For each: What does it do (short). How does it do it. How to get in/How to participate.
This thread gives an overview over the six organisations SAGT contains. Each player can be a member of at most one organisation.
Council
Members: Council Members Head: President of the Colonies
The council are the game-masters of the Galactic Threat and ensure that everything runs smoothly. They decide upon important gameparameters and about the length and starts of new seasons. All major changes of the game are decided by the Council. Furthermore they decide who is head in the other organisations.
As you see the Council consolidates a lot of power, but - as they say - it also bears a huge responsibility, in fact they are responsible for the game as a whole. For this reason only experienced players, who have proven themself in various ways, can be voted into the Council. Besided a number of soft skills a member needs to contain, to qualify for the Council, that person also needs to have been a member of one of the organisations in the previous seasons. Qualifying for the Presisdent of the Colonies you even need to be one of the previous' seasons organisation heads.
The Council is elected at the end of each season. The voting system is determined by the Research Lab during the running season, but as a rule holds: All members are allowed to elect qualified players into the Council. The President of the Colonies is then determined by the Council itself.
Star Command
Members: Admirals Head: Commander in Chief
Star Command has control over the ships, which enroll into the army. They plan against the aliens and try their best to defeat them, wherever possible. In principle each Admiral of Star Command commands a given number of ships, which is a fraction of all ships in the army. They are responsible for their fleet and have to watch out, that their ships are used for their best advantage. To perform this task they need to keep track of the capabilities of the men and women they command, as well as the power of the ships. Also they need to take the delicate decission of which ship to send on deadly mission (i.e. campaigns in which the crew can actually die!). They are responsible of defending the colonies against the aliens. To become a member of Star Command you must have been enrolled in the army in previous season or been a member of Star Command in the previous season already.
As the Council Star Command is elected at the end of each season. The voting system is determined by the Research Lab during the running season, but as a rule holds: All members are allowed to elect qualified into Star Command. The Council then decides, which member of Star Command becomes the Commander in Chief.
Scouts
Members: Scout Head: The Ranger
Scouts control all alien movements. They determine where the aliens strike and which routes suffer a high frequency of alien occurences. For this they have to plan alien ressources (which are dependent on the number of active players in a season). They have to reveal most of their movements in newscasts, however can keep parts of their movements hidden to make surprising strikes. They are responsible for the aliens being a constant threat, which behaves in an intelligent way. To become a Scout a player must have been in the army in previous season or been a scout in the previous season already. By being a scout that player decided to not be a part of an active crew. He cannot fly missions, wether on a civilian nor on a military ship.
As the Council Scouts are elected at the end of each season. The voting system is determined by the Research Lab during the running season, but as a rule holds: All members are allowed to elect qualified to be Scouts. The Council then decides, which member of the Scouts becomes the Ranger.
The Guilds
Members: Guild-Leaders Head: Head-Merchant
The Guilds define supply and demands of ressources by creating them in corresponding production centers and using them for building new infrastructures. Each Guildmaster is responsible for producing and distributing one (set of) ressource type(s), they earn their space-bucks by selling from their production centers to ships and other Guild-Leaders if they have a office at the same location. They can then use this money to buy from ships or other production centers or to build new infrastructure. The Guilds are responsible for giving ships both: Opportunities to make their salary, as well as providing infrastructure for repairings, upgrades and military assistance. The Head-Merchant is responsible for overall organisation as well as managing the colonies warehouses from which each Guild-Leader can buy. To qualify for the Guilds you need to have played at least one season of SAGT.
As the Council the Guild-Leaders are elected at the end of each season. The voting system is determined by the Research Lab during the running season, but as a rule holds: All members are allowed to elect the Guild-Leaders. The Council then decides, which member of the Guilds becomes Head-Merchant.
