> Having gates or fixed
Depends on how big the entrance loci are. A gate radius of10km that can only
accept one ship at a time would be too easy to defend. A radius 1,000,000km
gate would be a different story.
The converse problem is that if you can pop in anywhere, it implies that you
can pop out anywhere, which makes it tough to arrange a
battle--the weaker force just evades into FTL (if, in fact, FTL lets
you escape. If it doesn't, that implies FTL sensors, which implies FTL
communications, which I don't really want). Further, it makes it difficult to
defend fixed bases.
> --- Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
Depends on "actual" engagement ranges, but I think your general point is well
made. Any given size can be defined... and heck, maybe it is variable, which
will give certain systems tighter defenses than others. (Similar to... what
was it, in Starfire? Some of the warp points are open, others closed... I
forget, it's been a while since I read those books, and I'm not at home
right now....)
> The converse problem is that if you can pop in anywhere,
I think that's why I like the 2300AD method: FTL can take you anywhere... up
to a point, in that case within a certain distance of a planetary mass.
(Smaller masses too, but too small and your FTL wouldn't work because the mass
was stuck in
your ship. ^_- ) 2300AD make things more interesting by
*requiring* time in a gravity well to discharge the drive; I'm not sure we
want to get into that.
But using this method (to answer another point that was brought
up), for planet-to-planet travel: in this case there would be
times when it would be faster to get outside the FTL restricted zone, FTL
around the outside of the system, and slow drive back
in... but it all depends on the alignment of the planets. ^_-
'Til later,
> On Sat, Jan 29, 2005 at 06:45:14AM -0800, Aaron Teske wrote:
That's a surveying convention: an "open" point is one that you can detect from
a distance, a "closed" point is one that you can only detect by being on top
of it and turning on your FTL drive. (Typically the other end is open and
someone comes through it, otherwise it's very unlikely ever to be found.)
R
From: "Aaron Teske"
> Any given size [FTL portal] can be defined... and heck,
IIRC Starfire has/had warp points which only allow through ships of N
mass, where N is determined for each WP. That means that, for instance,
cruisers can go to some places where battleships can't.
> Having gates or fixed
Combination of Babylon 5 jumpgates and Cherryh Union/Alliance
or Honor Harrington jump limits?
Jumpgates exist, and are useful because a) your ship always arrives at exactly
the right place, b) you don't have to use
your own valuable fuel/expensive to run an FTL drive, leading
to c) you can build bulk carriers or big passenger ships which are cheaper but
are like trains or civilian aircraft in being limited to fly between well
known gates.
Warships have FTL so can go anywhere, but if there's a hyper limit due to mass
of stars they can't jump in directly over the inhabited planets or enemy fleet
base. Likewise the
defending/occupying fleet can't jump out immediately.
cheers,
> Combination of Babylon 5 jumpgates and Cherryh Union/Alliance
I think manmade jump gates would imply too high tech a culture, and I don't
want to drag in a Forerunner race. But it sounds as if we're agreed on the
overall idea for FTL in two modes: a. Fast, cheap, higher tech, limited
departure and arrival points; and b. Slow, expensive, lower tech, can go
almost anywhere (except not too close to a planet)
Anyone disagree?
G'day,
> I think manmade jump gates would imply too high tech a culture...
Dumb question. Why? Whats so much more advanced involved in a gate vs an
engine?
Cheers
I said:
> > I think manmade jump gates would imply too high tech a culture...
Beth said:
> Why? Whats so much more advanced involved in a gate vs an engine?
I think of jumpgates as providing instant teleportation, and FTL
drives as taking several hours/days/weeks to get where they're going.
And I think of it as easier to build a boat to ride an existing river, rather
than build a river. YMMV.
G'day,
> I think of jumpgates as providing instant teleportation,
Guess that's the difference as I think of them just as a way of getting FTL
(which may then take a while to do the transit).
> And I think of it as easier to build a boat to ride an existing river,
Whereas I see a jumpgate as a dock/pier/boat-ramp not the river itself.
Cheers
On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:16:47 -0500, Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net>
wrote:
> I said:
Well... to steal from the B5 universe, the only races who actually understand
how jump gates and drives work are the ancients (vorlon, shadow, etc). The
other races only ape the hardware. They can build jumpgates and drives, but
they have no real understanding why....
You can have it set up in such a manner that when discovering new systems,
there is a chance of an abandoned jumpgate that the nation can reverse
engineer and use...
Its all a matter of the tech tree taken to get somewhere.
If your first experience of FTL was a wormhole, you would follow the path of
creating artificial wormholes (jumpgates) to go new places. If you needed to
overcome einsteinian physics, you would follow the path of
hyperspace/foldspace.
Where those two technologies meet each other is a medium to nail down. A good
example of this is the "Lost in Space" PSB. Reliable travel between locations
requires a sending and receiving gate. If you just activate the jump drive
without a gate, you perform a random jump.
Brendan 'Neath Southern Skies
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As has been said, we don't want any "pre-cursor" races to muddy the
waters.
Taking on board the last few comments, how about:
FTL
Tier 1: 10 LY/turn Hyperspace/Space Fold (10% Mass FTL) - Cannot arrive
within the gravity well of a star system. There is a 1 turn "arrival bleed"
that warns of impending arrival. Minimum ship size of 100 mass. This will
generate battle-rider carriers.
Tier 2: 100 LY/turn Wormhole Accelerator Gate (5% Mass FTL + gate) -
Gates cannot be placed within the gravity well of a planet. Generates an
artificial wormhole between two (powered) gates. The gates are not locked to
each other, but only one outbound wormhole can be active by each gate. Has a
limit of 500 mass per turn. A gate averages 1000 mass.
Tier 3: 1000 LY/turn Natural Wormhole (0% Mass FTL) - Found anywhere,
but cannot adjust the arrival point. 1000 mass limit per turn. Some are one
way, but the majority work both ways.
There are advantages and disadvantages to each method of travel in a strategic
sense. If you want a decent battlefleet to arrive, you need to send your heavy
fleet via Hyperspace and throw your light forces through the Gate. If there is
a natural wormhole, all bets are off, but they will be heavily defended.
One trick of an invading force would be to transport a disassembled Gate near
the target system, assemble it and then accelerate it at sublight speed into
the system. When in a advantageous spot, you start sending through your
assault fleet, as there won't be an arrival bleed, giving you a sneak attack.
Brendan 'Neath Southern Skies
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From: "Robertson, Brendan"
> FTL Tier 1: , Tier 2:, Tier 3:
I'm wondering if perhaps it would be better to have only two modes of FTL? A
lot of the interesting situations in history have arisen when one culture
developed a new mode of transportation, and ran into another culture which
didn't have that mode. For instance, the Aztecs
| Hindus | East Africans had foot travel; the Spanish | English |
Arabs had that, but also had ships (and the tech that allowed them to build
ships).
If that's the key point, we want to make the contrast between the two modes as
sharp as possible, and I'd think that would work better when we're contrasting
"A vs B", rather than "A vs B and A vs C and B vs C and AB vs C and AC vs B
and..."
(I'm thinking of it from a writer's point of view, in this case, rather than a
gamer's, so YMMV).
So which one to drop?
Wormhole/gate are the similar technology, but there would need to be a
lot of wormholes for a viable empire.
Brendan 'Neath Southern Skies
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> On Mon, Jan 31, 2005 at 04:48:24PM +1100, Robertson, Brendan wrote:
It could be that there are wormholes in almost every system, but that the
wormhole geometry (both in terms of where they are in the system, and in terms
of how many wormholes you need to traverse to get between a given pair of
points) means you may well need to slog a fair way in
normal space between wormholes - and sometimes hyperdrive may offer a
more direct route.
R
I quite like the Traveller way of doing things. Jump drives of
varying speed. The most advanced nations can maybe manage Jump-6
drives (6 parsecs per week), with the more backward races managing
Jump-3 or Jump-4 at best.
Maybe different mass requirements for different Jump drive
capability, so a fast-strike fleet with large jump drives isn't
as weapons capable as a slower fleet.
