VBAM Games is going to Origins! While we won’t have an official presence at the Origins Game Fair 2010, we will be roaming the convention Thursday through Sunday. The entire VBAM crew will be in attendance at the con, which will be the first time that everyone has been together in one spot before. This should give us the opportunity to hammer out the final changes to VBAM 2E — plus get in some well-deserved gaming time.

If you are planning on attending the convention and would like to get together just shoot us an email at vbam@vbamgames.com and let us know how to get ahold of you. We don’t have a scheduled meetup planned, but we would love to get together with fans and other gamers while we’re at Origins.

See you there!

Just as a FYI, our web host switched over to PHP 5 on Monday — a change which broke the VBAM Online Store. I thought I had it fixed, but then I got an email from a customer letting me know that the store was in fact still having some problems. I think the technical glitch has now been addressed, but if anyone runs into problems ordering through the store please let me know and we will get something figured out.

Once VBAM 2E is finished and awaiting formal release, I plan on switching the VBAM Store over to ZenCart (versus osCommerce, which we are currently running). This should allow us to do a bit more with the store than we could with a basic osCommerce install, including putting free products up for download through the store. We tried doing that before but it kept trying to charge shipping for free digital downloads (which very obviously was a problem).

The current status of VBAM 2E is as follows: I am officially in “slash and burn” mode right now. I came to the realization two weeks ago that the reason why VBAM 2E has been languishing in development like it has is because the “everything and the kitchen sink” mindset that I was approaching the game’s design with is simply the wrong approach for these rules. I was unnecessarily complicating things that didn’t need to be complicated, and I was injecting situational rules that address issues that 90%+ of the players are never going to run into or need assistance resolving when they do encounter them.

What this means is this: I am taking a scalpel to the rules and excising the rules that do not add to the core game play experience while completely integrating those that are easier to remove than they are to patch back in via optional rules. This should allow me to pair the core rules back to a length and complexity similar to that of 1E. It does mean there will be some rule components that were originally slated for this book that will have to be bumped to another release, but I think the core campaign guide will be stronger for it.

Off the top of my head, here is a laundry list of the changes that have either already been made or will be made to the rules:

1) Star system, planet, and mapping rules will be simplified. The core book will provide rules for Galaxy and Sector maps and possibly Universe maps, but the rules for System maps will be moved to another book (probably featured alongside Planet maps when the time comes). This is intended to simplify the mapping rules. An interplanetary movement system similar to what we had in the 1E Companion will be used in the core book for systems that contain multiple planets.

2) The rank-based system generation options are going away. They will be replaced by discrete advanced system generation options that the players or CM can layer on as needed. It is debatable how many of these advanced system generation rules will be included in the 2E Campaign Guide. Most may be ported to the Companion or the long-promised Star Charts book.

3) The planet type rules are now wholly-integrated into the game. This means that you will have eight types of planets (Hospitable, Adaptable, Barren, Dead, Gas Giant, Ice Giant, Hot Giant, and Asteroid Belt) that you can encounter. This is a level of planet detail in line with what you saw in Master of Orion. Each planet is assigned a habitability modifier that affects the cost to colonize or purchase infrastructure there.

4) The planetary climate rules are being moved to be wholly optional and not even discussed in the body of the main 2E sysgen rules. Planetary climate values will work as before, but now their effects are added to a planet’s existing habitability modifier.

5) Maintenance is seeing a major overhaul. The maximum Maintenance Cost of units an empire can support at no cost to itself is now equal to the total supply output (Supply x Productivity) of its colonies. An empire can increase its supply limit with economic points, which will allow larger or wealthier empires to still field large militaries even if their supply point totals are poorer.

This change will give empires more economic points to spend, since they won’t have to spend half or more of their per-turn income maintaining their forces. This extra income will more than be eaten up on more expensive military units, more infrastructure purchases, etc.

6) All colony statistics will now follow the trend of having a STAT x STAT colony output. Tech output is equal to Tech x Census, intel output is equal to Intel x Census, and supply output is Supply x Productivity. The end result is that Census and Productivity are the key stats at any colony.

7) I think we have finally arrived at a solution on the tech front that balances out the various issues that we have had to this point. First up, we are going to end up with a number of tech fields. The six currently on paper now are Construction (was Structural), Propulsion, Weapons, Electronics, Basing, and Support. An empire will have a tech level in each of these fields, and each tech level above zero provides a cumulative 5% miniaturization bonus (MU Cost x 0.95^TL).

