Outer Rim War III

Outer Rim War III (ORW3) is a multi-club multi-player competition organized by the Rebel Squadrons. It is the latest in a long line of competitions that includes Outer Rim War (ORW), Outer Rim War II (ORW2), the Minos Conflict, and Celestial Fury (CF). Its start date is as yet undetermined, although currently planned for late September or early October. The competition features multiplayer gaming of a variety of types, from X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter to Empire at War.

Note that nothing on this page should be considered as definite, as the event is still in the planning stages, and the clubs involved have not agreed to the stated rules as final. However, most or all of the rules have been carefully worked over and are likely to be kept unless the clubs involved decide to change them.

The War

ORW3 will follow roughly the same format as the two previous ORWs, with some important innovations. For those who have not experienced ORW before, this is a multiplayer gaming competition involving many SW clubs fighting over territory, in the form of planets or planetary systems, in the Outer Rim. The War ends when one group has captured all of the planets.

This ORW, rather than featuring all of the clubs at odds with each other, will use three "factions" of clubs that have formed temporary, uneasy alliances with each other whose enemy are the other two factions. The three factions are "Rebel", who are affiliated with the New Republic; "Imperial", several remnants of Palpatine's Galactic Empire; and "Sith", Force-using followers of the Dark Side who are gradually conquering the galaxy.

The factions are intended to be as balanced as possible, and a "skirmish" will be held before the actual War to gauge faction balance. After the War has begun, clubs may join the war at any time, pending a majority vote by the ORW Council, if it is possible to keep factions balanced. Clubs may also switch factions during the War, pending a 2/3 vote by the ORW Council, although this is not recommended except to rectify any major unbalanced factions.

The Skirmish will take place approximately 2 to 3 weeks before the War begins. Current estimates are for the War beginning in early October 2006.

Fictional background

Twelve planets in the Outer Rim have been occupied by the three factions, and events have led to war. Who will emerge the victor of this fight?

One possible back story for the competition revolves around an ancient culture heretofore undiscovered by modern Galactic civilization. This culture created a form of technology or power accessible only via simultaneously performing a complex set of rituals on the twelve planets that the culture occupied. The requirement for this set of rituals is such that those performing them are extremely vulnerable and need perhaps a month of undisturbed time to be successful.

One possible way for each faction to be involved may be that the Imperials originally discovered one of these planets and their legend, but a New Republic spy discovered the information before the Imperials could prepare all twelve planets and rushed forces there. The Sith, with their dark ways, have also discovered the true nature of the technology, and fight equally hard to control it.

Location

The Subterrel Sector is a possible staging area for the ORW3. This region of space is viable for a number of reasons.

• It is beyond the Outer Rim (beyond civilised space), out in Wild Space (mostly uncharted). (A title might be: Outer Rim War III: The Subterrel Conflict; or, perhaps not called Outer Rim War at all, because it's Wild Space.)
• It's nowhere near any major trade routes.
• The galaxy at large don't know or care about the region (we can have a war there and no-one will know/care).
• Due to its lack of importance, there is practically no canon information avaialable, so we cannot be contradicted by canon material (the only major event of significance was that Luke and Leia Skywalker were born in this region, but not even they know that).
• It's neutral ground, where none of the clubs have a foothold.
• We will have free reign to create our own planets and star systems in this area, as it's a largely uncharted region of Wild Space.
• It is a fair distance from RS space (and several other clubs), but not prohibitively so (it's halfway between the Rimma Trade Route -- our location -- and the Hydian Way).

Possessions

• The three factions will begin with four planets each.
• After each week, the faction who scored the most points that week will capture one planet from the faction with the lowest score and at least one remaining planet.
• A faction without any remaining planets may continue to play, but must achieve the highest score in any given week to recapture a planet. Note that this means every club may participate, and possibly still win, until the last day of the competition.
• The war is over when one faction has captured all twelve planets.
• The planets will be divided among the faction according to their fraction of total points earned during the competition.
• The determining of exactly which planet is captured and occupied each week by which club, under the restrictions above, will be determined by a small number of people, who will announce the result in the ORW NL. This determination only affects the fictional side of things, as all planets will be strategically equal out-of-character.

