> Ryan Gill wrote:
> ...but in the end, the advantage still lies with the attacker simply
Very much so. However, relying on fixed defences means that you're
voluntarily handing over the initiative (on that front, at least - you
could of course be on the offensive along some other warp chain).
***
> John Atkinson wrote:
> Point One:
Not in this particular sub-thread, no. If we had been, we wouldn't have
this discussion at all for exactly the reason you describe!
> [...] Just as no one really has armed and armored trains.
...nowadays. They did see quite a bit of action in the 1910s and 1920s
though, and not just against rear-area infiltrators :-/ In our context,
armed/armoured trains would roughly correspond to mobile-defence ships
which are unable to FTL without WPs - they can rush to any threatened
systems very quickly and would probably be quite powerful in tactical
combat compared to fully FTL-capable warships of the same size, but
they'd be effectively unable attack systems.
> Point Two:
Which actually *is* kind of relevant, since in this case the physics are
largely dependent on game design considerations. That is to say, while it is a
bit backwards it isn't *completely* backwards <g>
Thing is, it *sucks* to carefully design background physics only to realize
that they lead to an unplayable game (eg. because your only FTL mechanism is
warp points leading to hysterically costly WP assaults, or because
FTL-capable ships can appear anywhere so planets become effectively
indefensible, or something else)... so we need to figure out what kind of game
(including what kind of tactics) we want the physics to allow or disallow
BEFORE we can nail down all the details of the physics themselves. And then we
need to be d*mn careful so the physics don't give any
unexpected and easily-exploitable side effects which lead to *new* kinds
of weapons or tactics...
> Point Three:
Yep. Cf. my comparison of Gibraltar vs. two/five/twelve task groups
instead of a single one
:-/
> Point Five:
Very much so. FWIW I helped playtesting the StarFire scenario module on which
"In Death Ground" and "The Shiva Option" were based (yes, those
novels are based on the scenario module "ISW4" - not the other way
around...), and also helped writing most of the StarFire rules for
automated weapons to make those scenarios at least somewhat playable :-/
It is also noteworthy that Weber (who created most of the StarFire game
background) decided to add a non-WP FTL concept when he created his next
space opera series, ie. the Harrington books :-/
***
> Samuel Penn wrote:
> >Point Three:
No, it won't. Most game systems can be completely *un*balanced; some game
systems are even deliberately *designed* to be unbalanced - Monopoly
being
the best-known one. Unfortunately most empire-building campaign systems
have quite Monopolistic tendencies: the strong will be able to grab even
more resources and thereby grow even more powerful; the weak might be able to
resist for a while but will almost certainly go under sooner or later.
(There are exceptions, eg. the old Civilization boardgame - not the one
based on the computer game, that is - where big empires eventually split
up due to civil wars, but in my experience they are just exceptions.)
> An asteroid
No, the *game system* won't break. The *points system* might break if you're
trying to use it for some purpose it wasn't meant to be used for
-
eg., the FTFB (ie., NPV) points system was designed only to balance
ONE-OFF
battles and might therefore be inappropriate for a campaign setting; the
CPV system is even better for one-off battles, but is *definitely*
inappropriate for campaigns.
Eg., you're assuming that an enemy faced with a 1,000,000 Mass asteroid armed
with a few PDSs and fighter bays will have to inflict a million damage points
on it in order to destroy the base. Thing is, realistically all he'll shoot at
are the immediate neighbourhood of the PDS installations and fighter bay doors
(neither of which can be buried deep inside the asteroid); once those areas
are pulverized the asteroid has no more combat capability. In game terms, the
*base* built on the asteroid has a far lower
"hull integrity" than the *asteroid* - and you only pay battle-balancing
points for the *base's* "hull integrity", since that's the only thing that
matters for the game balance. To take an extreme example, if your enemy builds
a ground base on Earth you don't need to blow up the entire planet in order to
destroy the base!
(...'course, if the asteroid is on a collision course with your home planet
you *will* need to inflict a million points of damage on it to vapourize it
before it hits - but then the enemy will have to spend huge resources on
putting it onto that collision course in the first place; he hasn't just
paid for building a base :-/ )
So, you have to ask yourself: why do you plan to use a battle-balancing
points system for a campaign game, instead of designing a
campaign-economic
points system?
> >Point Five:
No, *extremely* relevant to any discussion assuming that WPs are the only
available means of FTL travel - which, as you noted in your post, this
discussion does. The difference in game mechanics are irrelevant, as are
the difference in physics details; but the tactical considerations resulting
from forcing all FTL travel to pass through very well defined and
predictable small volumes of space are virtually identical - and those
tactical considerations are what we're discussing here.
Regards,
> At 7:33 PM +0100 2/2/05, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
MY concept of fixed defenses is a cost saving efficiency measure that allows
other mobile units to be more flexible and know that certain avenues are
covered.
Think of it as a guard walking an open perimeter or a guard walking a
perimeter with some fences and gates. Which is more secure? Just because
someone can climb a fence doesn't mean it's entirely useless.
> It is also noteworthy that Weber (who created most of the StarFire
But still included some fixed wormholes that fast tracked transit times
between two points from the edge of an empire to the core of it. And there
they had fixed and mobile defenses on both sides of the gate.
This is the context to which I speak.
> On Wednesday 02 February 2005 18:33, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
Fixed defences doesn't mean only fixed defences. You could have a mobile fleet
on the other side. Fixed defences on the other side are much harder to defend
because an attack can come from any
direction - on the 'home' side attacks can only come from one
direction (the warp gate). If it acts like a doorway (which I have been
assuming) and attacks can only come along a limited vector, then fixed
defences can hide to the side or behind where they are difficult to target
directly from the 'away' side.
This is the problem planetary defences have - just ramp up an
asteroid to high velocity and the planet is toast (since the FT universe has
reactionless thrusters, this is pretty cheap to do).
This is probably the important issue with fixed defences - how
do you stop someone destroying your homeworld if they can jump in at the Oort
Cloud and hurl rocks at you?
> Samuel Penn wrote:
What's your definition of balanced? In Monopoloy everyone starts the game
exactly the same, and have exactly the same chance of landing on any
particular square. The only difference is who starts first, which gives a
small advantage at the start.
But, going back to wargames, most will try for some form of balance. Even if
the 'balance' is in the fact that the guy with a single corvette only has to
destroy a single ship from the enemy fleet in order to win, that's a sort of
balance.
