SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread IV

[Master_Baerne]

Goddammit, I knew I'd been forgetting something! My sincerest apologies, and I'll go see what I can cook up.

[fgalkin]

Construction costs of carriers is a problematic issue under the rules, one that was not resolved gracefully at the beginning in my opinion. However, carrier small craft wings integrated into the order of battle at game start are free- a 50$ carrier comes with its small craft complement and still only counts as 50 points out of your starting order of battle.

It does? I have not seen that anywhere in the rules. In fact, that is going to force me to re-calculate my whole fleet. Crap.

Since then, things have gotten tricky; it's not easy to adjudicate because there are several balance issues involved.

That's an understatement.

Your interpretation is supported by nothing more than your own say-so, and therefore no one is under any obligation to regard it as a true statement about the rules.

I thought that part was obvious to everyone.

However, I will now ask you to show me where in the rules does it say that 1) Carriers start with their complement free and 2) That two points of hull carry 1 point of fighters.

However, this does bring up the legitimate issue of carrier construction costs and their relation to carrier combat power.

If a (carrier+wing) is to punch at 300 points in combat, it should not cost 450$ to build (carrier+wing), unless there is some profound advantage to having a (carrier+wing) that punches at 300 points in combat compared to having a battleship that punches at 300 points in combat.

That is my point, yes

Arguably, the advantage is that you can write off the fighter wing without losing the carrier: trade the fighters for enemy starships, retreat, and restock the carrier with new fighters.

Restocking will cost you even more, even if it's faster to build.

The problem with this approach is that it could raise balance issues if done on a large scale in wartime to the point where it became strategically important.

Very much so

This issue is complicated; as I said, there are balance issues involved. I think it's time for the mods to come up with some formal statement about the carrier rules that is generally acceptable to the players... with the attached guarantee that we won't let anyone abuse the carrier rules, because the real priority is to establish parity between carriers and battleships, so that neither choice is inferior to the other as a way of spending your defense budget.

I'll try to hash this out with the other mods, because I think it's worth nailing this down.

Thank you.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I dunno, but I always have the impression that Battleships have guns ranged long enough to strike starships light minutes away, which negates many of the advantages of carriers and their fighter wings.

[RogueIce]

Really? I have not seen such a rule, and, in fact, if this were true, this would make fighters a grossly inefficient investment, since a 100 point carrier, which actually costs 150 points (since you have to buy the 50 point fighter complement separately) will only do 100 points of damage (plus the carrier's own 10 damage to light craft). I think you just forgot to pay for your fighters which are not included in the carrier hull costs, since in your own example the 300 point hybrid which does 350 points of damage also costs you 350 points.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Neither of these points are in the rules, and I'll grant that as an oversight. Still, they have been agreed to and is how the situation now stands, though we should add them in for the benefit of newcomers.

As far as the reduction in combat value thing goes, I think it's been addressed well enough by Kartr and it does make logical sense, in that the "hybrid" still ultimately retains its same combat value.

Arguably, the pure carrier ships do receive a bonus, because they have a 10% of worth combat value in addition to the fighters. Still, I don't think overall that really matters, because unless you go into the absurd (like a $2000 pure carrier, which would have an inate combat value of $200 in addition to the strikecraft) it really isn't big enough to matter.

Regarding the cost of carriers, at game start it was agreed that the carriers came with their compliments for free. I don't think anything was said about new build carriers after game start, though. And during the game, if you take strikecraft losses, you do have to pay.

And I saw as I was typing this that you'll have to recalculate, and for that I can only apologize. It should be there so people joining late will know. However, I will say that the issue of construction and the hybrid combat power bit has indeed been discussed, hashed out, and generally agreed upon in the various OOC and Planning threads. Sadly, they didn't make it onto the Wiki for whatever reason.

Arguably, the advantage is that you can write off the fighter wing without losing the carrier: trade the fighters for enemy starships, retreat, and restock the carrier with new fighters.

The problem with this approach is that it could raise balance issues if done on a large scale in wartime to the point where it became strategically important.

This issue is complicated; as I said, there are balance issues involved. I think it's time for the mods to come up with some formal statement about the carrier rules that is generally acceptable to the players... with the attached guarantee that we won't let anyone abuse the carrier rules, because the real priority is to establish parity between carriers and battleships, so that neither choice is inferior to the other as a way of spending your defense budget.

I'll try to hash this out with the other mods, because I think it's worth nailing this down.

For my purposes, all my strikecraft GBs are manned and we don't do uploads of dead people. So needless to say, if I threw my carrier complements into sacrificial trades like that, it would be entirely reasonable to suffer consequences.

