Map - New and Improved Galaxy - aeqnai
To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)
- Thread starter OneirosTheWriter
- Start date
- Sci-Fi
-
- Tags
- star trek exploration fully automated luxury gay space communism top level canon (canon) #hashtagcontent all-encompassing space amoeba cardassian boy bands cardassian magical girls darkest bureaucracy debate makes the qm cackle like palpatine hoh is an empire quest it has to be foreign infiltrators more ships ship happens singers delenda est starfleet this is not an empire quest ur waifu is collective?
- Location
- Australia
I mean, there's always the off-chance that this doesn't go like all your other offensives and ends up being a gruesome quaqmire you can't extract yourselves from and possibly loses half its strength.
But if all things go well then yes, back before Christmas.
Sigh. Now I'm expecting it all to go wrong with the Cardassian forces turning it into, at best, a meat grinder, at worst a rout.
Thanks boss.
You just totally fucked us!
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Goddamnit >.<
...I'm now morbidly curious to see what happens if we have so many damaged or lost ships that we can't meet garrison requirements for a decent length of time.
Thebigpieman
I've got this, I think.
- Location
- United States
Well GBZ fleet it was nice knowing you.
- Location
- Australia
I would say this is the best time to start planning for another UP style shipyard.
With some of these plans we are realising the UP efficiencies in Sol, with even more to come. but acknowledging the risk of the incredible concentration of shipbuilding in Sol.
So we should be planning a new UP now with the goal of balancing Sols criticality while ensuring we expand it enough in the next 15 years to make the investment pay off.
So something like investigate now, start building before 2322 so it can be completed and aggressivly expanded before all the 2328 refit waves start.
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The GBZ currently contains a full third of Cardassian fleet strength. Counting the Konen, we still overmatch them even without our ridiculous reinforcement wave. To match our reinforcements ship for ship, they have to bring in about 15 more ships. That's about half their total reserve force. And by "reserve" I mean their entire garrison.
If they call up more Ashalla Pact forces? Well, UESPA is coming, and the Amarki and Caitians and Apiata can all afford to send more ships.
And then there's their shipbuilding resources. According to our 2317 report, the Cardassians have every single berth except one active. Yes, they have a GBZ repair yard (so do we - and we have the repair yard at Tellar), but that's hardly enough to cope with the consequences of one battle. Once we fight one large battle, they have to start bumping new ship builds. Even one major battle, even if it's a victory, could delay their war potential against the Federation an entire year. Several battles would ruin them. And that's not counting that with fewer ships overall they could easily lose those battles.
Meanwhile, we had some 30 odd member berths of all sizes ready and waiting for repairs if only we insert PP. Lots of empty berths Federation-wide.
I wonder if their obvious desperation for a GBZ victory has them discarding the long-term in favor of, what, the prestige of having to subordinate that potential victory to this Konen?
If they call up more Ashalla Pact forces? Well, UESPA is coming, and the Amarki and Caitians and Apiata can all afford to send more ships.
And then there's their shipbuilding resources. According to our 2317 report, the Cardassians have every single berth except one active. Yes, they have a GBZ repair yard (so do we - and we have the repair yard at Tellar), but that's hardly enough to cope with the consequences of one battle. Once we fight one large battle, they have to start bumping new ship builds. Even one major battle, even if it's a victory, could delay their war potential against the Federation an entire year. Several battles would ruin them. And that's not counting that with fewer ships overall they could easily lose those battles.
Meanwhile, we had some 30 odd member berths of all sizes ready and waiting for repairs if only we insert PP. Lots of empty berths Federation-wide.
I wonder if their obvious desperation for a GBZ victory has them discarding the long-term in favor of, what, the prestige of having to subordinate that potential victory to this Konen?
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NHO
Dumb is a state of existence
- Location
- ᓚᘏᗢ
I cancellled my vote for I like no current plan at all.
[Given that we have no idea how all this will turn out, this is pure speculation]
Negaverse Pack point of view
Q1 : Yeah, go us! Nailed a cruiser, and they let us get away! That new guy in charge is a breath of fresh air, we just needed to be more aggressive!
Q2: There is how many warp signatures heading this way? Send everything!
Q3: PAIN!
Q4: *gazes upon years of repairs/shattered infrastructure* Yes, a nice quiet non aggressive commander for the GBZ is just what we need now.
Negaverse Pack point of view
Q1 : Yeah, go us! Nailed a cruiser, and they let us get away! That new guy in charge is a breath of fresh air, we just needed to be more aggressive!
Q2: There is how many warp signatures heading this way? Send everything!
Q3: PAIN!
Q4: *gazes upon years of repairs/shattered infrastructure* Yes, a nice quiet non aggressive commander for the GBZ is just what we need now.
