Warship Race Redux

[marcussmythe]

What do yall think about us starting up a 'Game' Thread, with just essential information, for posting turns, with the current game state at the top, and a link to this, keeping this as the discussion thread?  Smegish, do you want to be Mr. Posts The Turns, or shall I?

Also, putting a 'sample' turn below - take it as a rough draft of Terran Hegemony Turn 1

Notes:
The THN is coming off an extended period of conflict where they expanded and took control of the surrounding worlds over the last half century.  As such, they have a large navy of often aging ships, and a small budget relative to the navy.

For this end, they didnt build any new ships this turn, or other assets that cost maintenance - their maintenance consumes most of their budget.  One yard at Terra went to Class 5, with a sequence of other yards being built up to keep the other yards constant.

The THN would like to be a research heavy power, but their budget limits them to 1 tech.  SRM technology is chosen, not because it has huge naval advantages (it doesnt), but because the THN has space supremacy, absolutely, but making life easier for the ground-pounders is always good.

The budget ends up running a slight deficit, but given the total size of their economy, 3B is budget dust.

I started out tracking the total value of warships and other assets so Id have a handy placeholder to figure maintenance cost from.  Expanded that to tracking the value of shipyards (assuming full price had been paid for them), and then looking at total asset value, because I think that will give us a good picture of the value of the navy overall.

Code: [Select]

Terran Hegemony, Turn Beginning 2350 Value/Cost
Starting Funds: 0
Starting Shipyards: Terra: 2/2/2/2 1,140B
Keid:  2/2/1/1
Thorin: 1/1/1
Terra Firma: 1/1/1
New Earth: 1/1/1
Yorii:  1/1/1
Graham IV 1/1/1

Starting Warships:  BB Dreadnought x 6 48.618B
BC Black Lion x 12 84.084B
TT Dart x 13 149.870B
CA Cruiser x 27 201.420B
DD Lola x 24 159.696B
SC Bonaventure x 42 211.512B
PF Vigilant x 33 133.552B

Starting Jumpships:  80 40B
Starting Dropships:  300 (Light) 30B
Starting Small Craft 1,200 12B
Starting Fighters: 3000 15B
Assets: 2,286B


Expenditure Cost (Billions)
Budget: 750B
Maintenance (Standard):         573B
R&D:  SRM Launcher 85B
Upgrade Terra Yard 4->5         50B
Upgrade Terra Yard 3->4         20B
Upgrade Terra Yard 2->3         15B
Upgrade Terra Yard 1->2         10B
New Yard Terra, lvl 1 5B
Jumpship Production: 0
Dropship Production: 0
Small Craft: 0
Fighters: 0
Total: 753B
Remainder: -3B (Debit)


Terran Hegemony, Turn Ending 2360
Ending Funds:  -3B
Ending Shipyards: Terra: 2/2/2/2/1 1,290B
Keid:  2/2/1/1
Thorin: 1/1/1
Terra Firma: 1/1/1
New Earth: 1/1/1
Yorii:  1/1/1
Graham IV 1/1/1

Ending Warships:  BB Dreadnought x 6 48.618B
BC Black Lion x 12 84.084B
TT Dart x 13 149.870B
CA Cruiser x 27 201.420B
DD Lola x 24 159.696B
SC Bonaventure x 42 211.512B
PF Vigilant x 33 133.552B

Ending Jumpships:  80 40B
Ending Dropships:  300 (Light) 30B
Ending Small Craft 1,200 12B
Ending Fighters: 3000 15B
Assets: 2,436B


[marcussmythe]

Just a clarification - the fact that we've called 'this is enough people to get started' doesnt mean doors are closed - quite the opposite.  Id love to see players for the remaining 3 Great Houses and as many of the P powers as people are interested in, because the more players involved, I feel the more interesting it gets.

[Tyler Jorgensson]

Game thread for sure: that way we can keep this thread for questions, comments, rules, etc. Open the other in the Fan Fiction area I’d say?

[Smegish]

Mods have been picky in the past about designs being posted outside the correct forum page, so will make the new thread in Aero beside this one, when either myself or Marcus is at home and can type easier.