I haven't seen a wargame along the lines of the Earth-Minbari war,
where humans get 1000pts, the Minbari get 100,000pts, and both have a goal of
wiping out the other (humans don't 'win' by surviving
for three turns, or defeating the Black Star - they have to win by
defeating the entire enemy fleet).
> >An asteroid
Yes, that's what I meant. You just wrote it better :-)
> Eg., you're assuming that an enemy faced with a 1,000,000 Mass
That's my point - those 1,000,0000 hull points are worthless unless
they're backed up with serious firepower (it was in response to the point that
in FT, you pay for weapons not hull).
> In game terms, the *base* built on the asteroid has a far lower
Very true. But a lot of the hardware (reactors, heat sinks, computers, crew,
fighter repair bays etc) can be hidden deep in the asteroid behind millions of
tonnes of rock. The point is, it's cheaper to hide stuff in a rock than it is
to hide it in a spaceship, especially if it's cheaper to build bigger versions
of things because you don't have the
same mass/volume constraints as you do in a spaceship.
I'm not talking points value - I'm talking real world economic costs.
> (...'course, if the asteroid is on a collision course with your home
And get hit by billions of tonnes of superheated plasma instead. Yay!
:-)
> So, you have to ask yourself: why do you plan to use a
Hey, I don't :-)
> > >Point Five:
As I said elsewhere, regardless of rules and physics, irrelevant if half the
people discussing them are unaware of those points. Some people may prefer
abuse, but it's generally more productive to say something constructive
instead if you actually want people to stop rehashing those same points.
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
Absolutely.
If one was, for instance, designing a new interstellar combat game, the
important thing is *not* whether the ships are armed with plasma bolts, phased
energy blasters, or
polka-dotted ray projectors.
The important thing is the damage mechanism used to inflict damage on the
target ship.
In other worlds, one has to focus on the *effects*, not the *causes*.
http://www.projectrho.com/game/champship.html
When Niven and Pournelle started writing THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE, they wanted to
write a rousing space opera. Unfortunately combat between spacecraft armed
with nuclear weapons is real dull. So they contracted physicist Dan Alderson
to custom design a science fictional force field who's logical ramifications
allowed exciting space combat scenes. In other words, just like you said, they
"figured out what
> I could be wrong, but I got the distinct impression
<grin> What? You mean that "bow rake/down the throat shot" parallel
isn't just a remarkable coincidence? Nonsense! Next you'll be telling us that
the PRH is modeled on France, and Rob S Pierre is just a photocopy of some
historical character!
> Nyrath wrote:
> It is also noteworthy that Weber (who created most of the StarFire
Basically correct, though you've mixed the two HHverse drive configurations
up. The normal wedges (used primarily in normal-space) are the ones
which protect the broadsides and leave bow and stern unprotected; the
Warshawski sails (used only for FTL travel inside hyperspace grav waves,
including
"warp points") are the other way around - they protect the bow and
stern,
and leave the broadsides vulnerable instead :-/
Later,
> Samuel Penn wrote:
> Very much so. However, relying on fixed defences means that you're
If the mobile fleet on the far side of the warp point is strong enough to
prevent the enemy from attacking the warp point, the points you've spent on
the fixed defences were essentially wasted since they didn't participate in
the fight. If the mobile fleet isn't strong enough to keep the enemy away from
the warp point, you have set yourself up for a defeat in detail.
> If it acts like a doorway (which I have been assuming) and attacks can
Limiting warp transits to specific vectors only protects you against purely
ballistic projectiles (eg. rocks). It won't help much, if at all, against more
advanced units unless your physics assumptions also put limits on what facing
transiting units must have (rather than merely what *vector* they
have to use - remember that Vector-moving ships in Full Thrust don't
have to face in the direction they're moving), how the transiting units are
allowed to manoeuvre after making transit, and what arcs their weapons are
allowed to fire into after making transit.
> This is the problem planetary defences have - just ramp up an
If you don't have time to intercept someone who jumps into the system between
two and twenty times as far out as the average orbital radius of
Pluto (or more) and then starts accellerating towards your planet at a
rather slow rate compared to what normal-sized spaceships can pull
before he can reach your planet, then you are also completely unable to
intercept an enemy warfleet which jumps in anywhere *closer* than the Oort
cloud and accellerates at *higher* rates (ie., normal starship thrust ratings)
before it gets into weapons range of your planet. If this is indeed the case,
then
I'd suggest that the Oort cloud rock-hurling is the *smallest* of all
your
defence problems :-/ If I were you I'd be a lot more worried about
kinetic
bombardments from *short* distances - like eg. half the distance between
Earth and Luna.
> ...any game system is going to be (vaguely) balanced.
That all players with the same skill level have the same chance of winning the
game.
> In Monopoloy everyone
This seemingly small initial advantage can rapidly snowball into a *big*
advantage: the earlier you move the more areas are available for you to
purchase; and the more areas you purchase the more likely it is that other
players will have to pay you rents and the less likely it is that *you* will
need to pay *them* rents (because you're more likely to land on your own
areas). The player that goes first has a distinct advantage, the player
that goes last has a distinct disadvantage: the game is not balanced -
and there's no moderating mechanism to rein in the leader; much gets more.
Like Doug says, multi-player campaigns where players can gang up on the
leader have an inherent moderating mechanism - but it requires the other
players to actually *do* gang up on the leader, and to do so in a coordinated
fashion which doesn't allow the leader to defeat them in detail. In my
experience a more common scenario is a smaller alliance between those players
that are directly threatened by the leader's expansion, with those players who
*don't* share borders with the leader
backstabbing the anti-leader allies in order to grab as much of their
territory for themselves while the allied forces are off fighting the
campaign leader :-/
> But, going back to wargames, most will try for some form of
This sort of balance based on pre-determined victory conditions exists
in
one-off battles and scenarios, and also in carefully controlled campaign
games where the "historical" outcome is known (eg. US Civil War games). It
does not exist in open-ended campaigns like the VVerse - open-ended and
pre-determined are mutually exclusive.
> I haven't seen a wargame along the lines of the Earth-Minbari
Then you haven't seen any open-ended campaigns, much less participated
in any <shrug>
> A game system which
Other parts of your posts very strongly suggest that it *wasn't* quite what
you meant. More on this below.
