The World of The Gunny

At the end of every year I would like the testers to give a report on their overall thoughts on DSA. Both good and bad are equally desirable since both will help to improve the game.

Mav, thanks for the report.

Now, to address the issues you brought up.

Agreed on the RL issues. But we will keep moving on when and where we can.

This early in the century there is not really much beyond the US and USSR for space fluff, unfortunately. So I cannot really provide any for the nations beyond those two. But I did make a post for you about the real life Japanese rockets. So maybe you can use them as details in your program.

Currently in the rules the GM makes an intel roll every three months. I made one for Dec, but the roll was negative, so no Intel updates for you.

Check out paragraph 2 of 2.5 The Intelligence Headquarters. That has the current rule.

IIRC, I added the intel rolls two or three updates ago.

Give me a list of what you want examples for and I will do them up and add them to the rules set.



Cheers, Thor

Ah, ok. I follow you now. Yeah that would increase the workload. But maybe we can find a happy medium.



Cheers, Thor

Nothing much this year . I dare say next year will have more action.
One suggestion you may want to think about is giving some sort of bonus to mission control for how many Comms Satellites you have in orbit.

Yeah, pretty quiet this year but now that everyone seems setup, things are going to heat up. Don't really have much to say, but it'd be nice to get a bit of monies from certain satellites to simulate corporations buying them out.

Gav, and MrAnderson, those are good ideas, but since this is an introductory game, I need to keep it as simple as I can.

But go ahead and make those suggestions in the expansion thread, for the next game.



Cheers, Thor

Mav, yeah, for experienced gamers like us, there is a LOT of things we could add, but that is what is keeping gamers away from BTS! now, I think. Thats why BTS!: The Race for Mars will be more in depth. Gving the Director more options he can do, such as trade treaties (Comm Channel Sales), Research treaties (Joint Research), requesting Intel ops on yer enemies (Espionage), and joint construction programs (Cooperative Stations, and Colonies).

So no worries on more options in the next game in the series. You BTS! Vets oughta know me by now, detail is my name of the game!

As for a random events table, it is intended, just not been able to get to it yet. Been tweaking the heck outta things. But once we get the basics down smoothly I can move on to things such as that.

Another thing I am going to implement, which will not affect the players, and is optional for the GM, is a more in depth 'just what happens' on a 99 or 100 failure roll. Like what type of failure was it, and can it be fixed with whats on the craft types of things. If nothing else it will help in case a player wants to write up short stories about how their 'heroic or valiant' 'nauts brought back their crippled craft!



Cheers, Thor

Year End Tester's Report

Well, this has certainly been a new and novel experience. I've never played a game this way, which says a lot I suppose, given the number and variety of different games I've played over the years.

To start off, I wanna say that it took a lot of time for me to learn this game. I also made a great many mistakes, not helped by being somewhat late to the party and rushing to catch up. My missteps may be glaringly obvious to the man processing my turns, but I've learned from quite a few of them already (yes, the hard way).

Still, I have to say that this has been a lot of fun. I actually look forward to submitting a turn. So, count on me to stick around for a bit.

I've planned for the first half of the year already and I can assure you, someday (not saying when ), a Frenchman will fly! With luck, he might even land.

Other than that, I don't have much to say. Once I'm sure most of the mistakes have been ironed out of my playstyle, I'll compile a little something for the manual. Assuming I have time this month. This month is getting a bit hectic. Fun, but hectic. Well, fun except for one thing, but it's an important thing. I'm sure it'll all work out.

I am glad you are having fun bud. Thats the name of the game I say. And I hope you are learning something about the real sapce race and I hope this game reveals a bit behind the decision making that goes into getting into space.

As for mistakes, they happen bud, heck I designed this game, and I made a few whoppers myself.



Cheers, Thor

The game rules are simple and easy to learn. Ken has done very well with the rule examples. His practice is showing!

Once the first several turns are setup, there are relatively few things to do. This will change as more options from research open up equipment and safety levels start reaching useful levels.

Ken has asked me to do up a random astronaut generator. This should be done by monday. I am not feeling well today, so its back to bed for me.

