G'day all,
All this recent talk of using cards for Admirals has finally spurred me on to
polishing off some more bits of Erratic Thrust (Piquetised FT), thus I'd like
to hear your collective opinion on something (I can get a feeling for some of
this from the FB etc, but I wanted to hear what you guys had to
say).
a) What do you think the relative professionalism of the crews are - is
the NAC better than the ESU etc? Or are all the major powers about the same
and the difference lies in the minor powers? Or is it UNSC the best then the
NAC followed by NSL/FSE, with ESU a little after them? And as for the
minor powers are there some that are exceptionally professional, say NI, while
others are pretty poor, relatively speaking - say IF or PAU? Remember
this is all relative so all the crews may well be top notch, just some are a
few shades better than others (and its that few shades that's gonna count come
the pointy end of a laser time)
b) What do you think the relative qualities of the actual ships are -
for this I mean two things
- 1st is one navies going to be consistently better reliabailty wise
than
anothers (e.g. UNSC's are breath-taking whereas you can hear the rivets
rattle in those of the ESU)?
- 2nd would particular classes, may be the very old or the very new, be
more unreliable than others? Maybe the Suffren, say, is really reliable that's
why its lasted in service for so long, but the Jeanne d'Arc ain't so good and
that's why they lost two inthe 'ambush'.
Thanks
Beth
> a) What do you think the relative professionalism of the crews are -
There are three issues here: a) how good are the crews; b) how good are the
captains; c) how good are the admirals.
As far as crew quality among the Big Four, I'd say NAC is best, followed
closely by NSL, with FSE only meriting "good" and ESU "adequate". Even the
best of the PAU and IF won't be as good as the normal NAC crew, although they
might beat an average FSE crew.
As far as the minors go, I'd say New Israel will be decent (because they have
incentive to practice) and Alarish is pretty good (because Alarishi are more
familiar with operating in space than normal people, and because they know the
navy is essentially their only line of
defense)--a few crews from either nation might perhaps make it up to
NSL level. Most minor nations--despite the "we're small but we can
whip anybody our size" syndrome--simply will not be up to Big Four
standards because they won't have the funds to practice or the variety
of institutional combat experience. Well, maybe up to ESU standards.
In all cases, you won't be able to rate "all NSL crews get an 8 on a
1-10 scale", because individual ship captains will have a lot to do
with their ships' quality. You might give a leeway of +/- 2 rating
points, perhaps.
On the other hand, the NAC probably doesn't have the best admirals. Just a lot
of them.
If someone can HTML-ize a form where we can take a poll rating the
various nations, where " 1 " means "you'd be better off arming your
merchantmen" and "10" means "an active, experienced crew from a
long-standing professional navy tradition", that would be really
interesting.
G'day,
> There are three issues here: a) how good are the crews; b) how good
OK to clarify a little in Erratic Thrust crews would be given a general
rating (Green/Regular/Good/Elite) before the game and Admirals wood be
rated on a scheme Abysmal - Superior. As for the actual quality I was
after,its more a mash of how well the crews and captains work together and
even blends in available materials etc too. So I was looking for a rating, say
using 1- 5 (as that best suits the granularity I'm using), where 1 =
unlikely to accomplish unsual or difficult tasks and 5 = pretty much do
anything asked of them).
> As far as crew quality among the Big Four, I'd say NAC is best,
Now is this in the sense of green/regular/good etc or in the
unlikely/sometimes/mostly complete difficult task sense?
Most minor nations--despite the "we're small but we can
> whip anybody our size" syndrome--simply will not be up to Big Four
Yep I agree there, I just wasn't sure if there was one particular force (Japs
or something say) which had a reputation for being "cracking" despite their
small size.
> In all cases, you won't be able to rate "all NSL crews get an 8 on a
> with their ships' quality. You might give a leeway of +/- 2 rating
That'd actually be covered more in the green/reg/good/elite rating
rather
than what I was aiming for I think - well actually I guess it'd be in
this other thing too to some extent, but I want to keep this general (national
charcteristics level) and so individual crew detail will be kept linked to
the green/reg/good rating.
> On the other hand, the NAC probably doesn't have the best admirals.
