The fleet book has superdreadnoughts and supercarriers which are in the 250
mass range class (plus a bit for a few ships). How high in mass are the big
ships you field and what has your experience been with them?
I play Federation miniatures, Geohex UN miniatures, B5 Earthforce miniatures
(as the UN), and a few others.
I'll start.
My Excelsior SDN, the UN SDN from Geohex, and my
Warlock SDN (from B5) are all about 265-270 so far.
I don't get them into battle all that often because they cost from 864
(Excelsior) to about 900 points
and our games are usually 1000-1500 pts. My experience
with them has been basically good. They take a pretty good pounding and can
deliver decent damage but not in an obviously unbalancing way. Their survival
rate does not seem to be higher than my other ships (since they tend to get
focussed on).
Having recently purchased a largish Enterprise-E
miniature, I'm considering upping the weight class a mite to something between
290 and 350.
We actually had a game the other night in which it turned out one of the
opposition ships was 620 mass! We killed it, but I felt afterward we should
have gotten a medal presented by Princess Leia. It wasn't really unbalancingly
powerful, but it DID have the advantage of firing all at once.
> David Griffin wrote:
> The fleet book has superdreadnoughts and supercarriers
We play straight out of the FB, so that's our limit. We've used capital ships
quite a bit, but I think that with the exception of my Komarov, they seem to
die pretty easily. That first threshhold check is a bear to get, but once
systems start to go down, that's a lot of eggs being broken in that single
basket.
> My Excelsior SDN, the UN SDN from Geohex, and my
I agree with the first part, but as to the second, my tendency is to smack the
smaller ships first, both because they're easier to kill, and it gives the
opposing force fewer firing options when it comes up.
> We actually had a game the other night in which it
Sure, but unless the person had a lot of Firecons, it's still limited in its
selection of targets (of course, with 620 mass, I suppose you could squeeze in
a *lot* of firecons if you chose).
A know problem in a great system.
I prefer enforcing some form of ratio in the battles, but that is just one
option.
Another is to apply a "surcharge" on large ships. You can set this at
whatever you like (10% for ships mass 100-199, 20% on ships 200-299,
etc.).
Another way is to add a multiplier to all ships. Such as add 2x mass to
normal ship cost. Thus a Harrison Scoutship (6m/21c) would have a game
value
of 33. A Valley Forge SDN (190m/642c) would have a game value of 1022. A
Uberdreadnought (600m/1500c) would have a game value of 3100.
-----
Brian Bell
-----
> -----Original Message-----
> --- mreindl@pacbell.net wrote:
...
> I agree with the first part, but as to the second,
I've seen that happen too.
...
> Sure, but unless the person had a lot of Firecons,
He had 10.
--- "Bell, Brian K (Contractor)"
> <Brian.Bell@dscc.dla.mil> wrote:
What's a know(n?) problem? That the ship fires all at once?
> I prefer enforcing some form of ratio in the
The problem there is that the ships are already balanced (except for stuff
that has already been
discussed to death -- savasku, freighters, etc.)
so with a surcharge, the person with the larger ships would almost always
lose, wouldn't he? Kind of an interesting idea though.
> The problem there is that the ships are already
Typically one will want "balanced" games in which the point-values of
fleets are balanced, i.e. each side has equivalent "power"; or in some cases,
different levels of power but then different objectives. But perhaps the
thing to consider is an economic rather than point-value balance.
If economic value scales (linearly) with mass or point value, then it's no
different than simply using mass or points (and note that mass already factors
into point value). But if the economic cost of a ship is, say, the point value
squared, then you get a situation where ship A has twice the point value of
ship B, but costs 4 times as much to produce.
Then just give everyone a million credits and let them buy what they want. The
point values will almost certainly not be equal, and the tendency will be to
get four Bs instead of one A. But do you get a thousand scoutships or
one dreadnaught...? Maybe squared is a bit steep, but then 3/2 power
requires a calculator and that's going overboard... Then again, you only need
to come up with that number once, at the end of the ship design phase, so once
you've got it (like NPV and TMF) it's recorded for posterity.
Anyone have data on the costs of real naval ships vs. size? Or the "power
spectrum" of naval ship sizes in a real fleet?
> --- Jerry Acord <acord@imagiware.com> wrote:
...
> Typically one will want "balanced" games in which
This idea that big ships are uneconomical to build is a popular one, but how
realistic is it? It seems to me that there is no particular reason to believe
that pound for pound it's more expensive to construct larger ships. In other
words, if it takes $100 to build a 100 mass ship, I see no reason why it would
take more than $200 to constuct a 200 mass ship. It might even cost less pound
for pound (only 1 bridge, only 1 ftl, etc. vs. 2 for building 2 100 massers)
Now the construction of a ship bigger than any ever constructed before will
have R&D delays (gee we've never built a grav drive that big), but that isn't
really a factor normally. It seems to me if you have a construction yard that
can build SDN's, then they can get pretty efficient about turning them out,
especially with modular construction techniques allowing parallelization of
the construction. Look how fast the world powers in WWI turned out their
Dreadnoughts. The brits built the first one in less than a year (though they
diverted parts meant for other ships).
So why would it be cheaper to turn out 4 50 mass ships than 1 200 mass one?