Not everyone has such a setup, though. But I would argue anyone who does that could be said to be abusing the mechanics and thus fall afoul of the "don't be a dick" rule. Which would then have the mods impose some kind of penalty for doing that sort of thing. I think treating your fighters/GBs as disposable missiles would not be such a good idea, though; after all, using the $300 example, you're not paying $300 to replace the losses, but you are spending half that. Granted in a "war of attrition" that's ultimately a better trade, but as I said I think it would be considered abusive and handled appropriately.

[fgalkin]

I dunno, but I always have the impression that Battleships have guns ranged long enough to strike starships light minutes away, which negates many of the advantages of carriers and their fighter wings.

Sure, they have guns with that range, but it will give the enemy minutes to get out of the way. Since FTL weapons are limited (and subject to their own limitations, as Simon's post illustrates), any engagement with ranges over a light second is pretty much a waste of ammo.

To everyone else: I concede the point about carriers and the combat value of hybrids, since it was based on reading the wiki, which is missing several crucial bits of information.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Simon_Jester]

Construction costs of carriers is a problematic issue under the rules, one that was not resolved gracefully at the beginning in my opinion. However, carrier small craft wings integrated into the order of battle at game start are free- a 50$ carrier comes with its small craft complement and still only counts as 50 points out of your starting order of battle.

It does? I have not seen that anywhere in the rules. In fact, that is going to force me to re-calculate my whole fleet. Crap.

I sincerely apologize; that change was made very late in the game start process. You're not the first person to run into who had trouble because it was undocumented. I should have warned you, should have remembered to warn you.

Hint: The easiest way to deal with this problem is to either increase your carrier force by 50% (replace two carriers in your startup with three carriers of the same point cost), or to simply increase the point value of all the carriers by 50% (60 point carriers become 90 point carriers).

Either of these solutions is mathematically simple and requires no major rebalancing of fleet deployments, in my opinion. If you have battleships with a handful of fighters on board, of course, there's more of a problem... but your arguments suggest that you think doing so is a bad idea anyway.

Your interpretation is supported by nothing more than your own say-so, and therefore no one is under any obligation to regard it as a true statement about the rules.

I thought that part was obvious to everyone.

Perhaps so, but the tone of your statement is such that, to me, it reads as if you were attempting to lay down dogma, not simply state an opinion.

However, I will now ask you to show me where in the rules does it say that 1) Carriers start with their complement free and 2) That two points of hull carry 1 point of fighters.

Neither of these points are in the rules, and I'll grant that as an oversight. Still, they have been agreed to and is how the situation now stands, though we should add them in for the benefit of newcomers.

Ahem:

(2) is covered in the ruleset on the wiki, under heading "Carrier Rules," paragraph 2.

(1) is not covered in a place I can find in a hurry. It was a modification to the rules made in relative haste back in June or July 2010, and while nearly everyone already playing is aware of it, you are not the first new player to not find it. Unfortunately, the construction rules leave a fair bit to be desired.

I apologize for not having done more, sooner, to correct this problem. It should have occurred to me, especially since I was heavily involved in discussions about the carrier rules even before I got picked as a mod.

However, this does bring up the legitimate issue of carrier construction costs and their relation to carrier combat power.

If a (carrier+wing) is to punch at 300 points in combat, it should not cost 450$ to build (carrier+wing), unless there is some profound advantage to having a (carrier+wing) that punches at 300 points in combat compared to having a battleship that punches at 300 points in combat.

That is my point, yes

Personally, I think the best solution is to just formally make a carrier's initial fighter complement free, while replacements must be paid for. Thus, you can buy your 300$ carrier, and it punches at 300$, but every time it fights and destroys enemy ships, it loses some fighters which you must pay for if you want to keep punching at 300$.

If you don't keep funding replacement carrier craft, your carriers' striking power will decay towards zero very quickly... but as long as your small craft keep contributing to the battle (destroying enemy assets or saving your own assets from being destroyed), the losses will not impose a disproportionate burden on your construction budget.

Arguably, the advantage is that you can write off the fighter wing without losing the carrier: trade the fighters for enemy starships, retreat, and restock the carrier with new fighters.

Restocking will cost you even more, even if it's faster to build.

Restocking only costs more if you didn't manage to kill enemy ships... which will cost the enemy money to replace, too.

I dunno, but I always have the impression that Battleships have guns ranged long enough to strike starships light minutes away, which negates many of the advantages of carriers and their fighter wings.

If you want to open fire on my ships from light-minutes away, you are welcome to try. Indeed, the Umerian Space Security Force encourages you to try. Our ships can move many times their own length in the minutes it takes your fire to reach their position. As a result you will tend to miss. A lot.

