Capital Ships in Campeign Games

I would love to play in a campeign against a player who ties up all his forces
into capital ships. My Destoyer squadron raids will keep him from ever
destroying my fleet, or expanding his territory...

> On Wed, 26 Mar 1997, Phillip E. Pournelle wrote:

> I would love to play in a campeign against a player who ties up all

That depends very heavily on campaign objectives. It may be a viable tactic to
just split his forces on X most important targets and wait for

you, just to give you a simple example.

And after an inconclusive battle, his BBs go to repair docks while you go to
shipyards for new DDs...

I'm all for balanced fleets. But some situations can reward unbalanced ones,
and a "gamesman" will pick the fleet that suits the given parameters best, not
caring that in real life it would have to fill half

a dozen other mission profiles.

Definately, a 'real life' campaign would be tough to win without tenders,
tugs, merchant shipping, and revenue boats... Often these aren't the optimum
force mix for rules lawyers or power gamers. I really
prefer the full spectrum of ship designs, a low-down gritty combat
between small, relatively inefficently (from a points-optimization
standpoint) designed ships is my speed. Especially if it has a
believable scenario backing it up, and/or a place in a grand campaign.
Why do all ships necessarily have to be optimum. Take a look at the appraisals
in Janes Ships of the World regarding some classes. Quite a few ships in it
are described as old, obsolete, undergunned, underpowered. Many navies
maintained near hulks on their rolls for decades.... Maybe that class of
Superdreadnought carries so damned many 'A' batteries in order to ensure that
50% of it's guns will actually be functional. Maybe the superdestroyer with
the 3 arc 'A' battery is so cramped and prone to malfunction that only a few
were made, and crews that serve on them are rotated so frequently (due to
fatigue, radiation burns, general morale loss) that no ship ever really
attains 'crack' status. The problem is convincing those with a mind that
'points are points' that scenarios using 'real' ships are worthwhile. A
refereed campaign game can give rewards to players with a convincing realistic
'angle' on ship design, much like rewarding clever players in
role-playing games.

Just some thoughts...

Gene

> ----------

> At 07:10 PM 3/26/97 +0000, you wrote:

A friend of mine, Bill Walley, used to play in this big galactic conquest play
by mail game called Mobius III. In that game, you are allowed to design one
ship and one ship only. You produce that design which has to do all of your
fleet jobs. My friend built himself a dreadnought, which as I've said meant
that his entire fleet consisted of dreadnoughts. The joke was that even though
they were all exactly the same, they were classed according to mission: hence,
the Scout Dreadnought, the Colonization Dreadnought, the Diplomatic
Dreadnought, etc.

        James

There is more to think about than points. In real life (I hate quoting real
life in games), destroyers can't stay out at sea for as long as cruisers.
Also, capital ships are real good at waving the flag and for show of force.
Nobody is really going to take a single destroyer as a serious threat, but if
you send too many, you could start a war. In one off games, there isn't that
extra level to contend with. Therefore you can play a suicidal as you want. I
always try to make scenarios were you can eliminate all of the opposing
forces, have one ship left, and guess what? You still lost. OK, so did the
other guy. Try assigning points for damage done, ships destroyed, etc. If you
come up with a good points spread (I haven't quite done it yet so don't ask me
for mine) your games will be more interesting. Barring all of this, we just
need a good set of campaign rules. Hint hint, nudge nudge to Jon;)

                 +++++++++++++++
    +------------+             +----------------+

> James Butler wrote:

> At 05:01 AM 3/27/97 +0000, you wrote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
> <snip>

Well enough, but I suspect that was in spite of his ship design. Bill has
always had a penchant for organization and record keeping and I think it was
his administrative edge that compensated for his ship design. He's very
conservative and so was his design, it emphasized defense.

The Mobius rules gave you not only the ship design rules but the ship combat
rules. I was interested in playing so I designed a ship that I was going to
use in the game. It was a lean and mean light cruiser design with tons of guns
and a little room for cargo and very thin on defense (at least compared to
Bill's DN design). The problem was that each of my
cruisers fielded something like 40%-60% of the firepower of his
dreadnought design and I would be able to build three cruisers to every one of
his dreadnoughts. We ran three of my cruisers vs. one of his DNs through the
game's combat simulation (on paper) a few times and the most common result was
that I would lose one cruiser, have a second one crippled and his DN would be
destroyed. Combine that to the fact that my ships would have taken
one-third the time to build and that while he's still waiting for a new
DN to come off the slipways I would have already gotten two cruisers out into
space to do things, I'm pretty sure I would have come out ahead.

