Concept Document for

Major Update #3: Conquest

Disclaimer: The document below is an initial concept only, and subject to change during
development

Overview
The goal of the Conquest Update is to increase the meaning in skirmish battles by tying them to
a larger strategic and operational context. One of the largest takeaways from the community-run
conquest games is how differently players treat their ships when each one that is lost is a ship
that will not be present for the next battle. This change in behavior for long-term resource
conservation is the next extension of NEBULOUS’s existing emphasis on effective resource
management, foresight, and wise decision making.

Conquest will form the Strategic and Operational levels of NEBULOUS’s gameplay, where
Skirmish operates exclusively at the Tactical level of war.

This game mode will enable long-term play for either single player games, or groups of players
in online persistent wars at a solar system scale. The flow of play will revolve around a
turn-based “we-go” system, where each team prepares their moves at the same time and then
the game’s state is advanced to the next week. Persistent multiplayer games will enable players
to join and leave a game server at will, adjusting details relevant to their own specific role (e.g.
fleet commander, logistics specialist, depot manager, etc) before the team commander submits
the moves. Each team can be configured at the game’s start with a set of traits that make the
faction unique.

These solar system wars will involve dozens of fleets and hundreds of individual ships moving
about the solar system, capturing scores of critical pieces of orbital infrastructure and points of
interest, and even entire planets. The current emphasis on scouting and intelligence will be
carried forward and expanded to match the larger scale, and the addition of resupply, refueling,
and repair/maintenance/refit of ships will increase investment in individual platforms.
Table of Contents

Overview 1

Example Game Flow 3

The Map 6
Planets 6
Orbital Facilities 6
Civilian Traffic 7

Detailed Game Flow 8

Lobby Setup & Scenario Selection 8
Faction Creation 8
Trait Selection 8
Ship Design Creation 10
Ship Design Allocation 10
Deployed, Sustainment, and Maintenance Forces 10
Initial Task Force Assignment 11
Strategic Play 11
Force Grouping 11
Movement 12
Naval Messages 12
Battle Resolution 13
Capturing Facilities 13
Capturing Planets 14
War Progress 14
Player Role Assignment 15

Resources 15
Raw Materials 16
Parts 16
Ammunition 16
Fuels & Fluids 17
Food & Stores 17
Logistics Networks 17

Research & Development 17

Ship Construction 18

Ship Repair & Refit 18

Crew 19
Officers 19
 Transfer & Recovery 20
Training 20
Morale 20

Intelligence 21
Detection 21
Interrogation 21
Communications Interception 21
Plotting Enemy Positions 21
Enemy Order Of Battle 22

War History 22

Example Game Flow

This section will outline the basic start-to-finish flow of a Conquest game, with the full details of
the referenced mechanics described in the following sections. While Conquest can be played in
either singleplayer or multiplayer, either with an AI opponent or in PVP, the flow will be described
in the context of multiplayer as it will involve everything in singleplayer with additional
considerations.

Multiplayer games can either be saved and loaded at will on an individual player’s computer, or
hosted on a persistent server so that players can join, accomplish tasks/moves, and log off at
will. The latter option would be preferred, as it allows for maximum flexibility with large teams.

When a new game is started, at least two players must be present in the lobby. These players
will be the team captains, known as High Admirals. If there are more than two players present,
the host will nominate each High Admiral. The remaining players can either be picked by the HA
or free move can be enabled for the lobby. Note that additional players can join at any time after
the game starts, but will be blind spectators until selected for a team. Players cannot change
their team once they have joined. The host must also select the starting scenario, which
describes the general force laydown and political situation, as well as a map and miscellaneous
settings.

Once the initial team assignments are satisfied, the game has entered Turn 0. At this point,
everyone can leave and the game will remain at this stage.

Turn 0

There are a number of initial actions that must be completed by each team before the game can
truly begin. These tasks can be done collaboratively or individually by players assigned the
appropriate role.
The first of these tasks is designing the faction, which gives each player team a unique flair and
defines its strengths and weaknesses. This involves picking a base faction (e.g. Shelter
Alliance) and a series of Trait Cards which provide various bonuses and penalties both for the
starting state and as the game continues on.

Following faction creation, players assigned the Naval Architect role can create the faction’s
initial ship class designs, which include both warships and logistics/support ships. The team
then allocates the number of each of these designs they want present in their starting navy,
limited by the Fleet Points (the same Points system used for measuring combat power in the
current Skirmish game) ceiling chosen when configuring the lobby.

Based on the selected scenario and faction Trait Cards, a large portion of that navy will then be
made unavailable due to maintenance schedules and allocated to shipyards and repair depots
around the system. Various other effects will be applied to all ships based on the faction’s traits.

The portion of the team’s navy that is available for immediate use can then be assigned initial
positions within the team’s controlled space. Once both teams are happy with their starting
setup, the game advanced to the first play turn.

Turn 1+

Tasking Phase

All following game turns will form a loop of the Tasking and Resolution Phases.