I mean, we've had ships badly damaged in individual clashes in the GBZ and not had anything like this reaction. Would any commander but Nash ka'Sharren have lost a single ship and decided, "What I really ought to do is sweep through an entire sub-sector and clean it out."? I'm not sure even Ainsworth would have been quite that bold.
What I'm saying is, when they decided to test our response, this may not have been quite the result they were anticipating.
It'll be even worse for them if they underestimate how many warp signatures are heading 'this way' and don't 'send everything'. Which they well might... they're going to know some kind of activity is up, but I know that it's always taken us specific intelligence efforts and time to get fleet counts in the GBZ. They might well fail to reinforce enough.
- Location
- Patriarchova
Trufax: all of my ms paint stuff in this thread has been in-universe prophetic crayon drawings by babby Nash.
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lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Militarily speaking, we should have the advantage, in both the GBZ and any further escalation including full scale war. Sydraxians are out of the picture, Dawiar are starting to get cut off, Cardassians have only started their cruiser refits and military ramp-up, nearly maxing out their shipbuilding capacity, have limited reserves, and their logistical situation is still weak.
The Federation, on the other hand, already outweighs them in total fleet strength and production capacity, and the Federation's traditional enemies are extremely distracted. The primary military weakness of the Federation right now is that the Seyek are still in disarray. Other than that, our only other distraction that isn't in the process of being settled is the Horizonites, which although growing as threat, are still on the back burner.
But politically? This is unquestionably an offensive escalation that is way above the commensurate response to the destruction of a cruiser and the capture of its crew. The Ashalla Pact's strategy here may be to just bleed the Federation sufficiently to force Federation politics to intervene. They just need to ensure that most initial battles are, if not outright defeating the Federation task forces, then at least forcing Pyrrhic victories for the Federation. All that talk about total fleet strength and production? It's quite the challenge to leverage all that from theory into reality.
It also strikes me of a bit of desperation ploy. The Cardassians could be starting to grasp the 800 pound gorilla that the Federation is growing into, and they want to turn the tide as soon as possible before its too late. Which is where the GBZ comes into play: in theory, the resources available in the GBZ should be enough to fuel a total war with the Federation.
The Federation, on the other hand, already outweighs them in total fleet strength and production capacity, and the Federation's traditional enemies are extremely distracted. The primary military weakness of the Federation right now is that the Seyek are still in disarray. Other than that, our only other distraction that isn't in the process of being settled is the Horizonites, which although growing as threat, are still on the back burner.
But politically? This is unquestionably an offensive escalation that is way above the commensurate response to the destruction of a cruiser and the capture of its crew. The Ashalla Pact's strategy here may be to just bleed the Federation sufficiently to force Federation politics to intervene. They just need to ensure that most initial battles are, if not outright defeating the Federation task forces, then at least forcing Pyrrhic victories for the Federation. All that talk about total fleet strength and production? It's quite the challenge to leverage all that from theory into reality.
It also strikes me of a bit of desperation ploy. The Cardassians could be starting to grasp the 800 pound gorilla that the Federation is growing into, and they want to turn the tide as soon as possible before its too late. Which is where the GBZ comes into play: in theory, the resources available in the GBZ should be enough to fuel a total war with the Federation.
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
@OneirosTheWriter, shouldn't this be 472.5 or 473?
Base: 150
Member worlds (12): 12*10 = +120
Threat level (15): 15*5% = +75%
Total: (150+120)*(1+75%)=472.5
Or are you just waiting to update this after the next ratification? That would bring it up to 490.
Hmm, how to put this... I hate to say this, but with few new species to affiliate with, and the majority of non-Ashalla Pact minor powers already major Federation affiliates or nearly there... Federation affiliate diplomacy is starting to feel rather trivialized.
I mean, I know that diplomacy is Federation's hat and all, but this is getting kinda ridiculous over the last few years.
SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
The Federation we're playing as is still to small to represent the federation that was shown to exist in TNG. We're not that many years away from it either if anything we're not affiliating and creating new members quick enough.
lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
Kind of?
There's already competition for minor power relations between major powers, and as long as the speed of affiliation increases can increase for all major powers, that competition potential should remain the case.
But to have faster affiliations without trivializing the diplomacy gameplay, we need more and more new minor powers to discover and then compete for relations with. And that's where two problems come in:
The first being that the map is already getting quite crowded. Solvable in the short-term by just expanding it.
The second being more of a creative issue where the QM needs to keep up the supply of new, unique, interesting species and polities, balancing with keeping the existing polities in the narrative (like, when's the last time we thought about the Ittick-ka?). And all the while trying to avoid a situation like what's happening with the explosion of events in Captain Logs.
edit: There's also concern that the faster pace of affiliations could, decades from now, lead to discovery-to-membership in an extremely rapid time-frame, possibly even a single year. That trivializes the minutiae of the relationship mechanics, even if they remain strategically important.
