60 Years, the Return: Part 3

• Part 1: Crew & Mission Generation 
• Part 2: Rocket Science
• Part 3: Mission Year 1 
• Part 4: Mission Years 2-4 
• Part 5: Wrap-up 

With our astronauts made and our course plotted, all that remains is to go out and do it.

As before, our ship is the Hayashida and her crew:

•     Noi Shimada, Pilot; Callsign DEADLIFT
•     Shin Zaha, Mission Specialist; Callsign HAMMER
•     En Hajime Astronaut; Callsign TOADSTOOL
•     Fujita Avakian, Astronaut; Callsign TENGU

Goal is to establish an automated factory on the outer-system centaur asteroid 5145 Pholus.

 

9. Order of Operations

Each turn has a set order, found on SI 40. Planning Phase steps don't have any inherent timing, Execution Phase steps must be done in order.

Planning Phase

• Service Risks (SI 57)
• Every crewmember rolls on the table every year, though each risk type has prerequisites that need to be met in order for it to trigger.
• Public pronouns (CR 103)
• Era start year only
• Dependency (FW ??)
• A feature that comes into play when new species start being developed: it's not going to be relevant for this game, though if it was I wouldn't be able to do anything with it since the current version of A Facility with Words has cut that segment and I deleted my older copies of the books (and it doesn't look like older versions are available on Itch) 
• Andrew told me he is working on something to bring this back in.
• Move / Operation Selection
• This is for games with multiple players that need to agree on the next actions - since I’ve already planned out my route, it doesn’t really apply.
• Faction Event (SI 44)
• Random event focused on one or more of the major factions (not always your own).
• Solar Cycle Event (SI 44)
• Random event affecting the solar system at large; the list of events will change depending on what phase of the 12-year solar cycle is active (see below.)
• Trends (AE 12-17)
• Long-term changes to The Way Things Are for your mission control, and society at large (see below)

Execution Phase

• Resolve Interceptions (SI 98)
•  In-transit encounters, which are scheduled in advance due to the necessities of spaceflight. Might be a quick chat, might be a resupply, might be a boarding action.
• Move (CR 206)
• You can hold your move until after the year's Operation.
• Encounter (CR 246, SI 13, AE 18)
• This is what it says on the tin, but it’s also a bit confusing in that there are three slightly-different versions of the encounter table in CR, SI, and AE - I’m using the one in AE, because I’m using social trends, but this comes with some issues you’ll see below.
• Operation (SI 270 & 274)
• A year-long action involving the entire crew - this is the core of each  turn. I’m 99% positive this is from the board game, and I appreciate the structure it provides
• Held Move (CR 206)
•  If the year's movement was held, it goes here instead.
• Gain skill points (SI 270 & CR 119)
• All crew participating in an Operation get a skill point; they get an additional down-time point if they end a year at a site instead of in-transit.
• Dysphoria penalty for AWOL Modded / Converted / Exospecies crew (CR 163)
•  Only relevant for later eras / crew augmentations.
• Mission Results (SI 41)
•  On mission completion receive either faction rank up (SI 41), or an upgrade from the relevant faction. (CR 160) 
• The SI directions leave out faction-specific upgrades, which are present in CR; I'm also double-guessing if it's actually supposed to be "rank up or upgrade" rather than "rank up and upgrade".

Proofing Note: The sections for these steps should be presented immediately after the listed order of play, in the order of play, preferably with internal hyperlinks.

In line with upcoming updates to the game, I'm not going to include political trends and impacts.

9.1 Solar Cycle

The color + number codes below are in reference to the solar cycle, which runs in three four-year chunks (Blue > Yellow > Red) and determines one of the yearly events and a few other factors here and there.

9.2 Trends

Trends are where all the truly wild sci-fi stuff lives, and I would be lying if I said my attempt to play this game was anything beyond an excuse to get to this specific mechanic. When laid out over the course of an entire game, trends give you a future-history simulation with some true sci-fi sicko tier Big Idea, and you know how much I love a Big Idea for Sci-Fi Sickos.