Of course, we are under the same constraints and your ships are undoubtedly agile enough that it would be equally foolish for us to try to pull the same tactic on you. Or, alternatively, your ships are slow-footed and easy to hit from extreme range, but durable enough that you can afford to get hammered on from ranges at which they cannot reply effectively, until they close to ranges at which they can or until the enemy shoots their magazines dry trying to kill the damn things.

Not everyone has such a setup, though. But I would argue anyone who does that could be said to be abusing the mechanics and thus fall afoul of the "don't be a dick" rule. Which would then have the mods impose some kind of penalty for doing that sort of thing. I think treating your fighters/GBs as disposable missiles would not be such a good idea, though; after all, using the $300 example, you're not paying $300 to replace the losses, but you are spending half that. Granted in a "war of attrition" that's ultimately a better trade, but as I said I think it would be considered abusive and handled appropriately.

Well, as a practical matter, you'd throw the fighter complement of $300 worth of carriers at $300 worth of warships, kill one $30 warship, and lose 10% of your fighters. Or something like that.

It still works the same way even when the two sides don't fight to the death in a battle of annihilation.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

If you want to open fire on my ships from light-minutes away, you are welcome to try. Indeed, the Umerian Space Security Force encourages you to try. Our ships can move many times their own length in the minutes it takes your fire to reach their position. As a result you will tend to miss. A lot.

Of course, we are under the same constraints and your ships are undoubtedly agile enough that it would be equally foolish for uYs to try to pull the same tactic on you. Or, alternatively, your ships are slow-footed and easy to hit from extreme range, but durable enough that you can afford to get hammered on from ranges at which they cannot reply effectively, until they close to ranges at which they can or until the enemy shoots their magazines dry trying to kill the damn things.

Firing at that range has its uses. 1. It disrupts enemy formations, forcing evasive maneuvers and forcing the approaching fleet to space itself out such that they have room to evade. 2. It keeps ships out of the range of orbital guns. 3. It buys time for ships to keep their distance from enemy warships.

The Imperium took the position that carrier aircraft were of limited utility, since one could simply spam space to the brim of missiles which are on average cheaper. That and facing swarms of Karlacks simply means the average pilot lifespan can be ridiculously short...

[Simon_Jester]

Firing at that range has its uses. 1. It disrupts enemy formations, forcing evasive maneuvers and forcing the approaching fleet to space itself out such that they have room to evade. 2. It keeps ships out of the range of orbital guns. 3. It buys time for ships to keep their distance from enemy warships.

True, true.

Please, Mister God-Emperor, don't open fire on us at several light-minutes' range! And while you're at it, please don't throw us in the briar patch either?

[Kartr_Kana]

However, this does bring up the legitimate issue of carrier construction costs and their relation to carrier combat power.

If a (carrier+wing) is to punch at 300 points in combat, it should not cost 450$ to build (carrier+wing), unless there is some profound advantage to having a (carrier+wing) that punches at 300 points in combat compared to having a battleship that punches at 300 points in combat.

That is my point, yes

Personally, I think the best solution is to just formally make a carrier's initial fighter complement free, while replacements must be paid for. Thus, you can buy your 300$ carrier, and it punches at 300$, but every time it fights and destroys enemy ships, it loses some fighters which you must pay for if you want to keep punching at 300$.

I have to disagree with you here Simon and here's why. If you get your fighter complement free when you build your carrier then carriers will rapidly become over powered. Right now Carrier cost + complement cost keeps people from just buying carriers since they're spending more money than getting a pure combat ship of the same power. However since you can replace the total complement of a carrier for half the cost of a pure combat vessel of the same power, giving people their fighters free gives them a huge advantage.

For example:
$500 carrier + $250 of fighters go up against at $500 dreadnought the fighters and dreadnought will mutually annihilate each other, but the carrier will survive. To replace the fighters you spend $250 to replace the dreadnought they spend $500 you've now both spent $1000. This happens again and now the carrier nation has saved $250 over their dreadnought nation and they can get that carrier back in action sooner.

Now this requires you to take on a fleet which you will achieve mutual annihilation with and then you've only just broke even on cost compared to what they had and are replacing to what you had and are replacing. While this isn't too unlikely I think most people will shy away from mutual annihilation, that's how MAD works. However the chance of this happening twice or more against a single enemy really starts to strain the bounds of my credulity. So the way rules are now you're balancing the extra cost vs the future costs and flexibility carriers give you. Give the complement free at the beginning and there's nothing to stop people from stacking carriers which would give them a huge advantage in a war.

