Why are there so few Docking Collars on JumpShips/WarShips?

[A. Lurker]

To be honest it surprises me that the Star League Navy never tried to come up with a collar design that could secure a dropship during maneuvers.

Even at your basic routine 1G acceleration for insystem travel, such a collar would have to be able to support the full weight of the DropShip while it dangles more or less precariously from its carrier's side. Picture, say, a 1900-ton Leopard trying to stick to the side of a skyscraper under Earth-normal gravity to get a very rough idea of the engineering challenge involved -- and as DropShips go, the Leopard is fairly lightweight.

I'm not saying it's absolutely not doable, given that BT internal structure is generally pretty darn tough for its weight already. But even if it existed, a "heavy-duty" docking collar would probably weigh and cost a good bit more than the ones we have, to say nothing of the extra time needed to properly secure the DropShip for maneuver after docking and then reverse the whole process when it needs to undock again. So I think I can see why such a thing would fundamentally not be considered particularly practical -- they'd only have a place on WarShips (since JumpShips don't really maneuver enough for it to matter), and even there it'd IMO be a pretty small niche. I mean, why would you usually even need to be able to maneuver with DropShips attached when you can all fly just as well side-by-side (the same way the droppers would have to do anyway if they didn't have a big WarShip brother present in the first place)?

[BritMech]

Even at your basic routine 1G acceleration for insystem travel, such a collar would have to be able to support the full weight of the DropShip while it dangles more or less precariously from its carrier's side. Picture, say, a 1900-ton Leopard trying to stick to the side of a skyscraper under Earth-normal gravity to get a very rough idea of the engineering challenge involved -- and as DropShips go, the Leopard is fairly lightweight.

I'm not saying it's absolutely not doable, given that BT internal structure is generally pretty darn tough for its weight already. But even if it existed, a "heavy-duty" docking collar would probably weigh and cost a good bit more than the ones we have, to say nothing of the extra time needed to properly secure the DropShip for maneuver after docking and then reverse the whole process when it needs to undock again. So I think I can see why such a thing would fundamentally not be considered particularly practical -- they'd only have a place on WarShips (since JumpShips don't really maneuver enough for it to matter), and even there it'd IMO be a pretty small niche. I mean, why would you usually even need to be able to maneuver with DropShips attached when you can all fly just as well side-by-side (the same way the droppers would have to do anyway if they didn't have a big WarShip brother present in the first place)?

Aside from the engineering aspects, think about how that would function with regards to where "up" is during system transit.

[Zureal]

i see your respons BritMech to FireAngles post , you point out that "in universe" ships doint have this or that. sens your ship is itself custom you have to pretty much throw out that argument. just thought id throw that out there.

 you can never throw a custom ship vs canoon ship argument in these kinds of cases. cuz almost 100% of the time the custom ship will win anyways. And thats cuz it is usualy Min/Maxed to good effect.

[vidar]

Hmmm. Docking more than one dropship at a time, let's look at this a little more.

Two bodies moving on relative vectors. Not as easy as it seems slight difference in any of 12 axis will mess you up.  Now add the fact your not using the magic fusion engines, but low impulse units, if you light up the big guys you burn holes or er addate with x-rays anything near you.  So slow is the order of the day.  Also you need to avoid the other dropships paths and thruster gasses.  So very separated pathes.  Then we add the other moving the warship.  It is moved Every time a dropship docks, there will always be some variation in vectors.  Now the third body, the next dropship, has to adjust for this new input of unknown magnitude in how long?  If you are trying to do it in 1/5 the safe time for 6 minutes.  So if we divide this again by 3 for your other dropships.  Every 2 minutes your adding a big input of a large mass.  And rather than settling back to its base vector your adding more inputs.  Each Input adds more variation to base vector.  Also think about how far each vessel in moving to cross a hex. 
So I think you are grossly over estimating the time to load or unload your maxed out collar vessel.

[sillybrit]

Provided you take it for granted that every opposition WarShip is going to take AMS. Only two TRO3057R ships carry AMS. A few more have small weaponry that could double as Point Defense, but it seems that AMS is not as abundant as made out.

50-collar WarShips & 100kt PWS with a dozen Killer Whales aren't abundant in TRO3057R either. It's hardly sporting to field custom designs and then object to the lack of a canon counter.

DropShip vs. WarShip fire is always going to be one-sided when viewed individually. It is the collective ability of a DS swarm that should be compared. If there are 45 DS, and 11 are needed to take on one WS, then that is 3 WS that can be fought at once, or two with increased strength to allow for a quicker kill, reducing casualties. After all, if I lose some of the DS but kill the WS, then I have made a savings. Even if the WS/DS fleet is initially more expensive, it will pay for itself with the survivability. So it comes back to the survivability, which is determined by the tactics used and the forces that oppose it.

That's 11 of your PWS to kill an Aegis - assuming no AMS around, of course - and an Aegis is hardly the toughest WarShip around, even among canon designs, nevermind customs - just look at your own design.

Now, these forces when chosen by cost, gain back a numeric advantage. But how many of your last ten games were balanced or put together based on the cost of the unit?

If we use BV, then the maxed-collar design is still more costly in addition to being more expensive in C-Bill terms. If using the PWS option you suggest, then the maxed-collar design requires more total tonnage. It wouldn't be impossible to design non-maxed WarShips that could require less tonnage for the carrier option as well, but as already noted, there's big in-universe problems with having so many fighters.

Now to use this as a guide, 1 in 100,000 of the population is the low end, and 1 in 10,000 is the high end. A single IS world with a population of 4 billion would produce 40,000 pilots in the low end and 400,000 in the high end. That is one world.

Lyran Commonwealth population (3130, only number to hand) is 955,000,000,000. Almost 10 million pilots on the low end. So pulling together even 100,000 pilots for a fleet like this shouldn't actually be a problem.

Except that as you already noted, FASAnomics comes into play. The same argument could be used to massively expand the military forces of all Houses in general, such that divisions replace battalions/regiments, or worse, but this is BattleTech.

Outside the extreme range? Using what? Heavy NPPCs are able to shoot using ERV. So how can you shoot at extreme range whilst I can't? As for SC and Fighters, how many are you carrying in this WarShip? More than I have?

There was also Fireangel's specification of a WarShip with superior thrust to go alongside the use of NPPCs, presumably meaning a 4/6 WarShip. With superior thrust to your WarShip, it could could dictate the range, staying just outside of range of your WarShip, meaning that that either you hold your DropShips and fighters close to your WarShip and thus cannot engage, or you send your lighter craft forward unsupported by your WarShip.

Of course, an easy counter to this is a little bit of gamesmanship, insisiting upon a fixed map size, with no way to go outside the map boundaries.

[Fireangel]

Provided you take it for granted that every opposition WarShip is going to take AMS. Only two TRO3057R ships carry AMS. A few more have small weaponry that could double as Point Defense, but it seems that AMS is not as abundant as made out.

Now you are comparing apples and oranges: if one side has access to custom builds, so does the other.

Even if we are using basically canon ships, adding enough AMS to stop a Santa Ana is often so trivial as to not even tax fire control.