Another question is that of how FTL communications work. Is there
instantaneous (or fast) communication between worlds, or do you have to give a
message to a ship and have it take it to the destination?
The latter leads to an interesting setup (you send off a fleet, and won't know
the result of the battle until weeks later, when either your fleet returns or
the enemy jumps in), but is difficult to run in a campaign (since players will
tend to know where all their ships are and what has happened to them).
Robertson, Brendan said:
> Its all a matter of the tech tree taken to get somewhere.
Actually, Wormholes are allowed[1] by Einsteinian physics, whilst hyperspace
isn't.
(do a search on 'traversable wormholes' - they can lead to
very interesting background settings due to how time dilation works).
[1] By 'allowed' I mean they can be made to not break causality.
Hyperspace allows for time travel in an Einsteinian universe.
G'day,
> I'm wondering if perhaps it would be better to have only two modes of
You could say that of any tech - look what happened when the "we've had
explosives for centuries" chinese gave it to their backward western
neighbours...
> If that's the key point, we want to make the contrast between the two
I disagree. From my point of creative view you have richer potential with the
three as it allows for more options and for more background room to talk about
how different groups got there (or choose to stay there... Glen after 4 hours
in LAX customs last transit, as they tried to figure how to get a complete
finger print when I only have partials due to agricultural accident as a kid,
I was beginning to wonder if a slow boat would've been faster!!!). You can
still have distinct contrasts and the associated extreme culture shock (A vs
C), but you also have the more subtle "just different enough for one side to
assume wrong" aspects (A vs B) that can liven up stories.
Cheers
> On Mon, Jan 31, 2005 at 12:28:32AM -0500, Laserlight wrote:
> I'm wondering if perhaps it would be better to have only two modes of
If the setting is large enough it shouldn't be a major problem - most
conflicts/meetings will still be A vs B.
I would suggest that FTL drives not be compatible with each other to a
large extent - perhaps they take up more than the "standard" 10%, so
having one is necessary but having two makes your ship too weak to fight
effectively. Otherwise, when the FTL Guys take over the Wormhole Empire,
they're suddenly _everywhere_...
R
> > Having gates or fixed
Hmm, I don't know how defendable *any* gate would really be. The guy on the
other side can just push through large bundles of seeker missiles and emp
devices. The attacker doesn't have to worry about hitting his own ships at
all, so he can just pump seek and destroy weapons through. Eventually you're
going to swamp any amount of fixed defenses. At some point, it's going to come
down to the mobile assets of the defender versus the mobile assets of the
attacker. I would think that the best a fixed defensive system is going to
manage is to prevent sneak attacks and give you time to prepare your ships.
> So which one to drop?
If we're postulating that wormholes / Alderson points are natural --
which
is the way I think of them -- then there can be a lot of them. Not one
between every pair of stars, though. Let's say that the presence a jumpline is
determined by both stars' mass and temperature plus some handwaving and
divided by the distance between the two. That would mean a M dwarf would only
have a jumpline if the other star is really, really close; an O giant would
have lots of connections.
> At 12:05 PM -0500 1/31/05, Grant A. Ladue wrote:
Eventually you're
> going to swamp any amount of fixed defenses. At some point, it's
Its still a choke point. 3D or 2D. The Bospherous were a pain to get through.
So is Gibralter and a number of other places. Such a location where the guy
that holds the location can build fortifications and plant mines means that
you're going to be extremely limited in how you can take it if you can take it
at all. Forcing a passage is going to be harder and directly proportional to
how much time and money the guy that holds it is willing to sink into
defenses.
> Another question is that of how FTL communications work. Is
I like the latter, because it gives distant ship / squadron commanders
some independence.
> On Mon, Jan 31, 2005 at 12:17:29PM -0500, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:
> If we're postulating that wormholes / Alderson points are natural --
I know I've mentioned this already, but Thomas Anderson's
Voronoi/Delaunay partitioning scheme produces some very good maps of
this sort. (And one can extend it to multiple dimensions, one of which
can be stellar mass - for example, an O will normally link to another O,
and an M to another M...)
> On Mon, Jan 31, 2005 at 12:18:46PM -0500, Ryan Gill wrote:
> Its still a choke point. 3D or 2D. The Bospherous were a pain to get
I suspect that anyone considering this sort of universe should rather
the Weber/White Starfire novels (or possibly play the games - I
haven't) to get some idea of the tactical sophistication that is possible even
in this sort of setup.
R
> I'm wondering if perhaps it would be better to have only two modes of
> You could say that of any tech - look what happened when the "we've had
Perhaps, but I'm thinking the clash of cultures really comes in when the tech
involves transport. Other instances (stirrups, longbows, pikes, horse
artillery) could be decisibve in defeating a neighbor but didn't necessarily
involve much of a cultural difference.
I said:
> Depends on how big the entrance loci are. A gate radius of10km that
Grant said:
> Hmm, I don't know how defendable *any* gate would really be. The
Assumes that these are FTL-capable, and that there is no/little lag time
between jump transit and being able to acquire a target. And that the defense
doesn't have its own "through the wormhole" weapons.
> At 12:05 PM -0500 1/31/05, Grant A. Ladue wrote:
> >guy on the
Eventually you're
> > going to swamp any amount of fixed defenses. At some point, it's
The Bospherous (sp?) or Gibralter were pains *for the technology of the time*.
Right now, we'd just pound them day and night with cruise missile attacks
until a manned force could just walk right in. That's the most likely scenario
in any SF context. Fixed defenses are just targets for high mobility "smart"
weapons and nukes. Fixed defenses only work when the
situation forces the other guys to risk very high value units to bust them up,
and I don't see that here. In reality, the best "defense" for a gate would be
to keep launching your own missiles through to break up the attacker's forces
before they even reach the gate. I think you could reasonably game a gate
scenario as being the mobile forces battle after most of the fixed defenses
have been neutralized. An interesting alternative would be the "run the guns"
type of scenario where the attacking fleet tries to get a jump on the defenses
without neutralizing them first. You'd have to make the defense insufficient
to crush the attackers though. Sort of a Mobile Bay or Vicksburg kind of
thing.
That also assumes that a Jumpgate is always "on". If a gate is merely a large
focusing device for a massive amount of energy to create an artificial
wormhole, then the defenders simply leave the gate powered down, essentially
"locking" the door, unless someone tries to force it from the other end, in
which case you have plenty of warning. This is especially true if Jumpgates
have to be used in pairs, as then both ends would have to be powered up for
use.
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
> That also assumes that a Jumpgate is always "on". If a gate is merely
Yes. Gates that lock or can be shut down are not going to make for good gaming
though. The best you could manage would be "special forces" type attacks where
you're trying to grab the controls at both ends when the other guy isn't
expecting it.
> At 5:26 PM +0000 1/31/05, Roger Burton West wrote:
Yes, but it still requires a severe attention to detail in order to either
force the crossing or to take the fortifications (or reduce them). Even in FT,
when you can take out the need for FTL and drives, you can make a bloody huge
station on the cheap with far more weapons, armor and screens.
That is where standard FTL comes in - you'd have either a commando raid
to capture the controls, or a large fleet that arrives via Standard FTL.
There are interesting scenario possibilties with a feint with a cruiser
squadron to draw defending ships to one side of the system, while a stealth
troop ship attempts to capture the jump gate facilities to allow the main
fleet through.
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
> At 12:36 PM -0500 1/31/05, Grant A. Ladue wrote:
That ignores that they don't have their own systems for similar defense.
Gibraltar is largely just a logistics point. If Britain were to add in Missile
launching systems, hardened Phased arrays and secondary radar emitters as well
as hardened Land based gun systems it would become a much harder nut to crack.
Add in Land based airfields (make the tarmac sufficiently large to make it
hard to crater it and some other sneaky ways of supporting your aircraft) for
strike craft and mobile defense systems (SP artillery and AA assets) and
you're starting to make it a much harder nut to crack.
Against a similarly technically sophisticated foe, Britain could find a hard
job to defend, but it'd be a hard nut to crack. Against a less sophisticated
foe, Gibraltar with nearly as much money sunk into it as one sinks into a
mobile task force, the rock would stay a place to shy away from short of a
massive effort to force it.
