Ok, time to put your money where your mouth is.
I challenge all list members to produce the parameters (and proof thereof)
under which fleet A can force fleet B to fight.
Scenario: B jumps into system and tries to move to fixed, known point C. A is
patrolling the space in between.
Define the patrolling zones, patterns and habits of fleet A. If you want the
ships to sit at a specific point fine, just define that point exactly. Fleet B
might jump in at any moment, at any point legal by FTL rules.
All movement is carried out under tactical rules, i.e. assuming you're
simply playing a normal game on an infinite-sized table. Specifically,
the abstract "medium range" rules in the campaign section are NOT used.
The playing area does not have edges. There are no time limits.
Vector or cinematic -- you choose.
2D space or 3D space -- your choice (better start with 2D)
Anything A can fly, B can fly too (e.g. you can't assume A has twice the MD of
B).
B does NOT want to fight. If it can disengage, it will, by e.g. running
through A's picket line. I.e. it is not enough to simply get close, A must be
able to *stay* in weapon range.
Interception must happen before B is within 20 turns of movement from C.
While navigational hazards might exist, they are considered inconsequential.
I.e. B can easily either avoid them or pick a clear course.
For simplicity at first, let's assume B is simply doing a straight, max accel
halfway, max decel halfway run to C. It may make minor adjustments to avoid
SML barrages or like, but will not take wide detours. For added complexity
under cinematic, figure in the possibility of doing circular
accel/decel.
Category 1: Straight Vanilla
The rules as printed, plus official errata. Only basic tech, FB1 humans.
No genre-specific stuff (though I guess cloaks are the only thing that'd
really make any difference). No a priori knowledge.
Exception: You may assume omniscient sensors.
If something is not defined in the rules, assume it is not restricted in any
way. E.g. unlimited ship endurance. E.g. no "you run into unexpected space
debris if you go too fast".
Category 2: House rules
As above, except you are free to invent/change rules. The only
requirement is that said rules apply to all sides equally, in all situations.
E.g. you can't say A can use any speed but B has max speed of Z.
You can even assume a priori knowledge if you define exactly how much of it is
required. I.e. you can't say "enough warning to do this or that", but must say
"X free turns before B jumps in, which results in being
able to...".
Bonus question 1:
Assume fleet A is composed entirely of fighters and unarmed carriers.
Bonus question 2:
Translate your parameters into real world terms and calculate what kind of
g-stresses your crew is under.
Trivial solutions (e.g. "A is waiting at known endpoint") not accepted, nor
are implausible ones (e.g. "build an asteroid shield impenetrable to
ships flying too fast"). In-system FTL is not allowed either.
Solutions based on getting lucky must include the probability of such a lucky
occurance. E.g. if your solution is based on having a picket ship within X MU
of B's path, you must show either how likely that is or how many picket ships
you'd need to guarantee having one so placed.
To make this interesting, I'm chipping in 10 euros to buy official FT
miniatures for the person who comes up with the best, most widely applicable
and foremost PROVEN solution by September 1st, 2000.
(Proof will be submitted to a neutral mathematician if necessary. Widest
applicability chosen by list vote if necessary. GZG employees and their
relatives *may* participate, but any new errata/rules published is not
considered official for the purposes of this competition.)
Call it a summer school project ;-)
> On 14-Jun-00 at 05:21, Mikko Kurki-Suonio (maxxon@swob.dna.fi) wrote:
A sits at C.
OK. I will disqualify myself from the competition due to lack of mathmatical
skill.
But here are some things that others may consider.
A) Defending/Intercepting force (Blue) is laying seige to an important
colony of opposing player (Red).
B) Jump limit is 100 movement turns away from planet, in the planetary plane.
Movement turns are somewhat arbitrary as distance will vary with velocity, but
the orignal problem stated that the intercept must be done outside of 20
movement turns of the besieged planet.
C) Jumps are detectable across the system.
D) Blue force must keep Red force from providing relief to the besieged
planet.
E) Red force must provide relief to the becieged planet within 200 turns.
(Prevents jumping out and back in).
