Re: (DS): Systems per Class

Glenn Wilson wrote:

> >>And that's a valid view but it's not DS 3
> >
> >Yes, it *is* DS3. It won't be DS*2*, of course - but it will be
*DirtSide*,
> >just like Full Thrust with all the Fleet Book modifications is still
*Full
> >Thrust* even though it is no longer FT*2*.
>
>Thought you'd say something like  that.

Of course I would. It's the truth, after all ;-) (And exactly the same 
comments - "it's not Full Thrust" - were made in 97/98, when the first 
rumours about FB1 had leaked out...)

> >>Why should we expect to know what future war will be like in 2100?
> >
> >We don't - but we can be fairly certain that war in 2100 *won't* be
like
> >war in 'Nam 1979 or the Fulda Gap 1985 (in a historic-fictional
> >non-nuclear WW3 that fortunately never happened).
>
>I think that's a key point.

So do I. Which is why I'd like the games to be able to represent
something 
*more* than just 'Nam 1979 and Fulda 1985 :-/

><snip> DS2's lowest tech tier is after all supposed to represent stuff
not 
>very far *in >advance* of what we have today.
>
>Should it be that low?

For DS*2* "should" is pretty irrelevant; the tech descriptions make it 
pretty clear that this is what it *is* supposed to represent :-/

Whether or not DS*3*'s lowest tech tier should be this low can be 
discussed, but the recent comments from Samuel Penn and others seem to 
suggest that it should - or possibly even lower, explicitly covering
'Nam 
etc. without even name changes <g>

> >Then add further capabilities to that. Mere weapons power and armour
> >ratings aren't very interesting (advances in the one area will most
> >likely be countered by advanced in the other before very long
anyway);
>
>Hold that thought.

Armour penetration is merely a matter of sliding weapon sizes and armour

ratings up or down as appropriate; that can easily be handled within the

vehicle design rules. Weapons *range* and *accuracy* (including the 
interaction between missiles and ECM/point defences) are important
however, 
since they have a rather profound impact on tactics.

> >more important is the sensor/counter-sensor game allowing the players
to 
> detect
> >(or execute) hidden movements, disrupt each others' communications
and
> >so on.
>
>And the cycle of change counter-change would apply here too.  I don't
want 
>to play a game of "EWO" but a combined arms game.

I know. That's why I prefer Full Thrust to Brilliant Lances myself, even

though BL is an excellent sub-hunting game :-/

Many of the EW conditions could probably be handled similar to how SG2 
handles the general air-defence environment, since much of what sets the
EW 
conditions for a particular battle is outside the scope of the DS2 game 
both in terms of time (a few hours of combat) and geography (up to maybe

two dozen square miles).

Hidden movement and spotting needs some pretty serious thought to
function 
smoothly, but I feel that those really are necessary - particularly if
you 
want battles between opponents with unequal tech levels, since one of
the 
biggest advantages the higher-tech opponent can have is just better 
battlefield awareness (and the resulting ability to manoeuvre against
the 
enemy without him being able to react appropriately).

> >...imagine what such a
> >system in the wrong army could do to today's US military doctrine!
>
>Today's military wouldn't exist in the game if we use the base level 
>suggested.

No, but tomorrow's - maybe ten or twenty years from now - would. It *is*

the base line I suggested above :-/

>Every grunt's dream - to be rid of the Air Force.

Well... every grunt whose ass hasn't been saved by a well-placed LGB, 
anyway. It would also remove the grunts' most treasured weapon - the 
indirect-fire, ground-based artillery... not sure if I'd rate that as a 
"grunt's dream" or a "grunt's nightmare", really :-/

>You deny the air to SSMs then you take out the 3rd dimension of the 
>combat.  And Grav vehicles become NOE tanks at best.

Not necessarily, since a weapon strong enough to blow up a missile or
shell 
isn't necessarily strong enough to blow up a heavily armoured grav tank.
In 
the Slammers universe the Calliopes *are* that strong, but the lasers
used 
by today's area-defence system prototypes aren't.

IOW, depending on how powerful weapons *you as the player* allow your 
area-defence systems to use you might remove the the 3rd dimension 
entirely, or you might get a return to earlier periods' strafing
aircraft 
turning the armoured grav tanks into futuristic A-10 equivalents using
guns 
instead of extreme-range missiles or bombs... such a set-up could even
make 
the current DS2 aerospace rules look reasonable, by forcing the aircraft
to 
get into gun range of their targets instead of using stand-off bombs and

missiles :-/

But as far as possible it should be the *players'* choice whether or not

they want such a set-up or something else, not the game designer's.