The Research Lab
Members: Researchers Head: Dean
The Research Lab is concerned with the Galactic Threat itself. They collect and discuss ideas about how to improve the experience of SAGT. They test these ideas and gather feedback from members. They also think about new rules, contents and add-ons. The Researchers responsibility is to keep SAGT non-repetitive and a better experience, with each day passing. Also they have the very important task of setting the voting system for SAGTs organisations, which needs to be adapted each season to the number and wishes of players. To qualify for the Research Lab you need to have played at least one season of SAGT. However each player - being a Researcher or not - is encouraged to participate in discussions happening in the Research Lab and throw his ideas into the Ring.
As the Council the Researchers are elected at the end of each season. The voting system is determined by the Research Lab during the running season, but as a rule holds: All members are allowed to elect the Research Lab. The Council then decides, which member of the Research Lab becomes Dean.
The Academy
Members: Scholars Head: Headmaster of the Academy
The academy is concerned with checking applications and making sure every member has a warm welcome in the beginning. They introduce you into the game and standby for any beginners questions. But their scope of duties does not end there. They seek for new members, bringing SAGT into the public, to gather as many players suited for SAGT as possible. Their responsibility is to bring fresh blood into the system of SAGT, which is very important for the survival of an online gaming community. To qualify for the Academy you need to have played at least one season of SAGT. However each player - being a Scholar or not - is encouraged to participate in discussions happening in the Academy and recruit members on his own.
As the Council the Academy is elected at the end of each season. The voting system is determined by the Research Lab during the running season, but as a rule holds: All members are allowed to elect the Academy. The Council then decides, which member of the Academy becomes the Headmaster of the Academy.
Before joining SAGT, it is of crucial importance that you are not only familiar to the Code of Ethics. During your stay, we want you to live and act in accordance with it. We want you to understand the reasons why the Code of Ethics looks like it does and behave in correspondingly. The Code of Ethics holds to all members of SAGT in the same way, without any exceptions.
If our Code of Ethics or parts of it, is something you can not uphold to, then SAGT is not the place you should go.
Section 1: Administration
The administration of SAGT is performed by the current Council Members and all members, which have the Administrator-tag. They are the game-masters of the current season of SAGT and are legitimated to enforce the Code of Ethics by using measures as they see appropriate. These measures range from (and are not limited to) editing posts up to perma-banning users. The administrators actions are considered presumptively fair so long as they are undertaken in furtherance of maintaining the integrity of the game and its community.
Section 2: Cheating
A large part of SAGT is built upon trust between its users. Intentional cheating is strictly forbidden. There are no reasons for users to cheat under any circumstances. SAGT is played along the additional rule-sets, which can be found here. Users are expected to be up to date about any rulechanges, which might have occured.
Section 3: Conduct
All members of SAGT handle each other respectfully, regardless of their age, gender, nationality, race, religious beliefs or sexual orientation. SAGT is a community open for all users. The same rules apply for all applicants.
As an international game the language of all communications in SAGT is english. You are suppossed to understand english texts and compose such texts yourself. All public texts are supposed to be written in english.
Language of adult or offensive nature will not be tolerated, this rule is independent of the form of communication (chat, forums, email, external links etc.). Nobody wants to be offended. Also mind that on the other end a person might sit, which frowns upon any loose language, e.g. parents playing this game together with their young children.
Members of SAGT will not issue any real-world religious or political statements. This is a place to game and not to debate. Keep any political or religious jokes to yourself, there are enough other things to talk about and make fun of. You do not know, if even a casual political or religious statement is disliked by any other member, even if you think you do.
It is expected of all members to actively work towards a friendly and respectful community.
Section 4: Roleplaying
SAGT allows for great amounts of roleplaying, which is encouraged. If you encounter a situation, which you can solve in a roleplaying and a non-roleplaying way, we would like to see you opt the roleplaying way. However, this is not a rule and there might be various reasons to go for non-roleplaying solutions.
Roleplaying is no excuse to break any of the other points made in this Code of Ethics. If you see yourself in the "dilemma" of breaking the Code of Ethics or not roleplaying, you always go for "not roleplaying".