Unfortunately, since Trends don’t kick in until 2042, this mission is only going to get the first pair and I won’t roll Impacts for them. At default you only roll for Impacts once every four years, which means that comparatively little of the big list of Big Ideas for Sci-Fi Sickos is going to feature, even if you play all five eras.

While this is somewhat disappointing on the surface, something that isn’t a current Trend can still exist, it’s just not the dominant Thing at the moment. 

I had tried, a couple years ago now, to do a run-through of only trends where I triggered Impacts twice a cycle: this technically worked, but it didn’t work well, and I hadn’t realized at the time that all the cool factions (You know me, I love a faction) that are difficult to land on with Trends are much easier to invoke with the encounter table. Lesson learned.

Clarification needed: I still don’t know if trends carry over between Eras. Do they automatically end when the year turns over, or do they keep going in tandem with the new trend until it fizzles out according to the usual mechanic?

Anyway, here’s how Trends work with the rest of the cycle.

• Year 1: Roll d6 for each Trend: if lower than the number of Impacts the trend has generated, a new Trend is rolled.
• Year 3: Roll a new Impact for each active Trend. Upgrades, crew replacements, and anything else directly involving the crew will take effect the next time you have a layover at a site or factory.

 

9.3 Encounters

Encounters need a dedicated section here, because as-written they’re kind of a mess. 

The baseline version on CR 246: roll d6 to determine which color faction you run into, no muss no fuss. SI and AE expand (and explicitly supersede) that by adding more options (and increasing the range of your roll as era progress), but the underlying chassis of colors and factions wasn’t built for more options. New factions are also rolled on this table as well.

CR 288 tells us directly that: 

 "There is a limit of 5 major (on map) factions including yours, one of each BSU color...The major factions will change as time passes, evolving into new factions and even species as time progresses." 

and 

"Any additional factions are considered minor factions, which can build infrastructure and supply missions, but do not have a significant presence on the map." 

We then get 3 categories of factions

• Crew Factions = Factions that have a mission control, ships, and are equivalent to player factions.
• Colonist Factions = Groups that want to go out and live in space, usually minor.
• Social Factions =  Broader social movements and trends, which can provide crew members and sometimes replace major factions.

This trichotomy, to the best of my search ability, does not get mentioned in SI or AE, despite being pretty vital to juggling all the factions you're going to be making. Trend and Colonist factions are pretty self-explanatory, but Crew ones have some confusing category overlaps that were giving me issues. 

Here's the two tables for reference, just before I go any further.

 

SI Encounter Table

AE Encounter Table

We're told that major factions are only generated by New Faction or Faction Replacement event; rolling a color that doesn't exist for an encounter means there's no encounter. Robots, splinter factions, and most new species have a Major Faction they're associated with, which is easy enough.

But there's a Problem: The expanded encounter rules don't have any indication as to whether or not an encounter is with a new faction or an existing one.

Worked example, directly from my mission reports. I roll a 3rd Wave Crew as a New Faction event in 2040 and they take up one of my major faction slots. But I also roll 3rd Wave Crew for the random encounters in 2041 and 2043. This has led to several questions I have been unable to find answers for.

• Are all three of these meant to be three different factions?
• Is my 3rd Wave major faction encountered only if I roll Major Faction, or is it possible on a roll of Major Faction and/or 3rd Wave Crew, since it's both of those things? 
• Am I supposed to be building up a bespoke encounter subtable specific to my game i.e. if I roll 3rd Wave Crew, do I then roll a second time to see if it's an existing faction or not?
• Does the New Faction event trigger multiple new factories in later eras for all groups, or is that just for new Major Factions? 
• Am I supposed to just make new factions for encounters until I roll the exact same result on the subtables?
• Do minor factions generated by encounters get factories or colonies?
• Do 1st and 2nd wave crews automatically qualify for major factions if their color hasn’t been claimed? 
• For encounters that generate a new faction, do I use the original roll or the black highlighted one? 
• What determines if a colonist faction is independent or not? Are all colonist factions independent, and all other colonies are just considered part of a major faction by default? 

For the time being, my hasty patch-job is re-ordering the encounter procedure: 

The bulk of encounters in 60 Years are via long-distance communication (I love this, gracefully squares the circle of how to have random encounters when you're in an empty void millions of miles away from anything else), part of the process entails rolling for its origin point; I rolled for origin point first, which would would allow me to check against existing factions and their factories to see if the encounter is with a new or existing faction.

