Which utility craft are since it's noted they are always in demand.
Star Wars: Ship Designer Quest (1.5)
- Thread starter Jax
- Start date
[X] Plan Picking Up The Pieces And Rebuilding
Lol, I don't think I'll ever quite truly understand the grading system here. Feels like there should be a different grading for over specc'd categories rather than outright failure. Even their comments confuse me further in conjunction with their grading, because the weapons systems passed and are somehow still below expectations in a situation where if you exceed expectations you fail.
Overall though, pretty much the outcome expected based on prior rolls. All we can hope for is that the cost of refitting our competition for cargo shipping puts us ahead of them in the running.
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Why would a planetary militia fleet be buying what is, for all intents and purposes, a space truck?
Did you not read the update the characters don't have any believe at all that there design was chosen.
But it's not a planetary militia that is buying it? The whole plan was for the Aurek to be for the Fast Delivery Parcel service. It's not a militia.
people were talking about repurposing it as a smuggler ship so all the work put into it wouldn't go to waste. but I still don't know where the militia stuff came from.
Barondoctor
The things I chase come to me.
- Location
- The other side of the mirror
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Between update rate and the perverse grading scale to go along with being very dice dependent? I'm more than a little frustrated and peeved.
- Location
- Kiel; Germany
I'm open to suggestions on how to improve it. I'm not that happy with it, but I can't think of anything better.
So, if you have an idea, share it.
Sadly, I can't promise a change on the update rate.
Barondoctor
The things I chase come to me.
- Location
- The other side of the mirror
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Generally there's approximately three ways a playergroup can affect chance and having _none_ of them is a great way to alienate in a game where player choices can also lead to failure outright (see: people being upset about the luxury package on the ship burning through cost and possibly losing the bid).
Method 1: modifiers. You get enough modifiers you can force (pun intended) one thing to work well or the whole thing to work on a basic level? That generates "okay how do we use this" discussions, which are a lot more fun for everyone than "well shoot we don't even know if this will work" and if I wanted that kind of depressing uncertainty I'd watch the news.
Method 2: dice pool mitigation. I loathe d100 for being horrifically swingy. 5d20 can still swing pretty hard (and if you'd like I can pull an anydice probability distribution) but it helps things be more up to skill and choice and less to chance.
Method 3: greater clarity of objectives and incentivization. If you have one advisor whose focus is finance and one whose focus is excellence regardless of price you know where you stand and there's a question of where you give ground to make people happy. We don't really have that luxury here. Maybe those of the playerbase who remain from two and a half years ago can explain why we have the things we have, but I find myself rather disappointed here in particular.
Method 1: modifiers. You get enough modifiers you can force (pun intended) one thing to work well or the whole thing to work on a basic level? That generates "okay how do we use this" discussions, which are a lot more fun for everyone than "well shoot we don't even know if this will work" and if I wanted that kind of depressing uncertainty I'd watch the news.
Method 2: dice pool mitigation. I loathe d100 for being horrifically swingy. 5d20 can still swing pretty hard (and if you'd like I can pull an anydice probability distribution) but it helps things be more up to skill and choice and less to chance.
Method 3: greater clarity of objectives and incentivization. If you have one advisor whose focus is finance and one whose focus is excellence regardless of price you know where you stand and there's a question of where you give ground to make people happy. We don't really have that luxury here. Maybe those of the playerbase who remain from two and a half years ago can explain why we have the things we have, but I find myself rather disappointed here in particular.
Nicholas Brooks
Redeemer and Destroyer
- Location
- United States
I'll be honest, I'm not sure how much can be said about this quest atm considering this is quite literally the only time we've actually built a ship. I know the threadmarks say we're at turn 5, but functionally, this is still the very start of the game.
Part of it is definitely the gap in time, though. When every ship takes a year to make irl, failing feels much worse because all that emotional investment and expectation completely petered out. Though I personally read this quest in 2023 during its big hiatus, so I already had a bad feeling about our first attempt, but I didn't want to necro the thread just to express negativity.
