Group Design Challenge: WarShip Arms Race

[marcussmythe]

Isn't that basically every Terran ship? They don't have the vehicle bays or crew quarters, so all ground forces need to go into cargo pods, but they all have the space for that. (The Cruiser is the one exception, with 5ktons of cargo, but that seems like a mistake somewhere in the source materials. 5k was my calculated space, but Sarna claims it should have 95ktons.) They're a bit fighter-light by this game's standards, I guess, but this seems to be their intended design theory.

I think of it as 'Terran Moreso' - there have to be some advantages of moving your troops in troop bays and your vehicles in vehicle bays, vs. just tossing them all in the big ole cargo hold.  (For one thing, having them 'hot' in vehicle bays vs. 'cold' as Cargo lets you drop them from orbit or quickly load them onto small craft combat transports'.

But you arent wrong - Its essentially a more refined version of 'Terran 101'.  And even if I later go back to 'pure' warships, having warships that are also cargo transports/troop transports as part of the battlegroup will fill that collier/transport role, without demanding separate, vulnerable, fragile, logistical tail.  If nothing else, the 'Terran Hull' ship could fill every available space with butter and wrenches and serve as collier to his guns-heavier companions.

[Lagrange]

Has anyone fiddled with a ‘Star Destroyer’ type concept - hybrid carrier/gunship with a defent cargo load and a heavy vehicle/infantry carriage capacity? 

The Taurus I mk II refit is like this, except scaled down by an order of magnitude (because: budget) if you load it for a land invasion instead of pure anti-warship combat.  The elements are:

• A main gun capable of destroying itself in a single hit.
• 108 Small craft shuttle bays capable of deploying or recovering a regiment of troops.
• Quarters for a second regiment and cargo capacity to haul their vehicles.
• 72 ASF each with a Killer Whale and 2 Barracudas.
• Supplies for a half-year's life support and about 10 tons/vehicle in repair supplies.

I'm not really decided on whether this is the right way to go in general.  On the one hand, you get robustness, self-sufficiency, and better deployability due to more even use of door limits.  On the other hand, you lose significantly more when defenses fail and all the parasitic ships die also.

[marcussmythe]

Its funny you mention the self-annihilating main gun.  One design approach that Ive flirted with but keep dismissing for various reasons is to just put all the major anti-capital armaments on the nose.  I hate pointing the bridge at the enemy, but man, the concentrated firepower.

[Alsadius]

Not for gameplay purposes, but I made a thing:

Code: [Select]

Class/Model/Name: All-Arounder
Tech: Inner Sphere
Ship Cost: $10,857,138,004.00
Magazine Cost: $133,325,000.00
BV2: 107,414

Mass: 1,000,000
K-F Drive System: Compact
Power Plant: Maneuvering Drive
Safe Thrust: 3.0
Maximum Thrust: 4.5
Armor Type: Standard
Armament:
240 Machine Gun (IS)
80 LRM 20 (IS)
24 Naval Laser 55
16 Naval AC 30
16 Naval PPC Heavy

Class/Model/Name: All-Arounder
Mass: 1,000,000

Equipment: Mass
Drive: 180,000
Thrust
Safe: 3.0
Maximum: 4.5
Controls: 2,500
K-F Hyperdrive: Compact (21 Integrity) 452,500
Jump Sail: (5 Integrity) 80
Structural Integrity: 120 120,000
Total Heat Sinks: 4645 Single 4,000
Fuel & Fuel Pumps: 5250 points 2,142
Fire Control Computers: 15,820
Armor: 1032 pts Standard 2,400
Fore: 180
Fore-Left/Right: 180/180
Aft-Left/Right: 180/180
Aft: 132

Dropship Capacity: 2 2,000
Grav Decks:
Small: 0
Medium: 2 200
Large: 0
Escape Pods: 150 1,050
Life Boats: 150 1,050