Yes. But again, it needs to have the AMS. Does every WarShip carry AMS? From a construction point of view it makes sense to do so. Not just for nukes and capital missiles, but regular ones too. Eliminating/reducing the threat of a large portion of the armory with a single item is a good thing. But if you want to argue in-universe canon, then AMS isn't on every ship.

Again, you assume that ONLY the side with the super-carrier has access to custom designs.

You also seem to forget that every AMS-equipped ship can fire on any capital missile (single or barrage) that crosses its AMS-equipped arc, even if it is not the targeted ship.

You could even mount the AMS on specially-designed escort small craft and have them hide in the sensor shadow of their charge.

DropShip vs. WarShip fire is always going to be one-sided when viewed individually. It is the collective ability of a DS swarm that should be compared. If there are 45 DS, and 11 are needed to take on one WS, then that is 3 WS that can be fought at once, or two with increased strength to allow for a quicker kill, reducing casualties. After all, if I lose some of the DS but kill the WS, then I have made a savings. Even if the WS/DS fleet is initially more expensive, it will pay for itself with the survivability. So it comes back to the survivability, which is determined by the tactics used and the forces that oppose it.

You missed the point: the droppers you provide need to hit the same armour facing three times with their big cap missile bay in order to expose the SI of the Aegis. This is not defeating it. At all. If I add AMS to the Aegis (either intrinsic or through escorts), then those 11 PWS are even less of a threat, while I can easily take out several of the PWS every turn… taking longer if they stay at extreme range, but even there the harder to-hit numbers will mean that the PWS will likely run out of missiles before I do… and my 17-cap point NL bays don’t need ammo.

Oh, and don’t forget that my Aegis has collars too… and if you are fielding a super-carrier with 45 PWS, I’m likely going to be facing it with more than a lone Aegis. ;)

Now, these forces when chosen by cost, gain back a numeric advantage. But how many of your last ten games were balanced or put together based on the cost of the unit?

Not directly, but this is not about the amount of c-bills shooting up a patch of space; here we are talking about the long-term strategies of star-faring nations; given a choice between building a dozen warships that can project over huge swatches of space, defending multiple worlds and giving “around the clock” capability over decades… or a single “eggs-in-a-basket” behemoth that can only be in one place at a time, suck up resources and leave most of your realm defenseless in the face of the enemy (who did build a dozen warships and several dozen standard-core jumpships to carry more modern, efficient and effective (read: smaller yet more powerful) PWS… then the obvious choice is the multi-warship force.

But with the construction argument, can you build those five modest forces in the same time using the limited number of Shipyards? Arguing cost, as I said, is the one way to guarantee that this won't work. But how many of your games are balanced or put together based on the cost of the units involved?

Since there are no hard rules on the matter and construction canonically takes place “at the speed of plot”, it seems safe to say that common sense should prevail:

We know that in canon, larger ships AND ships with lots of collars are harder to build and take longer to build than smaller, simpler ships with fewer collars (see the fluff for the Leviathan WS and the Monolith JS). We also know that the DC spent decades trying to build the Yamato, whose engineering problems were deemed insurmountable, leading them to scrap the project.

Here you are talking about building the literal extreme of construction in the canon BT universe: 100kt larger than the largest warship ever built, with an engine that pushes out almost twice the Lev’s thrust, with twice the number of docking collars than the ship design with most collars ever built in canon.

Y’know, off-hand, I’d say that the likelihood of its construction taking longer than that of, say… a Mjolnir will be… high. ;)

So if each side has only ONE slip suitable for building warships (AFAIK, sub-500kt warships can be built in JS slips, so that right there is a good incentive to keep WS size small), even if one side can build 2 “more modest” warships in the time it takes to build ONE super-carrier, that side will have a huge advantage over the other in its ability to project power.

Then we have to look at the dropship flotilla: building massive fleets of droppers takes its own time and until all those ships are ready, the monster carrier can’t effectively deploy. OTOH, warship-led flotillas with more modest DS needs can be assembled as the warships are built; again an advantage…

As for the pilots, this is a FASAnomics issue. With planet populations ranging from hundreds of millions to several billion, the idea that it would be difficult to ramp up the pilot numbers it a little...odd. Real-world numbers. Roughly 3,000 USAF pilots for US population of 300m. And that number is during a relatively peaceful time compared to WWII when the military was fighting as furiously as they do in 3025-3200. WWII the US trained almost 200,000 pilots in six years, with a population of 140m. Skew that a little since the first few years would be below average, as well as the final year.

Yes, it is. That is the way BT works; it has tiny militaries defending an average of 2-3 billion inhabitants per planet (depending on era).

I don’t want to get into a RW discussion here, but remember that the world in WWII and even today is very different (militarily, politically and philosophically) than the BT Universe.

Numbers-wise, the IS worlds should be able to produce many, many more pilots, ‘mechs and fighters than they canonically do.

But they don’t.

Use any numbers you want for your own alternate universe, but label it as such and don’t pretend to input alternate universe data into the canon BTU.

Now to use this as a guide, 1 in 100,000 of the population is the low end, and 1 in 10,000 is the high end. A single IS world with a population of 4 billion would produce 40,000 pilots in the low end and 400,000 in the high end. That is one world.

But it has to maintain them; these are 40-400 highly-trained, highly-paid people that 99.9% of the time are not contributing to the planetary economy. Then add the techs, admins, medics and whatnot to support them… and the ground troops to protect them…

It’s hard to keep such an economy going for 20 years… to say nothing of 300+

Lyran Commonwealth population (3130, only number to hand) is 955,000,000,000. Almost 10 million pilots on the low end. So pulling together even 100,000 pilots for a fleet like this shouldn't actually be a problem.

Yeah. And the LC/LA has compulsory civil service for all 17-year-olds. Even if only one in one hundred teens chooses the military for their compulsory service, we are talking about a staggering number of troops per world…

Yet we don’t see them in canon.

Much of the issue with arguing cost is that the underlying economic model is hideously broken. It doesn't make sense for an average wage to be tens of thousands of C-bills, and then have Mercenaries risk their lives in multi-million C-bill machines for what amounts to only tens or hundreds of thousands of C-bills. Argue the "rush" of being a MechWarrior all you like, but it would be better for them to sell the machine and take up base jumping.

FASAnomics. Been dealing with those since the early 90’s. That’s why I avoid bringing them to discussions such as this one.

Acutally no. With the collars on various facings of the ship, there is no reason why multiple docking maneuvers cannot be done at the same time. Much like an airport terminal, the gantries (collars) can be operated independently by people who are unaware of any actions taking place from the other side of the ship. The only issues with multiple dockings are:

• Trying to dock two DropShips using adjacent collars could cause space issues. But with 45 collars on the ship, with an optimal placement design and a good docking algorithm, you could have all DS docked in 3, maybe 4 rotations.
• A failed docking could knock the WS, causing alignment issues. So for this, I would say that attempting faster docking would be prohibited.
• Lining up so many DS would require co-ordination. But given that we do this in the real-world with ATC stacking planes for runway approach, I don't see it as a big issue.