F) Time to recharge a jump drive is 25 turns (Prevents jumping out and back in
again).
G) Velocity across the Jump limit is limited to MD of the ship.
H) Blue force has fast picket scouts alreay moving at high speed within the
system.
I) Red force must decelerate to within MD speed within 36" of the planet to
win.
Blue force will probably set up near the besieged planet. When Red force
enters they will send fast scouts (on picket through out the system, but less
than 10% of entire force's points) to confirm. When Red force is found, Blue
force will move to intercept. Red force cannot escape to jump out or loses the
planet and thus the game (due to time constraints). Red force cannot pick too
divergent of a course, or it will not arrive at the planet in time. Blue force
must find Red force, and intercept it before it gets too close and the troop
landing ships, supply ships, orbital bombardment cruisers, etc. are
endangered.
The only difference on the sides is the starting speed. Blue force may start
at any speed, but will not know where Red force will enter.
Alternate scenario:
A) Red force is a convoy of freighters headed for a plague ridden planet
X.
B) The cargo (medicine) they carry has a very short shelf life of 200 turns
(too short to jump out and back in again and too short to deviate course by
very much).
C) The merchants have leveraged thier ships, homes, etc. to purchase the
medicine, so if they fail to deliver the medicine, they will loose everything.
Or, alternatly, they have family on the planet.
D) Blue force is commerce raiders that want to take the cargo and sell it to
planet X themselves.
E) The system is under quarentine, so any ships moving into the system are
likely to be carring the medicine.
F) The jump limit is at 100 movement turns away.
G) The planet has UNSC ships to enforce the quarentine, so Blue force must
intercept the freighters more than 20 movement turns out from Planet X.
H) Optional. Red force wants some protection, so must link up with UNSC
escorts after the jump (limits where the freighters will want to enter).
I) Jumps are detectable system wide.
J) Jump drives take 50 turns to recharge.
K) Frieghters are limited to MD2 ships. (Escorts may be faster).
-----
Brian Bell bkb@beol.net
http://members.xoom.com/rlyehable/ft/
> On Wed, 14 Jun 2000 08:41:35 -0400 (EDT), Roger Books writes:
To quote the rules:
> Interception must happen before B is within 20 turns of movement from
In vector, I come swooping in at an extreme speed. If you accel toward me, we
simply pass that much faster. If you don't, I get to C with you still on it.
In cinematic however, intercepts are much easier. Since I can turn around with
no speed loss in a turn or two, I can full thrust to meet you head on. If we
have the same thrust (or I'm no weaker), I can match your velocity, and meet
you in the middle (between C and the jump in point), with your velocity vector
and the opposite direction. I turn (1 turn), and we're in the same region of
space, same speed, same direction. Really, I probably turn a turn before we
cross, so I'm not behind you, but thats tactics, not strategy.:) The trouble
with this would be that we would be moving at such extreme speeds that
actually hitting would be next to impossible. Even being within the
36" range of a class-3 would require guessing your turns, if we're
moving at speeds of 1000" a turn or so. If I guess wrong, we'd be 100s of
inches apart.
Mikko wrote
> Scenario: B jumps into system and tries to move to fixed, known point
[snip]
> Interception must happen before B is within 20 turns of movement from
You have not defined 'interception' here. Is it:
1) At some point in (real, 4D) spacetime the Blue (Defender) ship must be
within weapon range of the Red (Attacker) ship? Irrespective of relative
courses and speeds?
2) At some point in an FT game, the Blue ship must end its move within weapon
range of the Red ship? Again irrespective of relative courses and speeds?
3) Blue must be able to match Red in course and speed for a prolonged
firefight?
If it is case (1) and you assume omniscient sensors, zero reaction times and
equal acceleration capabilities, both ships starting at zero speed, the
interception points are on a plane half way between the two starting points.
If the target is closer to Blue's start than to Red's, it can be protected.
If Red starts at speed Blue, the calculations start to get interesting, but
should remain feasible, resulting in a fairly simple set of interception
points.
