I know I have a ship that is lacking in escape pods. But it lacks a gravdeck and has steerage class quarters for everyone.
But it has a terrible cargo fraction and it is flawed.
I wasn't trying to point fingers. I was just surprised at the commonality of low numbers of pods/boats across all the fleets. That, and given how... titanically... the problem of insufficient lifeboats was hammered into the maritime community in our own time frame, I have a hard time accepting that either 'future-modern' maritime wouldn't also have the same hidebound tradition of enough boats for people on board, or that there wouldn't be equally galvanizing emergencies to make the pods/boats a morale effecting issue if there's not enough.
I designed some intentional, and I'm sure several unintentionally bad designs. And I'm hoping I, personally, and my navy, roleplaying, learn from our mistakes. But this looks like an across the board thing everyone else, including the DMs, are fine with, and if that's "in universe" no consquence, then my navy is going to learn that lesson too, and have some small tonnage freed up. (If you look at the first game, I did a 'warship' cruise liner. I had my reasons, they were bad reasons... but it was fun, and realistic... The Spruce Goose happened after all. And the Concord seemed like a good idea...)
Re: Marcus:
1) One problem was the need for "inspiration" because each faction had major battles detailed and written out, every turn. My view is that, at times and stretches, there's going to be little conflict, while at other times there's going to be huge amounts of combat. In the case of lots of combat, just list out battle stats for all but "important" or "notable" battles. "4x Gladius went up against 3x MrBadGuy designs, with 10m in damage to both sides, and 1 Gladius lost. The Gladius lost took a freak crit hit" Is fine for turns where there's multiple fights. Then, if inspiration hits or there's a reason to detail things, go into a notable, or "example" battle that shows the point. "FedSuns attempted carrier battles, but lost all such fights due to Kurita hull's not being piercable by light fighters and small craft..." and give some details. Mostly, what I want is what happened, and why my fleets won/lost/sucked/awesome... and some light RP for fun. And again, those are gonna be "heavy" combat turns.
2) answered above. Mechanics mostly, to make things easier/faster, with fluff and RP for fun or when important info needs to happen.
3) Yes. :) The history of man is easily defined in cycles of happenstance. We build up, wallow in the fruits of our labor, destroy everything, rinse repeat. The Star League, as in a concentration of power, is pretty inevitable. And its fragility is also pretty inevitable. Whether its called the new holy roman empire in space, or the Star League doesn't matter, the pattern will happen. But... given that, the SL might not start for a 100 years later. OR it might not start until after mutliple 'succession lord" level wars knock everybody back to the stone ages, and everyone is forced to rely on their neighbors to just survive. So... AU, embrance it full force, but that doesn't mean we can't use the outline of the OU to make it easier to focus on the bits we want to explore. Warships and naval conflict in BT.
4) Monthly. If I don't see a turn resolution post in a month repeatedly, I'm gonna assume its a dying beast and start to focus elsewhere. Ideally, I'd want every 2 weeks. 1 week to post turn, 1 week for turn resolution to post. That gives everyone time to work through things. BUT that's rather tight for both GM and People when life will ultimately interfere. So... monthly as an outside, and every 2 weeks for desired turn rate.
