SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread III

[Force Lord]

On an unrelated note, anyone's free to join the allied anti-pirate fleet at Sector H-11, if you like. Extra help will be accepted.

[Simon_Jester]

Ilya, I want to make sure I'm understanding you.

Are you saying that this year your civilization will begin construction of warships with a total cost (and total point value in combat) equal to 75% of your annual GDP?

Or are you saying that your starting fleet will be a force of warships with a total cost (and total point value in combat) equal to 75% of your annual GDP?

You're entitled to starting combat power with a total cost (and total point value in combat) of 100% of your GDP; in your case, that would be 90% or more balanced in favor of space forces.

You're not entitled to build 75% of your annual GDP in warships year after year after year, because after three or four years of that you'd be getting dangerously close to invincible unless the Grand Fleet of Civilization dogpiled you all at once.

On an unrelated note, anyone's free to join the allied anti-pirate fleet at Sector H-11, if you like. Extra help will be accepted.

Though people who just want to write their fleet effortlessly defeating all comers... well, I want some saved for the rest of us, so I'm not sure that would be helpful.

That said... [looks at what happened to poor Directrix] We're going to need all the help we can get, I think.

Oh, wait, did I give something away?

[Shroom Man 777]

Malachsuchus

The OOB of the military is supposed to use the entire GDP as basis.

It is the yearly military purchase budget that is limited to 20%.

[Ilya Muromets]

Addendum:

Here's a quick breakdown of the types of ships in the R'nish fleet to provide context:

Ultra-heavy = Ark Ships
Superheavy = Fabrication Ships (mobile factory ships)
Heavy = Cruisecraft Major (scaled down ark ships in function), Gatherers (mining and resource harvesting ships)
Medium = Cruisecraft Medium (smaller type of cruisecraft), Bulk Logistics Vessels (materials transport)
Light = Cruisecraft Minor (even smaller cruisecraft)
Ultralight = Sensor Ships, Node ships
Yachts
Gunboats = Defender Drones
fighters = Fighter Drones
Hyperlight shuttles
Shuttles

Only the Defender Drones and Fighter Drones are military ships. The rest are armed for defensive purposes.

[Simon_Jester]

I'd vote for cutting Ilya a bit of a break on ship production because his absolute GDP is about 10 to 15% below most of the galactic powers; it's not his fault that purchasing upgrades to existing sectors isn't cost-effective compared to purchasing extra sectors.

But only a bit. 75% of GDP per year is much too much, if those ships are implied to be a match dollar-for-dollar with foreign warships. If he's spending 75% of GDP on them, that should imply that only about... call it 20%, tops, of the actual cost goes to firepower, and thus that the ships "cost" about five times more than their combat power would indicate. In which case he's spending 60% of GDP on civilian ships and 15% of GDP on warships, and the warships just happen to be welded to the civilian ships as far as deployment is concerned.

That I could live with.

[Ilya Muromets]

Sorry, I meant that the 75% is the value spent by the starting fleet. But most of the resources still go to the R'nish fleet since I have next to nothing on the ground. I'm willing to forfeit all System Defense points whatsoever since pretty much my entire civilization IS the fleet. This isn't a fleet in the purely military sense, but a fleet as in a group of ships as laid out in my previous post.

In which case he's spending 60% of GDP on civilian ships and 15% of GDP on warships, and the warships just happen to be welded to the civilian ships as far as deployment is concerned.

That's pretty much it, for the most part. They're armed, and they can beat off small pirate raids or probing attacks, but they're most certainly not line warships.

[Shroom Man 777]

Your starting military OOB can use the entire amount of OOB (order of battle/military stuff). The Bragulan Star Empire has 60,000+ GDP, so 40,000+ goes to its fleet while 20,000 goes to the army for the starting OOB. But the yearly military purchases are only 10% or so of the GDP.

[Simon_Jester]

Sorry, I meant that the 75% is the value spent by the starting fleet. But most of the resources still go to the R'nish fleet since I have next to nothing on the ground. I'm willing to forfeit all System Defense points whatsoever since pretty much my entire civilization IS the fleet. This isn't a fleet in the purely military sense, but a fleet as in a group of ships as laid out in my previous post.

In that case, I submit that you have a right to spend, say, 90% of starting points on the fleet. I mean, your starting GDP is 49000$, yes?

Hell, my country spent 78% of its starting points on space forces and I have actual planetary populations to worry about.

You've got 5600$ of ground troops listed; that should give you an aggregate fleet strength of 43400$, which is over 85% of your starting points, and I think that is totally OK.

And, as I said, I for one vote in favor of giving you at least a slight break on additional warship production to grant you parity with your neighbors, simply because otherwise you're a victim of a quirk in the rules that makes spending NCPs on sector upgrades inefficient compared to spending them on new sectors.

