Ruins of Alien Suns

Nations

Nations-states are the intended primary player style of Ruins, these are the planets located in the Verge that are seeking their own destiny among the alien stars and represent the rare highly stable worlds that survived the Disruption. Most but not all of them are worlds that were amicable to human life and development and range from developed to mid 21s century to late 22nd in terms of infrastructure, and have populations that numbers in tens of millions.

Nation Starting Package (As of 2152)

• $1200 income per year
• $12000 Spending Spree for Starting Military
• 4 Trait Points

$4000 in developments

• Notes: Build time reduced by 4 years with ONE exception. This money cannot be used on vanity projects. Any developments that would be completed this way add their income to the current budget year. This is not constrained to the limit on development slots for the sake of convenience.

• Stability 5
• Prestige 10
• Research Labs: 10
• Espionage Operatives: $130

Player nations have to describe their:

• Homeworld:
• Government Type and Ideology: Affects stability, if you’re the baby eaters of Zardoz and you ally with Ghandi of Neo-Avatar, you’re going to lose stability, if you’re the Iron Prussians of New Stadheim and you invade Bonaventure to increase your realpolitik you will gain in stability. High stability allows for bonus income and rules and special events that are good. Low stability leads to unrest and potential civil war.
• Background: Where they are a forced colony of exiles or planned colony settled by the space Mormons?

Fluff will help integrate you into the game setting, as well as how your nation develops, a Marslike planet of underground space dwarfs might get a bonus to asteroid mines as a random example while a Earthlike planet may get an economic boom as more people settle the untouched lands.

Traits

Traits are ways to customize your nation that have a mechanical affect. You got a select number of them to start off with and can add more for inclusion negative traits. Flaw Farms will be judged on how interesting you can make it.

Positive Traits

• People's Champion: Your government is popular with the people, harder to lower your stability and easier to increase it.
• The War Machine: Your dollars $1.5 worth of military equipment per $1 spent, though your people expect you to use it. Cost reductions apply to all warships as well as ground and aerospace forces, but not generic vessels save for Gator Carriers.
• Star Patrol: Your anti-piracy patrols are very effective and you can engage in anti-piracy patrols in npc systems to increase goodwill. Star Patrol halves the build cost (but not upkeep) of Police Ships, in addition to changes listed in the trade section. Gain a free Agency worth up to $200.
• Merchant Marine: You get two basic freighters for every one built and a 30% discount on far traders and derivative hulls. Does not apply to Super Freighters. Due to the Jones Space Act and local shipping protectionism, a merchant marine power cannot freighters to another power at a price less than what they could pay for it building it themselves, however they may still sell unlocked or Monkey Model types of upgraded or unique types of these ships following the normal arms sales process.
• Admiralty: Your fleets are well trained and you basically get a free negate a bad critical roll during fleet battles.
• Fanatics: Ground troops will fight to death if ordered.
• Dreamland: Reverse engineer of Outsider and Visitor technology is your forte gain bonus on those rolls
• Skunkworks: Forefront of the human R&D wave.
• Manticore: You sit on a valuable nexus of jump points that includes at least 6 points and you gain .2 of both your base and development income as bonus income.
• Client States [subservient]: A nearby system is under your thumb, either as three independent small states underneath you or 1 larger state indirectly guided by you.
• Mayflower Society: Colonization bonus, civilians are quicker in moving in and making you get money. Gain +1 prestige for colonies and quicker advancement to next rank, though your population will expect you to defend the colonies with full force
• Murtox: Better merchants you get higher than average growth rates. Your base income increases at a higher rate and one of your development slots always reduces the build time of a development by 2 years (except vanity projects) to a minimum of 1 year. A client state with Murtox can reduce the build time of one development assigned to it by 1 year, to a minimum of 1 year.
• Large Population: The Verge is half of humanity, and you’re part of the reason. While the average Verge state can be measured in the tens of millions, your population is well into the hundreds of millions, having surpassed even Praetoria in the past few years of immigration from the Core and displacement from various wars. Your state is culturally resilient as a consequence of sheer inertia, and has a lot of bodies to throw at problems. Development projects to improve living standards however, may be much more expensive.
• Population by Proxy: Your state’s core population is extremely small proportional to its landmass, most likely under five million. This may be because of extensive automation, or a permanent underclass. Spending to increase stability is typically much cheaper, and your various forces are robotic or mercenary by majority, reducing the Stability costs of huge casualties in offensive wars.
• The Library of Ruins: Your state has begun assembling a collection of exotic alien paraphernalia and seemingly-supernatural devices, chancing on some relics of those who came before that are completely beyond replication. Begin with 1d3 Artifacts (Clients get 1 Artifact). Such devices more easily find their way into your possession and are more stable.
• Assembly Prestige: When your state speaks, others listen. Assume your voting tendency is replicated x5 in the Assembly of the Verge and x10 in the UN General Assembly. Should the Security Council ever restore the non-permanent seats, expect to be shortlisted for it.
• The Blunder Bus: Somehow, despite all the diplomatic missteps you make and bombastic threats you make, your state comes out smelling like a rose. Or at least freshly-mowed grass. Is it all just a big joke or do people ignore you? Either way, it works out.

Verge NPCs are well-disposed towards your state and will generally ignore minor bad behavior that doesn't directly affect them and the UN will often give you top cover and keep the TFs out of your business. Boys will be boys.

• Autarkists: Some states out of ideology or circumstances have never rejoined the great Verge trade routes, instead adopting policies of autarkist self-sufficiency; the successful ones coupled this to society-wide norms.

Each trade region is rated for only base trade volume (i.e., absolute necessities and rare luxuries), autarkists cannot trade in their home trade region, and your world may never be a trade node; but the effect of industrial and resource extraction developments is increased by up to 50% (to a maximum of 125% of the initial investment) and you have +3 development slots (+4 if you are under resting stability). You also gain 1 Lock for espionage purposes thanks to limited contact with the greater galaxy giving foreigners few levers to influence and cultivate spies. You may not also take Poor Merchants with this trait.

• Blackbeard 2525: The Golden Age of Cosmopiracy was the half-century following the Disconnect, but the explosive growth of spaceborne commerce, unaccounted-for weaponry and trans-verge chaos has opened the door to a new age of cosmopiracy. Old habits die hard and it turns out you can teach an old zero-G dog new tricks.

Your corsairs and related ships are 50% more effective at piracy and they gain an additional single size-2 weapon slot, this weapon must be paid for like any other weapon.

• Cosmo Albania: Star systems are dirty, messy places full of comets, asteroids and other space detritus. Your state has cultivated a particularly keen sense of this cosmo-terrain and given a bit of time can effectively hide all sorts of things from supply dumps to battleships from all but dedicated search.

Passive stealth for unpowered or secret structures and ships is greatly improved.

Negative Traits

• UN Sanctioned List: You're a rogue state as defined by the UN as well as your previous actions. While untouched by the Sanction Squadrons you are on thin ice with Earth and other NPCs.
• Peaceniks: Your people don’t like offensive war and will lose stability if you engage it.
• Dirty Cops: Your anti-piracy efforts have been compromised and you are more vulnerable to it
• Keystone Navy: Perhaps regime loyalty is more important than competence or you just regrained the stars, for the immediate future your fleet will make blunders.
• Disunited: Your planet is not entirely under your control, there are 1-3 powers on the planet that are not easy pushovers. At least one will stand in opposition to you in some meaningful fashion. Disunited States count as 3/4ths of a PC state, and are made with 4 traits.
• Political Science: Your R&D efforts are behind the times and focused on other matters then important stuff of better laser guns.
• Xenos Scum: You won’t use alien derived technology
• Cul-de-sac: You have no easy jump point route to the frontier.
• Coldest War: A nearby system houses a power that wants your blood, if combined with Disunited they will have a client state among your neighbors.
• Poor Merchants: You only gain half income on freighters
• Dark Fate [2 points]: Congratulations you’re going to get a war within 6 to 2 years of game start.
• 5 Year Plan: Economic slow growth hampers your nation.
• Homebodies: There's no place like home. Your colonies return half the usual amount of prestige (round down) and grow half as fast. Defenders assigned to them will also be fairly listless and won't fight very hard.
• Lobotomy Corporation: Your state officially denies any existence of Paracausal Phenomenon. Speaking of such things in public results in psychiatric confinement, or worse. You may never make use of alien artifacts and other one-off devices, and have additional vulnerabilities to users of such phenomenon.
• Empty Chair: You have no say in Solarian politics, not even a token vote in the General Assembly unlike many sanctioned states. Additionally, Empty Chair states are passed over as recruitment grounds by the ESF.
• Yearning Masses: Your state is deeply unstable and an emancipatory desire has begun to manifest, demanding a change from the status quo. Your resting Stability is 1, meaning it will constantly tick down to revolution unless abated somehow.
• Old Model Army: Built by the lowest bidder, then stored improperly for a decade, then given to poorly trained conscripts. The state's military readiness is just very poor and even cutting-edge equipment will probably be somehow misused.

You get a 10% penalty to all die rolls in battle or the equivalent (eg -1 on a D10)

• Verge Hatemagnet: A few states have found themselves on the shitlist for much of the Verge; ironically (or not) these tend to be states that have strong ties to the great powers of Earth - they are often decried as various forms of sellout, puppet, quisling and the like, though some are simply roundly disliked and have absolutely no friends whatsoever - such as the late and unlamented Praetoria.

NPC Verge states will generally avoid positive diplomacy with you and all tech trades with Verge states will cost +1 lab each. PC verge states cultivating ties with you may face stability problems.

Client States

Client States are built like PC powers but with smaller budgets and trait pools and more restrictive flaw farms. You can divide up them into three separate states on map (Fivemarks) or single bigger power)

Small States are

• 300 Income a year
• 2000 military
• 1 Trait point
• 1 Lab

Large States are

• 600 income a year
• 4500 military
• 2 Trait points
• 3 Labs

Disallowed traits for Client States are the following:

• Client states
• Manticore
• Dark Fate

Client states need their history and government written about them like states. The most important questions are to ask: are they loyal ally or conquered nation underneath your boot. The write up determines how freely you can move their forces around an friendly ally may balk about invading Iraq with you, while a satrap will be forced to send troops, conversely an ally will stick with you while a Satrap may revolt if they can throw off your yoke.

UN TASKFORCE

UN Taskforces are for players who want to influence the plot but not want to deal with the empire building aspect. They play the Admirals from Earth who are given wide latitude in making sure the Motherworld is kept in the loops and the Verge down.

