Fleet Updates - 1 August 2023
Hello argo, big changes coming to the fleet. This is kind of a long post, but please take the time to read through it, because it may very well affect your ability to RP.
Player Groups are King
Argo will now be structured around Player Groups, both structurally and functionally. Virtually all characters will be sorted into these groups, and they will be pivotal to the organization of RP.
Events should now target a specific group.
In terms of RP, the days of the “Open”/“Whoever shows up” events are over. That type of attendance rule will now be reserved for social occasions or other rare situations where it actually makes sense to accommodate any character who happens to show up.
Instead, each event will be required to list an intended Player Group. GMs will now need to determine who they are GMing for. As you’ll see in the new event post template, there are still options to widen your audience, if you feel appropriate. You can add a specified number of guest slots, or a specified type of character.
One major goal of this change is to prevent the awkwardness that often ensues when events aren’t selective enough. We’re targeting things like multiple ship captains showing up for an event on a single bridge and being forced to spend the entire event off-screen or inexplicably attend without their ship, or lower-ranking characters having no meaningful way to participate in an event focused on captains. While many of you have undoubtably learned to adapt to these oddities, they can be demoralizing and detrimental to new players, especially when it means they’re unable to truly RP in the role they envisioned for their character.
This will be a culture shift that will take some getting used to. It will require the cooperation of all of you as participants, group organizers, and GMs in order to work. Please take a look at the new Event Template and Explanation, and consider targeting a specific group when hosting your next event.
Characters will only be accepted to the fleet when there is an available Player Group for them to join.
If there is no active Player Group for your character to join, you won’t be able to bring it into the fleet. You will have the option to either create a new group suitable to the character, or to wait for someone else to do so.
For some types of characters there will be a default group that is always available:
- Starfleet Crewmembers (non-Captains) can join the DS13 Crew.
- Republic Crewmembers (non-Commanders) can join the Flotilla Flagship Crew.
- Civilian characters (with or without ships) can join as station residents/registered visitors.
“Reserve Squadrons” will allow pre-existing characters to remain in the fleet.
No current characters are getting kicked from the fleet as a result of these changes. This primarily affects solo ship Captains, many of whom will not have a Player Group to join immediately. A “Reserve Squadron” will be created for each faction, and will allow those ships/characters to remain in the fleet without being part of a Player Group.
These squadrons will be closed, meaning no new characters will be added to them, except under special circumstances.
The Starbase is Now Initiate Central
The vast majority of new players are going to begin their Argo membership assigned to the starbase in one form or another. To help generate RP both for initiates passing through and for permanent starbase crew, we’ve greatly expanded the initiate RP task list, and we’re implementing an IClyfied process for characters that mirrors our OOC membership requirements.
Most departments now have an RP evaluation of some kind to offer initiates (like medical and counseling have had), so take a look at those templates and consider responding to requests as they come in!
Initiates also have duty-related tasks they can perform, all of which require another player to participate, and are centered around day-to-day life around the starbase. Your starbase characters are uniquely suited to help accomplish these. For example, an initiate engineer might need someone to call them to make repairs, or an initiate medical officer might need someone to come in to sickbay with an injury. I’d encourage you to keep an eye out for these and don’t be afraid to offer them when people are looking for RP!
(of course none of these are just for initiates, full members should feel free to make use of the evals and prompts as well!)
Ship Squadrons
The changes above may be most acutely felt by ship captains, as we have decided NOT to create default groups for solo ship captains - that is, ship captains without player groups. This means that players may not be able to create new captains, unless they intend to create a crew, or someone has taken the initiative to create a player group (a squadron) for solo captains. This also means that if there is no active player group for solo captains, it may be extremely difficult for these characters to get involved with RP or attend events.
We realize this may be disappointing for some of you who like to play these characters, but it is traditionally one of the most difficult character types to account for as a GM, and content aimed at them specifically has always been somewhat sparse. Our goal with this limitation is to ensure that we are not filling the fleet with characters that are doomed to suffer from a lack of RP content.
If you’re interested in playing a solo ship Captain, we encourage you to form a new Player Group (ship squadron) and help out with RP generation for yourself and others!
Romulans & Klingons are Changing
To help generate unique content and further differentiate the experiences of each faction, we’re making some big changes to how we handle Republic and KDF/ZP characters.
The JSI is disbanding, Romulan ships will no longer function as part of the 38th Fleet.
Instead, we’re creating the 11th Expeditionary Flotilla, which will be ICly a separate entity operating in the same area as the 38th. As an ally, the Flotilla will still rely on DS13 and the 38th for many services (shipyard, R&R, etc.), allowing Republic characters to continue to visit the starbase - and critically, participate in a subset of station-based initiate tasks. Removing the Romulans from the 38th’s chain of command, however, opens up different types of RP and enables us to more easily come up with stories that just wouldn’t work while flying under the Federation’s banner.
It is our hope that this move will provide more opportunities for RP, without being needlessly limiting. As the Federation and Republic are still close allies, it is perfectly acceptable for both factions to participate in joint operations when appropriate (ie. you don’t have to faction-lock your events unless it makes sense to do so).
Note: This is an IC change only, everybody’s still part of argo in-game.
ZP’s doors are closing (for now).
Because of the comparatively limited player population and ongoing issues maintaining interest, we’ve regretfully decided to stop external recruitment for the KDF faction. This measure is not necessarily permanent, and it does not mean we are giving up on KDF RP. However, we do need to be realistic and make sure that new members joining the fleet are afforded adequate RP opportunities.
For the time being, KDF/ZP will be treated the same way as starship squadrons described above - there will be no default player group available, so new characters and RP content will only be available if/when someone takes it upon themselves to host a player group for this faction.
We’d like to take a moment to recognize Sadia and Mudd, who have both gone above and beyond to maintain ZP over the years and been a valuable part of argo’s staff team. Though this chapter of ZP’s existence is coming to a close, I have no doubt that we will call upon their expertise and dedication to KDF RP again some time in the future (sorry guys, we’re not letting you off that easily! 
).