1.) Do you review each sheet before doing your orders? Or are there sheets you do not use? Give reasons why you do not use them please.

Yeah, I need to know how my research is going, what launches failed and basically all the details before I plan out what to do.

2.) What do you like best about the game? Give reasons please.

Well, I would say that it's making your own space-program. It's pretty fun to balance things to try to get to the moon before everyone else.

3.) What do you dislike the most? Give reasons please.

No major complaints yet.

4.) What would you add or subtract from the game if you could?

Probably sending unmanned exploration vehicles to other planets, we have probes but nothing really permanent. But that'd probably fit more in the next game.

Thanks for the report MrAnderson. Can you add a few points? I am going to have the other testers answer the same q's.

1.) Do you review each sheet before doing your orders? Or are there sheets you do not use? Give reasons why you do not use them please.

2.) What do you like best about the game? Give reasons please.

3.) What do you dislike the most? Give reasons please.

4.) What would you add or subtract from the game if you could?



Cheers, Thor

At the moment , there is little to say. The review of the Missions in the rules is a great addition and clears up what you need to have and what happens at each step. The only thing I think is missing which I have mentioned before is a few examples of Order formats.

1.) Do you review each sheet before doing your orders? Or are there sheets you do not use? Give reasons why you do not use them please.: I look over most the the sheets ... you dont know when things crop up that you need to tackle. The least used/veiwed sheet would be the Intelligence HQ. I guage how far the others are in front of me by looking over the space history column in the Admin Annex

2.) What do you like best about the game?: The uncertainty of if your rocket will go up in flames and your Cosmonauts will turn into red smears !

3.) What do you dislike the most? Give reasons please. No ground combat .... no combat what so ever. I would not mind to be able to board someones spacestation and strip it of technology !

4.) What would you add or subtract from the game if you could? Nothing at this time

Gav, thanks for the report, and rest assured, the examples of launch orders are in the creation process and I will post them ASAP.



Cheers, Thor

1.) Do you review each sheet before doing your orders? Or are there sheets you do not use? Give reasons why you do not use them please.

I would describe my R&D page as the most used, and the Hardware Purchasing Office as another frequent visit, especially when crafting orders. Without it, I wouldn't know how many parts I have for launches. Astronaut Complex is currently useless for anything except pining over my soon-to-be-trained Astronauts.

Administration Annex seems the most useless to me, as it doesn't really update me on anything I consider vital to my future plans. Milestones...I might check there to ensure it's done, but I shouldn't have to. If a milestone mission has been completed successfully, I'll remember it. Also useful for figuring out how much prestige I have, but I only check that once or twice a year. When building something...it's only kinda useful. I just don't use it as much as the others.

The Budget Office runs a close second. Anything I need to know there I can find on other pages. I rarely visit it.

2.) What do you like best about the game? Give reasons please.

The narrative of taking my humble space agency to the stars, the idea that I'm responsible for historic achievements and that I'm walking in the footsteps of those who explored space and walked on the moon. The romance of the game. I am a big fan of From the Earth to the Moon and own the DVDs, and that's mostly because it's the best filmic depiction of the Apollo program and preceding missions of Mercury and Gemini (oooh, just realized, Gemini was a two man capsule...the twins...clever).

Also, learning more about the nation I'm playing and this period of history.

3.) What do you dislike the most? Give reasons please.

Not knowing if I have enough parts for a launch and having to constantly ensure it isn't an auto-scrub due to a mistake. I would ideally wish for a Future Mission Requirements column for the Hardware Purchasing Office. This is, however, a subset of the problem of annoying page flipping, in that I constantly have to flip back and forth between the Hardware Purchasing Office, the Orders page and the Future Missions Office.

4.) What would you add or subtract from the game if you could?