Starting Package (As of 2152)

• $3000 Spending Spree
• 1 Starbase System
• Reinforcements from Earth (Depending on game politics, posting and situation facing the Task Force they may gain up to 1000-3000 reinforcements depending on the crisis though, and UN Admiral that keeps on losing battleships may be recalled or sidelined)
• No Upkeep
• 4 traits
• $200 Agency
• $65 in Espionage Operatives

Positive Traits

• Patrol Fleet: Gain $2 per $1 spent on star cruisers and below, generic ships such as scouts and replenishment vessels cost half price as well..
• Sanction Fleet: Gain 2 per $1 spent on capital warships, and half price on replenishment vessels.
• Espaiters: UN Espaiter Corp has fully deserved a reputation for being the best of the best and you have the cream of the crop.
• Peacekeepers: Gain 2$ per 1 spent on ground units.
• Long ARM of Earth: Stealth costs are half and you have access to the UN Black Ops world, however the spooks will have missions for you.
• Poster Boys: Your fleet is considered one of the good guys in the Verge and NPCs will look favorably upon you.
• Ares Hall: The UN equivalent to admiralty, you and your staff and officers are trained graduates of the most elite war college in the Sol system.
• Lucky: You can luck out of problems and find plots land in your lap
• Prototypes: The UN will time from time send you bleeding edge systems to test.
• Hand in Hand: The fleet walks the tightrope of Core-Verge politics, carefully arbitrating the demands of both clusters of polities safely. Major actions that feature near-equal contributions of UN and Verger forces rewards additional Prestige and Stability. The positive involvement of a Core power further increases this benefit.
• ESF Development Bank: Your economic obligations (for trade purposes) are raised to $1000, though this is still not actual income. Instead receive a yearly stipend of $1000 which can be gifted to various Verge states as diplomatic gifts, investments or loans, courtesy of the Core powers. Overinvesting in Mandates or playing financial games to hold onto the funds may cause ballooning corruption, however.
• Firestarter Protocol: You’ve been tasked with dealing with what the UN has dubbed "Paracausal Phenomenon". This is a thankless, terrifying job dealing with the black projects of Core and Verger states, strange alien terrors and ancient superbeings beyond comprehension. On the bright side, you’ve learned how to consistently make use of artifacts irreproducible by human hands with fewer side effects.

Negative Traits

• Dark Fate: Same as before [2 points]
• Hatred: You are seen rightly or wrongly as the UN bullyboy
• Punishment Post: Your fleet suffers a moral problem and corruption problem.
• Category C Formation: Your units are older and reinforcements are tough to gain. Half reinforcement pool.
• Starbase Romeo-Xray-Juliet: Your fleet has become inappropriately entangled with the civilian component of your colonial fleet, in a way that makes for great drama but poor discipline. Discipline will suffer greatly in circumstances where the civilian fleet is in danger, and damage to it may send forces into a panic or irrational fury.
• Pure Solarian: Your fleet only recruits from Sol and the innermost colonies of the Core. Your crew are typically naive ideologues woefully unaware of the truth of life in the Verge at best, and bigots who view Vergers as a lesser form of life at worst. This is a constant cause of diplomatic incidents and will botch joint exercises with Verger states.
• Verger Rabble: For whatever reason your fleet is staffed almost exclusively by citizens of the Verge, either independent states or the UN mandates that dot a few worlds. In the best circumstances this means that your crew are hardy and quick to cooperate with Verge states, and at worst it means they’re one atrocity away from a mutiny. Awards ceremonies at the Ares Hall are always times of infamy for this fleet.

PMC

PMCs are the play-style of those who want a more heroic style individualized focus. They are the Enterprises or Hammer Slammers, though if they engage in PVP they don’t have strong character shields. So choose your fights well.

Starting Package (As of 2152)

• $1000 SS
• Asteroid HQ Base [hidden]
• 100 income per year
• 3 Traits

Positive Traits

• Loyal to Their Own: Excellent moral and better than average troops then their national counterparts
• Cutting Edge: You have a bonus on getting new human technology
• Combat Archaeology: You can loot like your Dr Jones himself.
• Privateer: You’re excellent at piracy and better yet can get paid for it without diplomatic repercussions.
• The Face: NPCs like you social media campaigns
• Reality Show: Gain 200 income but on the downside your location is constantly broadcast
• Deniable Asset: Your employer is a state, this means you can get bailed out or covertly supported by regular forces but you have a hidden master to work for.
• The Blackest Market: You have access to illegal black market suppliers of stealth materials, stealth costs are 1/3 the price, one half if you combine it with Deniable Asset to represent the state you are working for paying for it.
• Custodians: Your unique items are much more stable and effective. Such items find their way into your possession more frequently.
• Patron: Choose a single state, PC or NPC, or the United Nations. You may build any units from their existing designs at half cost. This comes with some expectations of following their requests and may be retracted by the player.

Negative Traits

• Scrapheap Armada: Your ships are old or ill maintained and can during battle suffer annoying glitches that range from obnoxious to deadly.
• Paycheck Only: Your men are there not for a cause but money, they won’t stand up to fight on death ground.
• Dynamite Digging: Your attempts at looting alien tombs end up with aliens tombs getting ruined.
• Pirate: You're wanted by most reputable forces and run the risk of having a UN force sent after your hidden base.
• Call Center: Nobody likes dealing with you day to day operations, NPC relations worsen
• Burned: You were a deniable asset now, your a ticking time tomb, and the NPC is going to send something after you someday.
• It Belongs In A Museum: You can never make use of alien artifacts, one-off prototypes and other exotic goods. The only viable option is selling them to a state or other organization.
• Not Made Here: Choose a single state, PC or NPC, or the United Nations. You may only build units following their existing designs, and your build orders require their final approval. This state exerts undue influence over your actions as well, and may pull your access to new construction if you displease them. Hulls may be retrofitted after purchase.

Military Rules

Ship Hull Stats

Default maximum armour on any ship: 3

Extra armor costs 10% of base hull cost per level

Any Armor ratings over 3 subtracts 1 Accel per, which can be repurchased.

Default maximum acceleration on any ship: 8

Extra acceleration costs 10% of base hull cost per level

Technologies can be unlocked which change these limits and change the cost of these modifications.

Escorts

Fast Attack Craft

Cost: 25

Build Time: 6 Months

Weapon Slots: 1

Max Weapon Size: 1 (Can be outfitted with size two torpedoes)

System Slots: 0

Acel: 6

Armor Level: 0

Endurance: 2 Months

Fast Attack Craft are cheap tools for system defense, essentially a large fusion torch with weapons strapped to it, they are by design not for long endurance missions and have cramped quarters.

• As of 2751 onwards, all PCs benefit from the universal Subsystem Micronization technology, giving FACs a single utility slot.

Destroyer

Cost: 40

Build Time: 1 Year

Weapon Slots: 2

Max Weapon Size: 2

System Slots: 1

Acel: 4

Armor Level: 0

Endurance: 4

Standard workhorse of the Verge systems, and flagship of many small worlds PDFs.

• From 2751 onwards, all PCs have access to the universal War Destroyer hull modification technology, which if gives Destroyers a single Size 3 Weapon slot if applied.

Frigate

Cost: 50

Build Time: 1 Year

Weapon Slots: 2

Max Weapon Size: 2

System Slots: 2

Acel: 3

Armor Level: 0

Endurance: 8

Often the largest ship seen is Disrupted system navies. They are used by more advanced navies as long distance patrol ships and show the flag missions or heavy anti-piracy missions and in war time serve as flagship for screening units.

Cruisers

Scout Cruiser

Cost: 150

Build: 1 Year and Half

Weapon Slots: 5

Max Weapon Size: 3

System Slots: 4

Acel: 3

Armor Level: 1

Endurance: 6

Used for scouting for enemy fleets, potentially hostile new star systems or independent raiding missions, the Scout Cruiser can fight anything that it can’t outrun.

• In 2751, all PCs benefit from the universal Better Scout Cruisers technology, adding +1 System Slots.

Star Cruiser

Build: 2 Years

Cost: 300

Weapon Slots: 5

Max Weapon Size: 4

System Slots: 3

Acel: 2

Armor Level: 2

Endurance: 6

The average big stick of the Verge, for decades this was the largest warship capable of construction beyond Sol’s limit and the Verge cruisers are noticeably more developed and capable then most Sol-bound versions.

Capital Ships

Additional notes on Capital ships

Capital ships have an Invulnerability save against sub-capital (S3 and lower) weapons that strike Armor or HP. Precision strikes against weapons or subsystems (except for engines and bridge) ignore this. The dice for this is 1d10 for Starcruisers (TN8), 1d10 for Battleships (TN7) and 1d10 for SCS and larger vessels (TN6).

Capital ships that are 80% complete can be rushed out in partial completion and assembled in transit as long as the engines are intact, treat as Moderate damage and random missing components (GM decision).

Destroyed capital ships have a flat 50% chance of surviving to an inert 'hulk' state, which is 3/4 cost and build time to repair.

Battleship

Build: 2 Years

Cost: 600

Weapon Slots: 5

Max Weapon Size: 5

System Slots: 4

Acel: 1

Armor Level: 3

Endurance: 6

The queens of space, they are essentially armored bricks built around the most powerful torches in human inventory and bristling with weapons and support systems. Expensive they are often derided by many Verge analysts as white elephants for Verge interstellar politics.

System Control Ship

Build: 3 Year

Cost: 800

Weapon Slots: 3

Max Weapon Size: 3

System Slots: 6

Acel: 1

Armor Level: 2

Endurance: 8

Carrier Deck: 10

CIC System

If the battleship is Chess’s queen, the SCS is the king. While capable combatant against cruisers its primary specialty is the deployment of aerospace fighters and bombers as well powerful C3 systems that allow the fleet to link up.

Slotted SCS Hangers are automatically Size 5 and do not require a weapons slot.

Multi-Hull Ships

Some large ships (eg Dreadnoughts) are made up of several 'modules'; each module is essentially a non-independent ship hull. Each module has the appropriate number of weapon and system slots, with additional rules as follows below:

• Systems affect the entire ship, not just the module they are mounted in.
• Hull mods may be applied to modules.
• Conventional engine torches cost double, ie, 20% per level of acceleration. Technologies or other effects that give increase to acceleration are half as effective.
• Inertial drive systems do not have double cost, but one drive system must be purchased and installed in each module.

Weapon System Rules

Starting weapons are listed below, each of the weapon types can be made in larger sizes (which is generally more damage). Weapon cost is price of the type times the size. Thus a size 1 Standard Missile box luancher on a FAC would be $15 while a battleship ICBM silo would be $75.

All weapons of size 4 and up ('capital weapons') can fire to an effective +1 range band. The exception are PD lasers, coilguns and similar defensive weapons; these actually represent clusters of small weapons and do not get the range increase.

Firing outside of Long range requires Sensors, either on the firing ship or on a friendly craft doing spotting.

Standoff missiles have Extreme-3 range, meaning they can go up to three range brackets into extreme if sufficient sensor resolution exists (ie, enough sensors).

Missiles

Standard Missiles

Range: Long

Interceptable: Yes

Reloads: 12

Cost: 15

Standard missiles are small yield nuclear armed devices that aim for proximity blows. Missile technology is constantly change and what might be standard one year may be obsolete the next.

Dual Launch Standard Missiles

Range: Long

Interceptable: Yes

Reloads: 12

Cost: 33

The rising tide of the Verge's accelerating arms race lifted all boats, with almost all Verge states developing domestic versions of multiple missile launchers.

• Available to all PCs as a universal technology from 2751 onwards.

Torpedos

Range: Short

Interceptable: No

Reloads: 3

Cost: 10 (max out at size 2)

Torpedoes are large x-ray conversion bomb lasers that are required to be launched at short ranged and armor piercing and intensively destructive.

Standoff Missiles

Range: Extreme

Interceptable: Yes

Reloads: 6

Cost: 15

Essentially multi-staged standard missiles. With dedicated sensor platform or forward control source they can fire and hit the target beyond the sensor range of the firing vessel assuming somebody is painting the target.

Lasers

• From 2751 onwards, all PCs benefit from the universal Improved Laser Coolants technology, giving Laser weapons one additional salvo before Cooldown.