Our current doctrine for reducing land based systems involves ARMs, GPS guided
missiles and stealth technology. If the foe has similar technology and isn't
going to take it laying down (Diesel Electric and Nuke powered subs prowling
the nearby waters, land based Maritime patrol aircraft and interceptors as
well as AWACs) then you're going to have a hard time of it. Think Normandy
with out the all but destroyed Luftwaffe and lots of radar guided systems. Or
better yet, think of Battle of Britain.
Heck, a land based Aegis system networked with aerial platforms and with
multiple VLS pods sunk in the rock would not be something you could just hit
with impunity from the air.
> That's the most
The same argument is used against ships today, but that doesn't make large
ships any less valid. You just have to build in countermeasures. Ships today
cannot bring along armor and you can't sink an island. Most fixed defenses are
largely irrelevant because you can bypass them. A naval task force can't
bypass Gibraltar.
> Fixed defenses only work when the
Which ignores the typical countermeasures you'd have. If you have fixed bases
(orbital platforms on the other side) you could easily add in lots of PDS,
sand casters and jamming systems to deal with small craft coming through the
gate. Plenty of beams and other weapons focused on the crossing point would
make it very hazardous to come through. The first ships through would be very
short lived once they transition. They get a few shots off and then they die.
> At 11:02 AM -0700 1/31/05, B Lin wrote:
Heck, put a big rock that's stabilized not to jump on your side of the gate if
it's not able to be powered down. Ship comes in from other side and it
materializes in the large bit of rock. Boom! Now, jumping into that area is a
mess and hazardous because now there's lots of debris.
> At 11:02 AM -0700 1/31/05, B Lin wrote:
Sure, but then you can't use it either. This rapidly becomes identical to the
case where you can shut down or lock the gate. The scenario then is the other
side coming through to stop you from getting the rock there. Of course, this
presumes that the gate is small enough for you to be able to find and move a
rock that can block it.
> On Monday 31 January 2005 18:35, Ryan Gill wrote:
Lots of ADAF around the gate exit to take out the missiles. Missiles of your
own to send back through the gate looking for whatever is throwing the
missiles your way.
You may also have control over both sides of the gate, so the enemy may have
to attack two sets of defences before they can get through.
Roger said:
> I would suggest that FTL drives not be compatible with each other to a
Concur, except I was thinking of the other way around. The Slow FTL guys (Tier
2) have one set of equipment and can go anywhere; the Fast FTL guys (Tier 1)
can have one set of gear and go quickly to a limited set of destinations, or
the other set of gear and have no speed advantage over Tier 1, or both sets of
gear but at the mass penalty.
If there are no mass limts on Wormhole jumps, the Tier 1 guys will adopt
battleriders (with slow FTL) and tenders (with jump drive only).
> At 12:36 PM -0500 1/31/05, Grant A. Ladue wrote:
<< a bunch deleted >>
> Heck, a land based Aegis system networked with aerial platforms and
All very true, but none of it changes the basic equation. No fixed set of
defenses is going to be sufficient against an opponent that can just continue
to attack with impunity. At some point, if you can't prevent him from
continuing to launch wave after wave of missiles (rocks, nukes, whatever) at
you then you're going to be overwhelmed. Fixed defenses around a wormhole are
going to be like modern minefields. They're intended to slow and damage an
opponent, not stop him. The real battle is when you engage the mobile forces
behind the fixed defenses. If there is a way to build "perfect" fixed
defenses, then you've just gone
back to the lockable/closeable gate idea. If there is another way to
do ftl, then the other guy is just going to skip entirely around your very
expensive defensive position. If there isn't another way to do ftl, then both
sides build the impregnable defenses, and the gate is effectively closed.
Personally I doubt if you'd be able to build any kind of defense that could
actually withstand the "many nukes pushed through the gate" kind of attack.
> > That's the most
Sure, but you never send ships through until the unmanned weapons have reduced
the other side. Most "gate" systems presented in sf don't let you see what's
coming until it's shown up. This gives the attacker total control over when
and how an attack is launched. A defender that can't see or anticipate what's
coming until it's almost on top of them is in big trouble. If you're far
enough away from the gate that you have warning time *after* it leaves the
gate, then the attacking weapons have too much time to deploy into less
predictable locations.
> On Monday 31 January 2005 18:35, Ryan Gill wrote:
And what do you do when the first weapon through the gate is a Nova Cannon
shot (or some equivalent)?
I'm not saying that a fixed defense is completely impossible. I'm just saying
that it's probably so wildly expensive, even around a fixed point like a gate
opening, that's you're not likely to see too much of them. In modern warfare,
the best defense you have is mobility. Once you're fixed in place, it's only a
matter of time before the other side can assemble enough to
overwhelm you. If it was me, I'd limit the defenses around a gate to a few
class 3 batteries and some salvo missile racks, and get down to the fleet vs.
fleet battles right away.
> No fixed set of defenses is going to be sufficient against an opponent
There is no impunity--at a minimum, he's still laying out the cash for
munitions and the logistics line to get it there, and he doesn't have an
unlimited budget. And if he can hammer the defender like this, the defender
can hammer back using the same technique.
> The GZG Digest wrote:
> Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 12:05:56 -0500 (EST)
I haven't been following the Vectorverse thread for a number of reasons,
but the latest discussion on FTL caught my interest.
I read an article in _Scientific American_ a couple of years ago about a
possible FTL travel device that used a "jump gate" in an interesting manner.
The article was about negative energy, and it postulated that you could use it
to create a "warp bubble". The ship inside would seem to be in normal space,
but the bubble itself could travel at faster than
light speeds.
You needed a device to create the bubble around the ship in the first place.
That would be your jump gate. The ship needed some method of maintaining the
bubble (in FT terms this would be the FTL drive, though it doesn't actually
"drive" the ship anywhere). Once formed, the bubble would travel in a straight
line. I'm not sure how it regulated speed, but I think there was a method.
Since a ship could only move in a straight line, you would need a "slow ship"
to build a return gate. Then, travel would be between gates, but the ship
didn't have to arrive "in" the gate at the other end. To move, a ship would
(accurately!) point the launch gate at another star system,
engage the bubble around the ship, and then off it would go. The crew of
the ship would (accurately!) time the trip. Once the time piece said the
ship was at its destination, the crew would disengage light speed, the bubble
would collapse, and they would be back in normal space.
I saw new nodes created with automated construction crews heading to a star
system, where they assemble their gate. Obviously they have a good deal of
incentive to get the job done right!
This has some really nice features for a wargame:
1) You need a jump gate (we all love jump gate models!) to leave, but not to
arrive. The jump gate at the other end becomes a strategic target, thus a
source of scenario ideas.
2) FTL requires an FTL generator, which can be PSB-ed to be too big to
fit on single missiles. So, you need at least some sort of FTL ship to transit
to the enemy system.
3) Since gates are only to boost you out of a system, you can move the gate to
a certain degree. Obviously you'd want to keep it within sublight distance of
habitable planets, but in war time you can move them around so that a "soap
bubble missile cruiser" can't easily take it
out, or it can't be easily killed with high-speed rocks. Obviously
killing a gate would result in the crew of the attacking ships stranded,
too.
4) You can't FTL out of a fight, just into one! You have a ready reason for
all those "fight to the death" scenarios, and reasons for "strike the colour"
rules.
This is the form of FTL that I'm using in my own home-brewed universe.
The above is the form that initial FTL travel takes. In the next big jump,
technology wise, gates are small enough that they can be towed in a bubble by
an FTL capable ship. In the final version, ships carry their
own disposable gates that launch off the ship and last just long enough to
form the bubble. Gates are still used to send ships off, initially, but these
disposable "jump rails" are used to get the ships home in the case where a
jump gate doesn't exist or was destroyed.
> On Mon, Jan 31, 2005 at 02:45:23PM -0600, Allan Goodall wrote:
> I read an article in _Scientific American_ a couple of years ago about
[snip]
Very interesting! I think I may steal that.
