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Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Bar » New game idea - The nuclear football game (Updated with poll)
New game idea - The nuclear football game (Updated with poll) Fri, 09 July 2004 03:23 Go to previous message
SnakeChomp is currently offline SnakeChomp

 
Petty Officer 1st Class

Messages: 61
Registered: April 2003
Location: Stamford, CT

 I'm watching this show on the history channel about "The Nuclear Football" and it gave me an idea for this game.

In this game, the host, or a 3rd party, plays "The Overseer" (or a differently named) race. This race would be a Packet Physics race, and would start out with planets in the center and four corners of the universe (or other locations). Flying nearby each section of the universe the overseer controls is a fleet of special ships, collectively named "The Nuclear Football _" where the _ is replaced by an identifier to denote which section of the universe this fleet belongs (center, NE corner, etc). This overseer race will be set to friend by all players at all times.

Now, the purpose of this game is to be the last race left with power in the universe (not counting the overseer race). What makes this game different from just a vanilla stars game are the nuclear football fleets. These fleets will roam undefended in the area surrounding their overseer world(s) (center, NE corner, etc). The purpose of these fleets is to be "controlled" by the players of this game. "Controlling" a nuclear football fleet gives the player the ability to command the mass drivers of the planet (or planets) from which the nuclear football fleet originates, allowing them to launch miniature nuclear bombs to planets of their choice. The size of the packet launched will be predetermined for each overseer planet and known to the players at the start of the game.

The players "control" the nuclear football fleets by "tagging" them. Tagging them involves "intercepting" the fleets at any given point in the universe, with "intercepting" being defined as being within 5 light years of the nuclear football fleet. If multiple races intercept the same nuclear football fleet at one time, the fleet will remain uncontrolled. Once the fleet is under control of a player, the nuclear football fleet will "follow" the intercepting fleet at a predetermined warp speed known to all players. All the player has to do is have the nuclear football fleet follow the players intercepting fleet back to a planet the player controls that has a starbase. Once the nuclear football fleet within 10 light years of this planet, the player will have the capacity to launch packet attacks from the planets of the nuclear footballs origin.

The nuclear football fleet is comprised of two ships, which may not necessarily be together in one fleet: "The Nuclear Football" and "The Biscuit". (If you know something about the US governments nuclear control policies, "the nuclear football" is a briefcase which carries documents describing nuclear options available to the president in the event they are necessary, and "the biscuit" refers to plastic cards carried on the presidents person which allow him to verify that he is actually the president by using the codes contained on those cards.) In order to make use of the nuclear football fleet, the player must control both "The Nuclear Football" and "The Biscuit" at the same planet which contains a starbase.

The player launches a packet attack by sending an in game message to the overseer race stating which sector they would like to use to attack which planets.

There would be a few conditions that would have to be followed by all players to make this work.

1. Mass drivers and planetary defenses are banned.
This is required to keep the "nuclear missle attacks" (packets) effective. If the players are allowed to build 93%+ defenses with mass drivers in orbit, the packets launched are useless, and the point of the game is lost. The defenses that start on the homeworld will have to remain and I don't see that as being a problem.

2. Obviously, "The Nuclear Football", "The Biscuit", and "The Overseer" worlds are not to be attacked under any circumstances.

3. Nuclear football fleets will never be in orbit of a planet, but only contained within space.
This is so that the location of the nuclear football fleets is always known to players with enough scanning coverage preventing the controlling player from hiding them from his enemies. If he is allowed to hide them, it will be near impossible to located these fleets without pentrating scanners which gives advantages to certain PRTs during the game (JOAT for example). I also like the idea of the fleets being voulnerable (spelling) to enemy attack at all times.

There are still a few things I am not decided on, like where should the overseer planets be placed, how many should there be per nuclear football fleet, and how controlled nuclear football fleets can be taken away. I have a few ideas for the latter however.

Give all players a special ship design to use for intercepting nuclear football fleets. This design, and only this design can be used for interception. The intercepting fleet can have no more than one of this ship. In the event that the intercepting fleet splits into smaller fleets, only the special ship design will be followed. The enemy can break control of a nuclear football fleet away from a player by having one of their own special ships within 5 light years of the nuclear football fleet. This will remove control of the football fleet away from the controlling player and the football fleets will travel on their own accord until they are once again controlled by a single player.

If the nuclear football fleet (football and biscuit) is in orbit around a controlling players planet (orbit meaning within 10 light years), control of the football fleet can be lost if another player brings a special interceptor ship design within 10 light years of the planet the football fleet orbits. In this event control of the football fleet will be lost and the ships will move under their own accord under control has been regained.

If the planet which a nuclear football fleet orbits loses its starbase, the controlling player can no longer issue packet attack orders until they either reconstruct the starbase or move the football fleet to a new planet with a starbase.

[update]

In thinking about the planetary defenses being banned, I realize that this has rather large reprocussions when it comes to bombing. A fleet of 20 mini bombers sporting cherry bombs would be able to wipe out any planet in one year with no defenses. Maybe limiting the useable bomb tech would fix that? But that again only requires larger bombing fleets to wipe a planet out in one year. Limiting the number of bombers you can have in any given fleet would require alot of work by the host or overseer race so not sure if that is a realistic option.

What do you guys think? Please post any ideas you have. I personally am rather exited (possibly only because it was my idea Laughing ). It would require some work to set it up, but I am willing to do so, after finding out how of course. Smile

SnakeChomp

[Updated on: Sat, 10 July 2004 20:36]

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