Combat Ships: 3 Combat Battleships, 1 Combat Dreadnought (best match outside optimal class for role)
  
• 2 Heavy Command Ships: 1 Command Battleship (one slot empty)
  

Please note that you don’t designate the role of a ship when built – you simply build ‘destroyers’ or ‘heavy cruisers’. Once a role is required for a given Force TOE, as long as you have a ship size that can fill that role, it will be ‘kitted out’ for that role during Force creation.

Your role as Emperor is to ensure that your navy can build enough of the right types of ships to optimally equip the type of Forces that are required to execute your grand strategy, be it defense, planetary control, suppression, combat, etc. You request the Force type that you want, and it will be created to the best of your available resources. If the Force is not critical, you will also be able to set it as a ‘force in creation’ meaning that it is essentially static while your War Prime automates shipyards that are controlled by your Empire to generate the right ships to fill the Force properly.

You will be able to see your ship inventory and your Force status from the Military Nexus screen. From here, you will request new Forces, designate their role, and set their priority (and name)! You will also designate a new Admiral for the Force, which is a new Character Rank. Their Combat Rating, Intelligence, and certain skills will determine how effective they will be in leading their Force.

So, tying all of the above together, you decide that you want to create a new Heavy Combat Force. You will go to the Military Nexus to Request New Force. You set the size (Heavy), primary role (Combat), and priority (High), as well as selecting an Admiral. At this point, you will be able to see the most effective Force and its stats based on the ships you have in reserve at this time, and approve the creation or cancel it.

You can also designate it as a ‘Force in Creation’ meaning that the Force will not be created until all of the ships that are required are built – think of it as a Force on a layaway plan or a specialized build order – you are basically saying, ‘I know we don’t have the right ships to build this Force now, so start working on those as long as we have the right shipyards and research, and when we have them all built, THEN create this Force.’

So you determine that you have (most) of the ships you would need to fill out this Force’s TOE, so you approve the new Force. You spend 2 AP to do so, and it takes 1 turn per 20 required Command Points of the Force to muster the ships together and train (you will need to build a Force Command Station in any system you want to create Forces in). Once the Force is fully mustered and trained, it is ready to be given orders!

Basically, as long as you do the right research and make sure that enough of and the right size shipyards are available, and have a steady supply of starship components throughout your Empire, your War Prime will take care of most of the rest.

From the Military Nexus you will be able to see what ships you need to fully outfit your existing Forces, as well as Forces in Creation. You can automate your shipyards to be automatically set to the needs (as long as you can actually build the ships you need) or you can manually set the shipyards yourself (cost 1 AP). You will also be able to create new Forces, monitor the status of existing Forces, and check out the status of current conflicts (i.e. planetary campaigns, system campaigns)

One other thing: Ships will be fairly expensive to build, and more so to maintain. You will not usually have more than 2 or 3 Forces at a time unless you’re either awash in cash or pushing your Military Budget so high to the detriment of all other budget categories. This is not a game where you will be spamming ships – building a single Dreadnaught or Superdreadnought should take at least 2-3 years (8-12 turns), and a Titan should take around 5-7 years on average (20-28 turns). Obviously, cutters and frigates will take much less time; usually just 6 months or so (2 turns) and they will be far less expensive to maintain and equip.

The point is you will not be tracking thousands of ships - maybe 30-40 ships total in a game. Each ship should feel unique and their loss should be felt, especially Heavy and Capital ships (these may actually get unique names; we're still kicking that around), and a Capital Combat Force built around a Titan (or maybe even 2!) should be the baddest thing in the Galaxy, and should be your goal if you want a military/Xyl defeat victory in the release version!

This is the design we will be implementing for the EA version of the game, but some things may change, the most fluid of which is giving the Emperor the ability to fill out Forces manually. On the one hand, this ensures that Forces are set up to the Emperor’s preference; on the other hand, this is a level of micromanagement that this game is trying to stay away from. We shall see.

Anyway, look for another blog early next week on… Military Logistics! Fun!

