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+--- Thread: BSE Phoenix - tale of a new captain (/showthread.php?tid=321)
BSE Phoenix - tale of a new captain - ixnay - 12-08-2011
I have signed on with the "free" option in Beyond the Stellar Empire, as seen at this web site:
http://www.kjcgames.com/phoenix/nexus/index.php
You can play indefinitely if all you ever run are ships and ground parties. As soon as you want to run a starbase or a "political" position, you need to subscribe with the moderators for a regular charge. But I am approaching this as a complete novice, so that's what I'll be writing about here.
BSE is an open-ended science fiction space-opera type game, with computer and human moderation. I have absolutely no experience with this genre, so I will be learning (and documenting) as I go.
My first impression is that KJC is very professional, and knows how to put up a good web site. There is abundant online documentation, and you can basically run your turns right out of the browser. There is also an active discussion forum, which I will look forward to joining at some point.
Upon setting up a new login, you can set up a starting position as a starship captain in a neutral (but centrally-located) part of space. You go through a series of questions on what race you want to be, which of 3 starter ship hulls you want, a name for your commanding officer, etc. I went for a human crew with a surveyor ship -- not the fastest, but has some serviceable cargo space. All of this was pretty straightforward.
Then there came a suggestion to begin the "starter mission". I am not too clear on how "missions" work. Apparently I was invited to take part in a survey mission of a nearby planet. To begin, I needed to get to the planet where the "customer" was. I wasn't sure which planet *I* was on yet. But at the bottom of the mission page there was a link that sent me to the "Orders" page, where I can "submit" my orders that the "mission" already prefilled for me to get me to the target.
I did that, but still saw in "Incomplete" flag on the status of that particular mission. I now believe that's because while I had submitted the orders, they hadn't been processed yet. The next day, I apparently arrived at my destination, and was presented with a series of options on executing the survey mission.
Do I want to land? Do I want to contact the locals or go in quiet? Do I want to ignore illegal salvagers or engage them? Simple mission options, and they seemed to follow a pre-planned model. By the end of that day, apparently I bounced those salvagers, took some jewelry as booty, took some casualties, and sent them fleeing. I don't know what kind of jewelry or how much, nor do I know how badly my crew was hurt. But apparently my survey work on the surface is complete and I am now en route back to my customer with their data in hand. I am supposed to be rewarded with an upgrade to my ship's sensor array. We shall see.
All of this is entertaining, if a little confusing. What REALLY has me going are these little glimpses to the larger universe I am getting.
First, I can see space-scan reports wherever my ship travels, and take note of interstellar commerce, which is quite abundant. Each ship name is prefixed by their affiliation code -- one of the large player-run teams that control some aspect of the game and that set the context for in-game role-playing.
Second, I see that every aspect of my ship and crew is being tracked in meticulous detail -- what my maintenance status is, crew skill levels, space combat profiles and stats, very fine-grained and deep. This is what computers are good at, and why I think many PBM games have failed to exploit the vast computational and tracking powers available to all of us today.
Third, I found that EVERY PLANET in this game has a visual ground map. With thousands of planets -- that is a LOT of data! Once I get my feet wet, I am going to savor the idea of snooping around all over known space to find what fate throws me among such rich detail!
Now about those affiliations. Everyone starts out in the "Trainee" group, which is somewhat protected from combat and exploitation for a while. I did get in-game emails from 3 different affiliations. Apparently people take notice when new players sign up. I looked through the affiliate descriptions and submitted a request to join one of them. I clicked the wrong one, however, and got a reply from a fourth affiliation gently suggesting that I finish going through the "training" missions before joining anyone.
So that's what I'm doing now. I will go through every "startup" mission I can and see how far that takes me. I'll see if I can learn what other types of actions I can take. I will read through the extensive documentation. And I may dip into the player forum.
All in all, a promising start, if somewhat confusing.