> Eg., you're assuming that an enemy faced with a 1,000,000 Mass
No, they aren't "worthless". If the base has 1,000,000 hull points, its PDSs
are *extremely* well protected. They'll keep inflicting attrition on
the enemy for a very long time indeed - about as long as it takes the
enemy to inflict 1,000,000 damage points on the base, in fact. Depending on
what kind of enemy force you're fighting, that can be very valuable indeed.
> In game terms, the *base* built on the asteroid has a far lower "hull
Sure, but in "real-world" terms the fighter bays need bay doors or
launch tunnels which transport the fighters to the outside of the asteroid,
beam weapons need emitters on the asteroid surface, and so on. Those surface
systems and sub-systems are *not* hidden behind millions of tonnes of
rock, but they are nevertheless necessary to allow the asteroid base to affect
any tactical battle in its vicinity.
All that matters in the tactical battle, ie. all that the
battle-balancing
points system is concerned with, is whether or not the fighter bays can
launch or recover fighters (which they can't do if the bay doors/launch
tunnels have been destroyed, even if the actual bays themselves buried deep
inside the asteroid are still intact), whether or not the weapons can fire
(which they can't do if their emitters have been turned into space dust,
even if the main parts of the weapons buried deep inside the asteroid are
still intact), and whether or not these systems can be put back into action by
damage control parties during the time frame of the battle. Exactly *why* they
can't launch or fire or be repaired is irrelevant from the tactical rules'
point of view; the important question is *whether*.
If the answer to all of these questions is "no" - the fighter bays can't
launch/recover, the weapons can't fire, and they can't be restored by
damage control parties during the battle - then the Full Thrust tactical
rules count the asteroid base as being "destroyed". It doesn't matter
*why*
the systems can't perform; the base hasn't automatically been utterly
vapourized any more than a ship with all hull boxes crossed out has
automatically been vapourized, and just like the ship hulk it can -
provided of course that your *campaign* rules allow it - be recovered
and repaired *after* the battle, but it can no longer affect the tactical
battle in any way whatsoever. In game terms, this is represented by all of its
hull boxes being crossed out. 'Course, if you use the "Battle Debris" rules
from MT you probably want to adjust the amount of damage it takes to
turn a fortress on a big asteroid from "destroyed" to "debris" - if
nothing else you want to do this to protect your home planet from being blown
up by accident when an enemy ship overkills a small ground base...
Expressed in a different way, what you are actually saying (as opposed to what
you believe that you're saying) when you give your asteroid base 1,000,000 hit
points is not just that its *internal* systems (fighter bays, fire control
computers, plasma generators or whatever) are protected by a million hit
points of rock, but that all the *surface* systems (bay doors, target tracking
sensor antennae, beam emitters etc.) that are necessary to allow the base to
affect the tactical battle are ALSO protected by the same 1,000,000 hit
points. If you really want to armour the *surface* systems of your asteroid
base enough to survive damage that would destroy ten thousand
superdreadnoughts or more, then it shouldn't come as a big surprise to you
that the asteroid base will be extremely expensive in in economic terms (as
well as in battle-balancing points, of course).
> The point is, it's cheaper to hide stuff in a rock than it is to hide
Not exactly. It *might be* cheaper to hide stuff in a rock than to hide it in
a spaceship, provided among other things that you don't have to pay any
significant costs to first transport your construction materials and workforce
to the rock (or vice versa) and then transport the rock with installed systems
to whereever you want it. Also, unless you hide ALL the base's equipment deep
inside the rock (or else armour the surface systems
and sub-systems *extremely* well), then the base will have far fewer
damage points than the asteroid it is built on.
> I'm not talking points value - I'm talking real world economic costs.
> No, you're mixing the two up. Let's look again at what you wrote:
> A game system which costs according to hull strength (as FT does) is
Here you most definitely *are* talking about the FTFB battle-balancing
points value, because FT doesn't give any real-world costs outside the
GZGverse, and the VVerse is explicitly different from the GZGverse. Note
that even in the GZGverse, the link between battle-balancing points
value and economic cost is quite tentative; it will be severed entirely when
the CPV system goes official). Your next sentence from that post,
> For example, are big long ranged weapons expensive because they
makes it eminently clear that you thought that the FTFB points values would
be used to determine what forces the players could field - ie., that
they would take the place of the economic costs in the campaign. While you
called this "to balance forces according to this points system" instead of
"declaring that the points system DOES reflect economic reality", the fact is
that any system used to regulate new construction, repairs, maintenance etc.
of forces in a campaign game BECOMES that campaign game's economic reality.
You don't have to SAY this explicitly anywhere; the mere fact that you USE it
that way is the same as declaring it to be the campaign's economic reality.
> (...'course, if the asteroid is on a collision course with
Depends entirely on how far away from the planet you destroyed the asteroid.
Even ignoring the changes in momentum caused by the translation from solid
rock to superheated plasma, the plasma will disperse *much* faster than solid
rock does.
> So, you have to ask yourself: why do you plan to use a
Then you must've stopped doing that since your last few posts, because in them
you certainly were <shrug>
> Point Five:
Bullshit. If a car runs over you from behind, it'll maim or kill you when it
strikes you regardless of whether or not you were aware of it coming.
You can't dodge it by calling it "irrelevant", and if others try to warn
you about it you ignore their warnings and pointers at your own peril. The
only way to save yourself from being overrun is to become aware that the
car is coming and leap out of its path.
Same with the StarFire system and this discussion. Since StarFire thoroughly
discusses many of the problems and potential solutions related to warp point
assaults, it is extremely relevant for this discussion about warp point
assaults completely regardless of whether or not you or others are aware of
it. This is precisly why I, John and several others have told
the rest of you to go and read those books/play that game before pushing
this discussion much further - ie., to MAKE you aware of them.
Since we have pointed you and the rest at the Starfire novels and game, your
attempt to claim that "it is irrelevant because I and many others are not
aware of them" is just as truthful as saying "I am be unhurt because I was
unaware of the approaching car" after you've already been maimed by it.
Regards,
> Ryan Gill wrote:
> Very much so. However, relying on fixed defences means that you're
> could of course be on the offensive along some other warp chain).
And the point I and Grant - more in reply to Rrok Anroll than to you,
though - were making was that unless you spend very large amounts of
resources, the fixed defences by themselves won't be enough to hold the line.
