Solar Ocean: Colonies Games

are founded on three Core Concepts.

CONFLICT
COLONISATION
DEEP SPACE

Solar Ocean: Colonies Games

are founded on three Core Concepts.

CONFLICT

COLONISATION

DEEP SPACE

CONFLICT
in SO:C

CONFLICT in SO:C

WAR

In the Solar Ocean Colonies Universe, war has changed. On one hand, Extreme-Distance-Engagement (EDE) technologies have made space-combat impersonal, while on the other hand, Personnel Shields have made both close-combat and sniper ambushes the new norm on planetary engagements. Initiative is everything.

INVASION

You can build your own Colonies, but there’s another way: Why not take control of others’ hard work? If you manage to break through the enemy defences, and whittle down the resistance, converting the common populace to your Faction is usually not too big a task. Still, easier said than done, unless you specialise in the arts of invasion and subversion.

ESPIONAGE

When the stakes are as high as ownership of a Colonial Quadrant, espionage may play a key role in fulfilling that ambition. The simplest Espionage tricks may give you insight to the enemy Secret Agendas, Operations Deck and hands. Further focus in this field opens up the potential to discard enemy cards, and even use them for your own benefit.

CRIME

Away from central control and the strict policing in the Cradle System Sol, what great opportunities open up for the pioneering criminal mastermind? In SO:C, the Underworld of Crime is more than just stealing enemy resources. Bribery, coercion, blackmail and gambling are all parts of a criminal executor’s Operations Deck.

SABOTAGE

Guerrilla Warfare is rampant across the Colony Space, simply because it is often much more cost-efficient than raising up massive armadas from scratch. Industrial and Civic Sabotage Operations can substantially cripple enemy capacities while dealing preliminary damage to follow up with a military killing strike.

C.D.F.

Against these great dangers, your small Colonial Defence Force may seem to be inadequate. But remember that these are veterans who have signed Cellular Celerogenesis (CelGen) Contracts before they come to the frontier, ensuring them free regrowth and revival during their service. They have little fear of danger, and they are very versatile.

COLONISATION IN SO:C

COLONISATION IN SO:C

COLONISATION IN SO:C

IMMIGRATION

The resource-depleted Cradle System of Sol is where people who like it safe stay. For the rest, immigration to the Colony Space is encouraged. These masses make up your incoming population. They land in your Hub Nodes, to be trained and played into your capacities as you see fit. As your Recognition increases, whether it be fame or infamy, more people will flock to your cause, favouring either the conflict or colonisation spheres and earning you extra Taxes.

INDUSTRY

While your Gateship provides access to the Cradle System Sol and the advanced production bases there, you are expected to build your own industrial backbone as soon as possible. Increased industry means access to refined resources, which you use to build up better assets, or sell to other players. Several advanced assets will require you to have high levels of industrial power before even attempting to build them.

CULTURE

The Colony Space is where outlandish ideologies and lifestyles can flourish away from the strictures of the Cradle System Sol. Your culture may house radical religious cults, extravagant lifestyles, extreme pacifism, and even further strangeness. These may make your people more resilient to certain Ops and effects, or more aggressive, or harder to infiltrate or add any other number of special conditions.

POLITICS

All the players have a say in the political arena. Each player gets one vote every turn, to appoint another player to certain roles in the Frontier Council, in which all players are by default members, and whose chair rotates each turn (the First Player Token). These roles provide crucial dice-pool rerolls, so be wise with your vote… or manipulate it, for JACOB (the board) also has a vote, which is random, unless any player appoints their diplomatic lobbyists or expend bribes.

MARKETS

All manner of resources and industrial materials can be traded between players. Even services from your colonial capacities may be leased out to the paying buyer. Any asset or service in demand earns value, while under-demanded ones stabilise back to basic values. This process happens every turn, creating a dynamic in-game economy.

R&D

While the core scientific knowledge of the Solar Ocean Universe is mostly common knowledge among all Factions, specific applications and unique edges flourish. Even more importantly, the Colony Space is full of alien Xenotek ruins and artefacts of unfathomable age and purpose. While these are extremely hard to decipher, some are done so, yielding world-shaking stories for the RPG game, and interesting Edges in the 4X game.

WORLDS OF SO:C

WORLDS OF SO:C

WORLDS OF SO:C

EXPLORATION

You start the game with a number of worlds in your immediate space already probed. Of course, you may go anywhere you want across the Colony Space, even into space initially controlled by your opponents, and depending on your play-style, you probably will. You may choose to explore Worlds more thoroughly, adding Sectors to them for all players to enjoy, while claiming a nice and hefty Explorer’s Bonus for your efforts.

TERRAFORMING

All Worlds are ranked on three key Liveability Scales: Life, representing the flora and fauna on the world; Volatility, representing the level of hostility of natural elements to the human physiology; and Indigen, representing the humans who, through body-modifications and splinter settlements, have chosen to go native on those worlds, living at the fringe of your control. All of these values can be modified through Terraforming.

RESOURCES

Natural resources in SO:C have been classified under four broad categories: Organic Compounds (C-ORG), Ores (ORE-X), Exotic Matter (EXO-M) and Dark Matter (D-HEX). Using these basic resources, an industrialised civilisation can produce 3 types of Nanites:
C-ORG + ORE-X = FERMITE
ORE-X + EXO-M = BOSITE
EXO-M + D-HEX = HYPERITE
Basic C-ORG is also used for feeding your colonists. 

THE GATESHIP

You start the game with a single Gateship. The initial jump used to place your Gateship at this space-time coordinate was executed at great cost through the Charon’s Gate Singularity back at the Cradle System Sol. Now that you are here with the quantum-entangled core in your Gateship’s Warp Drive, it is a simple matter bridge to and fro. The Gateship acts as your conduit to home, and the initial HQ for your game. It costs a huge loss of face to replace, so keep it safe.

COLONIES

As soon as you get your initial stuff going, you should start building Outposts and Colonies, simply for the fact that you need to place incoming populations, and your Gateship can only take so much. SO:C is not a game where zerg-tactics work, which means, while the invasion of other’s bases is a useful tool, not so much early on. Obviously, starting with Outposts is a good idea. However, you may also choose to draw upon heavy loans from JACOB to ramp up directly to a Colony, with the risk of a huge loss of face if you fail to pay later.

INVESTMENTS

Investments modify Colonies and Outposts. They also may make them juicier targets for invaders, while some may make it harder for enemies to take them over. Some other investments are played pre-colony-building to make it easier or harder to build stuff later (for all players, though, so beware). Planning your investments well is a huge part of your tactical game in SO:C.