SPOILER WARNING. wrote: This thread contains information describing a side story.
- (branched from local forum: Documenting the VS Universe: Stories, plots, quests... A proposal: {Flowchart})
^ - -^ I got boged down with setting details that I forgot that this is just an example, so here it is:
Premise: members of an expidition following a trip into 'dark space' have returned with fragments of a rouge asteroid so rich in palladium and tantalum they've quit to start their own expiditions with one goal: find that asteroid first and hold on to it.</hr><h2>Initial conditions</h2></br>
Primary Cast:
- "Science Officer" Rene
- was actually an entry level lab technician with the first expidition- but bankrolled himself by leasing the mineral rights to a mining consortium. Now chair of an exploratory company he is poised to land a mining base on that asteroid. Currently is gathering materials, and setting up support equipment for a mining operation.
- nieve, is being underminded by the consortium
- living on a mining base connected with the consortium
- previously living out of a plowshare with a dud engine which has since been refurbished as a gesture of goodwill by the first expidition
- Mr. Murray
- was some sort of conserige/manager/gopher with the expidition. Has sold his fragment to hire wingmen knowing that "mineral rights" don't mean a thing in lawless darkspace. Plans to find that asteroid with all the guns necessary at hand to fend off both pirates and everybody else.
- Pragmatic disposition
- calls figherbase home, but is more comfortable on a relay.
- Once lost a ladder when he went on a 'break' and forgot what corridor he left it in.
- Erica "the lass"
- is a rogue that has noticed the considerable amount of 'but keep it under y`ur hat' and has decided that since neither of these jerks know where exactly this asteroid is, or even what general direction from the jump gate it is, that she'd beter find it before the fighting gets out of hand.
- guarded, even for a mech-girl
- most 'comfortable' planetside, though suffers episodes of agoraphobia
- is has inside information from the leader of the last expidition
- questionable ties to piracy
- The consortium and its drones understand that by the terms of the agreement with SO-Rene, the bankroll is actualy a huge debt should he not be the one to lay claim to the asteroid. If that happens to be another member of the consortium - even so.
- another faceless business corporation
- helping SO-Rene to get the location of the gate
- will provide the player with 'sabotage' missions against M-Murray
- Mercinaries hired by M-Murray are little more than pirates, a few even were until they signed with him.
- in competition with the player
- might have one 'introduce some old friends' during the buildup phase
- The Expidition is using the various jump-gates that open onto darkspace to try and intercept Forsaken colony-ships that are still in transit. While it has yet to report finding any colonyship it has catalogued hundreds of gates that remain unmarked because of their utter irrelevance.
- crew released during major ship refit
- has made no mineral claim
- Pirates are harassing the consortium.
- trying not to make a joke about "free" "information" here
Meta Players each have their own game piece starting at the center of the board where the icon is. Each metaplayer then offers the player missions that can advance them torward their goal or set an opponent back, depending on the outcome. It is like an elaborate game of snakes and laders involving backstabbery and sneakyness - (okay it's exactly like snakes and laders.)</br><h3>The Metagame Board</h3></br>
If the player accepts an advancement mission a success will send the metaplayer's own piece down the bright track, a failure the dark one.
If the player chooses an impediment mission a success will send the target metaplayer's piece down the thin arrow-line .
Each node on this map represents a necessay step, or resource, or zone of control that each metaplayer's overall plot needs for their end game; The further from the center the more D's the player will encounter. Eventually one metaplayer will reach their end-game, then non-plot missions that maintain the resulting status quo will result.
- (The Three D's Explained local forum: WCU: unwitnessed kilrathi capships: {Marshall McLuhan?})
- makes the length and complexity of each subplot similar
- establishes a nice Rock,Paper,Scisors effect through the interference missions.
^- - ^ Meow, okay.chuck_starchaser wrote:WTF. I need a clear example.
Each of the Primary Cast start on on the board offering their 'introduction' missions from the mark at the center of the board where each of their tokens are.