In the Tasking Phase, players assigned various roles on the team carry out actions relevant to
their office. The game is effectively paused at this point, with no game time advancing and all
actions taken by players are considered “future tasking” and queued up for execution in the
following phase.

For illustration purposes, we’ll consider a few broad roles and what they might accomplish in a
given Tasking turn.

The Depot Manager role is responsible for maintenance scheduling of all ships docked at
stations with repair facilities, including shipyards (although ship construction is ordered by a
different role, and ships taking up berths at shipyards for maintenance purposes will reduce new
construction capacity). Since the last turn, several Task Forces with battle damage have arrived
at several repair depots throughout the system. The most straightforward solution is to initiate
repairs on all ships, but this could take months to accomplish. Full repairs may be an option
early in the war when there are plenty of other ships to pick up the slack, but as available forces
grow thin the prioritization of individual repairs, skipping of other repairs (or even individual
steps to cut time in exchange for a chance at getting a permanent debuff added),
cannibalization of other ships, and more could become the difference between meeting the
enemy with roughly equal numbers or being completely overwhelmed.
The Logistics Officer role is responsible for managing the movement of repair parts, fuel,
ammunition, and supplies between two stations in the system or to replenish underway Task
Forces. They can begin their turn immediately, tasking logistics ships to move fuel to places
where they know they need to go. Additionally, once the Depot Manager has completed their
repair orders the Logistics Officer will see a list of repair parts (broad categories) that are not
present at the depots that need them and can begin planning to move these physicalized
resources around. If not enough transport ships are available, warships can carry small
numbers of parts if they are already headed in that direction (though coordination with a Fleet
Admiral would be necessary). As with repair, most of these movements can be automatically
resolved but when part counts are low and transport ships are few, having a skilled LO could
make the difference.

All players can command fleets in battle, but the Fleet Admiral role is responsible for getting
them there. FAs have control over all underway Task Forces (collections of ships assigned to
move and operate together) and can direct their movement between locations on the strategic
map. Additionally, they can send ships to dock at stations to replenish or repair (putting them in
the hands of the Depot Manager), undock them when they are ready, and create and dissolve
Task Forces dynamically.

Once all orders are prepared, the team’s High Admiral can see a full list of all queued orders
that will be executed. They can click on each one to see the relevant ship, station, or location,
and review it. If they are happy with all orders, they can approve the turn. When both teams
have approved their orders, the turn advances to the next phase.

Turn 1+

Resolution Phase

Turns at the strategic level take place over a period of a week. Many orders may have been
queued up during the Tasking Phase, and ships may have to travel great distances. The series
of events that need to take place may be lengthy and the outcome dependent on the ordering of
when they happened. For example, a task group that was supposed to meet a replenishment
group at the end of the turn, but encounters an unexpected enemy force immediately, would not
have the ammunition they expected to have. Therefore, the whole turn cannot be resolved at
once.

Once the Resolution Phase begins, the game will execute an on-rails simulation of the next
week, rapidly stepping forward one hour at a time and displaying the positions of all (known)
units and smoothly animating them as they move. At least one player from each team must be
online during this process.

As the simulation proceeds, it may pause at several points as fleets encounter each other.
When these encounters occur a Skirmish Battle is now pending, and the game can remain
paused at this point until the necessary number of players are able to get online. Once the battle
is concluded the Resolution Phase will continue.
Conclusion

The strategic game will only conclude when one team surrenders, their entire navy is eliminated
or combat ineffective, the War Progress metric swings completely against them, or the
conditions of the selected scenario are satisfied.

The Map
The appearance of the Strategic map will either be directly top-down or with a slight angling,
pending visual design review. While NEBULOUS has one of the most detailed and meaningful
6DOF combat experiences in any space game, the nature of movement between POIs on the
Strategic layer means being able to move up and down has little gameplay benefit, and would
only add unnecessary complexity.

The scale of the Strategic game will reflect one star system. Initially this system will be
developer generated, with the ability for users to create their own. A future update will add
procedural system generation, but that is a complex feature which would sap development effort
from getting the basic experience into players’ hands sooner.

All system objects, whether they be planets or man-made structures, will follow Kepler orbits.
This will massively increase the strategic considerations for teams as held territory may not be
wholly contiguous and important locations will shift positions throughout the years. Additionally,
this should make “turtling” much more difficult as battle lines cannot be continuously held, and
prevent teams from falling into a stalemate due to building impossibly defensible positions.

Planets
The primary focus of activity in the system falls around planets and their moons. They serve as
an anchor point for the majority of other POIs within the system, and are unrivaled in their
mining and production capacity. The majority of a faction’s civilian population lives on planets,
and it is a major source of their War Progress. Keeping planets defended and happy is key to
victory.

Orbital Facilities
Space stations can be found either around planets and moons or in deep space. Facilities in
deep space are considered Points of Interest for movement purposes, and orbit the primary star.

These structures are much larger than ships and form the backbone of the team’s navy. An
example of station types can be found in the following table.
 Shipyard A major piece of orbital infrastructure, capable of producing new
ships from scratch. They are only found in very small numbers.