If you spend those very large amounts of resources on fixed defences
your mobile forces are severely weakened; if you only use trip-wire
fixed defences you're still going to need serious mobile forces to back them
up.
> It is also noteworthy that Weber (who created most of the StarFire
> between two points from the edge of an empire to the core of it. And
Manticore had *one single* warp junction to protect, and until very late in
the war against the PRH it was only fortified on the Manticore end (the forts
in Basilisk weren't fully operational when they came under attack in
"Echoes of Honor") - yet fortifying this single junction to an
"unbeatable" level made a *huge* dent in Manticore's mobile naval strength (as
witnessed by how the mobile naval strength jumped when they finally stood down
some
of the forts after re-taking San Martin). The Star Kingdom literally
wouldn't have been able to fortify a second junction to even close to that
level.
Also note that the only warp point assault we've read about in the HH
series was made *by* Manticore (into San Martin) - but only after
another Manticoran fleet had already drawn the Havenite defenders out of
position,
thus preventing them from blocking the warp point :-/ As Bujold points
in the Vorkosigan series, a warp point is best taken for both ends at once
even in the HHverse :-/
Later,
> On Friday 04 February 2005 18:58, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
It can be enough to prevent some of the attack scenarios suggested (the one
ship with a nova cannon, or a fleet just armed with an infinite supply of
missiles), but can used for intelligence gathering, harassment or threatening
their worm hole or supply chain. If it can't do anything useful, it can pull
back to the home side. At this point you have given over the initiative.
> >If it acts like a doorway (which I have been assuming) and attacks
It cuts down on many of the cheap options for attacking the gate, such as mass
drivers or long range beams. More intelligent bombardment attacks (such as
missiles) are more expensive, and will have to spend time accelerating once
they come through the gate in order to reach any targets, giving more time for
defences to shoot them down. Wide area defences (such as nukes) against
missiles which are clustered together because they've all had to come through
the same gate might work as well.
Yes, it won't protect a great deal against ships, but then the enemy has to
commit their ships to coming in range of the defenders own weapons. Most of
the original discussion was that this was not necessary, that an attacking
fleet would just sit a long way off and bombard the defenders with infinite
supplies of missiles.
> >This is probably the important issue with fixed defences -
Aren't any big rocks between Earth and Luna. Much easier to set up
relativistic kinetic kill weapons from a long way away.
> >In Monopoloy everyone
Okay, I've never noticed this. In my experience it was always my Dad who
seemed to win, regardless of how everyone else teamed up or who
went first... :-(
> >I haven't seen a wargame along the lines of the Earth-Minbari
What, so there are games where one person *starts* with 100x the resources of
the other, but both have the same victory conditions?
I've played in open-ended campaigns where everyone starts more or
less the same. The fact that one person is able to build up resources quicker
than another, and therefore gain an overwhelming advantage is common. *I*
don't see this as being unbalanced, as long as everyone has the same chance to
be the one who builds up resources the quickest (assuming all are of the same
skill).
> >>>A game system which
I believe all this stemmed from someone's comment that FT is pointed on weapon
systems, not mass. The million point asteroid was an example of why this isn't
true. I think. It may have been seconded into another use since it's
inception, but the issues about its point cost stem from that.
> >>Eg., you're assuming that an enemy faced with a 1,000,000 Mass
PDS aren't very useful against a fleet that sits at 7" and bombards the base
with beam weapons. It's not worth a million points in most situations. If it's
fixed, you can probably ignore it.
As I said above, it's an example of a bad design which I don't
consider to be cost-effective in points. This is getting seriously
close to the various 'point costs are broken' discussions on the GURPS
groups... The points system is designed to give everyone the same opportunity
to build balanced fleets, but doesn't ensure that you actually do.
> >>In game terms, the *base* built on the asteroid has a far lower
Which was why I didn't mention them in the list of things which are hidden. In
game terms, it should give some advantage to threshold checks or something for
certain systems. You could have salvo launch
systems on/near the surface, with the magazines deep in the asteroid
where they can't easily be taken out.
Of course, there are always Meson Guns.
> >The point is, it's cheaper to hide stuff in a rock than it is to
> >I'm not talking points value - I'm talking real world economic
> >A game system which costs according to hull strength (as FT does) is
You're misunderstanding entirely. What I'm saying is:
1) It's cheaper (economically) to hollow out an asteroid than it is to build a
ship hull out of the latest composite materials where you have to worry about
mass and volume limits.
2) FT charges the same whether it's an asteroid or a spaceship.
3) Therefore FT doesn't work if you want to model real world economics.
I'm well aware that FT point system becomes the 'effective economics' if that
is all you are using in a campaign, but you can't use it if you want to bring
real world economics into the campaign.
I'm mentioning the FT point system (in 2) not because I want to use it, but
because I'm questioning it's validity in the scenarios I'm talking about (in
1).
I think we're both agreeing on these points.
> >>So, you have to ask yourself: why do you plan to use a
Huh? I've never said I planned to use any point system. The only thing I've
ever said I planned on doing was building an RPG background where I'd use FT
for space combat, and that was in a different thread entirely.
I've only ever mentioned the FT point system when I've been saying that I
don't think it's useful for what I want.
> >>>>Point Five:
Um, what has this got to do with anything?
> This is precisly why I, John and several others have told
There is a big difference between adding to the discussion based on your prior
experience (and pointing out where that experience came from so that people
can follow it up if they have the time and resources), and telling everyone to
shut up because you know more than they do.
The latter is what John did, and that is what I objected to. You are doing the
former, and I don't have any problem with that.
Sam,
John A and Oerjan Ohlson said the same thing in the same way. You just need to
run John's through the filter that you develop after a few postings of his.
Hi John, the above meant in good fun.
Bob Makowsky
> --- Samuel Penn <sam@bifrost.demon.co.uk> wrote:
There is a big difference between adding to the discussion based on your prior
experience (and pointing out where that experience came from so that people
can follow it up if they have the time and resources), and telling everyone to
shut up because you know more than they do.
The latter is what John did, and that is what I objected to. You are doing the
former, and I don't have any problem with that.
