Re: [GZG] John's Shipbuilding

On 1/16/06, laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
> John said:

> > A mere 33. . .given that it takes 10 on-target salvos
> > doing average damage to completely destroy the dreadnought
> > in question, I would suggest that the odds are well more
> > than 50/50 in favor of the missle boats.
>
> I suspect I have more experience with strikeboats than most
> folks, and I don't know that I'd put money on this  bet--at
> least until I find out what the SDN's starting speed and MD
> ratings are.

MD4, starting speeds in scenarios I usually play are no more than 2xMD
rating.  But YMMV.

Of course, what throws the math off is that you'd never find an SDN
running around by itself.  These things are (doctrinally--at least my
doctrine) grouped into squadrons of 3-4 capital ships, 1-3 heavy
cruiser consorts, and 2xEscort Cruisers with 10xPDS each.  2700-2900
points, which translates into ~60 strikeboats (as the NPV values
currently stand in print).  That strikes me as far more likely to go
in favor of the heavies.

Which reinforces my original point---that there are no small boats
armed with heavy ship-killers in the Full Thrust rules as written. 
The closest equivalent is SMRs and most people seem to be skeptical of
their effectiveness.  Hence serious fights will be primarily focused
on capitals rather than on small ships.  Small ships exist for
anti-piracy.  Historically, most pirate vessels were relatively small
vessels incapable of standing up to a real warship and hence a 14 gun
brig with a trained and disciplined crew was perfectly capable of
taking them.  The idea of pirate "cruisers" or "dreadnoughts" is
grossly ahistorical.  Perhaps the economics of piracy will be
different in the future.  I can't honestly say.  It is worth noting
that most modern piracy is done with speedboats and assault rifles. 
Pirates do best by making sure their predations are rare enough that
they do not attract the attention of real navies or by taking
advantage of warfare or areas/periods of lawlessness.  Not by standing
and fighting naval patrols, which is profitless and dangerous.	Not
what pirates are after.

They also scout and patrol (assiduously avoiding contact with serious
warships), do 'show the flag' missions, and man stations too
unimportant to be worth large, expensive warships.  They do not
generally zip around while dreadnoughts are exchanging deathblows. 
That is an artifact of bad space opera movies.

If you alter the rules heavily in favor of the smaller ship by making
steep discounts in their points cost and jacking up the price of heavy
ships (by 375 points in the case of a 250 mass SDN) you'll get swarms
of small ships and people will come back complaining that it's not
"balanced" for them that want larger ships.

What I'm driving at is this:  For any given points cost system, there
is one most efficient use of the points.  Either it will favor small
ships, or large ships, or there will be an artificial 'break point'
(like the old FT points just below the divides between escort/cruiser
and cruiser/capital) where the most effective point cost is.

What I seem to see in the discussion of point balance is that people
are complaining that their particular style of fleet (whatever that
may be) is not as effective as something purpose built for max
effectiveness.	They complain that is not "realistic".	The question
is "realistic compared to what"?  If you assume a universe where
sensor pickets and layered anti-missle defense is effective, then you
would "realistically" see the escorts in a ring around the capitals
and in great numbers compared to the other ships[1]  But it isn't
terribly effective as the Full Thrust rules are currently written.  It
is actually far more effective to put an ADFC on each of your capitals
and thus interlink their point defenses.

Now, I can understand putting in an upper limit on mass personally,
for the FT universe as written.  Perhaps mass 300?  But that's a
"universe" rule, not applicable to (for instance) a Star Wars-based
universe, or one based on certain types of anime (SDF-1 anyone?).  I
could see a "proton torpedo in the exhaust tube" rule for anything
over a certain size, or other universe-specific rules.	Perhaps
fighter damage is multiplied by a certain number against supership, or
Ace groups who roll 2 or more sixes causes an automatic system check
done the same way a threshold check is done, based on how many 6s they
roll.  2 6s means a 6+, 3 6s means a 5+, etc, etc.

For that matter, you can put a limit on fighters by limiting the total
number of pilots you have for your entire fleet.  I'd suggest 3 per
100 points?.  This means that in a 3000 point game, you could field 90
pilots which is 14 fighter groups and 6 ships to carry them.  If you
want more ships, then you are fielding fewer fighters.	That's a lot
of fighters, but shouldn't be enough to overwhelm the entire game.  To
make this even more fun, for ever 20% under the limit you are, you can
designate 1 fighter group you do take as being Ace.  Or you can exceed
it by a given percentage (perhaps 20%), but for six pilots you go over
the limit, two of your fighter squadrons are Turkeys.  YMMV.

If your heart is just set on escorts and cruisers, then announce the
scenario as being in a backwater frontier sector.  The players get 1
ship of 90-110 mass as the squadron flagship, and no more than half
their hulls can exceed 50 tons.  Oh, and if the squadron flagship is
destroyed, they die and automatically loose.  Better withdraw it
before it goes boom.

These are just suggestions, but they seem to be in keeping with the
design philosophy of FB1.  Feel free to tweak as you like.

Whether you like it or not, no matter how 'generic' you make your
rules, you have some assumptions.  And if I were running games on a
regular basis, I would have these be part of the scenario design
assumptions.  It's ridiculous to say two mutually contradictory
things:

1)I have a style of ship/fleet design I like and the rules should
support it.  In many cases this seems to be the WWII battle group with
a mix of capitals, carriers, cruisers, and escorts, with fighters but
not an overwhelming number of them.

AND

2)The rules should be totally generic, with no limits at all on ship
construction or fleet compositions.

It ain't likely to happen.

John
[1]Although, in complete honesty, the United States Navy has given up
on escort ships.  Almost all of the classes of warship in service
(other than carriers) are, based on hull size, cruisers.  Ticonderoga
class "cruisers" and Spruance class "destroyers" are identical hulls
with different weapons and sensor fits.  Arleigh Burke is about the
same size.  All of them are roughly the size of a WWII Heavy Cruiser. 
It's interesting the things you learn in a naval museum with lots and
lots of ship models, including every class of destroyer in USN service
since WWI.
--
"Thousands of Sarmatians, Thousands of Franks, we've slain them again
and again.  We're looking for thousands of Persians."
--Vita Aureliani

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l