Prepare the ballot
Open Campaign → Contract polls, then Create contract poll. Enter a title, time zone and participating companies. The real-world closing date and time may stay blank while preparing the draft; no deadline is assigned automatically. The initial time zone is America/Chicago; change it if needed. The campaign calendar does not control voting.
In the draft poll, choose Add contract option. Generate contract terms fills a private draft name, type, length and employer category using Revised Dobless, and starting terms using the selected starting financial tables. Contract preparation does not select a mission-track system. After selecting the contract, open its GM contract details and use Schedule a track to choose the mission-track system, or Narrative operation to prepare a web. These are separate screens; existing missions are unchanged. Book-specific random term generators are not implemented. Generate contract terms replaces baseline terms without saving a ballot option. Review and edit, then Save contract terms and text. Roll checked terms remains available for selective rerolls. Published contract examples load book scenarios. Special conditions remain GM choices; employer/type adjustments are not automatic. Click Contract planet or Choose on map to search, pan, zoom and select a planet at the campaign date. Selection fills the field without moving the campaign or saving the form. Cancel or Escape keeps the prior field value. Generated type and terms are summarized above the fields. The compact dice button beside Contract name creates an operation title without changing terms. Compact AI buttons beside Contract name and Briefing ideas use the configured site AI service and shared budget; Briefing ideas accepts your premise, motives, objectives and tone; its adjacent AI button turns those ideas into a proposed contract briefing. Review, then Use suggestion or Discard. Applying a suggestion changes only its name or narrative field. Save contract terms and text to persist it. AI does not roll or change payment terms. Service errors leave the form intact. Employer type filters a second Employer dropdown. Major government choices put the current planet ownership first, then sort by distance to the nearest inhabited system belonging to each government. Choices use the campaign physical planet, not the proposed contract destination. Corporations use a sourced Sarna catalog, local affiliation/facility matches and reviewed interstellar candidates. Known founding/dissolution years exclude unavailable companies; historical or undated affiliations still need GM review. Local government, noble, civilian, subcontractor and patron entries are generic roles tied to the current system, not invented named canon people. A custom option preserves published or manually named employers. Selecting an employer does not recalculate payment terms. Set the campaign planet under Travel and arrival if local choices are missing. Local employer types also show a custom name box with an AI button beside it. Generate a fictional contact appropriate to the current campaign planet and selected employer type directly into the editable custom employer name field, then review and save the contract. It selects Custom employer; saving the contract option persists it. AI naming is unavailable for major governments and corporations. Changing employer type requires a new suggestion. Starting financial term tables selects Draconis Reach, Hinterlands or Revised Dobless independently of mission tracking. Apply tables and roll starting terms rerolls the five financial/command terms without changing the name, type, employer or destination. Preparation lists only unmodified starting entries: pay 60-110%, salvage Exchange or 10-40%, transportation 0/25/50/75/100%, and the selected table's support and command choices. Support combines type and percentage; salvage is one rights selector. Reputation and trade-offs use the broader negotiation ladder later. Employer/type step modifiers are not automatic. Contract type and length generation still uses Revised Dobless. Values outside the starting table require review before saving; preserve special narrative conditions in the notes. Existing accepted company terms are unchanged. The contract name, Length in months and Play format form one stack. The next columns group Contract type / Transport coverage / Command rights, then Base pay / Salvage rights / Support rights. Employer choices sit beneath Contract planet. Desktop controls align across shared rows with compact spacing; smaller screens stack the same groups. Players choose accepted company scale within the maximum supported by current ready BV/PV; there is no GM offer cap. Briefing ideas are retained with the draft; review the suggestion before applying it to Contract briefing, objectives and special rules. For new acceptances, maintenance and transport use the chosen scale. At acceptance and again before first departure, the company must provide at least two-thirds of scale times 3,000 BV (100 PV in Alpha Strike). Draconis Reach checks its selected travelling roster; Hinterlands checks company equipment. Crippled and destroyed units do not count. An understrength force cannot accept a new contract: no contract, transport charge or reputation change is posted. If an already accepted company falls short before departure, only that company defaults for -3 reputation once, preserving its accepted maintenance scale and the evidence. Prior transport payments are not reversed. Existing and imported contracts are not retroactively defaulted.
Add between two and thirty options. Review all terms opens each contract on its own page. Edit poll settings / closing date changes or clears the deadline, or changes companies, while the poll is a draft. Add contract option opens the private editor to enter terms, load a template or roll terms. Save each option to list it with Review all terms and Edit links; opening voting is not required.
Set a future closing date explicitly, then use Review and open voting, check the deadline and eligible-player list, then Open voting. At least one participating company must have a claimed, enabled player account. Draft polls are visible only to the GM. Opening locks the options, companies and deadline; cancel and prepare a new poll if these must change. New polls and drafts opened now use ranked choice; already-open and completed single-choice polls retain their original method. On a cancelled poll, Create replacement draft copies its contract options into a new private draft and updates the between-contract session to use it. Cancelled history and ballots remain; votes and deadlines are not copied. Choose a new deadline before opening. Repeated requests return the same replacement. Closed sessions cannot create replacements. Edit next-contract choices also replaces a cancelled poll in a draft session.