On Sat, 5 Feb 2005 05:03:54 -0800 (PST), Robert Makowsky
> <rmakowsky@yahoo.com> wrote:
On Sat, 5 Feb 2005 11:08:07 +0000, Samuel Penn <sam@bifrost.demon.co.uk>
wrote:
> There is a big difference between adding to the discussion based
> John Atkinson wrote:
> I have neither the time nor the inclination to recapitulate every word
As much as I hate to risk tweaking John's nose, these are David Weber novels
we're talking about here. Everything IS summarized in
pseudo-dialogue and often and some length and with some degree of
redundancy. I will grant John the "not always neatly" part.
Absolutely. I enjoy your view of the world which is lacking in the usual
social stuff that gets in the way of the facts. If someone says something that
is stupid it is stupid regardless of the "feelings" of that person.
Bob Makowsky
> --- John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@gmail.com> wrote:
> It's entirely true.
> I wrote:
> Also note that the only warp point assault we've read about in the HH
Should of course be "...(into Trevor's Star)". San Martin was the inhabited
planet of the Trevor's Star system; I don't think any star fleet would want
to assault *into* a planet :-/
Later,
Sorry for the delay; things have been a bit hectic over here :-(
> Samuel Penn wrote:
> If the mobile fleet on the far side of the warp point is strong
AFAIK the only one who has suggested using *one* ship with a nova cannon is
you yourself, in the sentence above. Grant Ladue's original suggestion was to
*lead* the assault with a nova cannon shot, but he said nothing at all about
what *other* ships the attacker might have nearby both to escort the nova ship
to the WP (defeating any mobile defenders encountered along the way) and to
exploit any breach it can make in the fixed defences once it
gets there. IOW, splitting your defence force up on both sides of the WP
won't do squat to prevent a Nova Cannon attack on the fixed defences unless
the mobile force is strong enough to beat the attackers.
> or a fleet just armed with an infinite supply of missiles),
If the enemy fleet has an infinite supply of missiles, it'll be quite able
to smother your mobile force in missiles in a deep-space battle before
ever moving near the WP.
> but can used for intelligence gathering, harassment or threatening
Intelligence gathering is of little use once the enemy has blocked the far
side of the WP, because then the now cut-off mobile defenders have no
means of getting the intelligence to those who need it (ie., the fixed
defences on the other end of the WP) while it is still relevant. (Or at all,
if the WPs are the only means of FTL travel.)
Harassment and threatening the attackers' supply chain works fine as long
as the cut-off mobile defenders' own supplies last - but if they aren't
strong enough to stand up to the attacker's fleet, the amount of harassment
they can inflict is usually quite limited.
> If it can't do anything useful, it can pull back to the home side. At
Precisely. And since its chances for doing anything useful on the far side of
the WP are quite limited unless it is strong enough to actually stand up to
the attacker's force, this is by far the most common option for an outnumbered
mobile defence force to take.
> If it acts like a doorway (which I have been assuming) and attacks
Than a rock? Sure. More expensive than sending crewed starships through
instead? Hardly.
Unfortunately, if ballistic attacks through WPs are possible at all -
ie.,
if transiting units are able to carry over a significant velocity to the
far side of the WP - then you're going to need some sort of physical
obstacles "in front of" the WP in order to prevent attacking starships from
going through so fast that they'll coast outside the range of fixed
defences deployed "behind" or "beside" the WP before the defences can destroy
them... and any such physical obstacles are at risk eg. from
ballistically-launched nukes or nova rounds.
> and will have to spend time accelerating once they come through the
Are you thinking "campaign reality" or FT game mechanics here? In FT small
units like fighters or missiles can move in any direction they like, with no
worries about how long it ought to take to change course.
> giving more time for defences to shoot them down.
Provided of course that the defences have long enough range to actually
*use* that extra time - which FT's anti-missile defences currently don't
have. (Depends on which fighter rules the VVerse is going to use, though
-
the Fleet Book ones or the beta-test ones. Laserlight?)
> Wide area defences (such as nukes) against missiles which are
Wide-area defences *can* work against trans-WP missile barrages -
provided that they're able to reach their targets before said targets
disperse, which isn't entirely certain. If you deploy your nukes too close to
the warp point, you either have to harden them enough not to fratricide one
another (in which case you're basically saying that it would also be possible
to harden the incoming *missiles* to the same extent, thus making
them invulnerable to the nukes); and if you deploy your back-up nukes
further away from the warp point they have to get to the WP in time to
destroy the *second* wave of incoming missiles - the one timed to arrive
immediately *after* your first defensive nuke has detonated and killed
everything on the WP.
> Yes, it won't protect a great deal against ships, but then the enemy
If transiting units can carry over a significant velocity from one side of the
WP to the other it will give virtually no protection against ships. If OTOH
they don't do that (ie., units lose most or all of their velocity in transit),
then the cheapest ballistic attacks are impossible anyway and all you achieve
by deploying the fixed defences "behind" or "beside" the WP is to weaken the
defences "in front" of the WP.
> Most of the original discussion was that this was not
And deploying the defences off to one side of the WP doesn't change this
significantly, since FT missiles can manoeuvre against their targets. Unless,
of course, you deploy your defences so far away from the WP that
the missiles can't reach them in a single turn's worth of movement - but
then the defences are also so far from the WP that the firepower they can
throw at any attacking ships is severely reduced.
> This is probably the important issue with fixed defences -
Are big SHIPS between Earth and Luna. No NEED to set up kinetic kill weapons
from a long way away since lunar orbit allows plenty distance for
acceleration. (Ship without asteroid accelerates much faster than ship with
asteroid, too.) Much easier to INTERCEPT kinetic kill weapons (either to
deflect them or to destroy them) if launched from a long way away since
defenders get lots more time to react than if attack run starts long long way
off.
Like I said in the previous post, if you can't intercept someone who starts
accellerating at a slow rate (due to having a huge asteroid to push) somewhere
way out in the Oort cloud, you're not bloody likely to be able to intercept
anyone who starts from a much closer starting point and
accellerates at a much higher rate either - which basically means that
you can't intercept *any* enemy fleet away from your planet if it arrived by
other means than a WP, and that the only possible planetary defence action
against such a fleet consists of one single round of fire just before (or
possibly at the same time as) the enemy gets to shoot at the planet.
> I haven't seen a wargame along the lines of the Earth-Minbari
Maybe not two orders of magnitude (other than the one Nyrath posted, of course
<g>), but I've seen upwards of 10x several times and 2x many times. When the
victory conditions are "last man standing" or "first to collect X
money/civilization advances/whatever wins", even a 2x advantage
initially will escalate very rapidly unless there are campaign mechanics which
actively mitigate it (cf. my discussion with Binhan Lin on this subject).
