Second Sphere Suggestion Box

Put any and all your random suggestions here. Please try to avoid one-sentence suggestions unless they're pretty self-evident. A short description of the idea would be nice. Also, please sign the suggestion so I know who to get back to in case I need clarification or expansion.

Possibilities could include

Technologies

NPC worlds

Rules for anything

Fluff (I'll contact you to hash it out in greater detail)

Plot hooks

Political events

Histories

Art

General suggestions

Things to keep in mind

Criticisms or pitfalls

Keep it constructive!

Remember that chances are I can't use everything, so don't be discouraged if your suggestion doesn't get used. I appreciate the help.

Sign your suggestions

I mean it. :p

---

• Screw you MJ. Your entry, is now deleted. Shrike said to 'sign your entries'!*

Mopeyennui

Sentient AI

Given the processing and efficiency constraints on sentient AI, battlefield deployable sentient AI may be rare to nonexistent-a nonsentient tactical savant will do just as well without the morality questions and expense of making and growing your own sentient mind. Furthermore, given the primary use of AI technology is to reduce overall losses, AI technology should be generally used to make expendable troops more morally acceptable or as assistance to human piloting-low cost, low-capability units given AI governance to allow them to be spent like munitions or systems designed to improve the situational awareness and reaction speed of a (trans)human pilot. More advanced AI systems, capable of matching a skilled pilot or soldier, should be a rarer, more expensive, and difficult to produce (high CIP cost) option. This is only for battlefield designs-large-scale civilian networks can be made sentient for cheaper, as they rarely suffer the same space and hardening constraints-and when you have a planet's mass to play with hardening isn't hard. --MJ12 Commando 03:44, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Economics: Economics in Spaaaace

By MJ12
Note: these do not represent end-user rules-this is just the logic and math behind them. They may come in a simplified fashion or be done entirely behind the scenes.

Growth and Savings

Or: You mean you need money to make money? Amazing!

The economy is constantly growing at a slow pace, and as such infrastructure improvements are made quarterly and "immediately" finish. Therefore, growth is done quarterly (whenever new builds must be submitted?) and said infrastructural growth immediately finishes.

Besides for the standard growth categories, there are two others that can be increased by spending-domestic support and population. The latter represents immigration-friendly policies, tax breaks for incoming businesses and their employees, improved government programs to integrate immigrants into society at large, and other similar policies for the most part, although nations with the inclination and will to use bioroid labor can simply start the factories up for another batch.

Domestic support can be increased by government spending as well, although the effects are generally temporary and short-term, used to compensate for crisis situations or simply to stave off impending disaster for just a little longer. This represents propaganda, beating people into a nationalistic fervor, spending a giant pile of money on pork, and other ways to keep the voting bloc happy lest they decide to vote you out of office-or worse yet, vote with Kalashnikovs instead of the ballot box.

Growth and Morale

Or: Bread and Circuses in the 22nd century

Many countries have found that keeping their population well fed and wealthy allows them to act more freely without the risk of significant dissent or revolt. This has not changed at all-poor growth in infrastructure and GDP can and will cause civil unrest, while high growth and the promise of economic prosperity can silence an angry population.

If economic growth does not hit a critical threshold, popular support can and will wane, although subsidies and government action (i.e. bribing the people) can stave off the worst effects, for a period of time. But once bread and circuses are promised, it is not difficult to cause the population to start demanding more, and with an essentially static infrastructure base, this is the way collapsed nations are built.

For developed nations, the quarterly growth needed to sustain popular support is approximately 0.5%, but for somewhat less developed polities (i.e. the player characters) owing to the easy access to resources and living room, desirable growth is approximately 1% in all areas (CIP, PIP, and wealth). Growth below this will penalize morale, causing it to decrease slowly. If total growth is below the threshold, a nation loses 1% domestic support per quarter. A nation suffering negative growth can lose a significant percentage of its domestic support as its population is wracked by poverty and unemployment-if a nation suffers negative growth, round the percentage of negative growth down to the nearest whole number and then subtract that from domestic support as well.

