State Creation Welcome to From the Ashes! Building your Successor State is a fun, interactive process that allows you to really customize many of the key aspects of your people, including ethos, military doctrine, territory, economy, and more. The process works as follows: Each player will start with the following: 1) One major territory with an income of $12000 2) Three minor territory with an income of $5000 each. 3) $30,000 in starting military forces 4) One free 1 point advantage 5) 3 Naval Doctrines. 6) One free resource extractor (Type depending on your starting location) & common resource 7) 550 Defense Industry Points 8) A Heavy Orbital Fortification over your major territory 9) 30 points to customize their state 10) Ethos points as described in the Ethos section 11) A “special” unit that is unique to your state. Speak to a moderator for more detail. 12) 3 Investment Points (see economy document) 13) An Overtech Starting package (which can be applied to your initial build ships) Territories In starting the game, you start with 1 Major Territory and 3 Minor Territories. It is important to designate your territory as terrestrial, asteroid, or gas giant (really moons or orbital stations around the gas giant), as each of them can contribute to your economy in different ways. Please note, your territory selections do not have to be contiguous. In other words, you can select a minor territory that is an island on the other side of your world or an asteroid on the outer reaches of the system. Feel free to describe your territories however you please. In fact, fluff and detail is encouraged and will make things better for everyone as the game goes on. Example: Randomia selects a major territory on Olympia. They then select two terrestrial minor territories and a portion of the asteroid belt. Starting Military Remember, you have to select your entire combat force from this amount. Do not neglect your ground forces or fortifications, lest you suffer an early defeat. A breakdown of military forces, including costs, can be found in the Military sections. $$ to buy forces on top of the base number can be purchased with customization points. See 2.1 Military document for Naval Doctrines Advantages & Disadvantages The next thing to select are your advantages. As part of the initial process, you get one free one point advantage. You will have the opportunity to improve this one point advantages and purchase others. Again, fluff is encouraged here. You can have a million different reasons why you have engineering wizards, but the advantage is the same. You can also purchase disadvantages to give yourself more points to spend elsewhere. You will find the list of advantages below. The one point level are the first column, followed by the two point, followed by the three point level. Cultural/state advantages/disadvantages Engineering wizards/buffoons: -/+ 5%/7.5%/10% on resource/helium infrastructure projects Efficient/Inefficient Tax Structure: +/- 2%/4/6% to income after growth Martial Tradition/Peaceniks: -/+ 1%/2%/3% to military upkeep Inept/Skilled research teams: +/- 5/7.5/10% discount on Research of new technology Luddite/Innovators: +/- 1/1.5/2% per tier above grid for Development of new technology Diplomatic/Non-Diplomatic: +/- 1/2/3 on dice rolls involving relations with NPC Military advantages/advantages Additional Small Module per ship size (max 1 per size group) (Escort, Cruiser, Capital): 1 point Additional Large Module per ship size (max 1 per size group) (Escort, Cruiser, Capital): 3 points Better/worse sensors: +/- 1/2/3 to tracking value Better/worse stealth: +/- 1/2/3 to stealth value Durable/Fragile Warships: +/- 10/15/20% to ship HP Better/worse ground troops: +/- 1/2/3 to ground troop attack number and defense number Stronger/weaker fighters: +/- 1/2/3 to enemy to-hit vs fighters. Better/worse fighter weapons: +/- 2/4/6 to Ship Attack Dice, and -2/-4/-6 to Dogfight. Example: Randomia is coming together at this point. The Randomians have a particular knack for engineering, as a result Randomia selects a 5% discount on infrastructure projects. Randomia also has a particular design of sensor that is better, therefore Randomia also gains a +2 to sensor value. There is a list of additional things you can spend your points on to complete your spending spree. Additional minor territory: 3 points Additional $1000 in Income: 1 point (Limit of $2000 per territory) Additional $2000 in Starting Military: 1 point Additional 150 DI: 1 point Additional Starting Resource Extractor (On any valid territory type; limit 1 per resource): 1 points Additional Starting Resource (Extractor must be purchased separately): 2 points Common resources only. Two Helium Dredges: 1 point Researched & Developed Technology: Either 3 Tier 1 techs or 2 Tier 2 techs per point spent. See tech rules for details. A friend: See below Buying A Friend * 1 CP: Really big buff to diplomacy rolls towards an existing NPC. You're not official allies, but you share a connection. (+5, +1 for every minor and +2 for every major ethos shared. Halved effects from dissimilar ethos) They get 1 extra NCP during creation, but if you're a dick to them or fail to help them out in need, you lose this trait. Note: YOU CANNOT ASSIMILATE THEM! They are friends or fellow travellers, not power-up snacks! Trying to do so counts as "being a dick". * 2 CP: A small (size 1) NPC somewhere on the Grid, or size 2 if you are a Jewel and they are on Eta Cass. As above, you can't assimilate them, but they are BFFs; you are the USA, they are Britain. * 3 CP: A small (size 1) NPC that is not connected to the Grid. May only be taken by states with Flag of Freedom (Minor or Major). These people are probably weird. * 1 CP: Adds 1 size rating per CP spend by you, capped at Size 5. You may purchase as many allies as desired, though as always the GMs reserve the right to reject concepts. Your Elysium ally if you are a Jeweller power is free, starts at size 2, and can be buffed as well. A Non-Jewel start is free, but costs you your Elysian buddy and will likely make scoring certain prestige achievements more difficult. No non-Jewel start comes with worlds more than marginally habitable. An off-Grid start is also possible. All Prospective Builds are Subject to the Approval of the Moderation Staff. Do. Not. Cheese. NPC Maker: (With thanks to Shrike) All NPCs (of note) start with the following: ONE secondary military tradition. 