Fwurg

[Chriz]

((Moderator (Brend): Originally, this thread was in full made in a Roleplay forum. But due to the relevance with respect to the Fleet Battle rules, I have moved it here to be reviewed and referenced from an OOC context.

Thirs thread is originally from Union Politics. Furthermore, I have removed the original OOC tags for readability, and fixed authors to link directly to the OOC accounts.))

Dear members of the cabinet,

We have received a message from the Slave Rebellion that requires our intention."

Ardios shares the message with the other members of the cabinet. Message from Slave Rebellion

"It is clear that the Slave Rebellion is getting desperate. The question is how we will respond.

I would personally call their bluff. Since this is a threat that will be hard to execute it will have massive ramifications on them as well if they execute it. I really do not want to negotiate with these terrorists and retreating our forces is not an option.

We could also respond with a threat against their homeworlds and families, however I don't see much use for that. Ignoring such crazy messages or simply acknowledging that we received them and attacking nonetheless would be my choice.

I understand that Remunzia is not my world, however I would respond the same if this was a threat against Praeto.

The Admirals are planning to continue our attack in less than twelve hours. Ministers, please tell me what you think. "

((OOC: This never happened.))

[Brend]

I am unsure about whether this thread is a possibility — as far as I understand it, the holonet communication in the Remunzian sector is cut off which would mean that messages cannot simply leave. Because communications are crappy, I also doubt whether this would work time-wise, since the events in the thread over there seem to be in a bit of a hurry. And calling all ministers together in a meeting can be done quickly.

On another note, this basically cuts the actual player in that battle out of the decision, which I feel is unfair towards Stuiter; who should be allowed to have a big say in the situation due to her fleet actually being there...

I have PMed Mercury in hopes of hearing back whether the information can be exfiltrated this fast, and therefore whether this meeting makes sense. Until the time that I have a reaction, I'm declaring that my characters is not present.

[Mercury]

This is entirely my fault, I did not communicate my intentions clearly.

The Slave Rebellion admiral who made the threat is not going to wait for the Union to send this back to Unity, have a discussion about it and then make a decision. The event was intended to be forced to be decided at the local level - by the admirals present in the battle.

My preference would be to keep it there

[Chriz]

Ok great, this makes things really hard since we are already fighting for weeks it is impossible to guess the duration of things with such a high abstraction level. Just scrap this topic then....

Still I would like to add as a side note that it is really annoying that you are dropping this roleplaying bomb on saturday at the end of the turn. You are basically delaying the war for another turn without posts. I can not play the Ministry of Defence if all assets go out of sync.

Please note that the situation is working on my nerves in general. The fact that you are asking me to roleplay all the Union fleets, give me only 1 day each turn to make my post and simply delay the war for multiple turns by inactivity.

I am sorry for venting my frustrations like this, however not saying anything and simply quitting in 3 without any communication is not my style. I hope you understand my situation. As I already said at the start of the battle I am having trouble finding the time to roleplay all this fleets and even come up with new ideas to act in such an abstract fight. At the moment I am losing the interest to even keep trying...

[Chriz]

I would like to add that this criticism is not (only) directed at Mercury who is also not having all the time in the world. It is also directed against the Fleet combat system which seems very hard to put in practice to me in my opinion. One simple example is the posting frequency of once per turn that is expected to act in the fleet battles. With the lowered activity of all players I believe it is hard to uphold.

[Mercury]

Timing here is unfortunate, I'll agree and I apologize for that. I have no issue with stepping away from the current "one post a week" speed for the ongoing battles, and perhaps Union subsidies can solve any financial cost to keeping the fleet "battle ready" for longer. Would that help?

My original intention was to put this event up for the players, not for NPC fleets. That's the point of the whole war, player involvement. Since you're a player, I figured you enjoyed doing the battle, even with the Union Fleets instead of your own.

When the battle started, it turned out only NPC fleets had shown up in contrast to my original designs, and the only player fleet was still weeks away. That left me with either hold the battle until the Hiocan fleet arrived (which perhaps I should have done) or running the battle with the NPC fleets. Since I figured you would enjoyed it, I ran for the NPC fleet, though looking back the signs possibly weren't in that direction, and that was an error on my part.

In either case if you aren't having fun, perhaps Stuiter - who is now in the battle - is willing to take command of the Union forces, and let her admiral run her own fleet and the Union Fleet?

Regardless, I don't mind if you delay your post until later, and I have no issue inserting Stuiter when her fleet is ready regardless, that shouldn't cause too much issue. Can you work with that?

[Chriz]

What I meant was that the politics, the turns passed and the roleplay are all out of sync. This does not help for such situations.

I believe handing over the command of the Union fleets would not fix anything. Thanks for the suggestion, however this was not what I intended.

Just venting my frustration helped already a bit I guess. However I propose to carefully review the fleet combat system after this war. Since the coherence with the turn reports, politics and the roleplay options are kind of limited.

[Mercury]

I agree with you completely - the out-of-synch-ness is problematic, and a careful review of the fleet combat system is in order.

Is there anything else I can do to help make things easier for you right now?