Group Design Challenge: WarShip Arms Race

[marcussmythe]

Also, its funny how a game played at this layer changes how you look at things like perks.

*gazes longingly at compact battlemech quirk*

[Smegish]

Question for future mech construction, as luch as we're going generic most of us like to build stuff for the hell of it.

So my question: Primitive Mechs? Are we bothering with them at all (as we didn't bother with primitive aero), will we have primitive mechs for 1-3 turns after gaining the Mech technology before going on to 'Modern' machines, or will modern mechs be a separate technology?

In the end it doesn't greatly matter, just a curiosity for us designers to think about

[truetanker]

On a side note, wouldn't a 75 ton Mech be considered an Assault?

 ;D

TT

[marcussmythe]

On a side note, wouldn't a 75 ton Mech be considered an Assault?

 ;D

TT

I'm playing the Lyrans.  75 tons is for recon and skirmishing.

[DOC_Agren]

I'm playing the Lyrans.  75 tons is for recon and skirmishing.

that heavy recon
for light recon, use the longest produced BA the Commando  :thumbsup:

[marcussmythe]

that heavy recon
for light recon, use the longest produced BA the Commando  :thumbsup:

Since I lost out on the PPC/AC lotto this turn, as well as the Battlemech Lotto, I may design a tank with a Sniper (the full up arty piece) as its direct-fire main gun.

[Alsadius]

The rules do allow carrying dropships up to 5000 tons as cargo, and jump with them. You all just agreed to not allow drop shuttle bays.
You probably couldn't fill the dropship with anything while you store it as actual cargo, though.
That said, one could design a dropship with significant armour. The universe just didn't have any until the Jihad, for the same reasons it didn't have reinforced repair bays or screen launchers.
The writers, for decades, just didn't think of something so obvious.

DropShips are hard shells, and can store things inside no matter where they may be at the time. And yes, the armour values are kind of low in canon, but I think the generics I've picked have more than enough armour to justify their use in battle. (Though part of me thinks I should drop the Fireshield to a 150-ton or even 100-ton design, because that is some ridiculous armour for a shuttle...)

Also, its funny how a game played at this layer changes how you look at things like perks.

*gazes longingly at compact battlemech quirk*

Oh, for sure. This is why narrow focus in a wide-ranging game can be so devastating to gameplay. Look at D&D for a classic example - if you accept that the game is designed around murderhobos taking 10-minute adventuring days and then sleeping until spells recover, social classes like the bard and high-stamina classes like the fighter fade into obscurity, in favour of primary spellcasters smashing everything in sight with their three best spells. But if you play the game as an actual roleplay, or even as one where there's more challenges than merely direct combat on a player-controlled schedule, that perverse dynamic disappears.

BT is a pretty rich universe, even if I may sometimes whine about FASAnomics, and there's a lot going on. When you look at things from different levels, you begin to see reasons for(or even advantages from) things that previously looked silly. This is half the fun of trying to make the universe live and breathe, and a big part of why I sometimes digress down weird tangents.

Question for future mech construction, as luch as we're going generic most of us like to build stuff for the hell of it.

So my question: Primitive Mechs? Are we bothering with them at all (as we didn't bother with primitive aero), will we have primitive mechs for 1-3 turns after gaining the Mech technology before going on to 'Modern' machines, or will modern mechs be a separate technology?

In the end it doesn't greatly matter, just a curiosity for us designers to think about

Since it doesn't matter in gameplay, I'll set no hard-and-fast rules here. But I'd say that most designs for the next few turns should probably be primitive, at least from a roleplay point of view.

[Lagrange]

Since I lost out on the PPC/AC lotto this turn, as well as the Battlemech Lotto, I may design a tank with a Sniper (the full up arty piece) as its direct-fire main gun.

Personally, I like the Thumper.  Mount it on a (primitive) ICE hovercraft going 7/11 and use direct fire artillery at long range to make a nasty harasser.  The to-hit number is 4(regular)+4(DF artillery)+1(cruise)=9 against anything in 17 hexes no matter how fast or stealthy.  Return fire with conventional weapons faces  4(regular)+4(long range)+3(TMM)=11.   Particularly interesting are cluster rounds which "only" do 10 damage, but have a 1-in-6 chance of hitting for 1 damage if they miss and resolve on the shot from above table.  It's also extra damaging vs. infantry, extra critting vs. vehicles, and offers flak vs. airborne.... and it's ammo light, offering 20 shots/ton. 