Repair Depot Offers limited shipyard capability, mostly for repairing and refitting
existing ships.

Naval Magazine Used to hold large quantities of ammunition, kept separate from
other installations due to the danger such a collection poses.

Fuel Depot Used to hold large quantities of fuel for easy distribution to front
line forces.

Fleet Hub A major fleet concentration facility. Has the ability to support many
ships for long periods.

Mining A civilian station supporting mining operations

Production A civilian station which receives raw materials and produces the
next step of the production chain. Multiple steps can be
conducted at the same facility, if properly equipped.

Civilian A general civilian station. Docking with any civilian station can
give crews liberty and greatly improve morale.

Each station has various Berths for ships, each with different services. The station
classifications above are not hard distinctions, except for Shipyard. The classification of a
station is determined by the preponderance of the services available at the berths the station
has. Some examples of the capabilities that different berths can have are Fueling, Ammo
Transfer, Minor Repair, Major Repair, etc.

Stations are massive pieces of orbital infrastructure that take a decade or more to build. A team
could possibly order the construction of a new station, but it would tie up a huge amount of their
construction materials and manpower on a gamble that the game will last long enough to even
see the benefits. If station construction were to be added, it would not be in the first release of
Conquest.

Civilian Traffic
In the opening weeks of the war, civilian and merchant traffic will be present throughout the
system. Unlike in the Skirmish game, where all new tracks are immediately identified as Hostile,
new tracks at the strategic level will be identified as Unknown.
Detailed Game Flow
Lobby Setup & Scenario Selection
The lobby setup phase is where the initial parameters of the game are selected. These include
assigning the High Admirals, faction Fleet Point limits, map size and parameters, percentage of
planets controlled by non-player factions, and more.

The selected scenario defines both the starting and victory conditions for the game. A few
example scenarios are:

Great Powers The system is divided roughly in half (aside from smaller NPC
factions, if permitted), and the goal is simple capitulation or
complete destruction.

Border Dispute A randomly selected planet or moon in the system with historical
ties to both factions has sparked an armed conflict. One team
starts in control of the planet. Whoever is in possession at the
designated end date wins. Conflict is possible anywhere in the
system, but the planet in question serves as an anchor for battles.

Invasion Only one team is actually present in the system, with the other
team invading through hyperspace (either gate or direct travel).
The invading team has 100% of its Fleet Points available at the
start, but no initial repair or resupply capability.

Minor Powers Two small nations, controlling a handful of moons of a single gas
giant between them. The rest of the system is available for
movement but controlled by a neutral NPC faction.

Faction Creation
Due to the complexity of real world naval operations that Nebulous intends to enable the players
to experience, there is a large amount of initial setup necessary for each team before the
game-proper begins. This setup is described in the following sections.

Trait Selection
Every player faction is based on an existing faction (e.g. Shelter Alliance, OSP, or even factions
from a mod) with a unique twist created through the application of Traits. These traits reflect
how the player(s) want their faction to focus. A key thing to note is that Nebulous is a
battle-focused game, and the players are high-ranking military leaders and not the political
leaders of these factions. They do not have the ability to drive policy, construct civilian
infrastructure, etc. These trait selections are their only influence over the shape of the faction.

Trait selection is similar to Stellaris, where there are a limited number of selections available
based on cost, though some cards may have negative cost enabling additional selection.
Additionally, selecting some cards may preclude the selection of others.

Some example traits are:

Battle Hardened This faction has been at war continuously for decades. All crews
have increased starting experience and proficiency, though a
large percentage of ships in the starting navy will have existing
damage.

Expert Maintainers They do it right the first time. Significantly decreases time
necessary for repairs, but slightly increases the percentage of
ships in Maintenance at the start of the game and thus
unavailable for immediate use.

Mothballed Fleet This faction’s navy went through a hefty downsizing after the last
war, but some foresight kept them from just selling the navy for
scrap. Nearly doubles the amount of Fleet Points available for
initial force allocation, but more than half of those ships will be
mothballed older designs, often stripped for parts. The faction will
still have a percentage of their active navy in Maintenance at the
start.

Worked To Bone This faction’s “pressing, emergent needs” has interrupted its
maintenance cycle for years. Most of the starting navy is available
for immediate use, although morale is low and material condition
is poorer on average. Some ships will have intrinsic debuffs due
to rushed maintenance.

Wartime Economy The production of arms and munitions on planets and production
stations is significantly increased.

Thoroughly Parts, layouts, training, and equipment are all standardized.

Standardized Crews will not suffer a penalty when swapping between ships of
different class. Additionally, replacing equipment/weapons will not
incur an experience penalty.

True Believers This faction’s officers are wholly dedicated to the cause, and are
more resistant to revealing information under interrogation.
 Self Sufficient Armies Attacking ground forces are capable of living off the land, and do
not have to be resupplied from orbit as often.

