Dune

[Hewitt]

Lakhim: Your infantry go out to see if there is any particular areas of note that would make defending easier. But this is the Imperial Basin, and villages here tend to be built on exposed areas of flat rock that blend fairly evenly with the endless sand. Carthag used to be a fortress with high metal walls and everything but these were leveled during the Atriedes/Harkonnen war along with the rest of the place - probably the result of an atomic or shield/lasgun blast.

Despite this however, your men think they have a somewhat better idea of defending the area. (+5% bonus to defense AP at Carthag and the three other villages)

KH: The smell of cinnamon just gets stronger and stronger the further your men go into the BTS when excitedly, they reach a vertiable horde of melange dumped in uneven piles in the middle of a fair-sized room.

"Sweet jesus! There must be at least 3000c worth of spice here!"

Using containers, rigging and space on your carryall you can carry 500c worth of spice per trip.

[Hewitt]

ooc: New addition to the rules soon - I'm going to allow weapons of any type mounted on an air unit to attack other air units since at present it is too easy to make an air unit immune to all convential weapons.

CONTACT

Urbanica
Your carryall had just lifted off with a full harvester when an unknown aircraft seems to come from nowhere and engages. It fires a small homing missile followed by a barrage of lasgun fire, all of which easily hit your slow moving craft. However, the carry all is a thick skinned beast and take a beating.......... to a certain extent.

Unknown craft attacks a carry all of House Urbanica over the Imperial plain.
Attacker
Unidentified (150/150) - this unit is incredibly fast and agile. It doesn't show up on sensors.

Lasgun 1 - hit
Base Damage - 105

Lasgun 2 - hit
Base Damage - 105

AA Missile Launcher - hit
Base Damage - 75 (100 vs air units)


Defender
Carry all (803/900)
Armour - 3

Lasgun 1 - 0% resistance
35 damage

Lasgun 1 - 0% resistance
35 damage

AA Missile - 25% resistance
27 damage

[KlavoHunter]

OOC: Wait... how do 105-power Lasguns equal 35 damage???

Err, color too, please.

IC:

"Sweet jesus! There must be at least 3000c worth of spice here!" the second of the two Infantrymen called out, and he looked around at the huge piles, mouth gaping wide open. This was a small fortune in Spice... enough to pay for any man's wildest fantasies for an entire lifetime. In military terms, enough to equip a small army...

"Don't just stand there, get out your sacks and start hauling!" the first said to him, giving him a nudge and unpacking a series of standard Huntirius-issue sacks. In practice, it was usually just a sandbag, but it was also useful for far more... being made of a perfect hermetically-sealed plastic, and designed for ease of carry or dragging. They broke out their trenching multitools - almost certainly worthless on Arrakis, but still standard issue - and began inelegently shoveling their sacks full of Melange, soon securing the zip-fasteners of the first sacks, attaching tye-cords to them.

Soon after, they were hauling the sacks out on their backs, the light frame of their packs helping balance the load, and leave their rifles open. The Carryall fitters started dumping the contents of the sacks into containers, and tossing them into wherever there was space in the crew compartment. The two two-man units of the Infantry swapped off from standing guard and hauling Spice every time, quickening the process and making sure that both groups kept alert by switching jobs.

The Chief Fitter turned on his comlink. "M'lord Prince, the Carryall cannot hold any more Spice. We simply lack the containers and interior space to hold any more without the specialized holding tanks of a Harvester." James simply looked up.

"All right, then. Load up the troops, cover our withdrawal, and we'll bring it back to base." Reaver-Prince Hunter ordered, still in the command chair of his vehicle, a bit more invigorated after what he'd done in the skies.

The Carryall began to lift off into the skies of Arrakis, joined by its partner, and soon left the BTS well behind, headed for home.

Orders:

- Load up 500c of Spice

- Go Home.

