Re: General EMP Thoughts

Sean Bayan Schoonmaker wrote:

> >[Bri] However, if you have 2 smaller ships of the same mass, they
will take
> >6 threshold checks to the larger ship's 3 threshold checks.
Furthermore,
> >they will take them quicker.
>
> Yes, but the equivalent effect is the same. In other words, taking
> one big threshold check on 20 systems produces similar results to
> taking one threshold check each on 10 systems.
>
> >[Bri] Your example is flawed in that the larger ship would not have
reached
> >the 2nd threshold by the 2nd round, but one of the smaller ship would
have
> >left or been "mission killed" by the 2nd round.
>
> [snipped excellent example]
>
> Well done on this. I concede the point. However, I still disagree
> that adding a large-ship killer (in EMP form or otherwise) to the
> game is the solution.
>
> I actually feel that the fleet construction limits (must have 1
> escort for every cruiser for every capital) is a reasonable way to
> limit abuse.
>
> I've always played mixed fleets simply because I understand the
> purpose of escorts in the economic scheme of things (you can't use an
> SDN as a customs cutter).

There are a number good ways to encourage the existence of small ships
in a
campaign, without adding restrictions that appear completely arbitrary.

If it is a Traveller or Starfire -esque setting where the only way to
carry
messages between systems is to transport them on a ship, small ships are
needed
to run an economical courier service and maintain a presence in all
systems.

Commerce raiding also encourages the existence of smaller ships, as you
have to
fill a large volume to find the convoys, and there are never enough BB's
to
frighten raiders away from all of the convoys and a BB escorting a
convoy that
isn't attacked is almost as good as destroyed to your enemies, as it is
not in
the battleline.

My personal favourite is to allow players to specify the number and
capacity of
their slipways (units of hull production).  Each slipway represents a
valuable
pool of workers and machine tools.  Slipways are expensive to build, but
easily
lost.  Shipyards with no work go bankrupt and their workforce rejoins
the
civilian economy.  To maintain the resource pool of a slipway, it has to
be
doing something, building a ship, doing a new threat upgrade, repairing
extensive damage, etc.

To maintain a high surge capacity in shipbuilding, the state must be
keeping a
large number of yards busy, which is best accomplished churning out the
kinds of
vessels that are likely to be used up or lost quickly anyways-- scouts,
corvettes, frigates, and destroyers.

I was working out rules for this for a hypothetical SFB campaign, which
would
also have worked in the problems of the "war" classes that are described
as
having short in-service lifetimes.  The purpose was to discourage the
"God-stacks", and would have the side-effects of having players do
historical
things like deliberately not building a ship as fast as possible to keep
slipways occupied.