The rules don’t care how ships are aligned or where the collars are placed. Just keep in mind that the entire warship is involved in each and every docking maneuver. There are very good safety reasons why you don’t see more than three gantries serving a modern intermodal container ship. These issues are magnified exponentially when each dropper weighs as much as the entire wet container ship, again with the WS massing 25 times this and the third dimension axis is added.

Docking ONE dropper at a time is dangerous enough that if it is hurried it requires a roll. Here you are dealing with the single most expensive ship ever built in the history of humanity (I’m not joking); and ONE mishap can strand the entire flotilla in space.

Doing it RIGHT is paramount in trumping speed.

Not really a good point here. A 2.5m ton WS uses the same fuel no matter what it is carrying. A 100k ton DS uses the same fuel no matter what it is carrying. So whilst the fact that that fleet burns a lot more fuel than an Aegis and an Essex, it isn't really an apples to apples comparison. Show me a better way to move more firepower, more fighters, more cargo. I have already tweaked the cargo one so it is cheaper per ton than the Merchant/Behemoth combo, with more armor and firepower protecting it.

Again you miss the point: a warship cannot transit in-system with dropships docked: each and every one of the dropships MUST detach or risk damaging The Single Most Expensive Ship Ever Built in the History of Humanity^TM. This means that if the transit is ten days, each and every one of the 50 droppers will consume ten days of fuel… and ten days fuel transiting out-system.

So assuming all droppers are military… oops… nope: civilian: largest military droppers are 30kt… So that is 40 tons per day for the carrier (I’m rounding up; that 0.48 ton per day is next to irrelevant at this point), plus 9 tons (0.17 to keep as a reserve) times fifty dropships is.. (9 x 50 = 450) + 40 = 490 tons… times ten days = 4,900 tons.

OTOH, a three warship squadron with a dozen modest (read: sub 30kt, thus military) droppers will use (40 x 3 = 120) + (12 x 2 = 48) = 168 tons times 10 days = 1,680 tons of fuel.

How do you like them apples?

Outside the extreme range? Using what? Heavy NPPCs are able to shoot using ERV. So how can you shoot at extreme range whilst I can't? As for SC and Fighters, how many are you carrying in this WarShip? More than I have?

Outside the extreme range of the monster-carrier’s guns. Remember; the 50 dropships MUST be detached in order to transit in-system; there is only ONE warship with capital weapons; if I have more than one warship, I can use wolf-pack tactics to take out the outriggers in your flotilla. Send PWS against me? I can take them out without worrying about the warship’s big guns. Send the WS against me? Psack tactics; while you the monster carrier is away, my pack-mate will play with the flotilla.

This is a fair point, although whilst your enemies can see it coming, your enemies can see it coming :). "Jesus, look at the size of that thing!" A little bit of psychological warfare never hurst anyone (where it shows).

It’s scary… when it pops in. Against an opponent prepared to face it, it is just a big billboard bringing 50 targets for a turkey shoot.

But the DS allows you to change the layout of the ship. When putting it together, you don't need to commit to extravagant, First Class quarters for passengers on every trip. You can increase the number of SC/Fighters carried without refitting the ship. And cost arguments are starting to expose that the pricing structures don't make a lot of sense. Which undermines the idea of using cost as a way to put together forces.

But then you need to devote a bare minimum of 20,000 tons for the extra collar (95% KF core, remember?) assuming you don’t need to “break the ceiling” into the next 50kt bracket so you can legally mount the extra collar… PLUS the dropper PLUS the dropper crew… even if it is not intended to undock.

All this stuff costs money and resources, adding cost and complexity to the ship. OTOH, if you simply remove a collar from the design, you have just gained a thousand tons to use as you see fir AND you have reduced the overall cost of the standard-core, non LFB ship by a whopping 80 million c-bills (using AT2R construction rules). If the standard-core JS has an LFB, the overall cost of the ship is reduced by 240 million c-bills.

50,000 C-bills per jump is a FASA throwback that really need updating. A Scout needs to make 5,540 jumps to break even as a private transport. 3,845 for a Merchant (all with both collars filled). Given that they don't have LFB, that is one jump per week. 74 years to break even? Doesn't add up. Try telling that to your wife. "Honey, I have had a great idea. I'm going to spend hundreds of millions on a transporter." "Well, how long will it take to pay it off?" "74 years. We will die at the helm, but our kids will turn a profit."

Pity the fool who takes out a loan to pay for it.

You forget two facts: first is that canonically, there are plenty of privately-owned jumpships in the BTU. Second is that corporations use these jumpships for their own purposes.

You also forget that these ships are built to last centuries… AND average life expectancy is pretty high. Most individuals don’t buy new jumpers out-of-the-factory with that “new car smell”; they buy older ships whose owners are seeking to retire for whatever reason. Once the ship is paid off, it is a genuine money-making machine with relatively low operating costs and huge revenue returns.

[Fireangel]

Aside from the engineering aspects, think about how that would function with regards to where "up" is during system transit.

Rules-wise, the dropper has the same facing as its carrying jumper... BUT it can fire all its weapons except its aft-mounted bays.

But since thrusting with a docked ship is a Bad Idea^TM, the issue is manily for stationary ships.

[Fireangel]

Hmmm. Docking more than one dropship at a time, let's look at this a little more.

Two bodies moving on relative vectors. Not as easy as it seems slight difference in any of 12 axis will mess you up.  Now add the fact your not using the magic fusion engines, but low impulse units, if you light up the big guys you burn holes or er addate with x-rays anything near you.  So slow is the order of the day.  Also you need to avoid the other dropships paths and thruster gasses.  So very separated pathes.  Then we add the other moving the warship.  It is moved Every time a dropship docks, there will always be some variation in vectors.  Now the third body, the next dropship, has to adjust for this new input of unknown magnitude in how long?  If you are trying to do it in 1/5 the safe time for 6 minutes.  So if we divide this again by 3 for your other dropships.  Every 2 minutes your adding a big input of a large mass.  And rather than settling back to its base vector your adding more inputs.  Each Input adds more variation to base vector.  Also think about how far each vessel in moving to cross a hex. 

My point exactly.  O0

So I think you are grossly over estimating the time to load or unload your maxed out collar vessel.

under-estimating.  ;)

[Fireangel]

Y’all may find This Thread instructive.

In that thread, I describe a game that took place in order to determine the relative merits of a highly customized super-PWS design (five of them, in fact) plus their 200 ASF plus a Fox WS against an Agamemnon  with inadequate support in a lopsided battle.

And the Aggie won. 8)

[Zureal]

The Single Most Expensive Ship Ever Built in the History of HumanityTM

and

Bad IdeaTM

   This cracked me up   :D

[Zureal]

On a unrelated event, i did a expirament to see if i could use my previous forces, 2 blacklions and a sovyetskie soyuz, with full dropper support , 6 assaults and 5 PWS, to kill off your WHOLE force.

