Spacefaring Factions RP Setup Thread

[Canis_Dirus]

Alright, this is the place for discussing the future spacefaring RP setting, rules, and related stuff. If you have ideas, post them here, and of course feel free to comment on existing stuff.

So far I've come up with the following tentative plans:

*Setting will be a galaxy 400,000 light years in diameter. It has 19.2 trillion stars and of those about 704 billion are Sun-like yellow dwarfs.

*The galaxy will have an unusual amount of wormhole/portal activity. This will allow players to easily import existing nations without having to override their own canon, be it from another galaxy or another dimension Their faction can just send a colonization force through and set up shop.
-The portals come in two broad categories: larger and smaller. Larger portals are rather short lived, and so more can be sent through initially, however what is sent through will quickly become isolated from the source civilization when it collapses. Smaller portals are much more stable and won't collapse, however less can be sent through at once.
-Players can also elect to have their faction's home be the RP galaxy

*Proposed play rules:
-Proposed ship numbers for each portal/wormhole type are 500 max for large portals and 100 for smaller portals. These numbers do not effect industrial production rates in universe, they are there to keep people from importing huge numbers of warships out of nowhere from their home area.
-If a battle is occurring is a system with a portal/wormhole, it cannot be used to bring reinforcements through nor can you retreat through it. This follows the reasoning for the previous rule.
-New colonies are limited to a maximum of five per month. This isn't Civilization where Rome is built in a day. In addition, warship production scales with number of shipyard systems.
-Factions originating in the galaxy start with the same amount of stuff as a large portal force. This gives them an initial advantage with ship strength, however their production starts out slower (just like large portal forces).
-Descriptions of your technology (especially special weaponry) is heavily encouraged to minimize misunderstandings
-Players can play as whatever race they want, however it must be an original faction that they have come up with.

[Canis_Dirus]

Reserved for Results

[Canis_Dirus]

Reserved for other stuff as needed

[Valnarian]

Expect me to post in the future.

[Canis_Dirus]

*Is still expecting....

[Tarragon]

I think we need to make things easier for people by providing a template sheet so they can fill out information on their races.


Also, I like that there's maximum limits for everything. You've definitely established that there's a limit to what people can do with portals, but I also think you need to say in the rules that you can't have your races appear from portals right by the colonies of other races/enemy factions, unless there's some sort of strict permission that's been given, say to do some sort of plot (Because what you don't say can hurt you, and if it's not written down somewhere, someone will try to do that).


Also, though, even if all races start out equal, won't things like production rates increase with the quality of colonies and their number, and additionally, shouldn't the size of a portal not just mention the number of ships, but do the sizes of these ships also impact the limit? Do the portals treat tiny ships the same as massive warships? Also, what if we want to have multiple colonies from the beginning? Shouldn't there be a separate cap, so we can say there's something like a history for our races? I imagine there's going to be a limit that varies depending on whether or not your race is native to the galaxy.

Secondly, during the story, when we do plots, if we negotiate things with each other in advance before we do them, do we have a right to 'violate' certain sections of these rules, on the grounds that we have permission because it's part of the plot we were doing with the other party involved?

I feel like the rules are good, but some level of flexibility needs to be incorporated into them, or the RP might become almost stat-based in nature. Also, some of us aren't focused on the spread of an empire, but on just writing stories in a sci-fi setting, where stats and such aren't usually taken into consideration.

We also need to close the one portal loophole, because if someone does see that it's there, they can use it and we wouldn't be able to say anything. It should be an unspoken rule, but unfortunately, some people can't be trusted on an honor-based system.

[Canis_Dirus]

Agreed on the faction sheet and no appearing right next to people parts

Also, though, even if all races start out equal, won't things like production rates increase with the quality of colonies and their number, and additionally, shouldn't the size of a portal not just mention the number of ships, but do the sizes of these ships also impact the limit? Do the portals treat tiny ships the same as massive warships? Also, what if we want to have multiple colonies from the beginning? Shouldn't there be a separate cap, so we can say there's something like a history for our races? I imagine there's going to be a limit that varies depending on whether or not your race is native to the galaxy.

Yes production rates and such will increase the more a faction develops. I was thinking about leaving this to be reasonably managed by the player, although depending on how into the weeds we want to get, there can either by a regular ship count/colony increase amount that's constant for everyone or takes factors into account such as colony numbers. One could also be imposed for maximum ship count and system count. But again that depends on how much we want to regulate things. I would also be open to letting players kind of manage this themselves as long as they are reasonable.