> I've played in open-ended campaigns where everyone starts more or less
And when this happens too fast, particularly when it happens because of luck
(eg. you happen to encounter and ally with an advanced and rich
non-player race), this too is a very effective way to kill the other
players' interest in the campaign.
> *I* don't see this as being unbalanced, as long as everyone
So you'd consider the campaign balanced if one side starts with 2x or 10x or
100x the resources of another, as long as they drew lots about who would take
which side? That would give everyone the same chance to be the one who gets
the most resources... but it wouldn't be particularly fun for the others.
> A game system which
Think again, or better still use the mailing list archive to check. The "FT is
pointed on weapon systems" comment was made by John A. *in reply* to your
above statement, which in its entirety read:
> An asteroid
- which as you can see above was also the starting point for our current
discussion.
IOW, you introduced the million-hull asteroid base into the discussion
*before* John made his "FT is pointed on weapon systems" comment. I haven't
discussed John's reply to your statement at all in this thread (not least
because I disagree with it); instead I have been discussing your above
statement *itself*. More specifically, I have been discussing what a
"million-hull" asteroid base actually represents when you translate it
from
game mechanic terms to "campaign reality" - and why interpreting it the
way you do (ie., that you have to vapourize the entire asteroid in order to
silence all the base's weapons) actually makes it quite reasonable that an
asteroid base with a million hull points is horrendously expensive compared to
spaceships even economically.
The archive also shows that you made the above statement ("An asteroid...
...defences like this.") as a *counter-argument* to John's admonition to
stop thinking in terms of equal-points battles - which regardless of
your actual intentions with it very strongly implies that you either yourself
planned to use the points system to represent campaign economics in spite of
its known flaws (and thus turn it into the campaign's economic reality even
though it isn't suitable for that purpose), or else at least expected the
campaign to use it as such in spite of your opinion.
OO:
> Eg., you're assuming that an enemy faced with a 1,000,000 Mass
SP:
> That's my point - those 1,000,0000 hull points are worthless
No, what I wrote above is *not* your point. Your point is that the base MUST
pay for those 1,000,000 hull points even when it has no use for them simply
because the *asteroid* will absorb that much damage before being
vapourized - but that point is false. The only connection between the
*asteroid's* "hull integrity" and the hull integrity of any *base* built
into said asteroid is that the base's hull integrity can't *exceed* the
asteroid's - but it can very easily be *less* than the asteroid's.
And that's the point *I* am making: those 1,000,000 hull points are only
relevant to the game if you want to annihilate the *asteroid*. If all you want
to do is to inflict enough damage on the *base* built into that asteroid to
put it permanently out of the battle (ie., reduce it to what FT calls
"destroyed"), then the asteroid's 1,000,000 hull points are NOT relevant, they
NOT appear on the base's SSD, and thus you NOT have to pay
anything for them in the points system even in a one-off battle.
All that is relevant for the game, all that appears on the base's SSD, and
thus all that you'd pay FT points for in a one-off battle is how many
hull
boxes you have built into the *base* - and if you really *do* build a
base with 1,000,000 hull points on its SSD (ie., a unit whose *surface*
sub-systems are protected by a million hull boxes), then of course
you'll have to pay through the nose for it.
> No, they aren't "worthless". If the base has 1,000,000 hull points,
So? It *is* useful against, say, missile bombardments from the other side of a
warp point. Being able to soak up eighty thousand SM salvoes (more if the PDSs
are able degrade some of them) before being silenced isn't "worthless", and if
it sits right on top of a warp point you need to get
through you can't ignore it either. If it is worth this much *in any
situation* and you can deploy it in precisely that situation, then you can't
claim any points rebates.
But that's beside the point. The point, to re-iterate it for the
umpteenth time, is that if you build a unit with 1,000,000 hull points this
represents a unit where the *surface* sub-systems baked into any
individual
non-Core system icon on the unit's SSD can survive up to 1,000,000
damage points before being irrepairably destroyed. That the same system icon
*also* represents some sub-systems which are safely buried in the heart
of the unit is irrelevant as long as the entire system (ie., the entire
collection of sub-systems, buried as well as surface, which together are
represented by the one single SSD icon) is dependent of one or more surface
sub-systems to keep operating. If it takes *less* than 1,000,000 damage
points to permanently silence all the unit's systems (which is most easily
done by destroying all their surface sub-systems), then the *base* has
less than 1,000,000 damage points no matter how big the *asteroid* it is built
into is.
> In game terms, the *base* built on the asteroid has a far lower
You didn't mention them EXPLICITLY. Since however any non-Core system in
Full Thrust consists of both surface and "hidden" sub-systems - eg., the
fighter bay doors and launch tunnels are represented by the same fighter
bay icon as the hangar itself, and the (surface) targetting sensors and
(buried) fire control computers are represented on the SSD as a single Fire
Control System icon - your statement that these systems "can be hidden
deep in the asteroid behind millions of tonnes of rock" by default also
includes the *surface* components that go together with "hidden" components
you thought you described.
> A game system which costs according to hull strength (as FT does)
And what I'm saying is that you *don't* get a base with a million hull boxes
on the SSD just because you have sunk *some parts* of it deep inside
a million-ton asteroid while leaving other parts which are just as
necessary to its active operation on the asteroid's surface.
If you want a million hull boxes on your base's SSD, what you have to do in
"campaign reality" terms is to harden all those *surface* components to the
same extreme degree of protection as their buried collegues get from being
buried - and in order to make the *surface* components that durable,
you'll have to use materials far in advance of anything you put into an
80-hull-box superdreadnought (or else you have to use the same materials
as in the SDN but some twelve thousand times more of it). And to do that,
you'll have to pay through the nose - economically as well as in
points-cost terms.
OK, you haven't confused the *FT points value* with the campaign reality's
*economic* value. Instead you have confused the FT *hull integrity* with
the *asteroid's mass* in the campaign reality and treat them as if they
were identical, which is just as bad - you're still confusing game
mechanics on one hand with an unrelated piece of campaign reality.
> 2) FT charges the same whether it's an asteroid or a spaceship.
For the same number of *hull points*, yes. But that's not the same thing as
"for the same Mass regardless of material or geometry".
