BlogNomic: More Modules

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Proposal: More Modules

Self-killed. — Quirck

Adminned at 12 Mar 2013 11:05:42 UTC

Add the following subrules to the rule “Modules”

“Extra Space”:

Size: 0
Assembly instructions: A Captain must spend 3 Aluminum and 2 silver to install this module. A Captain may not have more than 2 of this Module.
Effect: A Captain’s hold is increased by 5, and their speed is reduced by 1. If the Captain’s speed would fall below 1, the Captain’s firepower will be reduced by 1 instead.

“Nuclear Warheads”

Size: 2
Assembly instructions: A Captain must spend 2 Gold and 2 Dilithium to install this module. A Captain may not have more than 3 of this Module.
Effect: Once during a battle, a captain may add 5 to their total dice roll. The decision to add 5 must be done before rolling the dice (in the comments section of GNDT). If the M exceeds N (as defined in the combat section) by 10, Attackerâ€™s Class is set to â€œ-â€ and their Resources are destroyed from the nuclear blow back. Upon use of a Nuclear Warhead, the instance of the module used is uninstalled from the Captain’s ship.

More module ideas!

Comments

Josh: he/they

10-03-2013 22:39:11 UTC

MurphEngineer:

10-03-2013 23:24:33 UTC

Cannot support due to multiple issues:

“If [M] exceeds [N]...by 10…” What happens if M exceeds N by 11? According to this clause, absolutely nothing. That doesn’t seem right—perhaps “by 10 or more” was intended.

Nuclear Warheads would render the game unbalanced—to the point, I argue, of being completely broken—in favour of Scouts and Freighters. Recall that the Scout has a Firepower of 3. This means that a Scout with a Nuclear Warhead is guaranteed to roll M between 6 and 8. This means that Scouts are guaranteed to win combats against other Scouts and Freighters if they use Warheads, with zero risk of blowback. The real problem is with Freighters. A Freighter, with a Firepower of 5 and a Nuclear Warhead, is guaranteed to roll M between 6 and 10. This implies that Freighters are guaranteed to win combats against other Scouts and Freighters if they use Warheads, again with zero risk of blowback. This is especially a problem for Freighters, with a Hold of 30, as it would become extremely profitable for a Captain with a Freighter to declare nuclear war on all other Captains, purchase 3 Warheads, use these Warheads to raid other ships (with guaranteed odds of success and good odds of making a sizable profit by destroying enemy ships, with an expected M-N of 5 vs. other Freighters), purchase more Warheads with raided resources, and repeat.

The reward of Hold+5 for Extra Space is not balanced with the cost (2 different kinds of Resources, 5 Resources in total, and permanent Speed-1 or Firepower-1). I think the Speed/Firepower penalty should be removed, keeping the restriction on maximum number installed.