[Jester Motley]

Trying to remember all the rules we operated under last time...

As I recall, there was a premium paid for new designs, 1.5x? for a new ship design, and then you paid for new hulls at the normal rate?  Is that still in effect?  Does that make sense for the 1st turn to not have at least some existing designs?  These navies aren't coming from a vacuum?

Are we worrying about/designing stations or abstracting them out somehow?  I'd prefer jump v. defense, and have them be generic like dropships and fighters, but people really seemed to enjoy designing them previously.  If so, do they also have the prototyping/design cost bump? 

I see some "as stratops" but I don't have that book(?) memorized, is there a page ref we can get, or a rule quote so I don't have to search or look it up each time I forget what it means?

I saw the question, but no answer yet, can a shipyard be double increased in a turn?  ie, going from class 1 to class 3 in one turn?  Is it possible to move existing shipyards at all?  (that q should have been asked last game, but I failed to do so)

Fleet train- If we have dedicated, or semi-dedicated fleet train ships, will they change how low-cargo ships can be used/behave?  For instance, if I have 10 BBs with 1% cargo, and 1 fleet tender with 50% cargo, is that the equivelent of 10 BBs with 6% cargo?  What about having jumpships and dropships devoted to fleet tender?

Can we have a definitive list of "missions" the navies will be expected to handle to some extent?  If nothing else, so that any doctrine written covers the bases?  I'd hate to write a few pages of doctrine, only to forget one specific mission, and have "default" behavior applied.  To prevent a situation such as:  "Anti-piracy= no mercy."  "you kill a bunch of 'legit' privateers and the world frowns on you."

How will intel/espionage be handled?  BuINT/NAVINT is a serious and specific line item on navy budgets for a reason.  Not just stealing tech, but ship deployments or refits, ship status, locations, corruptable leaders to get an advantage, knowledge of and therefor possible predictability or flaws in leadership, etc.

Should tech research be guaranteed?  Pay x, get x?   That seems unrealistic to me, though nice and predictable to the gamer in me.  In addition, is the reduction enough when others have it?  A bill here, a bill there, is essentially meaningless when you're talking percents of budgets.  And while "doctrine and retooling" makes sense, when others have found the flaws in the system for you, the cost to adopt a new system is less.  85 bill to adopt, vs. 83, isn't significant.  85 v. say 76 for AC/10s is significant but not overwhelming.

Doctrine-  What are you looking for.  I, unfortunately, did not serve in the navy and thus do not have a pre-existing set of skills and knowledge to know what essential points to bring up and determine when laying out a fleet's doctrine.  Do I need to state a stance on piracy/commerce protection, given that's a navy's primary role in peacetime?  Relief service/disaster response?  etc?  I want to make sure that I cover all needed information, so the GMs know without a doubt what the navy's intentions are, spirit and letter.  There were several times where things happened, and I said to myself, "thats not how my navy would have done things."  I want to avoid that.

That's what I have right now.

[Smegish]

Will do my best to answer these, may need further discussion with marcus for a few of them however.

Trying to remember all the rules we operated under last time...

As I recall, there was a premium paid for new designs, 1.5x? for a new ship design, and then you paid for new hulls at the normal rate?  Is that still in effect?  Does that make sense for the 1st turn to not have at least some existing designs?  These navies aren't coming from a vacuum?

Extra cost for new designs have been reduced to 25% for an all new hull, 10% extra for a variant of that hull. That cost is for teh first ship of a given class as before. We considered having a Generic Primitive Core ship available to all off the start but went with a clean slate across the board instead.
 

Are we worrying about/designing stations or abstracting them out somehow?  I'd prefer jump v. defense, and have them be generic like dropships and fighters, but people really seemed to enjoy designing them previously.  If so, do they also have the prototyping/design cost bump?

Marcus and I have been designing stations, and they do have the prototype cost like a WarShip. For those that have no interest in doing so, I personally have no issue with you skipping the design phase and simply using a Capellan knock-off of an existing station with a new name, which reminds me I have to post the DC's recharge station...

