I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere so I'd like to bring up some things to stimulate general discussion. I'd like to see peoples opinions on how things work in the world of Subterfuge. To start off, I'll list some questions and ideas that have occurred to me as I've been playing. Please feel free to speak your opinions or voice questions you have about how the world of Subterfuge actually functions.

How fast do the subs actually travel?
The closest outposts are normally about 12 hours away. Are we sending our drillers hundreds of kilometres, or thousands?

Why does the map loop?
Is the game taking place around an entire planet? If thats the case, why isn't there any land.

What even are drillers?
Seriously! Why do they need power? How does it get to them, extension cords?

How do the generators make power?
Are they using thermal vents? Nuclear fusion?

Why do I want Neptunium anyway?
Can I do something with it? Is it valuable? Who would I sell it too?

I hope people are able to debate their opinions on this. I look forward to reading through everything. Hopefully I left some other questions for people to ask.

The game does take place on an entire planet devoid of land, but that's about all I can answer. However another question I would like to add is, what is the name of this planet?

If it's on a planet with no land then how did we get there? Who built the outposts we're controlling? Are they the remnants of an ancient race? Are we the remains of a splintered society?

I'd like to imagine the world of Subterfuge like: (warning, text wall, bad English)
A world set in the distant future of 1984, where war.. is routine.

100 years ago, in 1884, technology was very much advanced. There were already robots, running on compact fusion reactors. Already computers that could perform billions and billions of calculations. Already are there planes flying in the skies at faster-than-sound speeds.

But then, the Great War happened.

At first, war broke out between nations on land, fought by robots rather than humans. Then air, where the first drones flew through the skies. Then the sea.

But the war dragged on and on. Every faction devise increasingly destructive weapons to annihilate each other.

And then, the erstwhile Empire of Britain used a weapon that changed the world.. forever. It was called Triton, and it was so powerful the world was shortly submerged in water, drowning even the tallest summits in the Himalayas.
Only few humans managed to survived, living in submarines or bases under the sea.
And as such, the War ended with mutually assured destruction on all sides.

1984, 100 years later, the remaining humans continue living their nomadic lives under the sea, taking over dormant bases no longer with an owner, waging war to survive. Men live in bases; and drillers, androids modified for deep water combat and drilling, fight their wars. Submarines are their only method of transport; powered by powerful fusion reactors, they can travel around the world in less than 5 days without refuelling.

The survivors of the war had discovered a new metal: Neptunium, a rare, silvery metal that is of incredible value to men. It is the key to constructing the Apparatus, the long lost device that could lower the water level down and return the long lost land.

Once the Apparatus is completed, perhaps humanity can finally see land again, after a century living on the seas, and return to.. home.


(Note, the Apparatus was mentioned in the guidebook, but never explained.)

Alternate 'lore', slightly more sci-fi and more fleshed out somewhat.

In a distant future, humans had set foot on the Jupiter moon of Europa, and discovered an entire ocean beneath the thick ice.

The ocean was vast and covered the entire surface. Inside it was valuable materials.. and life. Extra-terrestrial, marine, life.

After nations, the private sector jumped on what was called the wagon to the new West. Soon, the depths of Europa were colonised by now interplanetary corporations, and began a new era for humanity.

But then, come the Collapse. Communications between planets were unexpectedly severed. Supply ships from Earth no longer came.
People slowly die of starvation, dehydration, infighting for supplies, or a combination of all of them.
And by the time the local authorities 'came to', millions of colonists and miners have died.

And so, the Europa colonies were dead in the water.

Few centuries later, the last remnants of once-almighty corporations struggle to survive in the sub-zero depths of Europa. Their loyal servants, robots, fight their wars. Fighting each other until the last scrap of food, they had no hope for future.

But then, the survivors discovered the Apparatus. A powerful space shuttle that is the only ticket back home, its blueprint was eventually revealed to everyone.

But there is one thing. Fuel.

To power the Apparatus, one needs plutonium. Kilograms of it. And unfortunately, all of it are already being used for power generation.

There is still one option. Neptunium. A rare, silvery metal that is found naturally occuring deep under the Europa seabed. It cannot generate power on its own, but it is the precursor to plutonium-238, used in radioisotope thermal generators to provide electricity for spacecraft. In other words, the only way to power the Apparatus.

And so begins the Neptunium Wars.. where home is no longer a far away concept.

One thing is obvious - it's not played on a "globe" as such. The endless scrolling of the map doesn't actually project onto a sphere (there is no North Pole and all "vertical lines" stay parallel rather than converging.)

seethestar wrote:One thing is obvious - it's not played on a "globe" as such. The endless scrolling of the map doesn't actually project onto a sphere (there is no North Pole and all "vertical lines" stay parallel rather than converging.)

So there are wormholes on the boundaries of the map which teleport you to the far side of the map? Or maybe there's an infinite number of players, but every eighth player is doing exactly the same thing as you...
*mind blown*

CALCULATIONS TIME!

1.) The average speed of a submarine is 35 knots, 40mph, or 65km/h. If the average distance between two outposts is 12 hours like you mentioned, that is a distance of about 777.8 kilometers or 420 nautical miles. Using an 8 player game, the furthest one can go before the game recalculates to the other side is about 67 hours, or 4343 km, or 2345 nautical miles. Which means if it is a sphere, the circumference is double that - 8686 km or 5397 (regular) miles. If a perfect sphere, its diameter would be 2765 km (C= PI * diameter), meaning the surface area would be 24,025,397 km^2 (SA = 4*PI*radius^2), or ~40% of the surface area of the moon.
EDIT: comparing it to Jupiter's moon Europa, the planet of Subterfuge is ~60% smaller than Europa, whose surface area is 30,900,000 km^2.

2.) One can assume a perfect sphere with a lack of poles. Best demonstrating this would be taking a ping pong ball and drawing some dots on it. By rotating the ball forward or backwards, you will soon find the same dot appear again after 1 revolution, same with going right or left. Longitude and latitude lines were made by humans to keep track of where they are on the globe in relation to the poles, but that does not mean it has to carry over to other planets, especially those which are perfect spheres and not oblong spheroids.

3.) Drillers are most likely mechanical (fission/fusion powered) robots, as hinted as being able to be reconstructed by engineers (have electric components), expedited faster by Tycoons or foremen (humans can't be made faster, but machines can), or stolen by Thieves (have no human part in protesting being stolen).

4.) Generators most likely produce energy through nuclear fission or fusion, as this does not require burning of fuels, and can generate a lot of power.

5.) "When bombarded with neutrons neptunium-237 is used to produce plutonium-238 which is used for spacecraft generators and terrestrial navigation beacons. Neptunium is also used in neutron detection equipment." - So Neptunium can be used to find neutrons, which in turn allow it to turn into plutonium, which can be used to power spacecraft or other machines! As explained by earlier posts (mrhax), the Apparatus may be a way to power a spacecraft to escape this watery planet to another world! (inb4 Subterfuge: Beyond Earth )

Can we please stop with these calculations? My brain hurts....

mathwhiz9 wrote:Can we please stop with these calculations? My brain hurts....

Hahaha aren't you a mathwhiz?

Anyway there's a very simple reason why the map loops. If it didn't, there would be corners or at least, edges. Edges would have less surrounding outposts than outposts in the middle of the map, and would thus be harder to take from someone. This means that people who spawn in the middle would be at a disadvatnage. The reason why there isn't any land is probably because if there was, Subterfuge would suddenly be much more complex and things wouldn't be as fair as they are now