Dictatorship Public opinion is irrelevant to the leaders of this faction. Major

defeats, civilian inconveniences, and protracted suffering do not
move the War Progress bar against them nearly as quickly, but
when the enemy team invades their planets and stations they
may be welcomed as liberators.

Ship Design Creation

Once the initial faction setup is completed, players with the Naval Architect role can begin
creating designs for the faction’s initial navy. These designs can either be produced on the fly or
selected directly from the player’s saved ship templates. Designs cannot be edited
collaboratively, but once a design is saved all players can view a ship’s fittings and stats by
selecting it on the board of designs.

A faction can have as many unique designs as they want, subject to penalties as that number
grows larger. Designs are measured by Upkeep, which increases non-linearly to reflect the
increased difficulty of managing maintenance for large numbers of differing designs. These
designs include both warships and support/logistics ships.

Creating ship designs will likely be the most involved portion of team creation, and it is
recommended that a set of designs is at least roughed-out before starting team creation.

Ship Design Allocation

After all of the ships designs have been approved, the number of each design that is present in
the starting navy is selected. These ship counts are allocated using the existing Fleet Points
system that describes combat power in the Skirmish game. Each faction has a number of Points
available to construct their fleet from, which is a hard ceiling rather than the gentleman’s
agreement it is now, chosen during the lobby setup. Due to the rigidity of selected designs and
the variance of design costs, it is unlikely that any faction will be able to use up 100% of its
allocated Points for ships. The value of unused Points will be returned to the faction in other
ways, such as initial intelligence on the enemy, additional ammunition storage at stations, etc.

Deployed, Sustainment, and Maintenance Forces

Real-life navies are never available at full capacity in peacetime due to the complexities of
maintaining ships over their long service lives. Ships in a navy are divided into the following
groups (note that some ships leaving Maintenance enter a fourth phase for “workups/sea trials”
to prepare to return to operations, but for the sake of the game these ships are considered
Deployed):
 ● Deployed – Ships currently underway conducting operations.

● Sustainment – Ships ready for immediate action, but not currently underway.

● Maintenance – Ships undergoing repairs, refit, and upkeep maintenance.

At the start of the war a large percentage of the team’s initial navy, perhaps 66% or more, will be
considered “Maintenance-Phase” forces and will be unavailable for immediate use. These ships
will be distributed throughout the system undergoing a variety of maintenance procedures,
some long-term and some short. They will be docked with various repair depots and shipyards
for this work. If the team has spec’ed heavily into numerous lighter ships and there is not
enough repair berthing capacity to contain all of the Maintenance-Phase forces, the remaining
ships will be berthed at non-repair facilities waiting their turn. They will be available for use in
Turn 2 after their crews have been recalled, but with significant material degradation.

Initial Task Force Assignment

The remaining portion of the team’s navy is considered Deployed and Sustainment Forces.
Deployed forces will be automatically assigned to task groups and distributed about the system,
conducting normal operations they would be assigned to before the war starts. These units can
be moved around the system for a cost of leftover points in order to arrange them in more
advantageous positions. Some faction traits may reduce or increase the cost of this, reflecting a
faction’s improved foresight and contingency planning.

Sustainment forces can be allocated to various orbital installations where they will start, and can
be prepared for getting underway immediately in Turn 1.

Once all of this initial preparation has been completed, the main gameplay loop begins.

Strategic Play

Force Grouping
Task Forces and Groups are a dynamic grouping of ships that move together on the strategic
map. Ships within a grouping can be split off into one or more new groups during the Tasking
phase. This is an instantaneous action and movement orders can be given to each group
individually in the same turn.

The difference between a TF and TG is in their size and requirements. Task Groups are much
more flexible than Task Forces, but are limited in size. Up to four ships can be combined into a
TG at any time without additional requirements. Groupings of more than four ships are
considered Task Forces, and require a Flag Officer to run them efficiently. Flag Officers can only
be assigned to ships which have a Flag Plot, a large compartment which contains the command
and control equipment necessary to manage a large group of ships. This compartment will only
fit in ships of Cruiser class or above.

Flag Officers, like other crew, are physicalized in the ship and can be killed. When its Flag
Officer is killed, a Task Force will not automatically be dissolved. Instead, it will receive a morale
penalty for every successive day where it operates without one as the officers on the remaining
ships struggle to do their normal jobs as well as the jobs of a full Staff. TFs can be initially
constituted without a Flag Officer, but will suffer this same penalty until one is assigned.
Similarly, if the Flag Plot compartment is destroyed in battle but the Flag Officer survives, the TF
will receive a similar but significantly smaller penalty.

The maximum size of a Task Force is determined by the skill level of the Flag Officer, with a
hard cap at 50 ships (equivalent to the maximum number of ships in a skirmish game split
between 5 players).

Movement
The Skirmish combat mechanics of NEBULOUS reward extensive use of map terrain, and
battles in open space are often simple turkey-shoots where victory almost always goes to the
side with overwhelming firepower. In the Strategic game, free movement would run the risk of
the majority of battles taking place in deep space. In order to alleviate this, movement at the
Strategic level will be done exclusively between Points of Interest, such as planets, asteroids,
stations, and others. However, in order to alleviate the pain caused by this there will be no “web”
of connections between POIs. Any unit can be ordered to move between any two POIs,
regardless of their proximity, even if they are in opposition (occluded by a larger body).
Waypoints can be added to planned movement by clicking on the line and dragging.