I don't know what kind of ships Bill's opponents used. I never did wind up
joining Mobius III. Last I heard, they were planning on a new version where
you would get at least three ship designs.

        James

> Definately, a 'real life' campaign would be tough to win without

I couldn't agree more - some very well-expressed sentiments. The
question
is, how do we persuade all the powergamers/munchkins/anoraks* that this
is the way to go? Does anyone feel we should actually legislate on things like
this in future rules (maybe on the lines of the previously-suggested
"maximum% of certain ship types in fleet"), or do we continue as before and
leave it up to the players to be "reasonable" about this....:)?

Awaiting deluge of replies with interest!!

Personally, I'm for leaving as much as possible in the hands of the players,
assuming them to be intelligent, upright bipedal monkies with an overdeveloped
cerebrum... even if they're not.

A short note mentioning that `this is probably a good mix for a game
simulating a realistic battle group' would be good, but setting mandate is
probably A Bad Idea(tm).

> Eugene M. George writes:

@:) Definately, a 'real life' campaign would be tough to win without @:)
tenders, tugs, merchant shipping, and revenue boats... Often these @:) aren't
the optimum force mix for rules lawyers or power gamers.

I feel something of a responsibility to speak up for rules lawyers here.

@:) I really prefer the full spectrum of ship designs, a low-down
@:) gritty combat between small, relatively inefficently (from a
@:) points-optimization standpoint) designed ships is my
@:) speed. Especially if it has a believable scenario backing it up,
@:) and/or a place in a grand campaign.  Why do all ships necessarily
@:) have to be optimum?

They certainly don't and you're not the only one who would prefer if they
weren't. I think most of us optimizers play in groups of people who design
their ships from the keel up and we end up being forced to
optimize because the only way you can make comparably-equipped ships
is to max them all out. People who design ships based on what a miniature
looks like don't suffer this problem but I think they probably do suffer the
problem of gross imbalance between fleets. You might look at a thingie and
decide it's an A battery, while I decide the same thingie is a Wave Gun port.

My group has had limited success with various systems for keeping
optimizations in check - mostly these center on allowing only certain
percentages of certain weapons on a ship and/or only allowing certain
percentages of ship classes in the fleet as a whole. The idea of
command ratings in a campaign has been mentioned - this is when each
fleet is led by a flagship and the bigger the flagship, the more ships allowed
in the fleet. So if you want a lot of small ships, you have to bring some big
ones along as well. I guess if you want a lot of big ships, you have to pay
for them.

In one campaign we distributed ship design bonuses and problems to
the players randomly.  Some players had +10% or -10% space in their
ships, or +-10% damage points.  Some players had rear-arc fire, some
had shortened range on all weapons and so on. We weren't at all sure all the
factors balanced out but it certainly made the game more
interesting - especially since no one knew what the other guy had.
Optimization still occurred but now each player was optimizing towards a
different, possibly incompatible goal.

As far as getting merchants into it and in general coming up with a good way
to automatically (by strategic movement or some such) produce a wide variety
of tactical situations, we've had little luck. The campaign side of things
seems to rapidly overcomplexify and no one wants to do the paperwork. Anyone
got any ideas on how to streamline things on this end? We certainly want to
keep damage from one scenario to the next, and we want ship construction and
economic factors and all that, but we want it to be easy.

Oh, you could try computers for this.

> Eric Fialkowski writes:

@:)    In one off games, there isn't that extra level to contend with.
@:) Therefore you can play a suicidal as you want. I always try to @:) make
scenarios were you can eliminate all of the opposing forces, @:) have one ship
left, and guess what? You still lost. OK, so did @:) the other guy. Try
assigning points for damage done, ships @:) destroyed, etc. If you come up
with a good points spread (I @:) haven't quite done it yet so don't ask me for
mine) your games @:) will be more interesting.

This is difficult. I have recently been playing SFB (duck again)
and they have their standard high-quality but complex solution to this
problem. The gist of it is this: you get percentages of your opponent's points
total for doing various things. 100% (of the ship's value) for destroying a
ship, 50% for crippling it, 10% for forcing it to disengage. Scenarios
sometimes have special victory conditions but these are always in effect. So
if I come in with a 100 point ship and cook your 50 point ship but you cause
some major damage to me, it's a draw. The victory types go in 10% brackets, I
think, with names like
draw, minor victory/loss, tactical victory/loss, major victory/loss,
etc. So if your little ship cripples my big one and forces me to run away but
is destroyed in the process (I have no idea if this is possible) I get 50 pts
for your ship, you get 60 for the damage you did and for running me off and
you've just won yourself a battle.

