[GZG] John's Shipbuilding

John, kudos for the nice exposition of historical shipbuilding trends.
Let me add a few
twists to your discussion, however:

Once destroyers became capable of taking out line-of-battle ships, why
did the LoB ships
still exists? Two answers. One is that ships don't just vanish, and thus
you've invested a
lot in building and crewing them, so you don't just chuck them away when
a new system
comes out that really threatens them. Second is mission suitability.
They may in fact be
threatened by destroyers, but they are also still very capable at
certain types of
missions that destroyers really don't do a good job at (shore
bombardment, for instance). 

But both of these aspects (and the bonus third reason of institutional
aversion to change)
aren't represented in one-off games where anyone can build anything and
bring it to the
board. If small ships have easy shipkillers, then not just one fleet
shows up with them,
but both. If BB's had a high point cost, and losing one cost you all of
that, wouldn't you
build a swarm of smaller ships instead, both to mitigate losses and to
give yourself the
same gnats-with-sledgehammers armament? It also allows tactics that you
can't do with a
single ship. So our battles would devolve into small fleets with big
guns fighting. That
might, as you say, be a bit on the un-fun side. 

At the same time, the points imbalance in larger ships is being
addressed because there
are benefits that don't acrue in the manner the *current* point system
suggests, as an
artifact of game rules such as threshold checks. System degradation is
very much dependent
on hull points total and configuration. Thus, large ships actually have
a farely sizable
advantage which the points system does not capture. 

Now, what is the point system meant to do? The discussion above shows
that at the moment,
there are some loopholes in the system for a 'tactical game' (one off
balance on the game
board sans outside consideration) points system, and the system is also
similarly broken
for the 'smaller part of a bigger game' points system that my comments
on ship's being
around, having crew already trained, and being mission suitable for
things that might not
be present on the current tactical map represent. So we have two types
of point systems
the game point system could be, and right now it does a so so job of the
tactical game
points system (with a few crashing holes, like big ships, unbalanced
sideslips and
fighters for example) and it does almost no job of encompassing any sort
of 'campaign
universe flavour' (small game inside big game) rules. 

This probably explains why most games that mean to support both a
tactical game and a
campaign flavour have two point systems (effectively, if not literally).
SFB had that
concept. So do most other games. It may well be that, tactically
speaking, the small ship
swarm has some advantages in a particular version of the game univrse -
big weapons and
high mobility. It may be they have strategic advantages like smaller
crew requirements,
require smaller shipyard slips to produce. But it may also be they have
campaign type
disadvantages such as not being good for some types of missions, lower
hyperdrive
efficiency/speed, smaller computers (that might matter for navigation or
something), etc. 
The point being, you have two point systems with different
considerations. 

My view for FT is that the FT point system should be *strictly
tactical*. This is so that
the game does an *excellent* job of describing ship to ship in whatever
combinations on a
table. I realize it'll never be perfect, but with a patch for fighters
and a patch for a
few of the other things, maybe a point modifier for vector rules narrow
arc ships, for
instance, it will do a pretty good job of being a tactical system. This
will allow all
sorts of one off games and even in larger terms, it will give you a
better idea than the
current point system of relative combat power of two forces, which is
still useful even in
the larger idea of multiple interrelated games. 

But what about the strategic considerations? Manufacturing? Other
missions? etc. 

I'm a simulationist almost as much as John A. and Magic are. So I
believe in campaign
based point systems (victory points and other restrictions that
encourage people to play
beyond just the straight tactical considerations in the rules because of
larger issues the
captains must consider). But these should be a separate point system.
This serves two
functions: First, it works (unlike trying to do both strategic and
tactical with one point
system) and second, it maintains the generic nature of the game, because
different people
who want to flavour their campaign universes differently will bolt-in
different campaign
point systems to enforce different considerations on their captains and
admirals. (There
might also be some campaign rules, such as morale, etc, and there may be
minor tweaks to
the tactical point system if those rules affect combat power).
Certainly, a fairly generic
tactical point system allows you to setup various one-offs, and a
bolt-on set of campaign
points (which encompasses economy, political realities, manufacturing,
or whatever
constraints people wish to consider) then adds that external dimension,
but does so in
such a way as to allow them to be replaced differently by other players
who want a
different sort of universe. One set of campaign points (with a few rules
to boot) could
encourage more of a First World War line of battle sort of approach and
one sort might
encourage a more World War Two carrier war sort of approach. Yet a third
campaign system
(campaign points plus a few rules tweaks) might try harder to map to
subs-in-space or hide
and seek. But in general, they can use the tactical point system with
very few tweaks,
even though the campaign point systems may be very different. 

So, I submit, the one problem in these discussions is treating a single
point system is as
if it can handle both of the tasks the game as a whole (as a generic
sci-fi ship combat
game trying to cover most metaphors and handle one off as well as
campaign play) tries to
accomplish. The problem is no system can be all things to all people in
this regard. Two
points systems are required. 

Thanks for listening. I've quite enjoyed everyone's posts on these
topics. 

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