Solaris Builder -- The Long Journey

The Democratic Council of Species has fallen. An unknown enemy has taken your worlds, marched machines on your capitals, and detonated EMPs in your habitats. The Enemy is ruthless, their technology advanced, their tactics cruel, and their strategy clear: To Wipe out all Sapient Life in this sector.

For those of you lucky enough to escape, you've been tasked with the greatest challenge: Survival. With no worlds to support you, no agriculture, industry, or services to provide for your people, you've banded together with races from all across the DCS. Ships remain loyal to their nations, their populace clinging to the last vestiges of civlization. And they look to you for guidance.

For the Enemy is Coming. And they will only stop when your people are dead.


Rules:
I abide by the rule of cool. If it's not broken, stupid, or otherwise detrimental to the story, it flies. If it's awesome and improves the story, I'll leave the only stumbling block to the dice.
 -> If you abuse this rule, I reserve the right to remove the portions that adversely affect gameplay, although I will almost never do this.

Don't be a dick, plain and simple. If you're going to harrass, harm, or otherwise bar a player from achieving goals, have a solid roleplay reason for it. Saying "because I can" doesn't cut it.

Dice is law. While I'm lenient in a lot of regards, the dice rolls are what they are. You may not reroll, preroll, or call foul. I'm not RNGeezus, and I wont fudge your rolls for you.

Nation Creation, Stats, & Resources

Nations can be whatever race, species, government, alignment, etc that you want. I encourage you to write creative fluff and interesting races. There are only three requirements.

Sapient, Individual, and Organic.

Due to the way I'm writing the story, Hiveminds, Synthetics, and groupthink are out. Otherwise, abide by rule #1.

Nations should follow the sheet below
Name
Species/Subrace
DCS Member Species (Y/N)
Fluff

You should also keep track of any technology you have researched here as well.

There are two major pieces you'll be juggling throughout the game. Your ship, and your resources.

Resources:
At Nation creation, roll 5d10. This is the amount of resources you have to start.
Resources are as follows:
Fuel: He3 & Antimatter are the primary fuel sources in this setting. They are interchangeable for the most part.
Food: Foodstuffs, universal unless otherwise specified in fluff.
Water: Both for consumption, and use in its component forms, Hydrogen for power generation & Oxygen for breathing. Unless specified in fluff, I assume your race drinks H2O and breathes O2.
Raw Metals: Iron, Titanium, Nickel, Carbon alloys, Silicon, etc. Anything that could be easily harvested in bulk from asteroids, planets, etc.
Exotic Metals: Uranium, Gold, Silver, Platinum, Palladium, Iridium, etc. Anything that is found in scarce quantities.

Ship Creation & Stats
You will start out with a single ship that you will roll stats for, as well as for the ship type.
Ship types are as follows from smallest to largest:
  Frigate, Cruiser, Liveship, Colony Barge.
  There are also military variants of the two larger hulls, but these are not available at the start.
Ships have the following stats, and the associated dice to roll on creation:
  Population Cap (1d6): How many people you can comfortably support on your ship, in the thousands. Liveships may multiply this number by 1.5, Colony Barges by 2.
  Defensive Rating(1d10): How well your ship can tank damage, via armor and hull integrity.
  Offensive Rating(1d10): How well your ship can dish out damage. Liveships and Colony barges have this reduced to 3/4ths of the roll (ex: a roll of 8 would be reduced to 6.)
  Propulsion Rating(1d10): How well your ship can maneuver. Frigates may multiply this number by 1.5, Colony Barges must reduce this by half.
  Shield Efficency(1d100): The percentage of damage mitigated by EM, Point or Hardlight shielding. Incoming damage is reduced by this percentage.

You will also roll 1d100 for any special attributes. I will decide these along with Racial Bonuses & Racial Penalties for your Nation.


I use a degrees of success system. 1d100 per action, up to three times per round. Actions can be researching tech, manufacturing equipment, or trading with other ships in the fleet. Each action has a number of turns required to complete it, some completing on that turn, others spanning several turns, depending on the action. Diplomacy, Communication, etc are free actions. When the fleet is in combat, normal actions may not be taken. Instead you can: Attack, Defend, Flank, or Retreat. These actions follow the same 1d100 degrees of success rolls as actions. Your Ship stats will be factored in with each combat action.

Lastly, the Democratic Council of Species has been mostly preserved through this ordeal. You will have representatives in a senate, and your votes will be determined by the number of combat-capable ships you have at the period of voting, Combat capable ships are considered ships without major damage, and a combat raiting of 2 or higher Votes are regulated to a minimum of one vote, and a maximum of 4. Membership in this Senate is optional, however you will lose your voice in the Senate & the council will have to vote on you being allowed to return.

