Manual:Game Mechanics/Turns

First, a turn does not have any specific in-game time period. Trying to impose such an arbitrary limit would be folly, especially when one considers things such as orbital mechanics, planetary rotations, and the time it takes to generate a new factory or hatchery. It can represent anything from a few hours to a few years worth of your race’s time, though more commonly it seems to take up a period of several months.

Instead a turn is broken up into tenths for purposes of time keeping. This is represented by listing things “Turn 1.4” or “Turn 2.9”. This helps keep track of things like translating an alien language reverse engineering alien technology. These things can be started in the middle of one turn, and thus end in the middle of another.

There are two separate types of pages that are required each turn. First is the storyline for role-playing in Game/Chapter. These posts are your race’s story, and introduce characters, explain the motives for your people, and represent the interaction between players and each other and NPCs. A minimum of two is required for each active turn, and well thought out and written ones earn larger Role Playing point bonuses, which in turn can be used to upgrade worlds, spaceships, and characters. Players who choose to skip the storyline portions of their post shall lose RP they might have earned with previous posts.

The other type of post is the Mechanics reports in the discussion page in Game/Prolog/Race. A mechanic report is required for each inhabited planet and station a player controls, as well as for any spaceships that are taking actions. They can all be included in one post, or broken up over a series of posts detail the events represented by the mechanics report. If a report is not made for the turn, then that world or station is considered not to have taken any action. These include:


 * 1) The stats of each world and station a player controls
 * 2) The status of any construction or production that is either being started or is being continued.
 * 3) Movements of ships
 * 4) Scan requests
 * 5) Actions being taken, such as investigating a ruin, translating an alien language, or reverse engineering technology.

For the sake of sanity, I will provide some sample reports, including my preferred format.

World Report World Name: Earth Planet Location: 1-30.3 Ore: 10/10 Gas: 10/10 Fertility: 6 Infrastructure Required/Available/Capacity: 10/12/20 Power: 15/15 Construction: 15/30 Production: 0/3

Structure Name Level # (Construction Bonus, Production Bonus, Infrastructure Requirements, Power Requirements) Factory Level 1 (+3 Construction, +3 Production, -2 Infrastructure, -1 Power)

Construction Example Begin/Continue Construction Building Name Level # (-Ore used, -Gas used, -Construction Used, Construction Bonus, Production Bonus, Infrastructure Requirement, Power Requirement) Begin Construction Heavy Shipyard Level 1 (-5 Ore, -5 Gas, -10 Construction, +0 Construction, +10 Production, -2 Infrastructure, -3 Power)

Production Example Begin/Continue Production of Ship NAME/module System Rank (Resource Cost) System Rank (Resource Cost) System Trait (Resource Cost) System Rank (Resource Cost) Total Ore, Total Gas, Total Production Cost

Movement Report Ship Moves from 1-30 to 1-28 using Engines 2, then warps to 1-26 using Warp 1.

Scan Request Earth scans 1-30.4 with strength X sensors for .Y turns.

Action Example The Humans will play their games.

Turns will be scheduled to start on Sundays and end on Saturdays, even if the GM does not have the chance to state the turn has begun. Admittedly, this schedule is subject to change, as players and the GM take vacations and/or need to postpone posts for real life reasons. If such a request does need to be made, please PM the GM.

At the beginning of the turn, five number of things happen.
 * 1) You receive the appropriate amount of Development Points for the era. These can be saved to be spent at a later time.
 * 2) All resources on your worlds are reset.
 * 3) Construction and Production rates refresh.
 * 4) Worlds and stations receive 1 infrastructure, plus any other bonus infrastructure.
 * 5) RP points are awarded by the GM. These can be saved to be spent at a later time.

Finally, remember that a lot of information such as world coordinates, spaceship coordinates, and private messages are sensitive.