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- Location
- Patriarchova
The problem here, as I and others have pointed out, is that the quest had us start out with just the original four members in 2300.
Canonically, the Federation had already been gaining members since at least Kirk's time (we saw the ratification of the Coridons in the episode "Journey to Babel"), and probably much earlier (the Rigellians and Caitians were probably intended to be members rather than just affiliates when we were introduced to them).
What probably happened in the canon timeline is something like:
1) The Original Four found the Federation in 2161. The Rigellians, Denobulans, and a few others immediately affiliate.
2) A decade or two later, say in 2180, Rigel joins as a full member.
3) A decade after that, Ferasa or Denobula or whoever does the same.
4) By Kirk's time in the mid 2200's, the Federation has built up a respectable roster of about 8-10 species. The era of rapid expansion in the mid to late 2200's causes that number to start growing more rapidly, with new species like the Coridons and the Deltans/Betazoids being added every 4-5 years.
5) By Picard's time a century later, the Federation has so many species in it that the council can do a reasonable impersonation of Star Wars' galactic senate. The Federation is so big that the ratification of new members is considered mundane, someone gets ratified almost every year and it barely has any impact on most Federation citizens.
Basically, this is the snowball effect in action. When your federation only has four members, adding a fifth is going to cause a massive restructuring. You can only add new members once every decade or so, or else the political chaos will tear the union apart. Once you've got ten members, however, adding an eleventh isn't nearly as difficult, and you can do it faster while rocking the boat less. Once you've got a hundred, its a drop in the bucket.
What bothers me about this quest isn't that we're adding members too fast or too slow right now. Its that we transitioned too quickly from "four members, considering maybe possibly adding the Amarki as a fifth" to "twelve and counting." The five year moratorium paid lip service to acknowledging this problem, but our timeline is still pretty insane compared to the probable canon one.
Its something I'm okay with handwaving with some thin justifications, the same way we kind of handwaved Starfleet being so ridiculously tiny at the quest's start with some thin justifications. To Boldly Go follows a tried and true game design paradigm in which the player(s) start out in control of a very small faction, and reap the fruits of exponential growth in response to their successful projects. The rate of that exponential growth is very well paced to make an enjoyable and rewarding game experience. However, it is not very well paced to realistically portray the expansion of a space federation.
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I'd also say some level of acceleration is necessary to feel rewarding. Imagine if we just got to the Caitians membership now after a decade of integrating the Amarki and Betazeds?
Actually, more accurately, we'd probably just be ready to start Amarkia down the path to membership after adding the Betas and Caitians in 17 years. It's kinda crazy how they went from first contact to membership in like, half a decade and ahead of the Caitians and especially the Rigellians. But it was very rewarding and people liked it, so it's not bad. Gameplay!
Actually, more accurately, we'd probably just be ready to start Amarkia down the path to membership after adding the Betas and Caitians in 17 years. It's kinda crazy how they went from first contact to membership in like, half a decade and ahead of the Caitians and especially the Rigellians. But it was very rewarding and people liked it, so it's not bad. Gameplay!
- Location
- Patriarchova
Yeah, as an amateur game designer myself I will always advocate for prioritizing good gameplay over narrative realism. But by the same token, you can't then turn around and say "we need to get members faster because TNG."
I also wonder if a TNG-like pace of ratifications would reduce the level of fun. I enjoy having time to get to know each new species and solve their internal problems before we absorb them.
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lbmaian
a thirsty squirrel
- Location
- USA
In the short-term, we just need lots of more new species and polities to discover, and the accelerating rate of discovery-to-affiliation-to-member is fine. To Boldly Go, you know?
Long-term... I'm not sure. Managing something approaching the number of members of canon UFP is a whole other ballpark from the playground we're in. I'm not comfortable with the idea of most member species just making lip service to being relevant and just making cameos. I suppose we can cross that bridge if and when we get there.
edit: It comes to mind, that we in fact are seeing new polities recently - they just happened to be the type we can't affiliate with at all. So on one hand, we're making discoveries, friends, and enemies. On the other hand, that poor neglected affiliation gameplay...
Long-term... I'm not sure. Managing something approaching the number of members of canon UFP is a whole other ballpark from the playground we're in. I'm not comfortable with the idea of most member species just making lip service to being relevant and just making cameos. I suppose we can cross that bridge if and when we get there.
edit: It comes to mind, that we in fact are seeing new polities recently - they just happened to be the type we can't affiliate with at all. So on one hand, we're making discoveries, friends, and enemies. On the other hand, that poor neglected affiliation gameplay...
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Thebigpieman
I've got this, I think.
- Location
- United States
You know what this means? We must absorb the quadrant.