Re: [GZG] Monster ships

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campaigns we assigned each technology a "strategic cost" and allowed
fleets to purchase a set number of technology points. In general weapons
that had more strategic options, beams and K guns and pulsars, had a
higher strategic cost than did single option technologies like
Submunition packs.

This allows fleet commanders to determine their own doctrine and select
technologies accordingly.

One of the things that suggests to me that there there is indended to be
some practical limits in ship speeds are the fixed speeds for ordnance.
If ships are moving 30+ MU it makes it very hard to use ordnance and
impossible outside of a closing engagement.

In our campaigns we get a lot of situations where players need diverse
power projection accross a number of objectives at the same time. A
battleship can only be in one place but 3 destroyers can be in 3 places.
Some of our generals have also demonstrated that 3 destroyers can be
more resiliant than a cruiser and are effectively the same ship running
as a networked ship across 3 hulls. You could even have different
destoyers specialising in different areas, and by varying the mix get a
more flexible squadron design than remoddling a cruiser. Logistics are
also simplified. Destroyers and lighter ships are usually binary state
(OK or dead) so you don't need to worry about remote supply so much. A
damaged cruiser is an expensive asset and needs to be taken back to the
shipyards for a refit. Such a vulnerable target then needs protecting
and escorting, thus tying up more assets.

We typically run campaing with starting fleets at around 4000 points,
4+borders, 6+ internal territories and maybe 1500 points/turn  economy.
With those sort of numbers you need a fleet that will be able to divide
up into multiple useful battlegroups. Having one deathstar ship means
you might be able to hold one territory or win one battle but you would
find that your empire would collapse because you can't defend it
effectively.

As a result many of our battles are smaller squadron actions with
cruisers vs packs of marauding destroyers.

In an ordnance poor environment like the FT universe seems to be I can
see why ships don't bother with much point defence. It looks like ships
have to return to base to get replenished and so ships that rely on
ordnance have to keep making return trips back to base to resupply. I
can't see how the FSE could sustain a campaign. They might win the first
battle but then their ships need to RTB to rearm making it difficult for
them to hold territory they captured.

________________________________
From: Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com>
To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Sat, 9 January, 2010 10:51:13 AM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships

Eric:

1.  The size of the table represents the maximum useful range at which
one may
detect enemy ships at sublight speeds.

[Tomb] So, if this theory is true, I can detect (for instance) 72 MU
in one axis, but only 48 in another? <*grin*> If we assume an MU to be
1000 km and say we can detect out to a maximum of 72 (or 96) MU, that
means combat should be rare except at geographic points because you'd
just never see the other fleet most places in your system.

2.  The size represents the maximum fire control range that a fleet
may engage and fire upon enemy ships.

[Tomb] So, if I can fire 72 or 96 MU one way, you allow fire off the
side of the board, or does my max range scale to the smallest board
axis?

3.  The size represents the maximum distance at which a carrier may
exercise command and control of its fighters, and furthermore, the
carrier must do so directly and may not use its escort ships sent
ahead with the fighters as a proxy.  Otherwise, there'd be no reason
to ever put the carrier on the table.

[Tomb] The way the game's carriers are designed does suggest that they
are expected to be on the game table. Nothing in the fighter rules
expresses this limitation, but the carrier construction does suggest
that this is the expectation. Why would the not be able to have at
least several light seconds or a light minute worth of distance from
the fighters? If they are filled with humans, you would think ops
within 30-240 light minutes ought to be feasible (depending on life
suppot assumptions). The only limit of 'command and control' is the
ability to redirect a force. If the unit has pre-written orders and
the unit commander has discretionary power, then you don't need the
carrier to exert moment to moment control. If the fighters are RC
drones, then yes, a control radius makes sense. It also explains why
the ludicrous fighter loss rates are considered acceptable.

4.  The size represents the navigational limits of ships at sublight
speed, and a greater speed than one could take and still stay on the
table is not safe.

[Tomb] On a 4"x8" table scaling in CM, that could still yield speeds
of 60 MU+ in cinematic (or am I selling Oerjan short?).