> >Grav vehicles - yes, they're very "high SF", but they're also a stock
> >feature in many SF backgrounds... so let us make them behave like
they 
> do in
> >those SF books, instead of like some amphibious WW2 vehicles...
>
>Okay, which books?  Deployable from tree top to edge of space?

Sorry, I should've said "SF backgrounds" in both places rather than 
changing the second to "SF books" - the most prominent examples I can 
recall off-hand are game- or movie-based: Renegade Legion (which 
background, including a number of novels, includes a fairly thorough and

fairly coherent discussion of the effects various tech developments have
in 
their background, even though its ground scales make weapon ranges 
ridiculously short and their treatment of ATGMs is even more obsolete
than 
DS2's), Star Wars (particularly the combat scenes at the end of "The
Clone 
Wars"), various Manga/Anime series... not sure if they're all officially

"grav" powered, but they all seem to operate from tree tops to edge of 
space. Weber/White's "StarFire" series of books also feature some 
"grav"-style ground vehicles theoretically able to move into space,
though 
they rarely use it in those books due to strong enemy LOS air defences.

>The you have a Air Force game in many ways.

Not necessarily. As I said above, being able to use ground cover can be
a 
pretty strong incentive to fight down on the ground :-/ But it *could* 
become an AF game - *if the players want it to be*.

>Currently Air Forces are blatantly under-powered in DS2.

In the absence of bomb/missile/shell-killing area-defence systems, 
certainly. Add in such a system, and the DS2 aerospace rules might
actually 
give a reasonable representation of aerospace ground support - but again
it 
should be the *player's* choice whether or not they want such a system
in 
their particular vision of the future.

>And they would die to the "Calliope" system anyway.

Provided that the background *chosen by the players* includes
area-defences 
as powerful as the Calliope, sure. They can choose not to allow such 
systems if it doesn't fit their vision of the future; if so the 
aircraft/grav tanks wouldn't die so fast.

> >Create a dual unit design system which separates the points cost
(which
> >measures the unit's combat value in terms of the rules, and which
does not
> >depend on what background you play in) from the design rules
determining
> >what vehicles are physically possible to create in your chosen
background
> >(which *will* vary from background to background, and which can
easily vary
> >even between different powers within a single background). This would
be a
> >very powerful tool for allowing players to customize the game to
match
> >their view of what future combat should be like.
>
>Well, I hope people of your caliber keep them from becoming the SFB
style
>rules of creating vehicles.

SFB doesn't *have* any rules for creating vehicles, so that's not very 
likely ;-)

Since the vehicle *creation* rules - ie., the rules that define what 
vehicles are physically possible to build *in the players' chosen 
background* - would be completely background-dependent, there's no way
the 
game designers can control them at all (except by rigidly defining the 
background, which is exactly what we DON'T want to do!). Each player
group 
could come up with their own set if they want to; and they could make
those 
rules just as complex as they want them to be.

What we as game designers could do is provide two or three different 
*examples* of vehicle creation rules, eg. one representing a relatively
low 
tech base where energy generators are big and bulky (so relying on 
ground-contact vehicles and propellant-powered weapons), one
representing a 
high-tech environment with small and compact power sources (allowing eg.

GEV/grav mobility, HELs and MDCs), and one where "mechanical muscles" 
(engines better at providing linear push-pull than rotational motion)
have 
become more efficient than current engines (thus making Walkers viable)
- 
but there'd be no requirement that the players use *any* of these
examples, 
and there'd be literally no limit on what vehicle creation rules the 
players could come up with to fit their particular gaming backgrounds.
Of 
course, if the players want to they could always use the simplest
vehicle 
creation rules of them all - "Just write down the stats you want your 
vehicles to have" - and let the *costing* rules would handle any
attempts 
of abuse.

The vehicle *costing* rules (giving the *game points cost*, not any kind
of 
"background-economic price tag") however would be the same for *all* 
backgrounds, and they would be no more complex than than today's DS2 
vehicle design rules - and most likely simpler.

><snip>
> >Bingo. Ideally the game should *allow* 'Nam-era battles for those who
are
> >comfortable with viewing the future like a slightly re-named 'Nam...
but it
> >shouldn't be *restricted* to 'Nam-era battles like it is now :-/
>
>Restricted, no, there we agree.  But could one game cover that range of
>scenarios as the Vietnam redux tech to Imperials versus Zhodani and
still
>be an affordable set of rules without going the GW [Spit] Codex thing?

I think so, yes. It is to a large extent a matter of player mentality - 
basically, making the players realize that just because the rules
*provide 
for* using this-or-that gadget, they don't *have* to use it *if it isn't

appropriate in their chosen background*. This is a direct opposite to
the 
GW Codex "thing", which spoon-feeds both the background and its special 
rules to the players leaving very little leeway for individual
imagination.

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry