Just change to a one-off design and then delete that design. Takes a year to do it, so we have to be more specific with the rule wording:

"You may not have more than X orbitals built at any time. If you begin any year with more than X orbitals, you must delete orbital designs until you have X or fewer orbitals remaining."

That allows you the following scenario:
Year 0: You have X orbitals and are on the warpath. You give your attack fleet orders to conquer Nivenyrral.
Year 1: Attack succeeded. You now own Nivenyrral. Queue a "Big Phat Starbase" on Nivenyrral. Create a new "Teeny Little Fort" design, and queue one on Pegasus (which already has an orbital).
Year 2: You start the turn with X+1 orbitals. Delete the Teeny Little Fort design. You now have X orbitals.


If you forget to perform a downgrade in year 1, you are left with a potentially painful situation in year 2. You will have to delete a design. Hopefully you have a design that only 1 or 2 planets have. Otherwise...ouch.

Except it is a very limited hab empty planet (25%) - and far easier to kill than planets of other PRTs.

I was thinking that "only X orbitals may have an orbital device, and only those orbitals may build ships".

I should probably say that I have an automated host backup and message pane scraper in place that could help verify this limitation fairly easily (a small amount of work would let it check for orbitals with an "orbital" device, and compare with the "ships built" list. This could kind of be undermined by exploiting the SB build bug (i.e. build 99% of a whole pile of ships at a station (without completing any) and then move production there and complete them all in one year. But the scraper also pulls build queues, so even that could be easily checked (nothing but a new SB hull, TF or alchemy (lol) should ever be in an AR queue).


The AR would therefore be allowed to build "defenses" (ineffective as they may be) on their planets, as well as actually using their full size.

Actually, yes, this might be the way to go, and we have an existing tool for stretching unis.

So pick your desired number of planets for the agreed upon uni size. Options are:
24 32 40 60 96 128 160 216 240 288 ...and up

Can play the standard uni sizes or can go even bigger with the stretch util.


Playing in a super-sparse uni (rather than with a planet/orbital limit) does provide rather different tactical and strategic dynamics.

For one, you'll need good hab settings, since your natural planet allotment will be so small.
Supposing a large uni with 8 players and 128 planets (16 planets/player = 1/3 of large/sparse): a 1-in-7 race with a bad hab draw is in very dire straits. Might not have any greens in your natural area.

The vast distance between planets makes prop tech more important and makes packets less effective as weapons. Also reduces the opportunities for forking an opponent's planets.
And probably forget about remote mining.

For ease of MM i am also suggesting

- no chaff
- no split fleet dodge
- no merge fleets after gating
- Mine damage dodge

no limit on number of planets colonised as long as the number of docks is limited

all players have diplo set to enemy at all times.

No Comms unless the comms are sent to all players in game

# of minefields is restricted to 40 per player

# of fleets capped at 200

20 stations/docks per player equipped with any kind of Orbital (Gates & Mass Drivers)

-- Note AR races are allowed to have unlimited number of Forts and other stations HOWEVER they are only allowed to build any ships on 20 (Still limited to 20 stations with gates or massdrivers. these must only be on the "Shipbuilding" worlds)

Other game settings are as follows:

- Distant players position
- AccBBS
- random events on
- PPS off.

The number of planets in the uni will be scaled to the # of players interested

For ease of MM i am also suggesting

- no chaff

- no split fleet dodge

- no merge fleets after gating

- Mine damage dodge

and of course any other thing listed the cheating thread is off limits

Turns would be MTWTF until someone requests a slow down
i personally would like 7 days a week, but that may detract players

I was thinking that "only X orbitals may have an orbital device, and only those orbitals may build ships".

I should probably say that I have an automated host backup and message pane scraper in place that could help verify this limitation fairly easily (a small amount of work would let it check for orbitals with an "orbital" device, and compare with the "ships built" list. This could kind of be undermined by exploiting the SB build bug (i.e. build 99% of a whole pile of ships at a station (without completing any) and then move production there and complete them all in one year. But the scraper also pulls build queues, so even that could be easily checked (nothing but a new SB hull, TF or alchemy (lol) should ever be in an AR queue).

The AR would therefore be allowed to build "defenses" (ineffective as they may be) on their planets, as well as actually using their full size.

The distance between planets in that universe had better large enough that a minefield at one planet does not cover another planet, otherwise you could get problems with "minefield drift" causing the center of minefields to move away from planets, and how does the "only minefields at planets with orbitals" rule handle such situations ?

And is it allowed intentionally to cause "minefield drift", perhaps limited to ensuring that the minefield only covers a single planet ?

XAPBob has a point, without chaff defending an AR station becomes much easier, and mounting weapons on the station is a pretty good way to do that, in addition to mounting shields, armor, jammers and deflectors.

If AR are not allowed to mount weapons on stations, then perhaps allow AR to mount shields, armor, jammers and deflectors, but not weapons, comps, gates and drivers ? After all, non-AR are allowed to build defences.

XAPBob has a point, without chaff defending an AR station becomes much easier, and mounting weapons on the station is a pretty good way to do that, in addition to mounting shields, armor, jammers and deflectors.

If AR are not allowed to mount weapons on stations, then perhaps allow AR to mount shields, armor, jammers and deflectors, but not weapons, comps, gates and drivers ? After all, non-AR are allowed to build defences.

For ease of MM i am also suggesting
- no chaff
http://www.starsfaq.com/articles/chaff.htm

Not sure how large an advantage it is. You have to expect that when you turn up over a planet that it will build a bristling station the year after...

AR would have NO defenses otherwise, and I feel that is likely to be too stiff a penalty. It's not as if AR are a frequently chosen, strong, race to start with - or is it?

It generally takea far more effort to drag bombers around than warships...

I can't work out whether armed stations are sufficiently equivalent to planetary defenses (both cost minerals/resources and make a planet harder to kill, neither can initiate offense).

Without chaff around the attack SB order might not be as bad for AR? I generally don't like it that much, you can't target any other token...

Inquisitor80 wrote on Fri, 18 April 2014 17:05

For ease of MM i am also suggesting
- no chaff
http://www.starsfaq.com/articles/chaff.htm

You still need to define what counts as chaff.
The classic chaff design is a scout or frigate with a qj5 and an xray.
What about two xrays?
What about one yaki?
What about a destroyer?
etc

Chaff should be fairly easy to recognise - just look at the ships. In each era there are only so many designs of warship, and chaff rather stands out.

Is a fleet of 1000 Yaki scouts chaff if they aren't accomponying anything? Might be a way to get enough weapons close to a station - but as they *are* the warfleet...

sure, i can look at a fleet and say chaff/not chaff
but if we make it a rule then an "objective" standard needs to be present
i don't want things to fall apart because somebody is riding the line, and another player says they are chaff and he disagrees

Chaff should be fairly easy to recognise - just look at the ships. In each era there are only so many designs of warship, and chaff rather stands out.

I would think we would have to agree on either a minimum cost for any ship that might fall into this category or go down the path of exact descriptions of each possible variation of chaff.


I think both would be problematic unless you add a dimension of time and perhaps quantity. ie ban chaff starting in a specific year. Early years many races can only build what later might be viewed as chaff. Chaff is mainly used for Jihad missiles and up which will happen a bit later in the game. As mentioned you still need to define chaff based on hull and weapons.


Interesting set up if you add it to the new games page. I would be interested. An IT along with CA and JOAT would need some kind of handicap.