Example: The Nation of Explodia has had a terrible quarter with -2.1% infrastructure growth total. Its domestic support is already low, at 33%. Explodia loses 1% domestic support from having growth lower than 1% quarterly, and an additional 3% from its negative growth, reducing its domestic support to 29%. Its government may want to start thinking of ways to encourage economic improvement.

On the flipside, sustained growth can increase population support, as the promise of prosperity in the near future allows them to forgive the goverment for a lot more than people who aren't seeing their nest eggs and future brighten before their eyes. A nation which has the wealth, research and development infrastructure, and savings rate to sustain high economic growth can ignore its internal turmoil and societal problems for the most part-until it can no longer sustain said growth rates. If a nation's growth is above 2% quarterly, it gains 1% domestic support per quarter.

Deficit Spending

Or: How to get reelected and tick off your successor.

It is sometimes necessary or even desirable for a nation to spend more than it takes in via taxes and other means. A long time ago, some genius figured out that borrowing money was an excellent tool to do exactly that, whether on a personal or a national scale. National debt is commonly used to finance wars, prestige projects, or other significant expenses. Most notably, most ZOCU powers have been saddled with a moderate degree of debt due to their crash industrialization programs and proportionally smaller economies compared to the Core powers.

A nation can do deficit spending, which up to doubles their quarterly wealth income, but gives them national debt, at any moment. National debt, however, reduces future income, and at high levels can decrease public support of the current administration and its path. For every 5 WU of debt (round debt up to the nearest 5 WU), 1 WU of income must be reserved per quarter to pay interest on the loans quarterly. If the nation refuses to pay, massive domestic upheaval can result. Most critically, if a nation refuses to pay it is immediately disallowed from deficit spending until its deficit is eliminated, which may take a significant period of time. Payment of the deficit can be done with any budget surplus a nation may have.

Furthermore, the current deficit is transformed into a domestic support hit, and your economic system can easily suffer permanent damage-multiply your current Wealth production by (1 - Debt/Wealth), suffering a maximum of a 50% reduction in economic capacity. The permanent damage to the economy due to various factors can cause a nation to enter a depression which it may take decades to crawl out of, and the domestic support hit makes it worse. Therefore, most nations seek to ensure that interest payments on their debt are always paid, no matter what.

Similarly, high levels of government debt can also cause significant domestic support hits as people worry if the government can keep fulfilling its debts. One-quarter (rounded up to the nearest percentage point) of the percentage of total national debt (both foreign and domestic) over GDP is subtracted from the domestic support rating. (this assumes domestic support is still a 1-100 percentage).

On the other hand, a nation can borrow money from other nations, which may reduce the interest costs but gives them influence over one's economy. The results of defaulting on debt in either case are identical, as the main problem is the nation showing that it cannot be trusted to repay its debts on time. All repayment plans must be arranged ahead of time owing to the ability to use debts as leverage.

Nations start with 20% of their total GDP (Wealth infrastructure) in domestic national debt for every "-Debt" they have.

Reducing the Deficit

In many cases a nation with a deficit will seek to reduce it during times of plenty, by paying it down. This is done by spending wealth on it (obviously). However, as most debt is found in bonds and securities, with fixed repayment schedules, paying off debt is a slow and potentially painful process.

Debt can be "immediately" repaid, but such a process is inefficient. Owing to the mature value of most investments, this requires 10 WU to every 1 WU of debt. Therefore, most nations repay their debt in the "normal" fashion-by slowly paying it down and not borrowing further. A nation can pay off 2.5% of their debt, rounded up to the nearest WU, every quarter at a normal ratio (i.e. 1 WU spent to remove 1 WU of debt). Any debt a nation seeks to reduce past that is paid off at the higher 10:1 ratio.

Trade

Or: You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

Trade is common for one reason-in general, it makes everyone better off when it happens. Trade based economies are prosperous but generally also vulnerable to disruption, making it a tradeoff between security and prosperity.

To Be Finished

Technology and the Economy

Or: How exactly did we get "A" from Technology?

Technological improvement also spurs economic growth as well as investment. As technology improves, productivity improves, even if the net effects are fairly minor. Therefore, Research Points can be used to improve the economy in place of wealth, representing focusing government research efforts on economic, rather than military, applications and improving prosperity in that fashion.

