Wyrdysm Games

It is 3182AD. Mankind has conquered the stars and the fundamental forces of the universe, but never its own bloodlust. Meta3.0 takes place in the Urania Sector, a union of five backwater star systems: Tammuz, Loa, Soliton, Msyu and Jeddah.

Two ideologically-distinct militant factions have emerged in the area, and they've accumulated significant infamy for their ruthless tactics and the dime-a-dozen value they assign to human lives. Recently, the animosity between the factions has led to violent skirmishes, resulting in no small amount of collateral damage. The Inner Systems Alliance has been attempting to force a cease fire between them for months. Unforunately however, a natural disaster has caused the situation to take a turn for the grim.

The Urania Sector has experienced a partial lanespace collapse. Outgoing lanespace movement is now impossible, but incoming traffic still trickles in. But as very few people have a reason to visit the sector anyway, the Alliance has been none the wiser. Chaos rules in the colonies, and civilians are arming up. The sector's pirate syndicate is running amok. The local military is struggling to control the situation.

The two militant factions prepare to handle it the only way they know how: by murdering each other, and anybody that stands in between them.

Unfortunately, the majority of the factions' forces were positioned outside of the sector during the collapse. They have nothing in Urania save for a few battlestations and a hoard of discarded Nanocores: rare, valuable novelties; relics from the glory days of the technologically unsurpassed Zaftran Emirate, often picked from debris fields and sold to collectors for billions of credits. They are adaptive warships capable of reappropriating the technology of fallen enemies, assimilating salvaged components and growing into lumbering amalgams of ship corpses.

Thing is, Nanocores need salvage. And a veritable feast of unaffiliated ships lies before them. The Urania Sector is about to experience maximum bloodshed.

Meta3.0 uses a variant of the CLARENT system, shoehorned into a two-side DotA-style metagame. Players play as a Nanocore operator affiliated with one of the two opposing factions (whose names are chosen and ideologies are detailed by their "leader" players). Their objective is to destroy the command center of the opposing faction. The enemy's command center is positioned at the opposite side of the map, and can be reached through one of three systems (or "lanes" if you want to use DotA terminology).

However, both command centers are guarded not only by opposing Nanocores, but also by battlestations ("towers") that require heavy armament to break through. As Nanocore operators, the natural source for such armament is all around you. Civilian, pirate and military ships can all be attacked for components. But try not to attract too much attention until you deserve it.

Strategic

Movement is carried out on five hexgrids, each representing a star system. Each turn, players can perform two of the following actions:

• Move: A ship's movement range in hexes is equivalent to its Speed value, rounded down and added to 1. Normally, a ship faces its last-moved direction. However, 1 hex from the ship's movement range can be allocated into turning towards any direction. Ships cannot move through Obstructed Spaces or through enemy units. If they move into a minefield, it will detonate. It takes three turns (the current turn and the next two) to go through a warp node from one system to another.
• Engage: Ships can engage any target that is both visible and within the range of their weapon with the longest range (1000px = 1 hex of range. So a gun with 1200px range can only attack targets in adjacent hexes, while a gun with 2300px range can attack a target that is two hexes away. Weapons with less than 1000px range can only attack targets in adjacent hexes, and will waste some time getting in range.) Ships' initial locations in these engagements are equivalent to their relative positions on the grids, so flanking an enemy in strategic movement will translate to BSF movement. An "engagement" lasts for 30 seconds in game time, after which any lost components are tallied. Salvageable components are placed in the opposing Nanocore's component pool.
• Reconfigure: Drawing from their component pool, players can reconfigure their ships with components from enemy ships. However, they can only store so many components in their pool at once. Unused ones will inevitably need to be destroyed, passed to team mates or broken down into Credits, which can be spent at home base to purchase other components.
• Active Scan: All ships scan automatically for objects in a few hexes around them; this is called Passive Scanning. If you have a Scanner equipped, you can also performed an Active Scan. This will reveal all objects in a certain radius around a scanning location that you specify. It also reveals minefields and cloaked units with certainty. All nanocores of your faction share scan data, so take advantage of this. Scanners cannot see through obstructed space.
• Activate Abilities/Items: Some components confer special abilities that can be used on the strategic map (eg. cloaking device, mine layer, turret deployer). You may also come across single-use items that may be of use (drone pods, cruise missiles, maybe even high-profile hostages in escape pods).