I see some "as stratops" but I don't have that book(?) memorized, is there a page ref we can get, or a rule quote so I don't have to search or look it up each time I forget what it means?

If you mean the Ship costs, the spreadsheet takes care of that math for you, simply round to the nearest million. If you mean the Advanced Aero Range Table I would rather not quote the whole table verbatim on the forum for fear of mod smiting, but it can be found on Page 115 of Strategic Ops. If you mean some other point please specifiy.

I saw the question, but no answer yet, can a shipyard be double increased in a turn?  ie, going from class 1 to class 3 in one turn?  Is it possible to move existing shipyards at all?  (that q should have been asked last game, but I failed to do so)

Shipyards cannot be increased more than 1 level at a time, though upgrading them does not prevent them being used for ship construction. To be honest moving yards had not occurred to me, will have to get back to you on that one.

Fleet train- If we have dedicated, or semi-dedicated fleet train ships, will they change how low-cargo ships can be used/behave?  For instance, if I have 10 BBs with 1% cargo, and 1 fleet tender with 50% cargo, is that the equivelent of 10 BBs with 6% cargo?  What about having jumpships and dropships devoted to fleet tender?

Having fleet tenders will certainly help those low cargo % ships, naturally at the risk of being destroyed and potentially leaving part of your fleet in enemy territory without adequate supplies. Jumpships and Dropships will help with this, each Small Dropship (only size available at this time) adds about 3kt of cargo.

In your example, assuming the ships are all the same weight (including the tender), they would be 10 BBs and 1 non-combatant with a hair under 6% cargo. The tender needs some supplies for itself after all.

Can we have a definitive list of "missions" the navies will be expected to handle to some extent?  If nothing else, so that any doctrine written covers the bases?  I'd hate to write a few pages of doctrine, only to forget one specific mission, and have "default" behavior applied.  To prevent a situation such as:  "Anti-piracy= no mercy."  "you kill a bunch of 'legit' privateers and the world frowns on you."

How will intel/espionage be handled?  BuINT/NAVINT is a serious and specific line item on navy budgets for a reason.  Not just stealing tech, but ship deployments or refits, ship status, locations, corruptable leaders to get an advantage, knowledge of and therefor possible predictability or flaws in leadership, etc.

Should tech research be guaranteed?  Pay x, get x?   That seems unrealistic to me, though nice and predictable to the gamer in me.  In addition, is the reduction enough when others have it?  A bill here, a bill there, is essentially meaningless when you're talking percents of budgets.  And while "doctrine and retooling" makes sense, when others have found the flaws in the system for you, the cost to adopt a new system is less.  85 bill to adopt, vs. 83, isn't significant.  85 v. say 76 for AC/10s is significant but not overwhelming.

Doctrine-  What are you looking for.  I, unfortunately, did not serve in the navy and thus do not have a pre-existing set of skills and knowledge to know what essential points to bring up and determine when laying out a fleet's doctrine.  Do I need to state a stance on piracy/commerce protection, given that's a navy's primary role in peacetime?  Relief service/disaster response?  etc?  I want to make sure that I cover all needed information, so the GMs know without a doubt what the navy's intentions are, spirit and letter.  There were several times where things happened, and I said to myself, "thats not how my navy would have done things."  I want to avoid that.

That's what I have right now.

Marcus may need to field these ones, I can picture answers in my head but finding the words are escaping me at the moment.
Hope I helped, and welcome back.

[marcussmythe]

1.)  Doctrine kinda merges with missions, so probably best to run with those two together.  The big ones I can think of:
Commerce Raiding
Commerce Protection
Anti Piracy (see also Commerce Protection)
‘Presence’, flag-showing
Colonization Support (from deliver to relief)
Invasion Support
Invasion Defense
Anti-Shipping (Go blow up their navy)

Im forgetting some, but thats all that appears to mind.  My thoughts would be to have a -blanket- statement, such as ‘Fleet in Being’ or ‘Decisive Battle’ or ‘Commerce Raiding’ or what you will, then more detailed policy statements as need be for narrow areas.  Maybe some notes about risk aversion vs mission importance.  That sort of stuff.

