OOC Thread

[Marlin]

If your orders indicated an R&D roll, the results should be included in your monthly report PM. If you didn't pay for R&D (and didn't opt for free R&D if it was an appropriate turn), it won't be included in your report.

How does one opt for free R&D?

[Fatebringer]

Currently for the Clan, you wait three turns (Next Roll Turn 41) and pray for a 12

For factions that make 35 RP a turn, it's not worth paying 5 to pray for 12's in the interim

[Dave Baughman]

If your orders indicated an R&D roll, the results should be included in your monthly report PM. If you didn't pay for R&D (and didn't opt for free R&D if it was an appropriate turn), it won't be included in your report.

How does one opt for free R&D?

The current version of the sheet that is circulating I believe has a "free R&D" option that can be selected with a 0 RP price.

[Fatebringer]

Aaah, I misunderstood the question

[Daemonknight]

Theres an option right below the Training box, and above the Intelligence Ratings section.



Am i really the only Clan that has a Prestigious Facility??? Dave, were you aware i had them when you've been making my rolls the past few turns? I have 2...

[Dave Baughman]

Theres an option right below the Training box, and above the Intelligence Ratings section.



Am i really the only Clan that has a Prestigious Facility??? Dave, were you aware i had them when you've been making my rolls the past few turns? I have 2...

Not the only one...

Also, yes - I make a point of checking the income tab to see the total number of PFs before I make that roll.

[Iron Mongoose]

A quick look shows the Camels with one, the Adders with at least two (I could have sworn we had another some place), the Wolves with four or more, the Bears with quite a few, looks like three for the Sharks...  I think the problem is that none were awarded in the Homeworlds.  All of thouse PFs are in the IS or periphery (the Sharks get many from their spacestations).  There was a proposal to give some for each capitol world, or for wholely controlled worlds, but I don't know that it was ever implemented.

[Daemonknight]

One of mine is within the Homeworlds actually

[Dave Baughman]

The real reason why the Clans are so bad off on PFs is because at one point in the game (turn 20) some factions recevied "freebie" PFs. Any faction that wasn't in the game at the time (i.e. the homeworld Clans), missed out. Later, when the homeworlds were brought in, they were given free hex improvements to compensate for their time "out of circulation" but were not allowed to allocate any of these as PFs.

I am currently looking at several solutions to the PF gap and its far-reaching impacts on game balance, but none of them are developed enough to post a working draft yet.

[Daemonknight]

It always struck me as backwards that the IS was actually superior to the Clans in terms of technological advances suddenly. But its all good, we'll still crush them on the battlefields

[Jeyar]

That's because the clans are simply refining the tech left by the Star League.

[Iron Mongoose]

Quite. Very few clans really have well devloped scientest castes anyway, or make many advances.  The canon Coyotes, the Mandrill Faraday-Tanagas, and one or two others are some of the very few elements noted for skill in that area.  Conversly, there is a big conspearacy going on with the scientests, so perhaps that can be used to explain why the Clans have faired so poorly in R and D!

[Daemonknight]

But they have a bigtime head start. Alot of their advanced weapon systems that havn't made it out yet would be currently under some type of prototyping or development. I'm not saying that the Clans should be switching places with the IS in the PF facility, but their Scientists have the advantage of never having lost any technology, and not having to start a half a milenium backwards from the point of the invasion to come upto snuff.

Its just always bothered me slightly that the Clans have no real balancing factor in-game: they're outnumbered, as they should be; they're out produced, as they should be; our level of military technology, conspiracy or no, should still be on a somewhat higher plane than the IS: even when we both have the exact same weapon systems, the Clans have the superior performing examples of that weapon system, and generally develop new/upgraded weapon systems quicker than the IS(atleast it seems like all the best toys come from the Clans and get reverse engineered by the NAIS).

But when the game runs off of intangibles like FP, and it requires 1 RP to create 1 FP, wether you're the Lyran Archon, a Clan Khan, or a Bandit King in the galactic southeast, the RP production puts the war effort heavily into the IS favor...which wouldn't bother me as much, if the Clans had something that actually denoted their superior technology, the much higher ratio of Omnis, the near perfect ratio of Clantech weapons(giving firepower superiority to the Clans in an equal FP scenario), and other things.

I just think that to balance things out a bit, to give the Clans a more fighting chance against the sheer over whealming production capacity of economic power of the Great Houses, there should be something that balances in the Clans favor:

Maybe thats a big bonus to salvage and/or Battlefield Repair, showcasing the resourceful recycling and skill of the Technician caste in working repair and salvage miracles to keep the warmachines running without a constant stream of spares from the factories.

Maybe its making it so that the Clans get a better than 1:1 ratio from salvaged FP converted to RP if it's used to produce FP in the following turn.

Maybe its decreasing the ratio of RP:FP to build new combat units, representing again the better salvage, scrounging, and total minimums of waste that exist in Clan society.

I'm just thinking of something to possibly try and make it so that the IS doesnt just overrun the Clans with sheer numbers that we can't compete with. I'd hate to see that happen, and as an example, although i'm not 100% because i dont know their FPs, i'm about 50% that the TH forces on Pandora outnumber the entire CJF touman in the IS.