Part of it is definitely the gap in time, though. When every ship takes a year to make irl, failing feels much worse because all that emotional investment and expectation completely petered out. Though I personally read this quest in 2023 during its big hiatus, so I already had a bad feeling about our first attempt, but I didn't want to necro the thread just to express negativity.
well, I am a bit disappointed that it failed but it's hard to be invested in a quest that hasn't updated in so long. I barely remember what was happening, and definitely don't remember why we choose any of the stuff we did.
Nicholas Brooks
Redeemer and Destroyer
- Location
- United States
The hiatus also happened very early on. 2 turns (officially speaking) and then a year and change before it resumed. This is different compared to a quest that had been running and active for 3 years being put on ice for that same span.
- Location
- Kiel; Germany
Right, all good points. But what does that have to do with your frustration regarding the rating system? And how could that be improved?
The long time it took to build the ship had two reasons. First, I hit a wall in writing this quest. Secondly, the players wanted and still want to develop their own systems and put them into the ship (than the gun now the shield). Despite there being a way to get perfectly good systems by buying of the shelve.
Barondoctor
The things I chase come to me.
- Location
- The other side of the mirror
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
"Exceeded requirements" seems to be being held as just as much of a fail as "did not bother to even try to meet them". So there is a perception of outrageous success being just as toxic and dangerous to actually getting paid and making a successful product as abject failure.
Clarity of communication is absent.
Some form of objective, granular rubric might help for greater clarity in the "they wanted thirty cubic meters and we gave them sixty. They're docking us a quarter the value of the segment, but Stupid Ships Incorporated gave them zero cubic meters and is getting no points in that section instead."
Nicholas Brooks
Redeemer and Destroyer
- Location
- United States
The Aurek took just 3 turns, it wasn't that much of a timesink in mechanical terms. Combine that with the limited budget and even buying parts instead of building them in-house would probably only cut it down to 2 turns, though one could certainly argue that the quality would be improved.
I naturally lean toward research but even more so in this quest because it gives more control of our supply chain and design goal. For an extra dice roll on weapons or shields we could develop something in house that we'll have access to forever and with increasing performance as we do more development. For hyperdrives and engines the cost difference made off the shelf stuff an attractive option.
I think the general issue I have though boils down to a lack of a 'successful' tutorial arc for this thread.
Example 1: We got access to a bunch of the advanced options before we knew what we were doing. Obviously these options can be used to get out of the hole easier but I feel like a lot of options are actively hindering our efforts. They make narrative sense but IMO should be restricted at first to streamline the quest and build competence. Justifications could be "We don't have the administrative overhead to support this project right now but in the future if we can get more income it'll be an option" for DIY manufacturing or making a new walker and "Once your employees see you've got a few successful projects under your belt this option will have some of the drawbacks minimized" for the upkeep option.
Limiting options means we don't spend words or mental energy (and resources/actions) on things that aren't supposed to be the core focus of the quest.
Example 2: Confusion about communication regarding goals as @Barondoctor mentioned. I can't find where we voted for engines but I'm not sure we could have succeeded with the parts we had. We were also told the buyer was throwing out hopes and dreams values for the bid (cost) and then we find out our competition pretty much nailed everything at that cost. A tutorial arc would help us gauge how the process looked to give context and give us an easy win to keep everyone excited. Adding a bit of information on the customers like "they're very budget focused", "for their needs additional maneuverability isn't valued", "a reliable engine is preferred over a higher top speed", or "they seem like they slightly value cargo over speed" also helps there. It could also be nice to have a target value "They're looking for X value with a max of Y". We shouldn't be able to bullseye all the X values at first but it gives us something to work toward and which side of it to be aiming for (vs only having something to avoid).
This post's information needs to be added to the rules informational post. I trimmed it for this discussion but it all is critical info.
