It seems that mission creep is commonly found in big budget projects -
Cheyenne helicopter, International Space Station, etc. Is there a way
to simulate this in a GZG-verse campaign game?
For instance, if the form of government of a planet/country/political
entity allows nepotism or just plain pork-barrel politics how would you
factor in the procurement of extra units, above and beyond what the military
requests? i.e. you get 8 battlecruisers instead of the 6 requested, but the
military has to pay for those extra 2 because a
senator/bigwig decides the shipyard owned by one of his constituents
needs the extra work.
Or alternatively a specific modification is designed for tanks to be used in
the combat engineering role. It happens that the refit can only be done at the
factory. Instead of only refitting tanks going to the engineering batallions,
a bigwig decides that all the tanks need to be refitted "just in case". It
also happens that said factory employs his nephews.
A third case might be a space transport unit that halfway through the design
process acquires more armor to make it a limited assault transport. But this
reduces the top thrust from the original specification. Do you up the engines
or accept the decreased thrust?
In the first case, would there be minimum procurement amounts? For instance if
you commission a new class of cruiser, would you have to commit to 20 hulls
built in a 10 year period? Or would you have to buy tanks in 1000 unit lots?
In the second case, are there provisions for a unit that is designed one way
to have a flaw so that it doesn't meet the original specification and requires
a refit to bring it up to specification?
In the third case what do the design changes cost? In real life it costs a lot
of time, effort and money to make major design changes, especially as you get
further along in development. If lead times are years, should there be an
additional cost to make modifications to the
design? On another related thread, if you design multi-function
modules, do they always work as specified or do they have more teething
problems than dedicated systems and/or higher maintenance costs?
Some ideas,
--Binhan
> It seems that mission creep is commonly found in big budget projects -
It's easy to simulate. Simply boost all items (ship, tank, etc.) financial
cost be 1d10*10%. The adjusted cost will be the final cost for the batch
ordered. Future batches of the same design can be closer to the original
design.
> On Mon, Jul 01, 2002 at 02:19:08PM -0600, B Lin wrote:
> In the third case what do the design changes cost? In real life it
In my prototype campaign rules, I've said:
]Ship design
]
]Spend 2 x (ship RP value) to get a fully worked-up design and readiness
]to start construction. This takes one strategic turn.
]
]Ship modifications and refits
]
]A ship modification is treated as a removal and then replacement of
]components. Work out the point value of the removed components, and]that of
those which are added. The cost of designing and tooling up for
]this refit is equal to twice the total of these costs - though as a
]bonus, this makes the post-refit design available for construction from
]scratch without paying the full design cost for the new class.
]
]For example, if you are removing a pair of beam-1s in order to insert a
]3-arc beam-2, the cost is (2 x (6 + 6)) = 24 points.
]
]The cost of actually conducting the refit is the same value as
]calculated above - twice the total of (removed + added) systems.
]
]Note that some elements may not be changed in the refit process:
]specifically, the total hull mass and the number of hull boxes.
]
]Sa'Vasku are a special case. They may refit a ship to a larger hull]mass; if
all components of the old ship are used in the new ship (i.e.]nothing is
removed), they need only pay half the cost noted above, both]for design and
for construction.
I'd be interested to hear comments.
Cheers,
R
> At 2:19 PM -0600 7/1/02, B Lin wrote:
The alternate to this is that the government contracted for 10 initially, but
some of the senators cut it down, then they complained that the contract cost
too much per unit, so they kill the project entirely.
> Or alternatively a specific modification is designed for tanks to be
Or the crews perform mods in the field that aren't authorized and it works.
Unless you're casting and machining new major components. Little can't be
accomplished at depot level bases. Heck, there were
gun re-fits performed on Churchills in Egypt where the Howitzer and 2
pounder were swapped between mounts in the hull and turret iirc.
> A third case might be a space transport unit that halfway through
Very common. Scope creep pure and simple. Properly designed ships actually
have space left over in the design for additional weapon
fits as time goes on. Smart designers/builders include the conduits
and support infrastructure to allow for the fitment with minimal additions.
Most of that stuff is far easier to build into the ship than add on later.
Especiallly if you can hold the module upside down for the workers to work on
the components at floor level rather than over head.
The opposite of this is where the design is accomplished in a minimal of time
and there's a major issue. The Autoloader on the T62 (or was it the T72?) had
a certain taste for the gunner's arm and tended to take it into the breach.
> In the first case, would there be minimum procurement amounts? For
Ships are much larger components and don't get quite the same thing out of
economies of scale that tanks and aircraft do.
> In the second case, are there provisions for a unit that is designed
That's why you have product improvement cycles and design boards in the first
place. There's a balance between good feedback from the design board and the
end user and not enough. Just the same, you can spend so much time adding
features that have been requested that the vehicle has become a white
elephant.
> In the third case what do the design changes cost? In real life it
Depends on who builds them and if they cut corners in a good or bad way.