RE: BSE Phoenix - tale of a new captain - Matrim - 12-09-2011
Glad you are having a go. The Trainee missions are intended to introduce you to the various order types without having to learn what they are/do and as you move through the missions they will get more complicated. It was useful to me to see the auto orders the missions had issued as they then showed what was done to carry out the actions.
With the affiliations some aggressively recruit but most are more re-active to you messaging them.
It might not help but here is my list to what the affiliations are like in terms of films/books/country in history in my own opinion (I have missed several affiliations that I am not that familiar with) but it does give an idea of the flavour of some of the affiliations....If you want any advice then please respond with what you like/want to do or how you play games such as this and I can try and point you in the right direction.
Joss.
Affiliation/ Film / Book / Country
BHD / Priest / 40k Universe (word bearers) / Crusaders or the inquisition
IMP / Alliance in firefly or star wars empire / Prussia 18th-19th century/
AFT Deep Space 9 / Vatta Series / Venice 15-16th cent or east india cmp/
CNF Starcraft confederacy / Starship troopers / South in American Civil War/
DTR Battlestar Galactica/ The fleet / 18th cent England or Republican Rome/
CIA Matrix style Agent smith / Mission Earth / Soviet Russias KGB/
FET Ferengi in star trek / The fleet (syndicate side) Mongols/
GTT Alien universe / Lt leary novels / The North in American civil war/
DEN Klingons, Dog soldier wolves / The fleet (Khaleri side) / Vikings/
Liquan Dune House / Dune House / Sun King in france/
Ravenstone Dune House / Dune House / Romanov Russia/
WMB Cuddly ones in gremlins / Midgit race in old mans war /
SMS / GAP Series / America/
Hive Starship troops alien or tyrranid /
MOH / Foundation humans / Dutch traders 16th cent or port/spanish later /
RE: BSE Phoenix - tale of a new captain - ixnay - 12-09-2011
Matrim - thanks for those descriptions of the affiliations! Concise and instantly evocative! I am going to have a hard time picking just one.
I had been waiting, but apparently my last turn was on-hold with a question for me. My unnamed "investors" have taken note of my successful survey operation, and wish to double down and grant me a 2nd ship. I was given a choice between a small sleek courier or a large-ish freighter. I went for the freighter, thinking I might want to dabble in interstellar trade first, and hold off on the interstellar intrigue.
But this leads me to wonder who these "investors" are, and whether I do in fact owe them any return on their investment. It might just be a narrative device, but I think it would be interesting to have hefty loans to pay off. Good for a backstory.
So I am to wait until a turn-cycle is run before my new ship arrives. Perhaps tomorrow...
RE: BSE Phoenix - tale of a new captain - ixnay - 12-13-2011
My second ship has arrived!
I now have two ships working on two different missions. Multitasking! The new freighter is en-route to a nearby star system to deliver "farm tools". There has been a bit of narrative intrigue here -- I was given the option to "inspect" the sealed cargo and found guns, but chose to keep mum and deliver them anyway. I am leaning toward the role-play of an opportunistic trader, and not so much interstellar police officer. Maybe it will bite me in the end, but hey.
My survey cruiser has accepted a salvage mission. This time, the order to move to the target system and planetary coordinates were NOT prepared for me automatically. While I think this is a great way to teach players, it would be helpful to make that transition explicit. All I got was a message that my mission is "incomplete", and noticed the absence of the typical "your orders have been prepared..." message.
So now I've got 2 ships moving to 2 different systems. Starting next post, I will write "in character", dropping to "out of character" only when there are mechanical or interface issues to discuss/review.
RE: BSE Phoenix - tale of a new captain - Matrim - 03-30-2012
Theres an interesting (well to me) discussion up on the Nexus at the moment. A new starter left one of his ships in the same location in outer space and a pirate found it and boarded it. The new player was not happy (fluffy) and dropped so the discussion is around protection for new players. Interesting to see if you have a viewpoint on this.
Have you joined an affiliation yet by the way? If not if you say what you want to do or like doing and I can try and point you towards the one that matches.
Joss.