> 3) Therefore FT doesn't work if you want to model real world
Nope. While 3) is certainly true for other reasons it does not follow from 1)
and 2) alone. In order to derive 3) from 1) and 2) you also need to introduce
some sort of *explicit* link between the number of hull points
the asteroid base has and the mass of the asteroid itself.
The rules don't have any such link - and for good reason, too. Due to
the nature of the FT tactical rules' representation of structural and systems
damage (including the facts that FT's "destroyed" does not equate
"annihilated", and that the non-core systems on an FT SSD consist of
both surface and buried components *all* of which need to be reasonably intact
for the system as a whole to keep working), any such direct link between a
space body's mass and the hull integrity of anything built on or in it will
automatically give ridiculous results for any ground base. Even if the link
works in the asteroid base case (which yours doesn't), it'll inevitably break
down the instant anyone uses the same rule for building a base on a
planet: if a base built on a million-tonne asteroid gets a million hull
points, how many hull points do you assign to a base built into an
Earth-sized planet?
You also have to make some highly unrealistic assumptions to PSB this direct
and explicit link; among other things you need to assume that a million tonnes
of rock will give the same amount of protection to a
sub-system on the *outside* of said rock as it does to a sub-systems in
the *middle* of it...
...which means that the "million tonnes of rock gives a million hull points"
example you're using to show why the FT points system (which once again is not
the same thing as FT) doesn't work for campaigns is based on premises which
are themselves highly unrealistic.
That you made this argument *in opposition* to a post which said to *ignore*
the points system (and thus *in defence* of using the points
system) makes it even more absurd :-/
> As I said elsewhere, regardless of rules and physics,
You explicitly claimed that the StarFire information was irrelevant because
not everyone in the discussion was aware of it: "...irrelevant if half the
people discussing them are unaware of those points." and "...if 90%+ of
people here haven't read them either, then they're irrelevent until someone
provides the info."
Those statements of yours are 100% false: the relevance of the information is
completely *independent* of whether or not people are aware of it; it
would be just as relevant even if *no one* is aware of it, and it could be of
great benefit to those it is relevant for if they were only aware of it. I
used the car accident as more obvious example of how information can be
highly relevant - vitally important, in fact - even for those who are
not aware of it.
> This is precisly why I, John and several others have told the rest
John was telling everybody to shut up UNLESS they had acquired the relevant
information about WP assaults available in the StarFire game and novels
-
with the unstated implication that AFTER aquiring said relevant information
the discussion could continue (and rather more fruitfully too, since then
people wouldn't be re-hashing stuff that has already thoroughly worked
out twenty years ago).
I was telling people to study the StarFire information about WP assaults
before continuing the discussion much further, which effectively amounts to
exactly the same thing as John was saying. The only real difference between
what John said and what I said is that he expressed himself somewhat more
emphatically than I did.
What *you* were saying OTOH was that the *information itself* is irrelevant if
some people are ignorant about it. That's simply not true. Now go and
read those books (or better still, play that game) before we continue this
discussion any further.
Regards,
Oerjan Ohlson said:
> You explicitly claimed that the StarFire information was irrelevant
Yes, I did. I will admit that I know nothing about StarFire. I have never seen
the game available in the shops, so I've never had the opportunity to even
read it, yet alone play it. If it's available on the net, then a simple link
to where it can be downloaded would do (since I haven't seen any provided by
anyone, I assume that it's available hard copy only).
But that is my entire point - and why my initial phrase was
'irrelevent'. If I do not know anything about the properties of wormholes in
StarFire, then I cannot talk about them. Nothing I say is relevent to StarFire
wormholes, except by a fluke of random chance or due to basic wormhole
properties. This is the reason I'm not talking about StarFire wormholes. I
have never said that I am.
How massive are the wormhole gates in StarFire? If they're massive (which is
something I assume, and I can't remember whether this was a property I choose
for exotic matter when I built a campaign around them some years back, or
whether it's a property implied by current physics) then tactics are going
to be different than if it's non-massive. The latter will
totally break fixed defences, especially if gravity 'leaks' through the
wormhole, since it allows the 'away' gateway to be pushed near a star or other
massive object, preventing any fixed positions to be kept when the defences
suddenly find themselves in a gravitational field.
As I've said before, I'm assuming a 2D interface (basically, a circular
gateway) which limits the vectors attacks can come from. If it's a 3D gateway
(like the tetrahedrons in 'Timelike Infinity') then this isn't the case.
Do they allow causality to be broken? Since this hasn't been mentioned (and it
leads to a completely different set of
tactics), I assume not, so it's quite a biggy :-)
Do they have any 'cannot exist in a gravity well' constraints? If so, that
prevents sticking them on a planet's surface. A wormhole built with both ends
on a planet's surface gives a big advantage to fixed installations and
practically wipes out using a fleet to assualt it (except to land troops). I
assume that this is possible (and may be desirable if you're more worried
about defence than ease of use).
Can they be shrunk or grown? Does doing so require cooperation from both ends?
A small nation could build only small gateways, preventing larger nations
getting through larger capital ships.
Things are complicated even further if we use Alderson Points which don't have
any form of gateway at all, or something similar which allows ships to jump in
over a large volume of space (which I assumed earlier wasn't the case). They
could even be like the StarGate in the series of the same name (similar
gateway to mine, but can be closed, can't be seen through, very light and many
to many connections).
Since I've never played StarFire, I have no idea what the properties of
StarFire wormholes are.
Now, many of the arguments here could well be because no-one
has firmly declared the properties of their 'view' of a wormhole, and that's
my fault as much as anyone's. If my view has solidified towards one particular
implementation over the course of the discussion (which definitely started
with no particular implementation in mind), then I apologise if this has
caused confusion.
> Those statements of yours are 100% false: the relevance of the
This is only true if there is some fixed 'truth' that we are all discussing.
Since there are so many different parameters which can be used to define
wormholes, this isn't the case.
Now, maybe what I'm talking about is 100% similar to StarFire wormholes. I
don't know. What are the properties of StarFire wormholes?
When I ordered a product from them, I was shocked to discover that the
current owner lives only some 10 miles from my house....:-)
Donald Hosford
> Dean Gundberg wrote:
> Starfire is available from the Starfire Design Studio
Later
> 2nd and 3rd editions were released as box games compiling and updating
Oerjan Ohlson said:
> Sorry for the delay; things have been a bit hectic over here :-(
No probs.