Now, nothing but an act of god will result in front line commanders successfully executing ‘do what I mean’ instruction, much to the sorrow of every leader of every large organization since time began.  But having a broad, simple, clear doctrine will help.

RE:  Tech Slosh - How do we feel about ‘-1B and -1% for every other power that has been in possession for at least two turns, to a minimum of 5B and 5%’  That is to say if CC and FWL both research PPCs on Turn 1, and DC and TH on turn 2, then beginning turn 3 the FS may have them for 8B and 8%, and on turn 4 they may do so for 6B and 6%.  Not perfect, but enough to be going on with.

RE:  Espionage/Intel - Im open to suggestions.  Weve already got tech-stealing baked into the tech rules.  What do you want it to do, and how do you think that should be implemented?  A budget line for ‘extra spending on tricksy stuff’ in the hopes of favorable scenario generation?  Something else?

RE: Moving Yards.  I suggest you can tear down and rebuild a yard for half the build price, IE 5B for a size 1, 15B to move a size 2, 30B to move a size 3, etc.

[Tyler Jorgensson]

Random question for small craft/fighters: I’m working with MML and StratOps: is it common to have like 1/4 to a 1/3 percentage of a fighters mass be dedicated to armor?

Designing a 30 to fighter max armor seems to be like 10 tons of standard, and a 100 ton fighter it’s like 30 tons. Are canon fighters just that poorly armored? Or am I just not putting enough guns/engines lol

[marcussmythe]

Random question for small craft/fighters: I’m working with MML and StratOps: is it common to have like 1/4 to a 1/3 percentage of a fighters mass be dedicated to armor?

Designing a 30 to fighter max armor seems to be like 10 tons of standard, and a 100 ton fighter it’s like 30 tons. Are canon fighters just that poorly armored? Or am I just not putting enough guns/engines lol

1.)  Design what you like and what your sense of Aerospace and your nations doctrine suggests.  Remember that for purposes of our game, fighters are GENERIC, your individual designs for your nation are for purposes of your own satisfaction.  I agree, most canon fighters are lightly armored for the modern game, but some of that is an artifact of them coming up under different rules.

2.)  I personally, when designing ASFs, look at how much mass I have left to split between armor and weapons, and then split that mass with some lean to weapons (the reason for this is that doubling a fighter's armor does not reliably double its lifespan - critical hits are a thing).  Of course, intended mission will influence that.  If a fighters only job is to salvo a bunch of long range missiles and go home quickly, it needs less armor.  Etc.

[marcussmythe]

A few things I missed:

1.)  There is a RnD cost (25% base, 10% variant) for stations, though it should never be large.
2.)  Starting fleets were considered, but declined, due to workload and wanting players to have freedom.  The THN has a starting fleet, because they started this race, and they are NPCs with really bad designs and strict staff control, so Im not worried about them abusing their position. 
3.)  After looking at costs and possibilities, Im going to add a tech in one of the blank RnD Spaces that removes the limit of one stage upgrade per turn and cuts yard costs in half.

[Smegish]

20% appears to be the recommended minimum for armour. You can of course go higher but it eats into warload, engine and fuel space.

[Jester Motley]

I'm going to post my turn here, now.  I can move it if we get a thread.

I'll add doctrine here when I get it written up.  The quick and dirty is "Anti-Piracy, Commerce protection is the primary goal of the Navy in peacetime.  In war, the primary goal of the Navy is force projection, commerce protection, and commerce raiding." 

EDIT:  Not sure why, design spreadsheet isn't displaying fighters/small craft/cargo in the pretty print section for me, will fix those and edit this post when I do.

EDIT2:  Moved turn post to turn thread.  yay!  Also, added fighters/small craft/cargo, fixed the fuel situation for the Hornet class that was doing its best impression of a station, poorly.  Annnnd fixed the costs on my spreadsheet to reflect the design cost/prototype reduction from Al's previous +100%, to the new +25%.  MONEY!  TO SPEND!