[Wo2]

[ooc] its NOT turn 5 yet so no base post please. Just to keep it easier for our DM [/ooc]

IC:

"The power is back to acceptable levels Milord." Spoke Ikara

"Excellent. Then everything is proceeding as well as we hopped." Rumbled the evermind

"Yes sir. Our patrols are reporting no action so far, so it seems we are still unseen by the people of Dune. We are doing everything we can to keep it that way as well. So long as we are unseen, then we are in no harm except by the storms of Dune, and we are in a low risk area as it is."

"Storms are not my worry Ikara, see that this base is hidden as well as it can be. We must be on our guard. If you see anyone, we will deal with them quickly and efficiently, and as far away from the base as we can."

Ikara nodded and stood up, he had much to do. He strode out of the room he had been in and into the new light of the morning. Dune was a vast world, and they were here to bring that vastness under their rule. For he who controls the Spice controls the Universe, and with the spice under their control, the other house could not dare to threaten the Machine mind again.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Orders:

-Harvest

-Recall the scouting trikes and have them go on a patrol out side the base.

[Lakhim]

OOC: You're going down for that KH

[Hewitt]

Originally Posted by KlavoHunter

OOC: Wait... how do 105-power Lasguns equal 35 damage???

It's called armour

[KlavoHunter]

Originally Posted by Hewitt

It's called armour

It's negating 66% of the damage from LASGUNS, and it's only Heavy armor?!? That's kind of lame IMHO... does Extreme armor provide 99% protection?

[Hewitt]

Damage taken = Weapon Damage/(Defence AP + (Defense AP*Resistance))

[KlavoHunter]

If I'm reading that right, that is totally unbalanced... o_O

[Wo2]

Oh hush

[Hewitt]

Originally Posted by KlavoHunter

If I'm reading that right, that is totally unbalanced... o_O

Don't make me hurt you.

[KlavoHunter]

Originally Posted by Hewitt

Don't make me hurt you.

Lakhim won't need help?

[Evil_Ginge]

i'm getting bored waitoing for a reply to my pm... and turn 5

[KlavoHunter]

Originally Posted by Evil_Ginge

i'm getting bored waitoing for a reply to my pm... and turn 5

Here, Ginge. Look at this totally awesome model conversion for an Iron Warriors Warsmith. Consider it a goal to RP your character into that

[Evil_Ginge]

thats a damned cool idea.... :: starts grinning maniacly ::

[KlavoHunter]

Rawrrrr! Hewitt, I see you posting in OTHER threads!

[Wo2]

Acctually It's Lakhim were waiting for. He needs to respond to the attack before this thread can carry on. So lets all PM him till he goes crazy!

[Lakhim]

WHAT!

Er...yeah. Vacation. Not my fault. Really. What the **** am I supposed to do anyway? And schools starting. No IC responce, just OOC. My harvester is grounded temporarily for repairs et al. Try to find out who did this thing, announce to the world a denounciation of cowardly unmarked attacks on unarmed craft, ect ect.

[Wo2]

[ooc] Oh don't gimme the school excuse. I'm in school too yah know, never really stopped me from posting, but I can understand. I also understand the vaction thing, so no worries. How ever there is more you can do with the attack, having one run on a target doesn't mean the engament is done. So I expext Hewitt to post the next strike soon, unles the cowardly attacker choose to only make one hit and run. I guess we'll find out soon enough. [/ooc]

[KlavoHunter]

Yeah, Hewitt, was there any damage to the Harvester the Carryall was carrying? :P

Besides, I'm about to start school, I'm not "swamped". You can certainly find time to do this! :P

[Hewitt]

Originally Posted by KlavoHunter

Rawrrrr! Hewitt, I see you posting in OTHER threads!

*Is busted*

Yeah... well, Rp'ing is easier than DM'ing

Anywho, Just a heads up - over the next couple of weeks (starting this friday) I have no less than THREE field trips (pretty cool huh?). So since Telstra doesn't normal lay phone cable far beyond city limits, I won't be online. I'd hence encourage those that haven't yet to do a lot of IC stuff rather than just bashing out new unit designs and order lists - this tends to bore me very quickly . Note, if you want some sort of bonus from it please summarise at the end what it is you are doing.