This'll be reflected in their command quality rating (abysmal-superior)
-
NAC more likely to have better than average leaders (though they can still
throw the odd dunderhead too)
> If someone can HTML-ize a form where we can take a poll rating the
That'd be great! I could have a try tonight, but html is something I'm new at
so I can't promise what it'll look like. Alternatively you could fill in the
following and send it to MY email address ( beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au) and I
could collate the results and post them more generally (should've done this in
the first place!).
Cheers
Beth
> [quoted text omitted]
FT National crew and ship characteristics:
1. Crew quality? Please use a 1-5 scale where 1=mostly poorly trained
troops (either militia or green) and 5=mostly elite crews (top of the line,
well trained and very experienced) ESU FCT FSE IC IF JAP LLAR KNG (Dutch) NAC
NI NSL OU PAU RH SWISS UNSC
Other..<name>.....
2. Leadership quality (admirals)?
Please use a 1-5 scale where 1=mostly bad leaders (abysmal who lack
training/intelligence/charisma) and 5=mostly terrific leaders (well
educated/quick thinkers/men would follow them to hell and back)
ESU FCT FSE IC IF JAP LLAR KNG (Dutch) NAC NI NSL OU PAU RH SWISS UNSC
Other..<name>.....
3. General professionalism?
Please use a 1-5 scale where 1 = vessel unlikely to accomplish unsual or
difficult tasks and 5 = pretty much do anything asked of them. ESU FCT FSE IC
IF JAP LLAR KNG (Dutch) NAC NI NSL OU PAU RH SWISS UNSC
Other..<name>.....
4. Vessel reliabilty?
Please use a 1-5 scale where 1 = board at own risk and 5 = made to last
.
ESU FCT FSE IC IF JAP LLAR KNG (Dutch) NAC NI NSL OU PAU RH SWISS UNSC
Other..<name>.....
5. Ability to make the best of opportunities (say to capitalise on anothers
mistake to get a shot in etc)?
Please use a 1-5 scale where 1 = wouldn't know an opportunity they fell
over it and 5 = give them an inch and they'll make it a golden mile. ESU FCT
FSE IC IF JAP LLAR KNG (Dutch) NAC NI NSL OU PAU RH SWISS UNSC
Other..<name>.....
> On Wed, 5 Jan 2000, Laserlight wrote:
> As far as the minors go, I'd say New Israel will be decent (because
Plus NI, has a strong tradition of a well trained and well motivated conscript
army.
> NSL level. Most minor nations--despite the "we're small but we can
One thing I should note here. Any nation that has split off of a larger nation
state, should have similar if not better assets than that nation.
(depending on the wealth of that smaller nation state). Take the US after the
break off from the UK. We had a small navy, but we were excellent and better
fitted out than the average RN vessel. They had to spread manpower (always in
short supply) across many ships. The US on the other hand had
12 frigates with a full compliment of hand picked crews and the best officers
(trained by RN service in several cases). The RN could beat us if they got us
outnumbered, but pinning down a well crewed USN frigate in the Carribean when
most of their assets were busy with france and other wars was a nightmare.
This is underlined quite significantly in the Captain from Conneticut by C.S.
Forester.
I can See Free Cal Tex having fewer men of war, but with an appreceably higher
grade as they have training already and a viable source of knowledge already.
They would have better ships than the
> On the other hand, the NAC probably doesn't have the best admirals.
But with a lot, there are probably a great number of good, if not excellent
admirals. A strong tradition will also have a strong ability to produce
excellent admirals.
One thing I keep seeing come up, the NAC has many more ships, now I see the
NAC has better crews and better officers.
Is this really the way we want to go? Do we want NAC to be the force that
everyone wants to play because they are better than everyone else? Some
balance would be nice...
> On Thu, 6 Jan 2000, Roger Books wrote:
> One thing I keep seeing come up, the NAC has many more ships, now
The NAC is bigger and better, but is spread out far more than the others. As
was the case for the RN during the American Revolution. Had GB not been
occupied elsewhere, we'd have not likely won as quickly as we had. The war of
1812 wouldn't have been as easy either.
Having a big empire leads to needing many many vessels.
