Talk:Nexus: Memories of Silver

Construction Table

Building a fleet is done by the interaction of two fields; Size and Quality. Size is essentially the size (or power) of the unit in question; larger units are stronger than smaller ones and cost more. By contrast, Quality is trading numbers for capability at no change in cost. As such, the cost of a unit is equal to its size rating.

Quality ratings and explanations are as follows:

• Flotilla units are the most numerous type of ship, ranging from things that aren't even ships at all (fighter wings, etc) to WWII-style destroyers right to the stereotypical background space battleships from Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Everything else equal, a Flotilla is the most powerful expenditure of points, albeit one with limits. A Flotilla is normally about a dozen ships (or more, if aerospace or other particularly tiny things).
• Squadron units are the mid-range units, conventionally more modern and individually capable escort ships or 'cruiser' type ships. For a given size value, squadron ships tend to be larger (light cruisers vs destroyer leaders, for example) but obviously less numerous; a squadron is normally 4-6 ships.
• Division units are the big beatstick and in general division warships are considered 'capital' ships; high-end warships also fall here. The archetype is non-heroic supporting character battleships or highly capable warships with all the bells and whistles. Division units normally come in 2s or 3s. Everything else equal, a division has the least firepower but the most flexibility and best soft factors.
• Heroic units are always bought individually. They are basically individual divisional units (and thus have about half the effectiveness) but normally have additional abilities such as a wave motion gun and, of course, are character shielded and/or supernally lucky making them rather difficult to actually destroy as opposed to drive off. No more than 10% of your entire fleet may be heroic units.

Size ratings and explanations are as follows: (note that all quality levels are available up to size 15, the explanation is just guidelines)

Size 1: Flotilla scale: 1/2-crew aerospace craft, drones, etc.

Size 2: Flotilla scale: Small destroyers, attack boats, bombers.

Size 3: Squadron scale: Protected cruisers.

Size 4: Division scale: Pre-dreadnoughts, armored cruisers or equivalent baby capital ships. Flotilla scale: Archetypical WWII destroyer.

Size 5: Squadron scale: Light cruisers or more specialized ships like monitors.

Size 6: Division scale: Lighter but still capable capital ships or light carriers. Flotilla scale: A set of destroyer leaders or scout cruisers.

Size 7: Squadron scale: Fairly conventional heavy cruisers.

Size 8: Division scale: The stereotypical battleship. Flotilla scale: LOGH Background battleships.

Size 9: Squadron scale: Extremely powerful escorts like Arleigh Burkes.

Size 10: Division scale: Oversized battleships like the Yamato or supercarriers like the Nimitz. Flotilla scale: An entire production run of memetic super-Shimakazes or a fleet of Standard-type battleships.

Size 15: Very Large Capital Ship: Super-sized warships like the Zentraedi battlewagons or a squadron of Star Destroyers.

Size 40: Mobile Base: Mother Carriers, City Ships, Super Star Destroyers. These are effectively 'heroic' due to sheer size and are always purchased as individuals.

Size 100: Battle Moons: Fortress Iserlohn. You may only have one such unit at game start and these are effectively 'heroic' due to sheer size and are always purchased as individuals.

Defenses

Fixed Defenses
This covers the various fixed (star forts) and system (patrol ships & surface-based aerospace craft) defenses that individual star systems have. As such, the following is what any given star system would have for defenses. The Population rank is a cost penalty (having a lot of worlds means you have a whole lot of places to defend!) but for every rank of Population you also get one system with an effective rank bonus equal to your Population rank, two with Population -1, four with Population -2, etc. The capital (or military HQ) of a star empire is undoubtedly hugely well protected, but even subsector capitals are few and far between when you have hundreds of worlds. The specifics of the defenses in individual systems is generally unnecessary until action, though having one default for all your systems has merit.

Rank 0 (0 points): No system defenses worth mentioning, just a handful of airstrips or coast guard cutters. 2 FP per world. Battletech.

Rank 1 (1 point): Light defense, with the big addition being proper early warning systems. 10 FP per world. Post-cold war states.

Rank 2 (2 points): Decent defenses, with extensive local patrols, sensors and often the first substantive fortifications. 25 FP per world. Cold War Fortress America.

Rank 3 (4 points): Heavy local defenses, fully capable of bouncing everything short of full fleets. 40 FP per world. Atlantic Wall.

Rank 4 (6 points): Local defenses are often hulking star forts and lumbering orbital monitors backed by buried surface to orbit weapons by the regiment. 60 FP per world. 40k

Rank 5 (9 points): Massive and all-encompassing fortifications across your space. 100 FP per world, and even otherwise completely unimportant places will have 10-25 points of fortifications. Maximum 40k

Additional ranks add +25 FP per world.