Upgrades of armor (Primitive armor -> stealth), engines (ICE->XL fusion), and to Arrow IV (double cluster damage, homing missiles) are all helpful, but even with none of this it remains a capable legal design over a millenium in the BT universe.

[marcussmythe]

Thank you!

The 50 ton hovers thumpers  go in the light bays, the 100 ton track-layer snipers go in heavy vehicle bays.  Put an infantry compartment on both, and run each vehicle regiment as a combined arms formation of two regiments - 1 vehicle, 1 infantry.

[Lagrange]

Put an infantry compartment on both, and run each vehicle regiment as a combined arms formation of two regiments - 1 vehicle, 1 infantry.

It leaves the Thumpercraft with only 6 tons of armor---a bit light for my taste but perhaps still viable.

I'm somewhat skeptical about an all-artillery approach because they are ineffective within 6 ground hexes leaving a range hole that infantry can only partially cover.  Maybe mix in some SRM carriers? 

[marcussmythe]

Oh, on any -real- force I wouldnt use it, but its so ludicrously Lyran its fun to talk about here.

Put some smoke rounds in SRM launchers and use the onboard infantry to help prepare partial cover firing positions - use the SRMs with infernos (whenever we discover Napalm) to back up the Arty - use infantry with mission -loaded weapons based on op4 - I can see it.

[UnLimiTeD]

Finally got around to reading about the tech progression.
Looks like I'll get quite the burst of progress. It looks like a miscalculated, though; getting a bunch of everything, nice as that is, doesn't really help you much, does it?

Oh, and a question: The TH and FWL both spent 5B on "Strengthening", yet the TH got 5 rolls and the FWL 4?  I assume you just forgot one of the numbers? Going by those present, probably another 10.
Regarding the progression: Are AC/10s actually good for anything? It seems to me they are just weaker, heavier, shorter ranged LRMs. I suppose they have utility on the ground level, but I doubt our abstraction allows that to matter.

DropShips are hard shells, and can store things inside no matter where they may be at the time.

Sorry, I meant you can't load it while it's in cargo.

Edit: Just looked at it again. Damn, I was so close to LF Batteries.

Light NGauss have the longest range of any capital weapon.  Medium NGauss are the only extreme range kinetic weapon (useful for high speed engagements) and since they are comparable to HNPPC in damage efficiency they are a reasonable choice.  Maybe the Heavy NGauss needs something, but 1 lemon in a series isn't that bad.

Well, what is it? The light uses no brackets but the others do? 
Actually, that might be preferable, in the long run. Say, an extreme range cap that is the longer of the bracket and the actual range. That said, I don't think a 2 hex advantage on the LG compared to an nppc is that great. Speaking of which, there's also no real reason to mount smaller nppcs.

Edit2: As I now seem to have a larger budget than expected, I might need to reconsider a bit. Tech's already been rolled, so I can't add to that, though I probably wouldn't have, anyways.
I was planning to put pressurized bays on the Heracles, but now I wonder: It is a combat design first and foremost, and a pressurized bay sounds like a bulky affair. Meanwhile, the unpressurized version is just meant as a foldable scaffolding. It probably won't hold up to fighter attack, but it doesn't weaken the ship, either. What do you think is the more sensible choice here?
I do have the money to pay an extra 200m per ship on them.

May I suggest a fractional bonus modifier to combat performance for ground units fighting against other ground units with inferior technology? That would give meaning to those otherwise not very space-significant technologies.
Also, maybe introduce a "near miss" on research? Say, for every 4 rolled, raise the chance of the first tech in that line proliferating by 8%, for the next 2 turns or until it actually happens/is researched? Fluff being that it's sure easier to reverse engineer if you already spent 2B to get it.
We do need more gradual techs, though. Maybe a partial development, that allows you to buy it next turn for 1B. Generally more things to be discovered. While it works so far, chances are tech has two tactics. Ignore it and mostly rely on spread, or push large sums into it and fill out half the tree in 5 turns. After all, tech doesn't cost maintenance.

[Alsadius]

Tech will be advancing faster from now on, for sure. It seemed too slow to be much fun before, tbh, and wasn't generating much player engagement.

Re FWL rolls, you're right that I didn't post one. I think I rolled it, though I can't really be sure at this point. If you hadn't gotten a tech I'd give you the extra roll to be safe. But you did, and it's one of the more interesting ones, so I'll just assume it stands as-is. Good catch, though, and my apologies.