Crew And Passengers:
62 Officers in 1st Class Quarters 620
183 Crew in 2nd Class Quarters 1,281
122 Gunners and Others in 2nd Class Quarters 854
684 Bay Personnel in 2nd Class Quarters 4,788
65 1st Class Passengers 650
1000 Steerage Passengers 5,000

# Weapons Loc Heat Damage Range Mass
40 Machine Gun (IS) Nose 80 (8-C) Short-PDS 20
40 Machine Gun (IS) RBS 80 (8-C) Short-PDS 20
40 Machine Gun (IS) Aft 80 (8-C) Short-PDS 20
40 Machine Gun (IS) LBS 80 (8-C) Short-PDS 20
20 Machine Gun (IS) FR 40 (4-C) Short-PDS 10
20 Machine Gun (IS) FL 40 (4-C) Short-PDS 10
20 Machine Gun (IS) AR 40 (4-C) Short-PDS 10
20 Machine Gun (IS) AL 40 (4-C) Short-PDS 10
10 LRM 20 (IS) Nose 60 120 (12-C) Long 100
10 LRM 20 (IS) RBS 60 120 (12-C) Long 100
10 LRM 20 (IS) Aft 60 120 (12-C) Long 100
10 LRM 20 (IS) LBS 60 120 (12-C) Long 100
10 LRM 20 (IS) FR 60 120 (12-C) Long 100
10 LRM 20 (IS) FL 60 120 (12-C) Long 100
10 LRM 20 (IS) AR 60 120 (12-C) Long 100
10 LRM 20 (IS) AL 60 120 (12-C) Long 100
6 Naval Laser 55 Nose 510 330 (33-C) Extreme-C 6,600
6 Naval Laser 55 RBS 510 330 (33-C) Extreme-C 6,600
6 Naval Laser 55 Aft 510 330 (33-C) Extreme-C 6,600
6 Naval Laser 55 LBS 510 330 (33-C) Extreme-C 6,600
4 Naval AC 30 FR 400 1200 (120-C) Long-C 14,000
4 Naval AC 30 FL 400 1200 (120-C) Long-C 14,000
4 Naval AC 30 AR 400 1200 (120-C) Long-C 14,000
4 Naval AC 30 AL 400 1200 (120-C) Long-C 14,000
4 Naval PPC Heavy FR 900 600 (60-C) Extreme-C 12,000
4 Naval PPC Heavy FL 900 600 (60-C) Extreme-C 12,000
4 Naval PPC Heavy AR 900 600 (60-C) Extreme-C 12,000
4 Naval PPC Heavy AL 900 600 (60-C) Extreme-C 12,000

Ammo Rounds Mass
Machine Gun (IS) Ammo 25000 125.00
LRM 20 (IS) Ammo 3600 600.00
Naval AC 30 Ammo 1600 1,280.00

Number Equipment and Bays Mass Doors
50,000 Cargo, Standard 50,000 2
12 Bay Small Craft 2,400 2
72 Bay Fighter 10,800 6
60 Bay Vehicle Heavy 6,000 6
40 Bay Infantry Compartment 40 2
1 NCSS Large 500
So far as I can tell, this could be a good generic ship for the entire span of BT history, with only minor tweaks(MG>AMS, armour upgrades, and vee>mech bays. Optionally, also LRM20>ERPPC+Cap and SHS>DHS). If the THN could only build one ship, this might be it? IDK, I got bored.

[marcussmythe]

i like it. 
My StarCruiser (tm) offloads the PDS/Anti-fighter role to carried fighters and escort SC, but quite similar.  Long haul multi-role ship of all work that still carries decent armament.  More Constitution/Galaxy/Voyager than Excelsior/Defiant/Soverign, if you will.  Or maybe kinda Star Destroyer.

I was tempted to add crew and devote space for science labs.  :)

[Lagrange]

Its funny you mention the self-annihilating main gun.  One design approach that Ive flirted with but keep dismissing for various reasons is to just put all the major anti-capital armaments on the nose.  I hate pointing the bridge at the enemy, but man, the concentrated firepower.

