Star Wars Saga Edition: Logistics

The Saga Edition house rules in my previous post made periodic references to a logistics system. This is that logistics system. It’s copy/pasted from a forum post and occasionally references earlier versions of the logistics system with the expectation that the reader will know what they are, but never in a way that makes it unclear what the new rules are (I checked). It’ll just sometimes say something like “we still have [rule],” because readers of the forum post will have seen that rule before. The rule is still explained in full for the benefit of this blog, and for reference.

So we still have primitive, agricultural, industrial, commercial, and luxury worlds, because having those tiers is important to having any kind of functioning colonial minigame. When you upgrade from primitive to agricultural, you unlock either food or metal. When you upgrade from agricultural to industrial, you unlock two of machines, starships, power, droids, and weapons. When you upgrade to commercial, you unlock one of electronics or medicine. When you upgrade to luxury, you unlock a unique luxury resource. If it’s the party what did the upgrading, you can call it whatever you like: An entertainment network, a certain type of hyper-rare jewelry, a new style of music or fashion, a new philosophy or religion that results in a booming tourist trade, whatever.

Each population unit of one billion people can produce one unit of one of the unlocked resources. There’s benefits to specialization: For every three population units on a planet all producing the same resource, a fourth bonus resource gets produced for free. These people are self-sufficient up to a planet’s sufficiency rating, which is usually ten billion. Every two billion people past that requires a food unit to sustain.

The resources have three main uses: Supplying worlds, building colonies, and sustaining military units. Some resources require a supply of other resources. A single resource can be spent to supply a world with that resource. So, for example, a mining planet that produces eight metal can supply eight planets with metal (including itself, if it needs metal). Once the planet is supplied, all of its population units can make machines, weapons, starships, and droids (provided they have these resources unlocked and have a supply of the other resources needed). The planet does only remain supplied so long as they receive a unit of metal every turn, however. Creating weapons requires a supply of power. Creating machines and starships requires a supply of power and metal. Creating electronics requires a supply of power and machines. Creating medicine, luxuries, and droids requires a supply of power and electronics.

Building colonies requires a one-time expenditure of resources. You need one unit of food and metal for each population unit on a planet to turn it from primitive to agricultural (usually you bring a population unit, a metal unit, and a food unit with you to get yourself started at agricultural). You need a unit of machines and power per population to upgrade the planet to industrial. You need electronics and medicine to upgrade to commercial. To upgrade to luxury, all you need is to dedicate at least one full population unit on a commercial world to a luxury business.

Every population unit automatically creates a militia unit worth one defense point. Each resource invested in the unit makes it more powerful, according to the below chart. The resources that can be invested in a unit are food, weapons, electronics, medicine, and machines. Starships can also be invested in the unit, which will allow that unit to become a marine unit that can join a fleet rather than a guard unit that must stay on the planet where it was created. If a unit is invested with starships, it cannot be invested with machines, and vice-versa.

If a damaged unit doesn’t fight, they recover one point of defense or power. A unit with access to medicine, in addition to upgrading their total unit worth, recovers one extra point every turn they aren’t fighting. Once a unit is destroyed, it can only be recreated by tapping a population unit on a planet. This deactivates the population unit, taking enough of the able-bodied adults away that there are no longer enough to produce enough surplus to generate extra resources. If you tap a population unit that’s already been tapped, you drain it completely and it’s destroyed (not literally every able-bodied adult is drafted into the military, but enough of them are that the population unit is no longer self-sufficient, and excess people are absorbed into other population units). Tapping or draining a population unit does not destroy the military unit automatically drawn from their population, although any unit they were supplying will degrade without the supplies (and if they’re a marine unit, they will revert to a guard unit and be left stranded). When recruited, the unit is a regular militia. It takes one turn of no combat for each resource to be invested into the unit.

If a planet is supplied with droids, tapped population can still produce food, metal, power, or weapons, but not starships, droids, machines, electronics, medicine, or luxuries. If a planet can produce war droids, then they can create a military unit comprised of war droids. This unit must be supplied with droids to continue functioning, but is self-sufficient otherwise. It takes a bit more supply to maintain but can be sustained indefinitely so long as the population unit continues to produce droids. When one droid unit is destroyed, it can be replaced immediately (though still only at militia level), as there is no requirement to tap or drain a population unit.

The amount of increased attack power from a unit goes up the more population units you dedicate to it. Early on, you only increase defense or power by one point for each additional population unit whose resource you dedicate, but later it’s worth an extra two, three, or even five if it’s a guard unit. It’s better to concentrate resources on superior units and leave most of your units as militias. But with only five resources to invest (four in marine units), how are you supposed to reach prototype or super soldier status? Some planets have a special resource. This resource requires population to exploit like any other and serves some special function. It might be usable to colonize or upgrade planets for free, to heal units at a faster rate, or it might be something you can add to a unit to make it stronger.

Superweapon units represent special plot things like the Death Star or one of its many, many knock-offs. Something like the Star Forge is not necessarily a superweapon unit, but may instead just be a prototype unit that also has the unique ability to produce free military units every turn. In any case, these units aren’t produced by any amount of special resources, but rather as a result of plot events.