AC/10s are mostly useful on fighters. They're the biggest single-hit weapon around(well, tied with PPCs), which means they'll give fighters a bit more punch when attacking things like DropShips. LRMs are fairly good at shooting down fighters, but they bounce off medium-thickness armour, while an AC/10 can penetrate a bit better. They also let you unlock AC/20s, which are the best fighter-sized can openers until the advent of the heavy Gauss.

Fractional mods on tech rolls seem unappealing to me. The system will get more complex as we start factoring in spread next turn, and I don't want to add extra complications. That said, the strategy seems a bit different to me than to other people. It's diminishing returns, and each billion is worth less than the previous. There's no reason to choose between $0 and $5B in a category - if those are the two you're thinking of (assuming there's not some roleplay reason), then $1-2B seems like a better compromise.

[truetanker]

Question for you Alsadius~

In regarding to the " Standard " 4 Legio's to Regiment ( 5 Inf, 1 Armor, 1 Aero )...  Is it fair enough to swap 2 Infantry for 1 Armor? Still allowing me 3 Inf, ( 2) Armor and 1 Aero... per 4 Legio. Since most of my Infantry are former slaves working to become citizens. They'll most likely not be much in the help other than cannon fodder and such. I'll " look " great with overkill of PBI, but am much the " paper tiger " that I am...

You could " Double " the amount of Infantry used as combined force multiplier.

Where

Infantry regiment: $100m, combat power 1.

these could be 2 Regiments for combat power of 1.

So my initial 5 becomes like 6 -> par 3, 2 Armor and 1 Aero Regiments to 4 Legio. I'll have 2,800 per force average, but only less than optimal striking combat power.

Does this bode well with you and the peanut gallery? It'll explain how I got all these troopers, my ' Service guarantees Citizenship ' propaganda and how I colonized so quickly with a " beefed " up Army!

TT

[UnLimiTeD]

Well, I'm mostly thinking that players will either try to leech off their neighbors, or try to push ahead to get a significant bonus. Just getting a little bit of tech, on average, means spending a small warship a turn to be one turn behind instead of two. Which, now that I think about it, could actually be worth it. I certainly could have reached the same results with 2/2/2.
A less chance-heavy system could have been to just add rolls, maybe with a bonus on a 12 for a breakthrough, and grant a tech once a threshold is reached. Well, the current system certainly works for me.  8)

Regarding guns, I'm not worried about dropships. They are not useful against warships, and them being better against fighters with lrms, whose only job seems to be critseeking and missile delivery anyways, is of no consequence in combat. I'm assuming you're calculating with some sort of standard fighter, so if it does something in your system, yay, but to me it looks like filler that I can ignore at my leisure. Which I will. Honestly, a dropship that can be thresholded on any facing by an AC 20 is not worth the metal it is made of, to say nothing of whatever else goes in there. I'm not playing the RWR, I guess I actually have to value my crews.

As I just took a look at the tech progression, two observations:
A) Miniaturization is the only area that offers significant gains on the last 5 or so techs, regarding the naval scale.
B) Why are mass drivers that late? I mean, no one will use them, but on a theoretical level.
Actually, if the Army gets the same budget we get, but half our research results are small arms, does that mean the states are using their navy budget to do research for the army?

[Lagrange]

Infantry: 1400 head count, 24 light vee(or 1000 tons), 2000 tons supplies. (3k tons total)
All Other: 840 head count, 108 combat units(or 7000 tons), 48 light vee(or 2000 tons), 6000 tons supplies. (15k tons total)
...

I'm going to treat a TDF infantry regiment as equivalent to a standard infantry regiment by assuming that 2 of the 3 troopers in a platoon do tail tasks.  Given this, there are 3 Taurus I loads that can be used.   

Navy Only: 12 Crestbreakers (nerfed to Fireshield implicitly), 2 Marine regiments, 12 David (nerfed to Centauro-150 implicitly), 7 navy ASF divisions (168 ASF) + 23.1K tons of supplies (mostly capital missiles) + Tick.  Life support lasts a year and there are 2 full loads of capital missiles/ASF.  Since the David is nerfed to Centauro, not all the Marines will be able to participate in combat, so they form a reserve and/or second wave.

Counterinvasion: 12 Crestbreakers (nerfed to Fireshield implicitly), 12 David (nerfed to Centauro-150 implicitly), 2 infantry regiments, 5.75 Navy ASF divisions (138 ASF), 30 Skyfall dropshuttles loaded with 45 vehicles, 117 combat vehicles stored as cargo (7.6K tons), 120=72+24+24 light support vees (5K tons), 13K=9K+2K+2K tons of supplies + additional supplies (2.5K tons).  Here, we use cross load from a Siesta to top off supplies after unpacking the Tick.  This is the 'max carry' load, featuring an army combat vehicle regiment (=1.5 standard regiments) and 2 army infantry regiments with full tails. 