I like money.


EDIT3: I updated the spreadsheet too, to help y'all GMs with the work load.  Let me know if I shouldn't do that in the future.  Doctrine was added, humor was attempted, should have everything a growing fleet needs at this point.  I believe I pointed out where I saw flaws, treat that as "the admiralty believes those are our flaws" and I can't wait to see what flaws those hide-bound greyhairs missed.

[Smegish]

Not sure why, design spreadsheet isn't displaying fighters/small craft/cargo in the pretty print section for me, will fix those and edit this post when I do.

EDIT2:  Moved turn post to turn thread.  yay!  Also, added fighters/small craft/cargo, fixed the fuel situation for the Hornet class that was doing its best impression of a station, poorly.  Annnnd fixed the costs on my spreadsheet to reflect the design cost/prototype reduction from Al's previous +100%, to the new +25%.  MONEY!  TO SPEND!

I like money.


EDIT3: I updated the spreadsheet too, to help y'all GMs with the work load.  Let me know if I shouldn't do that in the future.  Doctrine was added, humor was attempted, should have everything a growing fleet needs at this point.  I believe I pointed out where I saw flaws, treat that as "the admiralty believes those are our flaws" and I can't wait to see what flaws those hide-bound greyhairs missed.

Yeah, the printout page of the spreadsheet has never shown SC/ASF/Cargo for me either, have always had to add it manually after.

I still see your light carrier as having no fuel...

Would prefer if players didn't update their own page on the spreadsheet tbh, but is fine for this turn.

You've given us something to work with without writing us into a corner with your doctrine. Still a few holes I see that your High Command did not...

EDIT: Also curious: how is the Terrier being resupplied with no collar and no SC bays?

[Jester Motley]

I won't update the spreadsheet further.  I use a highly customized/modified version, but the ship details are all manual and aligned with Al's previous one, so it was easy to copy over that bulk info, and thought I'd be helpful since typing all that in for each player is gonna get old if they have lots of designs like me.

I updated the Hornet with her fuel changes, and added 2 small craft bays, and 2 bay doors, to the Terrier scout by cutting cargo to 5% exactly.  Never considered general, non-combat resupply as needing small craft of droppers on the receiving ship as long as someone brings the supplies from ship to the receiving ship, but I'll keep that in mind for now on.

The goal is never to "close all the gaps" but to ensure the GMs know the player (my) intentions given a given scenario, without having to inform/ask the player questions that might "lead them" somehow.  And I fully expect something an idiot's idiot son that somehow got promoted to squad command to take a pair of rapiers into close combat against NAC/40 armed ships.  Like I said, it should give you an idea how competent captains/admirals in normal scenarios are trained to fight in the AFFS.  And how the admiralty views their job, at this time.

Looking forward to what happens with these designs/warships.

[Smegish]

another minor note for the Hornet, don't know if you did this on purpose or not: It is very light on fuel, and ammo for the small guns. 20 rounds per MG is going to last about 3-4 missile volleys. If this is one of those 'Unknown In Character Issues' then carry on, but thought I'd voice a concern.

[Tyler Jorgensson]

Question on tech: "You can only research any of the top three you do not own in a category".

I cannot research LF Batteries (Advancement) until I've researched two techs from above it: is that correct?

EDIT: Question 2. My story open is going to revolve around my new admiral firing the old one for gross incompetence (eventual execution etc). Can we go into debt? I feel this was brought up I just cant find it. Approx. cost 9 Billion: which I assume would get removed from my total for the next cycle?

[Smegish]

That is correct.

[Jester Motley]

another minor note for the Hornet, don't know if you did this on purpose or not: It is very light on fuel, and ammo for the small guns. 20 rounds per MG is going to last about 3-4 missile volleys. If this is one of those 'Unknown In Character Issues' then carry on, but thought I'd voice a concern.