  Well, im not the best at this , but i did end up losing my forces whole :(

 On the other hand i killed off all your forces and crippled your super-ship, blew its KF core :P

 Also, as a side note, by the time it ran down and ate my sovy, used it as bait, my blacklions had killed off nearly all your droppers with only a minimum of armor damage. Though later your super-ship killed both.

 so in the end, i lost all my forces, but killed all your droppers and crippeled your super-ship,

i lost less people, less resources, less money. yea, id call that a WIN!

[BritMech]

50-collar WarShips & 100kt PWS with a dozen Killer Whales aren't abundant in TRO3057R either. It's hardly sporting to field custom designs and then object to the lack of a canon counter.

Using what is in-universe to get an idea of normal thinking, since it is hard to view every custom ship made and yet-to-be-made. So try this: Does every custom ship you have encountered carry AMS, and do they carry 12 or more?

That's 11 of your PWS to kill an Aegis - assuming no AMS around, of course - and an Aegis is hardly the toughest WarShip around, even among canon designs, nevermind customs - just look at your own design.

So what if it takes 11 DS to kill a WS? How many DS would I lose doing so? And again, not saying my PWS design is the best. Considering that I haven't bounced it around many people, I think in all likelihood it sucks out loud compared to others. So imagine what could be done with decent DS designs.

If we use BV, then the maxed-collar design is still more costly in addition to being more expensive in C-Bill terms. If using the PWS option you suggest, then the maxed-collar design requires more total tonnage. It wouldn't be impossible to design non-maxed WarShips that could require less tonnage for the carrier option as well, but as already noted, there's big in-universe problems with having so many fighters.

Are you saying that you could carry more Fighters without using as many collars? Not sure I follow this correctly.

Except that as you already noted, FASAnomics comes into play. The same argument could be used to massively expand the military forces of all Houses in general, such that divisions replace battalions/regiments, or worse, but this is BattleTech.

FASAnomics really needs to be looked at with an eye to making it work at every level.

There was also Fireangel's specification of a WarShip with superior thrust to go alongside the use of NPPCs, presumably meaning a 4/6 WarShip. With superior thrust to your WarShip, it could could dictate the range, staying just outside of range of your WarShip, meaning that that either you hold your DropShips and fighters close to your WarShip and thus cannot engage, or you send your lighter craft forward unsupported by your WarShip.

Of course, an easy counter to this is a little bit of gamesmanship, insisiting upon a fixed map size, with no way to go outside the map boundaries.

Tactics for different types of games and opponents needs to be looked at, certainly.

Aside: I notice that there is no answer yet as to how often you use different metrics to balance or set-up encounters.

[Zureal]

Using what is in-universe to get an idea of normal thinking, since it is hard to view every custom ship made and yet-to-be-made. So try this: Does every custom ship you have encountered carry AMS, and do they carry 12 or more?

 all the ones that are dencent to good do, yes.

So what if it takes 11 DS to kill a WS? How many DS would I lose doing so? And again, not saying my PWS design is the best. Considering that I haven't bounced it around many people, I think in all likelihood it sucks out loud compared to others. So imagine what could be done with decent DS designs.

 I would kill all of them and not lose my warship, one must simply apply half decent tactics to accomplish this. U can take any PWS, custom or no, and if you use a warship correctly, then out of 10 fights, 8 times the warship will win.

Are you saying that you could carry more Fighters without using as many collars? Not sure I follow this correctly.

properly layed out and givin a few sacrifices, yes, you can carry more fighters than you can with the dropships.

FASAnomics really needs to be looked at with an eye to making it work at every level.

 as true as this is you still have to base your ship off of what is possible with the economics in universe, u can play with it a little, sure. But to conjure up the thousands of pilots and other essental personell is hardly justifiable for your ship. Like was said earlyer, if you are willing to strip your military mostly of these personell then yes, u can do it, otherwise, no.

Tactics for different types of games and opponents needs to be looked at, certainly.

 This is always true. only a idiot would run his warship into 45 PWS and think he would win.

Aside: I notice that there is no answer yet as to how often you use different metrics to balance or set-up encounters.

 Honestly? We just assigne tables to everyship that a faction normaly uses and roll dice :P, sometimes tonnage, othertimes we pick ships based upon the mission and just put a cap oh how many of any one ship u can choose. Just depends on the players. Otherwise we use what we can threw "in universe" adaptation.

[BritMech]

Now you are comparing apples and oranges: if one side has access to custom builds, so does the other.

Even if we are using basically canon ships, adding enough AMS to stop a Santa Ana is often so trivial as to not even tax fire control.

See response to sillybrit.

Again, you assume that ONLY the side with the super-carrier has access to custom designs.

You also seem to forget that every AMS-equipped ship can fire on any capital missile (single or barrage) that crosses its AMS-equipped arc, even if it is not the targeted ship.

You could even mount the AMS on specially-designed escort small craft and have them hide in the sensor shadow of their charge.

No, just that (as with sillybrit) it is hard to look at every custom design, made and not-yet-made. And I haven't forgotten how AMS works. But how many fleets do you normally field with so much AMS? Or do you tailor your fleet to every encounter?

You missed the point: the droppers you provide need to hit the same armour facing three times with their big cap missile bay in order to expose the SI of the Aegis. This is not defeating it. At all. If I add AMS to the Aegis (either intrinsic or through escorts), then those 11 PWS are even less of a threat, while I can easily take out several of the PWS every turn… taking longer if they stay at extreme range, but even there the harder to-hit numbers will mean that the PWS will likely run out of missiles before I do… and my 17-cap point NL bays don’t need ammo.

Oh, and don’t forget that my Aegis has collars too… and if you are fielding a super-carrier with 45 PWS, I’m likely going to be facing it with more than a lone Aegis. ;)

Again, tactics need to be tested, and the PWS designs could easily change. This isn't about Cap missiles and AMS but the broader idea of taking large numbers of DS on a single WarShip.

Not directly, but this is not about the amount of c-bills shooting up a patch of space; here we are talking about the long-term strategies of star-faring nations; given a choice between building a dozen warships that can project over huge swatches of space, defending multiple worlds and giving “around the clock” capability over decades… or a single “eggs-in-a-basket” behemoth that can only be in one place at a time, suck up resources and leave most of your realm defenseless in the face of the enemy (who did build a dozen warships and several dozen standard-core jumpships to carry more modern, efficient and effective (read: smaller yet more powerful) PWS… then the obvious choice is the multi-warship force.

Nice in-universe answer, but again, no direct answer to the question of how you put together fleets for encounters.

Since there are no hard rules on the matter and construction canonically takes place “at the speed of plot”, it seems safe to say that common sense should prevail:

We know that in canon, larger ships AND ships with lots of collars are harder to build and take longer to build than smaller, simpler ships with fewer collars (see the fluff for the Leviathan WS and the Monolith JS). We also know that the DC spent decades trying to build the Yamato, whose engineering problems were deemed insurmountable, leading them to scrap the project.

Here you are talking about building the literal extreme of construction in the canon BT universe: 100kt larger than the largest warship ever built, with an engine that pushes out almost twice the Lev’s thrust, with twice the number of docking collars than the ship design with most collars ever built in canon.