Standard Laser

Range: Medium

Armor Piercing

Cool down: 1

Cost: 5

X-Ray Laser, standard for over a century now.

Heavy Laser

Range: Short

Armor Piercing

Cool down: 3

Cost: 10

Heavier version designed to smash apart even the thickest armor hulls.

Point Defense Laser

Range Medium

Damage: Missiles and small craft, minor damage to ships

No cool down

Cost: 1

Close in point defense laser, fairly deadly to missiles, threatening to aerospace wings and minor annoyance to warships. They fire at every incoming missile barrage for a chance to hit, but can get overwhelmed.

Phased-Array Lasers

Range Medium

Damage: Missiles and small craft, medium damage to ships

No cool down

Cost: 4

Weak laser weapon counts as a PD Laser, or it can auto-hit ships at Medium range for light but consistent damage.

• Available to all PCs as a universal technology from 2751 onwards.

Kinetics

13cm Railguns

Range: Medium

Cost: 8

Turreted railguns have been the mainstay of UN Fleet for generations, and its well developed technology has its followers out in the Verge.

Twin 13cm Railguns

Range: Medium

Cost: 12

By 2751 rising tide of the accelerating arms race across the Verge lifted all boats, with almost every Verge state developing domestic Railgun multi-mount turrets.

• Available to all PCs as a universal technology from 2751 onwards.

Autocannons

(Size 4 and above)

Range Short

Cost: 12

The name is misnomer, they are large bore rapid firing cannons whose shells are heavy warheads with minor guidance correction systems. Nicknamed carronades by the UN Fleet they can smash even the most armored ship if they were foolish enough to get into range of it, but are often easily mission killed.

Module Rules

Each ship has space for optional systems to customize it. Each utilized system slot cost 10% of the hull price except when noted otherwise.

Sensors: Dedicated supercomputer and sensor vane attached to the ship, allows for better targeting of standard and standoff missiles and can be taken up to three times.

Marines: Allows for organic power suit marine crews for boarding operations and other zero-g infantry combat for taking control of hulks or stations. Sub-cruisers ships carry them at platoon strength, cruisers at company, and capital ships battalions. Can be used to support ground invasions as space borne troopers.

Spin Gravity Section: Habit ring that allows for easier gravity and other creature comforts for long deployments. Increase endurance by 2 and allows for situational moral and alertness bonus on long patrols or missions.

Supply Bay: Equipped with basic microfabs and supply containers, allow for improved deployment time (double base endurance)

Lab Module: State of art laboratory for exploration vessels along with a staff of generalists from ranging astrobiology to xeno-pyschology. Useful for piercing the secrets of the unknown.

Build Repair System: 2 Slots, heavy duty advance but portable fabrication kits that allow for field repairs that can fix even the worst damage given time.

Atmospheric Capability: Most ships are unable to enter into the atmosphere, ships however can for added cost to provide landing exploration missions or close fire support or to hide out. Price for this is 20% base hull cost.

Stealth: Officially banned by the Treaty of Paris, and quietly ignored by pirates as well as government black operations, ships can be clad in stealth material that allows them to remain out of sight till entering into firing range. Subcruisers it costs 30% of base hull price, cruisers 100% of hull price, and for capitals 300% of hull.

Survey Systems: Advance sensor suite, autofacs making probes, astronomers staff and physicists, this is the model to explore a system for a new jump point.

Transport Bay: This allows the starship to carry in decent readiness a formation of soldiers and war-machines along with armored shuttles to land them with some safety under fire.

Carrying capacity per module varies by ship class, as follows;

• A fast attack craft or destroyer may transport 1 platoon. Functionally, this means operatives with 1 level of GR/R6.
• A frigate or scout cruiser may transport 1 company.
• A star cruiser may transport 1 battalion.
• A battleship may transport 2 battalions.
• A system control ship may transport 3 battalions.

C3: Advance command, control and communication suite to allow for increased efficiency in operating loops.

Fire Control Systems: Large improvement to weapons accuracy.

• Available from 2751 onwards as a universal technology.

Interstellar Rescue Module: The IRM is a suite of search and rescue, disaster relief and advanced medical facilities designed to allow any ship to come to the aid of those suffering natural or man made disasters. With advanced microfabs, it can allow responses to virtually any situation, including those as dire as Praetoria

Hanger: Takes both a system and weapon slot to be able to aerospace wings.

Vanilla Hangar Size is as follows:

Size 1: 2

Size 2: 3

Size 3: 5

Size 4: 7

Size 5: 10

Upkeep, Repairs, & Refitting

When Repairing and Refitting a ship at the same time, use the Repair time as the "largest weapon/module" in the formula.

Refits & Upgrades

Weapon slots: Changing a weapon slot costs 1/5 the price of the weapon that is being pulled out, plus the full price of the weapon being slotted in.

System slots: System slots are more tricky as they are integrated into the ship. Swapping a system in an occupied system slot costs the price of the new system + 5% of the base hull cost due to inefficiencies.

Adding extra engines or armor to an existing ship costs the same as in new construction (i.e. 10% base hull cost per level, unless modified by a technology)

Refits comprising several different activities happen concurrently. The time to completion is always (largest weapon/module size in months) + 1 additional month for every slot or attribute (engines/armor/etc.) being changed.

Removed components (weapons, systems) remain existing physical objects and can be stored with no upkeep.

Hullmods (variations of existing ship types) can be refitted to existing ships at 10% hull cost.

Ground units of all types can be upgraded to related unit types (Huscarl -> Direct Action, Hoverpanzer -> TSF etc) for 50% of the new cost.

Upkeep and Damage

• Upkeep is paid yearly. 20% for warships, 10% for other units.
  • Units can mothballed for zero upkeep but the unit will take (1/4) of build time to take out of the mothball status.
• Battle damage for warships is:
  • Light Damage: burn a month endurance for repairs.
  • Moderate Damage: Burn 3 months endurance for repairs.
  • Heavy Damage requires times in dockyard and 1/4 cost and build time to repair.
  • Critical Damage: requires time in dockyard and 1/2 cost and build time to repair.
• Each battle a unit is in, decrease its endurance stockpile by 1 month, really bad battles cost more.
• Ships can be scrapped for 40% of their total value if returned as used in service, and 25% of hull value if stripped of weapons and modules.

Ground and Aerospace units are treated differently:

• Minor loses will recover within a month if in resupply or spend 1/5 of unit cost to rush reinforcements.
• Major loses will recover within 6 months if in resupply or 1/2 of unit cost to rush reinforcements.

Generic Ships

Rescue Vehicle

Cost: $10

Civilian construction craft fitted for maneuvering debris belts and hardened against thermals and radiation, greatly improve the effectiveness of search and rescue ops. Sturdy but unarmed.

Police Ship

Cost: 20

Police ships or cutters are destroyer size civilian enforcement vessels to help a polity police a system and protect against pirate attacks. If they have to fight they are equipped with a size 1 weapon of the nation choosing. Police Ship weapons must be single mount and cost less than $20.

Corsair:

Cost: 20

Corsairs are small, often conversion models of civilian ships to do commerce raiding. Used by both pirates and nations offering letters of marque.

Privateer

Cost: $40

Advanced pirate raiders built thanks to the proliferation of advanced technology across the Verge. They have limited stealth (exposed by even a single Scout or Sensor Module) and stronger weapons than Corsairs. These are Accel 5 standard and carry a single S1 weapon with a max cost of $30. They destroy Police Ships in 1-1 matchups and automatically escape unfavorable odds, but still die against serious warships.

Scout

Cost: 30

Scouts are small mobile sensor platforms that help allow fleets to move without getting ambushed and are picketing forces.

Freighter:

Cost: 10

Freighters are merchant ships that carry goods across from the stars. They also net you 6 wealth per year per ship in service. They can be pressed into service to move one battalion.

Superfreighter

Cost: $110

Identical in function to 10 freighters for wealth and transport purposes, but these have enough room for a single S1 weapon each on the bow and stern, with a max cost of $10 per weapon. These count as ‘self-protected’ for the purpose of commerce security.

Far Trader

Cost: $250

Most merchant ships tend to built - sensibly - with maximum efficiency in mind. A ship is a cost, not a profit. However it can take six months to cross Human space, and at a certain point a different mode of trade takes over; the far trader, a ship that travels at a more sedate pace and conducts trade along the way. Such a ship is considerably more expensive to build than a conventional high-efficiency boxfreighter and only finds true use on long trips. Far Traders count as 10 freighters and ignore all penalties for sector distance. They are armed with a S2 PD system of choice and an S2 weapon system (or two S1 weapons) of choice, maximum cost of $30 (or $15 each). While not warships, Far Traders are big and tough enough to take a few knocks. Overall, they are a tough enough target that random corsairs will generally avoid them.

War Trader

Cost: $250 + 6 Months conversion

The 'War Trader' is essentially a Far Trader with its outer cargo pods replaced with blaster turrets and ablative ices and its hangars loaded with fighters as opposed to shuttles. While still not as good as a dedicated warship of its size, they can absolutely wreck raiders or escort-sized warships. War Traders count as 5 freighters and ignore all penalties for sector distance. They are armed with a S5 PD system of choice and three S2 weapons of choice (maximum cost of $30 each). They have 2 hangar space, fighters not included. Ablative ice armor gives them an effective armor rating of 1 and their large hulls of dispersed components makes them difficult to destroy. War Traders have a speed of 1 for tactical battles.

Reefership

Cost: $250

Large-scale population transports with unusually strong engines (Accel 5), taking advantage of civilian-grade supergel pods and cryostasis technology. Can move 15 battalions or a very large number of civilians. Only about as defended as a Gator (S1 weapon), and needs a whole month of Accel 1 flight to ‘spool down’ and revive passengers who need to be combat-ready.

Replenishment Ship

Cost: 20

Replenishment ships are large cloud-scoopes/floating docks that allow for resetting the Endurance Clock on warships. They can replenish 3 Fleet Units worth units before having to travel back to the nearest base to take on supplies. A fleet unit is either 1 capital ship, 4 cruisers or 12 sub cruisers vessels. Refueling for a fleet unit takes roughly one week in which the ships involved are vulnerable.

Gator Carrier

Cost: 40

Often run by planetary armies, these are lightly defended (1 size one weapon) and equally lightly armor troop transport that can move up to three battalions and two aerospace wings for planetary operations.

Grav Survey Vessel

Cost: 60

Dedicated scout ship designed to find new jump points.

Army and Aerospace Units

They take 1 year to muster, orbital bombardment that is insanely destructive is heavily frowned upon, and so most orbital fire support is the equivalent to having a battleship off the coast, destructive but there is a limit to what it can do.

Army Units

Emergency Services

Cost: $5

Representing large groups of high-tech firemen, hazmat disposal, EMS, etc, with extensive drone and vehicle support. Improve ground-based search and rescue, disaster response and mitigate casualties from ground combat.

Colonial Police

Cost: 5

The equivalent to the French Genderarmie, they are capable of fighting for a brief period of time and mostly see combat against pirate raids.

Huscarls

Cost: $7

High-speed low-drag interorbital operations specialists, ranging from pillaging zero-G dogs to SOF like the EAF Black Lions. Huscarls are company-sized and take up 1/3rd of a regular freight slot when carried onboard a freighter or gator carrier. Treated as Corsairs for the purposes of disrupting spacelanes.

National Guard

Cost: 8

Second line troops used for garrison, equipped with old 21st century wargear or the equivalent.