These movement restrictions should focus the majority of encounters between opposing fleets
around these POIs where relevant terrain can be used to provide an interesting battlespace.

Deep space encounters can still occur if two fleets meet en route and one or both teams have
issued orders to intercept any detected units, or if a team with good intelligence on an enemy
fleet location orders the intercept from any distance. If the intercept occurs within 1 day of travel
to the destination POI, the battle will take place at the POI’s map location with the relevant
terrain.

Naval Messages

Issuing orders to task forces at the strategic level will be accomplished via a formal message
traffic system. Due to the timescale over which turns are resolved this will give teams the most
control over the behavior of their groups once they have been put on rails. This allows players to
tune behavior such as what to do when detecting an enemy unit, when to maintain
communications silence, etc.

Interacting with this detailed orders system is not necessary for every movement order. A
generic template that all new orders are based off of can be configured for the entire fleet, or
even tailored for a specific area. When a task force is ordered to move to a location, a simple
set of movement orders will be drafted for the group to execute during the next resolution phase
based on this template. These orders can be left as generated, or they can be opened up and
tuned as necessary.

Orders do not need to be issued to task forces underway which have not arrived at their
destination if they are on a long trajectory. They will continue executing their previous orders
until told otherwise.

Battle Resolution

All encounters between fleets will be resolved in the Skirmish battle game. These battles are
queued whenever the simulation determines one will occur, and the necessary number of
players can then log in to play. Because of the ten ship limit, larger battles may require more
than one player from each team in order to be present in order to bring all forces to bear. All
ships in a TF must be brought into battle, including logistics and support ships (hence the 50
ship/5 player limit).

Players are not physically located anywhere in the system, and can thus take part in any battle.

At the end of a battle, the fleet commanders will be present with the orders they issued to this
unit at the start of the turn and can modify them for the surviving ships. For example, if a group
was intercepted en route to attack a station but took heavy losses, the group’s orders could be
modified to retreat to a safe location instead of continuing on the assigned mission.

The results of the battle will impact War Progress, with the number of enemy units destroyed
providing a greater benefit. Equal numbers of destroyed ships will roughly cancel out, although
the capture of the relevant POI (provided it is not a deep space encounter) will grant some
progress to the victor. To incentivize players to not always immediately retreat from unfavorable
battles, withdrawing from a battle without destroying at least one enemy ship will double the
enemy’s war progress gain.

Capturing Facilities
Orbital facilities are considered captured if an attacker wins a skirmish battle in that facility’s
POI. Unless playing a civil war scenario where both teams are using the same equipment (same
root faction), captured facilities have reduced utility to a capturing team. While the station can
serve as a berthing and basic repair facility for ships, they cannot perform advanced refits as the
equipment found on board is probably not compatible. The capturing team can order a re-tooling
of the onboard facilities in order to remove these restrictions, but it will take significant time.

Facilities can be scuttled by their current owner, to deny their use to the enemy. However, these
stations have significant civilian populations, sometimes in the hundreds of thousands, and
doing so without first evacuating the population would be a war crime.
Alternatively, the current owner of a station can order all of its services (e.g. berthing, repair, fuel
tanks) be destroyed to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. This can be useful to a team
that is certain they are about to lose a battle for the given facility and want to prevent its use
against them. On the other hand, a capturing team that does not intend to go through the
lengthy re-tooling process can just destroy the services and abandon the facility for the same
reason.

Capturing Planets
Planets provide massive benefit to the faction that owns them. They are the source of the
majority of resources used in construction, as well as a major source of population support.
Losing control of a planet has a massive impact on War Progress.

Unlike orbital facilities, the capturing of a planet requires the landing of ground forces. These
ground forces are carried on special Troop Ships, which are the only ships capable of carrying
troops in a large enough capacity to be useful in an invasion. These ships are functional
warships like any others in the game, and can be engaged and destroyed in a normal skirmish
battle.

A planetary assault takes place when victory is achieved in orbit of the planet. Not all POIs
around that planet need to be captured in order to start a landing, but the POI of the planet itself
must be in the attacker’s control. Once the orbit of a planet has been secured, a blockade or
landing can be initiated. Blockading the planet will prevent resources from leaving the planet to
fuel the enemy’s war effort, as well as prevent relief from arriving. Planets that are blockaded for
too long will begin impacting the War Progress of the owner as the population suffers.

Once ground forces have been landed, the capture of the planet begins. There will be no
ground RTS incorporated into this game. The timescale of a planetary invasion, compared to a
fleet skirmish battle, is incompatible with a single-turn resolution. These capturing processes will
take many months, and will be represented by a simple progress bar. The advancement of this
progress is affected by dice rolls dependent on the quantity and traits of the attacking and
defending armies. The attacker will need to continuously land supplies and fresh troops to keep
progress moving. While the defenders have a home field advantage, they will also need to land
supplies or resistance will collapse after an extended siege, which will require contesting the
Orbital POI.