Y’know, off-hand, I’d say that the likelihood of its construction taking longer than that of, say… a Mjolnir will be… high. ;)

So if each side has only ONE slip suitable for building warships (AFAIK, sub-500kt warships can be built in JS slips, so that right there is a good incentive to keep WS size small), even if one side can build 2 “more modest” warships in the time it takes to build ONE super-carrier, that side will have a huge advantage over the other in its ability to project power.

Then we have to look at the dropship flotilla: building massive fleets of droppers takes its own time and until all those ships are ready, the monster carrier can’t effectively deploy. OTOH, warship-led flotillas with more modest DS needs can be assembled as the warships are built; again an advantage…

Without numbers, it is easy to argue both sides of this. The need to streamline production for the DS fleet could be done. It would take organisation, but it could be done. But without proper economics underpinning it all, it is just speculation.

Yes, it is. That is the way BT works; it has tiny militaries defending an average of 2-3 billion inhabitants per planet (depending on era).

I don’t want to get into a RW discussion here, but remember that the world in WWII and even today is very different (militarily, politically and philosophically) than the BT Universe.

Numbers-wise, the IS worlds should be able to produce many, many more pilots, ‘mechs and fighters than they canonically do.

But they don’t.

Use any numbers you want for your own alternate universe, but label it as such and don’t pretend to input alternate universe data into the canon BTU.

Just pointing out that the FASAnomics of "where are you going to get the pilots" is spurred by writers and plot points, rather than any serious look at numbers.

But it has to maintain them; these are 40-400 highly-trained, highly-paid people that 99.9% of the time are not contributing to the planetary economy. Then add the techs, admins, medics and whatnot to support them… and the ground troops to protect them…

It’s hard to keep such an economy going for 20 years… to say nothing of 300+

It might actually be easier. The death and destruction ensures that new materiel is needed, providing jobs for gathering the raw resources, manufacturing and transporting them. It provides a constant need for military personnel, which means lower unemployment. Constant need for construction, repair and rebuilding. New ideas and innovations in every field, so research gets funded. (Real world NASA, nuclear physics, et al)

If it wasn't for the horrific death tolls and casualties, it might be a self-sustaining situation without "bubbles". But the toll on the will of the people to fight would be immense.

Yeah. And the LC/LA has compulsory civil service for all 17-year-olds. Even if only one in one hundred teens chooses the military for their compulsory service, we are talking about a staggering number of troops per world…

Yet we don’t see them in canon.

Because the FASAnomics are set by writers, and best serve the plot. And ship costs are apparantly done on "meh, that feels right" numbers. It's why arguing cost holds less weight than arguing game mechanics.

FASAnomics. Been dealing with those since the early 90’s. That’s why I avoid bringing them to discussions such as this one.

FASAnomics underpin the cost argument and the "number of pilots" argument.

The rules don’t care how ships are aligned or where the collars are placed. Just keep in mind that the entire warship is involved in each and every docking maneuver. There are very good safety reasons why you don’t see more than three gantries serving a modern intermodal container ship. These issues are magnified exponentially when each dropper weighs as much as the entire wet container ship, again with the WS massing 25 times this and the third dimension axis is added.

Docking ONE dropper at a time is dangerous enough that if it is hurried it requires a roll. Here you are dealing with the single most expensive ship ever built in the history of humanity (I’m not joking); and ONE mishap can strand the entire flotilla in space.

Doing it RIGHT is paramount in trumping speed.

But that 30 minutes covers quite a long period of approach. Given the slow speeds used for docking, would a docking DS really be such a problem for another approaching craft that was still 5, 10 or 15 minutes away from docking itself? Would the WS move so much, and couldn't it be allowed for, anticipated and dealt with ahead of time? Final connection speeds are going to be measured in millimetres per minute.

Again you miss the point: a warship cannot transit in-system with dropships docked: each and every one of the dropships MUST detach or risk damaging The Single Most Expensive Ship Ever Built in the History of Humanity^TM. This means that if the transit is ten days, each and every one of the 50 droppers will consume ten days of fuel… and ten days fuel transiting out-system.

So assuming all droppers are military… oops… nope: civilian: largest military droppers are 30kt… So that is 40 tons per day for the carrier (I’m rounding up; that 0.48 ton per day is next to irrelevant at this point), plus 9 tons (0.17 to keep as a reserve) times fifty dropships is.. (9 x 50 = 450) + 40 = 490 tons… times ten days = 4,900 tons.

OTOH, a three warship squadron with a dozen modest (read: sub 30kt, thus military) droppers will use (40 x 3 = 120) + (12 x 2 = 48) = 168 tons times 10 days = 1,680 tons of fuel.

How do you like them apples?

Since nothing in the rules says that there is a max cap on the weight of a military DropShip, I am going to say that your numbers are wrong, and therefore irrelevant. In addition, 50 100k DS are moving a hell of a lot more cargo, personnel and/or firepower than your 12 30k DS. So even with your skewed numbers it isn't a good comparison.

Outside the extreme range of the monster-carrier’s guns. Remember; the 50 dropships MUST be detached in order to transit in-system; there is only ONE warship with capital weapons; if I have more than one warship, I can use wolf-pack tactics to take out the outriggers in your flotilla. Send PWS against me? I can take them out without worrying about the warship’s big guns. Send the WS against me? Psack tactics; while you the monster carrier is away, my pack-mate will play with the flotilla.

Still waiting to hear how you normally put encounters together. I'm not going to argue specific tactics without it, since to do so means I am fighting every "what if" under the sun. And again, this isn't about fighting my specific designs. They were created in haste, without proper refinement. If you want to run fights against a max collar fleet, design your own, using your sensibilities and preferences. Get someone else to field a regular fleet using a regular encounter mechanic that you use. Don't tell them any specifics unless you normally would. If you normally just say "hey, put together a fleet with a total of x BV" then do that. Try fighting from the other side.

It’s scary… when it pops in. Against an opponent prepared to face it, it is just a big billboard bringing 50 targets for a turkey shoot.

Same can be said of any field. They are all announcing the arrival of a JS/WS. If you expect them, if you are looking for them, then of course you can prepare. But are you always poised, waiting at the edge of space?

But then you need to devote a bare minimum of 20,000 tons for the extra collar (95% KF core, remember?) assuming you don’t need to “break the ceiling” into the next 50kt bracket so you can legally mount the extra collar… PLUS the dropper PLUS the dropper crew… even if it is not intended to undock.

All this stuff costs money and resources, adding cost and complexity to the ship. OTOH, if you simply remove a collar from the design, you have just gained a thousand tons to use as you see fir AND you have reduced the overall cost of the standard-core, non LFB ship by a whopping 80 million c-bills (using AT2R construction rules). If the standard-core JS has an LFB, the overall cost of the ship is reduced by 240 million c-bills.

Cost argument, and with FASAnomics behind it, how much does cost really matter? Again I ask, how often do you use cost to determine forces? Of the last ten games you played, how many were dictated by a limit of x C-bills?

You forget two facts: first is that canonically, there are plenty of privately-owned jumpships in the BTU. Second is that corporations use these jumpships for their own purposes.