Section 5: Participation
There is no minimum requirement of games you need to play to enjoy SAGT. However be aware, that a a lot of design decissions of SAGT rely on the assumption, that all members in SAGT are active members. If you are an inactive member you are effectively disrupting the course of a SAGT-season.
We also strongly encourage members to contribute to SAGT in any possible form. Especially be active in the Research Lab (to help improving the SAGT-experience), make SAGT public, recruite new members, as well as show interest into the organizations of SAGT.
We all have real life issues and commitments. Especially gathering the crew can be a tough challenge, when members are busy in real life. There is no shame in skipping a season, just inform an administrator about it and they can adjust game parameters accordingly. You can come back for every other season any time.
I imagine SAGT as an international roleplaying game. It should be populated by mature players, who have a natural way to get along with each other. The main objective of it is, that everybody has fun using SAGT to give their Space Alert rounds more context.
I want to see collaboration, deals and agreements, enthuisiasm, dedication and in the case of the military part of SAGT even morale and discipline and the hazy thing called honor. I would like to see how Space Alert Players worldwirde cheer, then they see how a huge collective efford pays off, when they were able to hit a heavy blow on the Alien's side. Also after such a blow I want to see the scouts appreciate that efford and virtually "shake hands" with the admirality, like gentlemen would do.
I want to see people roleplay and finding together, investing into SAGT and get paid off, by finding new friends worldwide. I want to see how captains and crew-members get emotionally bonded to what happens in their world of SAGT.
I'm aware that this is a big vision and it will be super hard to achieve that, and I might be a bit of a dreamer here. However, it has been done before: There are great communities throughout the interwebs, which prove that the above is possible. One thing they seem to have in common are two things:
1) They did formulate a "Code of Ethics"
2) There is some kind of application process.
The first one is needed to have a basis on which you built your community upon. It's the thing you present new members and say "If you can't play to this rules, please go somewhere else.". It is also the document, which authorizes the administration to keep up the law. Without this, actions like degrading, bans and permabans, appear hapharzardly.
The second one filters a large percentage of people, who came to troll. If there is no application involved, chances people join, who never even skimmed the Code of Ethics, rise dramatically. The application process does not need to be super-strict, but it must be more than: "Sign up here. Welcome to the club".
So a necessary condition to get the community as I envision it, is a Code of Ethics, which encourages the spirit of SAGT and together with that a fitting application procedure. This is a delicate task and will be never "finished", since it needs to adapt to the needs and wishes of the community of SAGT.
Before you apply to SAGT, we would like you to read our Code of Ethics. It is important that you have read it and comply to it, if you want to join SAGT, since as a member of SAGT you are suppossed to act in accordance to our Code of Ethics.
Become an Applicant
After you have read the Code of Ethics you need to sign up to our forum. Click the link in the right upper corner and follow the instructions to do that. You will receive an email with more instructions to follow, check your SPAM-Folder if you did not receive one. After confirming your registration to the forums in the mail you can sign in. You will not that you are an applicant now. As applicant you can read (not not post) in the subforums: Space Station Alpha, The Research Lab, The Academy and Earth. Take your time and look around these forums to get a better view on what SAGT is.
Also with the status of an applicant you are now allowed to post in the Application Area and Visitors Bar. You can use the latter to get into contact with other applicant and full-members. Chat and mingle here. All kind of off-topic stuff also goes in here, no matter, if you are an applicant or full-member (remember that, then you became a full-member). You can also use this place to introduce yourself in a non-formal way.
The Application Area is the next step you need to take, to become a full member.
