Station Construction + Fleet Operations

I am posting up my notes on how the Meta Game builds new stations in the cluster.

Station Construction

The cluster grows and expands through station construction. The current design attempts to be as simple as possible. The basic idea is that some stations will spawn construction fleets, and those fleets will build new stations.

The design needs to work around some limitations. No stations can be added to the map by POG. POG code can destroy visible stations, and “undestroy� stations that have been destroyed. Construction fleets do not build new stations. Instead they “undestroy� stations that were already placed. This means that when a star system is designed, it must be made to accommodate future station growth by adding “destroyed� stations.

How fast the cluster grows is controlled by
1. How fast stations spawn construction fleets
2. How fast construction fleets build new stations.

8% percent growth can happen if every station replaces itself once in a year. If there is one construction fleet for every 12 stations, and those fleets build 1 station a month (each), then the cluster will grow at 8%. (Minus combat casualties of course).

Independent Factions

The Independent factions make up the citizens of the cluster. There is one Independent faction for each major cultural group in the Middle States. Independents are a loose collection of people and businesses. Each independent station and fleet is assumed to operate on its own. There is no Independent faction HQ. Independent factions are allowed to own and operate any of the commercial production stations (mines, processing plants, etc).

Independent factions are also special in that they own all of the Habitat stations. Habitat stations house the clusters population. It is the people in the habitats that have the massed wealth to start new stations and so most new construction is done by the independent factions. The design works like this:

Habitats->Station Repair Fleets->Production Stations

Habitats spawn Station Repair Fleets and those fleets can build new stations.

Repair fleets are fastest at repairing abandoned stations (stations empty from war or bankruptcy), but they can slowly build new stations if no abandoned stations are nearby.

Government Factions

Government factions are the national governments. They provide the navy ships and protect the Independents. Government factions build all the police and navy bases in the cluster. The design works like this:

Cluster Administration->Station Construction Fleet->Police Base, Navy Supply Depot

Mega Corporation Factions

Megacorporations are a commercial faction organized with a central HQ. They are so large, they often field security forces and do complex research.

Central HQ->Station Construction Fleet->Production Station, Security Station, Research Station.

Independent Criminal Factions

Independent criminals are much like the independent citizens, they are small scattered stations. They have no central HQ. Instead, the habitat stations of the Independent factions sometimes spawn pirate supply ships. The design works like this:

Habitat->Pirate Supply Fleet->Pirate Shipyard (cove)-> Pirate Raiding Fleet

This means that as long as there are people in the cluster, some will turn to criminal activity and try to build up a pirate presence. Police and government forces will always be needed. And player pirates will always have some company.

Major Criminal Factions

The major criminal factions are organized around a central HQ. This HQ spawns supply ships that build the pirate presence throughout the cluster. The design works like this:

Pirate Base->Pirate Supply Fleet->Pirate Shipyard (cove)->Pirate Raiding Fleet

Setting up Governments

The prior station construction rules can give some elegant Meta Game effects.

A popular national government is set to be Friendly or Allied to the Independent population that lives in the nation. If the government is destroyed by outside attackers, the people will rebuild the government. As long as the Independent population survives, the government will continue to try to rebuild.

An unpopular national government is set to be Neutral to the Independent population that lives in the nation. If the government is destroyed by outside attackers, no one will rebuild it.

Destroying a national government will not lead to a new government, it leads to anarchy. The anarchy can only be ended when the attacking government rebuilds the central government stations (conquest). Anarchy can also end if the local people rebuild the original government (resistance).

Rebels Factions

Another type of faction exists that can create new governments. This is the rebel faction. A rebel faction is able to build government stations. If the rebel faction can build a national government station, or a multi system government station, then it becomes the new government of the system. At that point it changes from a rebel faction to a government faction.

Simmering discontent can be simulated by setting the National Government to be Neutral to the Independent people, and setting a Rebel faction to be friendly or allied. The rebels will draw support from the population. If the rebels gain enough strength, they can destroy or capture the existing government stations and seize the system.

If outside invaders attack such a system, they can find that they have destroyed the unpopular government, but then face a popular rebellion.

Rebels factions have HQ stations that are built by friendly or allied governments, megacorporations, or independent peoples. They cannot exist without support.

Rebel HQ->Rebel Base-> Rebel Raiders, Rebel Recruiters.

Rebel HQs try to avoid discovery. Rebels Bases build the fleets the rebels use to raid and attack the government or other hostile factions. Rebel recruiters can draw forces from allied factions. They can draw funds, or even recruit whole fleets of ships.

Rebels do not always oppose the current government. They are often a group of Independent peoples that are trying to form a government in a system that is currently in anarchy.

Opposing Station Construction

The prior discussion makes it sound like stations are easy to construct. That is true in safe systems where none of the local factions oppose the construction.

In systems with hostile fleets, stations are very difficult to construct. A station is built by a station construction fleet that has a central ship with a few escorts. This ship will flee the building site if the escorts are driven away or destroyed. At that point, the station will stop being constructed.

Allied fleets will move to defend the construction ship, and hostile fleets will move to destroy it. Only when the building faction can achieve military advantage for the few months that construction requires, will the station be built.

The player can influence station construction by defending the construction ship or by attacking it and driving it away.

Invasion Fleets

Governments have a special fleet operation for conquering new star systems, the Invasion Fleet. These are large fleets centered on a major capital ship like a cruiser or carrier.

Invasion Fleet behavior is to move around the system they are in capturing or destroying hostile government stations one by one. They have the special ability of being able to build government stations in systems that have no government. Thus they “conquest� new systems and pull them under government control.

Because Invasion Fleets can change a cluster drastically in a short time, they are only created by script. For instance, if a war should the script choose for the Leung Empire to invade The Dead Reaches, then the script would create some Invasion Fleets and send them into those star systems. If the local factions can defeat the Invasion Fleets, then they escape domination. If not, well, then they get to enjoy belonging to the Emperor.

Hrmmmm. Is the generation/resupply of those fleets actually tied into the sending government's resources..? In other words, invasions, especially interstellar ones, are DAMN expensive to mount and support, so IMHO there needs to be some kind of limit set on the duration of any invasion fleet, not just whether or not it is destroyed.

Think of it this way: for every new "government" station created or taken over, SOMEone must man those stations, no?

Yeah, I agree. The current super simple meta game is based on the idea of stations spawning fleets at a fixed amount of TIME. The next iteration would based around "fleet" points. Repairing and supplying fleets in combat would cost points. Fleets that cannot get resupply would shrink in size until they finally retreat back to base.

Stations would generate points. And some fleet operations, such as pirate embezzle operations, would also earn points and send them back to the owning station. Thus pirates left alone grow stronger.

Once this "flow" of supply comes into existence, it could be modeled with traffic. And that means it could be shot down, stolen, and redirected. Hitting government supply lines would be a possible way for rebels and pirates to survive.

I have been thinking a bit about how to limit the size of a government in a believable way. My first idea was to just put a fixed limit on the number of government stations. My second idea is to have the limit be based on the number of non-hostile habitats in government controlled systems (like 1 government station for each 3 habitats or something). Basically, a government can expand when it has more supporters. Taking over hostile systems will slow or halt expansion, because those systems will cost resources, but not give them back. Having a large population turn hostile could effectively paralyze a government, because it could not replace any stations lost.

Are these the kinds of things you had in mind?