Long invasion: 12 Crestbreakers (nerfed to Fireshield implicitly), 1 army combat vehicle regiment carried with 30 Skyfall dropshuttles + cargo as above, 2 Army ASF divisions (48ASF = .44 Regiment) with 2 capital missile loads, 4 Navy ASF divisions (96 ASF = .89 Regiment) with no capital missile loads, 6 David (nerfed to Centauro) as extra transports.   This configuration places everyone in quarters so it has much greater range than the counterinvasion load.

Adding things up:
7x Taurus I(counterinvasion) brings 10.5 standard combat vehicle regiments + 14 standard infantry regiments + ~9 standard navy ASF regiments.
7x Taurus I(long) brings 10.5 standard combat vehicle regiments + ~3 standard army ASF regiments + ~6 standard navy ASF regiments.
Either way, these significantly augment the 13=6.5(army transport regiments)+6.5(civilian transport regiments) that would otherwise be available.   

This does bring up one question: Can Navy ASF contribute significantly in ground combat?

Edit: Also, does the presence or not of ortillery matter in ground combat?

[Alsadius]

Happy Yanksgiving to all my American players! I hope you all enjoyed the feast of gluttony and your crazy uncle's politics in your own preferred way :)

In regarding to the " Standard " 4 Legio's to Regiment ( 5 Inf, 1 Armor, 1 Aero )...  Is it fair enough to swap 2 Infantry for 1 Armor? Still allowing me 3 Inf, ( 2) Armor and 1 Aero... per 4 Legio. Since most of my Infantry are former slaves working to become citizens. They'll most likely not be much in the help other than cannon fodder and such. I'll " look " great with overkill of PBI, but am much the " paper tiger " that I am...

You could " Double " the amount of Infantry used as combined force multiplier. Where these could be 2 Regiments for combat power of 1.

So my initial 5 becomes like 6 -> par 3, 2 Armor and 1 Aero Regiments to 4 Legio. I'll have 2,800 per force average, but only less than optimal striking combat power.

Does this bode well with you and the peanut gallery? It'll explain how I got all these troopers, my ' Service guarantees Citizenship ' propaganda and how I colonized so quickly with a " beefed " up Army!

You can structure your forces any way you want. I'll be tracking standard regiments, and doing combat based on standard regiments, but I don't want to limit your options for how you design force structures. I'll just round it off as closely as I plausibly can. That said, if you actually want your forces to be sub-par, I can work with that.

Well, I'm mostly thinking that players will either try to leech off their neighbors, or try to push ahead to get a significant bonus. Just getting a little bit of tech, on average, means spending a small warship a turn to be one turn behind instead of two. Which, now that I think about it, could actually be worth it. I certainly could have reached the same results with 2/2/2.
A less chance-heavy system could have been to just add rolls, maybe with a bonus on a 12 for a breakthrough, and grant a tech once a threshold is reached. Well, the current system certainly works for me.  8)

Regarding guns, I'm not worried about dropships. They are not useful against warships, and them being better against fighters with lrms, whose only job seems to be critseeking and missile delivery anyways, is of no consequence in combat. I'm assuming you're calculating with some sort of standard fighter, so if it does something in your system, yay, but to me it looks like filler that I can ignore at my leisure. Which I will. Honestly, a dropship that can be thresholded on any facing by an AC 20 is not worth the metal it is made of, to say nothing of whatever else goes in there. I'm not playing the RWR, I guess I actually have to value my crews.

As I just took a look at the tech progression, two observations:
A) Miniaturization is the only area that offers significant gains on the last 5 or so techs, regarding the naval scale.
B) Why are mass drivers that late? I mean, no one will use them, but on a theoretical level.
Actually, if the Army gets the same budget we get, but half our research results are small arms, does that mean the states are using their navy budget to do research for the army?

DropShips aren't a huge offensive factor in combat, especially not in this era. But they do act as screening units and transports, and a lot of battle tactics will involve trying to destroy screening units and/or transports. An aero regiment defending a planet will be trying to kill invading DropShips, and if there's no WarShips around to help, the ability to do so more effectively might play an important role in the fighting. Also, if nothing else, they have a high $/HP ratio, so if you're trying to cause pain you can do a lot worse than massacring DropShips.

