Regarding the "out of fucks to give" argument... Well, it IS a reason to try and make sure that from a gameplay standpoint, you only have one major crisis that requires the players to "clench" at a time, with cooldown periods in between.
The thing is,
@random_npc...
we had such a cooldown period. The Licori state of emergency wasn't declared until late March. We had our first SoE post on April 3. Prior to that time, while there were certainly fights going on in the Gabriel Expanse, that was an ongoing 'steady' operation. If you were in a state of 'clench' over that, it has more to do with your decision to regard that as an emergency than it does with the pacing of the game.
Pretty much the entirety of in-game 2313 and early 2314 was a 'cooldown' period from the heights of tension that occurred between the Lironh bombing and the signing of the Treaty of Celos, really.
Regarding the lack of feedback... the problem is that we don't get feedback until major battles are fought. It's like, should we have launched a huge fleet attack on Turn 2 or Turn 3 of the state of emergency? We'd get plenty of feedback that way, but we'd also be attacking when our own defenses are ill-prepared, when we don't have industrial assets mobilized to handle battle damage efficiently. And for that matter we'd have been attacking before we were even committed to the war, at a point in time when the Pacifist Party and the Vulcans in particular had major unanswered questions (and for that matter
were major unanswered questions) regarding how this was going to go down.
Things take time to happen.
It's important to minimize the amount of
unnecessary time that is spent when
uninteresting things are happening, but things will inevitably take time to happen.
I don't really agree with the desire to kill point based mobilization. Right now we have a distinct lack of urgency with mobilizing more assets, like, we're mobilizing a scouting squad we'll need in two months and an internal team that's only happening because we mathed that it would start to convert Starfleet support to member world support in three months. But I could easily see us fighting a battle or a development coming up where suddenly mobilization is urgent again and we would sorely regret moving to a one asset model. This especially in any major war we fight.
I think the main problem is that fortnight turns are too slow, meaning we have too many inconsequential things to vote on, or we don't have anything to vote on at all. Much of what we voted as direction to Eaton, for example, really should have been left until both assaults went through. Mobilization on the other hand could follow a voted timed plan that covers an entire quarter, with modifications only coming up if big developments do, or if we choose to re-open it. That would eliminate fortnight turns in favor of monthly assignment/update and quarterly mobilization plans.
The problem is something you already mentioned: that "quarterly timed mobilization plans" are vulnerable to the exact problem you just pointed out with a "one asset per fortnight" mobilization model: if a sudden emergency arises, we cannot launch an equally sudden mass mobilization of diverse extra assets. We'd have to vote to cancel the quarterly plan in response to changing circumstances, as you say. Furthermore, since changing circumstances are very likely to arise multiple times a year in a
serious emergency, we'd be making these plans and routinely expecting to have to vote to cancel a large proportion of them.
Also, a vote to cancel a quarterly plan could just as easily be a vote to abandon "one per fortnight" mobilization. You're proposing a solution that has the same weakness as my proposed solution, and your proposed workaround for that weakness could just as easily apply to my solution.
Maybe the problem is that you're picturing "one asset per fortnight" as being a permanent mandatory condition of mobilization at all times regardless of circumstances? Because I mentioned in an earlier post that I think we should start crises out in "make itemized plan" mode, then switch over to "one asset per fortnight" mode once the situation has calmed down.
If the situation becomes more unsettled, we can switch back. A "routine" vote might break down into two parts:
[][MOB] Andorian Civil Service - Internal Diplomacy Team (20pt cost for Andor, gain Internal Diplomacy Team, lock down next fortnight's MOB vote)
[][MOB] Call up Starfleet Reserve Personnel (20pt from Starfleet, +20 O/E/T for duration of SoE only, one-time, locks down next fortnight's MOB vote)
[][MOB] Generate Generic External Diplomacy Team from <Member World> (10 Cost to Starfleet, 5 Cost to Member World, gain External Diplomacy Team)
[][MOB] Starfleet Academy Red Squad Runabouts - Recon team (4 cost for Starfleet, gain +1 to outpost and starbase attempts to detect incoming ships)
[][MOB] Hargunn Arcrut Resource Combine - Heavy Industry (8 Cost to Tellar, gain Heavy Industry asset)
[][MOB] Hadad Pradesh Mond Engineering - Engineering Team (10 Cost from Rigel, gain Engineering Team with 2 Engineering Ships, 2 Cargo Ships, 2 Freighters)
[][MOB] <Write-In>: Federalise up to 10 points of Fleet or Auxiliary Units from <Member Worlds> (5 cost for explorer, 2 cost for cruiser, 1 cost for frigate. 3 cost for freighter, 2 cost for cargo ship, 3 cost for other auxiliary units. Paid against war support from the planet you're calling from)
[][NEXT] Next turn, continue mobilization at the normal rates.
[][NEXT] Next turn, step up mobilization to emergency rates.
'Emergency rates' would be plan voting like what we've been doing. 'Normal rates' would be one team per fortnight.
This way, we could fold the "what do we mobilize" votes into the "status update" votes. So far, Oneiros has been giving us two update posts per fortnight- one in which he tells us what's happening and asks us what we want our teams to do, and one where he asks us what teams to mobilize. But we COULD fold both of those into one big post, greatly decreasing the number of low-content low-impact votes, by turning the vote into a single line-item on "what to mobilize next." Only if the voterbase votes to have 'emergency rate' mobilization would we step up to the point where it takes an entirely separate plan vote to determine what assets we mobilize in a given fortnight.
That and the tension in this emergency burned out sometime around the summit. We aren't even reacting to ship losses anymore. Some people didn't even realize the Blizzard was missing!
Thing is, we're going to lose ships every couple of turns.
This is a war zone. Ships getting lost becomes a common occurrence. There's no way for us to have the level of panic reaction to a ship getting lost during a state of emergency that we'd have during peacetime. If we did, that would become counterproductive, because we'd be spending too much time in an elevated level of panic.