The Enemy may be advanced, but they aren't impossible to track. The fleet will start with a single turn of warning in most combat encounters, which can be upgraded by research.

I have a special rule when working with Researched technology. When proposing the technology to work with, you must specify if you want to keep it private, or make it public. Public projects can be contributed to by anyone, and the contributors recieve the research in full. Private research can only be worked on by the owner nation, but can be traded, sold, or otherwise used as a barganing chip. Other races can still research this tech on their own, albiet at a penalty.


Combat in Solaris

There are two major types of weaponry in the Solaris Universe: Energy and Kinetic/Explostive.
	Energy weapons make direct checks against your shield strength. Damage mitigation is applied after the attackers bonuses are applied. (ex: Fighter fires lasers at a frigate, 1d6 dmg + 3 from tech, Frigate mitigates 40% via shields.)

	Kinetic/Explosive makes up the bulk of major ship-to-ship weaponry. Kinetic weapons, like Mass Drivers, are innacurate against nimble ships, but can deal reliable damage to slower ships. Explosive weapons are missiles and AOE bombs. Missiles are large antiship weapons that can reliably track all but the most nimble ships. However they can be destroyed midflight by fighters, and nimble frigates. However, they are the strongest type of weapon in Solaris, reliably crippling ships.

	Ships types share Structural Points, that recieve the damage after mitigation. Each ship type has a base number of structural points, that can be upgraded through research
	Frigate 5 SP
	Cruiser 8 SP
	Liveship 10 SP
	Colony Barge 10 SP
	Battlecruiser 10 SP
	Battleship 20 SP
	When a ship reaches 0 SP, it is considered derilict, and is removed from combat. At the end of combat, roll 1d100. This is the percentage of your population that survived the attack, rounded down. If your total population drops below 200 souls, you lose.

	Weapon table
	Weapon | Damage | To-Hit Req| Valid Targets | Mitigation
	Lasers , 1d6, >40, All, Shields & DEF (DEF is replaced by PRP for Fighters,Bombers and Drones)
	Mass Drivers, 1d10, >60, Cruiser or Above , PRP & DEF
	Missiles, 1d10 + 4, 2 Rounds of >40, Frig or Above, PRP & DEF
	(Note that missiles require two rolls of >40 in two successive rounds to succeed.)

Critical Damage & Systems Damage
	If a single volley from an enemy exceeds 5 Total damage after Mitigation, Roll 1d6. The corresponding system to that roll recieves Critical Damage. The following systems can be critically damaged, and have individual effects for damage.
	1) Bridge - Your commanding crew is killed in action. The ship is considered derilict until the end of combat, and cannot make actions.
	2) Comms - You cannot be supported, and any fighters in the field cannot recieve orders from you.
	3) Shield - Your shields are now offline and cannot mitigate damage from laser fire.
	4) Weapons - You cannot fire missiles, and suffer -4 to ATK
	5) Living Quarters - During the Resolution phase, roll 1d100. You lose that percentage of your population, rounded down.
	6) Propulsion - You cannot flank, and suffer -3 to PRP.


	General Combat:
		Weapons of the above types have different damage & to-hit chance requirements. Combat comes in two phases, attempt, & resolution.
		Combat Actions & the Attempt Phase
			There are four primary combat actions:
			Attack - General Attack Order. Target(s) & weapon type are specified, with 1d100 rolls. Determine the success of the roll using the above chart. If multiple ships under your control are attacking as single target, any successful attacks are applied as if it was a single attack.
			Flanking - Used to gain the upper hand, giving the next attack additional damage equal to your ATK. Success required >(100 + (Enemy PRP*10) - (Your PRP*10) Ex. 100 + 20 - 80 = 40 means you must roll greater then 40 to flank.
			Defense - There are two sub-types of defensive action, Solo or Support. You forfeit offense this round to either bolster your own defenses, or add to an allys. Solo actions grant +50% DEF. Support actions combine the supporter and the recipients defense. (ie, Ship A, with a defense of 4 supports Ship B, with a defense of 6. Ship B now has 10 DEF for all rolls this round.)
			Retreat - An attempt to remove a ship from combat. Not available in all cases. For 2 rounds, roll 1d100. On a success the second round, your ship jumps away from combat. If you fail the first roll, your ship will jump to a random location away from the fleet's rendezvous. If you fail the second, the jump attempt fails, and you remain in combat. If both rolls fail, your ship suffers critical damage to a section.