I think a system like this would work fine for FT but right now I don't think
the points system is accurate enough. Sounds like in FTIII the ship cost
system will be worked out a little better.

> Ground Zero Games writes:

@:) Does anyone feel we should actually legislate on things like this
@:) in future rules (maybe on the lines of the previously-suggested
@:) "maximum% of certain ship types in fleet"), or do we continue as @:)
before and leave it up to the players to be "reasonable" about
@:) this....:) ?

Absolutely do not legislate on this. If you're going to comment on it at all,
provide "guidelines" (like the rest of the rules are) and example class
distributions among the major powers of the official FT universe. But players
can and will be reasonable about these things, if they are concerned about
them. That's why this topic is being discussed. What I would like to see in
the rules would be a well thought out system for producing likely ship class
distributions that
I could modify to fit into my coal-powered rockets in micro-atomic
subspace universe or wherever.

Interesting point. There are certainly games that would benefit from%
restrictions preventing all-powerful forces (I won't mention any names,
WH**K). Suggestions for Battle Group composition would be a good idea,
perhaps with some examples of 1500-point fleets. (And if you leave off
the "of course, these are only suggestions," maybe people would adhere to
them). Then again, maybe not.

*Requiring* that certain ships have escorts (because, well, thats just the way
its done) is another option. Say, each cap ship is required to have two
escorts.

For campaign games, replenishment ships should be mandatory. Modern Battle
Groups always have them floating around. A Captain should have someone else to
look after besides his own ship.

Just a few thoughts

Win Barker Imagineer Solutions onQue

> ----------

> At 12:58 27/03/97 +0000, you wrote:

> Just some thoughts...
2nded. Jon (top cat)

Simple- tell them to design a fleet but don't give anyone the senario
details until the fleet is fielded (or should that be vacuumed!!) this will
result in anoraks 1 for 9,and sensible dudes 5 for 10 (assuming 10 senarios in
which the opposition is a sensible dude)..Well blow me thats just what the
military designers do!
> Jon (GZG).
And they _never_ open their wallet until 'last orders' is sung!!
> [quoted text omitted]
SDL

> I couldn't agree more - some very well-expressed sentiments. The

Short of concocting some convoluted rule, not sure if you can.

> Does anyone feel we should actually legislate on things like

I've always been of the 'reasonable' mindset (hell, I think it's reasonable,
compared to some of the powergamer-types I play with ;-) and this has
worked
well in any scenarios I've pre-generated. My powergamer friends have had
a good time playing in them, but put them on their own...and they tend to max
things out, going for the optimum highest-efficiency death-dealing
vessel they can. They do this in all their games where they are permitted to
design their own stuff (they've even made forays into re-designing the
SFB
series of ships - as if *that* needs to be done!).

I like the rules as they are, but maybe an *optional* rule to the effect of
what you cite above.

(ya know, we keep adding 'optional rules' and sooner or later the rulesbook
is just going to be one big optional rule :-/ )

Mk

> Ground Zero Games writes:

I agree absolutely. Either encourage reasonable player behaviour (on the
grounds that It's More Fun), or hell mend them.

SNIP
> For campaign games, replenishment ships should be mandatory. Modern

For replenishment ships, how about requiring fleets to have a train with
cargo space equal to the mass of one-shot weapons and fighters, plus say
half or one-third of the mass of other offensive weapons?  This would
represent replacement ammo, spares, maintenance etc. This would also tend to
keep the train vessels puny as you wouldn't want to waste train
cargo-mass arming them.  In a minicampaign, weapons not "supported" by
sufficient cargo space in the train (e.g. because the replenishment ship has
been damaged) would have to take a threshhold check on first use in their next
battle.

Cheers

> I couldn't agree more - some very well-expressed sentiments. The

I feel that something needs to be done to balance Capitals with Escorts.

Changing the way the damage rows are allocated (as discussed before) could
help (filling across to a maximum width of 5 and limiting the number of
systems damaged by threshold rolls for balance). Adding a "evasive maneuver"
that uses a high number of thrust points would also help. Adding Ablative
Armor that is more effective for small ships and less effective for large
ships would help offset the Screen advantage of

larger ships.l

Maybe giving an official "suggestion" of less than half the tonnage of a

fleet be comprised of ships over 50 tons.

> Come on writes:

@:) (ya know, we keep adding 'optional rules' and sooner or later the
@:) rulesbook is just going to be one big optional rule :-/ )

I thought that was the idea!

joachim:
> Ground Zero Games writes:
That's right. Absolution legislation is always wrong, and you must never do
it. Down with categorical imperative!