Case(2): If weapons range is bigger than the ships' combined speed, it is
basically the same as case (1). Otherwise, again some interesting calculations
Case(3)is the toughest.
[snip]
> Bonus question 2:
With grav compensators (as in FT) an equal ships, this is irrelevant.
[snip]
> Trivial solutions (e.g. "A is waiting at known endpoint") not
This precisely contradicts your opening conditions 'known point C'. It is an
obvious and valid solution. Even if Blue is not on the target, it could be
nearby. You would have to make the target either unknown or give Red the
choice of several targets.
> Call it a summer school project ;-)
Greetings Karl Heinz
What about this take on ambushing convoys...
> From the FT rulebook. The longer the distance involved in an FTL jump,
An empire setup like this would probably map out routes, simular to flight
plans of today. These would be jump in points that were policed by military
ships for protection. And probably also be more stable pockets of space, low
gravity fields and no debry in the area. Merchant captains would likely have
to also log their flight plans to ensure that these jump points would not be
flooded to the degree that collisions could occur (we all know how busy
airports can be). Given the inexact nature of FTL travel, these "safe" jump
points suddenly start becoming rather large. For this reason they start
becoming a little harder to protect. A raiding party could move into said area
undected in some fashion, and wait for a convoy to jump in a little too far
away from the regular patrol so that they think they have a chance at taking
it. This could make for a fun scenario, where the jumped in cargo ships must
survive for X turns (until it can FTL jump again) while both sides bring in
reinforcements to the battle. Most merchant vessels will opt for the defence
of just accelerating as fast as they can in a single direction when they see
enemy contacts, for a fast vessel, depending on when contact is made, this
will probably be defence enough. But the larger the merchant ships, the slower
they will become, (and the more relient on the protecting fleet). Of course
the downside of having set points like these, is that raiders can predict
where to find merchant vessels. Perhaps things are not setup like this, or
many Merchant captains (especially those with a faster fleet) prefer to take
there chances by plotting their own jump points. This would make it very
difficult for raiders to find a merchant fleet, given it is only in a
particular spot for a couple of hours, and given the vastness of space. In
order to give reasons (excuses really, because we all want to play an
occasional shipping raid scenario) for the possibility of "intercepting" said
fleet, we can think of a couple ideas. Jumps are easy to detect, even at long
range. Certain points in space are preferable to jump into than others (due to
known mapped out areas where debry fields do not pose any problems and gravity
fluxes are low). A raider fleet is still limited to luck mostly, but captains
of Merchant fleets would likely fall into a patern of always picking the same
jump points out of habit, and laziness (who wants to do the necessary
calculations to find a safe jump point several times a day). An ale loosened
tongue in a tavern or two, and Raiding fleets may start finding that certain
locations have a higher probability of being a jump point than others. Put a
couple sensor bouys and some likely sites. When these bouys detect jump
signatures they send a signal to the raiding fleet, who then jump into the
area themselves. In this situation, the Merchant fleet likely will hire its
own escorts. The raiders have to be cautious, as they likely will not know the
size and strength of the fleet until they get there, so they have to be ready
to run if the odds are not in their favor, they also must be careful not to
jump in so far away that the merchant fleet can evade them until they can jump
again. As far as Merchant Ships being faster, this is a problem for the
raiders. No raider can be successful if its prey is faster than they are.
Therefore, you will likely only see small fast ships for the raiders, Frigates
and Destroyers mostly. Perhaps a larger ship class would jump in to handle any
large escorts, or to give the raiders a point to rally to if things start
going badly, but it definatly would not be part of the chase. Think of
Cheetahs in Africa, they jump into the hurd, the hurd scatters,
they chase down the slowest/weakest vessel and take it, leaving the rest
to get away. Some ideas on how to setup a viable Raid on a Convoy scenario. As
far as two fleets intercepting, this just isnt going to happen unless BOTH
fleets want it to happen. There can be ambushes setup though, but this
requires intelligence and stealth on the part of the ambushers. Setting an
effective trap could be done. I remember a B5 episode where the alliance fleet
was led to a planet under false pretences, where it was set upon by a large
shadow fleet that decimated a large part of the alliance fleet before it could
make it back to the jump point (or in FT terms, before the FTL drives could be
charged up again).