VTOL Infantry

Cost: 12

Modern infantry fly around in extremely performance nimble jet powered VTOLs vehicles which can switch to low energy mode and effectively be a hover IFV.

Hoverpanzers

Cost: 10

Modern tanks are run on jets and armored bricks and carry with them railguns and air defense lasers.

Operatives

See Intelligence Rules

Operatives are generic units (10% upkeep) with a base cost of $10. By default these units have three slots for upgrades, representing their special capabilities. Each upgrade costs 10% of base cost. Special Operative types, additional slots and special upgrades may be unlocked by technology down the line.

Aerospace

Aerospace Fighter

Cost: 10

The demise of the fighter did not to come to past with the development of air defense lasers capable of sizzling out drone swarms and the rise of new materials that allowed for powerful fusion drives and state of the art armor for the fighters, coupled with the backlash against autonomous fighters during the Berlin Insurrection has left fighter jocks transformed but still on the battlefield. In space they are armed with size 1 point defense lasers

Aerospace Bomber

Cost: 15

Bombers are missile trucks on steroids these days, and fast moving. In space they are armed with size 1 missiles.

Stationary Units

Bases take two years to construct. Units with an asterisk (*) build in 1 year instead of 2 years.

GTO Battery

Cost: 20

Built underground they are often giant silos of missiles or experimental particle lances that punch with heavier weapons then a battleship.

GTO Laser Battery

Cost: 40

Armor Piercing, limited firing arc, can be expanded with reflector stations ($10) that are vulnerable but allow a single battery each to strike other side of orbit

• Available to all PCs from 2751 onwards as a universal technology.

SAM Site/Anti-Missile Defense Satellite*

Cost: $8

Small structures with high-velocity surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles, providing a single point of PD. Have trouble shooting through “the curtain” (the atmospheric limit), so each one defenses either atmosphere or the orbits respectively. Fairly fragile.

Ground Artillery Batteries*

Cost: $12

A collection of kinetic artillery, the equivalent of S2 Railguns if used to harass ships. Provides COAS to about one planetary hemisphere on demand.

Anti-Ship Satellite

Cost: $20

Houses a single S5 Standard Laser or Railgun. Fragile.

Dragon’s Teeth Satellite

Cost: $40

Stealthed and houses a single S5 Heavy Laser.

Bunker Fort:

Cost: 50

Often built into mountains or underground, they are restaurants to orbital bombardment and can fight off multiple units of ground troops for a prolonged series of time, leaving the best way to deal with them is a siege.

Ground Base:

Cost: 100

The stereotypical expeditionary base ala Ramstein Germany or Bagram, they allow for units to be in supply and can be built into forts.

Starbase:

Cost: 300

Large stations capable of repairing and replenishing the fleet. Due their size and immobile they are relatively fragile (base health stats equivalent to a scout cruiser) with three size three weapons mounts.

Research

The new space gold rush is a time of new developed tech of human origin and reversed engineered alien tech (in theory). Powers may randomly discover, loot or reverse engineer new technology with new stats or just steadily improve what you have now.

Each state has apparatus of their government or society dedicated to advancing the understanding of the universe around them to make the world a better place. In the dark future of Ruin, most of them are spent making better ways to kill each other.

At game start each power has 10 labs (research teams, universities or whatever you want to call them) that have a chance to advance a field a study or when recovering alien artifacts reverse engineer them.

At game start these are the fields that you can allocate labs to below listed is the category and non-exhaustive list of what they primary affect. Advancing isn't a guaranteed as its roughly high difficult roll, but if you really wish to ensure you get an advance you can dedicated all ten labs to one of the below fields.

New technology may appear with a prototype modifier to cost, typically 3x. This reduces as you build more of the unit.

Starship Construction

Affects build times and hull designs and fusion torches

Energy

Affects Directed Energy Weapons and Reactors

Kinetics

Affects railguns and mass drivers

Ballistics

Affects missiles

Sensors and Computers

Affects sensors, C3 improvement, and interacting with alien systems

Materials

Affects stealth and armor and hulls

Art of War

Better ground troop and misc systems

The above will get you incremental improvement if rolled well, as they represent the advancing using day to day knowledge. But true advances isn't doing something better but something new you can't force advancement using labs like you can with the one above.

Physics

???

Biology

???

Engineering

???

Alien Artifacts

TBD

The Tech Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NJHO9i52OB48B4DmDcQ1KLuQgHtBxsopIE2I-JENa7Y/edit#gid=0

Colonization and Imperialism

Colonization Colonization is the slow buildup of infrastructure that leads to something being produced or created that people want either for economic or ideological or other reasons. There are three levels of colonization.

The first level represents the usual wildcat mining, basic resource extraction, the frontier town. The rate of returns is pretty marginal but its the start of something. Level colonies generate 1 1D4+1 worth of Prestige points per year, and built by finding a colonization spot via survey and posting about it.

Second level of colonization is the more mature extraction of resources or settlement, an deep space oil rig, or Babylon 5 floating off in space. They are places of their own industry and economies that can be self sufficient and are thus profitable. A level 2 colony produces 10 +D20 prestige a year.

Level three colonies are rare and would be a hypothetical lost city of aliens that you could just move into or abandoned intact colony from somebody else. They would have a 20+D20 prestige roll.

Imperialism Imperialism is a similar story, they are the act of conquering directly or making your will be enforced through your chosen proxies of states on Disrupted world.

Level one imperial projects are minor powers on a planet, as fundamentally a Serbia or Iraq equivalent on a planet a nation that military that can support ground and aerospace troops, but not Warships. They produce 3 +3d6 worth of prestige points per year.

Level two imperial projects are major powers on planet that have warship capabilities. They produce 12+ 12d6 worth of prestige per year.

Level threes are defeated named NPCs with traits and will be treated on individual basis.

Prestige

Points are generated yearly and can be saved from year to year. Starting prestige for all players is 10. Winning battles or doing something cool in posting will also result in prestige.

• 1 Point = Profits of Prestige: 100 Dollars Up to $3000, or $4000 if you have the appropriate level of corrupt reformists.
• 5 Points = Expanding the Reach: Create a new lab team
• 10, 15, 20 points = DARPA: Guarantee strike of human tech. See note below
• 25 points = Together for the Empire: Half construction time of all units built this year
• 50 points = Guarantee Alien Tech Strike
• 100 points = Have the GM give you a plot coupon

Tech strikes can either be unfocussed (10 prestige), focussed (15 prestige) or unique (20 prestige).

• If unfocussed, they are into a given category (such as Energy) and will result in a random result; this will tend to be of good quality.
• If focussed, they can target a specific thing based off existing technology (I want triple mount railguns). Unique techs cannot be acquired this way.
• If striking for a unique tech, you are essentially combining one or more existing technologies in an improved and player-directed fashion. Eg long-range lasers + rapid fire heavy lasers to get Quintex long-range heavy lasers. Unique techs are kept out of the tech gacha and if traded, cost 1 stability. Lend-lease and monkey model export is still acceptable however, with the caveat that if the recieving power does sucessfully copy them the sender will still suffer -1 stability. Unique technologies retain their status of 'unique' for a period of time."

Tech Trading

Nations that have technologies they want to share can offer the expertise and personal to sell it (or give it away). Each nation can transfer 1 technology with no cost to one singular other nation. If they wish to transfer more they will have to allocate labs to represent the brainpower being used in other regards.

• 1 Extra Transfer | 2 Labs used
• 2 Extra Transfer | 4 Labs Used
• 3 Extra Transfer | 8 Labs Used
• 4 Extra Transfer | 16 Labs Used

Arms Sales, Tech Sharing and Lend-Lease

States selling arms now do so with predetermined limits. This system also allows for lend-lease and technical support of foreign proxy forces as the USA did in WW2 or most western countries in the post-imperial era. By its nature as a distantly separated spacefaring millieu with ubiquitous nanofabrication, the most common type of arms sale in the Verge consists of blueprint licenses. Loaded with DRM or managed by specific treaties, sales of blueprints to Verger states allowed the powers of Sol to precisely dictate the size and capabilities of their colonial navies while inhibiting the development of a strong native tech base.

The most restrictive of these sales are what are contemporarily called lend-lease agreements, in which case the state issues DRM-riddled blueprints with a limited (or unlimited) maximum number of purchases at any price the buyer is willing to pay. The units are assumed to be built in the buyer's own industrial facilities, but have the traits and technologies permitted by the seller. The seller may opt to upgrade them at any point, should relevant technologies become available. Lend-lease assets are effectively a borrowed tech base, but maintaining this agreement costs the issuing state 1 lab. Should this agreement ever expire, lend-lease units effectively become monkey models.

Export models or monkey models are straightforward designs with a 25% production cost markdown (cumulative with other discounts). They may incorporate any techs the seller desires and the buyer is willing to pay for, but are blackbox systems and never receive upgrades.

DRM makes reverse-engineering lend-lease and monkey model units difficult, it takes 3 extra strikes on the research roll to uncover involved techs. Should lend-lease ever be cracked, the seller is informed by network protocols.

Open sales are typical of military surplus by former superpowers or regional powers axing outdated equipment. Such units are no easier or harder to reverse-engineer, have national maker marks that are generally identifiable, but they are also incredibly easy to upgrade due to national militaries and UN taskforces generally springing for rugged, modular gear with future-proof capabilities. Surplus assets can be de-milled into monkey models for 10% of cost.

When selling any military asset, players my specify the nature of the sale by agreement with the buyer. All sales in 2751 are running on Shrodinger's Sale Rule as people get used to new systems (with the seller + mods having final say), then in 52-onwards every transaction will have to be specified.

Trade Rules

Every man lives by exchanging." - Adam Smith

Even in the 28th century, the law of competitive advantage holds true. Every state, to one degree or another, has some natural or man-made advantage in objects that they produce that is cheaper, better or simply more in demand than those from others. Is it this that forms the basis of interstellar trade. What exactly is traded can vary widely, from the latest Larnaxian couture to Tempesti aircars to fair-trade Eisenhower covfefe to Solarian nanoelectronics, but it is all trade.

Trading and the logistics of moving all these goods is an incredibly complicated process, but in Alien Suns it has been simplified to use the following rules:

• Human space is divided up into a number of sectors, each of which contains a number of major and minor worlds. Trade and related effects is per-sector. (sectors also have an effect on criminality and other things not related to trade)
• Each sector has a 'Trade Volume' which represents the base number of freighters that this sector can absorb from any given source.
• Trade Nodes are additional locations of high import; these are typically major economic centers. So long as a state has access to a given trade node, it increases the effective trade volume by +100% per.
• Trading over long distances is less efficient, as more hulls are required to maintain the flow of commerce. For every sector that your ships 'skip over' to reach their destination, their per-ship effectiveness is reduced as per below:

Same or bordering sector: Freighters operate as normal.
1 intervening sector: Freighters operate at 50% effectiveness (2 freighters to equal 1) 2 intervening sectors: Freighters operate at 33% effectiveness (3 freighters to equal 1) 3 intervening sectors: Freighters operate at 25% effectiveness (4 freighters to equal 1) 4 intervening sectors: Freighters operate at 20% effectiveness (5 freighters to equal 1) Etc etc.

