Group Design Challenge: WarShip Arms Race

[Charistoph]

I wouldn't worry too much about counterattack.  The Giant Tripod Walkers wont be around until turn 75 or 80.  :)

It's called a preemptive strike, and is probably more effective than attacking the darkness.

[marcussmythe]

~reads the first of the combat reports~

Hmm.  Interesting.  Very, very interesting.

[Smegish]

One problem dealt with, now for the more serious opponents

[truetanker]

While I wait, impatiently of course, for my realm's after action reports, I decided to pop out my 5 Million " Generic " Aero fighters. Now I know these cost way less than $5 mill, I can justify the cost in training procedures.

Code: [Select]

Class/Model/Name:  Falco 
Mass:              65 tons

Equipment:                                                              Mass
Power Plant:  195 Fusion                                                 8,00
Thrust:  Safe Thrust: 5
      Maximum Thrust: 8
Structural Integrity: 6                                                   ,00
Total Heat Sinks:    10 Single                                            ,00
Fuel:                                                                    4,00
Cockpit & Attitude Thrusters:                                            3,00
Armor Type:  Standard  (224 total armor pts)                            14,00
                           Standard Scale Armor Pts
   Location:                            L / R
   Nose:                                 75
   Left/Right Wings:                    53/53
   Aft:                                  43

Weapons and Equipment      Loc        SRV    MRV    LRV    ERV  Heat    Mass
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Machine Gun              Nose         2     --     --     --    0      1,00
  Ammo (MG) 200            ---                                           1,00
3 Autocannon/5             Nose         5      5     --     --    3     24,00
  Ammo (AC/5) 60           ---                                           3,00
2 Machine Gun              RW           2     --     --     --    0      1,00
2 Machine Gun              LW           2     --     --     --    0      1,00
  Ammo (MG) 400            ---                                           2,00
2 Machine Gun              Aft          2     --     --     --    0      1,00
  Ammo (MG) 200            ---                                           1,00
1 Refueling drogue (Aft).                                                1,00
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS:                                                     Heat: 3     65,00
Tons Left:                                                                ,00

Calculated Factors:
Total Cost:        2.843.384 C-Bills
Battle Value:      859


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Class/Model/Name:  Bueto 
Mass:              65 tons

Equipment:                                                              Mass
Power Plant:  195 Fusion                                                 8,00
Thrust:  Safe Thrust: 5
      Maximum Thrust: 8
Structural Integrity: 6                                                   ,00
Total Heat Sinks:    10 Single                                            ,00
Fuel:                                                                    8,00
Cockpit & Attitude Thrusters:                                            3,00
Armor Type:  Standard  (224 total armor pts)                            14,00
                           Standard Scale Armor Pts
   Location:                            L / R
   Nose:                                 75
   Left/Right Wings:                    53/53
   Aft:                                  43

Weapons and Equipment      Loc        SRV    MRV    LRV    ERV  Heat    Mass
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Machine Gun              Nose         2     --     --     --    0      1,00
  Ammo (MG) 200            ---                                           1,00
2 Autocannon/5             Nose         5      5     --     --    2     16,00
  Ammo (AC/5) 40           ---                                           2,00
2 Machine Gun              RW           2     --     --     --    0      1,00
2 Machine Gun              LW           2     --     --     --    0      1,00
  Ammo (MG) 400            ---                                           2,00
2 Machine Gun              Aft          2     --     --     --    0      1,00
  Ammo (MG) 200            ---                                           1,00
1 Refueling drogue (Aft).                                                1,00
1 Bomb Bay                                                               5,00
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS:                                                     Heat: 2     65,00
Tons Left:                                                                ,00

Calculated Factors:
Total Cost:        2.672.856 C-Bills
Battle Value:      780
Designed for the original Aero-Carrier of the Marian Hegemony, the Falco and Bueto were co-designed by the Hadrian Mechanized Industries, a semi-conglomerate on the plane Pompey. When first proposed, the Falconidae Project as it was called, was chosen to be a multipurpose frame. Able to deal threats as a main stage fighter or in support bomber roles, the Falconidae was re-designated as two separate identities.

The Falco was built with such a heavy barrage in it's nose, three of the now standard Parva Tormentis or Autocannon 5, given her the ability to plow into any enemy it encounters. Her brother aerofighter, the Bueto was given over for more supporting roles, such as SAR and Bomber runs, they were also seen preforming in-flight refueling and general cargo humping missions. Losing one of the Parva Tormentis and a ton of ammo, the Bueto has the capacity to carry bombs in the five ton Bomb bay located in the fuselage.