			Resolution Phase
			In this phase, you resolve damage you've either dealt or recieved. Enemy ships will roll collectively in one post. For each successful attack, roll the corresponding die. The fleet can choose to retreat as a whole in this phase or continue fighting, although in some cases this might not be an option. If your ship suffered no damage this turn, roll 1d4, and restore that many structural points.

Additional Combat rules:
Ramming: As a combat action, you may ram an enemy ship by rolling 1d100 greater than (100 + (Enemy PRP*10) - (Your PRP*10)). On success, take 8 Damage, mitigated by DEF OR roll 1d6 and take a critical hit. Note that if you take the damage and the total damage exceeds 5, you take critical damage as if you sustained it from enemy fire. Deals 1d10 + PRP + 1/2 Current SP to the target. On a failure, your ship misses the target.
Fighters: Fighters have 2 Structural Points and 7 PRP. They are only equipped with Lasers. Bombers have 3 Structural Points and 5 PRP. They are equipped with Lasers and Short Range Missiles, which only require one success to hit. Fighters and Bombers can only be targeted by lasers, and have (base) 50% shields.
Shield Damage Mitigation: Shield damage mitigation is rounded to the nearest integer.
(ex: 20% of 6 is 1.2, rounds to 1, while 20% of 8 is 1.6, rounds to 2.)

Solaris -- The Long Journey


Phase Two: "True" Nation Building

Reforming your civilisations has become necessity. Almost a year of running from the Enemy has left your fleet haggard and worn, and in need of permanent rest. While the Enemy is not present in this sector, consolidate power and rebuild what was lost. Victory is within your grasp.

National Stats

	Your nations will have global stats that apply to their entirety. (Defaults are in parentheses)

	Reproduction Rate: For each point, you may allocate 250 population to a planet of your choice per turn. (250)
	Military Capacity: For each point, you may support one ground force unit. (4)
	Fleet Capacity: For each point, you may support one ship. (4)
	Happiness: This stat starts at 10, and can fluctuate depending on events. Under 5 happiness incurs penalties to planetary based rolls. (10)

Colonization: Rules, Stats, and Mechanics

	To explore a planet you may do one of the following, rolling 1d100 for each.
		Pay 2 Raw Metal, and send an automated probe.
		Send a ground crew for free; Failures with ground crews can cost population.
	The exploration 1d100 determines the "offtype" of the planet
		1 - 30 - Hazardous Planetary Features, can only be reduced, not removed.
		31 - 75 - Minor Planetary Features, can either be beneficial, or hazardous (with hazardous being able to be removed through research).
		76 - 100 - Hospitable Planetary Features, significantly beneficial features giving strong bonuses to stats/actions.

	Colonies have five primary stats.

	Population Capacity: Indicative of how many thousands of people the planet can currently support. (1d10)
	Agriculture Capacity: Indicative of how many units of food/water this planet generates per turn. (1d6)
	Mining Capacity: Indicative of how many units of Raw Metal this planet generates per turn. (1d6)
	Planetary Development Capacity: Indicative of how many planetary structures this planet can concurrently support. (1d4)
	Orbital Capacity: Indicative of how many orbital structures this planet can concurrently support. (1d4)

		Note that the above stats can be increased with research, construction, and manufacturing.

	Planets can also have either a boon or a obstacle, depending on the rolls during exploration. Boons give a bonus to a stat, defenses, research, et al.
	Obstacles are removable detractors that adversely affect life on the planet. Research can mitigate these, either reducing or removing the obstacle completely. However no boon is given once the obstacle is removed.

	Creating a Colony:
		The first colony is free for all players, regardless of population.
		Colonies require at minimum 2,500 population to be founded. This population can either be hired from the Civilian Fleet, or provided from your own people.
			Note: If you do hire from the Civilian fleet, your population growth does still produce people of your race.
		Colonies require the following materials to setup by default:
			15 Raw Metal
			10 Exotic Metal
			5 Fuel
			7 Food
			7 Water

	Planets have the ability to produce civilian goods, military equipment, ships, to research new technologies, and train units for combat. However they require a "slot" to do the action.