Galaxy-Wide Economic Events

Or: Help help I'm in a recession and I'm out of money!

However, most countries seek to keep a reserve of currency for a significant reason-economic fluctuations and other contingencies can only be predicted on a fairly rough scale, and must be corrected for. Lacking enough money in case of a galaxy-wide recession (not uncommon in a fairly interconnected economic system) can cause significant popular support hits.

Overcapacity

Or: The care and feeding of your very own Solow model

There are nations which generally have far more infrastructure than their savings rate and population can support. This is rare, because fundamentally this is unstable. A nation with overcapacity loses said infrastructure over time, as money and workforce are stretched too thin to accommodate it and businesses close down due to having to produce goods below their marginal cost to participate in the market. Therefore, a nation with overcapacity must invest a significant amount of wealth into maintaining growth or at least stagnation until the population and GDP grow sufficiently to support its infrastructure, as the market is already saturated and the government is essentially the sole party standing between it and collapse.

A nation with infrastructure greater than what its population can support abandons said infrastructure at a rate of (total infrastructure - maximum supportable infrastructure/50 * maximum supportable infrastructure) per quarter. So for example, Davistan has 1250 industry but can only support 250 from population and other factors. Davistan, therefore, loses 8% of its infrastructure per quarter (a -8% growth rate) unless it pays through the nose to maintain its productivity levels.

Furthermore, a nation's cost to subsidize infrastructure it cannot support is increased by a factor of (1 + total infrastructure/maximum supportable infrastructure), rounded down. So Davistan is also paying 5 times as much per unit to keep its infrastructure from decaying. Given that it's losing domestic support as its infrastructure decays, chances are it will be an ex-nation within a few years.

Prestige Projects

By MJ12
Or: Because everyone likes one-upmanship.

Prestige projects are high-profile projects that stretch the limits of human science and technology, impressive constructs that are spoken of in awe. These are projects like the Apollo Launch, the construction of the Empire State Building, building the LHC-projects that of themselves have little benefit, but in the end are beneficial because of how they advance one's technical base.

In effect, a Prestige Project is a method to trade PIP and CIP for morale and RP-by demanding that this must be built, one creates a pull for technology in a specific field, which often makes significant breakthroughs trying to supply the resources needed to construct something of this magnitude, and by finishing it your nation has something its people can be proud of, a legacy to remember for centuries to come.

Prestige Projects are not to be taken lightly, and are a significant investment, but their rewards can be worth it. A Major prestige project, like the Large Hadron Collider, Panama Canal, or Hoover Dam, often instantly grants a free advancement in a related technical field as well as a morale booster-building a hypercollider that spans the planet's diameter may increase one's expertise in the field of particle weapons, while building a powerful AI control system might increase expertise in the field of artificial intelligence, or something such as a massive kilometers-high megascraper might translate into improved structural engineering technology. Furthermore Major projects grant a significant morale boost. In some cases, prestige projects may have significant other effects, like terraforming a continent from a patch of sand and sun into a verdant garden world.

Minor prestige projects are smaller and more commonl, but still expensive undertakings. These often simply add RP to certain fields, making further research into them somewhat cheaper. An example may be attempting to break the speed record for a powered vehicle, which could translate into advancements in aerospace or mecha technology, or a massive public transport array might translate into improved prosperity (RP put into economic development.) Minor prestige projects grant morale boosts but they are proportionally less extreme than the ones from major prestige projects, owing to their smaller scale.

Fun stuff from OmegaPaladin

This is a miscellaneous assortment of rules and fluff

Defending Your System

System defense is key to avoiding being conquered. This is a complicated array of systems such as spy satellite networks, defensive satellites, fortresses in space and on planets, advanced military firewalls, and police/space patrol organizations. Instead of representing this with individual units, this is represented by three traits.

C³I

This is the level of sophistication of your sensor network and your command hierarchy. High C³I gives the ability to pick up cloaked ships and identify sneaky enemies. Facilities that control C³I include NORAD-style command centers, recon drones, and communication networks.