Cool Empire tech levels, which measure the advancement of the civilization as a whole, will remain in play; however, they will not affect an empire’s maximum or minimum tech levels. Instead, an empire’s current empire tech level will apply a modifier to its tech costs, equipment miniaturization, colony outputs, and population growth costs. For example, an Interplanetary power receives a 150% modifier to its equipment costs, so a point of Anti-Ship rating (50 MU) would cost an Interplanetary power with Weapons TL 4 a total of 50 x 1.5 x 0.95^4 = 62 MU. The same AS rating would cost a TL 4 Interstellar empire 50 x 1 x 0.95^4 = 41 MU. This manner of handling tech makes it so that you can play with or without the empire tech level rules without having to worry about adjusting for their effects.

In addition to advancing these tech levels, empires will be able to purchase individual technologies that they can use in the game. Most of these technologies take the form of equipment that can be used to design new units, but some will serve as enhancement or munitions that a player can purchase and use. Enhancements provide permanent effects and require refit time to install, while munitions are one-use weapons that are used once and then lost (WMDs are the best example of munitions).

This does bring up a point I do want to get feedback on: do the majority of the players even want to deal with empire tech levels in their campaigns? I am sorely tempted to remove the empire, colony, and unit tech level rules from the core rules and revert them to optional rules, but I am on the fence. Removing them will make the rules flow better, but I know as a player I would definitely want them accessible.

9) The unit design rules remain largely the same, but with a few modifications to incorporate other changes.

The Construction Cost of a unit is still equal to its MU / 100 (round up).

Maintenance Costs now, however, will not be fractional or decimal values but rather whole numbers. While this is subject to change, expect all units to have a Maintenance Cost equal to their Construction Cost – Command Cost (minimum Maintenance Cost of 1 — this may be adjusted down to 1/2 for 0 or less results). Therefore, a Heavy Cruiser that costs 10 EP to build will have a Maintenance Cost of 10 – 3 = 7. This formula gives players an incentive to build a unit on a larger hull at the expense of being more difficult to command.

A maximum limit of 10 Command Cost is likely to be instituted to keep a player from building massive units that cost little or nothing to command (they will still be expensive to build).

Completion Times will be equal to the average of a unit’s Construction Cost and Command Cost (round up). So that 10 EP Heavy Cruiser (3 CC) will take (10 + 3) / 2 = 6.5 = 7 Turns to build. Meanwhile, a 2 EP Destroyer (1 CC) will take 2 Turns to build.

The maximum MU of equipment that can be added to a unit is based on its Command Cost. Current cost formulas are 400 x CC for Starships/Troops, 200 x CC for Flights/Aircraft, and 600 x CC for Starbases/Installations. These numbers give nice round numbers, even for the smallest 1/2 CC units.

The goal here is to simplify the rules back to a level that players can quickly identify what is going on and start playing the game. As written in its previous draft iteration, the rules were becoming incredibly daunting. I knew we had a problem when I even found myself confused with what rules were where and how they were interacting with one another. That set off some pretty serious alarm bells in my head and set me to figuring out the best way to address the problem.

I hope to be more active here on the forums from here on out. I had hoped to have finished the rules months ago, and I have no idea when these rules will be done (the cover art still isn’t done, either — we have art for all the other core books, incidentally, just not the most important!). I want to make sure that we get these rules done right, so expect for the full rules to be posted here for additional testing before they are actually released. It will help us to iron out the remaining bugs before we hand it off for printing.

It has been over a month since the last update, and the rules have undergone some major alterations and revisions since then. I had started a new blog post about them last week, but never got around to actually posting it — which is for the best, because I spent this last weekend editing printed out versions of chapters 5 through 9 and making some decisions on what rules are going to stay in 2E and which are going to be going away.