-Steve

Hey everyone! While we’re hard at work on the military system, with the ongoing UI overhaul, it gives us a chance to really look at every system and make sure we’re on the right track. One of the systems we’re going to update in .8.3.1 is the Project system.

So while we like the Project System as a whole, what’s not really working is how ADM is distributed and used among Projects. Basically, we want to make it much less confusing about where ADM comes from, and especially why it’s not always available.

Under the old system, ADM (which is basically the resource that builds Projects and represents manpower/specialized equipment/labor/etc) and is generated by planets with Admin districts, is utilized by a chain moving upward. So for example, if you wanted to assign a province governor to a Project in order to utilize a lot of ADM in only one slot (your Project Administrator can only have as many contributors as they have ADM rating) it would basically ‘suck’ all of the system governor’s ADM, which they would collect from their viceroys in their system.

All well and good, but what was difficult was that basically if you stuck a province governor on a Project, you were almost stuck unless you had another Province that had a governor that was willing to send ADM to the Project. And the UI didn’t make it clear at all that if you added a system governor, say, that it would take the ADM of that system’s planet viceroy that you’d already added, nor did it give an explanation of why so many leaders had 0 effective ADM.

So we decided to totally redesign the ADM system. It is still used for Projects, but there will now be an empire-wide pool of ADM that is tapped for Projects (you will see this number on the resource bar on the upper-right, next to your Gross Empire Product) Your House Holdings and Holdings that are Allied or Vassals with you will contribute 100% of their generated ADM to that pool, while Houses who are Cooperative, Indifferent, or Cold War will contribute 50%. Houses in Limited or Total War will not contribute to the pool!

Now, you can have as many Projects as the ADM rating of your Domestic Prime, plus 1, but they will all draw from the same pool. (Houses will have their own ADM pool based on their Holdings, which will also prevent the issue of you taking all of a House’s ADM so they can’t do anything) You will be able to assign a priority to Projects that determine what ratio of the pool they will get. You can set to Very High, High, Normal, Low, Very Low, or Pause. (You can do this after the Project starts, but it will cost 1 AP.)

If the Project is a Province Project, the ADM will be modified by the Province Governor’s Government Skill as a simple %. So if the skill was a 70, then the Project would actually get 70% of the allocated ADM from the pool as the effective ADM used. If the Project is a System or Planet Project, then the remaining pool will be further modified by the System Governor’s Government Skill. So you can see it’s usually more effective to build province Projects when you can, although they will be more expensive.

So here's an example: Say all of the ADM generated by all of your planets totaled 500 (to make it easy). All of your Houses are indifferent or worse except for one who is in a Limited War with you. Those 4 Houses' 50% contribution totals 250 ADM and is added to the pool for a total ADM Project pool of 750.

Your Domestic Prime has an ADM rating of 3, meaning that you can have up to 4 Projects going at once (3 ADM + 1) Your first Project always uses 100% of your pool, your second Project uses 50% (while the other Project drops to 50%, and so forth). So for your first Project, you wish to colonize a Planet. This costs 1000 ADM, so since there are no other Projects pulling ADM from the pool, the whole 750 ADM goes to the province that the planet is located in. In this case, the Province Governor's Government Rating is 50, meaning that only 50% of the ADM is actually allocated effectively to the Project, so that leaves 375 ADM (50% of 750). The remaining ADM now goes to the system governor to allocate to the Project in the system. They have a rating of 75, meaning 75% of the remaining 375 makes it to the Project (281 rounded down). This is what is used for the ADM per turn when calculating time, so all things being equal, and if no other Projects are started, then it would take 4 turns (1 year) to colonize this Planet, excluding fleet travel time.

And that’s it! Now you don’t have to worry about assigning ADM chains to Projects – they simply draw from the same pool, and you’ll know exactly how much ADM the Project will be getting when you start it. Now your Contributors will just contribute funds towards the Projects, as they do now.

We’re looking to streamline the design where possible, and this is one area where we think players will appreciate!

-Steve