Houserule: For long distance random encounters, roll for origin point first; if location has been claimed, use that faction for the encounter. If it hasn’t been claimed, roll on the encounter table and treat as a new minor faction.

 
Now, finally, it's time for the Pholus Mission; I’ve kept the steps that aren’t applicable for this mission anyway as a model / memory aid.

 

2040 (Era 1, Year 1)

Blue 3
 

Planning Phase

•  Service Risks (SI 57)
• Since we're still on Earth, I'm skipping this step for this year. 
•  Public pronouns (CR 103)
• Since this is an era start, I roll 8 on the table and add +1 from Purple Space Politics: They / Them / Their, indicating a greater mainstreaming of gender neutral language in the general culture.
•  Dependency (FW ??)
• N/A 
•  Move / Operation Selection
• See Part 2 
•  Faction Event (SI 44)
•  10 - New Faction x2
•  Solar Cycle Event (SI 44)
• 6 - No Event 
•  Trends (AE 12-17)
• Not applicable

Fun! I get to make two new factions. I roll 2d6 on the encounter table, since I'm in Era 1 / Upported, twice each and take the higher, and get 6/6 and 7/11. That gets me Space Politics Major Faction, which would be Purple, and a Third Wave Crew. 

Rolling on the Purple Mission Control subtype table on CR 39 I get 2, so it's the Planetary Society. New factions get 1 factory per era, and rolling on the goal/destination tables I get Long-Term Colony - 10 Hygeia. They're 99% definitely going to name it Sagan.

Rolling on the 3rd-wave factions table in the supplement, I get a joint venture between two regional organizations. Back to CR 39, I end up rolling SACU and MERCOSUR (South African Customs Union and the Southern Common Market). They're green, but we already had a Green Major faction from earlier with ASEAN; I'm actually going to fudge things a bit and say that these are the same faction, being a sort of unified front for the global south vs American & Chinese military / economic domination. Maybe the failed mission to Wilson-Harrington was the signal for the other members to step up, maybe they already had this factory up and running.  

They also get Long-Term Colony for their goal, with a destination of the caves and lava tubes of Arsia Mons on Mars.

This is fun, it's actually falling into place now. 

Execution Phase

• Resolve Interceptions (SI 98)
• Not applicable. 
• Move (CR 206)
• See Post 2: the Hayashida launches from LEO into a lunar fly-by and coasts along until it merges onto the Green Line. 
• Encounter (CR 246, SI 13, AE 18)
• 9 - Earthside Colonist (It was originally Upported Colonist, but I counted it as a new faction just because it is still just Year 1.)
• Operation (SI 270 & 274)
• The Hayashida is a fine ship, but we need something faster. Much faster. We're going to set up a D-Class factory, so I bop on over to the spacecraft table on SI 244 and oh would you look at that! One of our options is PROJECT ORION, and that's an easy choice. Go big mode or go home, why not strap ourselves to some nukes and use them as propulsion? A full overhaul of the Hayashida into a Project Orion rocket requires 5 new patents, so this year's operation is going to have to be Research.
•  This will involve the first actual skill roll of the game, which I will detail below.
• Held Move (CR 206)
• N/A
• Gain skill points (SI 270 & CR 119)
• All crew gain a skill point for participating in the Research operation, which can then be used on the skill used in the op, on a mission control contact with the relevant skill, chrome for a component used in the op, or recovering from a penalty.
•  These cannot be banked.
• Dysphoria penalty for AWOL Modded / Converted / Exospecies crew (CR 163)
• N/A 
• Mission Results (SI 41)
• N/A 

First things first, the encounter. I roll 2d6-5 on the Goal table to determine where the signal is coming from and end up with -1, so the new faction is on Earth. Makes sense for an Earthside Colonist. Earthsiders are one of the Primary Colonist Types (SI 187), I roll 2d6 on that table and get 6: Criminal Syndicate (Purple)

A few sub-tables later, I get a name (Zero Family), two doctrines (Cybercrime for the majority, financial crime for the minority) and an origin (Social Control: Very easy to get around the law when you are no longer within the territory of a nation-state.) So they're running some massive fraud from orbit, possibly by hacking communications satellites. Using crypto for money laundering, all that stuff.