This is one of the points where BT rules are rather off in a couple ways.   As it stands, you can accelerate towards an enemy then turn broadside giving both the 3 arcs of weapons _and_ the lowest chance of being hit.   The 3 arcs makes sense, but the low chance of being hit does not---this maneuver maximizes your cross-section.   I expect (with no evidence) that the designers have a built-in assumption that presenting the broad side is equivalent to movement or acceleration perpendicular to the line between two opponents, but that's just not so in general.  A better system would assign to-hit penalties based on transverse velocity and acceleration and to-hit bonuses based on exposed cross-section.

The other confusing thing here is that fire control is in some sense dirt cheap.  In particular, you need to overload an arc by a factor of 10 before the fire control even equals the weight of the original weapons.  Paying a factor of 2 in tonnage is precisely what you do when placing weapons into side arcs.  Granted, side arcs give you redundancy, and the potential of doing double damage if you pass directly through an enemy formation, but these seem relatively minor as benefits.  Rolling sides basically means you probably lost the fight already and passing directly through an enemy formation is dangerous as you expose aft arcs.

For space stations, concentrating on an arc is generally a pretty bad choice.  A normal space station(i.e. one without a tug like the Tick) takes 5 minutes(!) to build up or cancel a rotational velocity of 1 so an opposing fast or nearby ship can just choose to not be in an arc.   If an opponent is n hexes from the space station it needs to be able to alter a transverse velocity by n/5 or more hexes to alter it's radial location as much as the station keeping drive can alter the radial location of a chosen arc.  At 50 hexes, this means a 7/10.5 design works. At 40 hexes, a 6/9 design works.  At 25 hexes, a 4/6 design works, and at 12 hexes, even a 2/3 design works. 

[marcussmythe]

If your playing advanced aero movement, the ‘nose/tail/side’ modifer is based on vector, not facing.

The reason I am reluctant to show nose arcs is based on the critical chart - bridge etc. criticals on the nose chart can quickly cripple a ship as a combatant.

I have, as I said, so far eschewed construction of the ‘spinal mount’ style ship - out of a combination of concern for vulnerabilities and good taste - but you are correct.  Barring a very close ‘enemies on all sides’ battle pass, guns mounted on opposing sides are at best spares.

[Smegish]

Also lets you roll over to reveal fresh armour mid fight, without giving the enemy a clear shot up your rear end

[marcussmythe]

Also lets you roll over to reveal fresh armour mid fight, without giving the enemy a clear shot up your rear end

A definite advantage.  In the alternate, one can respond by moving the majority kf the armor to the facing that will be towards the foe (front, here, rather than sides).

My anticipation is that the ‘nose only’ designs, delivering more firepower and having more facing armor, may show poorly at the duel and small squadron level (due to havig leas flexibility), but will show relatively better and better as the number of units increAse, and weight of fire is measured in ‘ship kills per salvo’ such that one wants to madimize firepower and ability to survive a single salvo above all - in such an environment, crits matter less, and armor on any facing other than the one towards the enemy is largely redundant.

This of course works until a swarm of fighters jumps your ‘all nose’ design on its weak rear flanks, or until it finds itself surrounded, or with a more agile foe out or its nose arc.  Nithing is perfect!

[Lagrange]

If your playing advanced aero movement, the ‘nose/tail/side’ modifer is based on vector, not facing.

That helps, thanks.

The reason I am reluctant to show nose arcs is based on the critical chart - bridge etc. criticals on the nose chart can quickly cripple a ship as a combatant.

I hadn't thought about this aspect much.   My default assumption w.r.t. the Taurus I is that it will be destroyed before criticals really matter.  It's something like a very slow light mech mounting a heavy gauss rifle.

[Alsadius]

Also, re tech, I've thought of a much simpler system. Keep the same three fields of technology, but get rid of the "raffle ticket" system. You can spend a billion to purchase a tech roll in a given field. Each tech roll gives you a 25% chance of unlocking a tech you didn't have at the start of the turn(i.e., roll 1d12, success on 1-3, unlocking tech #1-3 as appropriate). Each turn, each tech has a 25% chance to spread to neighbours, raised to 50% if you salvage some(i.e., roll 1d4, success on 1, or on 1-2 with salvage). In each field, you can only research one new tech per turn, but anything you gain by spread is additional to that.