> From Laserlight:
> As far as the minors go, I'd say New Israel will be decent (because
Bite your tongue, my friend. "Decent" indeed.
> Most minor nations--despite the "we're small but we can
But _some_ of them will be. Any small nation that's had to struggle
since day one has to be able to say that phrase and be right, or they wouldn't
be around in the 2180's. I'd count NI and Japan both in that category (maybe
Taiwan, if it survives), and would assume Alarish has, as with its many and
varied populations, a wide cross section, from among the best of the best,
to bucket-jockeys.
Here's my take for NI on Beth's scale. Crew Quality: 5 (only the top 2% of
navy personnel crew ships of the line)
Leadership Quality: Average 4, range 3-5 (Mercs: 5)
Professionalism: I think professionalism is a direct result of Leadership
quality and the two should be combined. A poor crew can be whipped into shape
by a good leader, and a poor leader can undermine the quality of a good crew.
Vessel Reiability: 2130-2150: 3; 2150-2170: 4; 2170-present: 5
Opportunism: This has got to be leader- or commander-dependent. I don't
think an entire fleet can be genearlized in this way.
Many of these qualities can be considered abstracted out by the point value
system. The rest are basically up to the individual players. If you want to
say an ESU ship is truly less reliable than a NAC equivalent, then you'd could
rationalize the near equal point values in different ways. Say 1 out of every
4 ESU ships is down for repair at any given time, but the
cost of any one ESU ship is in fact 3/4 what's shown in the FB. You just
need 4 of them to fulfill the roles of any 3 NAC ships. You abstract that out
and get equivalent costs for effectively equivalent ships. This plays around
with the ship data some in the FB, but allows you to tune things to the flavor
you want.
> Noam wrote:
> Opportunism: This has got to be leader- or commander-dependent. I
It definitely can. The culture and doctrine of each fleet includes among other
things its opinions on opportunism, individual thought and
risk-taking.
Compare the Cold War Soviet ground combat doctrine with its NATO equivalent,
or early WW2 French vs Germans, or for an SF example take the Peeps vs the
Manticorans. In both cases one side expected its officers to execute fairly
detailed orders without showing too much own initiative while the other
expected them to achieve an objective
without interfering that much with exactly how it was achieved - IOW,
one side had a low opportunism rating while the other had a high opportunism
rating.
Of course there were exceptions in all these cases, but that's handled by
using a range rather than a fixed value.
Regards,
> Roger Books wrote:
> One thing I keep seeing come up, the NAC has many more ships, now
On the other hand, the NAC consistently uses smaller and weaker ships than
just about everyone else would send for the same tasks. They need the higher
crew quality and larger numbers of ships just keep competitive <G>
Regards,
> a) What do you think the relative professionalism of the crews are - is
I'd say that IF we were to make a difference for such things, we'd want to
make it much more simple. Say that the 1st line powers
(NAC/ESU/NSL/FSE/UN)
have roughly the same overall efficiency, along with one or two of the smaller
powers that have a really good reason to be at that level (perhaps
NIS).
Then there would be the second tier powers. And that's all.
I you attempt to make it more granular than that, it destroys FT's simplicity.
> b) What do you think the relative qualities of the actual ships are -
This I definitely think is way too much of a headache to model at game scale.
> On 6-Jan-00 at 11:28, Oerjan Ohlson (oerjan.ohlson@telia.com) wrote:
Maybe in the theoretical picture, but in Real Life (tm) we buy our ships by
point value and the same point value ship with better officer and crew ratings
is not the same point value ship.
IMNSHO if you want better crew values they should cost more points (extra
training costs) in proportion to how much better they are and how large the
ship is, this should definately be in force in a campaign game.
> Noam wrote:
The usual description is "pull vs push". In ground combat, a "pull" army is
one in which the recon units find gaps and "pull" into the openings the bigger
formations which support them. In a "push" army, you usually know where the
bigger formation is going to go, and you hope you can find or create a gap
there. Israeli army is traditionally "pull", Russian is the classic "push".
Push is much simpler and vastly more common, even in armies which claim to
espouse "pull" doctrine.