;-)

> At 12:58 PM 3/27/97 +0000, you wrote:

I would love to see campaign rules for these sorts of things.
> I couldn't agree more - some very well-expressed sentiments. The

I don't see anything wrong with writing rules that keep powergamers under
control. I know there are other people who are saying just don't play with
them but I for one find it hard to penalize a person for doing what's in their
best interests, especially in a wargame. I mean the basic premise is that
people are trying to kill each other with highly expensive
weaponry--you'd be a fool not to do what's in your best interests.
Therefore, I am in favor of making the system as balanced as possible and
making what is realistic in the player's best interests.

        James

IMHO the reason that these issues regarding the use of over-optimized

warships arrize is that the players have no reason to build all of the other
ships. Unless you give a reason such as supply lines etc to build auxillary
ships you will never see them on the table. I've played in a campeign where I
used lots of missiles, therefore, in order to reload my task forces after
battle I had to employ AOEs (Auxillary Amunitions Oilers). The Campeign also
required merchant ships to bring raw materials from places like asteroid belts
to

production facilities, again creating a need for them. There is a general
trend in all of the worlds navies to build
multi-role
frigates, all of the same class to save on tooling costs, etc. Meanwhile,
nations like South Africa build nothing but corvettes and diesel submarines.
Why?  Because their geo-political situation allows them to do so.  China
has a mostly frigate and corvette fleet for the same reason and India the
same. Both of those nations are now investing in Fleet support craft such as
oilers and tenders to enable their ships to operate at a distance from their
homelands. Indonesia instead maitains multiple shore facitilies around their
islands to enable their naval patrol craft to constantly travel and resupply
at these posts. So my suggestion to Jon and others is not to impose certain
artifial limitations of vessels size etc on players but to create campeign
rules that force the player to decide what he wants to do and outfit from
there. Half the fun of this game is seeing different philosophies of ship
designing clash on the table top. It would be a grave mistake to straitjacket
players into certain designs... Reminds me of another game with volumes of
ship designs and
rules...
Campeing rules should include: Commerce requirements for merchants.
     Endurance rules that are proportional to ship size and/or points.
Repair and resupply rules for Tenders, Bases and Auxillary ships. Amphibious
rules for troop ships.

> James Butler wrote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
> ___

A good record keeper tends to win more... I don't see why they (Mobius III)
couldn't setup the players with several designs
(say 10..).

I ordered the rulebook for a game called "The Weapon" In that you could have
six different classes of ship. They limited heavy ships by requiring "material
resources", and "Special crystals" in order to build the ship.

I also ordered the rulebook for "Capitol" In that game you could have five
differant classes. But you filled the order sheet with numbers, all clumped
togather. At least in the "The Weapon" the different orders were separated.

> On Thu, 27 Mar 1997, Ground Zero Games wrote:

To dream, the impossible dream...

As long as there is a system for building your own ships, there will be people
who will try to powergame the system.

The problem with campaign games is that everyone started learning the
system in one-off games, where the fast-attack spacecraft has the
advantage. In a campaign, however, the surviving cruisers and escorts are
usually damaged beyond usefulness after their first fight, and can't stick
around after the battle to try to hold the system that they fought over.

In the two campaigns I've played in, the most valuable ships I had were
the straight-from-the-book Superdreadnaughts, because they could survive
two or three battles and hold on to the objective after the fight. I had to
play them carefully, holding them back out of missile range and saving them in
reserve until my opponent had committed his forces, but their role
wasn't to be in the front line -- that was the job of the escorts &
cruisers. Four or five straight-from-the-book Heavy Destroyers make an
excellent distraction that your opponent can't afford to ignore, especially if
you can get them on his flank.

After hearing much debate about this question I think I can (or maybe should)
offer some thoughts on the problem (situation)

1) If this is just a one off battle hey let them power game unless you want to
limit the scope. 2) I thought the idea from the Full thrust book for the
Lafayette Incident was a good idea. State that no more than half the ships can
be of a single type. This still leads to lots of heavies.

If you are doing a campagin game let the guy have lots of heavies. I can build
two to three times the number of cruisers (and alot more destroyers). this
allows me to do two things. A) When he has his ships off attacking

one of my planets I will be able to take two (or more) of his because he

does not have that heavy of a guard up on the planets. I can also take two to
three times the number of planets at the start of the game and also get alot
more resource points and shipyards built. The population of the planet has to
do something (ie build ships for me)> B) I can always get

behind him and blast away with impunity. The other advantage is I can come in
from several directions (more ships) and hit him from behind. C) I will always
have more ships and if he loses one of his (even if I loose two or three) I
can have at least two (probably more) rebuilt before he does. A ship being
built in a dock is worthless in an engagement.