It's important to note that I'm not referring to threshold crits when I discuss weapons being ineffective. A weapon that does massive damage compared to the target's armor(10%, typically) will blow right through and get a threshold crit roll. But there's another limit below that, where the weapon is totally ineffective and doesn't even do meaningful damage to the armour. Hitting a DropShip with 10x AC/2 will not do nearly as much damage as hitting it with 1x AC/20, despite the damage being nominally equal. It's not actually this black-and-white, but imagine if every slab of armour had damage reduction equal to 1% of its HP.

Most techs were put into the schedule based on their canon introduction date. I juggled a few, but not many. And yes, you're doing the heavy lifting on research compared to those slackers in the Army. Clearly your point defence people are just geeking out terribly, but what can you do?

I'm going to treat a TDF infantry regiment as equivalent to a standard infantry regiment by assuming that 2 of the 3 troopers in a platoon do tail tasks.  Given this, there are 3 Taurus I loads that can be used.   

Navy Only: 12 Crestbreakers (nerfed to Fireshield implicitly), 2 Marine regiments, 12 David (nerfed to Centauro-150 implicitly), 7 navy ASF divisions (168 ASF) + 23.1K tons of supplies (mostly capital missiles) + Tick.  Life support lasts a year and there are 2 full loads of capital missiles/ASF.  Since the David is nerfed to Centauro, not all the Marines will be able to participate in combat, so they form a reserve and/or second wave.

Counterinvasion: 12 Crestbreakers (nerfed to Fireshield implicitly), 12 David (nerfed to Centauro-150 implicitly), 2 infantry regiments, 5.75 Navy ASF divisions (138 ASF), 30 Skyfall dropshuttles loaded with 45 vehicles, 117 combat vehicles stored as cargo (7.6K tons), 120=72+24+24 light support vees (5K tons), 13K=9K+2K+2K tons of supplies + additional supplies (2.5K tons).  Here, we use cross load from a Siesta to top off supplies after unpacking the Tick.  This is the 'max carry' load, featuring an army combat vehicle regiment (=1.5 standard regiments) and 2 army infantry regiments with full tails. 

Long invasion: 12 Crestbreakers (nerfed to Fireshield implicitly), 1 army combat vehicle regiment carried with 30 Skyfall dropshuttles + cargo as above, 2 Army ASF divisions (48ASF = .44 Regiment) with 2 capital missile loads, 4 Navy ASF divisions (96 ASF = .89 Regiment) with no capital missile loads, 6 David (nerfed to Centauro) as extra transports.   This configuration places everyone in quarters so it has much greater range than the counterinvasion load.

Adding things up:
7x Taurus I(counterinvasion) brings 10.5 standard combat vehicle regiments + 14 standard infantry regiments + ~9 standard navy ASF regiments.
7x Taurus I(long) brings 10.5 standard combat vehicle regiments + ~3 standard army ASF regiments + ~6 standard navy ASF regiments.
Either way, these significantly augment the 13=6.5(army transport regiments)+6.5(civilian transport regiments) that would otherwise be available.   

This does bring up one question: Can Navy ASF contribute significantly in ground combat?

Edit: Also, does the presence or not of ortillery matter in ground combat?

You're referring to navy ASF divisions and navy ASF regiments. I'm not sure what you mean there - doing the math, a "navy ASF division" seems to be 24x ASF, but is a Navy ASF regiment just an Army-regiment-sized formation of Navy ASFs?

Navy ASF can contribute in ground combat, and have done so a bit in past. That's not their primary role, but if there's nothing else to fight and they're in the area while a serious ground fight is going on, they'll weigh in.

Orbital bombardment makes a gigantic difference in ground combat. That's the biggest reason why planets get gobbled up in the first two weeks of an invasion and nothing happens thereafter - the first wave, before the defending fleet can concentrate, is the time when WarShips are bombarding unopposed. Ground forces do not have any meaningful ability to defend themselves from orbital bombardment, and the only useful anti-bombardment tactics(i.e., mostly spreading out a lot or going guerrilla) leave you pretty vulnerable on the ground. Castles Brian are expected to change this somewhat, and explicit counts of Army aero regiments will at least keep invaders honest more than I've done so far, but the best defence against it is still your own fleet.

[Lagrange]

You're referring to navy ASF divisions and navy ASF regiments. I'm not sure what you mean there - doing the math, a "navy ASF division" seems to be 24x ASF, but is a Navy ASF regiment just an Army-regiment-sized formation of Navy ASFs?