Let's imagine the TH puts $5B in each field each turn, a great house spends $1B per field, and a periphery nation spends nothing. The TH gains an average of 0.76 techs per field, or about 2.3 total techs per turn. The great house gains 0.25 per field, or 0.75 total from research. They'll catch up in research speed when they gain 1.5 techs per turn from spread, which means they need to be a total of 6 techs back(i.e., 2 per field) from the TH to have the same average growth rate. The periphery will catch up in research speed when they're getting 2.3 techs per turn from spread, which means they'll need to be about 9 techs back on the great house(i.e., 3 per field).

A couple potential wrinkles come to mind - one, I might make the purchase cost less than a billion for periphery nations, so that they can still participate despite their smaller budgets. Two, I'm not sure if being adjacent to multiple nations with the tech should improve spread chances. It'd make things spread faster, so it'll be flatter overall, but that's a mixed blessing. It also harms nations like the Marians that have very few neighbours - by my count it's TH/FS 5, CC/LC/FWL 4, DC 3, UHC/TC 2, and MH/RWR 1.

Still, I think I like this one better. Way less bookkeeping - I have to track who owns what, but otherwise it can be done with a single physical d12 if I have to.

[marcussmythe]

Could be cool to try.

I think multiple adjacent neighbors shouldnt stack - would be super-hard on the periphery realms.  Even without it, being adjacent to multiple people is a serious advantage that the P doesnt have.

At the same time, I dont think there should be an R&D discount for small economies - befause if there was, a split second later we would pay a periphery nation we arent adjacent to to do the research and share its findings.  The large house gets more bang from its buck, the Periphery Realm gets technology it otherwise wouldnt, and one of my hostile neighbors gets an upteched potentially hostile power on its border.  Even as it is, if I were the Combine, id sell or give tech to the TC in a heartbeat.

[Lagrange]

Do we want to increase the rate of new techs by a factor of 2.3?

To be eligible to receive a spreading tech, perhaps some minimal investment in research should occur?  Maybe 1/10th?  A completely free ride seems unrealistically low while 300M/turn is an acceptable investment from the TC perspective. 

[truetanker]

Thanks for looking out for us little guys!

After all, we can always go around SAFE... so easy for us to make them look elsewhere... >:D

TT

[Alsadius]

At the same time, I dont think there should be an R&D discount for small economies - befause if there was, a split second later we would pay a periphery nation we arent adjacent to to do the research and share its findings.  The large house gets more bang from its buck, the Periphery Realm gets technology it otherwise wouldnt, and one of my hostile neighbors gets an upteched potentially hostile power on its border.  Even as it is, if I were the Combine, id sell or give tech to the TC in a heartbeat.

That's easy to fix - no tech trading. (You can still license ship designs, but that doesn't grant the underlying techs - maybe this is a bit handwavey, but it does encourage commerce between players)

Do we want to increase the rate of new techs by a factor of 2.3?

To be eligible to receive a spreading tech, perhaps some minimal investment in research should occur?  Maybe 1/10th?  A completely free ride seems unrealistically low while 300M/turn is an acceptable investment from the TC perspective. 

Maybe instead of tech spread being free, it's $100m to buy your chance at it? That would actually hurt the Periphery even more, though - now in order to keep up, you need to spend $900m/turn to buy the right to keep yourself only 9 techs behind your neighbours. That's a big chunk of your budget.

And yes, I want the tech growth rate increased. At this pace of turn resolution, it'll be about a year until we see HPGs or L-F batteries. Speaking realistically, I doubt I'll be able to dedicate this much of my free time to it for years on end, so I kind of like accelerated tech as a way of making the game reach a natural conclusion before 2023.

[truetanker]

THN should " help " us little guys by setting up waystations and giving us a chance to get tech!