Become a Full-Member
In the application area you can post your application. Post exactly one application. It is easier for us, if all applications follow the same format, so please copy and paste the following text and insert it, when opening your application thread (don't bother the line-numbers, they will not be copied). Replace then all textblocks between three dashes --- by your answers and open the thread. Remember that your applications should allow us to get an idea of who you are and why you want to join SAGT. Don't just write "something" for the sake of giving an answer. Think carefully about what you write and give us some insights about yourself. Be honest and elaborate, but don't overboard. Plese also spellcheck your answers. If you do it right, we will get the impression of a mature, nice human, we would love to have in our community and your application will go through very soon.
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[h1]Your Nickname:[/h1] ---your nick--- [h1]Age:[/h1] ---your age--- [h1]Have you read and comply to the Code of Ethics?[/h1] ---your answer goes here--- [h1]How have you found out about SAGT?[/h1] ---your answer goes here--- [h1]Did you know any members of SAGT prior to coming here?[/h1] ---your answer goes here--- [h1]What part of SAGT interests you most? Why?[/h1] ---your answer goes here--- [h1]Anything else you want to say?[/h1] ---anything else you want to say goes here. Delete this (but not the above heading), if you don't have anything else to say :) ---
After your appliance you need to wait for us to decide about your application. If everything is fine, you will be a full-member a few days later. If not, you will be informed about the reasonsa and might need to re-apply. If your application will go through an administrator will change your status from Applicant to Full-Member, which allows you to fully enjoy the world of SAGT.
In fact playing SAGT is not much different from playing Space Alert with your friends. The board game is still the main part of the game and decides most of all, how succesfull you and your crew are. The basic board game is (almost) not altered, so you are familiar with the most complicated part of SAGT already :)
SAGT adds another layer of decision-making and consequences on top of Space Alert. Decisions you usually make before you start your round of Space Alert and between missions. The said consequences depend on your performance during your missions and are resolved after missions. An example makes this clear:
You enter the world of SAGT with your Space-Ship - the Fortunate - on planet earth and a handful of space-bucks
You look up the prices for different ressources you could buy on earth and sell on Andromeda 1. You find out that there is a good difference in the price of stainless steel, hence you decide to transport a few tons of that, leaving you a ncie cut.
The route from Earth to Andromeda 1 is rather short and only takes 2 hyperjumps. Leaving you floating at lower than light speed (LTLspeed) only once on your journey (one jump into midspace. Recharging your FTL-drives and another jump to reach Andromeda 1).
You fight the threats and got a little damage on the blue section main laser.
You sell the steanless steel and earn your space-bucks. Repairing the laser at andromeda 1 is rather low-prized so you are left with a good amount of space-bucks to continue your travels.
As you see only the bold part of the above is really concerned with playing Space Alert, while the rest is before- and afterhand decision-making. In fact this is the idea of SAGT: Giving your usual game of SA a deeper story and more context, while leaving the game as much as it is.
Interacting with the world of SAGT
Sticking to the above example there are a number of points, at which you and your ship interacts with the organizations of SAGT:
First you buy steanless steel at earth, diminishing the available amounts by some tons, while paying a few space-bucks into earths cash box.
You fight alien threats. Their level is determined by the activities of the aliens (which in turn are given by the actions the Scouts have decided on).
You arrive at Andromeda 1 and sell your steel. This leaves Andromeda 1 with more steel and less money.
You repair your lasers. This gives Andromeda 1 a few Space-Bucks back you just took from them.
All these actions require communication between you and the world of SAGT in some way. One of the purposes of these forums is to make this communication possible (while for future seasons another medium might be used...). In our example this would mean the following:
There is a Thread "Earth" in the Subforum "Sector 1" telling you what kind of ressources are available for which price on planet earth. You tell the Guild-Leader that you buy one ships loading of steanless steel, by posting a reply on the corresponding thread.
Then you set off for your journey. To determine how difficult the aliens are in the midspace between Earth and Andromeda 1 you check the News-Subforum and switch there to the "Threats on Trade-Routes" channel. You see, that the route is quite safe (only white threats) and play the game with your friends according to this information.
After your game you post your actions into the "Andromeda 1"-Thread: Selling your Steel and buying a laser-repair.