The 50% R&D loss on Critical failure. I recognize the why, but when a part has flown many times before and NOT failed, it tends to stretch my suspension of disbelief. Yes, I can understand why you'd object to that, but please take it for what it's worth and don't try to argue it. Either accept it or don't, and if you don't, don't respond. I'd rather not hear you say something I already know (personal pet peeve, I hate being lectured on stuff I already know...read on before responding, you'll see). Don't remove it entirely, but I feel it needs a substantial nerf. Maybe reduce the Research safety less if the hardware's flown and been successful before, or is a long-established and reliable technology that has flown on countless missions. Still, I feel this is a tragedy that will hit a player two or three times a game. Maybe roll a separate disaster table on a critical 100 to see how bad it really is?

Either that or add the option to revise future missions involving that piece of hardware or scrub the mission entirely if the equipment is mission critical, without a loss of prestige, especially if you've already lost prestige from a mission. If a manned mission dies in flames (say, due to capsule failure...in flames... *sombre* ), I should be able to scrub future manned missions using the same capsule without a ripple effect of prestige hits from the cancellations, or prestige loss from partially successful missions. -10 prestige is bad enough, anything more is adding insult to injury. Still, I'd be pretty much either forced to, or have to postpone the missions and hope my researchers can pick up the slack in a month or two, which is unlikely and historically implausible (and likely the opposite effect of what you intended).

I'd say the second paragraph is the better of the two options, as I feel it might achieve what you're going for. Something that could derail an entire part of your program, but not cripple you beyond that. Still, given how many rolls we have to succeed on for missions, you're gonna hit 100 more often than you think. Sooner or later, every one of us will have one of these critical failures.

I feel the roll chart would be a nice addition though, and you can decide whether a rocket's a dud or an explosion that takes out the entire pad and sets back that rocket program months, or something in between. Again though, it'd be good to allow lossless cancellations on program R&D setback for mission critical equipment like rockets or capsules.

Tssha, Thank you for the exquisite report. It helps me greatly.

Now, this is not a lecture. I will only give you two examples of missions that ended in catastrophic failure, even though the Hardware had been used many, many times before. Challenger, Morton Thiokol had to totally redesign the SRBs. Columbia, they completely re-designed how the heat shielding worked and the strength of the skin of the wings.

If you can refute those examples of a Catastrophic Failure, even after the HW had been used for a long time, then I will change it. But please understand, as much as I want the players to have fun, I also need them to understand nothing man makes is infallible, nothing.

This is a pet peeve of mine. Too many games and their makers out there once a certain level has been passed, say in their designs nothing bad will ever happen. They remove the x-factor as being 'unfun', and say nothing can go wrong. So, in my games, yes you can get boned, even in the later stages.



Cheers, Thor

i understand where Tssha is coming from.

But, and there is always a but. Anytime that there is a catastrophic failure on a space item, extensive research has gone into redesigning the effected item.

They spent significant time rebuilding the strap on thrusters rockets that had the o-ring failure.

while I agree that a 50% loss is harsh because of the damage it does to the available RP for other projects, I cannot think of another way to model this yet that would not effect Research at least partially.

What about my other idea though, of quickly pulling the faulty part and letting the mission go ahead as normal? Because if we're limited to five teams in future games, a director's gonna need options to ensure missions are as successful as possible.

You're right on the Challenger mission, and Columbia can probably count as an example there. Challenger failed on leaving MaxQ, where atmospheric pressure limits max speed of the shuttle. You have to slow down once you enter MaxQ, and once you pass through the area of MaxQ, you can speed up. Challenger exploded on the acceleration phase. I hadn't thought of those, but I was thinking of what happens when an incident like Apollo 1 happens. In that case, I'm sure they grounded all missions while they figured out what happened.

My question is: do we have the option to just pull a part or ground a mission (without prestige loss) if we have a really bad, critical failure? Or what do you picture happening if something like that happens in future?


Oh, and thanks for being understanding and avoiding the lecture.

No, you won't be limited to 5 teams, that will be just what you start with. You will be able to 'hire' new teams.

The Apollo 1 example more falls under manned mission failure. So would have classified as a CF.

Tssha, yes you can. Even by the current rules until the mission launches you can add and remove hardware. So go ahead and remove what ever you wish.

But if you scrub a launch, you still get a -2 Prestige.

NP on the lecture avoidance. I dislike them too!



Cheers, Thor