I mean, damn, they gave the Houses a bunch of lucrative deals and us peripherals nothing awhile back!

TT

[Lagrange]

My understanding is that this puts the periphery about 5 decades (= (9+3)/2.3) behind the TH.   That's fairly painful.  It may be explainable compared to the faster tech transfer which happens on earth due to the significantly greater communication & travel times. 

I do believe buying and selling tech at negotiated rates should be allowed, as that makes sense and it would help address the time lag.

W.r.t. the cost, I'm personally willing to go for $100M for the chance of tech spread although you are right that it really adds up when there are many techs.   On the other hand, the TC could pick & choose to some extent.  If TT prefers halving the price of tech spread "research" to $50M, that seems fine as well.

[truetanker]

Whatever get's me tech fastest!

TT

[Lagrange]

I tracked down some details of the Reunification War (starting in 2575).

Code: [Select]

          Warships    Regiments (mech or combined arms)
TH:     507           270
FS:      78              88
CC:      45             61
DC:      49             94
FWL:    75            115
LC:       67             96
MC:      11            29
RWR:    17            25
TC:      127           33
The "heavily industrialized and well populated" TC worlds in 2575 are Electra, Maia, Merope, Rollis, New Vandenburg, Taurus.
The "industrial" TC worlds in 2575 are Flintoft, Deifenbaker, Horsham, Bromhead, Pinard, Macleod's Land.

Apparently, there were quite a few inner sphere refugees fleeing Age of War related combat who resettled into the TC over the prior century which perhaps partially accounts for the very high number of warships. 

[Alsadius]

Interesting. What's the source on that? And are those forces committed to the war, or total forces? Because those regiment numbers, in particular, seem very low.

[Lagrange]

Interesting. What's the source on that? And are those forces committed to the war, or total forces? Because those regiment numbers, in particular, seem very low.

It's this book.  I believe these are total forces, but it's essentially just regiments of mechs---armor is only counted if it is part of a combined arms regiment.

[Lagrange]

Do we have an understanding of how increased maintenance translates into elite/veteran/regular/green quality troops?   

[marcussmythe]

Lagrange - what we know is that 100% is baseline.  Id assume regular.  50% is courting mutiny.  200% is where your hitting ‘gilding lillies’.

[Alsadius]

100% means your die rolls are used unmodified. Higher improves your rolls(with diminishing returns), while lower harms them. Anything below 50%, the unit is presumed to be in mothballs and unable to fight unless re-activated. Note also that maintenance has inertia - 200% this turn is nice, but 200% for the last several turns is better.

Also, an update: writing the turn has been going embarrassingly slowly, and while I'll try to finish it this weekend, I can't promise that. Sorry(yet again).

[Lagrange]

In terms of maintenance, what would roughly correspond to 10% elite, 40% veteran, 40% regular, and 10% green?  This seems to be something like the typical TC force composition. 

[Alsadius]

I haven't tended to think of it as a distribution of skill levels, I've added that sort of distribution elsewhere(to-hit chances, etc.). What would a "normal" distribution look like in those terms?

My gut says you're looking for perhaps 120-150%, but I'm not used to thinking of it that way.

[Alsadius]

I know I've been really slow this turn - I haven't been able to dedicate much time to the writing.

As a way of keeping you entertained until I can get it done, while also producing useful material, I think there might be call for support craft designs. To avoid multiplicity I want these to be generic - i.e., everyone uses the same ones, and the list of options is on the smaller side. However, that's still a dozen or so units. Feel free to post designs for fighters, small craft, and DropShips.