Fortifications

This represents the physical presence of weaponry capable of holding off enemy space vessels and to a lesser extent troops. This includes defense platforms, battlestations, ground defense installations, and planetary defense batteries. High levels can mean either extraordinarily tough defenses or incredibly stealthy weaponry. This can be enhanced with two buildable facilities.

Citadel - More than a mere base or battlestation, this is a facility capable of docking capital ships and holding an amazing quantity of mobile suits or fighters. Think of Axis or Jaburo, and you are on the right track. Hugely expensive, with defenses to match the price tag, Citadels are fairly rare.

Superweapon - Whether it is an array of solar mirrors, a giant ground based railgun, or something more exotic, you have an ace up your sleeve. Generally, the more powerful the device, the less often it can fire, and the more vulnerable it is to attack.

Garrison

This represents your fixed bases for ships, strike craft, and ground forces. This is primarily a logistical factor that works with your military infrastructure to represent what you can support of defense. Higher levels mean you have plenty of airbases and barracks, with enough to keep your forces supported even after being attacked.

Espionage and Special Warfare

Not all warfare is about battleships, mobile suits, and tank divisions. Spies remain the key to knowing what your enemy is doing, just as it has been since ancient history. Special Forces also remain a key part of warfare, executing the same vital missions, just with different tools.

Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence

Spies are purchased as units that represent an entire spy ring. While most nations have active intelligence agencies that give a general perception of what other powers are planning, purchased spies allow you to do much more.

Spies can be tasked to spy on other nations, your nation, or to serve as underworld contacts. Spying on other nations is the most difficult task for a spy, but it is also the only way to learn your enemy's secrets. Spying on your own nation is much easier, but can still lead to trouble if it is discovered. Most people don't want to live in a police state, and excessive internal spying can lead to plummeting morale. Internal intelligence can nip revolutions in the bud, however, and can help ferret out enemy agents. Generally, the broader the subject of investigation, the more difficult it is to gain good information. This can be modified by added capabilities on the spy.

Underworld contacts can broker deals on the black market, and are required to access black market hardware. They can also make deals with local pirates and smugglers. Generally, these missions are fairly safe, as killing off contacts is not a good way to get repeat business.

Counterintelligence is a function of internal spies, morale, and your power's Op Sec Doctrine. This is yet another reason to keep your people happy.

Special Forces

Special Forces are military or paramilitary forces that have training beyond the norm and perform unusual missions. They are all low in raw manpower, high in skill, and expensive to maintain compared even to elite military units. These are limited according to your military infrastructure.

Praetorians

Just like their ancient counterparts, these are bodyguards for important people such as your power's leader. These are the most important soldiers in your military if you are an autocrat, as they stand between you and a coup. Even stable nations appreciate the role of a group of fanatically loyal bodyguards who can hold off a a sizable force of assassins.

X-COM

Need to explore a hostile Precursor relic, or unravel the mysteries of some post-human structure? Look no further than this highly trained unit and its extensive support structure. These units require RP upkeep as well as wealth, and are less skilled in conventional combat than any special forces unit. However, they excel at exploration, even in hostile environments, and can defend themselves, especially against unusual opponents like feral drones.

Covert Operations

These are the modern equivalent of the SAS or Delta Force. Incredibly rigorous training at infiltration and operating behind enemy lines are combined with a top-notch support infrastructure to do things that other forces just can't do. Counter-terrorism, sabotage, assassination, Gundamjacking, you name it. All this training is wasted if they are assigned to direct combat, though with Advisor added capabilities they can organize local resistance fighters into decent infantry units.

Overt Operations

With the use of transhuman modifications or special power armor, troops can now take incredible odds. Nowhere is this more apparent than Overt Operation teams, who are much like Halo's Spartans or the LoGH's Rosenritter. These super-soldiers are trained for the most intense combat, and typically go straight into the fray. They serve the same purposes as Covert Ops, but they rely on speed and toughness over stealth. Their forte is capturing ships and fortifications. Only powers with very high ground tech and/or extensive transhuman augmentation can field these warriors.