Now, for current affairs,

KH: (Note, I was actually waiting for crazy but he seems to be on hiatus or something )
- over the next nine hours your carryall manages to make a total of three hauls securing 1500c of spice. Your carryall is just dumping the last load into your refinery at the end of the turn - your troops are still at the BTS.

There is still no sign of any fremen.


Lakhim/????: The unknown fighter, unchallenged makes may more runs on the defenseless carryall (which is carrying the harvester) and soon not even the heavy armour plating on the flying behemoth is enough to save it from a violent end. After no less than eight more blasts the ships engines are finely breached and the carryall bursts into flames crashing a mere 10 kilometres from Carthag. However, her slow death allows for the harvester to be ejected before hand. It falls a good 100 metres and lands very solidly but the tough mobile mine remains in one piece (-400 hitpoints).

The unknown craft leaves silently, it's mission accomplished.


I'm gonna leave it until I get back before I start turn 5. This should give some of you a chance to explore a bit I hope - I don't want have to RP for you all

[Wo2]

[ooc] Okies then. Have some nice trips eh! [ooc/]

[Evil_Ginge]

[ooc] oh joy i work out my turn 6 post for another 3 weeks, better get some roleplaying in i guess [/ooc]

[Lakhim]

ooc: Oh joys. Blah blah blah complaint filed with House Corrino and the judge of change, pointing out that there was no declaration of war/kanly/whatever and unmarked craft, spies looking into it etc etc.

Oh yes, and send out some heavy troopers to protect the carry all as it makes its way home.

[KlavoHunter]

Bumping to keep that lovely cinnamon smell up on top.

[Wo2]

[ooc] My net went down, and now its up again so I'll do some RPing as soon as it stops being tempermental. you can expect it soon. I have plenty I wish to do in RP mode before Hewitt's return. [ooc/]

[Barbarossa]

Shit.
I only just got my interwebby back after four months.
Am I too late?

[Evil_Ginge]

possibly

[KlavoHunter]

No, you're not too late. We're only on turn 4 or so, so feel free to get a semi-late start.

[Wo2]

[ooc] I wrote up a big RP thing, and then lost it... I hate this... So i'll give a short version whilst I rewrite, or choose not to/ [ooc/]

IC:

-Ikara thinks about homeworld

-Omnius inturupts thoughts.

-Omnius talks to Ikara about learning more about the nature of the Alliance they are in.

-Ikara throws in his two bits about what the other two house could want from the alliance.

-Omnius says that he already knows a considerable amount in his own way, but wants Ikara to learn on his own.

-Ikara request a communication confrence of the other alliance houses.

[Hewitt]

ooc: Well what can I say...



Undecided whether to continue this when chrissy holidays hit; might use the stats to make some sorta Dune Warhammer thingy as well if I feel up to it.

Until then return to your homes people if you haven't already done so.

[KlavoHunter]

Hell with that, Hewitt, I'm not leaving my tent from out in front of your house!

I'd love to continue this - We've already got a nice plot set up for what we'll be doing, without everyone going all peace-y and forcing you to make House Corrino the big bad enemy.

[Hewitt]

*Grumbles*

"Them damn squatters, Margery! Get the hose..."



Alright, gimme a month to get my finals over with and when I'm done celebrating I'll see what I can do to bring this back to life.

Provided there's still any RP'ers around by that time....

[J-Kama-Ka-C]

Don't do that... save the time and declare me the winner now, you won't regret much of it.

[Evil_Ginge]

or declare me winner, you know it will happen

[KlavoHunter]

He who takes the inititave wins. So, therefore, since I apparantly made the first attack.... I win.

[KlavoHunter]

*casts Level VII Ressurection on thread*

[Hewitt]

*Stumbles across the gravesite of this thread only to discover some manging animal has dug up the half-decayed corpse.*

"Meh."