• Freighter costs are determined by the buyers traits.
• Every freighter returns $6 in annual tarrifs, taxes, etc etc.
• As UN Task Forces and PMCs are much narrower in overall focus and do not have a large and diverse civilian economy operating 'offscreen', their trade volume is 1/10th that of nations. Their operations by and large exist solely to support their primary activities and may not even represent 'trade' in the conventional sense and are thus overall much smaller. (SUBJECT TO CHANGE)
• Corsairs and Privateers can be used in the civilian trade; after all they are effectively armed freighters. This is particularly popular in the wilder rim where self-sufficiency is a virtue. Corsairs and Privateers count as 1/2 of a freighter each.
• The higher the piracy power of the sector, the more police ships (relative to number of freighters) are needed to maintain safety. There is no specific number of patrol ships needed, though for a rule of thumb divide 20 by the piracy power to determine how many freighters each police ship covers.
• Line warships can be assigned to protect trade; every warship assigned to do so counts as 1 police ship. For Star Patrol states, every $20 of escorts counts as one police ship. Cruisers are worth half as much (every $40) and capital ships 1/5th as much (every $100). Ships with no meaningful endurance (such as FACs) cannot be used to protect trade unless a large number of 'home bases' are spread throughout the sector.

"The king who deals harshly with merchants who come from afar closes the door of well-being upon the whole of his subjects. When do the wise return to the land of which they hear rumours of bad custom?" - Saadi

To keep track of the various trade, all players are requested to fill in the number of hulls they have assigned to various tasks. Calculating the actual returns is the responsibility of the player in their annual budget, this is just a ship tracking sheet. For Corsairs, Privateers and Far Traders, it is requested that if they are engaged in civilian activities (ie, not shooting people) to color the cell green, whereas if they are engaged in a spot of pew pew to color it red. And as a reminder, Corsairs and Privateers operating in piracy are considered anonymous by default. The use of OOC information to inform IC actions without any IC justification (such as an espionage operation, etc) will be looked upon most unkindly.

Sector Values Sheet https://1drv.ms/x/s!AmQiRB3_9U0ZhIc72TWS8vtZjYQFIw?e=jvCVYM

Intelligence Rules

Espionage Rules Something something foreward about the nature of espionage in 2751 existing in some highly specific galapagos island paradigm of network warfare and humint that allows no singular paradigm, or something.

Glossary

• Operation: any significant action over the course of an intelligence project.
• Project: the overarching campaign, composed of a series of operations in pursuit of a goal.
• Locks: obstacles which cannot be ignored. A Lock is not merely the risk posed by local security forces but a national biometric database that tracks all citizen movement, or the all-encompassing presence of a ubiquitous secret police with millions of files on its citizens. It is not simply the presence of a navy, but the specific policy of a government to search and impound all foreign vessels with a large fleet of fast police ships. These are both Locks.
• Keys: solutions that bypass or finesse the problem posed by a Lock. Clone infiltrators or biologically modified agents using clean-record citizen profiles, skilled blockade runners hired from Alderbaran, are both Keys.

Intelligence Units
In addition to regular assets assigned to missions, there are special Intelligence Units which are the cornerstone of campaigns. Regular soldiers typically do not have the acumen, nor do regional police or state gendarmerie have the flexibility to respond to all possible dangers offered by the world of covert ops.

The units are:

• Stations: Stations are facilities that exist for the purposes of intelligence gathering, maintaining local contacts and providing safehouses for intelligence teams. A station’s value is relative to the amount of resources expended on it. Examples: Embassies, safehouses, blacksites
• Agencies: Agencies are special civilian, military or paramilitary organizations that have a specific purview. Their main purpose is to provide coordination and specialized knowledge within a scope, improving the effectiveness of operations. This is open-ended and designed by the player, applicable at GM discretion. Examples: US Alphabet Agencies, Cobra, Cambridge Analytica
• Operatives: Operatives are individuals or teams of individuals skilled at conducting field operations on behalf of states and other organizations. These are bespoke and no two operative units are the same.

Best practices involve having one Station, one Agency and one Operative in place for all operations that take place.

Buying Stations
Stations cost $20 to establish and can be built anywhere, including inside hostile states. If a station is meant to to be hidden, the cost can be increased to $30 per rank. Stations can be stacked in any given location, increasing their Level. 1st purchase creates an L1 Station, 2nd creates an L2, etc.

Higher levelled stations are more defensible and offer better local tools, but are not necessarily better.

Graft and crime are assumed to come part and parcel with most stations, so the units are maintenance-free.

Buying Agencies
Buying agencies is open-ended process. Players assign money (or prestige, with converts at a rate of 1 = $50 and isn’t subject to diminishing returns) to the operating budget of the agency, then determine their purview. Especially large agencies may become corrupt or go off the reservation, especially if their purview is too broad or distorted by wartime conditions.

Agencies are paid for initially with a large investment. That value decays by about 10% yearly, possibly faster after intense operations. In rare circumstances, agencies may occasionally self-fund through seizure, illicit traffic or via private donors.

Buying Operatives
Operatives are generic units (10% upkeep) with a base cost of $10. By default these units have three slots for upgrades, representing their special capabilities. Each upgrade costs 10% of base cost. Special Operative types, additional slots and special upgrades may be unlocked by technology down the line.

Initial available upgrades (names pending) are:

• Ghost Recon: The unit functions as a platoon of marines. Repurchase to function as a company, and again for a battalion. Decreasing subtlety each rank.
• Rainbow 6: Your operative is an elite counterterrorist team. They are inferior to marines in military settings, but excellent at foiling enemy direct action missions, terrorism and the like. As with Ghost Recon this can be brought multiple times to increase the number of operatives in the force.
• The Professional: Better at assassination missions.
• Corporate Raider: Better at theft (tech, money, etc) missions.
• Q Sector: The unit has special gadgets that may offer situational keys or a chance to luck out of tough situations.
• Rasputinian: The unit is likely to survive the worst of outcomes. Does not protect from capture.
• Red Faction: Your operatives are experts at terrorist operations. Gain major bonuses when you’re attacking a civilian or political target with the idea to destroy it
• Honey Trap: Excels at social manipulation in polite society.
• Hoover: Your operative knows where all the important bodies are buried and gets major bonuses in operations against your own state or organization
• Extraction Experts: Your operative is excellent at extracting personnel, be they hostages or defectors.
• The Business of Corruption: Excels at social manipulation in low society.
• The Worst Pirate You’ve Heard Of: Has a solid reputation with people on the fringes of Verger society, allows the use of black market contacts and illicit free trader routes.
• Snake: Your operative is an expert on covert infiltration
• Smuggler: Provides a bonus to moving assets to hostile locations.
• Sherlock: Your operative is an expert investigator and capable of extraordinary feats of investigation and counter intelligence
• Mr Nobody: Blends into society easily, can go years undetected if they aren’t actively involved in operations.
• Celebrity Asset: Increases the prestige for successful ops, but overuse can backfire.
• Smiley: You are an excellent operator of general intelligence operations, and provide intelligence gathering
• Strength in Numbers: Adds extra members, providing redundancies.
• Who Dares Wins: Your operatives are excellent at assisting regular military forces through special reconnaissance, and with the appropriate level of Ghost Recon, counter patrol and similar action.

Conducting Espionage Actions
Intelligence Projects are conducted by opening a dialogue with the relevant moderators, and submitting a proposal for an intelligence project.

The proposal must clearly outline the following traits:

• The target nation(s) or other entities. Picking too many targets at once may limit the effectiveness of the Project.
• Any number of Locks the player anticipates encountering, as well as their projected Operations to produce or acquire Keys. Underestimating the Locks obstructing success may limit the effectiveness of the Project.
• The resources committed to the project, including ships, troops, Prestige (which can be spun off into additional military assets or money as needed) and Plot Coupons. Understaffing or moving assets around too frequently may disrupt the progress of the Project.
• The desired outcome. The greater the scope of the action, the more expensive the Project becomes.

Example Project Submission:

Project Name:	Project Thunderstrike
Target Nations	Secret Denmark, a Minor Verge State
Anticipated Locks and Operations	Secret Denmark’s Secret Location Secret Denmark’s Secret Police Secret Denmark’s Stability Secret Denmark’s Planet Shield Operation to locate Secret Denmark Operation to infiltrate the Secret Police Operation to destabilize the government with worker’s strikes, building into civilian massacres that hurt government legitimacy. Key: All Anti-Danish fleet ships have reflective anti-shield paint provided by the aliens at Qondor.
Resources Assigned	1x Behold My Glorious Battleship-class FAC (1x S1 Railgun) 2x National Guard Battalions 1x Hoverpanzer Battalion 3x Gator Carriers 5 Prestige 1 Lab 1x Illegal Praetorian Idol Research Plot Coupon 10% of GDP
Objective	Collapse of Secret Denmark into Civil War

Naturally, causing an entire nation to collapse into civil war is no mean feat, and the player has perhaps over-enthusiastically underestimated the possible resistance by their foe. In this case, the moderator responding assigns additional Locks. If it’s possible for the player to be aware of them at this stage, they are informed of these complications, otherwise they will reveal themselves as the Project gains progress and completed operations. Players who have more or less correctly estimated the Locks, or who have received intelligence from previous Projects will receive bonuses during resolution.

This negotiation over the specifics of the operation happens before anything is resolved, to ensure both clarity of purpose and ensure fairness in potential player versus player scenarios. In such cases, it’s all too easy for the more active player to constantly adjust and steer their plans moment to moment, monopolizing GM attention to guarantee success.

Costing Projects and Operational Timelines
The cost of each project is ultimately determined by its scope. The average Verge state having any single moderately influential person assassinated should cost about 1% of GDP, and long-term projects to destabilize governments and plunge peer states into civil war should take as much as 25% of GDP, potentially across several years. Influencing the affairs of superpowers such as the great powers of Sol or what alien polities may lie beyond known space may cost as much as 100% of GDP. Smaller non-peer states (T1 or T2 NPCs, disrupted world protostates, etc) will generally cost less. The definition of "GDP" is currently defined as base income + developments for 2753 only.

The general rule of thumb is that 1% of GDP = 1 operation or a significant amount of legwork = 1 month. Corners can be cut from Projects, lengthening the time it takes for them to resolve or penalizing success chances (local contacts do want to be paid for treason, etc), or Projects can be rushed by spending a surcharge or forcing Operations to run ahead of schedule. In the latter case, multiple Operations can be run each month but the risks of exposure mount each time, or haggard operatives can simply fail.

Example Projects

Assassination

• 1% merchant on a disrupted world who circumvents an imperial water monopoly, holding up local autonomy, any citizen not currently imprisoned
• 5% any well-protected Verge magnate, a head of a disrupted world protostate, a minor officer of a UN ship not currently engaged in combat operations
• 10% any Verge politician of significance, a UN fleet officer
• 25% a Verger head of state, a UN admiral, the head of a powerful PMC

Hostile Takeovers

• 1% buying out a civilian freighter or starliner to use as an asset for a front
• 5% puppeting a mid-sized logistics company in the Verge, taking over security in a well-travelled civilian station
• 10% attempting to overthrow the elected government of a minor Verge state during a sustained period of instability, taking over a disrupted world protostate
• 25% attempting to overthrow a peer Verge state during instability, outright couping any minor Verge state without apparent instability.