Both frames are covered in same amount of armor called Lorica Hamata, or plain standard armor for the non-Hegemony citizens. Since both share the same movement profile, and look identical in every way, one won't realize until to late when on target. As each have a single Refueling Drogue and eight Jejunium Iaculis Machine Guns located in the Nose, Wings and Aft sections, with way more than enough ammunition to supply them indefinitely, the Falconidae Project was complete.

TT

[Alsadius]

Truetanker: I couldn't find a plausible way to give you a combat this round, but you may want to check the astropolitical summary for 2366 ;)

[truetanker]

Truetanker: I couldn't find a plausible way to give you a combat this round, but you may want to check the astropolitical summary for 2366 ;)

* Shakes pugilistic fist at them... *

Next turn.. I'll drop a Billion into Recruitment Drive! I want those systems...

Joking of course... or am I?  ::)

TT

[marcussmythe]

Economic Growth will be nice.  Im just waiting around for a Very Important Coup. :)

RE:  “Game the hell out of any ruleset I explain to you”

I have no idea what your talking about.  I havent plotted the ‘payback time’ on yard upgrades, in terms of higher combat power per cbill for ships, or yard-constricted combat power and its implications on ship design, carriage, and collars. -shifty eyes-

Like the fluff so far, cant wait to see all the big Capellan fights!

[Smegish]

I have noticed the yards listed on the Master Sheet are inaccurate. Luthien has 2 Level 2's and a Level 1 to go with its Level 3.

Also I never got a clear answer last turn, but are we paying for WarShip repairs? And if so, what cost? Same as maintenance, as I budgeted last turn, or some other cost?

Also, at what point is a new ship design a variant or a totally new ship? Just needs to be same tonnage? Same engine? Same Collars?

[Starfox1701]

I hate to say this but the Marian Hegemony doesn't exist yet. I just realized it and double checked and sure enough it was founded in 2920. Oh dear

[Smegish]

We are aware. He wanted to be the Space Romans, so we let him

[Alsadius]

* Shakes pugilistic fist at them... *

Next turn.. I'll drop a Billion into Recruitment Drive! I want those systems...

Joking of course... or am I?  ::)

TT

Just remember that the basic principle of this game as that you're in charge of the navy, not the nation. TBH, I'm being really generous letting you make foreign policy at all, because that wasn't how this was supposed to work.

Also, remember that the other players can skimp on buying JumpShips because they're all major nations that can just snap up merchants at need. You're an obscure single-system polity in the middle of nowhere, whose only real advantage is a lot of free money from germanium mining. (And as a side note, the fact that it's germanium aiding a Roman-themed empire is an irony not lost on me). And you still don't own a single docking collar anywhere. You're lucky two get two merchant ships into the same place at the same time, which is a big part of why your land forces are so badly outnumbered - you can hire mercenaries, but you simply cannot carry them to your targets.

And really, you were the one who said the Lothians and Illyrians - look up the canon on how you fared when you tried to take them in the 31st century. I'm just adapting the attacks you asked for :P.

I have no idea what your talking about.  I havent plotted the ‘payback time’ on yard upgrades, in terms of higher combat power per cbill for ships, or yard-constricted combat power and its implications on ship design, carriage, and collars. -shifty eyes-

Of course not! Just like there's no way Kiviar has given thought to how he can name ships after Hanse Davion 700 years before his reign.

I have noticed the yards listed on the Master Sheet are inaccurate. Luthien has 2 Level 2's and a Level 1 to go with its Level 3.

Also I never got a clear answer last turn, but are we paying for WarShip repairs? And if so, what cost? Same as maintenance, as I budgeted last turn, or some other cost?

Also, at what point is a new ship design a variant or a totally new ship? Just needs to be same tonnage? Same engine? Same Collars?

Fixed the sheet. It's only up to date for the beginning of turn 2 (I'll update it to the beginning of turn 3 once I finish the turn), but I've fixed the yards at Luthien. That said, it seems like the extra level 1 should be at New Samarkand, not Luthien, once this turn is posted.

Re repair costs, that was going to be obvious by the end of the turn, but I'll describe it - I'll add a repair cost to any relevant battle reports, so if that battle from last turn had happened this turn it'd say something like:
Losses:
Draconis Combine = 4x DropShip, 13x fighter. Kutai damaged - repair bill $1B
Rasalhague Consortium = 200x fighter.

You can either pay the repair bill or write off the ship (which is an easy choice when the ship is still new, but writing off may be interesting when your units are getting long in the tooth). For turn 2, you all made reasonable enough assumptions, so I was just going along with them to avoid needing to make you re-do your turns.