Further extrapolating this reasoning to the Fleet Book ships, you have
one more critical implicit limitation at least as it pertains to the
GZGverse powers:

5.  The GZGverse powers do not possess the technology and/or
capability to build and/or logistically operate larger ships, faster
ships, longer ranged weapons, or more fighters/missiles than what they
show in the Fleet Books.  All of these things represent material
advantages that at least one of the powers could have made use of to
exploit obvious weaknesses in all the others, and they haven't.  If
they haven't, the only reasonable explanation is that they can't.

[Tomb] I think I would substitute 'cannot do so in an economically
advantageous way'. It may be that shipyard expense scales non-linearly
with cost. A slip for a mass 80 ship costs 10 * CPV. A slip for a mass
240 ship costs 100 * CPV. (Just making up numbers, but you see my
point). That would serve to make construction of smaller ships more
common. Fighters... if we assume carriers are likely to have to be
within gun range of the enemy and that they must survive, that might
explain a lot of the canonical designs somewhat (it doesn't explain
BDNs at all). Longer ranged weapons are expensive, perhaps out of
proportion to utility (if B2 or B3 is the sweet spot) unless the
advantage is so pronounced that the enemy has no reply (B7 good thrust
vs. B3 ships). Even then, the cost of shipyard slips may deter
building the big weapon ships. Maybe campaign economic point costs
(EPV) make constructing large ships and/or weapons expensive and maybe
if the fighters are crewed by humans, you just can't afford to lose
them in waves all the time and the pilot shortage is what limits
fighter counts in fleets. But yes, some aspect of the economic or
tactical reality has to limit a 'better design' from dominating. The
best design will tend to dominate *during wartime*. In peacetime,
bureaucracies can really hurt the combat value (best combat capability
for the $$$) by being more about pork-barrelling and who gets the
contract than about the best system. In a serious war, that attitude
gets short shrift.

So if you play custom games, it depends greatly on how you apply
limitations to whatever fictional powers you're playing.  Namely, you
should have answers to the following questions...

1.  How big can they build ships?
2.  How fast can they drive them?  At what size is their ability to
build drive power to move their ships at any decent speed going to
start to taper off?
3.  How much carrier command and control do they have?
4.  What fighters are they capable of using?  (Standard fighters are
the basic stuff... interceptors, torpedo bombers, long range fighters,
heavy fighters, and swing-role fighters are all different levels of
protection, weapon optimization and miniaturization that not all
powers might have.)

[Tomb] Can they station independent fighter squadrons on planets,
moons, battlestations, asteroids, etc?

4.  What, if any, advanced armor/drive/hull/screen technology do they
possess?  (If they have any at all, it should be either because
they're an advanced power or they have highly optimized research in
these areas, and only very, very advanced powers should have access to
more than one of them, or advanced screens at all.)
5.  What kind of fire control limitations do they have?
6.  What point defense capabilities do they have?  PDS only?
Scatterguns (or something like them)?

[Tomb] Do all ships have implicit ADFC? Can primaries engage fighters
and how well? Do PDS fire at all incoming fighter groups? etc.

7.  Given the answers to all of the above, what is their fleet
doctrine?

[Tomb] You missed:
8. What role do smaller (popcorn) ships serve? Are they necessary for
strategic level surveillance of systems or exploration and scouting of
enemy locales? Do they ever appear at battles? Is there any economic
advantage to building them? (Cheaper shipyards so better CPV to EPV,
giving a combat power advantage for constructing these)?
9. What is the relationship between space and ground operations? Does
controlling space mean there is no point in a ground fight?

Eric:
For each GZGverse power, and for each custom fleet I've built, there's
an answer to these questions.  For any custom game, I would recommend
at least implicitly having an idea of what these answers are.  You
_can_ theoretically go completely munchkin, but the story and game is
usually more interesting if you don't.

[Tomb] I agree that this would be a wise idea.

I think one of the more interesting things is to try to come up with
sufficient collected justifications to explain why the FB designs are
the best designs for the job (or at least 'good enough') if playing
standard FT. You have to be able to explain all of the points you've
outlined plus the ones I think I added and maybe some we are
forgetting. It sheds some interesting light on what must be some of
the basic economic/strategic realities of the GZGverse.
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