To keep everybody out there informed on what cool stuff you and your crew encountered on your very first mission you make a log-entry in your ships Thread, in the Sub-Forum: Civilian Ships. This does not have any hard consequences (except telling the world out there, that you encountered only white threats between earth and Andromeda 1. But this, as said, had been in the news anyway...) and serves only for your private documentation or social interaction with other players.
But,... Cheaters!?
So how on earth (no pun intended) are we protected against cheaters, with the above system? The short answer: We are not. If someone really wants to cheat, there is no way we can ultimately avoid that. This is since a very important part of the game is played in our living rooms. The best counter-measure against this is, to make sure we have a nice, friendly, polite and well-mannered community. This is why the joining process to SAGT is rather slow and the tolerance for breaking the forums rules is low. Most cheaters have a tendency to be impatient and rude, so by taking these two measures, most of the cheaters hopefully stay out of our game. Having a good community is our weapon against cheaters.
Still you might be concerned that there are cheaters around and you are right to do so. As said there is no 100% protection.
But hold on for a minute and let's think about how their cheating affects your game: At most they indirectly influence it, messing around with the numbers in different places like prices, storage of ressources and such. They can't crawl into your living room destroying your game. You are still playing Space Alert with your close friends at your table and experience the consequences by using the Galactic Threat. In fact all they can cheat on, is thereself. So if they really want to: who cares?
For some reason you might be still on the search for other players cheating and you find evidence of them doing so. Whatever you do, don't just accuse anybody being a cheater! There are several reasons you might think somebody is cheating and he or she is in fact not. This ranges from you missing something, till the subjected person just made a mistake in his or her calculations. Accussing somebody of cheating publicly is just poison for our community and there is a zero-tolerance on that. If you have the feeling somebody breaks the rules the correct behaviour of you is to collect evidence. If you have done that and are still really, really sure that the subject is cheating, you can present a council member your evidence. By all means, do this never in any public way. The council members are the ones, which lead the games of the Galactic Threat and they are the only authority to decide about somebody being banned or even accused as cheaters. Always keep that in mind.
I don't want to cheat unintentionally! What can I do?
You might be concerned doing mistakes, crunching numbers or anything such. There are a number of counter-measures you can put on your play to avoid that, all them fairly simple and some of them might be even fun for you and your crew.
It essentially boils down to one sentence: Don't play the Galactic Threat alone.
Make sure the other crewmembers know about what you are doing, crunch the numbers together, read the same posts and learn the rules of the Galactic Threat together. Four eyes see more than two and the ten eyes of a full Space Alert Crew sees even more. But you don't need to stop there. This forum allows users to cultivate their own blog. It's easy to reach via the players profiles. Use this blog to make Captains-Logs or Crew-Members-Logs. Tell us about your crazy journeys! How you escaped the Nebula Crab in last second. How you finally defeated your Nemesis and brought tons of food to the almost starving Space Station in Sector 2-Gamma! Keeping these "diaries" can be very enjoying, for you, your crew and also for the rest of the community. Heck, you might even think about live-streaming/recording your living-room plays, open yourself to the community completely. We all love this game and are interested to see how other crews play and get along. Exchange your experience with other crews and find friends. Keeping your journeys open to the community gives you even more eyes watching what you are doing, than the ten eyes of your crew. Eliminating faults and typos is than done not only by you, but by all your fellows.
The Galactic Threat is a Roleplaying Game
Before I let you delve into the deeper mechanics of the Galactic Threat, I want to talk a bit more about SAGT being a roleplaying game, as already indicated above. Always remember that there are two persons you might speak to: First there is the real world player, just a Space Alert player like you and me. Second there is always the role they play in their game. They might be the captain of their ship, being proud, ordering their crew around and never forgive a bad word you said about his ship. Or she might be a mechanic always being grunty and bad-tempered. This however, does not mean that the player herself is grunty and bad-tempered. So if she is In-Game and is unfriendly to you this is nothing you should take personally. It is something your character should take personally.