Does this mean that capital ships should not be built. NO. It does mean that a
balanced force is of much better use. Again to look at the statistics from
WWII. We built 141 Carriers (most of them escort carriers, but about twenty
were larger), ten (10) battleships. 48 cruisers, 349 destroyers, 498 escorts
(DE, DDE, corvets) and 203 submarines.

A couple suggestions for those that want to limit the number and type of
vessels. 1) Follow the idea in the Lafayette Incident. 2) Put a percent
limitation like only 40 (50) percent points can be capital ships. 3) Limit the
amount of points that can be constructed in a given period. (this should
encouragea more balanced fleet)

> Phillip E. Pournelle on 27 Mar 97 wrote:

> IMHO the reason that these issues regarding the use of

Exactly. Full Thrust as it stands now is a great set of rules for
space-
ship battles, but has very little context in which those battles occur. This
gives rise to people building optimized fleets that would not make sense in a
larger context. On the other this allows Full Thurst to be used in a wide
range of settings from Bablyon 5 to Sino-Russian War battle set in
space. IMO this is an important factor in making Full Thrust popular, since
players can use whatever background they wish.

> So my suggestion to Jon and others is not to impose certain artifial

> limitations of vessels size etc on players but to create campeign
Half the
> fun of this game is seeing different philosophies of ship designing

Well put Phil. I also love seeing what happens when different design styles
clash. I'd like to see a set of campaign rules presented as an example of what
can be done. The campaign rules give the context in which the battles take
place, and can lead to a larger varity of ship types within a fleet. Idealy
these rules could be used as given, or modified to fit
what-
ever background a group of players want to use. That would leave the existing
Full Thrust rules for those who don't want the extra complexity of a campaign,
or just play one off games. Personally I like both types of games.

Enjoy,

> James Butler writes:

@:) I don't see anything wrong with writing rules that keep @:) powergamers
under control. I know there are other people who are @:) saying just don't
play with them but I for one find it hard to @:) penalize a person for doing
what's in their best interests, @:) especially in a wargame.

My only worry would be that the rules would become restrictive and prevent me
from using FT for my particular game setting. Rules like "thou shalt not fly a
capital ship" are not going to help the
situation - everyone will simply ignore any overly restrictive rule.
Therefore it seems more sensible to have a rule like "Thou shalt not fly a
capital ship without an escort of smaller ships whose point value is X% of the
capital ship's point value, and where we recommend that X be 100". Now I get
the idea that a capital ship should have an escort of zero or more ships, and
I can modify the number and size of ships required to fit my understanding of
what a fleet should look like. House rules would specify just what such values
are and in tournaments the standard rules would be used unless otherwise
specified.

I think most FT rules are like this, especially the optional ones, and even
when they're not, they tend to get treated that way (an example is the A
battery which many groups modify). So why not go with the flow and let the
players set up their systems the way they like them?

Classification: Prologue: Epilogue:

---------------------- Forwarded by Roger Gerrish/UK/IBM on 27-03-97
02:36 PM
---------------------------

GFDVM2.GERRISR @ D06AU003
        27-03-97 02:32 PM

To: Roger Gerrish/UK/IBM
cc:
Subject: RE: Capital Ships in Campeign Games

From: Roger Gerrish
*** Forwarding note from I7214490--IBMMAIL  27/03/97 14:20 ***
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 12:58:52 +0000
To: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
From: jon@gzero.dungeon.com (Ground Zero Games)
Subject: RE: Capital Ships in Campeign Games

> I couldn't agree more - some very well-expressed sentiments. The

> Awaiting deluge of replies with interest!!

> Jon (GZG).

I don't think there is any need to legislate, if the rules lawyers want to
play FT that way then let them. If you don't like it then don't play FT with
them. (Thay will either change or go away.) Nothing wrong with guidance as
that will help stimulate the creative ones out there.

The easiest way is to state that a ship uses a number of "support points"
equal to it's tonnage each round (damaged or undamaged). Each
planet/system
that a player contols produces X number of support points per turn. Repairs,
new ship construction, etc. would cost agianst the "support points". The
points can (and should) be stockpiled. As you loose systems the amount of
"income" will increase or decrease. If you "go broke" you
must de-commission or mothball ships (at a safe harbor). A small deficit
(set beforehand) may be run up to get ships to friendly ports to be
"mothballed". If the deficit is overran, all ships in the fleet are at a
penalty (and have a penalty on moral).

While unrealistic, this makes bookeeping easy.

> On Thu, 27 Mar 1997, James Butler wrote:

> I don't see anything wrong with writing rules that keep

On a related note: Does everyone else live in a big city with hundreds of
gamers?