The only downside I can see is that it makes piracy very difficult -
any pirate would have to have access to a large supply of jump rails. (For
many universes, of course, this is not a problem...)
R
> No fixed set of defenses is going to be sufficient against an opponent
BTW, one tactic I've used as the defender in this situation is to hide behind
the jump gate and backshoot them as they come in. If they shoot at me, maybe
they hit me or maybe they hit the gate. If they knock out the gate, no more
invasion.
> >No fixed set of defenses is going to be sufficient against an
Sure, but invariably the cost of a defensive position ends up being
significantly higher than the cost of the weapons that attack it.
> And if he can hammer the defender like this, the defender can hammer
Ah, but that requires the attacker to be in fixed location to be hammered, and
they don't have to do that. The attacker has the flexibility of knowing when
the attack is going to be launched and where it's going. You don't have to
launch near the gate, you can just lob missiles through from long distances
away or launch and leave. Really, the best bet is to send your ships through
and attack him before he attacks you. Of course, then why bother building
significant defenses? In the end, mobile forces are just going to be more
flexible and cost effective.
> >No fixed set of defenses is going to be sufficient against an
An excellent tactic if the gate is damageable and taking it intact is more
important than destroying it. A permanent wormhole might not suffer that
limitation though.
> The GZG Digest wrote:
> to be in normal space, but the bubble itself could travel at faster
Hmm, what happens when a bubble hits an object? I'm thinking that you could
put an ftl generator in an asteroid, aim it at the other guy's planet, and
bubble away. Worst case scenario: the other guys can make huge rocks moving at
significant "normal" speeds pop out of the bubble just outside of your
planet's atmosphere. Nasty!
For those of you considering wormholes/jumpgates, it sound very much
like warp points from Starfire. If you want some examples of warp point
assaults/defence read Steve Walmsley's Rigellian Empire Diary at
http://www.starfireassistant.com/ Download Diary.
The difference between FT & Starfire is that in FT you have a more or less
static tech base, while in Starfire you are always clawing up the Tech levels
so you can counter the nearly perfect defence with a more advanced offence. FT
gives you a snapshot of the protagonists Tech at one particular instant in
time.
Thats my tuppence worth Regards Ian
> Fixed defenses only work when the
Which ignores the typical countermeasures you'd have. If you have fixed bases
(orbital platforms on the other side) you could easily add in lots of PDS,
sand casters and jamming systems to deal with small craft coming through the
gate. Plenty of beams and other weapons focused on the crossing point would
make it very hazardous to come through. The first ships through would be very
short lived once they transition. They get a few shots off and then they die.
> On Monday 31 January 2005 19:58, Grant A. Ladue wrote:
Not worry because your defences are to the side of and/or behind
the gate so nothing on the other side has an arc of fire that can hit you.
Exact tactics of course depend on weapons available and the nature of the
gate, but all sides are going to have wargamed the scenarios to death to make
maximum use of both assault and defence. If there's some super weapon that can
be used against the gate defences, then the defences will be arranged in a way
to minimise its effectiveness (and attackers will of course try the opposite,
with the advantage of probably knowing the defences before hand).
> I'm not saying that a fixed defense is completely impossible. I'm
Why should it be expensive? Non-mobile defences don't need FTL drives
or even standard manoeuvre drives. They can be larger for cheaper. Stick a
couple of hollowed out asteroids nearby, possibly with lots of fighters and
you combine mobile defence with heavily fortified defence.
Such a place would probably double as shipyard and command post, so you're
paying once to defend lots of valuable assets.
> In
Even if you've been given 100,000 points to defend the gate with? :-)
A fleet isn't going to stop the attacks coming through at 200", a debris field
might. There's nothing stopping you having a fleet and decent defences (maybe
equivalent in firepower to a fleet for an important base).
What's the point in paying for a mobile fleet if it's just going to sit in one
place all the time? How much you want to pay depends on how important the gate
is, and what your defensive capability is. If the latter is poor, then maybe
you have to use a fleet just because it needs to cover a lot more than just
the gate.
> At 2:30 PM -0500 1/31/05, Grant A. Ladue wrote:
Theoretically in a total defense of Gibraltar type scenario, you could start
lobbing nukes first to clear the waters so to speak. Your subs could provide
generous targeting data (sufficient for arc minute of Nuke accuracy)
> Fixed defenses around a wormhole are
As with any defense attack scenario, its about the multipliers you have on
either side. The defense behind fortifications gets more multipliers which
means the attacker has to bring more to the game. John Atkinson can surely
chime in here about the "utter futility of fortifications" (narf) in the day
and age of mobility.
Ultimately you have to bring more force to bear than the guy defending. If he
plans his defenses well, you're going to have to bring even more than if he
plans poorly. If he's prepared to combine a fixed force with a mobile force
that hits you when you attack then you're going to really have your work cut
out for you. If the US and Britain decided to fortify Gibraltar to say,
contain Mediterrainian forces that were opposed to the US, then I'd hate to be
that force that tries to force a crossing (be it France or someone else).
Doing so would be severely costly and require a lot of assets.
> If there is another way to do ftl,
Which is where we get back to the true nature of the choke point. In the case
of Gibraltar, the only other way into the Med is via Suez (an even narrower
choke point!).
If the jump point is into your home system (like in many of the
Weber/Ringo/Flint novels) then you're going to fortify that door like
it's fort Knox. Sure, you keep up a defense in depth elsewhere, but
if that door is an open hole into your living-room, you better
protect it.
> Sure, but you never send ships through until the unmanned weapons
Assuming you control or at least have access to it, you're going to have a
continual watch on the other side. Pickets. If you don't then you have a team
of people managing the forces on the near side and controlling who comes in.
With a nice set of big tough orbitals with hardened launch points, sensors and
what have you, you can have bigger weapons and more magazines (as well as
eyes) on the near side point than anything coming through. Which buys you time
and allows you to pound the living crap out of what comes through and starts
doing what it's not to or is not what it's supposed to be.
> A defender that can't see or
Killing field. Surround the jump point with mines and orbital launch
points/beam batteries. Provide one route out with mines on the
non-allowed access-routes. If a red force Battleship comes through
un-announced, then you're going to paste the living crap out of it
until he says uncle and powers down or he's a mass of vapor and debris. You'll
of course have more orbitals with more range than the BB and you'll have more
angles on the ships exiting. If they bull through, then you'll just have to
play the numbers game.
Of course, if the Red force can launch 50 missiles through, Blue force can
start pumping one missile at a time through with Nukes to counter that. As
long as there is a nuke bloom every certain unit of time in the entry point,
nothing is in or out.
> At 2:58 PM -0500 1/31/05, Grant A. Ladue wrote:
So energy weapons can transit the zone?
That makes it easy. I have 10 orbitals arranged around the entry point.
Defense program, subroutine A says that if Orbital N takes a
Nova Cannon Burst, then Orbitals 1-10 (less N) fire a burst through
the jump point on the best possible axis through the gate. Then Fire again.
All, nicely automated and ready to go.
> I'm not saying that a fixed defense is completely impossible. I'm
If your opponent has to cross a given point to get to your objective then
fixed defenses that have more firepower and protection than a similarly priced
mobile platform then the best defense is a fixed platform.
The lesson of the Battle of France is not that the Maginot line was
irrelevant, but that France failed to block the end runs around the
Maginot line and failed to have forces to block/defeat that mobile
end run. Had the Maginot line run from Switzerland's mountains to the Channel,
the Germans would have required an entirely different plan.
> Once you're fixed in place,
Its still a cost issue. If you build fixed defenses, then Braindead
fleet staff can't steal them away from a critical point. :-)
In a message dated 1/31/05 4:27:38 AM Pacific Standard Time,
> Beth.Fulton@csiro.au writes:
<snip>Glen after 4 hours in LAX customs last transit, as they tried to figure
how to get a complete finger print when I only have partials due to
agricultural accident as a kid, I was beginning to wonder if a slow boat
would've been faster!!!). <snip> Cheers
Beth
LOL! My wife who has traveled for business the last few years more then I have
was upset that in LAX for departure to Phoenix I forgot to remove my shoes and
was waved through the metal detectors and she had removed her shoes in
anticipation... The hallways were cold at 0600 hours...but not as cold as
Saint Louis earlier in the week (18 degrees (F) and snowing).
I can see the TSA bureaucratic mind faltering on the fingerprint thing.
Did
reason take over and they take what they could get or did they try for a
'complete set' anyway? So now we both have prints on file (mine for work) with
the US Government!
Los Angeles at it's finest, my LDS cousin leaves 15 minutes after her fellow
LDS neighbor to go to the downtown 'temple' via surface roads (neighbors uses
freeways) and arrives 15 minutes before them. Go figure...
The slow boat would have been searched by the Coast Guard (but it might have
been faster come to think of it). I suspect 4 hours is not even close to a
record unfortunately...
Gracias,
> At 3:53 PM -0500 1/31/05, Grant A. Ladue wrote:
You bring X ship with Y weapons and Z hull/engines/FTL. I buy Xx10
Rock with tunnels and corridors dug through it, with Yx3 weapons
because I've not had to pay for Z Hull/engines/ftl and my orbital
platform will paste your ship in a given time because I can pump out more fire
per unit time with far more hull points because I didn't have to pay for
engines or ftl.
> Ah, but that requires the attacker to be in fixed location to be
You're coming through one place. That means I can have lots of weapons aimed
at you. If you have to come through that place, then I can hit you.
Again, lets go back to Gibraltar. You say you can fire shipboard weapons
against me. I however can launch longer legged aircraft with more sensor fits
onboard from a land based position and find you and hit you long before you
can launch your ship based weapons.
If we're nuke free, I figure out where you are roughly and paste your
taskforce with a few nukes in the area.
Since you have to attack from within a known envelope, unless I'm sitting on
my hands, I then plan my scouting and patrols to find you before you get
inside that known envelope and I hit you there. Since I'm operating from a
fixed base, I can have more defenses, more ammo,
more fuel and I can take the time to really protect/disperse it so
it'll be harder to destroy with small PGMs. And I can have reserve assets
father back that come in and help defend the primary point.
> to launch near the gate, you can just lob missiles through from long
This works only if the defender is sitting on their hands asleep. Its just
like door entry into a house by police. If they're ready on the drop, the
defender will plug the first cops through the door. Usually cops expect the
first guy to go down. When cops play this out in training with cops on the
defense expecting the Breach, the first cop
or more through the door ALWAYS die. That usually screws-up the rest
of the entry because they're triping/stepping on their dead buddies
that are right at the doorway.
> The GZG Digest wrote:
> Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 16:04:33 -0500 (EST)
> Hmm, what happens when a bubble hits an object?
That I don't know, though I have some ideas based on the fact that it's
warping space time around itself. I think outside objects would travel
"around" the outer edge of the bubble. The bubble would go through the object
without the object even noticing. If that's the case, then presumably light
would go around it and the bubble would be invisible (and would look like a
totally black sphere to the object in the bubble). Invisible, but blind,
transit.
> I'm thinking that you could
That can't happen unless the bubble gate was going at some high velocity. I
got the impression that it took some time to make the bubble, that bubble
creation was not instantaneous and limited in size. In essence, the rock would
have to sit there for a minute while you created the bubble. Therefore, it
would have zero velocity leaving the bubble... relative, I would assume, to
the bubble gate. If you moved the
entire gate at a good clip you could send bubble-wrapped (*grin*) rocks
at high speeds.
As a minor point, in Niven and Pournelle's THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE and THE
GRIPPING HAND (where StarFire's jump point system was borrowed from), the
Alderson jump points are *stationary*. They do *not* orbit the primary star.
This means they *cannot* be defended by orbital fortresses. Such fortresses
are, well, in *orbit* around the primary star, and will gradually move away
from the Alderson point.
If they are made stationary with respect to the Alderson point, they will
start falling into the primary star. Gravity, you know.
If you put station-keeping engines on them, they are not
forts any more, but are instead a species of warship.
Nyrath said
> If they [forts] are made stationary with respect to the Alderson
<grin> if they're stationary, they aren't falling.
> If you put station-keeping engines on them, they are not
I'd think that ship maneuver drives could take up quite a bit more
mass/volume than mere station-keeping ones, especially if your station
is way out on the shallows of the gravity well. I believe Mote said that
civilian crews had no reason to go closer to Earth than Neptune orbit, so the
Alderson points must be farther out. 1G drive should be more than plenty.
How about my particular spin on FTL drives:
Basic Hyperspace -- The drive's mass is deturmined by ship mass., and
this gets you a basic speed per strategic turn. (everyone plods
along...)
Advanced drive -- Slightly larger than basic drive. The drive's FTL
speed is equal to the normal drive speed. (the faster the ship in normal
space, the faster it is in Hyperspace.)
Random Wormholes -- Once in a while a stable wormhole is encountered.
(Ie like Manticore from Honor Harington)
The basic drive lets even the low "startech" nations get around. The advanced
drive lets the more advanced nations move faster, and the wormhole means short
cuts. With advanced drive, "Mail ships" (speeds
of 6+) could link up systems.
I've been trying to follow this conversation and someone posted a link that
about various types of FTL drives, can you post that again please?
Jason
[quoted original message omitted]
On Tue, Feb 01, 2005 at 11:40:03AM -0600, Bradley, Jason (US -
> Minneapolis) wrote:
Landis taxonomy: http://www.projectrho.com/stardrv.txt
In fact most of that site is good fuel for discussion... and I'm not
just saying that because he links to me. :-)
R
> At 3:53 PM -0500 1/31/05, Grant A. Ladue wrote:
See, this is my point. Unless there is something that prevents it, I
*never* send ships through. Hell, I don't even leave ships near the other end
of the wormhole. I just ballistically launch massive missile strikes through
the gate from long distances away. I don't pay for
hulls/engines/
crews that are put at risk *at all*. Just far cheaper missiles.
> Again, lets go back to Gibraltar. You say you can fire shipboard
Ho ho. Once we're nuke free, you're toast. You have no chance of nuking all
the possible launch point in the Atlantic from which you'll be attacked. This
is directly analogous to the wormhole situation. The other guy can launch his
nuke strike from *anywhere* on the other side of the wormhole and
you don't see it till it comes through. If you have sensors/ships on
the other side to observe the strike, then I strike those pieces first and
we're back to the first step. If you don't see the nukes until they're almost
on top of you, then you don't really have a chance to stop them. Worst case
for the attacker is that they set off some of the nukes further away from your
defenses (Gibraltar) to kill your sensors, and "walk" them in on you. Quite
frankly, you don't have a chance unless you have a large fleet out there
contesting the Atlantic, and if you have a large fleet out there, then you
don't *need* large defenses at Gibraltar. Then the scenario is the fleet to
fleet battles in the ocean, and that was what I was saying.
> This works only if the defender is sitting on their hands asleep. Its
Which is why the military lobs hand grenades through the door first.
Your
scenarios are all applicable if one side is forced to send bodies through the
door instead, but that isn't *necessarily* the case. There are ways to
constrain the situation such that fixed defenses are essentially impregnable,
but for a lot of the wormhole/gate situations stipulated in SF, those
contraints aren't there. For others there are.
> Landis taxonomy: http://www.projectrho.com/stardrv.txt
Let's look at some different parameters: 1. Tech level required to build 2.
Cost to build
3. Fixed location or ship-mounted
4. Cost to use 5. Speed of transit 6. Flexibility of entry point (ie can you
go in anywhere you wish) 7. Flexibiliy of exit point (ie can you come out
anywhere, or any gate, or only one gate)
8. Volume/mass limits
9. Time required before jump (eg to calculate the jump, or warm up the
Balonium Drive) 10. Time required after jump (eg to recover from Jump Shock)
11. Safety Probability (ie likelihood of accident) 12. Safety Magnitude (ie
does it just take your FTL offline or does the ship blow up) 13. Signature (ie
can FTLing ships be detected)
> At 12:48 PM -0500 2/1/05, Grant A. Ladue wrote:
Can I send 100 fighter groups through the gate to the other side?