While this distinction allows for being somewhat of a meany, it does not cancel the code of ethics, which we want to uphold in our community, like no swearing (you never know who's reading on the other side, even if you know that person well. There might be children for example), no racism and so on... (read about the code of ethics here [link]). I know this effectively limits you in your freedom of what you could play In-Game, but without this restriction our code of ethics would be useless and we don't want players insulting other players on purpose, while hiding under the excuse of being "in-game". The code of ethics ensures we have a nice community you feel welcome in and this is just more important, than anything else in SAGT.
What is a season?
SAGT is organized in seasons, which range about a few months. We want SAGT to be improved continuously to keep it fun and fresh. Depending on how many players there are and what they want to do, adjustments need to be done. To not interrupt the running game we set points at which the game starts and stops. Some changes are hard to perform in a running game and hence will be implemented between seasons. This also gives players the opportunity to change roles, a former admiral can swap to the scouts for the next season, no harm done.
How is SA altered, when playing SAGT?
As already mentioned in the beginning of this post, we want the experience of SA unaltered as much as possible. However there are a few little things, which need a change. We will not cover every situation here for the new rules, but give you an idea of what is changed:
Only fixed length Campaigns: Due to the nature of SAGT you always fly campaigns and we no longer make a distinction between campaigns and missions. Missions are basically just campaigns with one stop. If you are playing with the experience system of the expansion The New Frontier you can handle One-Stop-Campaigns as Missions for the issue of ticking of Mission-Achievements. The length of your Campaigns is determined by the route you fly and you can't abort them or continue them beyond the intended number of stops, as described in the rulebooks. You can however use your distress drive (see below), after surviving any stop, to abort a campaign.
Freight: Your ship does have a cargo area, which you use to trade. This is essential for earning space-bucks. The structural damages your ship can take hit your cargo area, meaning: If you reveal a structural damage for the blue/white/red section of your ship all your cargo in that sections cargo area is lost and useless. You can't sell whatever was inside there. Further you can't use this cargo area until you have repaired it.
Provisional repairs: During campaigns you can only perform provisional repairs, which hold for the rest of the campaign. You need to keep track of what parts of your ship got damaged during a campaign, since repairing them permanently will cost you some space-bucks. If you do not repair damages permanently you will start your next campaign with all old damage (provisional repairs from last campaign are no longer valid). This old damage can't get provisional-repaired during the current campaign.
Ship Upgrades: At certain stations you can upgrade your ship for some space-bucks. These upgrades mostly concern some parts of your ship, which can get damaged. If these parts ar damaged, most of the time your upgrades are gone and you need to re-upgrade. How exactly upgrades work is described at the place you can buy them (i.e. the corresponding station-thread/station-subforum).
In General No Perma-Death: Unless you sign up for a deadly mission your ship will not destroyed completely. The next generation of ducklings we are playing with have a distress drive, which automatically triggers, if the ship suffers to much damage. It will jump your ship to the next available location, which is the point you have started your current campaign (if you have not completed half of the campaign yet) or your destination (if you have completed half of the campaign). However you still have encountered severe damage on your ship and without permanent repairings of at least one damage (the "seventh" damage on each station, which took more than six damage), you can't start your next campaign.
Determine Threat Level and Mission Type: Instead of negotiating the threat level with your crew, you instead look on the map (in the sector-forum you are in) to see what the current threat level on your route is. The same holds for the decission if you are playing with the expansion or not and if you are playing a double-action campaign (only concerns the expansion). All this is determined by the route you take. Don't worry though, there are enough routes to choose from, such that you have a wide range of campaign-types to choose from.