Newsletter

• The ORW newsletter, tentatively called The Outer Rim Times, will be published each week and will highlight the main aspects of that week's competition.
• Staff should be drawn from all three factions, and may include any number of members from each club.
• The name should be The Outer Rim (something): Times, Gazetteer, Chronicle, etc.
• Each week's newsletter will contain the current map of planets owned as a centerpiece.
• The newsletter will be entirely in-character and will involve a fair amount of fictional extrapolation from numbers. No numbers from the actual matches are likely to be used.
• The NL aims to be as unbiased as possible and not be centered on any particular club. Individual clubs or factions may produce their own newsletters from a different point of view.

Staff:

• RS: Licah Fox, David Vaughan, Eric Skrevski
• Many more writers and editors will be accepted; please contact Licah at fc@rebelsquadrons.org if you are interested.

Clubs

Club name	Status	Contacts	Type	Past wars	Notes
Rebel Squadrons (RS)	Confirmed	Rear Admiral Licah Fox, Fleet Commander, fc@rebelsquadrons.org; General Leonard Cable, Executive Officer, xo@rebelsquadrons.org; Colonel Eric Skrevski, Operations Officer, EMW1824@hotmail.com; Vice Admiral Spokes, Assistant Operations Officer, spokes_rs@comcast.net	Loosely affiliated with New Republic	ICTE, CF, ORW2, ORW, Minos	DB ally; BattleStats club: most games (29 members)
Dark Brotherhood (DB)	Unconfirmed	Grand Master Jac Cotelin, JacCotelin@gmail.com; Dark Jedi Master Xanos Sadow, Deputy Grand Master, xanos.sadow@nagasadow.org; Templar Lucius Xerxes Entar, Tribune:ICTE, nevergood@gmail.com; Duga, DugaArkarso@gmail.com	Dark Side of the Force (Sith, Obelisk, Krath)	ICTE, CF	RS ally
Force Elite Soldiers (FES)	Unconfirmed	Rasr Culdan (Rage), Head Ambassador, Rage@fesgaming.com; Winfil Motti (Motti), Multi-Club Ambassador, Motti@fesgaming.com; Kalra Jessorn (Kalra), Multi-Club Ambassador, Kalra@fesgaming.com	Dark-affiliated	ICTE	RS, DB ally
Emperor's Hammer (EH)	Unconfirmed	Grand Admiral Astatine, Fleet Commander, fc@emperorshammer.org; Sector Admiral Cyric, Executive Officer, xo@emperorshammer.org; Admiral Ramos Kanzco, Combat Operations Officer, ramos.kanzco@gmail.com	Imperial-affiliated	ORW2, ORW, Minos	BattleStats club: most games (11 members)
New Republic 5th Fleet (NR5F)	Confirmed	Grand Admiral Michael Simon, Fleet Commander, manfred.simon@t-online.de; High Admiral Commskywalker, Fleet Executive Officer, commskywalker@hotmail.com; Rear Admiral Mattias Gustafsson, Republican Diplomatic Corps Commander, the_tax_collector@hotmail.com	New Republic-affiliated	ICTE, CF, ORW2, ORW	RS, DB ally
United Pilots Alliance (UPA)	Unconfirmed	Supreme Council, upahq@upahq.org; UPA_Falcon, Head of UPA Website, falcon@upahq.org; UPA_GoldLeader, Head of Expanded Universe, goldleader@upahq.org	presumably New Republic-affiliated	CF	BattleStats club: 6 BF members, 8 XvT/XWA members
Star Vipers (SV)	Confirmed	Sector Admiral Phoenix Berkana, Fleet Commander, phoenix@crimson-net.org; High Admiral Gaius Horn-Berkana, Executive Officer, keldorn@btinternet.com	Imperial-affiliated	ICTE, CF, ORW2, ORW	RS, DB ally
Vast Empire (VE)	Unconfirmed	Grand Moff Kadann, Head of the High Council, kadann@vastempire.com; Grand General Talon, Operations Officer, talon@vastempire.com	Imperial-affiliated	ORW2, ORW	RS ally
Last Starfighters League (LSF)	Unconfirmed	Admiral Ghent, Commanding Officer, ghent@starfighters.com; Captian Zorro, Executive Officer, zorro@starfighters.com; Pallos, Executive Officer, pallos@starfighters.com	Multiple factions	ORW