Remember just about every SDN uses standard weapons, standard (if large) FTL's
and maneuver engines, standard bulkheads, standard core systems, standard fire
control systems, standard screens,etc. Does Jon say small ships are easier or
cheaper to build mass for mass?
> On 25-Jun-01 at 14:41, David Griffin (carbon_dragon@yahoo.com) wrote:
The point values aren't balanced though, they assume a linear progression
between size and NPV. A 200 mass ship will take 2 100 mass ships most of the
time due to the fact that it's firepower can toast one of the ships while they
damage it. The second will go down quickly.
I would call NPV closer to construction cost than combat ability. It seems to
have worked fairly well in the extended campaign we played.
> David Griffin wrote:
> > Another is to apply a "surcharge" on large ships.
*Are* the ships in the Fleet Books already balanced wrt size?
No. Not really. Large FT/FB ships have several advantages over small
ones
which aren't reflected in the points/design system, eg:
- Fire more weapons sooner
- Thresholds are spaced out further
- Multiple DCPs are available on the damaged ship
- Better chance of having at least one FCS on a damaged ship
...etc. This means that if you fight a fleet consistng of small ships only
against a single ship, or against a fleet consisting of large ships only,
you're at a disadvantage if both sides have the same points value.
This has been discussed to death here on the list several times over the
years, so you might get lucky searching the archives (I don't remember any
of the thread titles off-hand though :-( ).
Later,
> --- Roger Books <books@jumpspace.net> wrote:
...
> The point values aren't balanced though, they assume
That's interesting. For any kind of size ship though (2 100 mass vs. 1 200
mass) my 200 mass ships can't really kill a battlecruiser (100 mass) in 1
round. At best it tends to threshhold it or maybe a little better. Then it
get's threshholded by the fire of both the battlecruisers. For ships that can
be killed in 1 round though, I can see
how this could happen -- say a 60 mass ship vs.
2 30 mass ships. The 60 mass ship does maybe enough damage to kill the light
destroyer before both can fire. Then it's mate is in deep trouble next round.
It seems to me that the larger the ships, the less this effect would be seen.
Also the more ships there are, probably the less this would be a problem since
any single ship wouldn't be that much of the cost of the fleet (with the
exception of 600 mass mobile planets).
> On 25-Jun-01 at 15:34, David Griffin (carbon_dragon@yahoo.com) wrote:
> So why would it be cheaper to turn out 4 50 mass
We are talking at cross-purposes here. There are
two sets of numbers.
One set of points is economic points. NPV seems to work fine here.
Another set of points is "combat ability" points, which is important in a one
off. NPV doesn't work well here because bigger ships are better.
How about this? Hull cost is the square of the number of hull boxes?
> On 25-Jun-01 at 15:49, David Griffin (carbon_dragon@yahoo.com) wrote:
If I can barely threshold a mass 100 ship with a mass 200 ship (these ships
will have equivalent weapons
loads) the two smaller ships will _not_ threshold
the big ship. Second turn, you have a thresholded
ship, I do not. You set off 1/2 your firepower,
still no threshold. I set off all of mine. The thresholded ship has another
threshold, maybe two and is a mission kill.
You then fire what is left, I take a threshold. I have tons of DCPs. I fix
much and threshold your second ship.
> --- Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> wrote:
...
> *Are* the ships in the Fleet Books already balanced
Ok, I can see that. There are probably a *few* counterexamples like
catastrophically bad rolls on the first threshhold for your one and only ship
totally eliminating your combat power rather than
just reducing it by 1/3 or 1/2, but ok.
So, if the point costs are supposed to balance the sides in a battle, is the
current point cost wrong? If so, why? When the fleet book was being written
was it envisioned that all fleets would be composed of all different classes,
or was it envisioned that the battles would be typically fought by similar
sizes of ships on both sides? SDN's vs. SDN's --
Cruisers vs. cruisers, destroyers vs. destroyers?
> --- Roger Books <books@jumpspace.net> wrote:
...
> One set of points is economic points. NPV seems
Ok, now I'm really confused. NPV (point cost in the construction system) being
ok for economics seems to indicate that 200 mass costs X to build ragardless
if that's 4 50 mass ships or 1 200 mass ship. But Hull cost as the square of
the hull boxes seems to indicate the reverse, UNLESS you're talking about a
sort of point cost handicap to combat value in organizing scenarios? "Hull
cost" seems to indicate construction costs though, which is kind of confusing.
If big ships are such a problem, maybe there needs to be a CV (combat value)
as well as a EV (economic value) for the next generation of construction
system. That might address the actual combat values of freighters which cost
plenty to build, but don't contribute to combat power much. Maybe this hull
cost idea could feed into the equation for CV in the next generation system.
In the meantime, is the solution to try to regulate the number of each class
of ship on both sides? Is there a rule of thumb handicap system for balancing
both sides?
> On 25-Jun-01 at 16:07, David Griffin (carbon_dragon@yahoo.com) wrote:
I'm saying that we up the Combat Ability Points (CAP?) by the square of the
hull boxes as a force leveller. It may be too much. In our campaign we added
maintenance costs of.001 X mass raised to the 1.6 power which seemed to work
out nicely. My BDN was the biggest ship anyone was willing to field.
> --- Roger Books <books@jumpspace.net> wrote:
...
