Game Mechanics

The following chapter describes important aspects of the game mechanic. The game mechanic influences how the game is played, if it is difficult or simple and how well the powers of the different factions are balanced.

Races / Factions

The races are not really races. There is only one species in the universe: humans. However there are different factions. There are the first foundationers and the second foundationers and possibly a third race (which might be alien).

The first foundationers are superior in research, warfare and economics. They achieve victory by utilizing their enormous resources and technological advantages. A first foundationer type empire is clearly visible as belonging together and is well defined. The first foundationers have only limited spying capabilities. First foundationers can research and build equipment to specifically fight off second foundationers. One such equipment is a mind static device.

The second foundationers are the exact opposite of the first foundationers. Their technology is limited, the have minimal resources and a poor economy. Second foundationers are however able to control the minds of other people and in this fact lies their power. How this plays out in the game is still not clear. Second foundationers do not produce ships and only gather resources in a limited way. They train and recruit members (which takes time). These members, of which different types are available (observers=lowest rank) have different kind of powers. They could for example take over enemy planets or control enemy fleets for a period of time.

Space Travel

Space travel utilizes the hyperspace technology. A ship may jump to hyperspace and instantaneously reemerges at a far away distance. No time passes during hyperspace jumps. Hyperspace jumps are subject to important limitations:

• the further away a hyperspace jump destination is, the more difficult and dangerous the jump itself is; to work around this problem when traveling far is to chain multiple jumps together - depending on the technological advance a jump calculation has to be done between each of those jumps which can extend the travel time
• a jump to hyperspace is dangerous if it is done near solid objects or any mass such as planets, suns, comets or asteroids; therefore the following procedure is advisable: fly out of the solar system, jump next to another solar system, fly to that solar system (to attack)

Flight inside a solar system is at sublight speed and takes a lot of time; this gives a solar system under attack some time to react as an attacking fleet can not jump directly into the solar system to attack it. An empire could also build hyperspace barriers preventing any ships to jump to certain coordinates to protect the core of an empire. An empire could also build hyperspace beacons which would allow jumps closer to solar systems without the risk of damage to fleets. Empires could use those to receive reinforcement from allies in time: an enemy fleet might be near the empire ready to attack moving toward a system or fleet. The fleet might need 8 hours to arrive at it’s destination. An ally with the use of hyperspace beacons might be able to jump in between the enemy and its target. To use the hyperspace beacon an ally has to receive a password set by the owner of the beacon. The password is used to decode the hyperspace beacon signal. Second foundationers might be able to obtain the password of the hyperspace beacon through other means and use them to attack.

Resources

For first foundationers the main resource is metal, silicon and some type of nuclear material. For second foundationers the main resource is people capable of becoming a second foundationers. They require metal, silicon and nuclear material in far smaller amounts.