*Leaves then returns and plants the following sign:*

WANTED

Statisical genius of 300+ IQ to completely re-write stats engine of Dune thread so as to make Dm'ing so easy a five year old kid with ADD could do it. Standard wage of $500 an hour.

For inquires, please poke Hewitt with a pointy stick via PM.

(Note - wages paid with virtual monopoly money only)

[Fluffie]

Ain't that ADHD dear?

[No Dachi]

I never actually ended up playing this one and I can't claim to know the rules intimately, but just casting a quick glance at the first page gives me a mass of variables represented in a quasi-statistical manner. You have two routes:

1) Keep all of the present variables, but express them mathematically and incorporate them into a database. PW has a huge mass of statistics and attributes for any given property of any given player, but when forming the new ruleset with Crazy I expressed as many of them as I could numerically. Remember, two variables in words can only be combined in a man's mind, wheras two variables expressed in numbers can be combined automatically in an Excel spreadsheet. PW wouldn't even have got off the ground if it wasn't for the Excel spreadsheet that did a lot of the sums for whoever was acting as the budgetary DM, and only by putting things like the degree to which a given government was authoritarian in numbers was I able to make a spreadsheet. You'll notice that several of the areas I left to being described by words (such as colonial development) are now being revised and potentially turned into numbers.
2) The only other option you've got is keeping attributes ("Sand Worm Risk" is the one that sticks in my mind because Sand Worms are cool) described by words (such as "Very high"), but by getting rid of a lot of the more unneccessary ones and ending their position as pre-defined attributes in the game structure. It's fine to have things described in the way they are now - it allows a greater degree of accuracy and description than simple numbers (like "Industrial Base 2.5") are capable of conveying - but, as I already indicated, processing words is more time-consuming than processing numbers. As such, if you want to keep all of the variables in a non-statistical form, you need to remove a lot of them altogether and replace them with abstract terms in your own head - you'll know how likely Sand Worms are to hit a settlement, for example, but because people don't list it in their budgets any more it's one less thing for you to look at when you're DMing.

Hope you can see roughly where I'm coming from. I've made a few strategy threads and this is the kind of thing I spend most of my time thinking about when doing so.

[Fluffie]

Oi, Dachi, less thinking on other peoples' threads and more thinking on PW/revising. Go go go!

[Hewitt]

Originally Posted by No Dachi

I never actually ended up playing this one and I can't claim to know the rules intimately, but just casting a quick glance at the first page gives me a mass of variables represented in a quasi-statistical manner. You have two routes:

1) Keep all of the present variables, but express them mathematically and incorporate them into a database. PW has a huge mass of statistics and attributes for any given property of any given player, but when forming the new ruleset with Crazy I expressed as many of them as I could numerically. Remember, two variables in words can only be combined in a man's mind, wheras two variables expressed in numbers can be combined automatically in an Excel spreadsheet. PW wouldn't even have got off the ground if it wasn't for the Excel spreadsheet that did a lot of the sums for whoever was acting as the budgetary DM, and only by putting things like the degree to which a given government was authoritarian in numbers was I able to make a spreadsheet. You'll notice that several of the areas I left to being described by words (such as colonial development) are now being revised and potentially turned into numbers.
2) The only other option you've got is keeping attributes ("Sand Worm Risk" is the one that sticks in my mind because Sand Worms are cool) described by words (such as "Very high"), but by getting rid of a lot of the more unneccessary ones and ending their position as pre-defined attributes in the game structure. It's fine to have things described in the way they are now - it allows a greater degree of accuracy and description than simple numbers (like "Industrial Base 2.5") are capable of conveying - but, as I already indicated, processing words is more time-consuming than processing numbers. As such, if you want to keep all of the variables in a non-statistical form, you need to remove a lot of them altogether and replace them with abstract terms in your own head - you'll know how likely Sand Worms are to hit a settlement, for example, but because people don't list it in their budgets any more it's one less thing for you to look at when you're DMing.

Hope you can see roughly where I'm coming from. I've made a few strategy threads and this is the kind of thing I spend most of my time thinking about when doing so.