I can see the following obvious categories:
- Fighters: Light interceptor(~30 tons), medium jack-of-all-trades (~50 tons), heavy strike(~80 tons)
- Small craft: Infantry shuttle, vehicle shuttle, cargo shuttle, tanker, anti-missile/anti-fighter
- DropShips: ASF carrier, vehicle transport, cargo transport, pocket WarShip

If you see some holes, feel free to add more designs, but keep it within reason. The goal here is a quick reference guide for what a fleet might plausibly be packing, and one that's easy for me to use. Perfection and rules lawyering are actively discouraged - I want designs that look like canonical designs, not like min-maxed Clan LPL+DHS zombie mechs. (That said, don't make them too awful. I mean canon like the Archer 2R, not canon like the Charger 1A1)

[Lagrange]

A little more guidance would help me.  Looking through, there are 3 heavy strike fighters that have been proposed:

• Rager 6/9 90 tons, 12x MG, AC/5, 2x SRM-6, 25 tons armor, 5 tons fuel.
• Cyclone 6/9 80 tons, 2x AC/5, 2x SRM-6, SRM-4, 6x MG, 13.5 tons FA armor, ?? fuel.
• Shu 6/9 85 tons, 3x AC/5, 23 tons armor, 5 tons fuel.

There is one vehicle shuttle:
Skyfall 3/5 aerodyne, 1 heavy vehicle (variant:2 light vehicles), 10 tons cargo, 6x MG, 18 tons of armor, 3 tons fuel.

There is one anti-missile shuttle:
Crestbreaker 1/2 spheroid, 54x MG, 68 tons of armor, 3 tons fuel.

There is one infantry shuttle:
David 7/11 spheriod, 5 platoons, 4 tons cargo, 54 tons armor, 3 tons fuel.

There is one combat/carrier mixed role dropship:
Rainbow 4/6 spheroid, 6x ASF, 4x Barracuda, 18x AC/5, 46x MG, 365 tons cargo, 72 tons FA armor, ?? tons fuel.

Are any of these what you are looking for?  For those that aren't what are the issues you see?

[marcussmythe]

Shu is badly out of date at this point - bith due to my rounding error and the advance of technology.  That said, the LCN is refitting some, replacing 2xAC/5 with 4xSRM6 and some heat sinks - probably will do a new fighter (90 or 100 tons, cant decide if 1 point of thrust is worth the massive weight of the 360 Engine)

Fast Interceptor will probably wait on Lasers.  As for 50-60 ton medium fighters... I cant convince myself they are a good investment.  Unsafe thrust means pilotig roll means ot of control means dead....)

[Alsadius]

Fair point. I was thinking more of hole-filling than of going for what had already been posted - I dashed that one off quickly before bed last night, so I didn't think of all the various considerations.

Those fighters all seem reasonable. I lean towards the Cyclone, because it's got a more plausible MG count than the others, but any would be fine. The nature of my missile rules mean there's important break-points in desired fighter sizes. That's why I said 30/50/80 - 30 for a single Barracuda in a light anti-fighter model, 50 for a single ship-killer in the medium, and 80 for either 2x WS or KW/Barracuda in the heavy. (40, 60, 90, and 100 have some appeal as well, but I wanted to keep it simple). That does limit design space in an unfortunate way, but if we're only using a few models it's probably fine.

The Skyfall is pretty much exactly what I had in mind for a tank shuttle. I forgot that existed, but given that it does, it's good to use as-is. (I don't want all the shuttles to be 200 tons exactly, especially because that's the bay weight, but the vehicle shuttle probably should be)

The Crestbreaker is a bit too optimized, IMO. A generic screening small craft would be more able to keep up with a generic fleet(maybe 5/8 movement?), and it might well have fewer MGs in favour of some anti-fighter weapons to make it a multi-role screen. Yours is great at its job, but it's designed specifically for the Taurian doctrine, and...well, you wanted to go atypical, and you've succeeded.

The David is probably too big for its role, especially if I want some below-max-size SC. Seems like a bit less speed and a bit less armour would let you cut it down to maybe 120 tons or so, and it'd be a rare situation where you'd use 5.5g of thrust with 150 guys inside. But the design principles are solid.

The Rainbow is a good jack of all trades, and if I just made every DS in everyone's fleet into a Rainbow it'd probably be a reasonable approximation. But a bit of specializing should be possible too, so I don't want to leave it at that.