A new Rule Book For over 12 years Phoenix has developed from a few journals of ideas on how to replace the decrepit Qbasic code of Beyond the Stellar Empire into something that far exceeds anything we ever imagined. During this time it has progressed from a purely email interface into something that from my opinion is unparalleled in the world of Play by Mail, by which I include all descendents of the genre. So busy have we been in adding new features, updating old mechanics and refining elements of the game that the rules have become to be polite somewhat wanting. Occasionally we have added sections or updated other sections and even hardy players have taken up the baton upon occasion. The simple truth however is that they have been cobbled together and what little structuring that does exist is not overly user friendly. So it is with both trepidation and resolve that I am to set the matter straight, starting with this article explaining what I intend to do. To answer the most obvious question, why now and not years ago, it is because the end is now finally in sight. Yes indeed, we can now see what is needed to finish writing the game. Of course this in no way implies that we will stop developing Phoenix, rather we do not envisage anything on a par with the battle program, Nexus, notifications or relations. We will be largely concerned with bug fixes, bells and whistles. In fact in terms of major things left, all that we have to do is characters and improving the interfaces for missions and writing the orders for infrastructure as already laid out in the rules.

It is weird to have the end in sight such that afterwards we are concerned with doing nice things rather than necessary things, things that add depth to the game rather than things that when added you wonder how the game was played before. Of the latter, Nexus is the best example and from what I hearing, notifications is one of the best development since.

Returning to the subject of a new rule book; with a fair amount of hindsight and a lot of material contained within the IGN’s, the prospect of compiling one is much less daunting, though it is a task that I would rather do once and therefore properly. As such the purpose of this article is largely to share my thoughts on its layout and hopefully garner positive and critical feedback. In the existing rulebook my main complaint is that within pages there are often many sections. This makes for very awkward reading and location of information. I think that it is much better to use sub-pages, allowing for quick location of relevant information from the tree directory. This was previously not done because it was considered annoying to continually click between pages but mostly for players that prefer a printed version of the rules. We will bypass this through the creation of word documents and probably PDF’s of the rules. These can be generated by assembling sub-pages as sections in a single document (according to Darak, very straightforward).

The other major difference intended is to split elements into their own entries. For example, where research is currently a section within starbase, it will become a top-level page, as will things like production, exploration and the other key aspects of the game.

There is a question about depth. Many of the IGN articles, for example ‘Damage - Everything you needed to know’ explain aspects of the game to a higher degree than the existing rules. There are two schools of thought on this. The first is that the rules should contain all this data. The second is that as this level of ‘nitpicking’ is not needed to play the game, it might be best to simply give an overview that is sufficient for most players and give a link to the article for further reading. I sort of prefer this approach because the rules should give you what you need rather than put you off by seeming far too complicated.

So, the theory is that the main headings have an overview with the sub pages going into more depth. Purely by reading the heading pages, the player will have a reasonable understanding of the game.

There will also be a few notes in italics within the various sections explaining why things are the way they are.

This is what we have so far:

• Introduction
  
  • Game Development History
  
  
• How the game is played
  
  • Your Starting Position
    
    • Starting Missions
      
    • Submitting Orders
      
      • Offline Editor
  
  
  • Game Processing Cycle
    
  • Bank Holidays
    
  • Establishing your Game Presence
    
  • Stellars (in-game currency)
    
  • Fees (pay to play positions)
    
  • Leaving the Game
  
  
• Navigating Nexus
  
  • ID
    
    • Changing ID
      
    • Pips/Medals/Ribbons
    
    
  • Forums
    
    • Posting Rules
      
    • IC/OOC
    
    
  • Game
    
  • Turns
    
  • Orders
    
  • Political
    
  • Library
    
    • IGN
    
    
  • Admin
    
  • Messages
    
  • Personal
    
  • Notifications
    
  • Missions
    
  • News
  
  
• Positions
  
  • Ships
    
    • Squadrons
    
    
  • Starbases
    
    • Outposts
    
    
  • Operatives
    
    • Agents
    
    
  • Ground Parties
    
    • Debris
      
    • Cargo Dumps
    
    
  • Politicals
    
  • Platforms
    
  • Creating New Positions
    
  • Selling Positions
  
  
• Factions
  
  • Affiliations
    
    • Profile Options
      
    • Charters
    
    
  • Power Blocks
    
  • Relations
    
  • Territory
    
    • System Claim
      
    • System Income
      
    • System Enemy Lists
      
    • Exclusion Zones
    
    
  • Roleplaying
  
  
• Movement
  
  • Jumping
    
  • ISR Drives
    
  • Reaction Engines
    
  • Stargates
    
  • Wormholes
    
  • Surface and Orbital Movement
  
  
• Scanning
  
  • Stopped for Combat
    
  • Cloaking
  
  
• Personnel
  
  • Employees
    
    • Slaves
      
    • Indentured Workers
    
    
  • Troops
    
    • Militia
      
    • Training
    
    
  • Scientists
    
  • Officers
    
    • Skills
    
    
  • Recruitment and Acquisition
  
  
• Trade
  
  • Merchandising
    
    • Merchandising Calculator
    
    
  • Item Value
    
  • Planetary Sales
    
  • Player Controlled Markets
    
    • Private Markets
      
    • Hiports
    
    
  • Trading with Civilians (Non-players)
  
  
• Production
  
  • Assigning Factories
    
    • Basic Production
      
    • Mass Production
    
    
  • Materials and Substitution
    
  • Strion Enhancing
    
  • Blueprint Limits
  
  
• Research
  
  • Principles
    
  • Techs
    
  • Blueprints
    
    • Prototypes and One Use
    
    
  • Scientists and Universities
    
  • Stellar Cartography
    
  • Esoteric Technology
  
  
• Ship Design and Construction
  
  • Design Limits for tech
    
  • Limits due to Hull Type
    
    • Armour
      
    • Weapon Space
      
    • ISR
      
    • Installation Space
      
    • Integrity
    
    
  • Armour
    
  • Installed Item Requirements
    
  • Ship Template Alternative for Installed Items
  
  
• Mining
  
  • Mining Calculator Resource
    
  • Types of Mining
    
  • Subsurface Mining
    
  • Enhancement of Deposits
  
  
• Resources
  
  • Finding Resources
    
  • Growth
    
  • Dealing with Civilians
  
  
• GM Moderation
  
  • Explorations
    
  • Investigations
    
  • Special Actions
    
  • One-off
    
  • Free Actions
    
  • PM’ing GM’s
    
  • Arbitration
    
  • Civilians and NPC Factions
  
  
• Infrastructure
  
  • World Levels
    
  • Establishing a Colony
    
  • Infrastructure Classes
    
  • Enhancements
    
  • Governments
  
  
• Combat
  
  • Targeting
    
    • Enemy
      
    • Support
      
    • Defend
      
    • Do not Target
      
    • Relations Override
    
    
  • Weapon Types
    
  • Combat Ranges
    
  • Weapon Types
    
  • Defence
    
  • Damage
    
    • Death and Promotion
      
    • Blowing Up
      
    • Integrity Breakdown
    
    
  • Control Battles
    
    • Boarding Actions
      
    • Raiding
  
  
  
  

  Appendix The Universe Peripheries Systems Planets & Moons World Types Gas Giants Asteroid Belts Nebulas Asteroids Stargates Wormholes Anomalies Items Stats Item Types[…] Unique Stats Orders By Position Type and Group Type