It is 2350. The TAS Dreadnought has raised the bar on naval conflict in human space, and rising tensions between the powers demand a response. Across the Inner Sphere, shipyards swing into action, and Warships are laid down in expectation of conflicts to come...
We will be starting another Warship Arms Race Game/Thread. In this, players will take the role of the commander of the navy, be that Grand Admiral, First Lord, CNO, or however you want to style it. The player will have responsibility and authority over all things naval, from budget, design, construction, doctrine, and policy. You wont be able to decide when war happens (that is a political decision), nor when and where battles happen and with what forces (that is the purview of commanders closer to the scene - but you can advise as to both.
The intent is first to have fun with it, and along the way to produce interesting warships that are designed to fit actual roles the navies actually need. Its important to remember that Jutland and Midway get all of the press, but a navy spends the vast majority of its time doing flag-showing, anti-piracy, relief, and various soft power roles - and even in a shooting war, the seat of naval purpose is always -on the land-.
The game will open in 2350, and I would like to see players for all five great houses (Yes, House Liao only forms in 2366. Were going to treat it as if they were cooperating on naval matters before that, being surrounded by larger powers, so that for our purposes it can be assumed functional as of 2350. This gives House Liao a bit of a leg up compared to its historical position - which I am okay with) and if interested for various periphery powers. There are currently two GMs, myself and Smegish, and we will play NPC powers (Terran Hegemony, unclaimed periphery realms) and possibly any unclaimed Houses if we cannot find enough players for them - though we would prefer not to.
Starting setup will be very similar to those from Alsadius's excellent Warship Arms Race:
https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=61764.0, though budgets will be larger, technology research simpler, and maintenance higher (to allow faster regeneration of major losses).
Turns will be 10 years, with people designing and building warships and stations and building jumpers and droppers and fighters, etc., researching technology, deciding how much mainteance to budget, selling ships and buying ships from allied powers, and all that jazz.
Rules are discussed at some length below, but in short we will be playing by the rules as written with all optional rules. There will be some changes, and other 'assumptions', that everyone should know, below:
1.) Capital Scale (Weapons, Armor, Structure) is 100:1, rather than 10:1. In addition, Capital ARMOR has an absolute threshold against Standard Scale damage at 10:1 - thus a vessel with 50 Capital Armor is immune to medium lasers, and takes 5 less damage from any standard scale weapon. Note that damaging the armor reduces its threshold value, and exposed structure has no threshold. Rationale: Without this, fighters and massed standard scale 'broadsides' define combat, and we have a carrier arms race with no place for anything else. With this, fighters are a support system, deadly against dropships, lightly armored warships, and hideously dangerous to damaged warships with depleted or exposed armor. But fighters are not a stand-alone all-destroying solution to every problem.
2.) Nukes Arent Magic: Nuclear Weapons, as defined in the published rules, do not exist at the warship scale. We assume that existing weapons already inflict damage/transfer energy on a scale appropriate to a nuclear weapon, so the use of a nuclear weapon as a warhead would provide no advantage - or may already be taking place. Rationale: Nukes, RAW, completely flip the table when they come out, OR you scale PDS effectiveness enough to stop them, and make missiles useless. Neither generates fun outcomes and both change it, again, from a 'warships arms race' to a 'Carriers with Nuke Armed Fighters briefly and then they all blow up' arms race. Realistic perhaps, but not much fun.
3.) PDS: This is from Lagrange, and I believe it is a good fit:
"Point defense standard damage equal to 4 * capital damage generates a 50% chance to kill a capital missile (or a flight from a capital missile bay). Multiple 50% chances to kill the same capital missile(s) can be generated, but all point defense applied to a capital missile passing through a hex must be designated before rolls to kill the capital missile are made. Additional point defense may be applied in successive hexes.
Antimissile systems and bays on smallcraft and largecraft may fire up to 6 times in a turn, generating heat and consuming ammunition each time."