By in-universe design, her anti-missile capability is primarily small craft.  Her anti-fighter capability is fighters.  Her guns are more for if she's in a battle line (where she's going to be hiding in the shadows of Gladiuses... gladii? gladiusesi?  real line ships) and has to deal with leakers, or surprised while her squadrons are out of range, she has something.  In that same vein she's not maneuvering in combat to engage at range, or counter moving to T, etc, any movements are defensive.  Out of combat, she's a lazy beast who sends her minions to do her bidding, unless she absolutely has to move.

Reality?  The way I designed these ships meant she scrimped somewhere, and for her its on fuel.   Doing that design method makes sure I don't min-max.  Besides, that's what refits are for, move some cargo space around, add a few tons, move a few fighter bays...   And really, "fleet carrier" is an in-uni experiment as it is, since I don't see any such warships until 3050 era, so the chances of getting it "right" the first time out of the gate are slim to none.  So yeah, I'm gonna leave it as is, unless that's a problem like "she can't actually function like that..."  And I expect y'all to abuse the hell out of it and all the flaws in my designs.  My Admiralty is learning.

On a side note, do remember she carries a dropship too, which could carry fuel as an in-universe trench-kludge/greasemonkey-reengineer/Jury-rig, and the fleet has a fleet collier for a reason as well.

Did a quick re-read of the doctrine and realized I left a chunk of a sentence out that rather changes some aspects of the doctrine.  First segment under "Naval Doctrine" clarifies that anti-piracy is high priority, and the other listed activities are secondary priority.

[Tyler Jorgensson]

Working on fluff now and double checking my numbers: should have it sent to you guys in a couple of days.

[Smegish]

Working on fluff now and double checking my numbers: should have it sent to you guys in a couple of days.

Post it in the In Character thread when you're happy with it.

[kindalas]

Are you still accepting players.

I find myself with tons of free time.

And this looks like a ton of fun.

[Smegish]

Are you still accepting players.

I find myself with tons of free time.

And this looks like a ton of fun.

Yes we certainly are! Any particular faction in mind? We can either replace the NPC-generated turn for them, or you can take over next turn, though with turn 1 not due till April 10th there is plenty of time for you.

[marcussmythe]

Updated first page to list all the powers, and put a link in to the design spreadsheet.

[kindalas]

Yes we certainly are! Any particular faction in mind? We can either replace the NPC-generated turn for them, or you can take over next turn, though with turn 1 not due till April 10th there is plenty of time for you.

I'll take the LC and can I go over what you two have done and then adjust things?

[marcussmythe]

Ive updated the sheet and front page to show you having LC.  If you want to make changes, feel free to use the NPC turn I did as a template to work from.  I'll leave it up on the In-Character Thread as a resource for you until youve got your own version you want to post, and at that point will either delete it or mark it as no longer canon.  IF you have any questions about what the Lyrans are up to and why you might or might not want to adopt it, feel free to message me!

To be clear - you can do entirely your own turn, adopt the turn I wrote 100%, or anything in between that suits you.

Welcome aboard!

[kindalas]

Thanks I'm looking over things now.

I should have enough time to post a turn and to fix any errors before the deadline.

[UnLimiTeD]

Damn. I've missed this. Is there still room?
Otherwise I of course wish everyone a lot of fun, and am intrigued to see where this is heading this time.

[Hairbear541]

evening gents , since you've opened up the ip about a century early , are the colonist still primarly taurian ex-pats ? if so are they also an offshoot faction of the farlookers as in canon . i see they have 10 js which if following canon would be about 1/4 of all js that the farlookers either owned outright or had a controling interest in . i could see the tc selling some of the old bull run , independence and marathon vessels to them to get rid of the trouble makers from out of their midst . maybe a few disassembled small shipyards to sweeten the pot as they wave bye bye to their thorns in the minus-x .

[Smegish]

I understood none of that hairbear541....

[marcussmythe]

Damn. I've missed this. Is there still room?
Otherwise I of course wish everyone a lot of fun, and am intrigued to see where this is heading this time.

Of the Major Powers, DC and CC are still unclaimed.  Of the Minors, most are - check the spreadsheet, linked off the first post.

First come first served for choices, just chime in.

Note were keeping discussion/chat here, and using the other thread for turn posting and turn results, to keep it clean.