-Mark
> -----Original Message-----
G'day Mikko,
> Call it a summer school project ;-)
Then I couldn't possibly give you answer until March as 'winter school
project' just don't have the same ring.... or have you decided all the people
who could win this thing for sure live in the southern hemisphere
and have thus banned us from participating?
;)
Beth
Just started doing the math. At thrust 4, Fleet B is 10,400 MU from point C,
turn 80 = vel 96
The sensor picket in 2D would require a sensor buoy or picket ship every 104"
on the circumference around C at 10,400"; this would require 3.3 million buoys
for detailed sensor data.
****
Category 1: Strait Vanilla Solution using Thrust 4 fleets & omniscient
sensors: Fleet A is waiting at point C. Fleet B arrives at jump point and
accelerates at thrust 4, turnover is at turn 53.
Fleet B:
Turn 1 - 52: 0+4
Turn 53-100: 0-4
Fleet A:
Turn 1-2: 0+2
Turn 3-49: 0+4
Turn 50: P2+2
Turn 51-55: S2-1
Turn 56: P2-1
Turn 57: 0+0
Turn 58-100: 0-4
Matching intercept on turn 57 at range 10.2 directly aft of target.
*****
Bonus Question 1:
Same intercept solution but drop fighters on turn 49 (0+0 move) giving
the fighters 1 turn to attack on about turn 53.
Bonus Question 2: The crews would be under 2G acceleration for 25 hours. Just
bearable, but would be extremely tiring.
*****
Without omnipotent sensors, it becomes extremely difficult to intercept short
of 20 turns flight unless a picket detects them at least 44 turns out as it
requires this long for the fleet to accelerate to match the attacker's speed.
Neath Southern Skies -http://home.pacific.net.au/~southernskies/
[mkw] Admiral Peter Rollins; Task Force Zulu
[DitD] Captain Puppilier
> -----Original Message-----
> On Jun 15, "Robertson, Brendan" <Brendan.Robertson@dva.gov.au> wrote:
Most of the post, I agree with, but not this. Even using FT2 sensor
rules, the 54" range is for IDENTIFICATION, not detection - beyond 54"
you still know that ships are THERE, even if you don't necessarily
know EXACTLY what ships they are. A fair-sized fleet appearing in an
unexpected place is grounds to launch an interception REGARDLESS of whether
you have precise IDs (after all, if they're friendly, you'll (probably) find
out before you actually fire...). In fact, FT2 doesn't GIVE a maximum
detection range (in the campaign rules, ships are detected WHENEVER they enter
a system, which I find highly probable). Admittedly, this could result in
firing on ships
which turn out to be friendly (and in not knowing precisely who/what
your target is when you open fire), but that isn't (IMO) unreasonable.
G'day Mikko,
This is something that came to me this morning and is only semi-serious,
I haven't thought it out and probably breaks most of your rules Mikko, but
having said all that....
Assuming you know where the blighters jumped in (i.e. even if you can't
identify them out at spot billyo you can detect they just appeared there), I'd
start at the point C we're supposed to be defending and then I'd send out
waves of ships out towards the detection point, first wave at speed 6 (we were
supposed to be using from the book FB1 designs weren't we?) and
then speed 5 etc down. So even if I'm such a lousy flyer one of my groups
can't keep you in range for long, between them they should do a pretty good
job.
Now I'd better go get in that bunker before Mikko hits the Narn Bat Squad
speed dial button;)
Beth
Note that I said 3.3 million for _detailed_ sensor data. The rest of
the
post presumed you only needed course/speed data from your sensors.
Neath Southern Skies -http://home.pacific.net.au/~southernskies/
[mkw] Admiral Peter Rollins; Task Force Zulu
[DitD] Captain Puppilier
> -----Original Message-----
> Beth Fulton wrote:
You can speed dial the Narn Bat Squad?
Talk about service! (8-)
JGH (who is moving the archives to a new location, along with everything
else...)