	Planetary Upkeep
		For every 2,500 Population, your planet consumes 1 Food, 1 Water.
		For every 2 Planetary Structures, your planet consumes 1 Fuel, 1 Raw Metal
		For every 2 Orbital Structures, your planet consumes 2 Fuel, 1 Raw Metal
		Upkeep is paid every turn, on a threshold basis.
			If you only have 1 of a structure type, you do not need to pay upkeep.
		If you cannot pay upkeep, roll 1d100. On 50 or less, you lose a structure/% of population.
	Colony Actions:
		For every 2,500 Population, your colony may perform a single non-Slot action, such as Construction, Exploration, or Recruiting.
			If you have less than 2,500 population, you may still perform actions, albeit at a penalty to roll.
		These actions are 1d100, >40 to Succeed, just like actions in Phase One.
		Planetary Development structures and Orbital structures are paid when the action is performed.
			On a failure, you lose 1/2 of the resources rounded down.
			Recruiting or Producing Military Units does not lose resources on a failure.

	Planetary Development is a straightforward mechanic. You may construct different buildings to allow for different actions to be preformed on the planet. The following are the basic buildings a planet can support.

		Population Support Centre: Increases population growth on this planet by 25% (3 Raw Metal, 4 Food)
		Light Shipyard (Fighters, Bombers, Frigates only) (5 Raw Metal, 5 Exotic Metal)
		Mineral Processing Plant: Increases raw metal production by 25% (4 Raw Metal)
		Research Facility: Unlocks a research slot for this planet. (3 Exotic Metal)
		Civilian Industrial Plant: Unlocks a civil manufacturing slot (4 Raw Metal, 3 Exotic Metal)
		Military Industrial Plant: Unlocks a military manufacturing slot (4 Raw metal, 3 Exotic Metal)
		Deep Space Surveillance Centre: Grants the ability to preform remote surveying from the planet. (4 Exotic Metal)
		Planetary Defence Station: Grants +3 DEF to planetary defence forces. (4 Fuel, 4 Raw Metal)
		Local Market Centre: Unlocks a trade route slot (2 Fuel, 3 Raw Metal)
		Ground Force Base: Unlocks recruiting Soldiers. (4 Food, 3 Raw Metal)
		Officers Training Academy: Unlocks recruiting Officers (5 Food, 4 Raw Metal)
		Logistical Depot & Management Centre: Grants +5 to Military Capacity. (4 Fuel, 5 Raw Metal)

	Orbital Construction is similar to Planetary Development, as a limited number of structures are able to be maintained. The following are the basic buildings a planet can support

		Orbital Habitat: Increases Population Capacity by +3 (6 Food, 3 Water, 4 Raw Metal)
		Orbital Star-base: Grants +3 ATK to planetary defence forces. (5 Fuel, 5 Raw Metal)
		Orbital Trade Hub: Unlocks a trade route slot (4 Fuel, 3 Raw Metal)
		Asteroid Refinery Station: Grants +2 Exotic Metal per turn. (4 Raw Metal, 3 Exotic Metal)
		Oort Observatory: Grants the ability to scan for ships from the planet. (5 Exotic Metal)
		Lagrange-Orbit Heavy Shipyard: Unlocks the ability to manufacture ships, classes Cruiser and higher. (5 Fuel, 7 Raw Metal, 8 Exotic Metal)
		Zero-Gravity Manufacturing Plant: Unlocks a ship module manufacturing slot. (5 Raw Metal, 4 Exotic Metal)
		Antimatter Bottling Plant: Grants +2 Fuel per turn. (6 Exotic Metal)
		Fleet Drydock: Grants +5 to Fleet Capacity (5 Fuel, 5 Raw Metal, 5 Exotic Metal)

	There are _ basic planet types, each giving a bonus and/or detractor to a stat. (note: minimum on any stat is 1)
		Oceanic, +1 Agriculture, -1 Population Capacity
		Desert, -2 Agriculture, +1 Orbital Development
		Terran, +1 Agriculture, +1 Mining
		Gas Giant, -3 Population Capacity, -3 Agriculture, +4 to Fuel Production
		Lava/Tectonically Active, -3 Population Capacity, -3 Agriculture, +5 Mining
		Barren, -2 Agriculture, +1 Planetary Development, -1 Population Capacity
		Tundra, -1 Agriculture, +1 Population Capacity, +1 Planetary Development
		Artic, -2 Agriculture, +2 Planetary Development
Ground Forces, Troop Combat, and Planetary Defence Forces