The actual encounter prompt roll is 4-5, which gives me "Approached about business" and oh buddy we are COOKING. For now I'll say that (rolling...4) Fujita receives a message as a response to one of his many science communication videos shot aboard the Hayashida regarding a potential sponsorship/partnership deal with an up-and-coming media group, which is slightly sketchy but not entirely. Normally this would involve making a skill roll, but I have ignored skills thus far and will do so for as long as I can, so I'll just split it odds / evens: 2 is a No; Fujita rejects the offer. Will this have repercussions? Unknown.

For the Research Operation, I'm going to need to make a roll with the Research skill - since operations use the entire crew, they're treated as having a default skill level of 5. Mission control will give us a +1 for a total of 6.

An extremely important aside: The basic skill roll in 60 Years is roll 2d6 under your skill level. This is increased to a whopping 3d6 for flat ability score checks, and reduced to 1d6 in cases where it is extremely easy or if the crew or crewmate has relevant Chrome - Chrome is not super well defined, but it applies to rolls using technology you have patents for (i.e. have researched and produced), medical specialities, language fluency, and some very vague Crew Certifications and Player Certifications, which seem to be intended almost as a kind of achievement system but only appear in a literal printed certificate for players after character generation, giving them Chrome with crew modules. There aren't any other mentioned or lists of certifications anywhere else in CR or SI.

A second important note: 60 Years operates on the principle of "Failure is Not an Option" (FINAO), which boils down to "you're always going to succeed at your rolls, but succeeding at cost will build up flaws and defects in your crew and equipment that, if not treated, will eventually cause an Accident and that will very likely fuck you up royally, because it's space."

Under your skill is a plain success, under half your skill allows you to choose a complication (since some complications are bonuses), exactly at your skill level is a random complication, higher than your skill but less than 2x skill is either a Partial Success (Which is not well defined, appearing in only 2 other places in CR and nowhere in SI) or Expedited Abort and Retry (allowing you a second shot if you take 2 penalties), and greater than or equal to 2x skill is Mandatory Abort (plus one defect, debt, point of stress, or consumable tally)

I really like this a lot in principle: very good use of the dice mechanic to reinforce themes: your characters are still astronauts, they need to be extremely good at their job and failure will very often mean near-instantaneous death.

In  practice, though, I'm still figuring out how much I like it wrt the actual dice rolls and how Chrome works. 

I don't see any way for the Hayashida's crew to have Chrome in this scenario, since the tech is all going to be new, so I'm going to roll 2d6: I roll an 8, which puts me in the normal fail zone. Stress (as mentioned in Worldbuilding from Scratch's posts) is a bit of a non-downside for Operation-scale actions as it stands. I don't want defects, so I'm going to go with debt.

Normally, debt is per-crewmember, I'm going to change that.

Houserule: debt incurred by FINAO rolls is faction-wide; bankruptcy still works the same, if debt = Capital ability score we clear the debt but permanently reduce Capital by 1. If I would ever end up dropping to 1 Capital, I would treat that as game over.

So despite the costs, we are succesfully able to scrounge up 1d6 new patents. I only roll a 2, so we're going to have to do another Research op next year and hope we don't go into further debt.

Notes for Year 1 

• 3 major factions
• JAXA (White)
• Planetary Society (Purple)
• The Southern Alliance / SACU + MERCOSUR  + ASEAN (Green)
• 1 minor faction
• Zero Family (Earthside criminal syndicate, Purple)
• 2 factories
• 10 Hygeia (Planetary Society)
• Arsia Mons caverns, Mars (Southern Alliance)
• Faction finances: 1 debt, capital 5
• Research queue: 2/5 ORION components researched 

 

Wrap-Up 

Whew! Went longer than expected on this one, but now things are finally taking shape and falling into place. At last, the big picture is revealed and all the pieces are fitting together. It took far too long to get to this point, but suggestions for how that might be addressed will be saved for the final installment.