*Smacks fluffie with his trusty cricket bat *

Shush you, this is very useful....

*ahem*

Anywho, I actually do have an excel spreadsheet with all of the variables written out... I however, believe it is unfinished. One of the things I think that killed this thread was that in my rush of impulsive enthusiasm to create this wonderful idea I did not actually finish the thread - I kinda made it up as I went. I will say that a lot of the ideas did get incorporated, in fact many of the things that appear to be described by words such as sandworm risk have actual calculators in the excel spreadsheet using the random number function as a kind of chance generator - it even told me what size the sandworm would be and how long it would linger for...

The big issue was the make-your-own unit system. Simply processing one unit took time plus a few players came up with such cool concepts that I physically altered the initial setup so as to include them *waves to Wo2 and EG*. In the end I simply caved under the workload and did the probably trademark Hewitt thing to do and leave things slip until all interest was lost...

Hmm... you know I should note that despite the catastrophic collapse caused by my own fumblings, I did have the foresight to save every PM with the unit descriptions and I still have that uncompleted excel file...

[Hewitt]

If there are no objections, I have the excel sheet here.

Everyone feel free to look and critise. And yes, I know the first page is all over the place...

[Fluffie]

No no, that letting it fail is already copyrighted to ND. Besides, you're not even close to his level and profiency of letting threads die . Be careful what you say, young Padawan .

If this thread gets rerun though, I'll be in and stay in. With a non-Kip House though. I have some ideas. Webspace is still available, btw, should you be interested Mr. Hewitt.

I should stop contributing my worthless two cents though, so bye bye .

[Hewitt]

lol, yes - I even see the map is still working

If I do decide to start it again it won't be for some time - at least until semester end which is over a month away.

I might be convinced however to finish of the background by then... in bits and pieces of course.

[Fluffie]

A month yeah. I shouldn't be this active really... Got this week left to learn and then two weeks of final exams. Shame they didn't spread it nicely across the two weeks, so I have all but one in the first week. It'd be nice and fun though when I am done, you (Hewitt & ND) can start running both PW and Dune, eh?

[No Dachi]

Originally Posted by Hewitt

The big issue was the make-your-own unit system. Simply processing one unit took time plus a few players came up with such cool concepts that I physically altered the initial setup so as to include them *waves to Wo2 and EG*. In the end I simply caved under the workload and did the probably trademark Hewitt thing to do and leave things slip until all interest was lost...

Warfare and ship design are the two things I'm never going to completely put down to numbers in PW, namely because in a battle with shot flying about and a hundred warships manouevreing frantically in all three spacial dimensions with a thousand thoughts a second in the minds of every one of a thousand crewmen on each ship there are far too many variables for me to expect a simple spreadsheet calculation to cover. However, if you're going to have custom-made units expressed numerically then there are obviously going to be some advantages as well.

I'll view the spreadsheet and offer you any advice I can think of later when I have access to a machine that actually has Excel installed on it (this one doesn't ). The random number generator is indeed a most useful function of Excel that opens up a wide range of statistical possibilities. I used it in my version of Inspectre's TSW to calculate whether a shot from a given character had hit its mark or not.

Anyway, if you already have a lot of these elements expressed mathematically on your own spreadsheet, all you need to do is introduce those numbers into the thread. Obviously while it might be easier for the RPers to write it down in words, it's easier for you to DM if you can, say, easily paste a block of numbers into an appropriate spreadsheet column, or look next to the name of an attribute and instantly see the number that you need to transfer across.

[Wo2]

Well I am sorry for the undue workload my unique units put on you. I would very much like to see this thread continue. If I can help you in anyway I would be more than happy to help. (like make my units more simplistic)

[No Dachi]

I'd consider actually joining as Ehrenmitt (which I recall inventing) if you were to get this off the ground again successfully (though I'd probably change "Resourceful" or "Humanitarian" to "Militaristic" since the House is intended as a Wilhelman Prussia-a-like).

[Evil_Ginge]

:; pokes the thread a little bit more ::