You also forget that these ships are built to last centuries… AND average life expectancy is pretty high. Most individuals don’t buy new jumpers out-of-the-factory with that “new car smell”; they buy older ships whose owners are seeking to retire for whatever reason. Once the ship is paid off, it is a genuine money-making machine with relatively low operating costs and huge revenue returns.

Corporations can (a) afford to pay the high prices and (b) take the long-term view. But the individual cannot. First, they need to earn the money (average wage of 20k means that arguing couple would need almost 10,000 years to afford it. Best hope for a large inheritance, or a multi-planet lottery win) and even in the second-hand ship market, what kind of depreciation would allow them to buy it?

[BritMech]

On a unrelated event, i did a expirament to see if i could use my previous forces, 2 blacklions and a sovyetskie soyuz, with full dropper support , 6 assaults and 5 PWS, to kill off your WHOLE force.

  Well, im not the best at this , but i did end up losing my forces whole :(

 On the other hand i killed off all your forces and crippled your super-ship, blew its KF core :P

 Also, as a side note, by the time it ran down and ate my sovy, used it as bait, my blacklions had killed off nearly all your droppers with only a minimum of armor damage. Though later your super-ship killed both.

 so in the end, i lost all my forces, but killed all your droppers and crippeled your super-ship,

i lost less people, less resources, less money. yea, id call that a WIN!

And who was your opponent? Because if you were fielding both sides, the "bait" idea is stacking the deck.

[BritMech]

all the ones that are dencent to good do, yes.

If that is standard practice, then the PWS would need a redesign.

I would kill all of them and not lose my warship, one must simply apply half decent tactics to accomplish this. U can take any PWS, custom or no, and if you use a warship correctly, then out of 10 fights, 8 times the warship will win.

Not according to the thread that Firestarter linked.

properly layed out and givin a few sacrifices, yes, you can carry more fighters than you can with the dropships.

Strange. I used a 2m ton WS as a Carrier, and got 750 Fighters on it. At 180 Fighters per Carrier DS, 5 DS can take more than a 2m ton WS. But throw your design up, and we can see. But use another thread, this one is going off in all directions, and I want to try and reign it in a little.

as true as this is you still have to base your ship off of what is possible with the economics in universe, u can play with it a little, sure. But to conjure up the thousands of pilots and other essental personell is hardly justifiable for your ship. Like was said earlyer, if you are willing to strip your military mostly of these personell then yes, u can do it, otherwise, no.

Actually with FASAnomics looking worse and worse, I am inclined to say hang in-universe economics and just run with whatever is legal in the construction rules. Trying to justify anything using a half-written yet fully broken model is painful, unsatisfying and futile at both ends. (Insert "Yeah, so's your mother" joke here :) )

This is always true. only a idiot would run his warship into 45 PWS and think he would win.

So some variation on the Oblique Line would be best.

Honestly? We just assigne tables to everyship that a faction normaly uses and roll dice :P, sometimes tonnage, othertimes we pick ships based upon the mission and just put a cap oh how many of any one ship u can choose. Just depends on the players. Otherwise we use what we can threw "in universe" adaptation.

For a game using standard ships, sure. But I was thinking more about how you set up with custom forces, since the way described above has no real way to balance customs.

[Zureal]

Not according to the thread that Firestarter linked.

 havent read it, so nothing to say to this :/

Strange. I used a 2m ton WS as a Carrier, and got 750 Fighters on it. At 180 Fighters per Carrier DS, 5 DS can take more than a 2m ton WS. But throw your design up, and we can see. But use another thread, this one is going off in all directions, and I want to try and reign it in a little.

 I will, just look out for "aerofighter hord warship"

Actually with FASAnomics looking worse and worse, I am inclined to say hang in-universe economics and just run with whatever is legal in the construction rules. Trying to justify anything using a half-written yet fully broken model is painful, unsatisfying and futile at both ends. (Insert "Yeah, so's your mother" joke here :) )

   If thats the case, then ill meet everyone of your super DS single WS force with a dozen low cost warships with some DS and fighter support.
 
Yea! so is your father!

So some variation on the Oblique Line would be best.

  Maby its cuz im from russia, but i have no idea what you are trying to say or what this means ???

For a game using standard ships, sure. But I was thinking more about how you set up with custom forces, since the way described above has no real way to balance customs.

If we use Custom designs then we do the same thing, using HMA as a starting point for cost, BV, ect ect. But basicaly the identical means of figuring out what to use

And who was your opponent? Because if you were fielding both sides, the "bait" idea is stacking the deck.

   Had a freind play the "Ima super-warship with abnoxious amounts of DS whore!" part. lol

no offence intended

[BritMech]

Yea! so is your father!

Actual LOLs. Nice :)

Maby its cuz im from russia, but i have no idea what you are trying to say or what this means ???

And in Russia, Line obliques YOU! :)

Oblique line is a tactic that runs like this: Normally when two armies line up, the strongest unit goes in the middle. The charge is led from the centre, with the sides trailing back a little.

The Oblique line has the strongest unit on the edge, and so that edge charges in. Because it will usually be facing a weaker unit, it finishes fighting before the others, and can then wheel round and assist from the flank. This allows it to fight it's way to the centre, where it now faces the strongest opposing unit, but is supported by an entire flank of regular units.

Adapting to space combat isn't linear, but an approximation can be done.

If we use Custom designs then we do the same thing, using HMA as a starting point for cost, BV, ect ect. But basicaly the identical means of figuring out what to use

But is cost the first point you look at, or is it BV?

   Had a freind play the "Ima super-warship with abnoxious amounts of DS whore!" part. lol

no offence intended

None taken. That's the main crux of the strategy. Along with Fighter whore, Cap Missile whore and SC whore. In this case, all I can suggest is that your friend might need to alter his thinking on how to use them. But a result of killing all your forces isn't bad. As I said, my designs are rather simplistic, rushed and not optimised in any way. With better PWS and better understanding of how to use them, the result could turn even more in favour of the FlagShip.

As I have said previously, I am not the best ship designer (my Mech designs underwent 8 or 9 revisions on the boards, and the ships are in revision 1), and so using the examples I put up isn't the best way to vindicate or refute this idea. What I can suggest is that those who oppose the idea go away and try to build a max collar fleet, using their own preferences for weaponry, etc. I tried these builds against a few people, and they worked alright. Not a runaway success, but enough to suggest they have merit. But it's a small sample.

Maybe you have better PWS designs, and so carrying more of those is enough to win. Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. Maybe you have better strategies. I'm not Sun Tzu. Just saying, maybe you should give it a go and see what you come up with.

But one thing I will say is that I am not going to argue cost, or in-universe any more. The economics of the world is too broken for that to be any kind of argument, and I don't see anyone saying that Mech XXL engines shouldn't be taken because they up the cost of a 4/6 100 ton Omni from 30 million to over 130 million before you add weapons.

All that matters here is the viability of max collar ships in-game, according to the mechanics and usual force balancing systems, be they tonnage, BV or something else.

