Goonhub
11-14-2021, 10:25 AM
Right, sad I missed the first nations round in a while: you did it while I was at work! Here's my thoughts from the after-action reports:
1. Captain and heads definitely need some form of access-gating, whether locking to mentors or signups or whatever comes to mind.
2. I personally feel like the huge engineering megablock nation is going to be way too powerful each nations round. I'd recommend splitting it into Engi-mech and qm-mining.
3. Silicons need either a special nations lawset or need to be told to ignore their laws for the event.
4. Coups, elections, revolutions, rebellions, etc need to be allowed.
5. A new map for this would be nice!
I'll go through each point in more detail.
From what I gathered from the after-action report, the captain was brand-spanking new to the game and happened to roll captain on an event where the captain is a high-intensity job that makes or breaks the event. This obviously went bad, and the UN was nowhere near as present as it should have been. This isn't on the newbie, but on the fact that such an important role was not access-gated to people that could be guaranteed to have the experience necessary. Further, I also gathered that the RD and the MDir were not.. Entirely there. The RD apparently just essentially declared war against the UN and made WMDs, before hiding them and logging off, leaving their nation in the dust. MDir wanted to go against the wishes of the whole medbay and go to war, and was entirely absent from diplomacy and didn't command his nation. Both Medical and Research sounded fairly directionless as a result, which makes me think the head roles that are guaranteed to be leading a nation also need to be access-gated in some way to people we know will follow the spirit of the event and are experienced enough to handle the added responsibilities.
The engineering megablock thing is just a personal preference -- in my original nations events, I split the two precisely because I worried about those kind of balance concerns. They have all the ways to make money on the ship, and together they have more people than any other nation on the station. It's going to end with them overly-powerful every event round, IMO. In my nations rounds, I found that a qm-mining and engi-mechanic split allowed both of them to be decently powerful, but not overwhelmingly so. I think it's worth trying.
Silicons definitely need clearer roles. In my original draft, when I envisioned them as UN Assets, I imagined them as essentially having replaced 'human' with 'UN Employee', where they essentially just had to act in good faith to assist the UN wherever they could in whatever form they could, including hurting non-UN people. In my original nations event, I just told them to ignore their laws and focus on just helping the UN, but that also cuts out the law interactions that could result from people doing things like subversion; so I'd definitely prefer their own lawset for it.
In the after-action report, I heard that the medbay wanted to depose the MDir due to his absences, and were told they couldn't; I definitely feel like that was a bad call. Part of being a leader is keeping the confidence of your underlings, and if you want to depose them from power, you should be able to. In the case of the medbay, it would have been a coup, but there was an example of a peaceful transition of power potentially in Civ, had the call been made that leaders could not be deposed: The HoP was too peaceful for civ, and was not following the wishes of their nation to go to war quickly. I'd argue Civ should've had the right to have a vote to depose the HoP, and give the HoP's power to someone else while the HoP becomes an underling of the new leader. In the same vein, Medbay should've been allowed to force the MDir out of power for his warmongering against the nation's wishes.
I was talking with a mapper on the discord about what a good map might look like; I feel like a map with small starting departments spread out across a station with a lot of maintenance and filler rooms would be good. Give them materials to build, and let them expand their departments across the station. It'd give an early goal and allow for territorial tensions once territories meet. Not really anything to do with your end, Flourish, but I thought I'd mention it.
Those are my thoughts!
1. Captain and heads definitely need some form of access-gating, whether locking to mentors or signups or whatever comes to mind.
2. I personally feel like the huge engineering megablock nation is going to be way too powerful each nations round. I'd recommend splitting it into Engi-mech and qm-mining.
3. Silicons need either a special nations lawset or need to be told to ignore their laws for the event.
4. Coups, elections, revolutions, rebellions, etc need to be allowed.
5. A new map for this would be nice!
I'll go through each point in more detail.
From what I gathered from the after-action report, the captain was brand-spanking new to the game and happened to roll captain on an event where the captain is a high-intensity job that makes or breaks the event. This obviously went bad, and the UN was nowhere near as present as it should have been. This isn't on the newbie, but on the fact that such an important role was not access-gated to people that could be guaranteed to have the experience necessary. Further, I also gathered that the RD and the MDir were not.. Entirely there. The RD apparently just essentially declared war against the UN and made WMDs, before hiding them and logging off, leaving their nation in the dust. MDir wanted to go against the wishes of the whole medbay and go to war, and was entirely absent from diplomacy and didn't command his nation. Both Medical and Research sounded fairly directionless as a result, which makes me think the head roles that are guaranteed to be leading a nation also need to be access-gated in some way to people we know will follow the spirit of the event and are experienced enough to handle the added responsibilities.
The engineering megablock thing is just a personal preference -- in my original nations events, I split the two precisely because I worried about those kind of balance concerns. They have all the ways to make money on the ship, and together they have more people than any other nation on the station. It's going to end with them overly-powerful every event round, IMO. In my nations rounds, I found that a qm-mining and engi-mechanic split allowed both of them to be decently powerful, but not overwhelmingly so. I think it's worth trying.
Silicons definitely need clearer roles. In my original draft, when I envisioned them as UN Assets, I imagined them as essentially having replaced 'human' with 'UN Employee', where they essentially just had to act in good faith to assist the UN wherever they could in whatever form they could, including hurting non-UN people. In my original nations event, I just told them to ignore their laws and focus on just helping the UN, but that also cuts out the law interactions that could result from people doing things like subversion; so I'd definitely prefer their own lawset for it.
In the after-action report, I heard that the medbay wanted to depose the MDir due to his absences, and were told they couldn't; I definitely feel like that was a bad call. Part of being a leader is keeping the confidence of your underlings, and if you want to depose them from power, you should be able to. In the case of the medbay, it would have been a coup, but there was an example of a peaceful transition of power potentially in Civ, had the call been made that leaders could not be deposed: The HoP was too peaceful for civ, and was not following the wishes of their nation to go to war quickly. I'd argue Civ should've had the right to have a vote to depose the HoP, and give the HoP's power to someone else while the HoP becomes an underling of the new leader. In the same vein, Medbay should've been allowed to force the MDir out of power for his warmongering against the nation's wishes.
I was talking with a mapper on the discord about what a good map might look like; I feel like a map with small starting departments spread out across a station with a lot of maintenance and filler rooms would be good. Give them materials to build, and let them expand their departments across the station. It'd give an early goal and allow for territorial tensions once territories meet. Not really anything to do with your end, Flourish, but I thought I'd mention it.
Those are my thoughts!