The campaign point I was trying to illustrate was that procurement might not
be as simple as "we need 2 cruisers and maybe 4 next year and sometime in the
future 4 more, let's just send the order in for 2 now". In real life, you'd
need some time to arrange such builds. It's unlikely that you'd have enough
slips to suddenly start 10 hulls in one year and then build none the next.
It's more likely that you have 3 slips available and you start one new hull
per year over the span of several years to keep the yards in continuous
operation rather than hiring and laying off workers every other year. It is in
the shipyards interest to know that they have projects that would last a
decade, rather than one year. It would allow them to spend capital on
effeciency improvements knowing that such efficienies could be applied for
more than one or even dozens of ships, thus increasing their profit. It's a
different matter if they are only building one of the type.
For instance if an older space shipyard still uses human welders and it
receives a contract for 1 destroyer, it is unlikely to buy expensive new
robotic welders that work twice as fast but cost a little more than twice as
much to buy (but maintenance costs are less than the human welders). If,
however, it receives a contract for 25 over 5 years, it becomes much more
economically viable to invest in a more expensive system if the new robotic
welders cost less in the long run, since the company knows it has a "long run"
of at least 5 years.
This is where the politics come in, the politician, having an interest in the
shipyard will try to pad the numbers for either more ships or longer
commitments to benefit the shipyard. Single or limited run production would be
limited to experimental prototypes or specially modified units that cost much
more than the standard item.
--Binhan
<SNIP> from Ryan:
> >In the first case, would there be minimum procurement amounts? For
> The alternate to this is that the government contracted for 10
Or you could get what Britain got just before WWI. The conservatives wanted 6
BB, the liberals wanted 4, so they compromised and got
....eight.
(bought 4, with a clause to buy another 4 under certain conditions, which
conditions promptly happened)
> At 6:27 PM -0400 7/1/02, Laserlight wrote:
Good thing too!
> It seems that mission creep is commonly found in big budget projects -
But the problem with mission creep is that the final design is more/less
than the original required - i.e. Bradley with bolt on armor, Paladin
reduced in size to be airliftable, Joint Strike Fighter needed to be carrier
adaptable (requiring a more robust landing gear and airframe for rougher
landings and arrester gear that is not rquired for the Air Force operating
from airfields.
Plus not every project suffers from creep, some actually stick to their
original requirements or close to it. I think the HumVee is a good example, it
was designed as a general utility vehicle and fills that role well without a
bunch of extra doodads standard. Perhaps a better number might be percentile
dice plus 100 as the final percentage cost for the project.
--Binhan
> -----Original Message-----
[quoted original message omitted]
--- "laserlight@quixnet.net" <laserlight@quixnet.net>
wrote:
> From: Damond Walker dwalker@syncretic.com
"Very interesting. We've awarded the revised contract
to your competitors who submitted the second-best bid.
You are under arrest on suspicion of high treason, charges and specifications
will follow. Our investigators will have more details after we've confiscated
the records that show exactally how each millarieson was spent. We'll see how
many of your
co-workers will be spending the next few decades with
you. I hope you enjoy their company."
> > Or 1d6, a 6 is "5 + reroll". "This frigate that was
John replied:
> "Very interesting. We've awarded the revised contract
The AE approach is more along the lines of financial penalties for over budget
and over schedule. This means that bids tend to be padded a bit, as insurance,
but it also means that we get predictable
[quoted original message omitted]
[quoted original message omitted]
> > The AE approach is more along the lines of financial penalties for
No, we buy from the best bid, not necessarily the lowest.
> Which means companies
What
> happens to the project then ? Another bone of contention is any
Change requests are always paid by the buyer.
> And now that he has the main contract, he can charge
Upgrades can go out for bid just like anything else. Documentation is owned by
the buyer, not the contractor. It may be fiscally advantageous to go back to
the original source, even if he's overcharging you...but you can always make
it clear that it'll be
> On Thu, 4 Jul 2002, Laserlight wrote:
> > > Or 1d6, a 6 is "5 + reroll". "This frigate that was
*cough*
Somewhat predictable?
*cough*
> On Thu, 4 Jul 2002, Laserlight wrote:
> > And now that he has the main contract, he can charge
But in the day of automation, paper copies/pdf files etc may be owned by
the buyer, whereas SOURCE files (e.g. word, framemaker, publisher, sgml,
datamodules etc - anything lending itself to easy adaptation) could be
owned by the seller... All depending on the contract you sign.
Cheers,
> > The AE approach is more along the lines of financial penalties for
Derk:
> *cough*
Not "predictable down to the cent"--just "predictable". It helps, of
course, that the AE does not recognize the UN and is therefore not bound by
the UN's restrictions on use of AIs. But I don't think we're
> But in the day of automation, paper copies/pdf files etc may be
Yep, I know. And so do our contractring agents. For AE military procurement,
normal procedure is that the AE gets the source and everything related
thereunto, then (usually) licenses further development back to the company
that developed the original.