Sectors, Logistics & Deployment Sectors are collections of systems connected by gate, or political affiliation, or trade ties, or simple location, that are organizational in nature both for the purposes of economy and defense. Ships assigned to patrol do so generally on a sector basis. You can have (in theory) an infinite number of sectors depending on the number of owned hexes you possess. Sectors consist of territories in hexes either adjacent to each other or connected by jumpgate. Ships and squadrons on patrol duty move between these territories and in the event of an attack on them have a chance to be in the area immediately or, respond quicker to incursions. The deployment of forces away from your territory is a significant undertaking. Modern combat starships are complicated, with requirements for munitions, spare parts, and a thousand and one things that can’t simply be printed in a machine shop by fabbers. In order to maintain fighting trim, a complex support structure must be maintained both domestically and for expeditionary forces. In peacetime, only about a third of your active military is available to active deployment. Another third is engaging in training operations, which may enable them to conduct routine patrol and customs duty but not aggressively engage in operations, and the final third is usually undergoing routine maintenance and upgrade operations. The process by which all these ships become more and more ready for protracted operations is known as an alert or DEFCON system. These numbers are determined by the weight of ships on active/patrol/inactive duty. These thirds are determined by final weight. 2.0 to 2.1 Conversion Notes: AM Depots can be refunded at cost into a pool from which one can purchase additional naval bases, dilithium extractors, and up to 10% of your total DI. Listing Deployments: Your active duty fleet can be on patrol in your sectors or listed as part of a sortie (see below) Training/Patrol forces are restricted to only being in your sectors on patrol or defense. Squadrons that are listed as refitting must be deployed to a territory you possess in a sector that is designated as having DI (I have to refine the name of this, but we’re basically going to have players list where their big concentrations of DI are in general amounts). In case of a sudden attack, a percentage of these refitting ships may be available to defend those territorial locations only, with scratch crews and at a reduced efficiency. Sectors: Each sector consists of 1-2 adjacent or gate-connected hexes of mapped space. When determining resource allocations, each sector’s garrison forces need their own resource supply. Some game elements may increase sector size (Cynosural Provinces are just bigger sectors with added bonus functionality). Resource Allocations: Sectors and Sorties each need their own resource supply. One supply of a resource is sufficient to supply both one sector and one sortie’s worth of units. In the event you have more sorties than sectors (maybe you built a bunch of naval bases), each of those sorties needs their own resource supply. Defcon bonus sorties do not require additional resources, as these represent an organic expansion of innate force projection capabilities. Raising DEFCON: Raising DEFCON has to be done gradually as it takes time for ships to be repaired, crews brought to full strength, etc. It takes three game months (IRL week) to raise your DEFCON level and the level can only be raised one step at a time. (Your President can declare it a major emergency all they want, it still takes time to close up ship hulls and get green crew ready for war). The exception is going from DEFCON 2 to 1, which only takes two game weeks (1 IRL day). DEFCON Levels: DEFCON 4: Lowest rating; In a universe with marauding alien superweapons and pirates, no military is ever completely demobilized. One third of your forces can be deployed in sorties, another third can be allocated to internal patrol, any available forces that can be in sorties but can’t due to the lack of sorties weight can be deployed on patrol, and the remaining third are considered “laid up”. (Round and be reasonable. This is determined by weight but if an extra cruiser or destroyer ends up on active deployment that’s fine.) DEFCON 3: Elevated rating: Two thirds of your forces are available for sorties, additional 6% increase to military upkeep spending unmodified by ethos. Patrol forces join active duty ships and ‘laid up’ ships step up to training/patrol. Gain one additional Sortie. DEFCON 2: War Warning: All forces available for deployment, additional 10% increase to military upkeep spending unmodified by ethos. An additional 2% mandatory social spending is levied representing your civilians preparing for war. This cannot be offset or replaced.. Gain two additional Sorties. DEFCON 1: War. All forces available for deployment, each Naval Base produces an additional sortie. 