Opposed landings of supplies are possible, but will result in a percentage destruction.

War Progress

The primary enemy of the teams is the War Progress bar, which reflects how the general
population of the faction views the war. As stated previously, the players are not political
leaders, and when the War Progress moves too far against them, indicating massive public
distaste for the war, they will be forced to surrender.
Victories and defeats both in space and on the ground will shift the position of the bar towards or
against each team. Additionally, conducting war crimes (e.g. shooting lifeboats, executing
POWs, scuttling un-evacuated stations, etc) will move the bar against the team. It is a zero-sum
measurement, and starts in the middle at the start of the war.

Player Role Assignment

Player roles determine what each player has the authority to do during the Tasking phase.
These roles can be assigned immediately at the start of the game, to allow players to help the
team captain set up the faction, and can also be modified at any time. Some example roles are
listed in the table below. In singleplayer, the player has all roles automatically.

High Admiral This is the leader of the team. They assign all other roles,
approve team orders, and submit the turn for resolution. This role
is unique in that it can only be assigned to one player per team,
though it can be handed off.

Fleet Admiral These players can select ships, TGs, and TFs and give them
movement orders on the Strategic map. This role is not required
to command ships in the Skirmish battles.

Logistics Officer Responsible for the management of logistics and support ships,
and the material they move.

Depot Officer Assigns and prioritizes repairs and refits of ships docked at
stations with repair facilities.

Shipyard Manager Allocates shipyard capacity for new construction.

Naval Architect Creates new ship designs for the team.

Intelligence Officer Responsible for the management of captured prisoners,

interrogation, and plotting of known enemy force locations and
intentions. These players can also manage a database of
suspected enemy ship classes and capabilities.

Resources
Before discussing resources, it is important to note that while the production chain outlined
below may seem complicated at first glance, it is not meant to be interacted with in the way a
player would in a game like Factorio. The raw material chain is almost entirely outside the
control of players. These industries have been long established and the retooling or construction
of mines and foundries is outside the scope of their role as military leaders. The only influence
over this chain is in the management and protection of the logistics ships that it rides on. The
complexity of this system exists purely to create a detailed web of vulnerability that can drive
conflict and be exploited by players when attacking the opposing team.

The amount of materials produced across the system will be large, but not all of it can be
earmarked for the Fleet. Thousands of tons of materials may be produced in a given turn, but
that material may be destined for many civilian endpoints. Scraping too much off the top for the
war effort and rationing resources for civilians will begin to affect war progress if it lasts too long.

Raw Materials
Raw materials are the basic building blocks of everything in the game. The three resources in
the game are Common Metals/Ore (representing iron, aluminum, etc), Rare Metals/Ore (gold,
tungsten, etc), and Polymers (plastics, rubbers, etc). Each of these three categories of materials
are needed in different quantities to produce different end products.

Metal Ore can be mined either on planets or in space from asteroids. While planets have huge
metal production capacity, the difficulty of shipping all of that mass into orbit sometimes makes
asteroid mining more efficient. Metal Ore is converted into Metals through a foundry. On a
planet, the Ore stage is skipped as the foundry is also located on the planet, and the resource
only becomes useful to the player in its final form. Metal Ore mined from asteroids will need to
be transported to a foundry station.

Once Metals have been produced, they can be sent off to stockpiles in stations or further down
the production chain to produce Repair Parts. Common Metals are used directly in the
construction of hulls, and the repair of armor and structure, so keeping a healthy stock on hand
at shipyards and depots is important.

Parts
Production of Parts is the first stage of the production chain that players have influence over,
tailoring the allotment of metals to produce parts that are needed.

Like raw materials, parts are divided into a few subcategories. These are: Mechanical Parts
(representing gears, shafts, bearings, etc), Basic Electronic Parts (cabling, stators, power
systems, etc), Advanced Electronic Parts (circuit cards, antennas, etc), Fluid System Parts
(pumps, pipes, etc), and Weapon Parts (cannon barrels, breaches, missile components, etc).

Construction and repair of different hull components, such as a radar or weapon system, require
these parts in different quantities.

Ammunition
Ammunition is produced from both Metals and Parts, with more advanced munitions like
missiles requiring larger collections of Parts compared to Metals. Bulk resources such as shells
are produced by the palette, while missiles are produced individually.

Fuels & Fluids

In the small scale of the Skirmish game, it is assumed that ships have all the fuel they need for
the limited duration of the engagement. At the Strategic scale, fuel will be critical for ensuring
that a Group can make it to a destination. Larger ships have larger fuel tanks, but proportionally
higher fuel consumption. Sending an auxiliary oiler ship along with a combat Group can
increase their range dramatically.