- 'Remember the milk'Rene explains that he is planning an expidition and asks the player to ferry supplies for him. On success Rene explains that he is able to pay the player because he has been bankrolled by the consortium. Portrays a very cocky and nieve viewpoint in flavour text.
- 'That could have gone better'Murray, recently finding an opening on his roster asks the player to run a patrol for him somewhere an eliminate a number of severely damaged pirate ships. Responds to "How did you afford to hire me?" with "Why would you want to know?" and offers the next mission.
- 'bring me a shrubbery'(after the player has spoken with one of the other two) Erika having recently moved asks the player to collect her stuff from a man named Roger on an ocean world and bring it to her current location. She never suggests that she would pay for the service, however in the closing conversation it is established that she knows about the asteroid and has plans to collect it. Also if asked about the cargo replies, "I love growing things, but- as a space-fairing mech I'm uncomfortable without having some hard surface no more than ten meters in any direction. It's why I couldn't become an arborist, but I've kept my shrubbery- I think it's nice and not too expensive."
Now that the metaplayers have been established the player is now also offered impediment missions, color coded abobe by whom is offering it.
- 'We'll crosss that when we reach it'Rene is one crucial step from reaching his end-game: establishing a blockade/support base this side of the gate. To do this he must move all of his cache's of material into position at once. The player is asked to either ferry cargo against armed oppostion, or patrol the area to eliminate many attacking pirates.
- 'Parity'Erika cannot allow Rene to advance unopposed, and is offering the player a bounty on every one of Rene's ferrys destroyed. 40% of ferries must fail to set him back.
- 'there is no hill'having suffered a setback in holding off the pirates Murray is looking to launch a counterattack against their over-extended and undermaned carrier.
- 'molasses'The consortium senses that this would be a good opportunity to help 'the economic process along' and scuttle the supply ship Murray is relying upon to keep his fighters active.
- 'Sparkler'Erika is almost ready to pass that gate, however she (for reasons undisclosed) does not have access to the private communications relay on the other side of the gate. But she's devised a plan; escort her support ship to a position tangental to the jumpgate, it will overpower the private communications relay's jamming signal.
- 'bottled up'Mr.Murray is aware of this and is planning an attack on the communications ship to destroy it's special communications array (fancy sub-unit?)
At each node the metaplayer is engaged in an operation (this is why they don't just do it themselves) and the player is offered a different role (mission) in that operation each time until the player has tried every role. Then roles start to be combined in pairs, etc. This does lead to situations where the player may be asked to take the cargo to the blockade, while escorting the cargo ship; dialogue can be scripted to detect this and add "You'll have to escort yourself this time."
When the player in a single mission has everyrole in an operation, there is no impediment offered (cannot allow the player to milk the campaign) and it is possible for a metaplayer to 'lose' and go an endgame scenario.
A particular quirk may be that when a player has previously attempted a impediment mission against the metaplayer at this 'operational' node the metaplayer will always tack the particular role onto the player's mission.
Roles that can be fitted to any operation are:
- patrol/scout
- hunt
- escort
- defend
- attack
- courier
For example, Murray can offer these roles in operation 'there is no hill'
- patrol/scout: We need to find the pirate carrier, fly to these areas of pirate activity and return (in one piece) when you have found their carrier.
- hunt: When the counterattack starts we can expect their ships to return; fly a patrol around the area and intercept incoming fighters
- escort: We haven't got the money for a proper cruiser with the big fancy guns; so we strapped this Stellar Converter to a plowshare. It's a little slow to so we will need you to escort it into firing position, and keep it intact while it charges, NVM the aftermath.
- defend: pirates are attacking this base, keep them from leaving once the counterattack starts. Oh and ovbiously from blowing me up in the process.
- attack: The pirate carrier is somewhere between these two gates, destroy it.
- courier: Would you mind picking up some supplies, we are running low on milk and ammuntion.
Endgame Scenarios (Spoiler: they all lose!):
- Science Officer Renewill get props from Murray who thought he actually was a dullard.