There should be a maximum size limit for ships on the portals, but I was kind of leaving it open since some people's factions might want to bring through large ships or mobile stations and the like. Although with that in mind, there should be at least a guideline for max warship sizes.
I was just going to say, more in a regulatory sense rather than as much an IC sense, that tiny ships are treated the same when it comes to bringing stuff through the portals. Because there's a potential loophole there otherwise for someone to bring in enormous amounts of tiny spam ships.

Secondly, during the story, when we do plots, if we negotiate things with each other in advance before we do them, do we have a right to 'violate' certain sections of these rules, on the grounds that we have permission because it's part of the plot we were doing with the other party involved?

It would depend on the rules they want to violate. There'll probably be some harder rules, but most of them can probably be bent and loopholed through as long as proper RP and agreement is done between the two parties.

I feel like the rules are good, but some level of flexibility needs to be incorporated into them, or the RP might become almost stat-based in nature. Also, some of us aren't focused on the spread of an empire, but on just writing stories in a sci-fi setting, where stats and such aren't usually taken into consideration.

Of course. Hence why I mentioned above that it depends on how into the weeds we want to get with the rules. Ideally I think more of an honor system rather than hard stats and numbers is what people here want (if anyone thinks differently please say so). If abuses happen, that's what mods and admins are for. I'm very content to give people a beating if they want to screw around,break rules and cause problems.
I think if we can nail the stuff down for warship count increase rate, warship count, system count, and system increase rate, then we can leave a lot of other stuff to the individual players to do what they want writing and RP wise, and the above still will only really be relevant should two factions go to war.

We also need to close the one portal loophole

Which loophole is that?

[Canis_Dirus]

Here is a tentative faction template sheet:

REQUIRED ITEMS
Faction Name: (example: Ultimate Republic of Cheese)
Government: (type of government, government bodies, capital, people of power)
Major Species: (species summary, roles in society if any, special qualities they have such as psionics or natural armor)
Culture: (self-image, daily life, laws, education, foreign outlook, languges)
Military: (do they have one?, how is it organized, concept of operations, goals, do they focus on a particular branch?)
History: (date of founding, what happened before the faction, what happened between founding and modern day?)

BONUS ITEMS
Flag/Symbol
Economic System
Goals and Ultimate Purpose
Picture of Species (a seperate species detailing sheet is also great)
Anthem or Themesong

[Valnarian]

I would add as another bonus item a picture of the species(singular or plural) of the faction. Also, as an added bit of fun, you could post a bit of music that you think makes a suitable theme for them (alternatively, there could be a separate thread for that).

[Tarragon]

I think we might want to do another theme thread. Lots of videos lag out pages so it's hard to load them. At least that way we can expect to wait and get a huge thread filled with music.

Also, I meant the portal loophole about appearing by other planets or races. That was the main thing I was concerned with, so I brought it up again.

Also, if some stuff is left open to the RPers like you say, I think that eases worries sufficiently. You might just want to mention it somewhere.

That's all that I can think of at the moment.

[Canis_Dirus]

I think we might want to do another theme thread. Lots of videos lag out pages so it's hard to load them. At least that way we can expect to wait and get a huge thread filled with music.

Well if people want to discuss themes that might require another thread. If you want to just post something in your faction description a link should work and won't lag anything

If anyone else doesn't have any objections, I'll start writing up the rules and stuff then.
Also Tarragon, could you make a sub-folder in the RP Source material section for people to post their faction sheets? That way it doesn't clutter up the main folder

EDIT: Now does anyone have any suggestions for the galaxy name?

[Valnarian]

Picture of Species (a seperate species detailing sheet is also great)

What do you mean by the section in the parentheses?

[Tarragon]

Sometimes images won't describe other traits. Let's say they have three rows of teeth, but the mouth is closed in the photo. Photos help you visualize stuff, but you need to know things like height and weight and such.

In my case, I generally try to pose my stuff so you see most of what they look like, but that wasn't always the case.