Galactic Empire: An Empire Reborn (GE)	Unconfirmed	Fleet Admiral Sirus Polanski, Supreme Commander, polanski@blueyonder.co.uk; Admiral Tiberius Fel, Strategic Development Director, fel@empirereborn.net; General Jacob Jansen, Ambassador, jansen@empirereborn.net	Imperial-affiliated	ICTE	DB ally
Imperial Directorate (ID)	Not contacted	Imperator Nyykl Orzon, Grand Moff, gmf@imperialdirectorate.org; Tribunus Salth "Wil" Khan, Prime Minister, pm@imperialdirectorate.org; Equite Destavol A. Gin, Minister of Operations, add_r_us@yahoo.com	Imperial-affiliated		DB ally; formerly of the EH
Imperial Dominion (ID)	Unconfirmed	Admiral Drax Remlinger, Fleet Commander; Admiral Erryc Lasitter, Executive Officer	Imperial-affiliated		Related to the EH
New Republic Navy (NRN)	Not contacted	Fleet Admiral Das717; Admiral Mother	New Republic-affiliated		BattleStats club: XvT, XWA (12 members)
Crimson Mercenaries (CM)	Not contacted				BattleStats club: most games (25 members)
The Defenders of Sovereignty (DS)	Not contacted				BattleStats club: most games (30 members); ER club
CRS Morning Star	Not contacted				Comprised of Red Squadron and and Blue Squadron.
Tie Fighter Alliance (TFA)	Not contacted	Fleet Admiral ExarKunONe, Commander	Imperial-affiliated		BattleStats club: XvT, XWA (60 members)
The Rebel Alliance (TRA)	Not contacted	Fleet Admiral Pilotbaby64, Commander; Commodore Highlander01, Executive Officer	Rebel-affiliated		BattleStats club: XvT, XWA (59 members)
Imperial Ground Forces (IGF)	Not contacted				BattleStats club: JA, BF2 (132 members)
Rebel Ground Forces (RGF)	Not contacted				BattleStats club: JO, JA, BF2 (49 members)
Republic of Independent Systems (RIS)	Not contacted				BattleStats club: BF, BF2 (36 members)
Galactic Warfare Alliance (GWA)	Not contacted				BattleStats club: GB, EaW (33 members)
Brotherhood of Selected Sith (BOSS)	Not contacted	Dark Lord of the Sith Cobra; Dark Lord of the Sith Suntear Keeper	Dark Side-affiliated		BattleStats club: XvT, XWA; (4 members)
Sith (S) and Sith Apprentices (A)	Not contacted				BattleStats clubs; A: 5 members; S: 3 members
Neues Imperium (NI)	Not contacted				EH ally; German club
Brotherhood of the Sith	Not contacted				EH ally; Polish club, entire site in Polish, no English version available
BURN	Not contacted				ER club
Dragon Warriors	Not contacted				ER club: most games
United Confederation of Free Planets (UCFP)	Uncertain	Syndic?		ORW2	Website down, but Syndic is around in the RS B&G. He reports that his members all left for college, but he may be able to bring them back for an ORW3 competition.
Galactic Imperial Order (GIO)	Apparently defunct				DB ally; Website down; Josh says Morone is or was the leader.
Elite Republic Commandos (ERC)	Apparently defunct				Website down
Orion Strike Fleet (OSF)	Apparently defunct				No updates since 2004
New Republic (NR)	Apparently defunct			ORW	Website down
Antagonist Wing (AW)	Defunct			ORW	Website down; Morg informs us that this club was an offshoot of the Star Vipers that no longer exists.
Imperial Order (IO)	Defunct	Emperor Larsen, emperor@imperialorder.net, Grand Admiral Wulfman, Chief of Operations, chief_of_operations@imperialorder.net	Imperial-affiliated	ORW2, ORW	TJ informs us that the club is no longer active.

(* members) for clubs listed on BattleStats refers to BattleStats membership, not total club membership. For example, the RS has 29 people in the BattleStats club, but 200+ in the club proper.

