STGOD: A Dead Art?

Darkevilme · Post by **Darkevilme** » 2007-06-21 12:44pm

I hereby reserve an office in your flying towerblock starglider.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-06-21 12:52pm

Hawkwings wrote:As for your embassy, well, what sort of orbit will it be in? How big? What capabilities?

The proposal is a disc-shaped station about 120 metres in diameter and 20 metres deep, with the usual 'bunch of eggs in a lattice' construction style (possibly modified by having to use earth components). It will have two fusion generators (not the explosive high-output neutronium reactors my ships use), light shielding and point defence guns (1 pt PD equivalent) sufficient to hold off an attack from a patrol craft (but nothing bigger). It will have two displacers (note that Kiroter'nah displacers are trivially jammable) for landing and extracting personnel and several docking ports. It will also have limited sensors for detecting cloaked vessels in close proximity and snooping on near-earth comm traffic (1 pt EW), plus a conventional explosive self-destruct charges in the sensitive equipment bays, but I will not be declaring those on the blueprints.

Because it's going to have to be registered with

for the purposes of navigation, defense, safety, repair and maintenance (which presumably falls on your own shoulders), and compliance with international treaties for the standardization of Earth-based space stations.

In my last post in the CoN thread one of my characters sent the rough plan and a request for approval/directions to all the earth powers they have a hypernet address for.

EDIT: Ok, bump that to 150m and three displacers and make it the Chamara embassy as well. Other NGTO powers are invited to reserve a module at the 'xeno zoo'.

HSRTG · Post by **HSRTG** » 2007-06-21 02:02pm

Hex claimed for home systems. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2007-06-21 02:45pm

GuppyShark wrote:Okay, genius. Tell me where the effect of "Advanced Weaponry" has been defined?

It can be considered Anti-capital, Anti-fighter, or "improved fire control". It needs clarification, not him being told that he can't do stuff like that when clearly it is allowable.

Oh, that's right. You're just making up rules now.

Oh am I? Or could it be you didn't know about specialized points when you made your OOB and assumed they weren't in the game? Because that's what it looks like when you said that he couldn't spend points on better weapons for a ship or better point defense. It was clear to me he meant "Better anti-capital and better anti-fighter" when he said "5 advanced weaponry, 2 advanced point-defense".

These others you're listing? +Speed, +Anti-Fighter, whatever? They've been discussed and defined in the thread already.

Well, +speed hasn't been well defined. Is it +STL? +FTL? +anti-interdiction? You might want to pay attention to what I'm writing rather than just making a kneejerk response. But yes, they have been mentioned. Which is why I got confused when you said "Except that you can't have combat 'upgrades'."

Obviously, you CAN have combat upgrades, that's what +anti-capital and +anti-fighter and all the rest ARE.

I'd love to know what you think "Advanced Weaponry" is supposed to represent that "+combat" can't.

The points system is just to establish a yardstick of the forces involved.

Listen pal, if you want to have a go of it, we can, but individual bonuses to firepower like +Anti-capital are allowable. The base points, by the by, are effectively a "general combat" boost. Like a 10 point ship is overall better in combat than a 1 point ship.

Let me break it down simply for you. There are "basic ship points" and there are "specialized ship points". Basic ship points give overall boosts to the ship in terms of firepower, defenses, electronic warfare, etc. (though presumably they lose STL speed as an inevitable tradeoff). Beyond that, any aspect of their combat abilities can be boosted through specialized points. What does this mean? It means the ship is specialized in that area. If I've got a 45 point +5 Anti-capital, it will beat up a normal 50 point capital ship. However, it will be less badass against a 50 point carrier's fighters.

While "advanced weaponry" is itself not a defined trait, it's close enough to one of the others (anti-capital) that with a tiny bit of clarification, it would work just fine. Same with "advanced point defense". Rather than asking him to clarify, you told him he couldn't do it, which. is. wrong. It's that simple.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2007-06-21 02:51pm

1) Individuals may not be boosted via points. Yes, I realize White Haven and I have obscenely powerful individuals, as his can discharge weapons fire and mine can form capital ships with their minds. They're counted as warships.

2) Fire Control is not a valid bonus. Anti-cap, or anti-fighter(Or point defense or whatever you care to).

3) +speed is FTL speed as earlier said, and will be factored into interdiction rulings. STL speed is defined by the size of the ship in points(DD's outrun CA's).

rhoenix · Post by **rhoenix** » 2007-06-21 02:56pm

SirNitram wrote:2) Fire Control is not a valid bonus. Anti-cap, or anti-fighter(Or point defense or whatever you care to).

This is new - so just to clarify, when was this decided, and why was fire-control (in the context if increasing range and accuracy, not damage) decided against?

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2007-06-21 02:58pm

rhoenix wrote:
SirNitram wrote:2) Fire Control is not a valid bonus. Anti-cap, or anti-fighter(Or point defense or whatever you care to).
This is new - so just to clarify, when was this decided, and why was fire-control (in the context if increasing range and accuracy, not damage) decided against?