> If I can barely threshold a mass 100 ship with a
Ok, 260 mass vs. two 130 battleships, or thereabouts. My 260 has 6 type 4's
and 4 pulse torpedoes (if I remember right). My Battleship has 2 type 4's, 2
type 3's and 2 pulse torpedoes. At band 4 the battleships fire 2 dice apiece
(1.6 pts) and the SDN fires off 6 dice (4.8 points). At band 3, the BB's fire
6 dice apiece (4.8 points) and the
SDN gets 12. Once their in 30, it goes to 4.8 +
1/6(3.5) = 5.38 vs. about 6.
Now since these totals are relatively small relative to hull, it's not so bad
yet. As soon as they come into close range though, the effect you talk about
gets a lot worse. Battleships fire off 14 dice of beams and 2 pulse torpedoes
apiece while the SDN has 24 dice and 4 pulse torpedoes. Each BB has about 34
hull and about 5 points of armor. The SDN has about 68 hull and about 8 points
of armor.
14 dice do an average of 11.2 points of damage. 24 dice do about 19. At close
range, the torpedoes probably all hit, so you add 7 to the BB's and 14 to the
SDN.
So, the effect is worse up close where the damage is more severe. It's worse
with smaller classes of ships (60 vs. 30 is worse than 200 vs. 100). It's
worse if there are fewer ships in the engagement. All these things seem to
amplify the advantage of a big ship.
> --- Roger Books <books@jumpspace.net> wrote:
...
> I'm saying that we up the Combat Ability Points
That would be kind of a shame since some of my coolest miniatures are the big
ones. I'd like a setup where I could field them without an unfair advantage or
disadvantage rather than a system that discourages any big ship.
Cases in point: Federation Enterprise-E,
Excelsior, Galaxy. B5 Earthforce Warlock, Victory. Vree Battlesaucer. UN SDN.
and so on.
> On 25-Jun-01 at 16:26, David Griffin (carbon_dragon@yahoo.com) wrote:
Is it my fault you picked a poor loadout for your bigger ship?:)
How about if we give your bigger ships 4 type 4s, 4 type 3s and 4 pulse torps.
Give it the same thrust as the two 130 mass ships. and the same armour as the
two combined. Then give it the FCs of the two combined with a max of five.
Give it a class one for every FC not used. Give it the same shields they have.
Then you have a valid comparison.
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I usually encourage
1 capital : 2 Cruisers : 3-4 Escorts or
1 200+ : 2 100-199 : 3-4 3-99 mass
I have not done the following because it is hard to describe, but
split the bottom level into 3-50 and 51-100. Then every level is 100
mass above that. Before you can add a ship to a highter level, you must
already have a ship in the next level down. Then for every ship in a higher
level you add a ship to each level below it. Number of ships Level Mass
4 201-300 1
3 101-200 1 2
2 51-100 1 2 3
1 3- 50 1 2 3 4
----------
Total ships: 1 3 6 10
- ---
Brian Bell bbell1@insight.rr.com ICQ: 12848051 AIM: Rlyehable YIM: Rlyehable
The Full Thrust Ship Registry:
http://www.ftsr.org
- ---
- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-gzg-l@lists.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
[mailto:owner-gzg-l@lists.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU]On Behalf Of David
Griffin
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 16:07
To: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: Size Class Escalation -- How high in Mass?
[snip]
In the meantime, is the solution to try to regulate the number of each class
of ship on both sides? Is there a rule of thumb handicap system for balancing
both sides?
> On 25-Jun-01 at 16:41, Brian Bell (bbell1@insight.rr.com) wrote:
Just be careful we don't run into the old FT problem where everyone was
building ships at the top of the limit to the next size class.
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Now try it with 2 mass 80 cruisers and 4 mass 40 destroyers. Even worse. And
as was indicated, the force of smaller ships begin to loose systems much
quicker than the force of larger ships even if they trade damage for damage.
Then the force of larger ships begin to deal out much more damage than the
force of smaller ships (due to losses to thresholds).
And there is the Reach problem. Smaller ship cannot/don't have the
longer range weapons of the larger ships, to they take damage from the larger
ships while getting into rang of thier own weapons.
- ---
Brian Bell bbell1@insight.rr.com ICQ: 12848051 AIM: Rlyehable YIM: Rlyehable
The Full Thrust Ship Registry:
http://www.ftsr.org
- ---
- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-gzg-l@lists.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
[mailto:owner-gzg-l@lists.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU]On Behalf Of David
Griffin
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 16:25
To: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: Size Class Escalation -- How high in Mass?
[snip]
Ok, 260 mass vs. two 130 battleships, or thereabouts. My 260 has 6 type 4's
and 4 pulse torpedoes (if I remember right). My Battleship has 2 type 4's, 2
type 3's and 2 pulse torpedoes. At band 4 the battleships fire 2 dice apiece
(1.6 pts) and the SDN fires off 6 dice (4.8 points). At band 3, the BB's fire
6 dice apiece (4.8 points) and the
SDN gets 12. Once their in 30, it goes to 4.8 +
1/6(3.5) = 5.38 vs. about 6.