• First up on the chopping block is the major/minor failure/success campaign check system. After additional playtesting I have come to the conclusion that the effects granted by the system are not worth the hassle involved. Campaign checks are going back to a simple binary pass/fail mechanic which should make them easier to resolve. Campaign checks will still be resolved on a D100 roll; this holdover is maintained because it meshes better with some of our other rules and statistics. Degree of success/failure will still sometimes have an effect on a check, but this will be on a case-by-case basis. For example, the workaround for intel mission detection I came up with last week was to go back to Jay’s original detection rules from 1E where a mission is detected if the roll is less than half or greater than twice the target number. This works better than having to make a separate, arbitrary detection roll.
• Speaking of Intel, both intel and diplomacy are receiving an overhaul insofar as the tracking of intel and diplomacy points are concerned. In previous 2E rules drafts these resources had to be used on the same turn that they were generated, which forced the player to “use them or lose them.” However, this was inconsistent with the rest of the campaign rules where campaign resources cannot be spent on the same turn they are earned but are instead “banked” into empire pools so that the player can spend them on future turns. Now, intel and diplomacy points will be placed into an empire’s Intel and Diplomacy Pools, respectively, so that players can build a reserve of these resources.
• Defensive Intel has been restructured to provide a blanket penalty to all intel missions launched against the defended power. While a large empire with enough intel points available can spend enough of them each turn to make it extremely difficult for an opponent to successfully conduct successful intel missions against it, this constant outlay of intel points will restrict the empire’s ability to conduct intel missions of its own.
• Considering diplomacy, I am considering the current Relationship system — which is more or less the same as that from the 1E Companion — so that it has a neutral balancing point of 0 rather than 50. I still have to review the situation and see if that is viable or not, but I think logically it makes more sense for true neutrality to be pegged to 0. This would allow positive Relationship values to reflect good relations and negative Relationship values to demonstrate deteriorating relations.
• The tech system continues to be an elusive beast, and it is probably the part of this project that has eaten up more time an energy than anything else relating to Second Edition. The original goal was to have a broad set of controlling technologies (the equivalent of the macro technologies found in the Starmada Edition) with a group of subordinate micro technologies. Each “macro technology” increase would provide the player with a miniaturization bonus for all associated micro technologies during unit design, which means that the cost to add weapons to units would be lower for those empires with high Weapons tech levels.

  The problem with this is game balance and effect. Early miniaturization formulas were overly complicated and had tech costs that were disproportionate to their benefit. We also had played around with researching tech levels on a per-micro improvement basis, which ended up being a bookkeeping nightmare and a real imposition when it came time to actually trying to build a new unit. The next step was to simplify by just assigning tech levels to the six main equipment types (Structural, Propulsion, Electronics, Weapons, Basing, Support). This worked fairly well, but we still had issues with miniaturization formulas.

  I left the tech rules to simmer while I went back to edit and review other portions of the rules. The biggest problem that I personally have with the current direction that the tech rules are going is that they seem to be overly complicated for what they are aiming to do. While I like the concept of having separate tech levels for each of the six macro technologies, as this allows an empire to clearly specialize in one area of technology or another, another part of me remembers my own early VBAM campaigns where all I cared about was getting a bit of a stat bonus as my “Tech Year” improved. This kind of simple tech advancement can be achieved by increasing a unit’s maximum mass based on your empire’s tech level rather than worrying about miniaturizing equipment technologies. The downside is that all empires would have equal costs for all six equipment types, but the upshot is that unit design becomes extremely simple and the cost of all equipment technologies would not vary.

  I plan on testing some of the simplified methods and seeing what works best. There is a good chance that the simplest solution will be the one used in the 2E Campaign Guide, with more advanced options being pushed back to a future campaign supplement.

• The system generation option rules are going to be rewritten this week to reorganize them along new lines. The predefined system generation options from 1E (Commander, Captain, Commodore, Admiral) will still exist as archetypes, but they are no longer going to be overtly referred to within the rules. Instead, each of the individual system generation options will be broken out and defined so that players and CMs can choose the exact set of individual options they want to use in their campaigns. Originally I had intended to keep the old 1E system alive, but in editing and revising the system and planet generation rules it became apparent that the better solution is to directly reference the specific system generation options so that it is clear which steps are to be carried out for your campaign depending on the rules used in your campaign. For example, a campaign that uses the Detailed Star Data sysgen option would have to roll for spectral type, luminosity class, etc. during system generation, but a campaign that doesn’t use this sysgen option would skip this step.

It has been almost a month since our last status update, and I wish I had more to report. I have been personally fighting a cold for most of the last month, which has cut into my development time. We are still waiting on the cover art to be completed, too, which is running similarly behind schedule. It is almost like the universe doesn’t want this book to be finished, or else this is just a very busy time of year for everyone (which is far more likely).
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Paul Robinson (OldnGrey), the creator of the excellent Starmada/VBAM Shipyard spreadsheet, has created a conversion guide that updates the rules for the Starmada Edition campaign book to work with the newest version of the Starmada game rules (Starmada Admiralty Edition, or Starmada AE for short).
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