Yes.  'Navy' and 'marine' vs. 'army', 'combat vehicle', and infantry is a descriptor of source.  'Standard' vs. 'TDF' or 'Division' is a descriptor of your standard organization  vs. Taurian organization.  For your purpose, ignore everything except for 'standard <source> regiment'.  The general upshot is that the TC navy's transport can augment the army and civilians for a maximum transport of 46.5=6.5(army)+6.5(civilian)+10.5(combat vehicles)+14(infantry)+9(navy ASF) regiments.  Obviously, there is variance due to civilian-or-not, navy losses, and long vs. short range configurations.

The general goal here is reaching the scale of the great houses in ground combat to avoid being an easy roll-over.

[marcussmythe]

Given the cost of space on a space ststion is basically ‘free’ and your doing your buisness by pushing space stations around, Id expect you can get a -lot- more spacelift per cbill than the people using dropships and warship.

[UnLimiTeD]

How is the factor of capital weapons to standard weapons, btw?
And if you factor weapons as dealing less damage, probably down to 1 std per bay, against heavy armour, why do we need to modify the factor at all? Even middling std scale weapons would barely tickle a battleship.
I do fear that we'll progress through tech too fast now. Which is why I wonder if we can't have more techs, like improving mass drivers, partial bracketing, one-shot screen launchers...
Personally, I'd prefer to reduce spending in the next turn, as I got a lot of stuff that I don't need, and now others can leech it for free, but RP-wise, that was darn successful, so I'll have to go on.
Speaking of techs, I think 1B might actually be a bit low for Castles.

[Lagrange]

Given the cost of space on a space ststion is basically ‘free’ and your doing your buisness by pushing space stations around, Id expect you can get a -lot- more spacelift per cbill than the people using dropships and warship.

Large warships can be pretty compelling for transport as well.  They only have an x2 cost multiplier rather than x5, they can jump into pirate points, and of course they can have much heavier armor.   The biggest drawback is probably not enough doors.  Of course large warships aren't really a possibility for the TC.

[Alsadius]

How is the factor of capital weapons to standard weapons, btw?
And if you factor weapons as dealing less damage, probably down to 1 std per bay, against heavy armour, why do we need to modify the factor at all? Even middling std scale weapons would barely tickle a battleship.
I do fear that we'll progress through tech too fast now. Which is why I wonder if we can't have more techs, like improving mass drivers, partial bracketing, one-shot screen launchers...
Personally, I'd prefer to reduce spending in the next turn, as I got a lot of stuff that I don't need, and now others can leech it for free, but RP-wise, that was darn successful, so I'll have to go on.
Speaking of techs, I think 1B might actually be a bit low for Castles.

Not all ships are battleships. Fighters won't be able to meaningfully attack a Crucis even with AC/20s, but a Vincent? That might go down to standard-scale weapons, even unassisted. As for the factor between standard and capital, that was discussed here.

I may add more techs at the end of the list, but I want to make sure I can keep going for that long. This is a major and long-term project for me, and a list that ends may be a good excuse to pull the plug. If it's still fun when we hit the end of that list I may keep it going, but we'll see. (This is another reason why speeding up tech is appealing to me, actually)

Re Castles, do you think you're going to buy a lot of them? It's not substantially more powerful than an Ancile(it's more survivable, but has a bit less firepower), and those only cost half a billion. The only real advantage of a CB is that it's hidden, so it can survive against an overwhelming fleet without revealing itself. (It's also better at protecting ground targets, but those haven't tended to matter much in gameplay). I don't imagine the Navy will pay for many even at that low cost, though perhaps the Army should buy a few more.

Large warships can be pretty compelling for transport as well.  They only have an x2 cost multiplier rather than x5, they can jump into pirate points, and of course they can have much heavier armor.   The biggest drawback is probably not enough doors.  Of course large warships aren't really a possibility for the TC.

The cost multiplier matters a lot less for transports than for warships, because bays are cheap. And FYI, JumpShips are also capable of using pirate points, though much like WarShips they often can't(because one doesn't exist) or won't.