> From Laserlight:
Okay, so you're indecent, but I didn't want to mention it.
> Most minor nations--despite the "we're small but we can
Not necessarily the case since the universe is not limited to
two powers. There are alliances and protectorates and so
forth.
> Taiwan, if it survives), and would assume Alarish has, as with
> to bucket-jockeys.
Alarish's crews are pretty good, partly because the rank structure is taken
from the Israeli model, partly because just about everyone is familiar with
basic ship systems, and partly because we spend megacredits quite freely to
get the best. Since a large part of the fleet budget comes from the Emperor's
personal finances, no one complains. Except the Poor Claires, who are
pacifists. And most of the population of New LA, who are flakey. And the
Radical Lesbian Collective, but they complain about everything.
> Roger Books wrote:
> IMNSHO if you want better crew values they should cost more points
> Laserlight wrote:
Actually the NI fleet is really overrated. It's just that
nobody wants to beat the NI fleet because they might have to occupy NI land,
and then the war really starts!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bye for now,
> Laserlight wrote:
> Since a large part of the fleet budget comes from the Emperor's
Sounds a lot like the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. Let's see
- Crew Quality 8/10
- Equipment Quality 10/10
- Organisation er... do you allow negative numbers?
> Laserlight wrote:
Alan Brain remarked:
> Sounds a lot like the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War.
Oh, the Navy is organized. So is the Army. Quite a few of the local militias
are organized, to some degree, one way or another. John Atkinson did suggest
the Alarishi militia contingent in any battle could be "every figure you
own--ancients, modern, whatever--in random clumps", but I think
that's a tad harsh, myself, I wouldn't include horse cavalry. Not many,
anyway.
Now, the politics are disorganized.
> Laserlight wrote:
> Alan Brain remarked:
> Oh, the Navy is organized. So is the Army.
Interesting Chain of Command though. Do the Radical Feminist Collective insist
on only following orders of a Female Admiral? Or when in command, do they
sacrifice the expendable males? Does everyone get a vote on what orders to
obey?
Then again, this could all be pure propaganda, misinformation to cause an
opponent to underestimate them <g>
[quoted original message omitted]
From: "Oerjan Ohlson" <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com>
> Opportunism: This has got to be leader- or commander-dependent. I
> It definitely can. The culture and doctrine of each fleet includes
[examples snipped]
I see what you mean. After reading that and Laser's pull/push bit, it
sounds
like NI would be a 'pull' doctrine with a 3-5 out of 5 on the
Opportunism scale.
G'day guys,
Its great to see all these opinions and ideas coming out from everyone -
thanks! I'm not going to jump in a lot here as I want to see what you all
think
-
rather I'll report back at the end.
Having said that... I do want to straighten one thing out;)
I'm not exactly adding these features into standard FT as we know it, I'm
using them to base some Erratic Thrust tables on (that's my Piquet-FT
mesh) and that's why I asked the questions they way and at the level I did.
Hope
that clears things up a little - though I must admit it's probably a
fine comment on humans that once again we've managed to pull in the full
spectrum of "its too much" to "its not enough" detail;)
Have fun.
Beth
> On Fri, 7 Jan 2000, Alan E and Carmel J Brain wrote:
> Laserlight wrote:
for politics of all flavours taken to extremes, have a butcher's at 'The Star
Fraction', by Ken McLeod; i can't even begin to catalogue the
incredible mish-mash of political (and anti-political, post-political,
pseudo-political, etc) groups described. it's almost comical. oh, and
it's a really good hard sf novel, too.
tom
Alan Brain remarked (concerning Alarish):
> > >Sounds a lot like the Republican side in the Spanish Civil
Yes, once--when you join up. Each Alarishi culture has
different rules and social/political structures, and the Army
and the Navy are just another couple of cultures. Adults are generally free to
move to a different culture, except when they have contracturally committed
themselves otherwise. Some cultures, of course, have very few people leave to
join the military, either because of philosophical problems (Poor Claires) or
because the culture is so small (Jack Old Ron, population usually one although
he sometimes has a concubine or groupie for a few months). The Radical Lesbian
Collective, which peaked in population at about 200 and is back down to 20
or so, has never had anyone join the Service--or at least not
that either the RLC or the Service has ever admitted.