No No-Cloning-Rule (Only New Frontier Expansion): Since there is (almost) no permadeath the No-Cloning-Rule in the New Frontier Expansion is useless. Level your crew as if they all would be cloning, although story-wise they actually don't. If you are flying a deadly campaign (i.e. one where permadeath IS enabled) and your ship is destroyed your crew died. In this case you have to get a new level 0 crew, which again plays with the No No-Cloning-Rule
No House Rules: SAGT assumes you are playing with the rules as found in the box of your game. There are a few balancing issues, which the different organizations have to consider. If you alter your game, you effectively modify the difficulty level you play, which then no longer matches the difficulty level SAGT thinks you are playing. Hence for experiencing SAGT as it is intended to, you can't use house rules.
Today I started the SAGT-Project. Space Alert - the Galactic Threat is going to be a metagame stacked on top of the ingenius board game Space Alert by Vlaada Chvátil.
Before the first season of SAGT can start a lot of stuff needs to be done first:
The forums must be setup, tons of information pages are needed to be written.
Also I must think of a complete rule system for the Scouts and the Guilds. I am thinking about ressource points for the Threat, which depends on the number of players actively flying missions in SAGT. For the Guilds a multi-ressource system is needed with different kind of buildings, they can set on planets or into space - as space stations. Constructing those buildings needs ressources of different kinds. On the other hand buildings offer benefits like resource incomes, money or upgrade options for ships. How to structure the guild-leaders is another thing I need to think about. Currently I'm thinking about one Guild-Leader being responsible for one kind of ressource. An alternative would be to separate Guild-Leaders power by making them responsible for different (sub)sectors.
A map is needed, also what is placed in the beginnings.
Additional rules for SA are needed to implement the concepts of freight
Exploration chances for new systems need to be thought off
Voting systems for the council and the other organizations
...
Well as said a lot of stuff needs to be done and the above list is far from complete. However the biggest problem in the beginnings will be to get a players base. I'll try to set up a first prototype of SAGT as soon as possible, being not so fancy as I imagine it right now to be in the future. This prototype will start season "zero", which will be the first to attract players and to test stuff like User-Rights etc. Hopefully a few Captains join SAGT, such that all important positions can be maned.
Space Alert - The Galactic Threat (SAGT) is a game, which is stacked on top of the cooperative board game Space Alert (SA). In SA you are a one to five person crew, which has been put in charge of a spaceship of the duckling-class. The mission: Hyperjump into an uncartographed sector and survive against various threats until your boardcomputer has finished scanning. After that the ship jumps back. One of such rounds takes about 20 - 30 minutes game time. So you usually play several rounds in one game evening.
Although the boardgame SA is quite challenging, with a well co-operating crew and a captain who knows how to direct it, you can perform well. However, some players - as myself - might be bothered by a lack of purpose of these cartographing missions. You play missions or a series of missions, but there is nowhere "to go".
This is where this homepage - The Galactic Threat - comes into play. It adds purpose to the missions you fly and sets them in a much larger context. This is done by the following features:
A map of neighbouring galaxies, containing different habitated solar systems, planets and space stations, you can travel between.
Trade with the habitants of these locations and earn your spacebucks. See the colonies grow using the material YOU brought to them.
Spend the earned money to upgrade your ship or repair the damage your ship has taken from the last fligts.
Explore new areas of space to find more habitable areas. Maybe the next solar system will be named after you!
Defend the colonies against the alien threats, either as civilian or...
... enroll into the army, benefitting from their special support. But prepare to be loaded with responsibilities also!
One (of the many) special thing about SAGT is: All decissions made in SAGT are made from human players like you and me. There is no AI, only rules you need to play along. Which Colony offers and needs which kind of ressources? --> It's determined by a human player. The same holds for questions like: Where will you be ordered next, when fighting in the Army? Where and how strong will the alien threat strike next? What are they after? Which trade routes are especially dangerous these days? All of these are player's decissions.