Now since these totals are relatively small relative to hull, it's not so bad
yet. As soon as they come into close range though, the effect you talk about
gets a lot worse. Battleships fire off 14 dice of beams and 2 pulse torpedoes
apiece while the SDN has 24 dice and 4 pulse torpedoes. Each BB has about 34
hull and about 5 points of armor. The SDN has about 68 hull and about 8 points
of armor.
14 dice do an average of 11.2 points of damage. 24 dice do about 19. At close
range, the torpedoes probably all hit, so you add 7 to the BB's and 14 to the
SDN.
So, the effect is worse up close where the damage is more severe. It's worse
with smaller classes of ships (60 vs. 30 is worse than 200 vs. 100). It's
worse if there are fewer ships in the engagement. All these things seem to
amplify the advantage of a big ship.
Systems like this bother me. Basically it's an attempt to force each side to
take ships that they don't really think belong in a major engagment between
large ships. Haven't you guys just been convincing me that those small ships
get crumpled like an empty beer can when fighting big ships? Wouldn't it be a
better use of the fleet's shipyards to build more big ships? Maybe size
escalation is a natural consequence of the realities of combat.
Sure build DDs to escort convoys. Build Cruisers to explore strange new worlds
or scout. Use Fleet scouts (BC's or CA's) to scout prior to a battle if the
bogey rules are in play. But once the big guns start booming, if the small
ships are that disadvantaged, shouldn't they be watching from a distance?
> --- Brian Bell <bbell1@insight.rr.com> wrote:
iQA/AwUBOzeh2dOVrCdNYgyBEQJAfgCgrJk1ljxy6FB8JZaQadzbCM+4mD0AoKMj
> c/rLXDnFlQkZRVY2mFFyQgcD
> --- Bif Smith <bif@bifsmith.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
... The designs I use for
> the earthforce omega,
Even though it's a big miniature, I kind of limited my Omega a little (400
points) so that I could play it a lot. See it's my favorite ship and I wanted
to see it on the board. My Hyperions are 300 points so a 1000 point game I get
an Omega and 2 hyperions.
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> On Mon, 25 Jun 2001, David Griffin wrote:
> Systems like this bother me. Basically it's an
Again, as said before, size escalation is a result of 'single battle bring N
points combat', as opposed to, say, campaign play. 3 ships of 400 tons each
cannot watch over 12 systems, where 12 ships of 100 each CAN. Etc etc ad
nauseum.
Cheers,
> At 1:55 PM -0700 6/25/01, David Griffin wrote:
Bigger ships are in fact better and more capable of battle. The Bismark and
his kith and kin (Scharnhorst, Gneissau, etc) were more than capable of
wreaking havoc among the smaller craft that performed the Northern Convoy run
escort duties.
Small ships are built because they are cheaper and they are able to fly the
flag in more far flung locations. They act as sensor pickets and allow you to
perform more various tasks over shorter durations than a single larger vessel
can.
Lines of battle ships are not the same as picket ships.
> Sure build DDs to escort convoys. Build Cruisers
Yes. They should, but, in war, you _should_ be operating with more
than the odds you actually get ofttimes. You want to be at 200% supply needs,
120% manning status, 100% training state and with no fog of war. Guess what,
you don't always get that.
Stop fixating on points and building super ships. Start thinking about
scenarios that are more than two battle squadrons lining up across the table
and closing to knife fighting range for a slug match.
A comment was made earlier that the current points cost would make a good
economic cost while there should be multipliers for the economic cost in a
campaign. I would argue that the exact opposite is true.
I would suggest that this is not the case in the "Canon" GZG universe, if this
were the case then I would expect to see Pulse Torps on a much greater
percentage of ships. Not only that but I would tend to expect to see more of
them on the capitol ships...
(Though this is starting to sound like a Trekkie argument about why things
"are" a certain way)
Economic costs of ships is much more than the size of a vessel, it is also
what goes into it. There was also the comment made that all the ships were
modular in nature and I must have missed something in the descriptions in the
FB's. There have been various related ship classes and variants within each
ship class but this is a far cry from modular.
> On 25-Jun-01 at 19:27, David Rodemaker (dar@horusinc.com) wrote:
No, not be me anyway. What I said was NPV makes a wonderful economic
cost but works poorly as a "Combat Ability" for a one-off game.
G'day Roger,
> I'm saying that we up the Combat Ability Points (CAP?)
Have you actually tried this? Wouldn't the fragile vs super strong hull be a
problem with such a scheme?
Beth
G'day,
> The fleet book has superdreadnoughts and supercarriers
For those meant to work within the GZGverse the upper max I've used is about
the same as Jean de Arc (I don't have the SSDs with me but I have a feeling
that's about 270 mass). For my Narn I went a bit higher and I think my Bintak
is about 300 (or just a bit shy of it). We have used space
stations in the 1000+ mass bracket but they have been split into 300
mass modules (with each module treated like a separate ship thatb just happens
to be stuck to the rest etc). So we haven't seen anything too weird happen
yet.
Cheers
Beth
> On 25-Jun-01 at 19:27, David Rodemaker (dar@horusinc.com) wrote:
Arrgghhh...
I think I wrote that wrong but I am now confused as to what the heck the
original, original statement that I was trying to remember said.
No matter!