[Zureal]

Oblique line is a tactic that runs like this: Normally when two armies line up, the strongest unit goes in the middle. The charge is led from the centre, with the sides trailing back a little.

The Oblique line has the strongest unit on the edge, and so that edge charges in. Because it will usually be facing a weaker unit, it finishes fighting before the others, and can then wheel round and assist from the flank. This allows it to fight it's way to the centre, where it now faces the strongest opposing unit, but is supported by an entire flank of regular units.

Adapting to space combat isn't linear, but an approximation can be done.

   oOo, fancy, cool

But is cost the first point you look at, or is it BV?

 depending, if we are doing a campaign then yes. if its just a one off battle then no.

None taken. That's the main crux of the strategy. Along with Fighter whore, Cap Missile whore and SC whore. In this case, all I can suggest is that your friend might need to alter his thinking on how to use them. But a result of killing all your forces isn't bad. As I said, my designs are rather simplistic, rushed and not optimised in any way. With better PWS and better understanding of how to use them, the result could turn even more in favour of the FlagShip.

As I have said previously, I am not the best ship designer (my Mech designs underwent 8 or 9 revisions on the boards, and the ships are in revision 1), and so using the examples I put up isn't the best way to vindicate or refute this idea. What I can suggest is that those who oppose the idea go away and try to build a max collar fleet, using their own preferences for weaponry, etc. I tried these builds against a few people, and they worked alright. Not a runaway success, but enough to suggest they have merit. But it's a small sample.

All that matters here is the viability of max collar ships in-game, according to the mechanics and usual force balancing systems, be they tonnage, BV or something else.

 My main reasoning of arguing with you about the idea of having max collar ships, regardless of size, is that Dropships are inherintly fragile, even with mas SI and armor. capital weapons just eat them alive, dropships should always play the support roll when it comes to fighting otherwarships, killing there Dropships and fighters and when thats done helping to kill the enemy warship, or what have you.

But one thing I will say is that I am not going to argue cost, or in-universe any more. The economics of the world is too broken for that to be any kind of argument, and I don't see anyone saying that Mech XXL engines shouldn't be taken because they up the cost of a 4/6 100 ton Omni from 30 million to over 130 million before you add weapons.

 no argument from me there :P

also posted my first thing to your previous challeng :P

what will win, your 45 dropships, or my 2800 aerofighters!!! huahahahahaha , lol
http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,19478.0.html

Nice in-universe answer, but again, no direct answer to the question of how you put together fleets for encounters.

tired, so i only have strenght for answering this and its easy. same way they do it in modern times, they call ahead! they stratigize! they use there heads. how do you think Walmart manages to get dozen of trucks to a single store every day, at the same time when they are comming from all over the country or whatever.

[BritMech]

depending, if we are doing a campaign then yes. if its just a one off battle then no.

So you use cost for a campaign? Are there two opposing forces here, or is it more a case of player forces vs. GM faceless enemies.

We did/are doing similar with a Mech campaign (cost cap on OmniMech loadouts), and it did alter our thinking on what we took. However, the enemy wasn't/isn't cost matched. Individual encounters use a multiplier of BV, much as your one-on-one battle. And to me, that is what should be looked at when comparing forces because that is how they are normally judged. I don't think many people put together a fight based on a C-bill cap. And with the economic system as it is, I fully understand why.

My main reasoning of arguing with you about the idea of having max collar ships, regardless of size, is that Dropships are inherintly fragile, even with mas SI and armor. capital weapons just eat them alive, dropships should always play the support roll when it comes to fighting otherwarships, killing there Dropships and fighters and when thats done helping to kill the enemy warship, or what have you.

So maybe the PWS I have are simply in the wrong role. Wouldn't surprise me. I had my Mech LRM build cited as Anti-air when it really wasn't. The HAG build suggested to me was much better suited. So if you were building PWS, they would be more suited for killing other DS and Fighters?

also posted my first thing to your previous challeng :P

what will win, your 45 dropships, or my 2800 aerofighters!!! huahahahahaha , lol
http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,19478.0.html

Going to look after I post this. But my PWS carry Fighters too. 60 each. 45 x 60 = 2700. So don't break out your maniacal laughter just yet.

tired, so i only have strenght for answering this and its easy. same way they do it in modern times, they call ahead! they stratigize! they use there heads. how do you think Walmart manages to get dozen of trucks to a single store every day, at the same time when they are comming from all over the country or whatever.

I meant more the cost, BV, tonnage way you put fleets together. Logistics I am familiar with :)

[Zureal]

So you use cost for a campaign? Are there two opposing forces here, or is it more a case of player forces vs. GM faceless enemies.

We did/are doing similar with a Mech campaign (cost cap on OmniMech loadouts), and it did alter our thinking on what we took. However, the enemy wasn't/isn't cost matched. Individual encounters use a multiplier of BV, much as your one-on-one battle. And to me, that is what should be looked at when comparing forces because that is how they are normally judged. I don't think many people put together a fight based on a C-bill cap. And with the economic system as it is, I fully understand why.

  when we do campaign we do alot of it by cost. he has a force, and i have a force, and then we pick a part of the IS, usualy a few planets, MABY a whole sector sometimes. and go at it, the only time there are facless bad guys is when he controlls malitias.

So maybe the PWS I have are simply in the wrong role. Wouldn't surprise me. I had my Mech LRM build cited as Anti-air when it really wasn't. The HAG build suggested to me was much better suited. So if you were building PWS, they would be more suited for killing other DS and Fighters?

   I would say this is accurate, no one is saying that PWS cant kill warships. Its just that another warship is infinitly better at it. Ware PWS excell is in the support roll, also, they have a capability that warship will never have, they can support ground troops directly, overhead, im sure a SCC will kill any mech outright in one hit, or what have you. Use them as carriers, or aero killers, or dropships killers, but as a straight up warship killer? that would be folly.

 Think of it like this, lets say your carrier is a Wasp nest, nasty thing, that no one really wants to get close to, and that your droppers are the soldier wasps, also, big, nasty, PAINFULL, little bastards that will kill u if your not carfull. Now lets say you have a person, he is the warship. He can take ALOT of the wasp hits before going down, and he is equiped with lots of weapons and armor. he has bug spray, or whatever an anologe would be for fighting bugs.
 also, the further you get from the next the less lethal they become, as the next can only deploy so many at you at once, and you can run pretty quick, and turn around, kill abunch, run some more, stop, kill another batch, ect ect.
 Get what im talking about here?

Going to look after I post this. But my PWS carry Fighters too. 60 each. 45 x 60 = 2700. So don't break out your maniacal laughter just yet.

maby, but i am carrying more on JUST my warship. who knows how many my dropships are carrying.

I meant more the cost, BV, tonnage way you put fleets together. Logistics I am familiar with :)

oOo. duno, just do, never gave it much thought :/

[sillybrit]

Using what is in-universe to get an idea of normal thinking, since it is hard to view every custom ship made and yet-to-be-made. So try this: Does every custom ship you have encountered carry AMS, and do they carry 12 or more?

