Hi Scott,
The basic rules don't mention any 'strategic' stuff, like comms, at all.
I've always been quite comfortable with interstellar communications moving at
the speed of the fastest courier ship. Gives a bit of delayed reaction for
fleet movements so that, as someone else has pointed, a command system
of pre-plotted moves, such as in Fifth Frontier War, models the
communication lag quite nicely.
> Of course, a lot of that depends on the existence and nature of FTL
Ursula Le Guin's 'ansible' (sp?) communication system was much like a (very)
long distance telephone call. So word of the invasion would come through, like
via telegraph, and then the fleet would be dispatched and would still
have to move to the point of contact - possibly better for a campaign
where the players are both strategic commanders and fleet commanders and want
to know what's happening each move. If the ansible system required a gravity
well or very long array (ie orbit diametre) to work, then the fleets would be
out of contact with the High Command until they managed to hook up with the
local 'telegraph' office.
> Is it possible/feasible to detect an invading fleet before they drop
In one of the back-files, someone coined a lovely phrase for the
bow-wave of
an FTL ship or fleet re-entering real-space - but I can't remember it
David Weber calls it a hyper foot-print, but I'm sure there is a more
elegant term for it.
The suggestion was that this might be detectable up to several hours before
re-entry so defenders might begin to react but were unlikely to be able
to
intercept immediately on re-entry (unless unfortunate enough to be right
under the re-entry point).
Regards
> On 7/29/05, David Billinghurst <davebill@clear.net.nz> wrote:
> I've always been quite comfortable with interstellar communications
Here's the problem.
In history, where nations were large enough and comms primitive enough for
there to be a significant time lag, local commanders had a LOT of leeway. In
some cases, as of certain times and places in the British Empire, the local
officials could provoke a war, fight it, and impose peace terms before the
central government could figure out precisely what was happening.
An interstellar empire of that size would rely heavily on an officer corps
highly trained and with a thorough doctrinal background so that they will make
the right decision even if it contradicts orders from the central government.
So written orders, unless they approach the complexity of real OPORDS, will
never capture what a system like that really is. If the local commander is
smart and lucky he'll be taking advantage of opportunities that the central
government cannot predict. If he's a
well-bred idiot, then he'll be misunderstanding and otherwise screwing
up even the best orders.
The other issue is that the local commander will be making those decisions
based on his knowledge of local conditions, not strategic, which the player
(as the central government) sees.
Personally, grand strategic games give me a splitting headache and I'll leave
them for them what like that stuff.
> David Billinghurst wrote:
Agreed. That mechanism is so elegant. It gets the job done and it gets it done
painlessly.
http://www.projectrho.com/game/fifthfrontierwar.html
> If the ansible system required a gravity
IIRC in the "Renegade Legion" wargames, they take this to extremes. The FTL
communication installations are actually the main thing of value that the
various sides are fighting over.
> In one of the back-files, someone coined a lovely phrase for the
Oh, now I'm not going to be able to rest until it turns up. In an old Murray
Leinster short story (about a dog named "Buck")