Technology

Anti-Gravity Drive - The AG drive is a fairly common secondary drive system for capital ships. Derived from the inertial dampening systems that make intense accelerations survivable even for baseline humans, the AG Drive turns the attraction of gravity on a ship into motive power. This can even effectively nullify gravity's effect on a ship, allowing it to hover even in an atmosphere. Using this system requires a considerably amount of energy, and emits characteristic radiation, so it is no more stealthy than a fusion torch, but it allows easier aerospace flight and is much controlled by inertia, allowing for quick defensive maneuvering. Unfortunately, actually creating gravity requires an extreme amount of energy and much more sophisticated technology. The reliance on preexisting gravity fields means that AG drives are useless away from a major gravity well and do not produce significantly higher acceleration on smaller ships compared to large vessels.

---

ZOCU

Given ZOCU gets both starting debts and treaty of Sirus, you might want to consider what they get in return in order to make the game a bit fair, especially given the ZOCU alliance as a whole seems to be less powerful than the Core.

History Paths

Accumulated - penalties beyond 0, for things that a player might have no interest in or ability to buy anyway such as theta or dust, should assess a penalty of some kind. -transgene should apply a penalty to diplomacy with Those Freaks. I have no idea what -theta might mean but almost every Core world would have it. Peel 20:47, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Chaotic Events

Rather than have a preset list of events deemed suitably chaotic, just let everyone exchange 1 +x for 1 -y after history path.M.M. 03:00, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Technology Sketches

These are some preliminary ideas for technology. --MJ12 Commando 12:31, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Technical Paths

Technical advancement in Sphere can be roughly divided into several general categories, each with a corresponding level. Higher levels of technical advancement may make viable certain technologies and systems that were impractical for field use at lower levels, or refine early developments.

A nation starts with 0 in all technology fields, which are improved by technology bought via SP or from its origin paths. Each technology + gives two free advancements in any technology field, while each technology malus gives a penalty in a field. Certain nations may gain bonuses to specific technologies from their history paths-in which case the technology advancements may only be applied in a field.

"Paradigm" fields cost five times the normal amount to advance at start. However, if a nation gains a specific bonus to a paradigm field, the cost multiplier is waived.

Evolutionary Advancement

As a nation improves its understanding of a certain field, it can make tweaks to its designs and their usage to improve their effectiveness. This may come in the form of improved effectiveness, reduced size, or decreased cost. Every technology advance adds three Advancement Points (AP) to spend in the category, which can be spent to:

• Increase damage (for weapons) by 10%.
• Improve power (for weaponsy) by +1 (costs twice normal AP)
• Increase range by 10%.
• Increase accuracy for weapons by +1 (costs twice normal AP)
• Increase resistance by 10% (armor/shields).
• Increase component space and hull growth factor by 10% (costs twice normal AP).
• Reduce the size of a component by 5%
• Reduce its PIP and CIP cost by 5% (costs twice normal AP)
• Reduce its Dust cost by 5% (costs triple normal AP)

Any improvement rounds down-sometimes the improvement is more theoretical than actual, as various factors in reality conspire to negate most of the improvement gained from optimization.

However, as advancement in a specific area increases, it becomes harder and harder to improve a component in that area. To improve components in a specific area, it costs (1 + total AP spent in area) points to increase. If a ZOCU power wishes to reduce the size of its megaparticle cannons by 15% (3 advancements), it costs 1 AP for the first level, 2 AP for the second level, and 3 AP for the third level, for a total of 6 AP.

To Do: Simplify the hell out of how evolutionary advancements work.

Revolutionary Advancement

At certain levels, new designs and systems can be practically deployed in useful amounts, instead of being, essentially, limited-production prototypes or insufficiently compact, robust, and reliable for military or possibly even civilian deployment.

Technological Exchange

It is possible but difficult to exchange technological advancements-a majority of the effort spent is in applying knowledge and experimental results into constructing prototypes, retooling industry, and ensuring improvements in

Fields of Advancement

These include some potential/example unlockable systems and short descriptions.

Offensive

Guided Munitions: Advances in this field increase the effectiveness of missiles and artillery.

Micromissiles (requires L1 Guided Munitions): Miniature missile systems, micromissiles are short-ranged, low-power, and fairly stupid but make excellent point defense systems and can easily replace infantry grenade launchers.

