Re: [FT]: re: Re: Sa'Vasku Ship Lifecycle

G'day Dave,

 >besides, how can i argue with a marine biologist?  ;)

The same way you argue with everyone else... ;P

 >any thoughts about how long a ship takes to bud off and mature? 
wouldn't
 >it be cool for a "bud" (or "buddette" -- had to be fair!) to gain
ability
 >as it matured?  it kinda rewards ships for surviving (read: watch the
 >players be more cautious).

Well you obviously wouldn't want it to take too long or the
ship/creature 
is going to be too vulnerable. Personally I think it would take much
longer 
than the span of time represented by a game to bud off a small ship,
though 
releasing it from the brood chamber could be done quickly and would be
the 
same as any other nation launching a vessel. And before you all go and
hit 
me over the head with the fighters I still see them as body parts not 
budded vessels so they wouldn't take long to release though regrowing
them 
would have to happen post battle etc. I'd say that given their general 
flexibility they'd be able to bud off single smaller ships (say less
than 
fifth they're own size) in a few days if unstressed. Another option
would 
be strobilation, where a ship would split in a transverse sense multiple

times (looks like a stack of pancakes) in this way a ship could split 
itself into 3 or 4 ships or it could create a whole pile of smaller
ships 
all at once (say up to 75% of its body mass, though it would need a fair

while to replenish that mass to do it again), however this would
obviously 
take a bit longer than budding off a single ship - be an interesting 
scenario to catch an SDN or something approaching the end of
strobilation 
protected by a few cruiser sized ones... start off with SDN that can
only 
use half its powerpoints each turn + some cruisers and then on turn x 
(decided by dice roll before the game begins or something) you're facing
a 
BC + destroyers + cruisers or something like that.

As for how fast they grow... well I think that they could grow very
quickly 
under the right conditions (say a hull box every day, or few days, of
new 
growth or 5-10 hull boxes of repair if in the perfect conditions and 
unmolested), however most of the time I can't see them as being in
perfect 
conditions so growth would be MUCH slower (more like a hull box of new 
growth a month for the small ships and slower still for the really big 
ships who will be concentrating more on reinforcing what they've got and

budding off smaller ships).

Anyways that's just a few thoughts off the top of my head and could do
with 
refinement most likely.

Cheers

Beth

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Elizabeth Fulton
c/o CSIRO Division of Marine Research
GPO Box 1538
HOBART
TASMANIA 7001
AUSTRALIA
Phone (03) 6232 5018 International +61 3 6232 5018
Fax 03 6232 5053 International +61 3 6232 5053

email: beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au