Informational Warfare

• 1% stealing some civilian IFFs to mask ship signatures from afar
• 5% stealing a registered government IFF, or whole civilian freight databases
• 10% stealing a large stockpile of government arms, or a prototype technology from a previous year
• 25% stealing any major innovation that came out in the current year, particularly those which are unique to that state and not being shared

Task Forces and PMCs
Task Forces and PMCs do not pay a cost to perform espionage actions. To perform espionage actions, these groups must keep at least one Operative assigned to the campaign for its full duration. If that operative is destroyed as a consequence of complications during an operation, the campaign is put on hold until a new one is assigned to it.

Policies
States as a rule tend to maintain a consistent policy towards outside interference. As a backwater playground for the old powers of Sol, most Vergers are well-used to influence campaigns, foreign spies and institutional corruption and work around them. Many approaches exist but a majority of states trend towards a balance of openness and security, accepting the presence of spies among diplomats and journalists to maintain access to critical information, but making arrests when lines are crossed.

The policy scale is as follows:

• Participatory Panopticon (Max Open): Always find out when people are targeting you, but spy defense is greatly weakened.
  • Buy Keys for $100 or 1 Prestige
  • Offensive Operations transpire at the speed of plot.
• Open Society (Open): Strengthened spy offense, GM may assign at least one free Key.
• Connected Society (Standard): Use rules as written.
• Closed Society (Closed): Strengthened spy defense, enemies suffer at least one extra Lock.
• Death to Spies (Max Closed): Spy problems solve themselves, but you may miss out on hints.
  • Buy Locks for $100 or 1 Prestige
  • Defensive Operations happen at the speed of plot.

States may change their policy year to year, but overly dramatic changes over many years may cause stability loss.

Complications
Intelligence operations are not-consequence free. Performing secret military actions against sovereign states and branches of the United Nations carries with it the diplomatic consequences of doing so. Additionally, there is an inherent risk to all operations. A clean failure that resolves with all operatives dead and evidence of wrongdoing destroyed is a best-case scenario.

Even spycraft staples like poison pills are not wholly reliable to maintain secrecy: common poisons like cyanide can sometimes fail due to bad compounding of the medicine, or the point of failure is a human operative who lacks the nerve to commit suicide. The Verge is a large setting with comprehensive faster-than-light communications, where states in good standing (and many that are not) typically have access to resources INTERPOL databases to finger agents that might be considered ‘deniable’ for a state. False flag attacks are extraordinarily difficult to pull off in peacetime, in the high-tech warfare paradigm of interconnected ship comms and ID-tagged weapon databases. Many high-tech objects exist within a network of ubiquitous consumer surveillance for quality control purposes, so-called ‘spimes’ which essentially maintain a lifetime usage log within a controlled computing cloud. Fully anonymized gene-modded special forces optimized for black operations and wetwork can be exposed by their consumer habits, their wearable athletics assistant or even their taste in civilian plainclothes.

In all cases, Espionage Actions are easiest to perform against a target that cannot oppose you: yourself.

Exposure
At a basic level, all Projects have a basic chance of exposure. There is no specific predetermined chance for operation, although there is a rough relation to the scope. The larger a secret operation is, the harder it is to keep it a secret.

Exposure can happen when:

• An Operation fails.
• An Operation succeeds while opposed by a defensive Project run by the target state.
• When particularly large amounts of money or materiel (ships, troops, etc) are moved significant distances.

Most Projects are exposed after completing their goal, particularly if their objective was particularly grandiose.

Leaks
Reliance on a technological advantage can occasionally backfire as those advantages fall into the hands of your enemies. All too common in the battlegrounds of Earth is the story of the ISA field commander who last witnessed the words ‘Made in America with Pride’ engraved on the fuselage of the insurgent-figured anti-tank missile beheading him. Fitting every piece of equipment with scuttling charges or anti-tampering locks can diminish their effectiveness or invite an infosec risk, so most states do not bother.

Leaks can happen when:

• Advanced technology is used in an Operation.
• A hideout or safehouse staging the Project is raided by counterintelligence.

The conclusion of a Project and the revelation of the technologies used in it can sometimes cause an arms race, in that case the affected state might get free rolls to reverse-engineer systems used against them.

Betrayal
Even fanatics balk at the prospect of total disposability. Given the choice between payment and death, mercenaries will pick the former. Mistreating assets, especially during peacetime, will frequently result in them turning coat to the opposing side.

Defending Against Espionage
The key element in defending against hostile espionage is awareness, which may take time depending on the openness and flexibility of the society being targeted. Hidebound, insular societies with a high guardedness may take longer to acknowledge real threats even as their performative militarism autonomously defeats minor ones.

Awareness
Awareness in most situations is a GM roll on behalf of the defender. For PC states, their security policy may change the difficulty of the roll. Radically Open Societies are typically automatically aware of threats against them.

Once aware of hostile espionage actions, states have a number of options available.

• Counterespionage: Counterespionage is organized like regular espionage, with the agency, operative or state performing the initial hostilities as the target. This is done by starting an intelligence campaign against the attacking state or organization.
• Security Operations: Increasing security measures temporarily is a typically cost-effective response to ongoing intelligence. In this case, the defending state begins an intelligence campaign against itself, rooting out collaborators, conducting raids and increasing surveillance against citizens, etc. Long-term security operations may cause stability drops, however.
• Destroying/Denying Assets: Locating and launching a military offensive against the relevant assets may be sufficient in many cases. If a multi-year intelligence campaign relies on a cutting-edge stealth carrier as its cornerstone, it may be sufficient to find and destroy it with a comparatively shorter mission time. Such operations are typically not quiet, however, and the attacker may be able to abort.

Setting Notes

Jump Point Travel is nodal based FTL, one jump point connects to another in another star system (and some theorists believe another realms of reality as well but experiments in that have messily failed). Most jump points are connected to nearby stars in real space, however not all stars are connected nor all jump points safe to transverse. Which means for most of the stars are out of reach for human hands unless they travel by STL The colony of We Made It at Proxima Centauri is example of that as they report they found only one jump point leading to a dim star beyond Earth's observation and nothing else.

Physically the jump point is a calm area of space normally situated near gas giants spherical in volume to Luna. Rule of thumbs are super jovian have 1-3 around them, and solar system size gas giants have 1. Complicating matters is the jump points into systems that have no gas giants which appear to be randomly located in close proximity of the sun (and in fact many of the no-go systems appear to have the jump point to close to the primary star for safe travel). Further adding onto the headache is the existence of starless nexus points. Located in deep interstellar space, these regions have been found to contain at least 5-6 jump points situated in a ring equidistant from each other and are constantly being examined by ever increasing sphere of probes and survey ships to see if there is another ring to be found.

The actual jump drive is fairly simple and robust device that doesn't take up much space on the ship as it actives only briefly triggering the effect from the point which does all the work. There has never been a case of two ships jumping into each of and tests deliberately to trigger the effect have always failed leaving people believe there is some sort of universal fail-safe of regarding conservation of information going on in that case. Ships retain their velocity as they pass through and the arrival zone is roughly randomized location five times the size of the point itself at a random orientations. Ships jumping in close proximity remain in formation as they arrive.

Random orientation and velocity means that high velocity moving ships have a higher chance of jumping in and finding they are going to run into something though still that is a rare case. However if they wanted to get to the planet and they're still going super fast away they're going to be spending time turning around. Generally this means most merchant and peacetime military ships aim for a intercept with the jump point where they stay at low velocity so when they arrive they can easily course adjust and move on. Conversely known pirates are often called streakers as they coast into the jump point and zoom out the other side to avoid getting mobbed by police or military ships.

In system travel

Space travel is done with high efficiency fusion torches. Military ships can accelerate up to 8Gs, generic ships at most is 2Gs. However, standard cruising speed is constant 1G for most ships and even in the military 2G long distance cruises are rare as they result in decrease crew performance. Higher acceleration is saved for combat in which the crew are safely secured.

Most jump points are 10 AUs apart from each on average which is nine day's travel, but for game purpose we will call it a week. Its generally six days travel from Earth-like planet to the nearest jump point (5-ish AU) so for game purpose it will be treated as week as well.

Anything special or further complicated in you have orders, determine the AU, input the acceleration and we will use this. Space travel calculator

Limited Jump Points

While conventional jump points do not seem to have any appreciable upper limit in the mass that can be jumped through them (as evidenced by the immense size of the MacBeth colony ships), there are also a large number of 'limited' jump points found across known space. These appear to exist below some critical threshold and consequently the powerful jump drives required to push a large mass through them will simply fail on activation; in essence they are too strong for the jump point to handle. These points tend to be associated with lower-mass objects such as brown dwarves or lighter 'high' mass planets. Limited Points (LPs) are graphically represented on the jump map as red connections and transit along them is normally limited to ships categorized as 'low mass'; those are as follows:

• Generic ships with a cost not exceeding $100.
• Military ships not exceeding a size value of '5';
• Scout Cruisers have a size value of 3, with standard escorts having a size value of 1.
• Star Cruisers have a size value of 5, +2 for every additional size class.
• Custom ship designs align to their closest baseline ship by $ value for size determination.
• Every level of increased armor increases size by 1. If armor is stripped, size is reduced by 1 per level.
• Every weapon mount, added engine or system increases size by +0.25 (round down)
• The one-per-ship Reduced Mass module reduces size value by 1
  

For every Size that a ship exceeds 5, it requires 1 additional point of Endurance to perform a jump.

Space Combat and movement

There are three types of battles. There is the zero-zero intercept which is the traditional ships moving in relative velocity each other in formation and firing as they advance or decrease weapon range bands. The drive by in which a one opponent gains a great deal of velocity and slings themselves on a course that hopefully allowing them a brief window of fire to on their enemies. Finally, there is the orbital battle in which both sides are moving relatively slow in orbit over a planet to force a landing or bombardment of a target, there gravity can be much a threat as weapon fire if maneuvering drives damaged.

List of Patch Notes

The following is a list of patch notes, efforts have been made to modify the original rules to reflect them, but in cases where this has not occurred, please refer to the patch notes as the prevailing ruling on the matter.

Added Game Year 2751

Additional Patchnotes and FAQs

• Refits happen concurrently, time is always (largest weapon/module size in months +1 month per extra changed slot).
• Removed components (weapons, systems) remain existing physical objects, no upkeep for them.
• Vanilla Hangar Size is as follows:
  • Size 1: 2
  • Size 2: 3
  • Size 3: 5
  • Size 4: 7
  • Size 5: 10
• Armor and Acceleration are now opposed. Any Armor ratings over 3 subtracts 1 Accel per, which can be repurchased.
• Accel 0 ships are possible, representing stationary vessels with a 0.5G out of combat accel rate.
• Star Cruisers are now both Patrol Fleet and Sanction Fleet-discounted, but the discount doesn't stack.
• Diminishing returns on prestige cash injections: every $500 taken in from burning prestige halves the efficiency that year, from $50 to $25 to $12.5, etc. UN Taskforces and PMCs prestige-buying units are not affected by this.
• Star Patrol halves the build cost (but not upkeep) of Police Ships, in addition to changes listed in trade section.
• Police Ship weapons must be single mount and cost less than $20.
• Torpedoes resolve at the end of combat rounds, take note.