> On 25-Jun-01 at 20:15, Beth Fulton (beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au) wrote:
Good point. 20% of the mass of the ship squared?:)
I haven't tried it, I would almost bet it would be 20% raised to the 1.6
power, but I would have to draw some of my old "physics geek" gaming friends
into it to get a reasonable number.
> Roger Books wrote:
> How about this? Hull cost is the square of the
The armament of the big ship is as important as its many hull boxes, so if you
use the square of the number of hull boxes you'll just shift the advantage to
large ships with Fragile hulls, lots of armour and enough
weaponry to take out a ship their own size in one salvo :-/
Haven't tested it thoroughly, but someone's (lost my saved mails in the recent
email troubles so can't check who) suggestion to use the "basic
structure = TMF" cost with "basic structure = (TMF^2)/100" seems to go a
fair way towards solving the problem for one-off battles.
Example:
The NAC Valley Forge-class SDN costs 642 pts under the normal FB1 rules:
Basic structure = TMF = 190 Everything else = 452
Total = 190+452 = 642
Under this proposal it would instead cost 813 pts:
Basic structure = (TMF^2)/100 = 190*190/100 = 361
Everything else = 452
Total = 361+452 = 831
A Ticonderoga-class DD, OTOH, currently costs 100 pts:
Basic structure = TMF = 30 pts Everything else = 70 pts
but under this proposal it'd only cost 79 pts:
Basic structure = (TMF^2)/100 = 30*30/100 = 9 pts
Everything else = 70 pts
Total = 9+70 = 79 pts
Of course, the suggested formula breaks down for extremely large ships. The
infamous "Dreadplanet Roberts" (TMF 1200) would go from a measly NPV of 5000
(incl. fighters) to a rather more respectable ~18000 (again incl. fighters),
and since I've narrowly defeated that ship with 5000 points of Kra'Vak ships
(vanilla FB2 cruisers) I'd confidently expect 18000 points of just about
anything to rip it apart fairly easily! OTOH the DPR is a product of the very
flaws in the FB1 design system which the suggestion is intended to rectify, so
maybe it isn't unreasonable that it makes the
über-sized ships overpriced <g>
The downsides with the suggestion is that it is rather more complicated than
the current formula, it has nothing whatever to do with "real" construction
costs, and it works better for human ships than for KV or Phalon ones. It does
however seem to give a better indication of how
powerful the ships are in one-off battles than the current design system
does. I'd still use the current FB1 system for long campaigns (ie., those
where repairs and new construction have time to become important).
Later,
> David Griffin wrote:
> > *Are* the ships in the Fleet Books already balanced
[snip]
> Ok, I can see that. There are probably a *few*
The first threshold usually only reduces the combat power by 1/6... yes,
a single big ship can take a catastrophic threshold check early on (having a
Yu'Kas lose all five of its FCSs on the first threshold, for example -
been there, done that), but smaller ships with fewer critical systems
(particularly FCSs) and DCPs are considerably more likely to be
mission-killed early on than the big ship is.
> So, if the point costs are supposed to balance the
For one-off battles they are wrong, yes. For campaigns they seem to work
OK.
> If so, why?
Several reasons. The main one was that most of the test fleets were mixed, so
the problem didn't show its real size during the initial FB1 testing (IIRC it
didn't turn up at all). Another is that the formulae necessary to get more
accurate points values are both more complicated for the
mathematically challenged and also counter-intuitive - see eg. your own
arguments that twice the mass should only cost twice the money to build (which
is exactly what the FB design system does). (The problem is of
course that intuition about real-world construction costs isn't
necessarily
relevant for combat power comparisons :-/ )
> When the fleet book was being written
It was envisioned that fleets be mixed-size - that is, it was envisioned
that BOTH sides consist of mixes of all sizes of ships. In this case the
problem doesn't appear, since both sides have both large-ship advantages
and small-ship penalties in roughly the same proportions and the
(dis)advantages of the two sides more or less cancel one another.
If however one side's fleet consists of a single or a few very large
ship(s) while the other side is mixed-size or consists of smaller ships
only, then the large-ship fleet only has big-ship advantages but no
small-ship penalties while the other fleet has fewer or no large-ship
advantages and significant small-ship penalties - and this gives the
big-ship fleet a significant overall advantage. This case wasn't tested
enough during the FB1 playtesting, so we didn't realise just how big a problem
it could be.
Later,
> Alan Brain wrote:
> (BTW MTM = More Thrust Missile in the following)
Very true. Or any sort of EMP weapon using similar mechanics, really -
they
cut back the over-sized ships quite a bit.
> But further discussion had better wait till we've sorted some of the
And - recalling the WotW discussion on this particular subject - until
we've hashed out whether an EMP weapon with potentially "unlimited" effect
is acceptable ;-)
Later,
> On Wed, 27 Jun 101 00:46:05 GMT aebrain@austarmetro.com.au writes:
<snip>
> (BTW MTM = More Thrust Missile in the following)
The MTM would be a key element (along with Needle Beams) in my Alien
Nekton fleets - please let me know how that testing goes.
> The fleet book has superdreadnoughts and supercarriers
The Islamic Federation has a lot of small ships, not very many big ships. I
prefer to take FFH to CH, although I've occasionally played BB's up to ~170
mass. If I were being "efficient" for one-off games I'd take fewer and
[quoted original message omitted]
> --- Chris DeBoe <LASERLIGHT@QUIXNET.NET> wrote:
This may NOT be true. Example -- dreadnoughts of
World War I. They built a LOT of those.