Possible Factions

Rebel

• (*) Rebel Squadrons
• (*) New Republic 5th Fleet
• United Pilots Alliance
• (New Republic Navy)
• (The Rebel Alliance)
• (Last Starfighters League)

Imperial

• Emperor's Hammer
• Galactic Empire
• Vast Empire
• Imperial Dominion
• (Tie Fighter Alliance)

Sith

• (*) Star Vipers
• Dark Brotherhood
• Force Elite Soldiers
• (Brotherhood of Selected Sith)

(*) Confirmed participant in ORW3
(Club) indicates Battlestats club

Scoring

The scoring system of ORW3 will aim to reward participation more than past competitions. Players will be able to earn points simply by waiting for matches, which will hopefully serve the dual purpose of making waits tolerable and drawing more people, thereby lessening waiting time. This system also rewards according to the number of plays involved in a match, so in a 4v4, many more points are awarded than would be in 4 1v1s. The specifics of the system follow:

(# points - item [fictional equivalent])

• 1 vs 1
  • 6 - win [victory on the battlefield]
  • 4 - tie [stalemate on the battlefield]
  • 3 - loss [defeat on the battlefield]
• 2 vs 2 & more
  • 4 - team win (per person) [large victory]
  • 3 - team tie (per person) [large tie]
  • 2 - team loss (per person) [large defeat]
  • # players through 1 - individual performance [damage dealt to enemy]

For example, in a 2v2, #1 receives 4, #2 gets 3, #3 gets 2, #4 gets 1.

• 1 vs 1 vs 1 (FFA: Free-For-All)
  • 8 - 1st place
  • 5 - 2nd place
  • 3 - 3rd place
• Certain games (EaW, BF2, BF) will earn the players double the merits for all of the above, due to their longer length of play.
• Other points
  • 1 - 20 minutes on the waitlist [patrolling territory] [max 12 per day] [change to 15 minutes if competition is only one day per week]

This only applies when 50% or more of the number of participants are signed up (example: 1 person for 1v1, 2 for 2v2, etc.)

• • 1 - connection failure (unable to connect or lag-out) [scouting territory; orders not to attack, or a brief skirmish]

After three lag-outs in one day, a person can no longer earn patrolling points that day to prevent abuse.

• • 2 - win by forfeit [enemy turns tail]

A forfeit may be called for any of the following reasons, if the other party so desires: No attempt to play the match by one of the participants within 15 minutes after the match is assigned; Departure mid-match for reasons other than connection problems.

• Bonuses:
  • 2 - 25 points or higher in a week & mention in The Outer Rim Times
  • 5 - 50 points or higher in a week & paragraph or news flash in ORT
  • 10 - 100 points or higher in a week & at least half article in ORT

A club's score will simply be the sum of all of its members' scores.

Possible club strategies:

• Attrition: Fielding a large number of lesser-skilled players who nonetheless overwhelm -- by scoring more overall points -- one or two excellent players on another club, by utilizing the "patrolling territory" bonus. Counterpart: Massacre. This was a strategy not available in Celestial Fury.
• Massacre: Fielding one or two highly skilled players who defeat every player they encounter, from a variety of clubs, and play continuously. Counterpart: Attrition. SV utilized this during Celestial Fury.
• Balanced attack: Fielding several players each in a wide variety of games, to damage forces of all types and win through sheer numbers. Variant of Attrition.
• Concentrated attack: Focusing on one particular game and fielding large numbers of players just for that game, of a variety of skill levels, that carry the club to a victory in that game and, possibly, the event. Variant of Attrition.

Rules

• Meta-rule: Rules, factions, and the scoring system may only be changed in between the overall battles.