Re variants, I didn't have any hard-and-fast rules in mind, but it should be close. The Davion II changed its mass, the Leviathan II changed its speed, and there's a bunch of L-F refits, but no variant changed more than one of those. To keep it simple, let's say +-20 ktons, +- 10 SI, and +-1 safe thrust is a variant. It's a bit more latitude than canon used, but not enough that you guys just get half-price R&D on everything. Feel free to change docking collars, though - those changed pretty often between variants, so it can't be that hard. (And yes, I know how ridiculous that is when docking collars are the biggest single determinant of ship cost, but I want to keep this simple. Maybe creating a docking collar interface for a KF drive is just a well-known recipe that happens to be expensive?)

[Smegish]

fair enough, that works

EDIT: As to the location of the new yard, Luthien is further from potential front lines

[marcussmythe]

Nah, actually, that makes a kind of sense.  Collars are pricey, but tiny.  IF we assume its all super-expensive super-delicate 99% of parts fail testing stuff, but external to the actual core rather than requiring modifications thereto, it could be ‘expensive but easy.

Pulling the steam turbines out of a ship to replace with a while new gearing, drive train, and screws might be ‘hard but cheap’ compared to say replacing an entire computer suite and combat software - espc if you have to custom bake the computers and sortware for each ship.

[Jester Motley]

Makes sense to me, really.  Plenty of real-world examples too.  Upgrading the ram on your PC is easy, fast, and easily one of the most expensive things you can do.  If the docking collars are "cut hole in ship, weld on pre-fab, attach some cables and umbilical ports to some plumbing" then no big deal for a varient.  But if the cost to manufacture the pre-fab module is high, well, there ya go.  Anything from ultra complicated, semi-lostech, or just pricy materials can all do it.

[marcussmythe]

I reckon since collar costs are flat per collar, but greatly increased by the LF battery, they are super-expensive plug and play.

They shape an extend the K-F field around the thing carried.  So since we are dealing with hyperspace magitech, I can see huge costs and huge maintenance costs. And the cost of a collar triples when you put it on a ship with an LF battery... perhaps those collars are ‘double jump rated’, and have to be built to super-narrow tolerances to survive channeling the energy and extending the K-F field twice in very quick succession, without a cool down period or some presumed ‘standard post jump’ service and maintenance.

[Kiviar]

Of course not! Just like there's no way Kiviar has given thought to how he can name ships after Hanse Davion 700 years before his reign.

No, but you know for a fact that I have also totally not at any point thought about those exact same warship/yard cost efficiencies. And, tbh, since this is the pre-civil war Federated Suns, I am actively trying not to name literally everything the 'Davion X'

Also, I wish you had told me I had a secret slave planet. I would have gotten them working on some pyramids while I still had them on the payroll.

[Alsadius]

No, but you know for a fact that I have also totally not at any point thought about those exact same warship/yard cost efficiencies. And, tbh, since this is the pre-civil war Federated Suns, I am actively trying not to name literally everything the 'Davion X'

Also, I wish you had told me I had a secret slave planet. I would have gotten them working on some pyramids while I still had them on the payroll.

If it makes you feel any better, you're paying them just as much now as you were before  ;)

[Kiviar]

The Peacekeeping War

Damnit Alsadius, why did you have to go and raise the bar like that.

Welp, guess my turn is going to take a while to write now...

[marcussmythe]

Hmm.  That will definitely impact the value I ascribe to cargo fraction.

[Alsadius]

Question for the crowd. My battle write-ups are way longer this turn than last turn. As you might imagine, this means writing them takes a lot longer as well. Is this worthwhile to you? Would you rather have turns resolve faster with short battle reports, slower with long battle reports, or some sort of middle ground where only the really important battles get lengthy write-ups?

Hmm.  That will definitely impact the value I ascribe to cargo fraction.

Heh. Question is, in which direction? One one hand, the FedSuns fleet has the smallest cargo fraction by far, and they won. On the other, shallow ammo bins can clearly come back to bite you sometimes(I had a somewhat longer description of what happened when the Capellans started running out of ammo, but it got cut in the editing process).

[Smegish]

Well, assuming we get our turns in promptly during the week, I'm okay with the reports taking a few days to resolve :)

[marcussmythe]

Question for the crowd. My battle write-ups are way longer this turn than last turn. As you might imagine, this means writing them takes a lot longer as well. Is this worthwhile to you? Would you rather have turns resolve faster with short battle reports, slower with long battle reports, or some sort of middle ground where only the really important battles get lengthy write-ups?

Heh. Question is, in which direction? One one hand, the FedSuns fleet has the smallest cargo fraction by far, and they won. On the other, shallow ammo bins can clearly come back to bite you sometimes(I had a somewhat longer description of what happened when the Capellans started running out of ammo, but it got cut in the editing process).