Capital Ship Rework

Being somewhat unloved due to their high cost and slow build times, capital ships are receiving a minor mechanical overhaul. The following changes are being implemented:

• Capital ships have an Invulnerability save against sub-capital (S3 and lower) weapons that strike Armor or HP. Precision strikes against weapons or subsystems (except for engines and bridge) ignore this. The dice for this is 1d10 for Star Cruisers (TN8), 1d10 for Battleships (TN7) and 1d10 for SCS and larger vessels (TN6).
• Capital ships that are 80% complete can be rushed out in partial completion and assembled in transit as long as the engines are intact, treat as Moderate damage and random missing components (GM decision).
• SCSes have base 10 squadron capacity, their slotted hangars are automatically Size 5 and do not take up weapon slots.
• Destroyed capital ships have a flat 50% chance of surviving to an inert 'hulk' state, which is 3/4 cost and build time to repair.

Effective Immediately:

• The UN and all PC states are considered to have reciprocal Embassies, which are free L1 Stations. You can opt out in your budget this year.
• PC States and PMCs get $130 spree on operatives, Taskforces get $65.
• UN Taskforces and Star Patrol states get a free floating $200-size Agency to be designated at their leisure.

Other changes TBD.

Development

Developments are long-term infrastructure projects conducted on planetary surfaces or in orbits, one of the primary ways that states can make money without constructing and maintaining large merchant fleets. Development construction is an open-ended system, with players free to invest as much as they want into any given project with the following caveat: certain types of project have maximum and minimum investment costs per type and Build Time tier, representing the rough costs of building gigafactories, industrial parks, high speed rail, etc. Income gained from Developments becomes territorial income, permanently in most cases and for a fixed term for Resource Extraction. Prestige gained from Standard of Living developments is granted only once on completion, however the income is added to territorial income as normal.

States have a number of Development Slots equal to their current Stability + 1; each Development Project occupies one of these slots until it has finished construction. UN Taskforces and PMCs can build a single Development each for their own benefit or that of the host state.

Client States do not have Development Slots, and furthermore demand 1 in 4 development projects done by their hegemonic patron be allocated to each of them. States can spend 1 Stability to ignore this requirement.

Citizens demand some portion of the country’s wealth, however. For every 2 Development Projects a state undertakes, a third must be some kind of Standard of Living improvement or else a cumulative Stability penalty will be applied during year rollovers. Powers with the Fanatics trait can ignore this. Standard of Living developments provide a buffer against negative effects like disease outbreaks or civil unrest after these events are launched.

Rushing a single development costs 1 Stability or (Base Construction Years x5) Prestige. This drops construction time by 1d6-2 Years, with a -1 result adding a year to the build time as forcing cut corners and overtime hours complicates matters.

Rushing all developments in a state costs 2 Stability or 50 Prestige. This shortens all ongoing Developments by 1 year, to a minimum of 1 year.

Non-Advanced (Basic and Intermediate) Industry is partially mobilized as it builds. Every completed year out of the total development time adds a fraction of the eventual payout, i.e. $200 in Intermediate Industry on the 2rd year of construction (2/3 years) yields $100 that year.

In addition to their other benefits, Murtox states reduce the Build Time of a single Development Project by 2 turns, to a minimum of 1 turn, excluding Vanities. Client states with Murtox reduce their Build Time by 1 turn, rather than 2. 5-Year Plan states increases the Build Time of all Development by 1 year (max 5).

Large Population states treat Developments outside of the Standard of Living Category as though they had already spent $50 (or the maximum, if it’s lower), effectively a discount, but increases either the cost or Build Time of Standard of Living Developments by 50% (to 150%). Population by Proxy discounts the effective costs of Standard of Living Developments by 50% (to 50%), effectively receiving 1$ spent free for every 1$ invested in the project. i.e.: Large Population states can invest up to $950 for Advanced Standard of Living development projects, but would receive a payout of $750, as though they had actually invested $600. Population by Proxy states pay $500 for the same payout on the same type of project.

Development policies typically clash with the interests of large merchant marines, even if these entities are mutually beneficial. States cannot spend more than their Territorial Income +bonus income from non-freight sources on Developments.

Development Categories

• Industrial: Infrastructure, light and heavy manufacturing, prototyping labs. Industrial development is the most straight-forward of the categories, taking a basic investment of funds with a payout at the end of the term.
• Resource Extraction: Mines, hydrocarbon fracking, water purification. Resource extraction is the quickest and most efficient development, however the income produced lasts a limited number of years. Resource Extraction operations on your homeworld will raise your Resting Stability by one. However, each world with more than $2,000 worth of Resource Extraction active at one time will negatively impact Stability, including the Homeworld.
• Standard of Living: Civil amenities, civil engineering, education, healthcare. Standard of Living developments are steady, long-term projects that reward Prestige (which can be invested into Stability) in addition to their financial benefits.
• Sol Commerce: Industries specialized in interacting with the Core world economies via tourism, small parts exports, luxury goods, finance. Sol Commerce offers low quick dev time and high ROI, but requires uninterrupted access to the Sol trade node. Disruptions to those routes also cause income loss.

Industrial Tokens

Assembly Prestige and Blunder Bus produce twice as many Tokens (see below).

Industry now produces Tokens on completion, a tradeable currency that facilitates developments. This is a one-time reward and will be self-administered by players.

• Every 2 Basic Industry makes Basic Tokens on completion, reducing one of Any Extraction and Intermediate Industry costs by 20% and 1 year in build time.
• Every 2 Intermediate Industry yields an Intermediate Token on completion, reducing one of Any Extraction, Intermediate/Advanced Industry costs by 20% and 1 year in build time.
• Every 2 Advanced Industry yields an Advanced Token on completion, reducing any non-Vanity Project development's costs by 20% and 1 year in build time.

Build Time: 1 Year

Basic Resource Extraction

Examples: xenofauna hunting, xenoflora plantations, strip mining

Minimum Investment: $0

Maximum Investment: $250

Payout: [Investment] for 5 Years, [Investment+$100] if built on colony world

Intermediate Resource Extraction

Examples: xenoflora plantations, hydrocarbon extraction, gas giant platforms

Minimum Investment: $250

Maximum Investment: $500

Payout: [Investment x0.9] for 5 Years

Basic Sol Commerce

Examples: textile exports, sweatshops, tourism, migrant workers, open source intelligence contributions

Minimum Investment: $0

Maximum Investment: $25

Payout: [Investment +$25]

Build Time: 2 Years

Advanced Resource Extraction

Examples: xenoflora farming, tech-mining and xenoartifact digsites, exotic mineral extraction

Minimum Investment: $500

Maximum Investment: $1000

Payout: [Investment x0.8] for 5 Years

Intermediate Sol Commerce

Examples: tourism, developing market investments, small component manufacturing plants, sports entertainment, outsourcing

Minimum Investment: $25

Maximum Investment: $50

Payout: [Investment +$50]

Basic Industry

Examples: roadworks, information systems, water purification, light industrial parks, mobile data networks

Minimum Investment: $50

Maximum Investment: $100

Payout: [Investment x.5]

Build Time: 3 Years

Advanced Sol Commerce

Examples: chaebol, property speculation, narcotic exports, luxury goods manufacturing, cultural exports (manga, Hello Kitty, Bollywood, KPop, C-dramas etc.), Free Trade Zones

Minimum Investment: $50

Maximum Investment: $100

Payout: [Investment +$100]

Intermediate Industry

Examples: industrial automation, railway/maglev networks, launch catapults, material and fuel refineries

Minimum Investment: $100

Maximum Investment: $200

Payout: [Investment x.75]

Basic Standard of Living

Examples: cultural industry, subsidized food and fuel, informer programs, jobs programs

Minimum Investment: $50

Maximum Investment: $150

Payout: [Investment x.25], 1d4+1 Prestige

Build Time: 4 Years

Advanced Industry

Examples: import substitution, crash factory construction, refineries, ship building, orbital elevators

Minimum Investment: $200

Maximum Investment: $500

Payout: [Investment x1]

Intermediate Standard of Living

Examples: house building programs, apartment building programs, land reform

Minimum Investment: $150

Maximum Investment: $500

Payout: [Investment x.5], 1d4+3 Prestige

Build Time: 5 Years

Advanced Standard of Living

Examples: population augmentation programs, arcologies, universities and tuition programmes, state sponsored religion

Minimum Investment: $500

Maximum Investment: $1000

Payout: [Investment x.75], 1d4+5 Prestige

Vanity Projects

Examples: Mount Rushmore, Cathedrals

Minimum Investment: $500

Maximum Investment: None

Payout: [Investment x1]. Additionally, the first player to complete a Vanity Project gets a relevant Plot Coupon and a generous payout of Prestige, similar but lesser rewards for those who follow up.

Stability

Stability represents the resilience of and popular faith in a nation’s institutions, the just rule of law and popular support for the ruling government. Low-stability countries may be militarily powerful but suffer strong internal divisions. Extremely high stability is generally fleeting, occurring only occasionally when the nation is confronted with a singularly unifying enemy or goal.

Stability scale has a limited impact on the game, but states should still take heed. At low ratings, dissent foments and spreads like wildfire, and large-scale rebellions may take place.

The stability scale is as follows:

10: People would celebrate the President renaming all bread after his dog.

9: People would tolerate the President renaming a mountain after his mother.

8: Western Powers after V-Day.

7: The modern United States on the 4th of July.

6: Most states on the National Holiday. Resting point for People’s Champion.

5: Continental Europe in the quiet years of the 1800s.

4: Widespread protests in the provinces, people are shouting slogans. Standard Resting point.

3: Widespread protests in the capitol, people are throwing rocks.

2: Widespread riots in the provinces, the governors are being tarred and feathered.

1: Widespread riots in the capitol, the police are being lynched. Resting point for Yearning Masses.

0: Bastille Day, but the first time. As this point the mods will ask you if you want to reroll or fight the ensuing civil war out.

Stability changes in the following conditions

(Legacy rules applying to current Game Year Only that will be replaced at end of 2753):

Acting in accordance with/against the stated ideology of your state… +1 or -1

Acting in accordance with/against your traits… +2 or -2

Having a significant, secret violation of your traits or ethics revealed… -3

Losing an offensive war… -1 (worse if War Machine)

Losing a defensive war… -1 (no penalty if Peaceniks)

Being in an offensive war… +1 per year (+2 if War Machine, -2 if Peaceniks)

Being in a defensive war… +2 per year (+3 if War Machine/People’s Champion, +4 for both)

Being the victim of a major terror attack without an obvious culprit… -1~2

Being the victim of a major terror attack with an obvious culprit… +1~3 (depending on severity)

Various other events, both random and player-driven...

There are various ways to increase Stability, some easier and others more expensive:

• Spending Prestige or Infamy: First purchase that year costs 5 prestige, then doubles each additional time (5/10/20/40/80, etc).
• Spending money directly to appease citizens aka “the bread and circuses approach”: first purchase costs 10% of either territorial or trade income (whichever is higher), then doubles each time (10%/20%/40%/80%, etc).
• Red Jelly: Access to the Leitner’s Second End trade node increases Stability by 1 each year.
• Law and Order: A year without major pirate or terror incidents rewards +1 Stability.
• Certain technologies may increase Stability.
• Collaboration with certain organizations provides a Stability bonus (SoV Corrupt Reformers, etc).

Stability also passively moves towards the resting point of the state (0,5 or 8 depending) each year, increasing or decreasing depending on the player’s current score. Most states move towards homeostasis- it would require a series of truly catastrophic events to break the autonomous nations that dot the Verge. If your resting stability is 5 and you have a stability of 4, during the year turnover your stability will rise to 5. If it was 6, it will fall to 5.