Games

The following games will be accepted for ORW3:

• (*) Empire at War
• (*) Battlefront 2
• (*) Battlefront
• Republic Commando
• Jedi Academy
• Jedi Outcast
• X-Wing Alliance
• X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter
• (*) Galactic Battlegrounds (possibly, although perhaps replaceable by EaW)

(*) eligible for double merits, as outlined above

Not on the list:

• Jedi Knight: outmoded
• Rebellion: outmoded
• Force Commander: outmoded
• Role-playing (D6 or D20): too logistically difficult
• Fiction writing: not really "real-time"
• Allegiance: popular for its space combat, but not a Star Wars game

ORW location

• Channel: #outerrim on irc.undernet.org
• Time: 12pm-12am EST. This allows for 12 hours of gameplay each day and is easy to remember.
  • Option A: Saturdays and Sundays, 1-week battle periods. More intense.
  • Option B: Saturdays only, 2-week battle periods. Less intense. This has been the format for past ORWs.
  • Option C: Sundays only, 2-week battle periods. May or may not be easier for most people to make than Saturdays.
• Bot operators (ORW3 admins): Anyone available that is known to be trustworthy; there needs to be an admin on hand at all times, if possible. More than one person can operate the bot per gaming period.

Matchups

• Only one match may be played at a time; all participants must re-sign up after a match to play again.
• Combatants may only play against members of their own faction three times per week. [Fictionally, this is akin to squabbling allies.]
• Combatants may not play against their own club.
• A person may only play the same opponent configuration three times per week or less.

Example: Person A may play Person B 3 times in a 1v1; AC vs BD may additionally play 3 times, but AE cannot then play BD that week.

• In 2v2s and higher, if three factions are present, two factions must ally against a third.

Example: AB may play CC, but AC may not play BC.

• In free-for-alls, all three participants must be from different factions.
• If a person is in multiple clubs, he or she may only play for one club per week.
• After a lag-out, the same opponents may not play each other again that week.
• After yielding two forfeits, a person may not sign up again that day.
• If a person's lag-out total is three or higher and 50% of matches or higher, that person may be asked to stop playing until the connection issues are resolved.

Post-match

• Any participant may report the results of a match.
• It is highly recommended to take a screenshot of the results screen of every match. The host must stay at the results screen for at least 5 seconds to allow all participants to take a screenshot.
• Disputes are to be filed on the ORW3 website for consideration by the ORW3 admins.

Coding

The remainder of this page concerns technical details of the ORW3 website and IRC bot, so most people may stop reading here.

IRC bot

• Coder: Dessan (from scratch) and/or Licah (adapting Shik's ORW2 bot)
• Announce all activity in the main channel
• Signups for 1v1 and 2v2, to be done via PM !signup; will require a handle and password to do so
• Removes for 1v1 and 2v2 upon parting channel or quitting, or via !remove
• Topics - Checks for updates to the score every 5 minutes and updates topic accordingly. (Or, the website can notify the bot to change the topic when necessary.)
• Turning on/off - Websites are more reliable than IRC connections, so the bot simply needs a local on/off button.
• Interfaces with the ORW3 website to obtain data.

Website

• Coder: Licah
• Graphics: Terrak
• The code for assigning and reporting matches will be PHP, instead of mIRC as before.
• Place controls for admin match modifying and turning the competition on/off.
• Pages:
  • Reporting - drawing from list of active matches
  • Disputes - a form that emails to the admins egroup
  • Rules
  • Ladder - Individual achievement; allow for display of any given week as well as cumulative (LIC-style)
  • Standings - Club standings, by week or cumulative
  • Newsletters (or "The OR Times") - containing news, maps, etc.
  • Updates - Non-fictional updates, such as changes to the rules, website, staff, or admins.
  • Clubs - Listed by faction and activity, this will contain brief info on each club.
  • Home - Hub of information: brief "about" section, factions' planet holdings, top 3 or 5 players from each club, top 10 overall, top 2 clubs for each game,
  • Contact - List of contacts for each club, list of ORW3 admins, including an email form to contact them
  • Profiles - a player profile for each person: name, club, IRC nick(s), link to profile at club's site, email address, other contact information (AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Xfire)
  • Matches list
  • Login/logout
  • Register
  • FAQ
  • Active matches - includes those waiting on the signup list
  • Admin controls - edit report, turn competition on/off (for a particular day or week)

Consider making highly customizable ladder/standings: ability to view particular game statistics, vs. particular club, vs. particular player, specific match times, vs. particular factions, 2v2 with particular teammate, etc. This will create a significant load on the MySQL server, but using static ladders may resolve such a problem.

We will be purchasing a domain name for this competition, such as orw3.net, when the name of the competition is finalized.