Can I have 100 fighter groups sitting on this side with PDS and ADF to
intercept the missiles?
> Ho ho. Once we're nuke free, you're toast. You have no chance of
Think of the weapons ranges. You have a fixed area to launch from and I can
find you with land based aircraft that have a longer range than your ship
based aircraft. I'm going to try to find you before you get to your launch
point.
If we're talking the US hitting Syria then sure, Syria's toast even with it's
land based aircraft. But if you're a US Carrier battle group trying to get
close to launch a strike against a Soviet North Sea base that has a Flock of
Bears and Backfires...good luck. You'll
run into that odd Badger Maritime recon craft with at least your E-2
and F-14s long before you're in weapons range and then you'll start
to see the odd badger and bear in greater numbers before your scope fills with
Hopefully a bunch of bears or if less lucky a bunch of kingfishers.
If you're just Nuke free and can do so, sure, an ICBM can be launched, but
that's outside the scope of what we're talking about.
> This is directly analogous to the wormhole situation. The other guy
What stops me from sending short range forces through the wormhole to run
interference? Does the Wormhole allow non FTL forces through? like Fighters or
system defense ships?
> If you have sensors/ships on the
Sensors can be replaced. How do you hide from all of my sensors? Even if I
have a couple of SSK's you're still going to pay in blood to get close and
land your marines.
> Quite
It pays to defend such a point well. In the case of WWII Germany and Italy
couldn't begin to afford to think about forcing Gibratar short of a major
campaign. Even if they hit it from both sides and doing so would have left
them so weak that Britain's remaining mobile assets would have made short
work.
> Which is why the military lobs hand grenades through the door
And that's where theres usually a door with a long hallway and a portal at the
end of the hall for a Machine gun to fire down the
hall. If you built your bunker properly. ;-) Sure, you can chuck a
grenade down the hall, but so can I. And I have the benefit of near total
cover.
A wooden room is not a prepared defense.
> door instead, but that isn't *necessarily* the case. There are ways
It depends on how much prep both sides take.
> but for a lot of the wormhole/gate situations stipulated in SF,
Which is where context really comes in.
> Roger B-W wrote:
> I suspect that anyone considering this sort of universe should rather
Depends entirely on how many different tech toys you have available. In
high-TL StarFire campaigns (eg. ISW4, described in "In Death Ground" and
"The Shiva Option") you have a lot of toys, and a *huge* amount of tactical
sophistication with which to use those toys... but in the end, the advantage
still lies with the attacker simply because he can choose where to strike
while any fixed defences have to be spread out to cover multiple avenues of
attack.
Later,
> Let's look at some different parameters [of FTL transport]:
14. Can it be controlled once established (eg turned off temporarily, or
disrupted, or destroyed)
> At 12:48 PM -0500 2/1/05, Grant A. Ladue wrote:
Sure, of course they can build a fleet to kill 100 fighter groups quickly much
easier than you can *maintain* 100 fighter groups on the other side.
> Can I have 100 fighter groups sitting on this side with PDS and ADF
Sure. Can you maintain them there 24 hours a day, 365 days a year without
running your economy into the ground? I don't have to attack on your schedule
but you have to be ready for it *all the time*.
> > Ho ho. Once we're nuke free, you're toast. You have no chance
You're kidding, right? There is currently no way *at all* to prevent a large
scale SSN launch no matter what they're aiming at. Hell, it's entirely
possible for subs in the Pacific to fire on a target like Gibraltar with
modern tech. They don't need to be ICBM's either. Cruise missiles with
tremendous ranges are very feasible once you give them a reason to exist.
> If we're talking the US hitting Syria then sure, Syria's toast even
So you don't attack with a Carrier battle group, you attack with a massive sub
launched cruise missile strike. Assuming that the attacker is stupid is an
excellent way to be defeated.
> If you're just Nuke free and can do so, sure, an ICBM can be
No it's not. There's no reason for an attacker to restrain himself in these
situations. If the worst case is that you kill the gateway, well their
defenses have effectively done that already, so why care?
> > This is directly analogous to the wormhole situation. The other
That's fine, now I get to kill your short range forces away from your fixed
defenses. Eventually I wear you down to the point where you can't maintain the
fight. If you have to send a fleet through to hold that side, then we're back
to the fleet vs fleet battle, which was my point.
> > If you have sensors/ships on the
Again, why land marines at all? All I care about is eliminated the choke point
so I can go on by.
> >Quite
Oh please. There is no sense where Gibraltar's inherent defenses prevented an
invasion. It was the absolute inability of Italy and Germany to sustain an
invasion force against Great Britain's fleet that made such an attack
impossible. Gibraltar needed no more actual defenses than enough troops to
guard against a sneak attack from a sub or freighter.
> > Which is why the military lobs hand grenades through the door
Then don't imply that it's impossible to take one. Quite frankly, there isn't
a single defensive position *possible* that can't be defeated. This has been
proven repeatedly.
> > door instead, but that isn't *necessarily* the case. There are
Yes. I'm just arguing that you really have to stretch the context to make a
massive defensive position truly worthwhile. Under most less constrained
situations, you're better off with limited fixed defenses and lots of mobile
units rather than lot's of fixed defenses and limited mobile units. A
situation where you can have both is unrealistic and hopeless.
> Roger Burton West wrote:
It is also here in somewhat easier to read form:
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3v.html#stardrives
> laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:
Note that if the ships can be detected FTL, this implies FTL communication.
That is, if you can detect the current location of a FTLing ship faster than a
beam of light can travel from its location, the effect can be used for
communication.
If nothing else, the ship can pulse its drive in Morse code.
example: if you can loft a spy satellite into hyperspace and have it warn you
of an enemy fleet passing by Alpha Centauri, you have FTL communication.
> At 9:26 PM +0100 2/1/05, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
In some respects isn't that the very nature of holding the initiative
in any event (Mobile - Mobile or MNobile - Fixed)?
Nyrath said:
> Note that if the ships can be detected
I wasn't thinking of an FTL signal, rather a c or near-c signal
generated by FTL travel, as you mentioned:
> In that novel, an FTLing ship plowing through
> Let's look at some different parameters:
Still to determine which FTL method is considered highest tech
> 2. Cost to build
The more flexible the FTL method the more expensive.
> 3. Fixed location or ship-mounted
Having both reduces one-track tactics. You have to fit two separate
tactical doctrines into your defence plans giving more even force design.
> 4. Cost to use
Wormhole/gate travel should be the cheapest (heavy use by merchant
traffic) while self contained FTL would be feul and resource intensive.
> 5. Speed of transit
See 4;
> 6. Flexibility of entry point (ie can you go in anywhere you wish)
Desirable if you have an FTL accident. Can certainly work if all FTL requires
a "booster". Although makes retreat a difficulty (and impossible if you're
only a pirate). Needs to be flexible enough that
raiding/piracy
can be done.
> 7. Flexibiliy of exit point (ie can you come out anywhere, or
If outside a gravity well (system or planetary) you should be able to come
out anywhere. Inside should be limited to gates/natural phenomenon
where fixed defences can be used.
> 8. Volume/mass limits
See 4; the more restrictive the entry/exit point, the higher the mass
limit of travel should be. Law of diminishing returns should kick in at some
point.
> 9. Time required before jump (eg to calculate the jump, or warm up the
FT Standard
> 10. Time required after jump (eg to recover from Jump Shock)
FT Standard
> 11. Safety Probability (ie likelihood of accident)
1 in 3d6 (or 1 in 5d6 for the "safest" means of travel)
> 12. Safety Magnitude (ie does it just take your FTL offline
Misjump/drive failure. Few ships should be lost unless there is
secondary damage (such as coming out of FTL inside a star).
> 13. Signature (ie can FTLing ships be detected)
5x Active Sensor range for exit/arrival bubble. Makes those picket
ships worthwhile to cover the perimeter.
Brendan 'Neath Southern Skies
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Random Wormholes: That could make things interesting from a travel POV. There
are 7 linked wormholes around the sector; roll a d6 to see which one you come
out of when you use it.