I dont want this to seem like whining from a newbie who comes in and finds that he joined a faction who isn't kicking ass: i'm totally happy with the gameplay, I've been having a great time, and despite a couple of isolated occasions where i've taken the game personally and had to step back and tell myself to calm down and stop acting like a child: i've had nothing but a great experiance, and i'm looking foreward to more. I just wanted to say something that's been nagging me, and that is the disadvantage the Clans face in almost every aspect of this game: economics, industrial capacity, those are both stemming from the size of empire, and theres nothing we can do untill we totally conquor the Lyrans and begin massive economic buildups...it'll happen But, the Intelligence defict, the R&D deficet, the non-representation of Clan tech/society/breeding in combat just seems to be something that happened, and i wanted to say something.

Please don't flame, i'm not bashing the game. Just stating an opinion that maybe something needs to be looked at.

[Iron Mongoose]

I think the Clans are just that week.

Back in the day, Clan forces cost half what IS forces did, since they got a trinary for the same price as an IS company, but that trinary had twice the combat power.  But, the Clans had much smaller RP production.  Now, it is even, but the homeworlds make a lot more RP than ever, so a big rich Clan can make as much as the CC, or even more.  Having a giant pool of (IS) invasion proof RPs that are way more produtive than any IS world is a big Clan edge, which I think ballances out the cost.

And trying to look at the Terrans in terms of game ballance is just asking for trouble.  They're not ballanced, and they're not intended to be, at least not on a faction by faction basis.  You can argue with weather that was a sound idea or not (I never cared for it) but it is what it is.  At one point, Terran forces on the FWL northern bourder were twice the FWL's whole army, not even counting the huge force they had in the MH.  And the FWL was (and is) amoung the richest and most powerful great houses.

[Cannonshop]

But they have a bigtime head start. Alot of their advanced weapon systems that havn't made it out yet would be currently under some type of prototyping or development. I'm not saying that the Clans should be switching places with the IS in the PF facility, but their Scientists have the advantage of never having lost any technology, and not having to start a half a milenium backwards from the point of the invasion to come upto snuff.

Its just always bothered me slightly that the Clans have no real balancing factor in-game: they're outnumbered, as they should be; they're out produced, as they should be; our level of military technology, conspiracy or no, should still be on a somewhat higher plane than the IS: even when we both have the exact same weapon systems, the Clans have the superior performing examples of that weapon system, and generally develop new/upgraded weapon systems quicker than the IS(atleast it seems like all the best toys come from the Clans and get reverse engineered by the NAIS).

But when the game runs off of intangibles like FP, and it requires 1 RP to create 1 FP, wether you're the Lyran Archon, a Clan Khan, or a Bandit King in the galactic southeast, the RP production puts the war effort heavily into the IS favor...which wouldn't bother me as much, if the Clans had something that actually denoted their superior technology, the much higher ratio of Omnis, the near perfect ratio of Clantech weapons(giving firepower superiority to the Clans in an equal FP scenario), and other things.

I just think that to balance things out a bit, to give the Clans a more fighting chance against the sheer over whealming production capacity of economic power of the Great Houses, there should be something that balances in the Clans favor:

Maybe thats a big bonus to salvage and/or Battlefield Repair, showcasing the resourceful recycling and skill of the Technician caste in working repair and salvage miracles to keep the warmachines running without a constant stream of spares from the factories.

Maybe its making it so that the Clans get a better than 1:1 ratio from salvaged FP converted to RP if it's used to produce FP in the following turn.

Maybe its decreasing the ratio of RP:FP to build new combat units, representing again the better salvage, scrounging, and total minimums of waste that exist in Clan society.

I'm just thinking of something to possibly try and make it so that the IS doesnt just overrun the Clans with sheer numbers that we can't compete with. I'd hate to see that happen, and as an example, although i'm not 100% because i dont know their FPs, i'm about 50% that the TH forces on Pandora outnumber the entire CJF touman in the IS.


I dont want this to seem like whining from a newbie who comes in and finds that he joined a faction who isn't kicking ass: i'm totally happy with the gameplay, I've been having a great time, and despite a couple of isolated occasions where i've taken the game personally and had to step back and tell myself to calm down and stop acting like a child: i've had nothing but a great experiance, and i'm looking foreward to more. I just wanted to say something that's been nagging me, and that is the disadvantage the Clans face in almost every aspect of this game: economics, industrial capacity, those are both stemming from the size of empire, and theres nothing we can do untill we totally conquor the Lyrans and begin massive economic buildups...it'll happen But, the Intelligence defict, the R&D deficet, the non-representation of Clan tech/society/breeding in combat just seems to be something that happened, and i wanted to say something.

Please don't flame, i'm not bashing the game. Just stating an opinion that maybe something needs to be looked at.

Um...dude, have you looked at the map lately? it's the IS being overrun.  Just do a count of factories and shipyards.  Also, ratings don't tell the whole story-the Lyrans (Very highly rated intel) haven't won an Intel check since before I joined in C26.

EVERY check, Daemonknight, whether against the Clans, or the "Rim worlds" has been a failure.  one hundered percent failure, since about turn 5 or so, with changes to GM staff so it's not a vendetta on that end.

My point is, the existing rules don't hamper or hammer the clans as severely as you might think-the proof is on the map.