> Samuel Penn wrote:
Yes, I'm being extreme, so sue me. If you can't reach with one nova cannon,
you can't reach with N. He seemed to be suggesting that any fixed defences
could be weakened to the point of
uselessness with an infinite supply of missiles - to quote
"Repeat until there is a hole in the defenses sufficient for a
manned fleet to move through with impunity" - and that Nova
cannons make this easier.
I'm saying I don't think this is true, and nova cannons especially are easy to
avoid, even if you have fixed defences. If you have that many missiles, you
can weaken any fleet, mobile or not.
In practise, you have a limited amount of missiles and other 'cheap'
ordinance, and they are possible to defend against.
> >but can used for intelligence gathering, harassment or threatening
Assuming that it is possible to jam all communications. Given that people are
playing around with wormholes, there may well be forms of communications which
are difficult to jam, such as quantum effects or gravity waves, if radio and
lasers can't get through.
It depends on the available technology.
> Precisely. And since its chances for doing anything useful on the far
Possibly, but it doesn't render fixed defences useless.
Mobile defences are better given a fixed amount of weaponry. What I assume, is
that for the same price (I'm ignoring what this price is, whether cash,
resources or points) a mobile fleet with provide X amount of offensive power,
and a fixed base will provide XY, where Y > 1.
Obviously, the advantage of mobility that a fleet has means that Y has to be
sufficiently large to counter this. The exact value of Y is arguable, and I'm
not going to argue it beyond saying that it's not going to be so small that
fixed defences are worthless. I obviously believe that Y is somewhat larger
than you believe it is.
> Unfortunately, if ballistic attacks through WPs are possible at all -
If the gate has only one active side, then point it at a planet, or a star.
Anything that comes through quickly better be able to slow down before it
crashes.
But yes, you will need something to stop this from happening. No solution will
be perfect of course, but maybe that's a use
for the million mass asteroid. :-)
btw, this tactic can be used against a fleet as well. Come through fast enough
and you may only be within range of a mobile fleet for a short period of time,
not long enough for them to do much against you. Whether this is a viable
tactic depends on why you're attacking.
Or, as I said in another post, you stick both ends of the wormhole on planets
(or moons). Run a railway track through it if you want. A fleet is now going
to have to land a ground force to take control of the gate, then possibly
build starships on the other side to continue the assualt.
It does limit the usefulness of the gate, but a paranoid nation may decide
that it is worthwhile.
> >and will have to spend time accelerating once they come through the
Fighters can, missiles are limited to one turn halfway through their move.
Salvo missiles are effectively line of sight weapons.
> >Wide area defences (such as nukes) against missiles which are
Hit them on the other side of the gate - by definition, they
can't have dispersed by that point (otherwise they won't get through the
gate).
> If you deploy your nukes too close to the
The counter-nukes could be relatively dumb (dumber than a
missile that needs to locate and reach a target the firer can't see), so more
robust. Second wave of nukes would be on the home side of the gate, so outside
the blast radius.
All assuming that the gate is strong enough to withstand nukes being exploded
in close proximity! Destroying your
own gate would be the most effective defence :-)
But no, no defence is perfect. Some attacks will get through. The point is to
raise the cost of attacking, and to prevent your own defences being
overwhelmed before the enemy fleet arrives.
> >Yes, it won't protect a great deal against ships, but then the enemy
I don't see any reason why they would loose velocity.
> >Aren't any big rocks between Earth and Luna. Much easier to set up
Depending on how good sensors are will affect when you become aware of the
attack. If it's just an inert lump of rock (start accelerating at 100au, stop
at 40au), it may be hard to detect. All this depends on available technology.
Short range attacks of this sort will have much smaller masses to play with,
and be easier to detect.
> >>>I haven't seen a wargame along the lines of the Earth-Minbari
Okay, I haven't. Out of interest, how did they play? Were they interesting to
participate in?
> >*I* don't see this as being unbalanced, as long as everyone
Yes, it's balanced, but the 'campaign' becomes everyone roll a die, and
whoever rolls highest wins.
Normally (in my experience) it takes a while to get to the point where one
person has a big advantage, and then everyone decides to end the game. But the
playing until that point is interesting.
Computer based games, where you have dozens of planets and ships to look after
tend to have a balancing factor in that it gets harder to concentrate on your
entire empire, and you (I) tend to miss small (but important) details. It's
not necessarily enough, but it is there and depends on the game in question.
If you have finite resources to call on, then your 'empire' will tend to be
the ring around the edges, as your centre becomes depleted. It takes longer to
move your fleet to protect all your worlds because the resource generating
worlds are now a lot further apart. Again, this can be a balancing factor (to
some extent).
[...snip stuff about asteroids...]
Yes, I fully agree with your point that an asteroid base does not need to cost
the entire asteroid. I said this several posts ago, straight after you pointed
out my mistake.
Yes, there are situations where a million mass asteroid is useful, but they
are very limited. I agree that if there is one situation, you probably have to
pay that (game points) cost, and just get beaten if you deploy it in other
situations. This becomes similar to the GURPS issue of the point system
allowing you to spend points in an inefficient way for what you're trying to
do.
Yes, lots of rock doesn't protect surface features (I agreed with you on this
before), but will offer protection to some parts of your base. This is going
to be of benefit, even if it's not complete protection. If it wasn't NORAD
wouldn't have stuck their command centre deep inside a mountain.
> He seemed to be suggesting that any fixed defences could be weakened to
<grin> And if you have infinite supply of missiles, I'd like to buy some.
Since you have so many of them, they ought to be really really cheap....
> Sam wrote:
Starfire is available from the Starfire Design Studio (www.starfiredesign.com)
with both hardcopy versions and downloadable
versions. The original version of the game came out in 1975-76 as a
small game in a ziploc bag from Task Force games and was their simple space
game they sold along with Star Fleet Battles. There were a few ziploc
supplements released soon after that added fighters and then empires. Later
2nd and 3rd editions were released as box games compiling and updating the
rules. A couple of years ago the Galactic Starfire 4th edition was released
and now the Ultra Starfire edition is available as a 100% PDF product.
laserlight@quixnet.net said:
> He seemed to be suggesting that any fixed defences could be weakened
Hey, if I've got an infinite supply of missiles, then you're
going to be buying whatever I tell you to buy :-)