1 Major Territory worth $3,500 $5,000 starting military 150 DI and 4 NCP for every tier they are (Tier 1 through Tier 5) At least $2,500 of an NPC's military must be ground forces and/or defenses. An NPC may not have more than 3 points in disads per tier - no flaw farming! On top of that, tier 1 NPCs apply a 2 level modifier (ie, +2 levels for positive traits, -2 for negative) to all traits and disads, while tier 2 NPCs apply a 1 level modifier; this makes them have more significant effects for their points. In addition, tier 1 NPCs reduce the cumulative total cost of all resource operations by 2 points while tier 2 NPCs reduce it by 1. Tier 3-5 apply traits as normal. With these exceptions, all NCP costs are per PC nation creation. When an NPC purchases a minor territory with RCP it is worth $1000. Alternative Player Start Options Space Feudalism! If you want, have your share of dynastic politics and working in the Imperial Court, like a story out of Battletech or Legend of the Galactic Heroes, you can begin a game as a minor Imperial house. You will have access to additional technologies and can start with imperial ship designs for your house fleet. This is mostly open, as long as you generally work in favor of the Empire and the League. If the Empire is at war, you will be expected to send some ships - but think of the conquests! A Golden / Bright Start Interested in playing but terrified of ship design and research? Not quite sure what to do? GolCom and BriCom are looking to spin off satellite states to counteract some of the problems of centralization. (Yes, this means they are literally providing a player state out of their GDP / DI) This gives the player an edge in starting tech and proven ship designs, but there are some limitations on your behavior, more than being part of the Empire. GolCom tends to be vaguely like the Federation from Star Trek,BriCom is more bizarre. Pushing the boundaries is fine, outright acting against them is not. Talk to a GM if you want to take one of these options. Hero Rules Creating a Hero Playing a hero instead of a nation requires consulting with the Mods. Hero characters may begin with exotic technology or simply have superior skills with normal units. Heroes generally have an area of specialty, in which they are nearly unmatched. Again, this is subject to mod approval. Most heroic abilities are based on good posting. Character Shields: Heroes (and some other units) have character shields, which represent an ability to survive and overcome a situation that would see another unit destroyed or captured. However unlike mass market fiction, these ‘shields’ are not unlimited- a given hero has one character shield per encounter, though it is possible to gain more from ascension, experience, and other sources (An Age Eternal Xantech). When a hero unit would be destroyed, they can expend a character shield to instead effectively reset their stats or overcome the otherwise impossible. When a Hero is out of character shields, they die like any other unit. Heroes & Economy Heroes do not have a base income or DI. As a result, they do not normally receive growth, nor do they have to pay social spending. Heroes are required to pay military upkeep at standard rates. Colonies and other assets provided to a heroic power provide their income to the hero and may be used to construct infrastructure. Heroic powers consider all of their ships expeditionary for logistics purposes. Heroes may purchase investments at $300 / investment. Investments which require growth or intangible assets may be paid for with RP or worked out with with the GM staff. Recruiting Points & Prestige Heroes that are active in a given year receive Recruiting Points (RP). RP is awarded by mods like growth. RP may be use to obtain assets - either a single high-value asset or X points of mercenaries. This should be worked out with moderators ahead of time, and may require the expenditure of money. RP-purchased single units that have some degree of heroic / elite status Heroes may also be awarded prestige, similar to nations. Starting Player Overtech Package: Whatever the bottom tier of existing players and new players will get to pick one of the following four starting packages, representing their faction adopting some overtech. Starting fleets can incorporate whatever package they select and any existing players who get the buff can retro their designs to compatibility. Prometheus Package: Project Prometheus completed & 1 source of Dilithium with 2 extractors is added to their starting system, or to a Convoy Ship if Diaspora.. Velan Package: Player's Major Territory is paired with a Velan Hive. Player starts with all OT1 Velan technologies researched and developed. Player may purchase Hive Keepers as part of starting navy. Smart Matter Package: Player starts with 10 Smartmatter Seeds, 3 Primed Smartmatter Seeds, 5 Smartmatter Farms, and the Benefactors Entanglement unlocked (but no ranks in it). Xantech Package: Player Starts at XTL 1 Player Receives three xantech archives (rolled normally), 10 Dataslates, and Gravplanes and XC3 researched and developed.