This game will be loosely themed on the cancelled science-fiction TV series, "Firefly". No special rules that closely apply to "Firefly", I just love the series. Familiarity with the TV show is not a requirement to play. A thread on the game concept was created in the Bar last month under "Themed games". Lots of good points brought up there. Start would be in late July.

The special rules do relate to the title of the game (in a sarcastic way). Your so-called friends could "accidentally" knock you out of the game.

This is a winner-take-all game. Not even a mention of who finished second. Absolutely no pre-game alliances. If you chose to play in this game, you should abide by the spirit of it. Your goal is to win and if you cannot win, your secondary goal is to prevent the obvious leader(s) from winning.

Here is where it gets interesting (maybe):
1) Starting in 2421, each player will be limited to 15 ship designs.

2) Also starting in 2421, all executed battle orders must be capable of targeting any neutral or enemy ships/orbitals through primary or secondary target. No disengaging as a selected tactic. One way this can be safely accomplished is by having "Any" as a primary or secondary target and "Neutrals and Enemies" for the "Attack Who" option in battle plans.

The battle orders are designed to guarantee havoc among non-friends when armed ships are present.

3) Race passwords and any changes to race passwords must be provided to the non-playing host in a timely fashion.

Any player violating these rules will be set to inactive two turns later by the host and cannot win the game. Verification by the non-playing host of the first two items is done by examining the .m files between turn generations, hence the need for keeping the host up-to-date on passwords.

You can have as many friends as you want, but this can be risky. Friends and neutrals can give each other ship designs. And some turn they may "accidentally" give you too many ship designs and put you at the 16 ship limit. Note that setting someone to "Enemy" prevents them from being able to give you ships.

If you are in a rough situation and absolutely have to set someone else to friend so you can use their gates, refuel at their docks, more easily tech trade, and attack in tandem, then so be it. But if you are trying to keep some player relations at "Friend" or "Neutral" while doing well in the game, the other player is perfectly justified in giving you enough ship designs to put you over the special rule limit of 15. He or she may even send a PM (Private Message) to the host when the turn generates and the results are stored on the "m" file. "Hey, Mr. Host, please check so-and-so's turn, now that I tried to give him 15 race designs, I bet he now has 16 designs." I may even require a PM before I check files because I don't want to disqualify a player who lost track and built 16 designs of their own.

I am trying to create a chaotic game where the players in strong positions tough it out alone, while the less skilled or fortunate players can temporarily band together. Players who don't have all relations at "Enemy" from 2421 and later should be willing to accept they could be knocked out of the game at some point, not just because they are doing well, but because they could even be perceived as doing well.

Also, no settling of old feuds here. And remember, what happens in "Best Friends Forever" (BFF), stays in BFF. Don't want to create any new feuds, just put a new edge on the game.

No cheats allowed in this game per the "Stars Must Know / Exploitable Bugs" thread, except for Chaff and Split Fleet Dodge. Falsifying public player score is considered a major cheat in this type of game.

Game details are as follows:

Start date: roughly late July

On Autohost: Yes (unless Ron objects)

Skill level: intermediate to expert

Turn generation: by player suggestion. Majority rules.

Universe size and density to allow for roughly 30 planets per player. Edit: fixed the example to state "small size / normal density" would be the minimum (4 players).

Distant Player Postions

Slower Tech Advances: Not checked

Beginner: Maximum Minerals: Not checked

Accelerated BBS: Checked

No Random Events: Checked

Number of Computer Players: 0

Public Playing Scores: Checked

Galaxy Clumping: Not checked

Host playing: No. I don't have the time. Also, I would feel like an idiot if I got knocked out of the game based on the rules I made up.

Victory is by at least a 2/3 majority vote of surviving players. Failing that, high score at year 2480.

Send me a PM if you are interested. If you are familiar with the "Firefly" TV series, feel free to base race names on the show and role-play. If you are not interested, I suggest you rent the "Firefly" DVD anyway. In my humble opinion, "Firefly" is to TV sci-fi what Stars! is to 4x games.

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Wrote a short novel on this, now remembered I have to edit to suggest PRT race wizard penalties. Want to encourage race variety, so have to discourage strong races that can survive alone. Since this game would be similar to a massive, multi-player duel, I am using the point penalties from the 2007 Dueling Championship (with an IT penalty thrown in because IT is the overwhelming choice in 2007 championship).

Points can be used on any option (not just defenses)
CA -180
Joat -180
IT -150

[Updated on: Thu, 05 July 2007 10:42]

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Just a little technical difficulty here ...
You fail to transfer fleets to someone who had 512 fleets available before battles.

The friendly fireflying may be blocked not only by setting them to enemy but also by enough split out chaff somewhere.

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Kotk wrote on Mon, 02 July 2007 15:45

Just a little technical difficulty here ... You fail to transfer fleets to someone who had 512 fleets available before battles. The friendly fireflying may be blocked not only by setting them to enemy but also by enough split out chaff somewhere.

Interesting. Have you verified this? Fleet transfer is well after battles in the order of events, so I would've assumed (presumably wrongly) that the fleet counts would be back down again by then, but perhaps Stars! doesn't rush to 'free up' the fleet slots.

If it is as you say... Then SD looks very dangerous indeed, to their allies...

EDIT: Oh, and while I'm here, a suggestion to 'unbreak' the system: Instead of making it a design slot max of 15, make it a fleet count max of 500. That becomes unblockable again *and* is quicker for the 3rd party to verify each year (could even be scripted up using the fleet reports.)

EDIT2: lol, maybe not unblockable... Found a way to 'block' that too - you'd just have to make sure 12 chaff committed suicide against an enemy starbase every year... Or a few sets even, just to be safe..... How about just an in-game message 'I kill you, friend', that takes effect if the recipient had you set to friend or neutral

[Updated on: Mon, 02 July 2007 01:58]

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Dogthinkers wrote on Mon, 02 July 2007 08:49

Interesting. Have you verified this? Fleet transfer is well after battles in the order of events, so I would've assumed (presumably wrongly) that the fleet counts would be back down again by then, but perhaps Stars! doesn't rush to 'free up' the fleet slots.

Not recently. i did run test about it quite long ago when i had time to play in larger games. I ran sometimes into the fleet limit blocking my ship building or scrapper transfers. Seemed it kept the fleet slots reserved during whole turn. For the ships built this turn the solution was to have fleets present at all orbits then new ships were merged to them once slots ran out. With ships transfered nothing did help.

If it has changed now (i doubt it) then one can build (up to 40) additional fleets at each of his planet for additional safety.

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