Re: Campaign rules?

Hal wrote:
> Hello Folks,
>   Using another game system called GURPS, it is listed in the GURPS
> VEHICLES book (either version) that a displacement ton is roughly 35
cubic

It's the amount of water displaced by the ship. Much easier to use
metric, so 1 tonne = 1 cubic metre. We always assume 1m = 1 yd,
1cy = 1m^3, and 1 ton = 1 tonne when roleplaying (half of us can't
understand imperial, and the other half can't understand metric, so
we simplify).

>   Converting the displacement tons to cubic yards, and then to "Mass
> units" with a mass unit equal (roughly) to 250 cubic yards, the value
of
> the IOWA would be 59,859 cubic yards, and 239 Mass units.

By an amazing coincidence, I figured 1 Mass = 250m^3 on the basis
that a bay for 1 fighter = 1 mass, and taking an estimate from the
scenes of the cobra bays on B5. Well, it seemed like a good method
to use at the time anyway...

(hmm, this figure gives a Mass of ~320,000 for a Star Destroyer...)

> 
>   If we assume time equal to square root of mass in months, then the
IOWA
> would have taken 15.45 months to complete.  That is a tad over the 1
year
> and one day that was mentioned earlier, but then again, we are talking
> about two different ships, and we are talking about two different
> countries building yards.  In general, I don't like the idea of any
ship
> taking less than a month to build, so if the list feels that
construction
> rates should be equal to mass/10 months, then a minimum construction
time
> should be inplemented.

Just to add something in here, a Richard Rostrom posted the
following to rec.arts.sf.science about a year ago:

---- Begin quote

: True. If I remember correctly at its peak the ship building program
was
: producing 3 freighters a day...

The U.S. Maritime Commission built 5,777 ships in 1939-1945. That's an 
average of 2.6 ships/day for the _entire_ war; most of that came after 
Pearl Harbor, so the peak was probably about 5.

: a destroyer a week

The US launched over 300 destroyers and over 500 destroyer escorts
between
Pearl Harbor and V-J Day: roughly 900 DDs and DEs in 45 months, i.e. 2
destroyers or escorts every three days, almost _five_ per week.

: and a small aircraft carrier every three months.

The US launched a _fleet_ carrier almost every month: 39 in 45 months.
And
over _120_ escort carriers.

_And_ 6 battleships and over 50 cruisers...

---- End quote

I don't know how many shipyards were used by the US during WWII,
but we're talking _one_ country (okay, it's a big country), with
1940s technology. A whole world, in the 23rd century (seed an
asteroid belt with robotic factories?) wouldn't find this pace
at all difficult.

> propose that any ship taking less than 1 month in construction,
> automatically gets upgraded to 1 month in construction time.	This
would
> make any ship under 10 mass units all take the same amount of time...

Instead of using construction times for ships, just give each type
of ship a value for how much effort is needed to build it, and assign
each world an industrial value for how much effort they can put into
ship building each month. If the world can build 100 Mass of ships each
month, then this could be ~7 destroyers, or one fleet carrier - choice
of the player.

You might want to limit the amount of resources that could be put into
building a single ship though - maybe 25% of the total available.

-- 
Be seeing you,
Sam.