Well, I live in a relatively large city, but I certainly don't see people
lining up to play FT. I have to buy and paint *all* the models to

get anyone play anything besides GW :-( Good thing I like collecting
models.

If I stopped playing with anyone optimising, I'd stop playing, period.

Let's face it: The fact that you *can* optimize, means the system is either
somehow flawed, or its *intention* is to encourage optimization.

Honor codes and such are very nice, I follow a certain set myself, but i

wouldn't dream of imposing them on someone else. Clear cut rules are another
matter.

> Mikko wrote:

> Let's face it: The fact that you *can* optimize, means the system is

No, the intention was to give players as "open" a system as possible -
what each group wants to do with it is up to them. As to the flaws, IMHO
virtually ANY system is capable of being manipulated for optimisation (except
one as tight a chess, ref: earlier posts!); if you can design one that isn't,
we'd love to see it:)!!!

> Honor codes and such are very nice, I follow a certain set myself, but

The jury still seems to be out on this one - judging by responses so
far, "forcing" players into sensible fleets with rules legislation seems to
get the thumbs down (as it does from me), so I guess this is just one penalty
we'll have to pay for keeping the system so flexible. The Powergamers will
never go away, so we may have to settle for gentle education (pass me the
pickaxe handle.....)
> --

<<<Barring all of this, we just need a good set of campaign rules. Hint hint,
nudge nudge to Jon;)>> I'll second that!!

Jon,

I don't think you need to add this kind of stuff into the rules. I DO think
(as you have certainly noticed by my recent posts) that the Cap ships need to
be tweaked down just a bit. I also think, after getting comments from folks,
that a good campaign system might address the problem "naturally." With a few
variations to the campaign system, folks could play different war scenarios.
The possibilities are vast and would be a lot of fun exploring. In campaign A
are "big guns" better or something else. In campaign B is it better to be more
aggressive or more defensive? A good campaign system could really stretch FT
into another dimension (pardon the pun).

If such a system where translated to the computer some really fun
Mega-campaigns could open up
where a few folks playing the campaign by email over the computer could hook
up with a few gaming groups playing FT on the table. The table folks would
play out the FT battles and report the results back to the campaign folks.

Paul

> At 08:33 PM 3/28/97 +0000, you wrote:

> If such a system where translated to the computer some really fun

I've played in campaigns like that before. One set of players moves
the units on the strategic/operational level and makes that level of
decision making and another set of players plays out the battles. The problem
that occured in our games was that one set of tactical players was just much
much better than the other set and they only played their original respective
sides. No matter the numeric advantage the strategic guys gave their tactical
boys, they just themselves blown away. Every battle gave the other side a
greater and greater material advantage and that was all she wrote.

While I'm telling "bad campaign stories":

There were two Star Fleet Battles campaigns (I won't duck, I enjoyed SFB even
with its flaws, I just find FT better) that collapsed because of early defeats
to one side. In one tactical tournament campaign, a player surrendered his
ship to me and they need to cost the defeat for point purposes and asked me if
I destroyed his ship or captured it. Naturally I said I captured it. When they
tallied up points it was revealed that that player no longer had a chance to
win the tournament campaign and he quit on the spot which threw everything
into chaos because they had carefully paired everyone up and figured other
people would quit as time wore on.

A second campaign collapsed when we circumvented enemy (Kzinti)
forces by sending a Lyran fleet through the Lyran-Klingon neutral zone
to attack an undefended Kzinti starbase from behind. We took out the starbase
and our forces on the front were able to hold a gap in the line long enough
for us to link up with them and fall back to Lyran space. We had suffered very
few casualties and gutted the Kzinti's defenses. They (the entire side)
immediately quit.

Has anyone else experienced this? It seems to be the way a lot of
our old board games went as well--one big battle involving most of both
sides' forces and whoever lost quit.

        James

Just a quick additional two cents on the subject. In my campaign, we limit all
classes of ships. No single class of ship may outnumber the combined total of
all other ships in the fleet OR task force. So, if a force has 10 ships, 5
could be capitals, but the other 5 would have to be cruisers or escorts. The
biggest complaint is NOT the large number of capital ships, but rather that we
can't get enough escorts into the battle.

-- John I.

<<from a post by Win Barker --

or campaign games, replenishment ships should be mandatory. Modern Battle
Groups always have them floating around. A Captain should have someone else to
look after besides his own ship.>>

I agree theoretically. However, since FT allows you to fire through enemy
(or friendly) ships, thin-skinned transports have no survivability.
Now, if they could be screened by escorts and light cruisers, then I'd use
support ships in virtually every scenario. What we've come up with is that,
because of the complete vulnerability of support ships on the board, the
screening battle is fought out between escorting and intercepting fleets while
the support ships are still off the board.