	Ground Force combat will operate similarly to ship combat, with the addition of several new weapons, and the "Kit" mechanic.
		Ground Forces have Three stats
			ATK: Operates similarly to ATK stat on ships; only applied when the kit used is Effective against the target.
			DEF: Operates similarly to DEF stat on ships;
			MNV: Maneuvering, or the general speed of a unit. Also affects reflex responses on some units.
		Unit Points are mechanically similar to SP, with the exception that two UP is equivalent to one SP.
			Infantry by default have 4 UP.
			Armor by default have 6 UP
			When ground units are attacking ships/fighters/bombers, The defender automatically gains 2x their soak when calculating damage.
	Kits and Loadouts:
		Kits are weapons which allow a unit to apply their Attack stat against a type of unit.
		The three major unit types are Infantry and Armor. Air units inherit from space combat.
		Kits come in two varieties, Combat & Utility.
			Units can equip a Combat and Utility Kit simultaneously.
		Infantry begins with three combat kits available to them, and are able to select one per unit.
			Standard Kit: Heavy Kinetics, High Explosive Air-Burst rounds, and Grenades. Effective against Infantry, (1d6 Damage)
			Missile Kit: Tactical Shoulder-Mounted Missiles, Laser Designators, and Mines. Effective against Armor (1d8 Damage)
			Laser Kit: Crew-Operated Anti-Ship Laser, Portable Radar Pack, Tactical Comms Uplink (1d8 Damage)

		Infantry begins with four utility kits available to them, and are able to select one per unit.
			Field Medic Kit: Can restore 2 UP to another unit, or 1 UP to itself. (1d100, 40 or greater)
			Logistics Kit: Can assign a +2 ATK bonus to any friendly unit. Continuous. (Automatic Success)
			JTAC Kit: Can assign a +15 Bonus to roll to any fighter/bomber wing Continuous. (Automatic Success)

		Armor begins with three combat kits. Unlike infantry kits, these affect more than damage and effective unit type
			Light Kit: Chainguns, Pulse Lasers, Belt-fed Grenade Launchers. Effective against Infantry. (+2 MNV, 1d6 Damage)
			Heavy Kit: HEAT Rounds, Smart-Sabot Rounds, Railgun Primary Turret. Effective against Armor (+3 DEF, 1d10 Damage)
			Flak Kit: Chemical-Railgun Flak rounds, Anti-Ship Laser Turret, STA Missiles. Effective against Fighters/Bombers (+4 ATK, 1d10)
	Officer units are produced from an Academy.
		Officers are attached to units and provide bonuses to stats/rolls
		Officer bonuses are determined at creation by 1d100.
		Officers cost 1 Food, 1 Water, 1 Exotic Metal to train.
	Unit ATK/DEF/MNV Default values and production costs are as follows:
		Infantry 2/2/4, 4 Food, 2 Water to train.
		Armor 3/5/2, 2 Raw Metal, 1 Fuel to train.
		Heavy Infantry 3/4/1 4 Raw Metal, 2 Fuel to train.
		Heavy Armor 4/6/1 6 Raw Metal, 2 Exotic Metal, 2 Fuel to train.
Ship Modules and Fitting Changes:
	Ships produced after the beginning of Phase Two will have the following changes implemented:
		Frigates and Cruisers may only mount one weapon type. BCs and BSes may mount two.
		Utility Modules will become available for these hulls as well, which follow the same fitting convention as weapons
		The Basic utility modules are as follows:
			Backup Shield Emitters: Once per combat, you may activate this module. Your shields gain +30% for five turns.
			Ground Targeting Array: Ships equipped with this may provide firesupport in ground combat or bombard ground targets. Base success rate is 65 or higher.
			LADAR Flood Array: Floods LADAR sensors with false returns. -30 to rolls for target ship. Continuous. Base success rate is 50 or higher.
			Target Painter Array: Designates target ship with a specific frequency laser. Friendly forces firing on this target gain +10 to roll. Continuous.
	All ships will gain the COM stat:
		COM determines the number of bonuses that can be applied to a single roll.
		Only applies to to-hit rolls; damage bonuses are unaffected by this stat.
		Default is 2. (For those who played during the combat beta test, your COM stat rolls over from that.)
	Fighters/Bombers now use PRP when defending against missiles.
	Fighters/Bombers gain +50% shields.

	Formations are also available for research, and grant specific bonuses when you begin combat in said formation.
		Formations can be shifted mid-combat, however a interim turn will be required where you recieve no bonus from either the old or new formation.
		Formations can only be applied to fleets or battlegroups of 3 ships or more, unless otherwise stated by the formation.
		Some formations will require specific types of ships to execute, such as a fighter screen, protecting a "glass cannon", etc.


Lastly, this game is about having fun. If you have any questions, feel free to message Maldaris on IRC, in #nation on irc.mibbit.net