Food & Stores

Food is a critical resource that all underway ships must be kept stocked with in order to keep the
crews alive. When running low on food, overall morale in the group will decline rapidly. Food
rationing can be instituted at any time in order to prolong the endurance of food stores, including
immediately after getting underway, but will result in steadily decreasing morale. Crews can
survive for a few turns after food runs out, but their performance in battle will be significantly
reduced. Eventually, they will starve to death and the ships will be abandoned.

Logistics Networks
One of the primary jobs of the Logistics Officer is managing the team’s logistics network, known
as Space Lines of Communication (SLOCs). In general, material moves from planets to station
hubs to outlying stations in a predictable and routine pattern. Efficiently laying out SLOCs and a
schedule for routine shipments of materials from production locations (e.g. planets) to consumer
locations (e.g. depots, shipyards) can help ensure that all stations are reasonably well supplied
for their primary purpose without having to micromanage every freighter. However, some
exceptional circumstance or emergent need can require the tasking of a specific ship to carry
resources to somewhere they are needed.

Research & Development

Research, like many things in Nebulous, does not have many similarities to other strategy
games. All technology is available to the teams at the start of the game, and can be used in
their initial ship designs. Additional weapons and modules are not unlocked via research.

Instead, the research and development process is undertaken every time a new ship design or
missile design is produced. When a player with the Naval Architect role creates a new design, it
is sent to the R&D labs to be actually developed by the simulated people working to produce the
design drawings and assembly plans.

There are two types of Blueprints: Construction and Refit. Any design can be used to produce
either plan. Designing Refit plans takes much less time, but the design can then only be used
for re-configuring existing ships. A Construction plan, on the other hand, can be used for both
refit and new construction.

A similar mechanic exists for missile designs, where new designs produced via the Missile
Designer will need to have Construction Blueprints made for them before they can be produced.

Each team starts with Construction Blueprints for all of their initial ship and missile designs, and
they do not need to be researched further.

Ship Construction
The construction of new ships is a lengthy and resource intensive process. New ship
construction can only be done at a Shipyard station.

The first step is developing a Blueprint, or using an existing one, as discussed above. Any
available Construction Berths can then be used to begin producing that design. Required
materials will need to be present on the station in order for construction to progress. Keeping
shipyards well fed with raw materials and parts is critical to getting construction done on
schedule.

Although ship templates designed using the Fleet Editor can have ammunition added to them,
newly constructed ships will have no ammunition on them when construction is completed. They
will need to get underway to a magazine station in order to onload ammunition.

Any ships that are under construction when a shipyard station is successfully captured will have
a percentage chance of being successfully scuttled by the construction crews. Any ships that
are not destroyed will grant the enemy team valuable intel about ship capabilities. Ships can be
preemptively scuttled with a 100% success rate by the player manually if they are sure they will
lose the shipyard in the imminent battle.

Ship Repair & Refit

Ships can be repaired in berths that support either Minor or Major Repair. Minor Repair involves
repair of systems that DC teams would be able to repair in battle, but with the capability to repair
the component back up to 100% HP, assuming the required parts and materials are present on
the station. Major Repair includes everything in Minor but also has the ability to repair armor and
structure.
Major Repair berths can also perform refits of ships. In order to do this they require a Refit (or
Construction) Blueprint, the required materials, and the existing ship. Installation of new
systems on a blank socket takes only the basic installation time, but replacement of existing
systems (even destroyed ones, as they are still there) will include rip-out time.

Crew
Ships may have crew sizes on the order of several hundred, thus in order to reduce complexity
ship crew members are not individually tracked. Instead, each collection of crew members
performing a specific job share a single skill level. In this sense, the crew behaves as a liquid:
adding fresh crew members dilutes the skill level of the group overall, and taking experienced
crews and splitting them up among other crews raises it.

Increased skill level will grant bonuses to the job being performed, such as increased accuracy
or reload speed for gun crews.

Crew skill is directly tied to the hulls and systems they operate. There is a skill penalty when
transferring a crew to a new hull class, or replacing equipment they are used to with a different
type (e.g. a cannon with a railgun).

Officers
There are a few individual crew members who are tracked, as they provide special bonuses.
These are a ship’s officers. Officers are general purpose, but the skills they gain in one job do
not carry over to another. For example, a Chief Engineer officer may have a bonus to plant
power output, but transferring that officer to be the Navigator will mean that bonus does not
apply until they transfer to another CHENG position.

The only exception to this is with Captains, as all of their bonuses apply to the ship at all times.

The officer positions for each ship are as follows:

Admiral Required to be on one ship in TFs, but not required for all ships.
Provides C2 capability for larger groups of ships.

Captain The commanding officer of the ship, provides all of their bonuses
gained throughout their career at all times.

Operations (OPS) Responsible for the smooth daily operation of the ship. Provides
bonuses to replenishment speed, station services speed, and
working speed for all crew.
 Weapons (WEPS) Responsible for all installed weapons systems. Provides bonuses
to fire rate, accuracy, etc.

Chief Engineer Responsible for the operation of the engineering plant and
(CHENG) damage control. Provides bonuses to power output, speed, repair,
etc.