If you don't keep funding replacement carrier craft, your carriers' striking power will decay towards zero very quickly... but as long as your small craft keep contributing to the battle (destroying enemy assets or saving your own assets from being destroyed), the losses will not impose a disproportionate burden on your construction budget.

I think unless you do engage in a major battle that sees ~25%> of your strike craft destroyed (lower value if 25% is too high) then you should have to pay for them out of national spending otherwise if you're just loosing a couple dollars here and there it should be made up by your nations budget before national spending.

Arguably, the advantage is that you can write off the fighter wing without losing the carrier: trade the fighters for enemy starships, retreat, and restock the carrier with new fighters.

Restocking will cost you even more, even if it's faster to build.

Restocking only costs more if you didn't manage to kill enemy ships... which will cost the enemy money to replace, too.

Yeah as long as the fighters are inflicting losses commensurate to their combat value than a carrier navy is worlds a head of their enemies when it comes to replacement costs. Even the psychological blow to the populace is less, the only people who care when a fishing smack sinks is the family and friends, but when the Titantic goes down everyone knows and cares. However fighters don't have to inflict even losses, especially if you get the first batch for free, because they are half of what their fighting capability is you can loose twice the combat power and still only have the same replacement costs, at a fraction of the time.

These factors are why I respectfully state that the rule of having to buy the complement for the new carrier construction should remain as is.

[Simon_Jester]

Hmm.

All right. I suppose in a full-up war, the relative cost ratios probably offsets the cost of the carrier about right.

Never mind, I guess we can leave the rules as is as far as I'm concerned, as long as any marked instabilities or balance issues that arise can be dealt with by the mods.

[RogueIce]

The way I look at strikecraft is this:

For spacecraft production at peacetime, a rate of $100 worth of fighters, shuttles, or gunboats a week is a reasonable rate.

I read that as, you stick a $100 cost in your "yearly budget" and you get that amount of fighters per week, every week. Now yes, this means $5200 worth of spacecraft off a $100 drain from your 10% of GDP budget, but just hear me out.

First, I think it would be silly to say you'll only spend one week a year building spacecraft. Second, most importantly: who the fuck wants to keep track of that anyway? So for my money, you toss in that investment and then offscreen how it gets spent. IOW, you don't have to account how much of that $100 is being budgeted toward what percentage of fighters, GBs and shuttles. Thus for routine replacement (random accidents, major mechanical failures, etc) you can assume you're covered (not just for your listed Navy but for the assumed System Defense units as well) and let's just say any new models or whatever (of the same value) because that's fluff[1].

Thus counting this as a replacement stream, it is not incompatible with saying that pure carriers/hybrids have to pay extra for the complement. TBH I'm not taking a position on this one yet, just pointing out that this needn't conflict one way or another.

This then covers peacetime, as the rules say. I will venture further that this can also cover 'combat losses' of the type where it's a Player vs NPC in a storyline, such as Simon's Battle of Zebes. Because odds are people won't be having an entire fleet's worth of fighters/gunboats lost, and why worry about such a relatively negligible detail while writing[2]?

As far as wartime goes, if you're losing significant numbers of your carrier craft on a fairly routine basis, $100/week really won't cut it. I mean let's go to the "people tossing a $150 complement to take out $300 of enemy ships by a total sacrifice" thing. Obviously, if you're losing $150 of fighters in a single day from a single action and this is your routine method of engagement, well...yeah, the peacetime rate won't even come close. Thus you will start hitting shortages PDQ[3]. So naturally you need to spend quite a bit on just strikecraft replacement, and as said before if someone is trying to game the system with it, the Mods can smack pee-pees as required.

******
[1] Take, for example, my $1-per-unit F-104 fighter. If I should later "upgrade" to the F-105, which also costs $1-per-unit, there's really no point in me 'paying' for it, is there? After all, the number change and any supposed upgrades are purely fluff, as they have the same value. If, on the other hand, my F-105s should cost $2-per-unit it would be fair to have me pay for that. I think this is best done on a case-by-case basis, however, because otherwise that's just annoying number crunching. Especially for carrier heavy nations.

[2] I'm cool with replacing fighters/gunboats/shuttles "off-screen" as it were, but if you're going to blow up your own capital ships this should be reflected in your OOB and replacements need to come from your budget.

[3] And just to head off people trying to front load with the $100/week replacement by saying "but it all went to fighters/gunboats!" well tough crap. Some of it went to shuttles whether you like it or not. Additionally, it will be assumed that at least some went to replacements/whatever of your given System Defenses which you can not employ in war (except to defend that system, of course) so your front loading strategy won't work. You just won't have enough lying around that you can use.