-- John I.

> On Fri, 28 Mar 1997, Ground Zero Games wrote:

> Mikko wrote:

> >Honor codes and such are very nice, I follow a certain set myself,

I would like to see this addressed somehow in the rules. My preference would
be for a set of suggestions on how to handle the "problem". Several different
methods could be suggested and players could choose (and modify) the one that
best fits their preferences. I would agree with what seems
to be the prevailing opinion that one set-in-stone ruling would be heavy
handed and only fit one style of play.

This is a little off topic.

I have been trying to work out some campaign rules that would require players
operate "support ships" (aka merchant vessels) with their fleets.
I tentively decided to require each fleet/battle group have 30% of its
mass invested in support ships. Support ships generate commerce points equal
to half their mass each
"round" of the campaign.   The commerce points are used to repair and
purchase new ships.

James Butler writes (edited for brevity):

@:)   There were two Star Fleet Battles campaigns that collapsed
@:) because of early defeats to one side. In one tactical tournament @:)
campaign, a player surrendered his ship to me.... When they @:) tallied up
points it was revealed that that player no longer had a @:) chance to win the
tournament campaign and he quit on the spot....
@:)
@:) A second campaign collapsed when we circumvented enemy @:) (Kzinti) forces
... to attack an undefended Kzinti starbase from @:) behind. We took out the
starbase and our forces on the front were @:) able to hold a gap in the line
long enough for us to link up with @:) them and fall back to Lyran space. We
had suffered very few @:) casualties and gutted the Kzinti's defenses. They
(the entire @:) side) immediately quit.
@:)
@:) Has anyone else experienced this? It seems to be the way a
@:) lot of our old board games went as well--one big battle involving
@:) most of both sides' forces and whoever lost quit.

We have certainly experienced this and we have tried various methods for
avoiding it. It is probably worth noting that this kind of campaign is an
accurate simulation of most wars, especially naval wars, throughout most of
history. What it doesn't simulate is the "good wars" like WWII where the
opponents pounded on each other for years and no one would ever give up. But I
think your typical smaller scale war usually ends when one side's capitol or
major industrial center is taken, more along the lines of France and Poland in
WWII than the Eastern front.

So as far as your second example is concerned, not only do I think your Kzinti
player did the right thing by giving up, but I think your side did an
excellent job of winning the campaign at the strategic level. Bravo! Campaigns
shouldn't be won just at the tactical combat
level - if they are then you might as well just have a tactical combat
tournament. If you can manouver your forces so that it is impossible for them
to lose the battle, you should obviously win. If it looks like you can do this
repeatedly, your opponent should give up.

The tournament thing is trickier. In the wormhole campaign that I've mentioned
earlier we started with five players. After three or four turns, two of the
players had been eliminated (one was truly destroyed and one was hopelessly
crippled). Some time later a third player was badly injured. Meanwhile I was
in second place, so I worked out a deal with the little guy and together we
managed to fend off the winning player. I was quite pleased to see that a
damaged fleet could still play a major role in the campaign, and I think
that's probably the best way to go in these abstract situations - when
one player gets too small to be able to win, combine the forces of the two
smallest players and continue. At least everyone keeps playing that way.

> On Mon, 31 Mar 1997, Joachim Heck - SunSoft wrote:

> We have certainly experienced this and we have tried various methods

One thing I am working on now is a campaign that would try to duplicate the
"island hopping" of WWII. The idea is to stop players from massing one large
fleet and then going for the kill on the enemy homeworld on turn one. Instead
we wanted this to be about destroying (and building) colonies and other
support networks in order to advance your war effort. We are using a system in
which each colony can support the maintenance needs of a fleet out to a
certain distance. To move beyond that distance costs a high amount of
maintenance points and the freighters needed to transport it (possible, but
expensive). This system allows for deep strikes into enemy territory to hit
key targets, but makes it very hard to launch a full scale invasion without
doing the ground work. Seems to be working out.

> On Thu, 27 Mar 1997, Ground Zero Games wrote:

> Does anyone feel we should actually legislate on things like

Legislate? No.

Give an indication of what is a "reasonable" fleet composition? Yes.

If you game in a fixed background - say Star Wars, or B5 - all involved
know roughly what is "reasonable" in that universe. We all know how
god-awfully powerful Star Destroyers are, and we all know roughly what a

Star Fury is capable to. A game set in such a universe has to take this into
account.