Navigator (NAV) Responsible for the overall movements of the ship at the strategic
level. Provides bonuses to trajectory times, fuel consumption, etc.

Transfer & Recovery

Transferring officers and crew between ships requires the ships to either be in the same Group
or docked at the same station.

When a ship is eliminated, officers and crew will eject in random lifeboats. If these lifeboats are
destroyed, the crew and their skills/bonuses in that lifeboat are lost. While destroying lifeboats
does deprive the enemy of skilled sailors, it is a warcrime and thus contributes negatively to
your team’s War Progress. At the end of a battle, all lifeboats in the battlespace are considered
captured by the winning team, with captured enemy crews providing valuable intelligence.
Additionally, ships ordered to fire on lifeboats often enough may begin refusing orders.

Training
Officers are produced from a Fleet Academy at a steady pace and can be automatically
assigned to newly produced ships or to fill gaps in older ships that have suffered casualties.
They start as general purpose officers and develop skills depending on the job they are placed
in. As they develop skills for their jobs players are incentivized to continue grooming that officer
for the same role, or move them up to Captain of a ship once their rank is high enough, and
eventually Flag Officer.

Officers and Crew can be rotated off of their ship for “shore” training at stations or sent
underway to conduct exercises and develop/strengthen skills. This is a great way to develop
experience without placing the crew at risk.

Morale
Crew morale is affected by multiple factors including the overall progress of the war, being
overtasked, time since port visit, number of accompanying ships lost, damage received, time
since a victory, and more. All ships enter battle with their state as “Calm” and ascend the
condition ladder to “Panicked” as the ship takes heavy damage. A ship with low morale will
reach the panicked state much faster. While currently crew state only affects voice callback lines
for atmosphere, after this update crews in the panicked state will execute orders more slowly
and have other debuffs applied.

Intelligence
Detection
Sensor ranges in the skirmish game are extremely compressed to create more fun gameplay
and improve the visibility of units. At the strategic scale, more realistic ranges will be used. In
order to explain this discrepancy, all radar modules will have an additional set of stats added for
a “Long Range” search mode. This mode has a very long pulse recovery time, meaning it
cannot be used to detect targets within a few hundred kilometers of the ship (i.e. in a skirmish
game), but can see targets are much longer ranges (i.e. in the strategic game).

Interrogation
Most captured crew do not know enough information to provide intelligence through
interrogation. It is not uncommon for the average crew member to have no idea where the ship
is currently, let alone where it has been or what it is doing. However, by random chance a more
experienced or tied-in crew member may provide some information.

On the other hand, all officers stand controlling watches and are thus briefed at least daily on
the disposition of forces in their relative area. These officers can be interrogated to reveal
information about ship locations, movements, and capabilities. They can even tell you which of
your own forces the enemy knows (or suspects) the location of.

The difficulty of conducting an interrogation is based on team modifiers and the target’s rank.
Higher ranking officers are less likely to spill information, but more likely to have something
useful and accurate. Using torture in interrogation could increase the odds of making an enemy
officer give information, but could also increase the probability of it being a lie just to make the
torture stop.

Communications Interception
As described above, orders to underway units are transmitted via official naval message traffic
from the fleet headquarters located at a physical location in the system. These messages can
be intercepted with the proper equipment, and analyzed to gain intelligence value and
understand the enemy’s intentions. Additionally, all underway task forces report their position to
higher headquarters on a daily basis (unless told otherwise) and can possibly be located.
Plotting Enemy Positions
Intelligence gathered from interrogating enemy officers will be automatically plotted on the
strategic map, along with all tracks detected by sensors. It is up to the Intelligence officers to
dead-reckon these non-real-time tracks and determine where they will be and when. This math
can be done automatically (i.e. game, dead-reckon 2 days of travel for this track) through the UI,
and the ability to manually choose when and how far to go, choose suspected course changes,
and more will give more flexibility when assessing the enemy.

Enemy Order Of Battle

After each battle, an assessment of the enemy forces can be made by a team’s intelligence
officers. Unlike the Skirmish game, there will be no post-battle report for enemy ships (although
friendly ships will still be seen). The victor of a battle will receive detailed information on what
ships they encountered, and some information on capabilities depending on what was
destroyed. Vaporized ships will only give the same dodgy information the loser gets. Losers of a
battle will only receive rough estimates of what was encountered, and some ship counts may be
inaccurate. If no ships on the losing side survive, very little information will be gained.

Battles where an Intel Center was involved will provide highly accurate information, but without
one reports may be dodgy. Incorrect numbers of ships may be reported.

It is up to the team’s Intel officers to assess these reports and, based on player meta-knowledge
of the battle, determine what is correct. These reports can be used to continuously build up and
refresh a table of enemy ships and their capabilities.

War History
At any time throughout the game, a team can see a timeline of the war from their point of view. It
will show major events such as ship movements, battles, losses, suspected enemy losses
(based on Intel Officer assessments), etc. At the conclusion of the war, they can see the
complete timeline of all events.