Makes it time consuming to send any military forces through, but the "Grand
Galactic Tour Cruises" holds not responsibility for the length of your fixed
price ticket (could be two transits, could be fifty).
Brendan 'Neath Southern Skies
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Hi folks,
Interesting discussion so far. I've followed the jump-gate-assault part
of the thread quite closely, and it has got me thinking about the kind of game
I'd want to play.
I suggest that, given the difficulties/challenges presented (on both
sides of the discussion), we should look at answering the question "what kind
of game do we want to play" (given that this is *not* a discussion about
creating a setting purely for fiction, but as a basis for wargaming also).
Personally, I have zero interest in a game that has off-table-launched
massive missile strikes aiming at billion-tonne fortresses though a jump
gate. Dull, dull, dull. You fire a hundred missiles through the gate, now I
fire a hundred missiles back, I roll a hundred dice, ok, now you roll a
hundred dice... Bleh.
So, what kind of game do people want to play? We can work backwards from that
to decide on how FTL will work, and that will drive the PSB.
Having said that, I want something that is flexible, but doesn't enable the
missile-through-the-warp-gate thing. I like the idea of fleets being
able to FTL on their own, and also the idea that *some* systems are connected
by
a much-faster system (gates, warp routes, whatever), so you can PSB a
network of collonization routes/patterns (the more densely populated
areas are along the warp routes 'cause that's how people get around
*cheaply*).
This leads to a "hub-and-spoke" sort of distribution, which is good from
a fiction point of view (is my nation a hub of commerce in the middle of a
warp route network, or am I an isolated single-planet off in the middle
of nowhere competing against some other smaller powers off in the middle of
nowhere; it doesn't have to be all about superpower vs. superpower, but it can
have that too.). From a gaming point of view, this leads to both "assault the
warp point" sort of games, and "we all FTL in from wherever we want to start
the assault" sort of games. You can play big empires with massive fleets, and
you can play minor powers in the backwater fighting off
well-armed pirate raiders, where noone has anything bigger than a light
cruiser...
So, I would like to see a "combination" approach (as has been discussed), with
multiple forms of FTL, because it makes for a more interesting setting.
Something akin to the Honorverse: ships require a jump drive to FTL, you can
FTL anywhere relatively slowly, but if you want to get far and
do it fast, you use fixed jump routes/warp points that have limited
destinations (and do NOT require fixed "gate" technology); and as a corollory,
you can't jump through one of these warp points without a jump drive, and
they're much too big to put into missiles. Then, add in a
traveller-tech-level sort of limit to how jump drives work. Perhaps at
the
lowest-level of tech, FTL is possible (jump-1 or 2 in traveller terms)
allowing practical travel (within the limits of onboard fuel, supplies, life
support) over relatively short distances. And this level *cannot* use
the fixed jump routes/warp points/gates/whatever. The next level up
allows faster and further travel, and using the fixed routes. The highest
level does the same, but faster (the "tech levels" could correspond to
Laserlight's Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 powers).
A Tier-1 power in this sort of framework would probably represent a
multi-planet nation who has access to a warp route network. You could
design two types of fleets for these nations: The "expiditionary" fleets have
powerful jump drives allowing extended operations outside the
warp-route network. This fleet is your "striking" element. You could
also
build "defensive" fleets, with ships that have weak jump drives - just
enough to enable the use of the warp route, and maybe jumping to nearby
systems just off the route. They don't *need* bigger, more expensive warp
drives, and can devote more mass to fighting systems; but they are most likely
only going to deploy within their home network (a defensive force, but capable
of rapidly redeploying within your space). So, within one power, you have the
opportunity for designing lots of different types of ships and have it make
sense...
SO anyway, you can have systems with fixed jump route points, and you can play
"attack the fixed point defenses" if you like. You could create a defense
based around fixed stations and maybe minefields. Or you could use mobile
fleets. Whatever you like. At the same time, you don't *have* to have fixed
jump route points in your nation.
Minor additional note - I like the idea of warp-points being fixed in
space within a system (ie, they don't move, thereby not *orbiting* the system,
so stations must have manoever drives).
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 15:53:25 +1100, Robertson, Brendan
> <Brendan.Robertson@dva.gov.au> wrote:
> > 3. Fixed location or ship-mounted
Crap, because anyone with an ounce of sense will not bother with fixed
location offensive fleets. Having only ship-mounted FTL makes every
penny you spend on fixed location defenses worthless.
> > 4. Cost to use
Rather like driving cross-country from Normany to the middle of
Germany with diesel engines, as opposed to taking the train.
> > 11. Safety Probability (ie likelihood of accident)
So,.4% of all starships go OOPS every time they cross the FTL limit?
You're nuts. I'm not going to bother building starships. I'll just wait for
all of yours to blow up. Assume you transit once a week. What is your chance
of surviving a 1 year tour? 81%. Kiss my ass.
Hi folks,
Ok, attempt number 2 at a followup to my previous post. I was most of the way
through my message when my computer froze and I lost the whole damned thing. I
hate that.
Anyway, good post John. (I received yours and mine in the same digest
version - hence any duplication of ideas - or at least intent)
Further thoughts, assuming my version of FTL (discussed in previous post).
1. Performance and Cost Issues
Three "tech levels" (related, possibly, to Laserlight's different "Tiers" of
nations), each with different capabilities and respective costs. The
lowest-cost form of travel is between warp points (which are fixed
routes
between specific systems), BUT you need at least mid-tech level warp
drives to make use of them. They are naturally occurring (decided upon by the
needs of the nation designerÂ), and cover great distances. The transit
time is minimal-to-nothing. Outside the fixed warp-routes, FTL is
possible
at all levels of tech (well, all "interstellar" levels of tech -
obviously there would be tech levels below that which supports interstellar
travel, though they aren't relevant hereÂ), but traveling further and faster
costs significantly more.
Something like this:
Interstellar Low-Tech
Jump-1 = x distance, y time, no warp point use, cost c
Jump-2 = x*2 distance, y*3 time, no warp, cost c*3
Lot-tech doesn't enable more than jump-2, and can't use the fixed warp
routes.
Interstellar Mid-Tech
Jump-1 = x distance, y time, warp point usage, cost c
Jump-2 = x*2 distance, y*2 time, warp, cost 2*c
Jump-3 = x*3 distance, y*4 time, warp, cost 4*c
Jump-4 = x*4 distance, y*6 time, warp, cost 8*c
Mid-tech doesn't go higher than Jump-4, but does enable warp-route use.
The lowest-cost for bulk transport would be based around mid-tech,
jump-1,
along fixed warp routes (which don't get faster with higher-tech jump
engines - warp route speed is fixed).
Interstellar High-Tech
Jump-1 = x distance, y*0.25 time, warp point usage, cost c
Jump-2 = x*2 distance, y*0.5 time, warp, cost 1.5*c
Jump-3 = x*3 distance, y time, warp, cost 2*c
Jump-4 = x*4 distance, y*1.5 time, warp, cost 4*c
Jump-5 = x*5 distance, y*2 time, warp, cost 8*c
Jump-6 = x*6 distance, y*2.5 time, warp, cost 10*c
Jump-7 = x*7 distance, y*3 time, warp, cost 13*c
Jump-8 = x*8 distance, y*3.5 time, warp, cost 16*c
X is some measure of distance, whether it be "travel from one star to
another nearby star" or "a certain number of light-years" or whatever.
Y
is the time it takes a jump-1, low-tech ship to travel distance X.
There
is no "formal" cost-benefit analysis behind my other numbers - I picked
the numbers to illustrate the general idea; the specifics can be
debated/discussed further.
So what you get is a high-tech power can build expeditionary ships that
travel 8x distance faster than a mid-tech power's ship can travel 4x
distance, but you pay a LOT for it. The higher-tech powers get better
performance from their slower ships at a lower cost.
This has some interesting implications when it comes to fleet design. If
you're a player who likes a NSL-style "slow but tough" tactical
doctrine,
then you could build jump-1 ships with mid-tech jump engines (lowest
cost for you to use your warp network), designed for defensive purposes,
moving around within your warp network to reinforce where needed. You could
also
build jump-8 ships with high-tech engines (highest cost, but greatest
"expeditionary" value) to go beat up on the other guy. These are your
strategic choices.