[UnLimiTeD]

Well, I mainly read that it's a "bit fuzzy". :P
That said, at a projected ratio of 1:30, I'd reckon a dropship that I'd willingly send anywhere than to the nearest burger venue would have to have at least 305 armour on every facing.
Everything that can not survive at least an NAC/10 hit is not worth a slot on those expensive collars, let anone being built in the first place.
With medium dropships, I'll raise the requirement to surviving a 4-pack of NL/55s. Well, or as we're probably using standard designs, I'll ignore them. I'm sure the army will find them useful however. I will need to design a proper troopship, though.
Maingunnery had a sort of strategy of scattering fighters to compensate for a lack of ships. I suppose I'll send those that I don't need to staff new Battlecruisers to the army in the next turn, but I could also see the appeal of fitting every major border world that the army won't place at least 2 on with a castle.
The fact that they are hidden offers significant deterrent against angry lyrans trying to steal my annual income.  ;D
... Actually, could I build mine with Light N-Gauss instead? Shiny Toy syndrome and all that.

Not all ships are battleships.

Yet.

[truetanker]

I know I'll be buying some of both...if their still available.

RE the Legio... if it works, it works...

TT

[marcussmythe]

Ive seriously looked at large warship transports.  Several factors have prevented adoption:

1.)  Yard Upgrade costs preeety much stall yard upgrades at around 5 or 6, so the real economies of scale dont show.

2.)  Any transport is not a waller.  I cant justify throwing away wallers right now - its not called a warship race for nothing.

3.)  Any transport -warships- means less Army Dropships at the engagement - effectively a double taxation with #2 above.

[Lagrange]

And FYI, JumpShips are also capable of using pirate points,

Right, I was inexact.  Jumping something like the Mother into a pirate jump point and then spending many hours unpacking is nearly suicidal if there are any forces on planet capable of reaching the pirate point.   The situation is significantly worse than even a normal jumpship arriving at a pirate point because a normal jumpship brings dropships that can immediately start defending it.

though much like WarShips they often can't(because one doesn't exist) or won't.

My understanding is that a pirate point essentially always exists between a planet and a star with additional transient points related to orbital mechanics creating local near-flatness of space.

Incidentally, I worked out an estimate on the size of a planet-star pirate point for Earth-Sol.  Assuming that the normal jump limit is driven by gravitational curvature, it seems a radius of 68 space hexes is about right on-axis.  This grows with planetary radius (~= gravities), orbital radius, and inverse star mass and shrinks vice-versa.

[Lagrange]

1.)  Yard Upgrade costs preeety much stall yard upgrades at around 5 or 6, so the real economies of scale dont show.

Yeah, Yard costs are prohibitive beyond half your budget.  I've been trying to figure out how to get an L2 yard, and it's quite difficult. 

2.)  Any transport is not a waller.  I cant justify throwing away wallers right now - its not called a warship race for nothing.

Of course, you already have transports which are just a refit away from dual-use by the army...

3.)  Any transport -warships- means less Army Dropships at the engagement - effectively a double taxation with #2 above.

I'm not following.  My understanding is that we can pretty much freely load/transport/unload army regiments using navy resources.  Army dropships can be carried by army jumpships.

[Alsadius]

Well, I mainly read that it's a "bit fuzzy". :P
That said, at a projected ratio of 1:30, I'd reckon a dropship that I'd willingly send anywhere than to the nearest burger venue would have to have at least 305 armour on every facing.
Everything that can not survive at least an NAC/10 hit is not worth a slot on those expensive collars, let anone being built in the first place.
With medium dropships, I'll raise the requirement to surviving a 4-pack of NL/55s. Well, or as we're probably using standard designs, I'll ignore them. I'm sure the army will find them useful however. I will need to design a proper troopship, though.
Maingunnery had a sort of strategy of scattering fighters to compensate for a lack of ships. I suppose I'll send those that I don't need to staff new Battlecruisers to the army in the next turn, but I could also see the appeal of fitting every major border world that the army won't place at least 2 on with a castle.
The fact that they are hidden offers significant deterrent against angry lyrans trying to steal my annual income.  ;D
... Actually, could I build mine with Light N-Gauss instead? Shiny Toy syndrome and all that.

This isn't tabletop, so simply putting 305 armor on is no guarantee of survival even at a 30:1 ratio. It's better than 295, of course, but things are not that binary. NAC/10 and paired NL-55 are fairly common anti-DS weapons right now, though I expect NAC/20 and quad NL-55 will be more common with mediums.

Re switching up CB weapons, fair request. I'll assume a loadout of roughly equivalent power to the 4x HNPPC, 24x AR-10 that I wrote down, but I may change the fluff on it a little bit depending.

Re CB construction, the Army will build about half a dozen in a typical turn(at least, until HPGs consume part of that budget), and more at first to catch up. It'll take a while until they're on all border worlds even as singletons, but most important border worlds will get one on turn 8.