Capacitor Warheads (requires L3 Guided Munitions): Advances in capacitor storage and electrically powered drives have made it possible to make a missile which uses a modified electron matrix as a warhead. Such missiles have somewhat reduced hitting power at range, but improved armor penetration capability and damage at short ranges, where the capacitor is still nearly full and converts energy which would be going into propulsion into

Weaponized Lasers: Advances in this field improve laser weapons technology.

Man-Portable Laser Weapons (requires L2 Lasers): Although man-portable laser weapons have been possible for nearly two centuries, lasers capable of competing with other infantry small arms in firepower and reliability are a fairly recent invention. Man-portable laser weapons have comparable (if somewhat inferior) power to ballistic weapons and are far more expensive, but are significantly more accurate, have slightly better effective range, and are somewhat stealthier as a pulse-type laser produces no sound and near-zero visual signature except on the target.

Variable-Rate Pulse Lasers (requires L3 Lasers): VRPLs are highly advanced pulse laser systems which use adaptive lensing to modify both rate of fire and energy per-pulse. VRPLs have superior power and accuracy to standard laser systems but pay for it in increased bulk and shortened range.

Mega-Particle Weapons: ZOCU's signature weapons system, Megaparticle Weaponry are devastating energy weapons.
Mass Drivers: Advances in this field improve railguns, from infantry scale to battleship guns. Pulse Weapons: Advances in this field increase the effectiveness of particle beam weapons.

Defensive

Shields: Self explanatory.
Structural: Structural technologies improve the capabilities of armor.
ECM: Electronic Countermeasures are obvious but powerful devices which can ensure that enemy weaponsfire misses altogether.
Stealth: From RAM to cloaking devices, stealth is a measure to how well you can stay invisible.
Sensors: Advanced sensors provide a countermeasure to stealth technologies.

Propulsive

FTL Drives: The better this is, the faster your ships go on a strategic level.
Reaction Drives: From cold gas to VASIMR, reaction drives are the most common type of drive system.
Inertial Drives: Rarer and more expensive than reaction drives, inertial drives are powerful reactionless systems which require Delta Dust to function.

Engineering

Ground Vehicles: From motorcycles to tanks, this covers a whole suite of vehicles.

Landships (require L4 Ground Vehicles): Take a battleship. Install treads. Season with more guns to taste.

Aerospace: Advancements in aerospace technology allow the construction of more advanced fighters, bombers, and gunships.

Superfighters (require L4 Aerospace): Superfighters are inordinately expensive, incredibly powerful fighters which can often defeat entire flights of lesser fighters on their lonesome-which is just as well as they often cost as much as an entire flight of lesser fighters to build and maintain.

Mobile Armor (require L5 Aerospace or L5 Mecha): Scaling up high-impulse low-endurance drives to their natural limit, mobile armors are frigate-sized strike platforms which mount firepower superior to that of many cruisers.

Mecha: Humanoid fighting vehicles, from Gears and Battlemechs to the latest generation Orbital Frames.

Orbital Frames (require L4 Mecha): The Mecha equivalent of Superfighters, OFs have high availability of components and extreme survivability at an exorbitant price point.

Mobile Armor (require L5 Aerospace or L5 Mecha): Scaling up high-impulse low-endurance drives to their limit, mobile armors are frigate-sized strike platforms which mount firepower superior to that of many cruisers.

Medical: Medical technology covers categories from biowarfare defense, medicine, and human enhancement technologies, including supersoldier programs, cyberware, and bioengineering.
Shipbuilding: Shipbuilding technology is a measure of a power's knowledge of how to build effective vessels, from the smallest escort to the largest Titan.

Titans (require L10 Shipbuilding, L2 FTL Drives, L3 Structural, L2 Reaction or L2 Inertial Drives): Vessels that essentially only exist on the drawing board, Titans are the most impressive and most ridiculous mobile vessel ever proposed, with lengths in the kilometers and crew in the tens of thousands. Significant advancement in structural and propulsive technology is required simply to allow these vessels to transit into FTL and use their engines without breaking apart.