Vote before the deadline
Open Campaign → Contract polls and choose an open poll. Use Review all terms, then assign preferences: 1 is your first choice. Use each number once, starting at 1 without gaps. Rank as many contracts as you wish and leave others Unranked. Save vote records your ballot; Update vote replaces it until the deadline.
Each distinct account owning a participating company when the poll opens gets one vote, regardless of company count. Eligibility is fixed at opening and voting also requires current access to a participating company. Unclaimed, blocked and disabled accounts cannot vote; joining later does not add eligibility.
The server rejects votes at or after the saved deadline, including forms opened earlier. No scheduled job or open browser is required to close voting. The displayed deadline includes its time zone and UTC offset. Ambiguous or nonexistent daylight-saving times are rejected; choose another time or use UTC.
Your saved preferences are visible to you and the campaign GM. Other players cannot see your ballot. Contract ballot shows a count of distinct eligible players who have voted versus the total eligible group, with a participation bar changing from red through yellow to green as it fills. Zero votes shows a small red marker; all eligible players voting fills the bar green. Multiple companies do not give an account extra votes. Draft totals are provisional; opening fixes the eligible group. Vote changes do not increase participation. After closing, Voting results shows aggregate counts for each round, eliminated contracts and exhausted ballots. Valid recorded ballots remain if a member later loses access.
The GM uses Review individual ballots from the poll, Voting results or Confirm poll result. This separate read-only page lists each eligible voter and every saved choice, including unranked positions and voters without a recorded ballot. It is available while voting is open and after closing; players can still change an open ballot. Legacy single-choice polls show only their recorded first choice. Viewing ballots never changes votes or publishes an offer.
Confirm the next contract
At the deadline, instant-runoff results become available. A contract wins with more than half of continuing ballots. Otherwise the lowest-count contract is eliminated and each ballot transfers to its next remaining preference. Ballots with no remaining ranked choices are exhausted and excluded from the majority denominator. The GM reviews the result, then uses Confirm poll result and Publish winning contract. Publication creates the offer exactly once; viewing the dashboard, results or ballots never publishes it.
If all remaining contracts tie, original second-choice counts across every saved ballot suggest a contract. Third and later choices help if necessary. This assists the GM rather than locking the decision: Review individual ballots shows everyone's choices, and Choose contract opens the selection page. All tied finalists remain available. The suggested contract is preselected; choosing it needs no extra note. A different choice needs a short GM note, saved with the result. For example, B and C with two first choices each suggest B when B has two second choices and C has one, but the GM may select C after reviewing the ballots. Eliminated A is not a tied finalist and cannot be selected.
If the lowest count is tied before the final comparison, the GM chooses a Contract to eliminate and records an Elimination tie-break reason. Record elimination and recount resumes counting. If finalists remain tied through every preference rank, select the Chosen contract and add a short GM note. Voting results retains these decisions and each round. A poll with no ballots must be cancelled and replaced. Legacy single-choice polls use their original totals and tied-leader decision; missing ranked ballots are never invented. Previously published winners and saved result evidence remain unchanged.
The selected offer contains shared baseline terms. Use Negotiate for your company, or Company Information → Contracts → Negotiate contract, to choose accepted scale and adjust your individual terms before accepting.
Selection does not accept a contract, assign a roster, charge transport or post pay. The offer uses a future planned operational start when specified; otherwise it starts at publication. Late publication shifts a past planned start and opposition change together. Each company completes its existing contract before accepting the next one.
Cancel poll requires a reason and preserves its ballots. Resolved polls retain their winner and totals. A rules-profile change or removed participating company prevents publication; the GM must review the poll and prepare corrected offers. Confirmation and elimination decisions save asynchronously with JavaScript; ordinary forms remain available without it. After an uncertain response, reload to check saved state before retrying.
Generate names without leaving the form
The dice and AI buttons fill an editable, unsaved contract name in place without reloading the page. Local employer AI also fills its field directly. Progress and errors appear beside the field; edits made while generation is pending are preserved. AI uses configured site access and budget; dice names do not use AI.
Plan operations after contract selection
Choose Planned contract start when operations begin later than selection or travel. Leave its month Unscheduled to begin at winner publication. Publication retains a future planned start; if that start has passed, it moves to publication and shifts the opposition change by the same amount. Selection alone does not move the party.
Opposition changes must fall within the operational term. A six-month August 3049 start covers August through January; November is valid and February 3050 is the end boundary. Validation shows the actual covered dates.
Save generated narrative explicitly
Generate contract terms creates financial starting terms and a name in the unsaved option draft. It does not generate briefing prose. AI beside Briefing ideas proposes narrative for review. Choose Use suggestion to copy it into Contract briefing, objectives and special rules, then Save contract terms and text.
Saving or rolling terms is blocked while a narrative suggestion awaits Use suggestion or Discard, or while generation is still pending. Edits made to the narrative during generation are retained; an older suggestion cannot overwrite them. Narrative suggestions are not themselves saved briefing versions.
Saved text and briefing-version status are visible on the contract terms page and in Campaign > Briefings. Draft versions require review and publication before players can read them.