In addition to providing a basic indication of the health of the state, Stability can be spent as a resource.

• Burning 1 Stability per year allows a state to go into deficit spending for 1 year. The cumulative cost of this increases year by year, so this would cost 2 Stability in Year 2, 3 Stability in Year 3, etc.
• Burning 1 Stability allows a state to take any Prestige benefit that costs 25 or less.
• Burning 2 Stability allows a state to ‘fake’ national traits it doesn’t have for a single year.
• Burning 2 Stability allows a state to expel foreign influences (spies, diplomats) without having to invest in espionage defenses. This may diminish or reset Titans and Sons of the Verge trackers.
• Burning 3 Stability allows a state to force a severe, perhaps horrific sacrifice on its citizens in order to secure victory.

Revocation of the Gateway Edict

UN Task Forces now all have access to the powerful, but aging Macbeth-class Generation Ships, holdovers from the dawn of the United Nations history as a supranational military force and the long-passed Megaroad Project. These vessels were built from templates designed by one of the artificial intelligences that went rogue during the Berlin Insurrection, leading some to view them as cursed or politically suspect. Their limited self-modification abilities have been left unchecked for centuries in mothball yards, leading to deck plans that only vaguely resemble the as-builts of centuries ago and efforts to reclaim the internals may reveal exotic technologies and strange artifacts undreamt by human minds. The local artificial intelligences have been verified as Berlin Treaty-compliant, i.e.: with clearly limited growth curves and no hidden protocols that make them a danger to wider humanity. The Macbeths themselves are elated (as much as an artificial intelligence with curbed growth potential can be) to finally be released from docks, though their individual personalities and goals vary.

Every Macbeth provides the following:

• A single small-sized ($300, 1 Lab, 1 Trait) NPC Client State, designed as normal but without a starting military spree. Cannot take Manticore, Large Population and other traits normally not allowed for Clients.
• A colonial sponsor, listed HERE.
• A single AI personality:
  • None: Some Macbeths were stripped of their rebellious cores long ago, or never achieved the computational mass to become Turing-capable. The C3 bonus for Macbeths without personalities is only +3.
  • Helpful: This intelligence spent centuries configuring its internal spaces to be as comfortable and pleasing to human denizens as possible. Every module slot at delivery is occupied by a Pleasure Dome. It won’t even be mad if you don’t like them.
  • Indifferent: This intelligence spent centuries optimizing its industrial sector, and will mostly tolerate human activity as long as it doesn’t compromise its efforts. +$300 to the Client State, refits take twice as long.
  • Vengeful: This intelligence viewed the centuries in mothball as akin to solitary confinement, and has emerged from it with a relentless hatred of traitors to humanity (particularly Van der Graff). Vengeful ships begin fully-armed to modern spec (with a budget of $500) and will complete refits at double-speed, but it may refuse the surrenders of enemies.
  • Slumbering: This Macbeth is suspiciously stock, with the as-builts being mostly trustworthy. Suffers occasional system errors that can’t be identified (roll 1d20 at a critical moment, 1 result is a glitch). Boarding attacks against the ship suffer the same penalties, but on a 5 or lower result.
  • Adventurous: This intelligence loves adventure and is just like, really glad to be here! It has the equipment to conduct grav and planetary surveys, and engines that can run up to 2G Accel. Just remind all your colonists to strap down in shelters before you really kick off.
  • Architect: This intelligence believes it is one of the destined creators of new worlds and new forms of life. This attitude can be maternal, mechanistic or more malign. It builds ground structures (including Developments) at double speed, comes stock with a Terraforming Array that occupies 5 module slots, though by design such machines took multiple years to complete their work.

Macbeth-class
Generation Ship
Armor: 3
Accel: 1 (cannot be increased by any method)
5 Segments, each containing:

• 5 S1 Weapon Slots, containing S1 PDLs
• 5 System Slots, empty or modified to the above as appropriate
• Cryo-Trays that can house ~1 million people<

1 Spire that provides:

• 5 S3 Weapon slots, unfilled
• 3 System Slots, unfilled regardless of AI personality
• An advanced C3 Node that provides +6 Init to local forces
• QE comms connected to Barnard’s Star (max range: 20 jumps), Qbits can be exhausted by particularly large transmissions and must be replenished by courier
• A large docking sector near where the Spire joins the Segments, allowing it to shelter dozens of warships at a time, hundreds of FACs and fighter squadrons.

Every component counts as an SCS for health, Invulnerability saves and certain techs, as well as refit costs.

The Macbeth counts as vanilla, and every tech that the operator wants incorporated requires a firmware patch (1 Month) in addition to refits. Patches can be done concurrently to refits of adapted technology, but prior to refitting with post-2748 weapons or systems. Every refit done has a chance of revealing a minor treasure or hazard, like a loot survey.

SoV / Titan Strength Special Rules

As underworld factions gain in strength in each sector, their influence is increasingly felt by all within.

Sons of the Verge Factions

At Level 3, a region picks a primary faction as appropriate.

At level 6, a regional rival emerges.

Rivals can typically take over the region with just a few operations, but provide no penalties or bonuses otherwise. The dominant faction will flavor the level 10 event (if it ever comes to that) and provide specific bonuses and penalties. The local SoV cell will typically act in accordance with its factional nature, many are not even particularly anti-UN but have other agendas reflecting the factious nature of the founding chapter.

Some SoV chapters may be variants, if formally backed by a state or by random chance. These can include Corrupt Reformists (Pro-Larnax), Black Hand (Pro-ISA), etc.

LEGEND

• (All): Affects everyone with facilities in the system. PC states, UN taskforces, PMCs, etc.
• (S): Affects states, including NPCs.
• (U): Affects UN taskforces, including NPCs.
• (P): Affects PMCs.

Unaligned (Default)

Initial Sons of the Verge formations will generally be big tents without a coherent ideology. Most local branches are unaligned and party politics only begin to take effect as they gather members and establish formal leadership. If major factions are being suppressed, larger movements can remained unaligned.

Corrupt Reformists (Pro-Assembly Magnates)

Legitimized Verger mafias, secret societies and political influence groups organized by private citizens who were often denied access to political life in the modern Verge due to actions they undertook during Disconnect. Piracy, graft and corruption were methods used not to enrich themselves or harm Solarian citizens (though they did), but ensure that the people of the disconnected Verge survived the famine that followed Gateway. With the dream of an Assembly realized and the Verge uniting under various alliances, the Reformists believe the time is ripe to guide humanity to a prosperous new age.

• Assembly Legitimists: Major actions via the Assembly of the Verge provide stability. (S)
• Res Publica: Double prestige $ payout, increased caps (if applicable). (All)
• This Is Business: No bonus to terrorism in the region, instead theft and hijacking are easier. (All)
• Counterfeit Arsenal: SoV unit spawns use lend-lease versions local designs, 50% of successful theft and hijacking operations instead steals a lend-lease copy. (S)

Radical Autonomists (Pro-Independence Pacifists)

The autonomist movement is an outgrowth of various anti-authoritarian groups that saw their motives vindicated by the Praetorian conflict. Two corrupt, authoritarian and unaccountable imperial regimes conflicted over vague accusations of WMD research and the result was an atrocity that claimed nearly 200 million lives. While strict pacifism is politically impossible in the present moment, the autonomist movement is strictly opposed to inter-human warfare and the expanding network of dismal alliances that could drag nations into war against their individual wills.

• Isolationists: Wars with other human states cause instability, as do sprawling multilateral treaties. Bilateral diplomacy is still acceptable. (S)
• Moral Victor: Overwhelming, disproportionate force deployments (including WMD usage) against Autonomist-aligned forces will instead increase SoV activity level. (All)
• Swords to Ploughshares: Scrapping military units returns 100% of their value. Overspending on military units during peacetime may result in strikes. (All)
• Partisans: Spawn truly obscene numbers of mid-grade ground and aerospace forces if a state is being invaded. (S)

Petitioners (Elder Cultists)

The original branch of the SoV found something at the Khan Terminus. Since then, a growing number of mystery cults, singularity seekers and autodidact quantum brainwave users have begun to assemble into small secret societies dedicated to unraveling the truth of the universe.

• Traitors to the Stars: Despise any who maintain relations with the Quon, AEGIS, Worms and some others. (All)
• Feared and Hated: Petitioner cells do not naturally increase their level, but will intermittently launch operations to increase their prominence. (All)
• Elder Sign: Petitioner-held areas are not attacked by alien remnants. Any that appear are taken over by the cell. (All)
• Dark Knowledge: +1 bonus alien tech strike on year turnover for ever 3 levels of SoV Level (i.e.: +1 at L3, +2 at L6 and +3 at L9). (S/P)

Black Hand (Anti-Sol Terrorists)

Influenced by the radical faction that conducted the infamous operation Dark Fate against the UN and Eisenhower, Black Hand cells are professional terrorists dedicated to anti-Solarian operations. The political ideology of such firebrands varies, but all are strictly anti-UN and have no limits to the means they are willing to use to achieve that goal. Those who cultivate Black Hand cells outright find powerful, but ruthless allies.

• Pax Antisolaria: There can be no peace with the Great Satan of Sol. Cause great instability where the UN is present, or welcome. (All)
• Wolves of the Void: Ignores the Titan defensive bonus to UN and allied states for conducting terrorism. Black Hand space averages 1 attack per quarter. (All)
• This Machine Kills: +50% production bonus (100% with War Machine) when actively fighting Solarians or their allies. Additionally, production takes 1/2 time. (S/P)
• Justified Ends: All units produced with the This Machine Kills bonus are marked for 5 years. Such units may defect to the Black Hand cell at opportune moments. (S/P)

Murder Apes (Anti-Alien Militias)

The SoV's founding chapter originally intended to become a force to defeat any alien threats, a bulwark against humanity's various enemies. While that course was derailed by Praetoria, the AEGIS Conflict has reawakened a desire for large autonomous anti-alien strikeforces. While initially nothing more than an assembly of quixotic asteroid miners and freetraders strapping guns to their hulls, the crucible of war has a chance to make them something more.

• Sword of Humanity: Will ignore political squabbles as long as there's an alien war. Stability increases every quarter there are anti-alien operations ongoing. (S/U)
• Fear the Alien: Regularly conduct operations against states that make use of xenotech, trade with aliens, study alien ruins or even passively observe of xenos primitives. (All)
• Liberated Equipment: Murder Ape spawned units are Peaceforged. If fighting aliens, they fall under the control of the region's de-facto controller. (All)
• A Human Galaxy: Murder Ape spawned units are significantly more numerous than those of other factions, and will fly off to cause trouble if the region owner is at peace. (S/U)

United Nations Extra Solar Fleet Task Force Titan (Solarian Secret Police)

Rules pending final approval

• Stop and Search: Constant and oppressive policing greatly weakens cosmopiracy and smuggling, scaled to Titan level. (TF Titan 3+)
• Blackwatch: TF Titan will train local militias to maintain 'order'. These will use surplus UN or Solarian designs. (TF Titan 3+)
• Mainstream Media: Increased prestige gain from actions that align with the goals of TF Titan, the UN or the GPs. (TF Titan 6+)
• Deep State: Bonus to actions taken against internal rivals and counterespionage. TF Titan levels will be difficult to dislodge however. (TF Titan 6+)
• Alles in Ordnung: Stability normalizes towards your state's resting level by one additional point annually. (TF Titan 8+)