> Number two, the same part usually costs more if
That's american marketing, not reality
...
> Number three, the individual parts may be
This again assumes that more small beams are built. There were a LOT of 15",
12", and 11" guns built prior and during WWI. I'll bet they got a few
economies of scale with those babies.
Secondly, it assumes smaller ships have class 1's and 2's. Actually even my
destroyers use class 3's even if they only have 1, so it depends on the design
strategy of the navy. My navies use 3's and 4's more than any other weapon.
I'm sure they know how to make them economically by now.
Your assumptions say they're uncommon, so they're
expensive so they're uncommon -- circular reasoning.
If they are NOT in fact uncommon, then the only problem with building big
ships is that they're
big ships -- that is even if you build type 4 beams
all the time, they're still harder to build (I'd say linearly harder) than
smaller ones because they are larger.
So, it depends on the universe. The construction rules don't seem to support
the contention that bigger weapons and ships are unnaturally harder to
construct than equivalent mass in smaller ships. If this were the case (and
you're welcome to make it the case in your universe) where's the evidence?
***
> Number one, you get fewer examples to work on.
This may NOT be true. Example -- dreadnoughts of
World War I. They built a LOT of those.
***
'A lot' in this case is a very relative term. Less than in a single class of
DD, I think, but I'll have to check my Jane's. On top of this, for any
particular class of dreadnought, there were, at most, only four or five.
***
> Number two, the same part usually costs more if
That's american marketing, not reality
***
;->= Yeah, I had problems with that one, though it's not JUST 'merican.
***
Your assumptions say they're uncommon, so they're
expensive so they're uncommon -- circular reasoning.
***
Well, not entirely circular, as the 'first' case is so different between a DD
and DN.
***
So, it depends on the universe. The construction rules don't seem to support
the contention that bigger weapons and ships are unnaturally harder to
construct than equivalent mass in smaller ships. If this were the case (and
you're welcome to make it the case in your universe) where's the evidence?
***
Unfortunate, but true, for the rules. In the 'real world' of course, there is
increasing cost for increasing size. Bridges, buildings, ships, become more
difficult and more expensive, though admitted not always as fast as the
increasing 'value'.
This is a bit nebulous in discussion, though. Some real world examples would
be useful, such as the difference in cost between a slipway for a DD and a DN,
length of construction time, etc.
I'm not sure I've the info on these, but I'll see if I can't work out some
costs per ton on ships of WWI era, and see if there's anything interesting
there.
The_Beast
> --- devans@uneb.edu wrote:
...
> So, it depends on the universe. The construction
Be careful with real world examples because there are two kinds of costs
associated with big projects. There's the cost of building things on a large
scale and there's the cost of building bigger than they've ever built before.
Let's say we lived in a land with a LOT of bays and some company had built 5
copies of the golden gate bridge so far. Well, it's still a big bridge, but
they know how to build them and it's not like they haven't done it before.
On the other hand, let's say you've never built any bridge as big as the
golden gate and you're building it. In this case you're always running into
problems of proper parts not being available, engineering not scaling up, and
so on. You're running into problems noone else has ever solved before. That
makes it a lot more expensive.
Maybe the first time anyone in the FT universe built an SDN, there were a lot
of "hmmm... they don't make a whoosit that big, we'll have to have it made
special." After a certain number had been built, they would no longer be
exploring new territory, so the cost would drop.
At this point in the FT universe, I would think that building ships of this
size is, if not easy, at least a well known problem domain and would present
no SPECIAL problems.
If I then build a 350 mass ship (and see my web site cause I am toying with
the idea), THEN maybe there would be a surcharge to reflect the special
problem you get every time you plunge into unexplored problems. Not from a
military standpoint maybe, but definitely from an economic one. If you're just
going to 290 mass maybe it's a small surcharge. If you're going to 350 maybe
it's bigger. If you're going to 600, maybe it's a huge surcharge because every
step in the construction is probably going to uncover some intractable problem
noone has ever faced.
Just an opinion of course, I'm not a naval architect.
> Maybe the first time anyone in the FT universe built
FWIW, if I were running a campaign, I'd say "first example of a new class
costs 300% of the NPV cost" to reflect this. That's for any new class,
though, not size-related. I suspect NPV should be raised to an exponent
like ^1.2 or ^1.4 but that's a WAG
> devans@uneb.edu wrote:
> ***
The only ships that were ever mass produced were the liberty ships of WWII.
They were also the only ships built on an assembly line. Every other vessel
was more or less hand assembled like a Rolls Royce motor car (but with cranes
to do the heavy lifting). Plus all of the ships after HMS Dreadnought were
designed with mostly rectangular hull plates, giving larger vessels another
economy of scale. The last big bonus of large ships is that manufacturing
tolerances are a fraction of the overall size, so larger vessels are easier to
build than small vessels because the accuracy of the assembly equipment is
independant of the size of vessel construct (except in relative terms).
> ***
It is patently obvious that the value of a large ship increases faster than
its costs, or there would not be so damn many of them, and each one bigger
than the last (referring to commercial vessels).
