[GZG] Gzg-l Digest, Vol 35, Issue 11

On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 1:37 AM,  <gzg-l-request@mail.csua.berkeley.edu>
wrote:

> Ah, John John John. It's too bad neither of us will be around long

If you're going to do that, treat them as powered armor and include a fire
control system basically the same as a vehicle's.

Problem solved.

> WRT the substance of his argument, I think I'll start by pointing out

Right. I personally think laser weapons are one of the stupider
tropes of science fiction - a weapon which explodes if there is dust
on the emitter is NOT one of my fantasies--do you KNOW where I am
these days? IIRC, there was someone about 10 or 12 years ago on this
list who made a bet regarding near-future battlefield laser weapons
and now owes me money. You could much more easily stabilize a laser weapon
than one which propels a physical projectile downrange. I concede the point.

> For mini-missiles and plasma weapons, these are sufficiently

Minimissles don't need much stabilization if they have guidance.:)

> OK so that leaves conventional firearms. I'm proposing two possible

Right.  And if you're running cross-country, the mechanism necessary
to correct for the amount of movement you are inducing is going to be several
times larger than the weapon, and require its own power source. Unless you're
going to Star Trek levels of technology and
postulating tractor beams which lock it in place.    And is the
receiver moving as well?  If not, how is extraction/ejection/reloading
going to work? If so, what isn't moving, and what precisely is it pushing
against when it moves? Those same unsteady arms that can't hold it still in
the first place?

> The other strategy is what I'd call "fire-by-wire", where you

If you're postulating that level of AI in the fight, why do you have people
still left on the battlefield?

For SGII to be a game with a point, you need to have human beings involved in
the process somehow. If you let the computer make the
shoot/no shoot decision with the idea that it's anywhere near that
reliable, you're going to remove the primary reason for human beings to be
involved. At that point, replace all your little people with tiny tracked or
hover robots and remove all morale and psychology rules. You'll find yourself
playing a very different game.

Your premise reduces the Soldier's role to 'carry the rifle to the battlefield
and let it do all the thinking'. Simply carrying a rifle is something that can
be done better, even with today's technology, by a robot. So why would you
expose your human population to the danger of combat unless there is something
that robots simply cannot do?

I've been on this list for what, 14 years? Every so often there's a "well,
this technology is conceivable, and it would totally revolutionize warfare,
and it should be modeled in Stargrunt!" thread. And then someone comes up with
a countermeasure, and so on and so on. And a lot of them turn down this rabbit
hole pretty quick. If we were to presume infinitely advanced technology, our
game would devolve to masses of undifferentiated grey goop fighting it out
electronically. Plausible given enough technology, but uninteresting.

Like it or not, Stargrunt is not infinitely flexible. There's a limit to the
technology it can model well. And one of the limits is that the game is based
on the premise that People Matter. Troop quality in general trumps technology
so long as it's not an outright stone spear vs. machine gun dichotomy. Morale
matters. Suppression, a core game mechanic, relies on the fact that human
beings take cover when shot at, as a general rule. Take people out of the
equation. Feel
free--but do not be surprised if the model breaks and you start
running into problems game mechanic wise. It also loses a lot of the interest,
coming down to a more mechanical analysis of competing systems.

My basic problems in the game with the idea of stabilized small arms is based
on the idea that small arms are small arms. There are going to be incremental
improvements. Hell, even massive improvements. But fundamentally changing them
by installing a stabilization system will change how you have to model small
arms fire and thus a core mechanic of the system. In effect, every rifle will
now need to be treated as
a stabilized vehicle mounted system with a fire control.   And then
people wouldn't carry it, because it's going to be so complex, expensive, and
need such a steady platform, that you need to have it on powered armor. Or
small vehicles.

In real life, I just don't see how you can stabilize something that is hand
carried and requires the entire barrel, chamber, receiver, magazine, and
buffer to be in a certain relationship with each other in order to operate
smoothly. It's simply not feasible without a lot of hand waving. I don't mind
magic weapons, but I prefer them to stay in my D&D games.