> Then again, this could all be pure propaganda, misinformation
The Alarishi pay a lot of attention to that. But everything we say is true.
> Laserlight wrote:
> Some
OTOH, IIRC Jack Old Ron is the one who has a fully-powered Class-3
turret in his backyard... sounds like one of the Fortress Command volunteers
<G>
Later,
> OTOH, IIRC Jack Old Ron is the one who has a fully-powered
And a couple of PDS, yes, and if you happen to have any spare
MT-EMP missiles, I could probably find you a buyer. Jack Old
Ron doesn't like to be disturbed while he's creating.
> At 11:46 AM 1/9/00 -0500, you wrote:
Okay, that does it. Jack Old Ron is now my Official Favorite Character in the
GZG Universe (Fan Division). Where'd you get the character idea (and the
name)?
> Okay, that does it. Jack Old Ron is now my Official Favorite
Name is a combination of Jon Ron, who is a real video producer in the Raleigh
NC area, plus Foul Old Ron from Terry Pratchett's Discworld....I'm not sure
how "Jack" got in there.
The character idea came from having to have a low end for the
Alarishi sovereignities' populations--the obvious low end is one
person. Who would have a desire to be left alone, and enough
money to enforce it? How about someone like George Lucas +
Robert Heinlein--that takes care of the money, and reading
Heinlein, you get the idea he wouldn't at all have minded having a Beam 3
handy.
So Jack Old Ron writes and creates multimedia epics, and doesn't take
uninvited guests. By the way, Oerjan, he's not a volunteer
for Defense Command--his Beam 3 and so forth cause his asteroid
to be listed as a Navigational Hazard.
> On Sun, 9 Jan 2000, Laserlight wrote:
> >Okay, that does it. Jack Old Ron is now my Official Favorite
the obvious low end, but not the actual low end. how about a sovereignty with
a population of zero? i am not familiar with the details of the Alarishi
constitution, but would it not be possible to have an empty
sovereignty? one that was set up by a non-zero number of people, all of
whom subsequently died or emigrated. this leaves an empty sov; it would
not stop existing, because by then, it would be enmeshed in the System -
it could still trade and communicate, it's just that none of the people who
ran it would be citizens of it; they would be citizens of other sovs, and
would either be resident aliens, or would run things remotely. the sov might
not even have a physical location. if this isn't too offensive, i wouldn't
mind drawing in some details.
peace, tom
> the obvious low end, but not the actual low end. how about a
No, because you can't define a culture of zero people. In Alarishi law, if
your sovereignity dies off, its real estate reverts back to the Imperium. The
immigration brochures don't much mention it, but sovereignities do die off.
Usually it's because the social model doesn't work too well, and people get
disenchanted and leave--when there are just a few left, they
either eventually die, or they change the social model and get more people to
participate. There have been a couple of cases
where a relatively populous sovereigntiy died off--Andros had a
plague, for example, and the Sovereignity With No Name got a little careless
with their antimatter before they even got their charter registered. In the
latter case, if course, there wasn't much in the way of real estate for the
Imperium to reclaim.
(snippage)
> if this isn't too offensive, i
We manage to get the Radical Lesbian Collective and the Knights Templar to get
along (different star systems, true), so how offensive could it be? If you can
come up with a convincing argument, the Emperor might be willing to grant an
exception.
You would think both of these would breed (or lack thereof) themselves out of
existance...
Neath Southern Skies - http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/
[mkw] Admiral Peter Rollins; Task Force Zulu
[pirates] Prince Rupert Raspberry; Base Commander
> -----Original Message-----
Brendan said, referring to the Radical Lesbian Collective and the Knights
Templar:
> You would think both of these would breed (or lack thereof)
themselves out
> of existance...
Exactly what's happening with the RLC, and they lose people to
catfights faster than they recruit them. Knights Templar--I'm
not sure if Brethren are allowed to marry after a certain point (along the
lines of the Army's unofficial dictum "captains may marry, majors should
marry, colonels must marry"), but they seem
to be getting more numerous--a response to the Kra'Vak threat.