> This is a bit nebulous in discussion, though. Some real world examples
This is a real cost difference, and it favors the DD, but after removing that
cost consideration, the DN is cheaper per ton. Construction of american
supercarriers is not a good example to base the costs of a large ship, as they
are deliberately built in such a way as to have the next keel being laid when
slip is cleared. They are deliberately constructed as slow as possible, to
maintain an employed group of skilled workers.
> I'm not sure I've the info on these, but I'll see if I can't work out
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> Of course, the suggested formula breaks down for extremely large
I'm flattered anyone still remembers me even though I've been almost entirely
in lurk mode for the last year.:)
For my own answer to this question as to where my size limits are, the largest
ship I've actually ever fielded was that version of the DPR, yes. Later
versions have pared down the size in favor of better fighter quality, fewer
fighters, and better plasma armaments. Whereas that one, if memory serves, had
few or no
six-arc weapons, 32 dice total plasma, and 45 regular fighters for its
1200 TMF, the present version has a few B4s to annoy people at long ranges
with, a backup
armament of full-arc B2s and B1s, only 30 fighters (half and half
regular and torpedo), 44 dice of total plasma (8 class 5's in the main
battery, 4 class 1's for
the auxiliaries, mainly for anti-missile duty), level 2 screens (I did
the math and realized that taking less than half damage from enemy plasma
could be handy some day), and a scattergun armament enough to take out about
another 20 or 25
groups of fighters in case its enemies try to out-swarm it. It's only
TMF 1120, same cost.
However, I haven't actually used this version yet. A lot of it is theoretical
anticipation of what an enemy might throw at me:
- The all-arc weapons replace the 3-arc fare that the earlier version
had, in anticipation of highly maneuverable ships picking and choosing their
angles of attack.
- The heavier plasma armament both is to pack a heavier punch to enemy
fleets as well as allow it to spread its fire out more against smaller
opponents. One clean hit will clear away most scattergun defenses, and after
that those cruisers only need 8 dice of clean hits on average to put them
away.
- My opponents' efforts to out-play me at my own fighter games have
generally been even more disastrous than their attempts to beat me without
them, so they
haven't been trying much lately. So I'm going less for all-out
superiority (only 15 regular fighters), backing it up with a panic armament of
scatterguns (in case they DO go for more fighters), and reserving the rest of
the bays for extra offensive firepower (15 wings of torpedo bombers, average
15 points of damage per surviving wing... that's gotta hurt). So less maniacal
and more purposeful with the fighter swarms.
- I did the math and realized that level 2 screens essentially means you
take less than half damage from plasma. My opponents have been borrowing my
plasma tactics, so I've got them there to minimize the damage if someone wants
to play
for a plasma standoff.
- Of course, the combination of plasma and fighters is still the
overlying theory behind the ship's design.
Kra'vak neutralize the screens, of course... if I anticipate them I might well
replace the screens with an extra 22 dice of plasma. The only other thing
that's potentially a problem is if someone decides to go for those ridiculous
B6, high thrust skirmishers with obscene PDS that someone suggested a while
back. In that case, the DPR's going to either retrofit reflex fields to turn
their own medicine back on them, or it'll simply ignore them while it's still
in deep space and, since their interdiction powers are complete rubbish, it'll
just fly past them and reduce their home planets to cinders. They can either
get within ADS range of their planets to try and duke it out at close range or
their entire starfaring race dies for free.:D
> Richard and Emily Bell wrote:
Not so sure about this statement. I have a photo of seven Spruance class
destroyers being assembled at Litton / Ingalls in the seventies. The
ships were fabricated in several modules and then the bits joined together to
form hulls before being fitted out. The seven ships (or sets
of parts !) are laid out side-by-side and vary in stages of completeness
from left to right. I class this as an 'assembly line'.
> > This may NOT be true. Example -- dreadnoughts of
<snip>
> The only ships that were ever mass produced were the liberty ships of
<snip> Not so sure about this statement. I have a photo of seven Spruance
class
destroyers being assembled at Litton / Ingalls in the seventies. ...
***
While I've heard somewhat similar stories concerning built-up frames on
WWII DD's, I didn't mean Henry Ford style assembly lines; more the
difference between a Rolls Royce and a true one-up, say, a racing car.
However, I'm willing to concede this in the main.
The earlier statement about tankers, in particular, had me stopped a bit,
though I'm not certain pure volume considerations quite fit the discussion
going forward, but, again, I'll have to cogitate.
I'm having trouble finding much in the way of costs on ships, so far, though I
haven't dived into the University's library. The few of figures I've found so
far, between earlier war capitals and later, suggest a
doubling to trebling for 2/3 increase in displacement.
Of course, the later ships could pretty much waste an appropriate amount of
earlier ships(speed, guns, and protection), and I'm not THAT familiar with
WWI-time inflation.
> At 11:10 AM 6/28/01 -0700, David Griffin wrote:
But everyone seems to want *different* bridges, so they're always built
differently anyway... look at Pittsburgh, for example. (Okay, so maybe it's
just the wrong example, I do see your point.)