If we look at this arc narratively I honestly think we'd get reamed out. As a tutorial I suppose it could show the difficulty of the job.
Suggestions moving forward are:
1) fewer options to do non-core stuff (or stuff the QM isn't interested in writing about)
2) clearer goals that allow for non-penalized wiggle room
I think the general issue I have though boils down to a lack of a 'successful' tutorial arc for this thread.
Example 1: We got access to a bunch of the advanced options before we knew what we were doing. Obviously these options can be used to get out of the hole easier but I feel like a lot of options are actively hindering our efforts. They make narrative sense but IMO should be restricted at first to streamline the quest and build competence. Justifications could be "We don't have the administrative overhead to support this project right now but in the future if we can get more income it'll be an option" for DIY manufacturing or making a new walker and "Once your employees see you've got a few successful projects under your belt this option will have some of the drawbacks minimized" for the upkeep option.
Limiting options means we don't spend words or mental energy (and resources/actions) on things that aren't supposed to be the core focus of the quest.
Example 2: Confusion about communication regarding goals as @Barondoctor mentioned. I can't find where we voted for engines but I'm not sure we could have succeeded with the parts we had. We were also told the buyer was throwing out hopes and dreams values for the bid (cost) and then we find out our competition pretty much nailed everything at that cost. A tutorial arc would help us gauge how the process looked to give context and give us an easy win to keep everyone excited. Adding a bit of information on the customers like "they're very budget focused", "for their needs additional maneuverability isn't valued", "a reliable engine is preferred over a higher top speed", or "they seem like they slightly value cargo over speed" also helps there. It could also be nice to have a target value "They're looking for X value with a max of Y". We shouldn't be able to bullseye all the X values at first but it gives us something to work toward and which side of it to be aiming for (vs only having something to avoid).
This post's information needs to be added to the rules informational post. I trimmed it for this discussion but it all is critical info.
If we look at this arc narratively I honestly think we'd get reamed out. As a tutorial I suppose it could show the difficulty of the job.
Suggestions moving forward are:
1) fewer options to do non-core stuff (or stuff the QM isn't interested in writing about)
2) clearer goals that allow for non-penalized wiggle room
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- Location
- nowhere
It doesn't help that right out of the gate we didn't have a snowballs chance in hell of winning as we were up against 2 entries from the juggernaut that is the CEC. To make things fair as this should have been the tutorial we should have been up against other local/regional shipyards that we had an actual chance of winning by having a comparable tech base with or us with a slight advantage.
Here's some potential action options I think could have value:
Design option to do market research
Design option to rework prototype
This way even failures could be a learning opportunity and it doesn't feel like we've completely wasted those turns. It does risk us getting mono-focused and becoming boring so a limit on how many of each we could do would be needed. Maybe they apply a bonus to like a sales success role or decrease the DC of a future design (after we've completed 3 other designs or something).
Some more feedback flavor text:
Your research team has specialized in X and Y buying needed equipment and locating specialists. Attempting to change research focus would require more people than the department and facilities can currently support or firing key members of the research team without cause. As a result research for nonX or Y categories is now more expensive.
The customer really didn't care about category Z as long as it doesn't cause issues. We had our researchers look into possible competitors though and found ships similar to our concept have Z in this range though.
Design option to do market research
Design option to rework prototype
This way even failures could be a learning opportunity and it doesn't feel like we've completely wasted those turns. It does risk us getting mono-focused and becoming boring so a limit on how many of each we could do would be needed. Maybe they apply a bonus to like a sales success role or decrease the DC of a future design (after we've completed 3 other designs or something).
Some more feedback flavor text:
Your research team has specialized in X and Y buying needed equipment and locating specialists. Attempting to change research focus would require more people than the department and facilities can currently support or firing key members of the research team without cause. As a result research for nonX or Y categories is now more expensive.
The customer really didn't care about category Z as long as it doesn't cause issues. We had our researchers look into possible competitors though and found ships similar to our concept have Z in this range though.