Re: Campaign Systems

On Mon, 28 Oct 1996, Cleyne, Daniel wrote:

> Seeing as I'm only new to this Mailing list, 

Welcome!

> please forgive me if I'm trying 
> to cover ground that someone else has covered recently. I'd be very
keen to 
> see any material that people have posted here previously.

No problem. Have you looked at the various links from Mark Siefert's FT 
page (... to which I have forgotten the URL, but I'm sure someone else 
will be delighted to supply it; or you can do a net search for Full 
Thrust - I think Alta Vista is the one with most relevant hits in this 
case)? There are some links to other people's campaign rules and 
suggestions there.
 
Also, one very important observation: this is a GAME, not a historical
simulation. If something makes the game heavily imbalanced, remove it -
no
matter how 'realistic' it is.  You can almost always come up with
reasonable explanations to why things work as they do after you've made
the
rule! 

All of my comments are very vague, since I haven't played any FT/DSII 
campaigns. I have played both Starfire and Prefect, so these are my 
immediate thoughts based on that experience:

> The first main question that came to mind was how to mate the two
different 
> point systems. After having a look at the various equipment lists it
seems 
> that a FT point could be equivalent to 100 DS2 points without too much
fuss. 

Well... dunno; is a B-battery worth two medium tracked tanks? Since
space 
superiority is extremely important - without it, I doubt if you'll
manage 
to land/supply your ground troops - I'd gladly make ground forces much 
cheaper than spaceships. I don't think the WWII analogy holds in this 
case; a C battery is something very different from a ground artillery 
piece...
 
> The next point was repair of ships. There is a brief mention of ports
in the 
> first FT campaign which covers placing ports near worlds and the
capacity of 
> ship they can handle. What I would like to work out is how long things
take 
> to fix once they are damaged. If you can't repair forces after a
battle in a 
> long term campaign then you may as well not have saved the unit.

What do you mean with a 'long term campaign'? If you have a well enough 
protected repair base (so it doesn't get blown to bits before you can 
repair anything in it), you need repair times less than your 'long 
terms'... In Starfire, a badly mauled Superdreadnought can usually be 
fully repaired in 2-3 months; a new ship would take three times as long 
IIRC (and it also depends on how sophisticated ship yards you have!)

It depends a little on how long you can travel in one turn, too; mainly 
for game balance reasons - how serious shall a defeat be? (I know I'm 
referring a lot to game balance; this is because a campaign where one 
player is very superior to the others is usually pretty dull IMO...)

> ... what about capture 
> and repair of Dirtside equipment? What sort of value should "holding
the 
> battlefield" have?

- Ability to repair own destroyed tanks
- Ability to scavenge enemy tanks (provided both sides use similar
tech!)
- Better chances to rally 'destroyed' infantry elements (...those who 
  weren't picked up by ambulance elements, that is)

There are probably more... All these are in addition to the benefits of
having won the battle (if they did - a raiding force could accomplish
their mission (and 'win') even though they retreated after the strike,
for
example). 

> How long would it take a unit that has been beaten up 
> badly in an engagement to refit so that it is combat ready again? 

I guess it depends on just how badly they were beaten; and I think that 
would depend on the race - some races could take a defeat badly, losing 
faith in their ability completely, while other races (Orks, anyone?) 
would bounce back as soon as no-one was looking...

> Where would this sort of activity take place? 

Far enough behind the front that there is no immediate threat of ground 
attack, I guess...

> Does it matter how structured this system is? 

Not as long as you're satisfied with it...

> Would it be better to think out the whole system and justify it 
> so that it works logically or would it be better to do a best
Guestimate for 
> a few of the values and from those prepare a couple of lookup tables
you 
> roll dice against to get the result?

I _think_ this is the same question as 'what role does the players have'
(see below) - if the players control the entire state, you don't need
random tables;	if they are theater commanders, you need random tables
to
simulate incompetent superiors. What will work best for you, I cannot
say.
However, I've found that it is pretty hard to think out a complete
system
- once you start using it, you'll find all the cracks in it. Playtest it
along the way, and don't be afraid to modify the system in the middle of
a
campaign - if the change is made to simplify the system, or to remove
glaring imbalances, I don't think the players will protest (...except
for
the one who is heavily favoured by the imbalance, of course <g>)

> Another problem is one of replacements. How do you determine what sort
of 
> replacements become available? Just allocating a point value per turn
means 
> that the player can always get the type of equipment they need. Is it
worth 
> going to the trouble of determining particular equipment types for the

> replacements?

This depends on what role the players take. If you are a theater 
commander (as in Prefect), you have to cope with whatever the High Brass

(...in this case, the Space Master or a random table) throws at you. If 
you are the Great Leader of the Empire (as in Starfire), you can decide 
what units to build and where to send them. In this last case, you need 
an economic system - populations generate resources which you can spend 
on supply/maintenance, new units, colonization and so on. Be warned, 
however, that this last campaign scope causes quite a lot of
bookkeeping!
Another problem is that the income has to be big to allow various 
activities - building, maintenance, exploring etc - but small enough so 
you have to make priorities. (The latest edition of Starfire suffers
from 
this; everyone has far too much money...)

> There is a vast amount of stuff that needs to be done before I have a 
> working system but the most important issue seemingly is Supplies. I
realise 
> that keeping track of individual supply points is not in keeping with
the FT 
> ethic of being fun and easy. But ships need equipment and troops need
to 
> eat. I haven't yet come across a game that covers the constant need to
keep 
> units supplied without being exceptionally arbitrary.

I wouldn't call Prefect 'arbitrary'; 'exceptionally elaborate' would be
more accurate IMO... and in Starfire, you are more or less required to
keep track of every single missile you build (and with missile loads of
200 or more per ship, that is quite a lot!) However, both these systems
are prone to get bogged down in bookkeeping quite fast. Prefect is
mainly
a game of logistics, and the main reason to fight is to cut the supply
routes of your opponent. That part of it is very realistic, of course
<g>

> FASA tried it with 
> Prefect but the system they used there is at the large formation level
and I 
> can't seem to break it down to make it cover the unit sizes in DS2 as
well 
> as the naval units in FT. If anyone has any really good ideas on this
issue 
> I'd very keen to hear.

Well, since you can break down Prefect battles into individual starships

for play with Leviathan/Interceptor, or individual ground units 
(remember, a Cohort/Company (the smallest units in Prefect IIRC) isn't 
very big - 18 tanks or so in a Cohort) to slug it out with
whatever-the-RL-
ground-combat-game-is-called, I don't see this as a very problem. Within

a unit, supplies and maintenance resources are shared evenly (for morale

reasons, if nothing else!), so if any of the sub-units are low on 
supplies, the entire parent unit will be. If you prefer integrated
battle 
groups (so each DSII battleforce is one more or less permanent unit), 
that unit would be either hungry, or not hungry <g> I imagine that the 
infantry would be unaffected by fuel or maintenance shorage for the
tanks 
- but of course their morale would drop without proper support, so you 
can probably use one single supply level for the entire battlegroup.

> Sorry about the length of the post

No problem at all! This reply is even longer...

Regards,

Oerjan Ohlson

"Father, what is wrong?"
"My shoes are too tight. But it does not matter, because
 I have forgotten how to dance."
- Londo Mollari