14% additional military spending. There is an additional 4% mandatory social spending representing keeping the civilian population happy that cannot be offset or replaced. Your military spending for a year is determined by the highest DEFCON level you were at any point in the previous year. It can be lowered by additional sources of reduced military spending (ie, Hepatizon, loot from explorations, whatever) For most of your fleet, however, an active effort by your state’s logistics teams must be made to deploy your ships. Ships laid up, obviously, do not need to be deployed, while ships on routine training patrols can draw upon the natural logistical network that exists in your sectors-plenty of supply points internally, bases to dock at, places for shore leave, etc. What requires a larger logistical footprint, however, is deployment of your forces outside your internal sectors. Deployments outside of sectors under the control of you or your allies requires the utilization of specially defined resources. These come in two forms, a sortie or the construction of a forward operating base. The former is easier to utilize, as any military worth its name has a number of these ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. Forward operating bases require the expenditure of time and resources, but when a long term commitment to an area is required that isn’t viable to colonize and develop they may be more desired, so as to free up the logistical resources for other operations. Forward Operating Bases come in three levels, each of which can support one sortie worth of forces regardless of DEFCON level. Forces deployed to a region with a Forward Operating Base do not require a sortie but do have to be from your “active” forces. A Forward Operating Base costs $1500 and one year and can be pre-built and deployed to a region by your forces as they go to that station (But is vulnerable during a yet to be decided “setup” period) Some forward operating bases already begin the game in existence-the United Nations operates the equivalent to a Forward Operating Base for all player states in one location-Tau Ceti, where an international fleet sits on the Manticore Anomaly and hunts Galacteon remnants. Each state has 1 Sortie base, innate to the basic functioning of your military, plus one additional one per naval station constructed. Each Sortie can hold 400 weight of ships. Naval Stations are constructed on gas giant territories you possess and cost $2,000, taking two years to construct. This cost increases by 20% for each additional naval station you possess, representing the additional resource and training cost inherent in being able to forward deploy your fleet. Players begin with 1 naval station per 2000 weight of their total navy (no leftovers, if you have 8200 weight you get 4, not 5) and additional bases may be purchased with trait points. These naval stations replace a colony or dredge in the gas giant territory, generating no income or other resources, but may have a fixed defenses and ground troops assigned to them for security. For the purposes of our rollover, naval stations gotten at the start of ‘37 just can be placed at any gas giant territory. Antimatter depots are being folded into naval stations. Some ships instead have the Expeditionary trait, which allows them to deploy independent of a sortie on missions of exploration, show the flag, or whatever. Your state can deploy 400 weight of ships with the Expeditionary trait free on whatever missions they might need to be. An Expeditionary Base is constructed outside your core territory, costing $1000 and taking one year to deploy, adds another 200 weight to this total. It can have fixed defenses constructed around it. (Thinking they would be built in places like Lalande or Requiem or wherever) Special Deployments and Raw Sortie Weight When determining Sorties ‘required’ for special deployments, use the raw or ‘base hull’ weight of ships sent, instead of any reduced weight value you would otherwise use. In this way, states are not punished by being required to send more ships to do less work because their logistics are lessened by specialization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Below this line is working space and not official. Special Notes/Requirements: The Joint International Fleets at Tau Ceti and New Gettysburg require the active participation of the various powers of the Grid. States designed First Tier powers have to contribute a sortie of active duty and a sortie of training duty warships to the International Fleets, Second Tier a sortie of active duty warships, while Third Tier have to contribute a training duty sortie. If these two deployments fall below an unspecified threshold Bad Stuff Happens. These deployments do not consume a Sortie as the large international bases in those two systems provide sufficient support to supply the large fleets in question. The Hyper Patrol is another international deployment that requires member states to contribute to that pool, to be expounded upon. (This serves as a mechanic to keep some of the bigger fleets at least partially tied down in obligations that have a logical IC basis and that skipping on these commitments can have logical IC consequences) There are practical limits to how many resources can be assigned to any single task. For each level of DEFCON, one Sortie can be allocated to a mission. Thus, at DEFCON 4, only one Sortie can be assigned to a mission such as, for example, a peacekeeping mission in a Demimonde system. Forward operating bases present in combat area allow to assign unlimited forces on a mission. Increased resource focus on a single mission requires a higher DEFCON level and as a result more upkeep. This is a deliberate mechanic to discourage doomstacking a problem.