Keith Higdon - 04:13pm Oct 11, 2001 PST (#3207 of 3207) Here are some Options and Additions for "The Sword and the Stars". The first two were published in an issue of ARES magazine, the last two are options created by my old gaming group 21.38 When the Draka enter play, the tech level of Harvest is immediately raised to 3. Should the level ever fall below 3, it is increased by 1 level every round until it again reaches 3. When the Draka leave play, the tech level of Harvest is immediately reduced to a level of -2. 15.4 Interception by Stargate. A player may intercept ANY enemy raid or conquest operation attempted anywhere on the map, so long as the intercepting player owns a stargate which is located on the empire's Seat system. The Seat's tech level must be 2 or 3, and the empire's Military sector must be 5 or 9. More than one player may intercept the same operation. Aplayer who uses a stargate to intercept an operation may not expend more resources in the operation than the combined sum of his Military sector level and the tech level of his Seat system. Option 1 Under the current operations sequence, when conducting Raid or Conquest operations it is easy for the intercepting player(s) to reduce the effectiveness to below zero. This is magnified greatly when the Stargate Interception rule (above) is used. To make this less prevalent, and to add some more gameplay elements to the Operation sequence, make the following change. Repeat steps 3 and 4 as many times as players still want to expend resources. The sequence will look like this; Step 3 Active player expends resource points for the operation. Step 4 Eligible non-active players conduct Interception Operations. Step 4a (new) The active player has the option of expending additional resource points to raise his Effectiveness rating. Step 4B (new) The non-active players may expend additional resource points to reduce the Effectiveness rating. steps 4a and 4b are conducted until both active and non-active players decline to spend any more resource points. Resource points spent for the initial Raid, Conquest, and Interception operations, and for Range, need only be spent when the operation is declared. They do not need to be spent each time additional resources are declared (although this might make an interesting option). Option 2 Stargate Discovery. Rather than having Stargates available from the beginning of the game, don't allow their construction until the Greer's Port Breakthrough chit is played. From that point on Stargate Operations can be conducted as normal. Please note that Greer's Port Breakthrough is a holding chit. This can cause some problems when a player who does not control Greer's Port decides he doesn't want to give another player a free Stargate, or just wants to halt Stargate use all together. One of the following changes to the chit is suggested. a) Change it to a Random Event Chit. This means it MUST be played when drawn. b) Instead of having the breakthrough take place at Greer's Port, roll on the system assignment table. The Stargate will be created at that system instead. c) Allow the person playing the chit to declare where the Stargate is created. d) The chit is placed at Greer's Port (or another system if one of the other options is used), but the Stargate is not placed until that players turn in the NEXT ROUND. This (usually) allows the other players a chance at taking the world before the Stargate is available. Note that since initiative varies from round to round, a shrewd (or lucky) player may be able to play the chit at the end of one round and immediately get another turn. For refernce, my group usually used (a and b) or (a and c), but we did play a game using (c and d), which was quite a blast to play. Hope you guys like these.