It depends. If you read back what I've posted earlier, due to the effectiveness of AMS in castrating missile-heavy designs we've sometimes deliberately limited the amount of AMS we field, just so that capital missiles aren't made completely worthless. Such scenarios typically also limit or ban nukes, but that's an aside. Without such artificial and self-imposed constraints then custom designs fall into two categories, either completely self-reliant on AMS or alternatively intended to only operate with AMS escorts, whether they be Small Craft, DropShips or even other WarShips.

Even I'm playing in a scenario where I know the opponent is likely to come missile heavy, and assuming the self-imposed limits on AMS aren't being used, then I'm definitely going to be loaded up with AMS, and it's common with those I play against.

If we use BV, then the maxed-collar design is still more costly in addition to being more expensive in C-Bill terms. If using the PWS option you suggest, then the maxed-collar design requires more total tonnage. It wouldn't be impossible to design non-maxed WarShips that could require less tonnage for the carrier option as well, but as already noted, there's big in-universe problems with having so many fighters.

Are you saying that you could carry more Fighters without using as many collars? Not sure I follow this correctly.

The main part of my quoted post that you were replying to is pointing out that your designs are more costly in terms of CBills, BV & (sometimes) tonnage, so no matter what metric is used to balance the forces you'd be fielding would be both inferior and more expensive.

This is based upon my using a pair of 2.5Mt WarShips, each with 720 fighters, that each carry 6 100kt AMS DropShips, each with 120 fighters, thus fielding 2880 fighters total. Compared to your PWS force, this force is about half the C-Bill cost, a third of the BV cost and 90% of the tonnage cost. The fighters match and neutralize your fighters, the AMS DropShips neutralize your PWS, leaving two 2.5Mt WarShips to defeat your one 2.5Mt WarShip and then mop up the helpless PWS.

The odd one out is your carrier option, because that forces me to use a different force if I just used the same WarShip design. To match and thus neutralize your fighters, I'd need to field four of the above WarShips, while the 24 DropShips would have to be combo AMS/carriers, each with 240 fighters, giving of 8640 fighters. Compared to your carrier force, this is the same C-Bill cost, 60% of the BV cost, but obviously masses far more, with about three-quarters more tonnage required.

While its ability to defeat both your carrier and your PWS force is nice, so that it doesn't matter which configuration you go with, it would be nice to get the tonnage issue addressed. One option would be to use the CV/AMS combo DropShips for both my forces together with turning the WarShip design into more of a pure carrier instead of a battleship/carrier. Or I could just add on a few more collars to carry a few more CV/AMS DropShips, keeping an eye on the massively ballooning cost so that my total C-Bill cost remains under that of your maxed collar WarShip. Either way, it'd be possible for two 2.5Mt WarShips with 12 to 24 (as an example) 100kt DropShips to carry the 8000+ fighters you have on your carrier force and still be cheaper in terms of C-Bills, BV and tonnage.

Aside: I notice that there is no answer yet as to how often you use different metrics to balance or set-up encounters.

 ???

It varies wildly. In campaigns I've played with just what got to the fight, with no balancing in an individual scenario. Other times I've used price, mass, BV, random generated forces and house ruled BV-type balancing, or even whatever we felt like. None of which, apart from price, really has any bearing on to the viability of maxed out collar designs.

As noted above, it wouldn't matter what metric was used, a superior non-maxed-collar force can be fielded for less C-Bill, BV and tonnage cost than your maxed-collar force.

[BritMech]

It depends. If you read back what I've posted earlier, due to the effectiveness of AMS in castrating missile-heavy designs we've sometimes deliberately limited the amount of AMS we field, just so that capital missiles aren't made completely worthless. Such scenarios typically also limit or ban nukes, but that's an aside. Without such artificial and self-imposed constraints then custom designs fall into two categories, either completely self-reliant on AMS or alternatively intended to only operate with AMS escorts, whether they be Small Craft, DropShips or even other WarShips.

Even I'm playing in a scenario where I know the opponent is likely to come missile heavy, and assuming the self-imposed limits on AMS aren't being used, then I'm definitely going to be loaded up with AMS, and it's common with those I play against.

So pretty much every custom ship is carrying AMS? Or just your group? I can see why it would make sense to do this, but is it accepted amongst everyone who designs custom ships? If so, AMS is going to be standard equipment, and Capital missiles are pretty much obsolete.

The main part of my quoted post that you were replying to is pointing out that your designs are more costly in terms of CBills, BV & (sometimes) tonnage, so no matter what metric is used to balance the forces you'd be fielding would be both inferior and more expensive.

This is based upon my using a pair of 2.5Mt WarShips, each with 720 fighters, that each carry 6 100kt AMS DropShips, each with 120 fighters, thus fielding 2880 fighters total. Compared to your PWS force, this force is about half the C-Bill cost, a third of the BV cost and 90% of the tonnage cost. The fighters match and neutralize your fighters, the AMS DropShips neutralize your PWS, leaving two 2.5Mt WarShips to defeat your one 2.5Mt WarShip and then mop up the helpless PWS.

The odd one out is your carrier option, because that forces me to use a different force if I just used the same WarShip design. To match and thus neutralize your fighters, I'd need to field four of the above WarShips, while the 24 DropShips would have to be combo AMS/carriers, each with 240 fighters, giving of 8640 fighters. Compared to your carrier force, this is the same C-Bill cost, 60% of the BV cost, but obviously masses far more, with about three-quarters more tonnage required.

While its ability to defeat both your carrier and your PWS force is nice, so that it doesn't matter which configuration you go with, it would be nice to get the tonnage issue addressed. One option would be to use the CV/AMS combo DropShips for both my forces together with turning the WarShip design into more of a pure carrier instead of a battleship/carrier. Or I could just add on a few more collars to carry a few more CV/AMS DropShips, keeping an eye on the massively ballooning cost so that my total C-Bill cost remains under that of your maxed collar WarShip. Either way, it'd be possible for two 2.5Mt WarShips with 12 to 24 (as an example) 100kt DropShips to carry the 8000+ fighters you have on your carrier force and still be cheaper in terms of C-Bills, BV and tonnage.

The high BV cost isn't to do with the collars though. The BV of the FlagShip is the same whether it has 6 collars or 45. And this goes into the more general area of WarShip design. So I say again, what if you were to design a max collar WarShip? What would the loadout be? Because the designs I put up are my revision 1 ideas. I'm sure that you could make more viable max collar designs.

The PWS Cap missile design is obviously going to be flawed, and therefore thrown out if AMS is as prevalent as you suggest. But that doesn't mean PWS are useless as a whole. A better PWS design could increase the success of this idea.

As noted above, it wouldn't matter what metric was used, a superior non-maxed-collar force can be fielded for less C-Bill, BV and tonnage cost than your maxed-collar force.

C-bill I don't argue, because it's broken.

BV depends on the loadout of the ships. Try and design one. My design just filled up on the big guns, which is why the BV is so high.

Tonnage, depends if you are adding up the tonnage of all WS/DS. And again, depends on the design.

But if the PWS was adjusted, and the WarShip loadout was altered, would that make a difference?

[Moonsword]

This thread is being locked.  It's just going around in circles at this point.