- launches his end game and passes through the gate with transports full of heavy equipment and scrambles his surveyships to stake a claim ahead of the consortium's only to find a rogue mining operation inplace, and embattled. He stakes an 'official' claim anyways then flees.
- following another faction through the gate a convo between his plowshare and the consortium's carrier begins with a quick point to the lease agreement and how he's screwed unless he stakes a claim to an asteroid of Blah composition here and now; followed by a "Is that so?" and him ejecting the fragments from his hold creating an artificial asteroid of that precise composition; and the obligatory running fight.
- Mr Murray
- Breaks through the gate first ready to fight off the pirates, but finds the orignal expidition is already busy doing so. He joins the battle.
- Doesn't bother being second through the gate with an expidition except to concede gracefuly, concluding that he's broken even anyways and calls it a wash; without his fighter wing he does not participate in the battle.
- Erica "the lass"
- drops through the portal with a transport full of construction equipment and supplies then heads strait for the battered colony ship calling for defenders.
- curses these pirates, jetisons the external cargohold she's hauling and engages them whilst the colonyship and her wares burn. (The colonyship burns either way because it would look cool.)
A short little news article about how {a colony ship intercepted/collided with an equally ancient mining vessel on its return trip after having stripped a system of it's ores. And in the intervening decades these lost ships have drifted near enough to various gates to be detected but not long enough to be intercepted until now- by pirates excited by the prospect of all that ore.} is all that marks the loss of this 'Forsaken' colony to the outside.</br><h2>Final Conditions</h2></br>
Follow-up articles may include:- Investigation has found that the mining vessel locked on to the colony's AVS transponder, mistaking it for it's destination. The lazy bastards who designed it's flight sysyem assumed that it would not encounter any ship and didn't bother with target identification.
Troublingly the consortiums' previously public data shows that there are dozens of the Nemesis class mining ships unaccounted for. - Survivors of the lost colony are now wealthy from mineral exports; however the CEO of this mining concern, E. Arrhenius (ə-rē'nē-əs) mourns the recent loss of her distant family.
The phenominal sucess of this concern continues despite a number of competing claims on the ore itself. - Yjere mining consortium's court battle to take control of the mineral rights citing historical ownership of the lost mining vessel has taken a twist for the bizzare today. The Lloyd's of Longon, the ancient consortium that insured both ships, counter-sued the consortium for the insurance paid plus intrest, now that the ships have been recovered invalidating the original claims made.
Lloyd's has also indicated that they will also pursue damages on behalf of the descendants of their clients citing investigations into other ancient collisions that have conclusively proven that this type of mining vessel was built with wonton disregard for the health and safety of any ship or planet emitting any signal between 10 kHz and 12 gHz.
Lloyd's official comment for why this second claim hasn't been filed yet: "One step at a time." - New exploratory company begins seeding darkspace with observation outposts. Chief Science Officer Rene explains that in darkspace it is possible to observe things without interference, and because of the economic isolation from developed systems these gates have not yet been studied and exploited to their fullest potential.
When asked to elaborate he replied with infectious laughter.
{Under construcion}Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2009 7:00 pm, Back in an hour. wrote:Had to take a food break; posting now because I want some feedback and for the automatic logout to not delete my work.
[...]
Yes, I do know how to use the save feature.Edited: Wed Dec 30, 2009 8:04 pm, Back in an hour. wrote:Forgot this is a garbage night, will need another hour.edited: Wed Dec 30, 2009 11:00 pm, Grrr wrote:^ ><^ I use SVG, screw IE, FireFox renders it fine and the images are both clearer and smaller.
I'll reformat the images and upload in the morning. I need to rest.edited: Thu Dec 31, 2009 10:02 am wrote:No intuitively animated SVGs here, relying on plain old static images and text now.
- rR
- bB
- gG
Stand by. wrote:I think I'm done for now, will edit as needed.
Fixed some typos and changed up the reading order