Well, shallow ammo is bad, so dont use missiles.  (At 10’rounds per ton, they start to suck).  But shallow cargo doesnt affect your ability to conquer.  So no missiles, no cargo.  Now, its possible that you could fire enough missiles to overcome that issue.  Ive considered a CG.  Rules say it works, but thats effectively simulation, not real.

[Alsadius]

Let's put some numbers on it. Counting ammo(including 1x Killer Whale per fighter), but not heat sinks, the Quzhujian uses 20,400 tons on AR-10s, 27,216 tons on NAC/40s, 17,600 tons on NL/55s, and 9,600 tons on fighters. You can judge for yourself which of those weapon systems had the best effect per ton invested in the battle we saw.

[marcussmythe]

Fair cop.  May just be too hard to tell, as to ammo fed weapons.  But we know you can at least drive over

Beyond that, I really like the long writeups/details.  They have some great story to them.

[marcussmythe]

-delete duplicate-

[Alsadius]

FYI, the reason I say "You can judge for yourself" is that I'm not even sure, and I wrote the thing. Looking at those numbers, my first thought is that maybe I should have mentioned the NLs a bit more.

At the end of the day, I want all sensible strategies to be viable. The design of a unit should be about coordinating with your other units and fulfilling a role in your fleet, not about max-minning a set of game stats. It's possible to get really dumb if you want(e.g., 1 SI on a WarShip), but any good-faith approach to ship design that pays attention to the basics will produce a ship that's probably good at something. It may not be the role you need filled - e.g., a Quzhujian is a good design for a small nation like the Capellans, but it'd be a terrible SLDF ship - but it'll have some kind of role somewhere. Don't worry too much about certain weapon systems being overpowered or underpowered, because I don't intend for that to be a major issue overall. I even have a plan in mind to make NGauss not suck  :o

[marcussmythe]

Please make NGauss not suck.  Their huge guns with a long range, so Im morally obligated to love them as a Lyran.

[Vition2]

First, as a watcher, I like the fluff.  :)

As for the combat and the horrible losses the CapCon suffered... it seems that the issue was much more down to luck and tactics.  The discounting of one of their warships in the outer system really didn't help matters and made a potentially even battle uneven at the outset.  Then not covering the attack wings with fighters, the Capellans left themselves open to massive amounts of aerospace losses, something not able to be recovered from in the middle of combat.  And lastly, pushing an attack you are already at a disadvantage at - attacking at parity is a poor choice, to do so when you are already an underdog is straight folly.

[marcussmythe]

Well, that goes to both dice rolls, and the basic problems of a naval underdog.  Lanchester is a cruel master, and history is chock full of ‘2nd string but close’ navies getting turned into dust.

What will be more interesting is to see the results of the commerce raiding.  If it has significant economic impact, enough to balance the combat losses, we know that you need to build balanced fleets and defenses and cover yourself.  If the raiders arent productive, and -very- productive at that, then that tells us the right answer is monobuilding the largest, best armed hammers possible. 

Neither is ‘wrong’.  Commerce raiding is very good at some points in naval history (age of sail) and very, very bad in others (surface raiders, ww1/2).  My gut feel is that its going to depend here on investment in defenses.  Running down a commerce raider thats cautious is, mostly, impossible - jump in well clear of the limit, outside detection.  Charge your core.  Then run in, hit the jump point hard if you can beat whats there, jump out if you cant.  Now - are we hitting the planet/orbital factories?  Thats rolling dice - you can get trapped inside the limit against a superior force.  You can barrel down on those orbital factories to find 500 fighters taking off with 1000 Barracudas under their wings with your name on them.  Or you can burn the orbital infrastructure and all the droppers between the jump point and the planet.

But rememeber - your operational mobility is 1G, same as everyone else.  Id do a high speed run in with my course plotted for a pirate point.  Look around on way in.  If go, go.  If no go, keep that 1G plus whatever your crew can stand right up to the pirate point and leave - defenders at best get a high speed pass.  Still riskier than just hitting the polar jump point, but TANSTAAFL.

[Vition2]

Basically what I was getting at is what would an in-game admiral take from the fight, assuming he got a full report.  This may have been a poor way to look at it considering it is a game.  But an admiral would look at the fight and say, "they did that wrong... and that wrong... and that right." Because regardless of the losses, it was a close thing, the FS lost ~9 gigabills worth of stuff while the CC lost ~14 and the difference was mostly tactical decisions.

That dice rolls play a part in how things turn out, I understand completely, but I'm looking at this from and in-universe perspective, where the gods of the dice aren't any where near apparent.

The question I ask is: how would a navy react to mitigate the issues that plagued the CC during this fight? Not, How can I design a warship to change the math on the fight?  But I understand I'm not one actually participating, and that decision isn't mine to make - this post is primarily to say where my last post was coming from, nothing more.