If a Nanocore is ever defeated in battle, it will activate an Emergency Warp and return to its home base with only its Nanocore Level and Credits intact. All of its components will be lost, and a default loadout will be prepared for it.

The turn rollover takes place once every few days or as time permits (the more assistant GMs I have, the more likely it is to advance consistently). The two sides act on different turns (i.e. Side A acts on Turn1A, Side B acts on Turn1B, then Side A acts on Turn2A, and so on). NPCs act after both of them.

Shipbuilding

Ladies, please. Control your orgasms. The above picture is exactly what you think it is: I have removed the human element from calculating ship stats entirely. There will be no entering of values into a web page: You can simply feed the .sb4 into the calculator and it will throw your stats and component list at you. However, there is a certain methodology to building ships for use with the calculator. You'll need to understand the rules of the shipbuilding system, although it is not advised to calculate stats by hand using these rules.

Ships are made of part types called "components", which are represented by sections, weapons and modules. Each component has Mass, Power, etc. values and a list of several sprites that can represent it. If you want to use a component, choose one of the valid sprites for it and place it on your ship as a section or weapon, making sure to give it stats according to the component's specifications. The calculator counts all instances of these sprites, adds up the Mass, Power, etc. for them, and spits out the stats. There are some similarities to the meta2 system here. Obviously, your ship's power consumption cannot exceed your power output. Speed, turning and accel are calculated by taking the total Thrust values of your engine components and dividing them by your Mass.

Every Nanocore has a Nanocore Level, which can be leveled up by destroying enemy ships or using certain items. Your Nanocore Level is used to determine your Mass Limit, which is the total amount of Mass you can have on your ship at any one time. Your Nanocore Level also determines which components you can mount, as many components have a minimum Level.

I am currently trying to compile a component list for the calculator, represented mostly by kae_shn sprites. But if you want to join or help out, you should download the calculator with its example component list here: http://filesmelt.com/dl/meta3shipcalculator1.rar.

The calculator identifies components using the component.ini file. The example list defines assigns several BSF Stock sprites to a few example components. The values inside should be self-explanatory, but if you need help with them, just ask.

Players are able to choose from three "phases" of Nanocores when they join the game, each with several bonuses.

The Zaftran Nanocore Project was plagued by a troubled development cycle. As technology marched on, the cores' role on the battlefield was reconsidered with each successive revision. Collectors of discarded nanocores often refer to these revisions as "phases". The hoard of Nanocores discovered by the two factions is composed mostly of Phase 2505j, 2541/C and 2601 nanocores-- too common to be considered valuable, but left in such pristine condition that the logical course of action was to activate them.

2505j - Assault Phase
The oldest of the available phases. Though outgunned and outranged by the two newer phases, these nanocores have a notably higher neural synchronicity rate than is normal, allowing pilots to control more assimilated systems at once. They are also able to keep more components at the ready for quick reconfiguration.
Effective Mass Limit: x1.3
Component Pool: 15 (as opposed to 10)

2541/C - Support Phase
Phase 2541/C is a veritable mobile communications suite, capable of directing attacks and providing fleet-level scanning capability. Its precision instrument set can also be directed towards better weapons control at long ranges, allowing it to serve as an excellent fire support platform.
Passive Scan range: +2
Active Scan range: +2
Active Scan radius: +1
Weapon range x1.4

2601 - Tactical Phase
The (then) cutting-edge 2601 was designed with pure efficiency in mind. Its lighter, more efficient assimilation tendrils allow it to maneuver faster and bring significantly more firepower to bear than its predecessors.
Movement stats: x1.3
Effective Power Output: x1.3