In game terms, the type of FTL doesn't really matter - once it reaches
the tabletop, your FTL isn't relevant. Either you're at the fight or you're
not, and whether you got there by jump-8 or jump-1 (and you can leave
again if needed), it doesn't matter. But it would seem to follow that there
should be some game effect on the different choices of FTL drive
(higher-performance = causes some cost increase in
mass/points/whatever).
While the type of jump drive (and associated costs) is much more relevant to a
campaign style of play, including it will encourage players (and nation
designers) to think about both their nation's strategic doctrine AND
tactical doctrines - and that is much more interesting. I can choose to
design (from a tactical view) NSL-style ships, but how does my national
identity (and views on conflict, expansionism, etc) and economic,
astrographic, and political situation (vis-Ã -vis other nations) dictate
my strategic choices? What is the balance between defensive and expeditionary
shipbuilding, if any. And in game terms, am I fighting a battle with my
defensive or my expeditionary ships? Do I even bother separating the two types
in the first place This sort of framework offers a great deal of interesting
story potential. How exactly to implement this in
rules-terms
I'm not sureÂ
2. The nature of Tier 1 vs Tier 3 nations
Tier 1 nations might be something along the lines of a "cluster" of
systems, interlinked with warp-route networks. They are able to support
specialized planetary economies; so you might have agri-worlds with
little
industry (high-tech agriculture, low population, massive food exports),
and
industrial worlds (high-tech industry, much larger populations,
incapable of sustaining population with local food production). Bulk transport
of
low-value/mass items like food and raw materials is possible using
inexpensive large jump-1 vessels that ply the warp routes. Depending on
national inclinations and economic/astrographic requirements, military
forces could range from defensive only (worlds are linked by
warp-routes,
so high-jump rates ships are not necessary; consequently they don't
bother
with anything more than jump-2, and might not bother with high-tech
drives
even if capable of building them, except for courier/exploration vessels
and that sort of thing) to a mix of defensive and expeditionary (some
low-jump ships to form mobile defensive reserve within the nation, and
high-jump ships for travel outside the jump-routes and/or to enable more
flexible options in attacking outside the nation - though the high cost
of ships with the higher jump rating engines suggests that the expeditionary
part of the fleet would be smaller - though again that would be dictated
also by the strategic situation). Alternatively, a Tier-1 nation might
choose to build only mixed-capability ships; perhaps jump-4 to jump-6
across the fleet. They are capable of expeditionary actions using much more of
the fleet, but slightly less flexible in terms of offensive potential (they
can't go as far or as fast).
Tier-3 nations might be a single-planet with limited/no warp-route
access
(maybe located near a warp-route connected system, maybe off in the
"wilds"
someplace). They would be self-sufficient in food production, and have
much more limited industry - perhaps capable of supporting "low-tech"
FTL only. Military forces would probably be more focused on local defense,
suppression of piracy in the surrounding region, etc. Expeditionary
capability would be limited (though certainly possible) - they would not
be
off conquering grand galaxy-spanning empiresÂ
We might include further tiers. Tier-4 could be low-population,
low-tech
worlds without industry capable of supporting FTL; these could be
high-population worlds also with the same tech issue (similar to Earth
right now). Tier-5 might be true frontier worlds - the kinds of places
you saw Serenity visiting in Firefly (occasional visitors from other systems,
mostly agricultural economic base, etc.)
Ok, enough for the time being.
In a message dated 2/1/05 10:10:19 PM Pacific Standard Time,
> adrian@stargrunt.ca writes:
Hi folks,
Interesting discussion so far. I've followed the jump-gate-assault
part of the thread quite closely, and it has got me thinking about the kind of
game I'd want to play.
I suggest that, given the difficulties/challenges presented (on both
sides of the discussion), we should look at answering the question "what kind
of game do we want to play" (given that this is *not* a discussion about
creating a setting purely for fiction, but as a basis for wargaming also).
Personally, I have zero interest in a game that has off-table-launched
massive missile strikes aiming at billion-tonne fortresses though a
jump gate. Dull, dull, dull. You fire a hundred missiles through the gate, now
I fire a hundred missiles back, I roll a hundred dice, ok, now you roll a
hundred dice... Bleh.
So, what kind of game do people want to play? We can work backwards from that
to decide on how FTL will work, and that will drive the PSB.
Two points -
1) we have a discussion mixing playing the game and designing the game. What's
the scientific word for two liquids that don't mix? {grin}
2) we have a discussion that mixes game mechanics and 'simulation' elements
for a world where a) we have not defined the 'reality' (critical for design
issues of the game) and b) we have no 'real world' sanity checks because
...
well, it's science FICTION.
Gracias,
> Hi folks,
Heh, I think I was trying to argue that since powerful fixed defenses are
neutralizable by prepared assaults, so don't put them into the game! If the
ftl travel is via wormhole/gate then I'd prefer the battles to be
mobile
fleet vs mobile fleet after they've transitted the gate/wormhole.
Perhaps a small quantity of fixed defenses as a "tripwire", but rationalize
away the more extensive defensive structures as being to costly for the gain.
Dat's all.
> At 6:09 AM -0500 2/2/05, Warbeads@aol.com wrote:
If you whip them enough, you get mayonnaise. :-)
Well I'm just going to say this much... one of the problems with that Grant,
and part of the reason why the Gate defense conversation got so far out of
hand... was that it was a discussion on tactical ideaology. Something that
shouldn't have occured... I'm not saying that it's bad to discuss tactics, or
ideaologies, just that it's something we need to avoid for this project. I
think to some degree we may all be losing the big picture a little bit. I also
think AJ is doing a great job of trying to keep us all on track, although I
personally think even his efforts put us a little bit a head of track.
I would like to suggest this much for right now:
1. Lets just get a collection of nation ideas out first... let's not worry
about the dynamics of FTL, or how these nations came into being, or how many
star systems lie in their grasp, or even their relative tech level, and what
new rules we're going to need... Yes, I do understand that all of these things
are important and influence the development of cultures... but for crying out
loud people, let's avoid getting too smart for our own good... again...
> --- "Grant A. Ladue" <ladue@cse.Buffalo.EDU> wrote:
> Heh, I think I was trying to argue that since powerful fixed
From: "Adrian Johnson"
> So, I would like to see a "combination" approach (as has been
Concur with pretty much all of it.
I think FTL, all versions, needs to be increasingly expensive for objects
which have greater mass and velocity. Say (MV)^2 or something like that.
Smaller ships can then enter and leave jump at higher velocities than
battleships, and you can't send a huge rock through at fractional c.
Okay, I'm about a week behind in keeping up with the list so I hope this
hasn't been discussed too much already, but I have a bit to add.
> On Mon, 31 Jan 2005, Allan Goodall wrote:
I think I remember the Scientific American article you're referring to, and I
think it was discussing a version of the Alcubierre warp metric
(http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw81.html for a general, if
out-dated
description, or
http://www.astro.cf.ac.uk/groups/relativity/papers/abstracts/miguel94a.h
tml for more detail). The warp bubble works by contracting space in front of
the ship and expanding space behind. Any object in the path would essentially
be crushed by very strong tidal forces like near a black hole, and then spread
out by the expanding space behind. I'd imagine enough energy or mass would
mess up whatever means you were using to create the bubble. But I guess it
could make for a nasty weapon.
As for how things would look, the contraction in front would draw in light
(again like a black hole) but the expansion would repel light. To the sides
there would be very little distortion, but if you're using it to go faster
than light, I don't know that you would be able to really see in or out, at
least not very well.
As a side note, I don't know Miguel Alcubierre personally, but he works in my
field of physics (Numerical Relativity). It's almost annoying because he wrote
that paper, as far as I can tell as a little toy project, not really serious,
but it's enough that if the damned thing is ever really made, it will be named
after him. Same thing with Matt Visser (who I do know) and traversable
wormholes.