[Canis_Dirus]

Alright here is the tentative rules list and setting. Feedback is good

Setting
-Spiral galaxy 400,000 LY diameter
  *19.2 trillion stars with ~704 billion sun like ones
  *galaxy has 64x volume of Milky Way
-Galaxy has unusual amount of wormhole and dimensional anomaly activity, many factions find their way there and some    originate there

Rules
Those wishing to enter the RP may do so with any faction or race they want, provided it does not stem from another work of fiction
  *All players are required to fill out the required items section of the faction sheet for their faction and must have said sheet accepted before entry into the RP
  *Once accepted, players are required to provide basic descriptions of their technology, especially special tech they have made up  
Players may elect to enter the galaxy using a large portal or small portal, which dictates starting warship amounts as well as home area contact
  *Large portals collapse within a week RP time and permit the player starting with a maximum of 500 warships
  *Smaller portals do not collapse, and permit the player starting with 100 warships
  *Factions originating in the galaxy will follow the starting amounts for a smaller portal faction
  *Players may not start directly adjacent to another player's territory without their permission
Warship production rates are up to the player to decide provided that they follow a reasonable rate
  *Using the portal to bring huge amounts of extra warships through is prohibited. In story reasoning is that your faction is busy elsewhere
  *If all of a player's shipyards are either destroyed or captured, large portal factions cannot produce new warships or repair damaged ones without outside help (also applies to factions originating in galaxy)
All players start with 5 colonized systems, and may add up to 5 additional fully colonized systems per month in real time
  *A fully colonized system is one in which the faction in question has built significant infrastructure and population
  *More than 5 small start-up colonies may be added in reasonable amounts, however only 5 will mature into full fledged systems at a time
Battle Rules:
  *If a battle is taking place within a portal system, the player owning the portal is not allowed to hide warships within it to avoid destruction nor are they allowed to bring warships out of the portal from their home to reinforce themselves
  *Collapsing another nation's portal is allowed
  *Interdiction technology is allowed (interdiction stops all FTL travel) and is either targetted or blanket. Blanket interdiction affects everyone including the person using it; targetted affects only a certain type of FTL travel and requires knowledge of the type being targetted
Fair Play and Miscellaneous Rules:
  *Metagaming, powerplaying, godmodding, and mary-suing are all prohibited. This applies to factions and characters.
  *Copying someone else's unique technology is prohibited, however may be reproduced through in-game research and/or RPing with said faction
  *For the most part, physics will be observed in the RP
  *Players are permitted to enter one good, one neutral, and one evil faction
       -Good factions tend to seek policies that benefit those in their care, but not ones that have a large adverse impact on innocents beyond their borders. They show respect for sentient creatures, and follow morals which value justice (due to their respect of sentients and by extension, their possessions) and freedom.
       -Neutral factions typically have justice, freedom, and have compunctions about harming innocents. However the sense of morality is not as strong and so they do not feel as compelled to worry about those not in their care. Their policies therefore tend to more revolve around benefits to the nation and relationships established with other nations.
       -Evil factions are those which do not hold morality, justice, freedom, and respect for sentients in high regard for those beyond their borders (and sometimes not even for those within the borders either). They pursue policies which benefit those within the nation even if those policies have large negative impacts on others.
  *No warship will have any dimension exceeding 100 miles (161 km). Mobile stations and superweapons may exceed this to a reasonable extent.

Of Note:
-Players who do are not participating in battles do not need to worry about warship count, system count, Battle Rules, or technology description. Upon entry into a battle RP however, all players present must have accurate numbers for warship and system count and be ready to show them to a moderator or admin.
-If not specifically banned in the rules, actions are allowed provided they are not disruptive to RPs
-The RP follows the honor system for most operations, however more rules will be added if needed


Faction Sheet

REQUIRED ITEMS
Faction Name: (example: Ultimate Republic of Cheese)
Government: (type of government, government bodies, capital, people of power)
Major Species: (species summary, roles in society if any, special qualities they have such as psionics or natural armor)
Culture: (self-image, daily life, laws, education, foreign outlook, languges)
Military: (do they have one?, how is it organized, concept of operations, goals, do they focus on a particular branch?)
History: (date of founding, what happened before the faction, what happened between founding and modern day?)

BONUS ITEMS
Flag/Symbol
Economic System
Goals and Ultimate Purpose
Picture of Species (a seperate species detailing sheet is also great)
Anthem or Themesong

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What do you mean by the section in the parentheses?

I mean that they could attach a picture of their species, but a full write up with diagrams of the species would also be a wonderful thing

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NOW DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY GOOD NAMES FOR THE GALAXY OR WILL I HAVE TO DO THAT MYSELF?

[Valnarian]

Working on a species right now.

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