Ive seriously looked at large warship transports.  Several factors have prevented adoption:

1.)  Yard Upgrade costs preeety much stall yard upgrades at around 5 or 6, so the real economies of scale dont show.

2.)  Any transport is not a waller.  I cant justify throwing away wallers right now - its not called a warship race for nothing.

3.)  Any transport -warships- means less Army Dropships at the engagement - effectively a double taxation with #2 above.

1/2) Fair. That said, don't expect "right now" to really change. I don't expect anyone will ever get a durable advantage over their opponents, other than the TH - if it's ever easy for you, it's despair for your neighbours, and that's no fun. Advantage is possible, but I don't think it'll be the sort of advantage you're waiting for here.

3) Why would you assume that? If there's an invasion happening, the Army will use what they have. You bringing more forces to the battlefield simply increases the total force available. The Lyran Army can currently carry 31.5 regiments to battle in their 379 DropShips. If you bring WarShips to carry another 20, they'll be up to 51.5 regiments carried(of the 1437 total, so it's not like they'll run out of available forces), but all of their JS/DS will still be involved.

Right, I was inexact.  Jumping something like the Mother into a pirate jump point and then spending many hours unpacking is nearly suicidal if there are any forces on planet capable of reaching the pirate point.   The situation is significantly worse than even a normal jumpship arriving at a pirate point because a normal jumpship brings dropships that can immediately start defending it. My understanding is that a pirate point essentially always exists between a planet and a star with additional transient points related to orbital mechanics creating local near-flatness of space.

Incidentally, I worked out an estimate on the size of a planet-star pirate point for Earth-Sol.  Assuming that the normal jump limit is driven by gravitational curvature, it seems a radius of 68 space hexes is about right on-axis.  This grows with planetary radius (~= gravities), orbital radius, and inverse star mass and shrinks vice-versa.

I've been assuming it's more complex than that. Pirate points(or lack thereof) have been one of the main ways that luck dice have been making their way into battles. If they were always available and easy, then the setting would look very different(both in canon and in this game). So while a point of some sort may always exist, it could be obviously suicidal, too small to accurately hit, or otherwise unusable. But still, that's a fair point - your doctrine requires a cold LZ, which is hardly safe to assume anywhere other than outside the limit.

[Lagrange]

I've been assuming it's more complex than that. Pirate points(or lack thereof) have been one of the main ways that luck dice have been making their way into battles. If they were always available and easy, then the setting would look very different(both in canon and in this game). So while a point of some sort may always exist, it could be obviously suicidal, too small to accurately hit, or otherwise unusable. But still, that's a fair point - your doctrine requires a cold LZ, which is hardly safe to assume anywhere other than outside the limit.

My intuition is coming from SO 134-135 and SO 88 which (roughly) say that:
1) The L1 pirate point always exist.
2) Transients are highly system dependent.
3) Detailed systems knowledge is required to use either of the above
4) Pirate->Standard is a hard calculation (<50% chance, requires computer, 3 hours).
5) Standard->Pirate is a very hard calculation (<20% chance)
6) Pirate<->Pirate is a crazy hard calculation (<3% chance)
7) You need a particularly good calculation (MoS +2 or +3) to consistently avoid KF-drive damage (which is super bad).   Given this, pirate points are non-viable for routine commercial travel but they are an acceptable risk for many military operations.

[marcussmythe]

1/2) Fair. That said, don't expect "right now" to really change. I don't expect anyone will ever get a durable advantage over their opponents, other than the TH - if it's ever easy for you, it's despair for your neighbours, and that's no fun. Advantage is possible, but I don't think it'll be the sort of advantage you're waiting for here.

3) Why would you assume that? If there's an invasion happening, the Army will use what they have. You bringing more forces to the battlefield simply increases the total force available. The Lyran Army can currently carry 31.5 regiments to battle in their 379 DropShips. If you bring WarShips to carry another 20, they'll be up to 51.5 regiments carried(of the 1437 total, so it's not like they'll run out of available forces), but all of their JS/DS will still be involved.

Truth, but right now my ‘wall’ is 10 hulls.  Another turn or two of Buri production, and a possible Walkurie refit into BCV, may change that.

As alluded to, BCVT may actually be a thing for Walkurie - but I have to figure out how much tail I want on her.  Ill see how much fleet Ive got after this weekends turn.

As for why I feared Naval transport would replace Army - my assumption was the Army figured out how much force they needed, and assigned transport to fit.  If your saying that transport is the only limit on force application, then that changes the approach to building troop carriage.