[Simon_Jester]

My view is that routine production should be assumed to cover:
-Replacement of small craft lost to mechanical failures and accidents.
-Modernization programs replacing a certain fraction of the small craft fleet a year, though the difference between models is mostly a matter of fluff as long as costs don't change.
-"Peacetime" combat losses of, say, a few percent of the overall force a year.

Losses in a major fleet action will be significant (50$ or more, probably), and should be paid for.

I'm seriously planning to pay for all my cutter losses this year out of next year's construction budget, just for the sake of the formalities, but that's me.

[Shroom Man 777]

YEEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!

Girder.

[Kartr_Kana]

Baerne I got more written, just need a few parts from you and your approval/adjustment to what I have and then it'll be ready to post. I'm thinking we do at least two posts this one to open it and one to end it then we can handwave the rest of the exercise. I figured that I'll post this one since most the writing is me and then you can do the next one and I'll just put in a few paragraphs for the Hiigaran perspective.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't know what to make of this latest, Dark Hellion. It's... really fucking batshit insane over the top.

You may have just out-Shroomied Shroomy, and in twenty years' time I may have figured out whether or not that's a good thing.

[Shroom Man 777]

That... that was brilliant.

The judge punched a large chunk out of his throne. "Mr. Finch, this is not your place to tell the men of this court what to think. This is a place of law!" Attilicus stomped upon the ground, shattering tile and with a mighty roar cried, "I am the law!"

[Simon_Jester]

I'm sorry there isn't much action in this latest post; I'm trying to set it up so I can start the next chapter with action, instead of with 1500 words of exposition.

[Master_Baerne]

Baerne I got more written, just need a few parts from you and your approval/adjustment to what I have and then it'll be ready to post. I'm thinking we do at least two posts this one to open it and one to end it then we can handwave the rest of the exercise. I figured that I'll post this one since most the writing is me and then you can do the next one and I'll just put in a few paragraphs for the Hiigaran perspective.

Check the document - There a few bits that don't really work with how I'd envisioned Ascendant doctrine; it's already typed out there so I won't redo it here. Excellent work, though, and thanks for reminding me about the story.

[Mayabird]

Retconned the message to September.

I have no objections to jumping to 3401, once the current BEEEF storyline is concluded (and I know people, myself included, still want to do more BEEEF posts).

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Thanks! You're one of my favorite Russians!


I actually have a few earlier-than-BEEEF posts I want to do (and sorry for not being around the last couple days; there's been stuff) but it's not important to the plot so I'm fine with goddamn unreal time for it.

[Karmic Knight]

Karmic, you have complete freedom to decide when plots for your nation start, and you haven't got any ongoing events that you need other things to happen a reasonable time after (as PeZook does). What have you got planned for 3401 that you can't do just as well in Q4 3400?

I am planning on slightly rebooting my nation to spark creativity and to allow myself more straightforwardness in my notes.I was originally going to say that I felt I would feel more comfortable to do so after a year of reasonable time, but I realized that I really never established the more restrictive portions of my notes in the game. So I just need to rewrite my notes, much more simple than I originally planned.

[Simon_Jester]

Also, at this point you could reasonably claim the right to a complete retcon; we've already retconned two entire countries out of existence and replaced them with new ones. Reworking the Knights wouldn't be any different from what Maya and Alyrium have already done, except that you'd be doing it to your own country.

So I'd say you have total artistic freedom and as blank a slate as you want to start over, and I encourage you to use it however you see fit.

[PeZook]

I'd actually like to tool around Ranoidea trying to find those Regency guys who mysteriously disappeared

[Simon_Jester]

There is no Regency of the Engine. There is only... HYPNOTOAD!

But heck, that sounds pretty fun. Go for it.

[Master_Baerne]

Ah, the real story of the Regency's disappearance: They caught a stray broadcast of Hypnotoad's show, in which he made the claim that the Recency did not exist. Their reasoning systems told them they weren't real, so the entire nation promptly vanished in a puff of logic.

[Simon_Jester]

Another possibility: the Regency was actually an elaborate hoax perpetrated by an unknown organization that set up hyperwave broadcasters and fake customs stations and so on during the Ranoidean spawning season. The Ranoideans were too busy holding orgies to do anything about it at the time, so they just let the Cosmic Pranksters go about their business.

By the time the Summer of Love-equivalent had cooled down, the hoax was over and everyone went back to their regularly scheduled foreign affairs.

EDIT: Baerne, I'll get back to your diplomatic note in a bit. I need to think over what Chernov would ask from you guys in exchange for the support.