The net effect is that more PDS is better, but there is no amount equal to immunity - merely that 4*Incoming Capital Damage cuts the damage by half (roughly), doubling that halves it again, etc. Layered defenses become more valuable.
4.) Bays: Bays are a TT convenience and abstraction. Bracket firing and high damage weapons creating threshold crits before armor is depleted will be a 'thing', but it wont be as mechanical and absolute. A NL/45 can in theory get a lucky shot in on anything, a NAC/40 wont necessarily, but bigger is going to be (unsurprisingly) better for getting shots through before armor is depleted.
5.) Cargo: In general, a 5% mass fraction is enough for 'normal operations' - inside your own territory, or leave your territory to throw a fight and go home shortly thereafter. A ship that never leaves friendly territory or carries a large amount of dropships, or which is in a navy with a lot of jumpships and dropships to provide fleet train, can go further, or get by with even less - but there are trade-offs, and fleet train is a vulnerability. A raider, long endurance flag-shower, deep space scout, or the like, will want more, perhaps much more. A BB that never budges from home without an extensive fleet train may be able to get by with a little less. The TH/SL standard designs should be taken as an EXTREME endpoint - those ships are designed to cruise, unsupported, for years, and while months or more away from home, possibly while supporting invasions. They aren't bad because of it - the TH/SL has different priorities, due to its economic and military power and vast commitments - just different than what a PC power (who probably isn't trying to make war in the periphery on the other side of the sphere) does.
6.) Dropships: Players will build dropships and jumpships. These are fleet and invasions support, and the droppers will be a mix of tender/cargo, military assault transport, and combat designs - I'm not going to ask you to break them down by type, just assume that the more droppers you have, the more likely you are to have the ones you need where and when you need them. Jumpships provide fleet logistics and transport. Offensive military action (planetary raids and invasions) will be informed by your logistics train of droppers and jumpers (and warship based collars and cargo, yadda). If you scrimp here to spend elsewhere, your navy will find itself trying to herd civilian crewed soft-skinned merchant dropships and jumpships into offensive action in the face of nasty opponents, while the flower of your nations armed forces ride, uncomfortably, on them. Is that worth another battleship? Up to you.
7.) Feel free to design fighters, dropships, small craft, tanks, mechs, etc. It will have zero effect on the game, but fluff and doctrine is important, and also fun. Have fun, go crazy.
So who wants to play?
GM:
marcussmythe
Smegish
Powers and their Players:
Draconis Combine - Unlimited
Lyran Commonwealth - kindalas
Free Worlds League - VensersRevenge
Capellan Confederation -
Federated Suns - Jester Motley
Marian Hegemony - True Tanker
Principality of Rasalhague - Tyler Jorgensson
United Hindu Collective -
Illyrian Palatinate -
Rim World Republic -
Taurian Concordiate -
Unclaimed Powers - NPC/Smegish, though players are welcome to take anything unclaimed they want.
Terran Hegemony - NPC/marcussmythe, though we MIGHT consider allowing a player to run it if we fill out the others
Game State Spreadsheet (Rules, Technology, Ships in Service, Maps) Link below: (This is a WIP, thanks to Smegish for his work - note that as of today, were making this GM edit only, for safety sake - well edit stuff in, all you have to worry about is posting turns on the turn thread)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rIBaiLqUhwppFvoNmXGHpS0HWSVSEuxLY25m-u0uaPc/edit?usp=sharingIC/Turn Thread: Turn Posting and Turn Results
https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=68675.0Master Ship Design/Construction Spreadsheet - save a local copy to your google drive!
Modified by Smegish 4/4/2020 - properly calculates dropshuttle bay costs for this game. NOTE: Do not combine dropshuttle bays and collars on the same vessel. Will cause errors.
Further modified by Motley Jester 4/23/20. Bays should properly display in the TRO workup -scroll to the right
Most Recent Bugfix Version 6/16/20 - Properly pricing life support and quarters, courtesy of Lagrange:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11SbQ3R1b_P44yznQEmPfc7XHKWc8aELd_TuN-HL3_QM/edit#gid=0