> Maybe the first time anyone in the FT universe built
...or the contractor would pocket more profits, most likely. Capital equipment
(no pun intended...) doesn't tend to have that much of a price
drop, as companies that build stuff like that tend to amortize the cost
over the first several units -- so they're taking a loss on a couple,
then making decent money on a couple, then making more on the next couple as
the required engineering workload goes down. Now, that may not be the case for
Government work, but that could very well be the case if the Gov't knows it
wants, say, 6 of these ships -- give a price for the *program* and then
audit. (Yippie, audits....)
> This is a real cost difference, and it favors the DD, but after
I'm not sure that this example is *not* applicable in the GZG universe (or any
other FTM), the reasons we (or the UK or whomever) does this are pretty much
the same...
Training those workers when you *really, really* need to build a whole bunch
more (like a war) is bad news. That's why ship-builders and other "vital
workers" (like machinists) were prohibited from enlisting during WWII, even if
they wanted to! (Happened to my grandfather...)
> Of course, the later ships could pretty much waste an appropriate
To covert dollars to current dollars (From 1913 forward):
http://www.dismal.com/toolbox/cpi_index.stm
To covert currency:
http://www.xe.com/ucc/
Something else I just thought of that no-one has brought up yet (I think
<g>).
What is the cost to employ the ships during their lifespan? There is the
obvious fact that a large ship with more crew has greater life support costs,
salaries, etc. But what about fuel and annual maintenance? These are all among
the reasons why a small ships *can be* more economical to operate than large
ships...
> --- Aaron Teske <mithramuse@njaccess.com> wrote:
...
> ...or the contractor would pocket more profits, most
Yes, but corruption and amortation of costs would happen in all classes of
ships, not just the big ones. I don't see why big ships would have MORE
corruption.
If you're using the ship in some role where a small ship will do, use a small
ship. You wouldn't employ the Iowa as a coast guard rescue ship.
But you can get a LOT of service out of a big versatile ship. Some of the
Iowa's might be museums
now but we used them in 3-4 wars for a long period
of years. We definitely got our money's worth out of them. I suspect we'll
keep our carriers going for an equally long number of years.
So, yes a big ship is expensive to operate, but if you need a big ship for a
particular role, it can still be a bargain. What small ship would you replace
an american supercarrier with?
> --- David Rodemaker <dar@horusinc.com> wrote:
> > ...or the contractor would pocket more profits, most
More opportunity?
Longer construction time, more workers, larger budgets to hide stuff in, more
political graft involved, etc.
> --- David Rodemaker <dar@horusinc.com> wrote:
...
> > Yes, but corruption and amortation of costs would
More oversight too. Big important project, lots of oversight from congress,
the military, and the press. Congress and the press would each love to catch
someone in the act of graft. Great grist for the mill.
> But you can get a LOT of service out of a big
Sure, and they speak of such in FB1 when describing the various size
classes. (Without going over the FB IIRC they were talking 30 +/- year
"lifespans" on the ships for active frontline duty) No argument there at
all, if we are talking a 50 +/- lifespan.
> So, yes a big ship is expensive to operate, but if
Prickly... Merely to play Devil's Advocate again... Define "bargain". In
truth, I happen to think that the modern day naval model of overall fleet
construction and organization is a bad model for the strategic look at what a
GZG navy would look like. (Tactical is a *whole* 'nother matter BTW, there I
would say it *is* somewhat correct). I would argue that due to the amount of
space covered, the time of travel and communication involved, and the economic
forces involved that overall the fleets are going to look more like navies out
of the Napoleonic Era. <g>
Outside of a war or other severe "police action", you don't use the big
battle-wagons or carriers. You are worried about general patrol/picket
duty, commerce raiding, piracy, nominal "police action", rebellion,
whatever...
That generally calls for Frigate's, "Destroyer's", and Cruiser's. <g>
David
> --- David Rodemaker <dar@horusinc.com> wrote:
> > > Yes, but corruption and amortation of costs would
Yes... So why doesn't it happen more often? <g> Are you suggesting that we
don't have that at the moment? Besides, (for example) I suspect from the
"models" being used for the GZG nation-states that most if not all the
countries do *not* have the Freedom of Information that we have here in the
US. Call in a matter of national interest or an official secret and it *won't*
get reported at all (in the NAC) or you just disappear (in the
ESU),
in the NSL and the FSE I wonder.
We have it *good* here in the old USA, sort of. <g>
> David Griffin wrote:
> problem it could be.
(BTW MTM = More Thrust Missile in the following) OTOH.... if and when we get
MTMs with EMP warheads going, it's entirely possible that ships larger than
about 300 could become less than useful.
Get hit by 3 MTMs and take 6D6 damage - which would be crippling vs a
cruiser, and fairly bad vs a BC. A Komarov can shrug it off, though with some
pain. A 2000 mass Deathstar won't notice it.
But get hit by 3 EMP MTMs each causing a threshold (at 6) on all systems, and
the cruiser's better off, the Komarov's hurtin', and the Deathstar's
devastated, with nearly half its systems ( OK, 91/216 in fact) off-line.
Of course an EMP-MTM had better be a really short range weapon with some
distinct disadvantages if it's going to be like this.
If we do our sums right, we could - and possibly should - make a slight
tweak to the FT game to give the existing FB1 designs a really good reason for
being
the way they are, and not super-ships. Yet allow super-ships and bases
to have their place.
But further discussion had better wait till we've sorted some of the other
issues about MTMs in playtesting.