General Comments

[olivertheorem]

This thread is for general comments regarding the campaign. All comments welcome (especially rules corrections!).

The starting system post will be first, then a by-the-numbers post on the main race, then a more narrative expression of those numbers.

[JoeBuckeye]

Good luck, I look forward to reading about your campaign.

[Vandervecken]

Remember that red stars can last much longer than even yellow stars, although the smallest are almost always flare-stars. Some will last for a trillion years if the universe lets it do so. So your empire has that going for it.

I'm looking forward to reading your new empire's stuff.

[olivertheorem]

Yeah...somehow I doubt that I'll make it through enough turns for it to matter.

[Vandervecken]

Some of your Military vessels are "Fast hull" CTf and ESf , but only have movement of 6, You didn't buy a (ia) for 1/2 a HS and 10 MCr to get them up to speed 7. That is all it would take for those two ship Classes. So why waste the Extra 2.0 MCr per HS to get those classes the 'Fast hull and not get them up to max speed'?

One possibility is to take the A out of each and replace it with a (ia) (attached to an (Ia) of course for a (ia Ia)) and a Hs. It will have the extra speed (&), same space in HS, 1 extra HTK, 10 extra Cost to design (-2 + 2 +10 = 10 MCr extra). Or just make the ships regular hull.

[olivertheorem]

I rolled that the ships use one fewer than max engines. I took that to mean one fewer than the number of engines to reach max speed. Thus, no ship will reach the technical max for the hull size. Since the fast hulls give +1 to max MP, I could push them up to six and leave off the additional engine (or half-engine, in this case) and satisfy the rule. So, they're fast relative to the other hulls in the military, but not relative to the rulebook (if that makes sense).

[Vandervecken]

Ahh yes, I'd never do that to my own starting empire, but reading your backstory data, I now remember that. Hopefully they won't learn their lesson too harshly.

I make enough idiotic mistakes that hamstringing them with bad policies would really put them in a 'Hole'; possibly the 'Black' variety I could never climb out of.

[procyon]

Not sure why you group the engines in pairs on the DDs. They are two engines in two engine rooms.
And on the LR DDs, I like that design. Good idea with the Ta, but it need burried deeper or you will lose it trying to close.

[JoeBuckeye]

Why does your explorer vessel have Xa and Xp?

Can't the Xa provide everything the Xp does?

[Vandervecken]

Can't the Xa provide everything the Xp does?

Not quite, it does produce 4 Plan. Survey Points which is 1 extra Planetary Exploration point if you start in the system.

Can I verify that the rule: 'A ship with operable Science Instruments or Planet Surveyor (Xp) generates x survey points per StMP spent surveying, based on the quality of Science Instrument.' This means that you can only use either the Science instrument or the Planetary Surveyor.

Also per R2.02.1 - Only one Science Instrument per ship can generate SPs during an StMP. That only 1 Science instrument could be used will crimp the plan for those who thought to put 2 x Xa on a ship. For those who say that Xp are not science instruments, that is strictly true per R3.01 - 1st bullet point. But they are grouped as science instruments further down and see the first paragraph above. So either way it looks to be that you can use either the Xa or the Xp.

So I would replace the Xp with a (Bsa) and a 'st' for it. The Xa would generate 3 SP and the 'st' would generate 6 Plan. SP for a max. of 3 SP for WP Surveys and 9 SP for Plan. surveys (if it starts the turn in the system). It costs 5 extra MCr to buy this combo instead of the Xp but the maint. cost would be less as 'st' have no maint. cost.