New: Spaceplan (commercial, open-ended, www, computer, space, wargame, economic, abstract)

From: lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)

Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 01:14:36 +0000

Name:		Spaceplan
Costs:		averages 2 GB pounds/turn
URL:		http://www.pbmsports.com/spaceplan.htm
Frequency:		one per two weeks
Email:		danny@pbmsports.com
Type:		Space Opera
Last-Update:		2001Nov13
Keywords: commercial, open-ended, www, computer, space, wargame, economic,
abstract

Description:

Boldly go where no bug-eyed floppy-tentacled being has gone before in our
games of the exploration and conquest of space. Critical decisions of
population growth, industrial development, military power and
technological investment in the early game will decide your fate in the
struggle for galactic domination.

At the start of the game you control a single star system and your home
planet, with a handful of population, a little industry, a few ships and
just enough technology to make them fly. Plus a reasonable reserve of cash
("build points", in fact) in your treasury to spend on more.

First you'll plant your flag and your first colonies on whatever other
planets are in your home system while your cruisers fan out to nearby
stars in search of new worlds to conquer. But other people are out there,
doing the same thing, and this is where the trouble starts.

There are two versions of the game: we call Spaceplan II an "advanced
level" game, while Spaceplan I is a "basic level" game. The difference in
the length of rulebooks and game reports is around double.

Although Spaceplan I is an earlier version of the game there are plenty of
players who prefer it: people often characterise our "basic" games as one
where you spend less time working out what to do, and more time actually
doing it. Spaceplan II on the other hand takes more time and effort to
pick up, and it's much more challenging to play: many players prefer the
extra depth and detail.

Spaceplan II

The first big decisions in Spaceplan II are over which technology best
deserves your investment. Economic factors, so that you'll have more to
spend later? Weapons technologies and ship designs so that other players
can't steal what you build?

There's a wide range of technlogies to choose from:- agriculture, birth
labs, cosmology, culture, defence tech, echo tech, fighters, hyperspace
construction, hydroponics, income, industry tech, jump tech, life support,
mines tech, space marines, orders, petrochemicals, probes, robots, supply,
terraforming, transport, treasury & weapons.

Four major resources control build and supply costs throughout the game.
The availability of each of Food, Hydrocarbons, Isotopes & Minerals is
decided by the resource prices in each system: this rises with demand and
falls with supply.

Food is needed to feed your workforce and your fleet, and is provided by
population toiling in your agricultural colonies on whatever earth-like
worlds you can find, or by industry & hydroponics in space colonies.
Hydrocarbons are needed to power your industry (except for space
industries which can use "solar" power) and can be mined on the moons of
jovian planets (or by petrochemicals technology & industry in star
systems).

Isotopes are the core of the space drives of your ships and the power
systems of our space stations, and can be mined on the rare "satan" worlds
or produced by industry among the asteroids. Minerals are needed for
construction as your population and industry expand, and are mined on
asteroids and any world you're prepared to dig up and destroy.

An important part of your economy will be your independent "merchanters".
These run from system to system, in and out of your empire, shifting
resources to wherever they're needed (buying where they're cheap, and
selling where they're expensive) and paying useful docking fees and taxes
wherever they touch.

The ships you begin the game with are simple cruisers, but you can also
add more powerful and flexible assault carriers which carry additional
fighters (as "riders") and space marines. When empires collide it will be
these ships that decide your fate.

Essential to your empire will be the construction of a network of space
stations that link your industries together and allow your fleets to dash
from one end of your empire to the other in the twinkling of a single
action, and then beyond. Without your "net" you're consigned to plodding
from system to system, a single hyperspace jump to each action, and with
lengthy real-space transfers to delay your further.

Warfare revolves around strategic shipyards and breaking the opposing net.
If you have an active net and your opponent does not, then you hold
interior lines and can concentrate your strength, no matter what the shape
and relative size of the empires.

Spaceplan I

In comparison to the advanced version (Spaceplan II), you'll find the
rules of Spaceplan I are much more straight forward. All the economics
stuff is gone (or rather, it was never added) along with all the variable
costs. Everything is action-driven: instead of building shipyards to build
ships, and having to balance their costs within your income, you simply
use an action to make builds when you choose (when you've got Build Points
to spare).

Each action in Spaceplan I has a fixed cost, so it's easier to keep track
of your spending and the consequences of your actions fairly easily. This
is the biggest difference: whereas in Spaceplan II you set all sorts of
processes and motion and see where they take you, in Spaceplan I you're
firmly in charge, every step of the way.

The number of ship types is reduced (there are no merchanters, transports
or carriers) and the range of different technologies is much narrower.
There are no resources to deal with.

Although Spaceplan I is an "older" version of the game it has recently
been updated with a number of features developed in the later version. So
if you played the original version, the additions include multiple probes,
deep space movement and hyperspace construction

[ This is a new entry for the PBM List. You can find the list
itself, and instructions for adding games or comments, at
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/pbm_list/ -- greg ]