[Ilya Muromets]

Well, I'm glad that's been sorted out. Figuring out how to structure a nomadic, ship-based civilization on a Ruleset most designed for traditional sci-fi polities that have to hold on to worlds and whatnot was one of the biggest headaches I had trying to come up with the figures.

EDIT: Also, now that it's been cleared up, I really hope no one decides to invade or dogpiles me any time soon. Given that a lack of any real ground-based assets means I don't have system defense points, My only option would be to defend myself long enough to make a run for it.

[Simon_Jester]

Actually, you should have system defense points in the form of fixed anti-space defenses; you have a right to them. I'd model that as weapons platforms that are designed to be towed from place to place by relatively big cargo-type vessels, for instance, but that have no hyperspace capability in their own right. After all, there will be many individual locations in R'Nish space that at the moment it would be most inconvenient to have an enemy attack.

These gun platforms/missile batteries/whatever would be much more optimized for combat than the R'Nish ships, and would be a lot 'denser' in terms of the percent of their tonnage devoted to armament. Think of them as being like bouncers or something: they're big, ugly-looking guys you keep around to discourage anyone from making trouble for you when it would be inconvenient to have to defend yourself.

What you don't have is fixed defenses against ground invasions of your planets. On the other hand, if an enemy sends a huge army to conquer your planets, you can simply smile and say "What?" with reason, because your population isn't there and you've said as much. So let them- it's the space battles you have to worry about losing.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Well, I'm glad that's been sorted out. Figuring out how to structure a nomadic, ship-based civilization on a Ruleset most designed for traditional sci-fi polities that have to hold on to worlds and whatnot was one of the biggest headaches I had trying to come up with the figures.

EDIT: Also, now that it's been cleared up, I really hope no one decides to invade or dogpiles me any time soon. Given that a lack of any real ground-based assets means I don't have system defense points, My only option would be to defend myself long enough to make a run for it.

Don't worry, unless the Roman Curia accidentally files a request for a Crusade against you, you ought to be fine.

[Shroom Man 777]

I like the idea of hueg-fuckoff towed space defense platforms. Or even huge-ass deployable minefields or something.

[Force Lord]

I have a feeling that Directrix is going to be a casualty.

[Simon_Jester]

Now that the post is up, I can assure you that Directrix is going to be a casualty.

[Force Lord]

Any ideas on how she'll be a casualty?

[Shroom Man 777]

We should make a Simon Jester Space Battle Scale, for his stuff is like the standard, the benchmark to rate space battles. But seriously, that stuff was damn good, Simons. Really good stuff. You turn a bunch of destroyers and cruisers weighing at <100pt each battling some ragtag pirates whose fighter squadrons are forced to hide in asteroids for days while peeing in their space diapers into an epic battle that is even more gripping than the sight of exploding planets! Mang!

[Simon_Jester]

Any ideas on how she'll be a casualty?

Have you read the post yet?

[Force Lord]

Well, I have, but I interpreted it as Directrix being still around.

EDIT: Or do we count crippling as casualty?

[Shroom Man 777]

Injuries count as casualties too. Casualties are separated between dead and injured. Man, instead of a one-sided curbstomp favoring the good guys, the Centralists and Umerians are going to end up coming home with a whole bunch of black eyes and bruises - black and blue. But hopefully for their bloody noses, they'll give those damn pirates bloody breasts - make them BLEED FROM THE MILKBAGS, WHORES WHORES WHORES!

[Force Lord]

Damn it Shoom, now you've given me an image of those coalition and pirate warships dickstabbing each other!

[Simon_Jester]

Injuries count as casualties too. Casualties are separated between dead and injured. Man, instead of a one-sided curbstomp favoring the good guys, the Centralists and Umerians are going to end up coming home with a whole bunch of black eyes and bruises - black and blue. But hopefully for their bloody noses, they'll give those damn pirates bloody breasts - make them BLEED FROM THE MILKBAGS, WHORES WHORES WHORES!

Dude, the pirates are mostly reptilianoids. Especially the leaders. And... well, no mammals, no mammaries, no milkbags.

Sorry.

[KlavoHunter]

Given that they are pirates, there ARE certain to be whores SOMEWHERE nearby...

[Simon_Jester]

Given that they are pirates, there ARE certain to be whores SOMEWHERE nearby...

Actually yes. They will be discovered later, since relatively few of them are aboard the warships.

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

Given that they are pirates, there ARE certain to be whores SOMEWHERE nearby...

Actually yes. They will be discovered later, since relatively few of them are aboard the warships.

And hopefully they will be made to bleed from their milkbags, irrespective of whether they actually have them or not.

[Simon_Jester]

[frowns]

Anyway, posted Cardwell's attack on one of the pirate stealth frigates. The others receive similarly rough handling; damage assessment will be in the next post.