Jon probably has a very clear idea of how things work in the "official" FT
universe, and thus of what he thinks is "reasonable". The problem is that many
of us either have no idea, or have very different ideas of what "reasonable"
is. Try gaming the battles in David Weber's "Armageddon Inheritance", for
example; those fleets certainly aren't "reasonable" in

the FT universe - but they are, or at least one of them is, given the
background in that book.

If the background is created for use with a set of rules - like the
Starfire background is, and I suspect most home-grown Full Thrust
backgrounds are too (mine certainly is!) - the rules, both the design
rules and the actual games mechanics, determine what a "reasonable" design or
fleet mix would be. After all, I doubt if many players intentionally make
their "own" races look any more stupid than they have

to (...well, there are exceptions - look at the early Orion designs in
Starfire <g>). The universe is molded in such a way that the game is a good
simulation of it.

If the design rules and games mechanics make one type of unit better
than the others, well - since the game is a simulation of the
background, then the warship designers will, in all likelyhood, have noticed
that that type is better than others... and that will (since the same
designers don't want to be court-martialled or fired (at)) lead to a
preponderance of that type.

I've seen it in Starfire, where the 80 HS Battlecruiser and the 200 HS Monitor
were the only ships you ever built (the BC because it was the biggest thing
you could build with speed 6, which was the fastest any ship could go; and the
MT because it was the biggest thing you could build,
period - but you didn't lose that much mobility with the MT, either). We

solved that by adjusting the ship design rules - not by very much, but
enough to make other units than those two reasonable. Starfire is very
much a campaign game, too, so the problem with one-off battles didn't
come into play here.

I think the solution for FTIII is to make sure that the design system
works - ie, that units are costed at least fairly close to their combat
power. If a given unit is god-powerful, then it should cost... lots. The

enemy could, for the same amount of "points", get a LOT of weaker ships.

Yes, it is hard to make such a system. Yes, it will need lots and lots of
playtesting - I know how much work the new Starfire hull tables took,
and
a re-balancing of Full Thrust will need more work still. Even so, I
don't really see any other way.

Regards,

> On Fri, 28 Mar 1997, Ground Zero Games wrote:

> Mikko wrote:

Most systems can be manipulated for optimisation, but Full Thrust is one
of the easiest to so manipulate - at least of the starship combat games
I've come across so far. Starfire (well, I apologize for bringing up Starfire
here on the FT list, but that's where I have most of my game
design experience) has the same problems - only a few weapons and ship
types were worthwhile, but by a little adjusting here, a few cost changes
there, and some re-designed weapons in different places we are
overcoming
the problems. The goal (for us Starfire designers) is to make equal-cost
forces equal in combat power... but different designs have to be played very
differently to use that combat power efficiently; thus ensuring game variety.
Life becomes hard for the "power gamers" then.

With the current FTII design rules:

* A batteries are the best beam weapon class. No competition from Bs or Cs. *
Railguns are... well. The Best, you might say. * Capital ships last too long,
compared to their costs. Superships are
  even worse/better, depending on your point of view.

Solution? Balance the design system better! The A batteries have already been
taken care of. Make capitals more vulnerable, or more expensive, or both. Tone
down missile swarms a bit... and so on. The power gamers will probably still
find some sort of "ultimate" unit, but the when the
difference - in combat power - between their units and other, more
"sensible" designs, decreases tactics once more comes into play.

Later,

How about accounting for the possibility that a ship may not be fully
functional in time for a battle? Maybe they've run out of hydrospanners to fix
the dodgy hyperdrive, or the ship's been overrun with moties. Or, quite
simply, that ship was needed elsewhere for a more important engagement.

If there's a 1 in 3 (or 1 in 6, or 5 in 6 (!)) chance of each ship you've
planned to send to the battle won't be there, then its a large investment
risking everything in a big ship which might not make it.

This chance could be modified by ship class, or possibly how 'optimal' the
ship is. A batteries might be better than everything else, but they're
finicky, and need overhauling more often than anything else. A ship with lots
of A batts has greater chance of being in for its MOT. You could also (or
alternatively) increase the chance of the more powerful
weapons being taken out in threshold checks (maybe +1 to
the die roll for A bats and pulse torps).

Another idea: Where ships come out of FTL is predictable, and small ships come
out first. This gives a balanced fleet with lots of escorts and cruisers
chance to get into
position _behind_ where the other guys fleet of capital
ships is coming out, with missiles, mines and what not else already deployed
and ready to hit him where it hurts before he's even aware that battle has
been joined.

Actually, I like this idea a _lot_ better than the first
one, since it's not prone to a few bad die rolls crippling your entire fleet
before the battle.