You might say: Wait a minute! Where is no way to implement this stuff into the board-game Space Alert. This is true and this is the reason we need this homepage. If you look around, you see a lot of information, concerned with different kind of announcements and also subforums, which are about the meta-game SAGT and how to improve it. Also you might notice several subforums closed for most users. This is where the magic happens ;)
But let's slow down. To understand how SAGT is organized, it's easiest to present the different in-game organizations it consists of:
The council: The council consists of experienced players, who volunteered to keep things running. A lot of moderation, administration and organisation needs to be done in SAGT and the council members take care of that. Also they decide on who claims the chairs of leading the other organisations.
Space Command: You can think of the members of Space Command and the Guilds (see next section) as the decission makers opposing the alien threats. Space Command takes the role of the army: They defend solar systems and spacestations and push the aliens back into their territory. It's they you call, if there is trouble rising. Each ship (played by you and your other crew-members) can enroll into the army and fight the aliens at the front. You will get special support for that, however you also have to do your duty: Orders which lead you to dangerous places and might mean the end to you, your crew and your ship. The activities of Space Command is led by their admirals and their Commander in Chief. They lay out their strategy and order military ships to the places they are needed.
The Guilds: The players being member of the guilds are responsible for building and repairing infrastructures. They can't order ships like the Space Command, but stimulate players activities by setting selling and buying prices. Space Command and Guilds work close together, building an alliance against the alien threat. The Guilds are led by Guild Leaders and their Head-Merchant.
The Scouts: Scouts are a bit tricky and for explaining them we need the terms "In-Game" and "Out-of-Game". Out-of-Game always refers to the real world, your hand touching the mouse and your eyes seeing your computer screen is all Out-of-Game. In-Game is the world you imagine yourself in, when playing a game. If you play a PC-shooter for example, the shotgun your game-figure carries is an In-Game entity, as well as your game-figure lives In-Game. This clarified it's much easier to explain the duality of Scouts: In-Game they are a network consisting of spying satellites, informants and, well, scouts. They collect information about the alien activities and relay it to Space Command as well as broadcast it as news. Hence as In-Game characters they are on the side of humanity, helping to defend against the Galactic Thead. However: Out-of-Game they oppose the other players! They make the moves for the aliens and decide on their measures, like attacks, movements or reinforcing their armies. The Scouts leader is the so-called Ranger.
The Academy: In-Game the Academy is where you learn to fly space-ships and do all those fancy manouvers. Also you learn how to use the space-bucks payment system, how to load and unload your freight and what to do to repair your ship. Also if you enroll into the Army they will explain everything you need to be successfull on the field. Out-of-Game this means, that members of the Academy will guide you through your first steps on SAGT. They will explain the new rules, which are added to the board game Space Alert and show you how to do things like trading and upgrading your ship. They will explain the communication protocols, which are crucial to experience SAGT smoothly. Members of these volunteers are called scholars with one of them being the Headmaster of the Academy.
Research Lab: The Research Lab consists of players dedicated to improve SAGT. They constantly think about, what can be done to make SAGT more awesome, easier to access and overall handsome. They have an open ear for wishes, opinions, proposals and feedback in general. They condense these feedback into actions, which are then applied to the next iteration of SAGT. Members of the Research Lab are called Researchers and their Dean.
The Army: The army consists of ships, which volunteered in the struggle against the aliens. The captains as well as their crew are part of the army.
Civilians: All ships not being in the army are called civilian ships. The universe is a free infinite Space and as civilian ship you can go, wherever you want, leaving the colonies far behing your back. But watch out: It's dangerous out there!
To make things more clear I made this diagram for you:
[[File:SAGT Structure.png|800px|800px]]
What to do next?
Hopefully I was able to make you interested in using SAGT to add more depth to your Space Alert rounds. If so you probably have a lot of questions about how exactly stuff works in SAGT. You can inform yourself by following these links, covering different main topics in SAGT. Check them out or just wander around, to find out if SAGT is something you want to do:
The Galactic Threat - A Space Alert Metagame » Search for tudy's content
Thu Aug 15, 2013 4:56 pm