This was something I myself was leaning towards for a while now. There's no particular reason why this can't be represented accurately by a general increase. People have complained often and regularly about the complexity of the rules, so I am going to come down on the simplification fairly reliably, regardless of my thoughts.

rhoenix · Post by **rhoenix** » 2007-06-21 03:02pm

SirNitram wrote:This was something I myself was leaning towards for a while now. There's no particular reason why this can't be represented accurately by a general increase. People have complained often and regularly about the complexity of the rules, so I am going to come down on the simplification fairly reliably, regardless of my thoughts.

Thank you for the clarification - I'll go tinker with my fleet then, and make another post when finished.

Darkevilme · Post by **Darkevilme** » 2007-06-21 03:02pm

Can i buy STL speed for a battleship that packs a brutal close range punch and needs to get close quick to deliver it and turn the enemy fleet to smoking ruin?

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2007-06-21 03:02pm

rhoenix wrote:
SirNitram wrote:2) Fire Control is not a valid bonus. Anti-cap, or anti-fighter(Or point defense or whatever you care to).
This is new - so just to clarify, when was this decided, and why was fire-control (in the context if increasing range and accuracy, not damage) decided against.

It's too broad of a bonus to be specialized point expenditure and is really a piece of fluff, not something reflected by specialized points. In game terms it doesn't matter if your 50 point dreadnought uses 5 highly accurate guns or 20 inaccurate ones. Its the 50 point dreadnought's performance that makes it worth 50pts.

It hasn't been used in previous games, so its inclusion was pending mod approval. That didn't happen.

rhoenix · Post by **rhoenix** » 2007-06-21 03:04pm

Imperial Overlord wrote:It hasn't been used in previous games, so its inclusion was pending mod approval. That didn't happen.

I understand. Between yours, Nitram's, and Hotfoot's explanations, I feel much more satisfied, and even have a few directions with which to redesign my fleet.

Thanks to all three of you for the rapid response.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2007-06-21 03:05pm

Darkevilme wrote:Can i buy STL speed for a battleship that packs a brutal close range punch and needs to get close quick to deliver it and turn the enemy fleet to smoking ruin?

No, because I don't see any reason why this can't be represented by the normal generalized points.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-06-21 03:09pm

Rhoenix, fire control is critically important in real naval battles, but modelling it to a useful degree of accuracy is very complicated. Do you remember that table of x ships vs y ships = n losses I posted earlier? You'd need a three dimensional table based on that for various levels of fire control on each side, just for starters without going into differences in fleet composition.

People interested in a rules-heavy game can always do one after this STGOD is finished. As I've said, I'd be up for that if the tedious bits all get pushed into software (as much to prevent tabletop-wargaming-style bitchfests and rules lawyering as for the convenience), but still with mod game state override.

Crossroads could you add a name to nt01jones's purple Stellar Dominion hex in the next version of the map please? And what is that anonymous light green hex on the upper right edge?

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2007-06-21 03:09pm

Hmm, good thing I'm not playing the SPEI, that totally destroys the entire 'fast battleship' class I had going. There's a big difference between a 30-point ship with 5 or 10 points into GoFast and a 35-40-point ship. The LoT, of course, doesn't care.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-06-21 03:28pm

White Haven wrote:Hmm, good thing I'm not playing the SPEI, that totally destroys the entire 'fast battleship' class I had going. There's a big difference between a 30-point ship with 5 or 10 points into GoFast and a 35-40-point ship. The LoT, of course, doesn't care.

Fast battleships are great. You gather a fleet of them and make like hell towards an enemy colony. They detect you incoming and cluster all their defence ships there. Then at the last minute you do a 90 degree turn and head for one of their other colonies. The defending fleet chases you, but too bad, you're faster. You trash their minimally defended colony and run away before the defending fleet turns up.

FTL speed may not be directly useful, since we're apparently fighting all battles at STL speeds, but it can inflict virtual attrition on the enemy by forcing them to keep some forces back in reserve, which makes it more than worth its cost in some scenarios.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2007-06-21 03:37pm

Just noticed the 'Production disruption' on Starglider's OOB. The answer is 'No'. You want to stop someone from producing, you go in and break their shit.

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2007-06-21 03:38pm

MOD VOICE ON:

Starglider:

I'm sorry, but the disquiet anomaly projectors are going to have to go. No messing with production unless you send someone (or someones) there to go fuck it up in person.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2007-06-21 03:49pm

SirNitram wrote:3) +speed is FTL speed as earlier said, and will be factored into interdiction rulings. STL speed is defined by the size of the ship in points(DD's outrun CA's).

Err, I'd kinda like to protest this. FTL speed bonus should be independant of interdiction defeat bonuses. Interdiction is like mud, spinning your wheels faster won't help, you need traction.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-06-21 03:52pm

Imperial Overlord wrote:I'm sorry, but the disquiet anomaly projectors are going to have to go. No messing with production unless you send someone (or someones) there to go fuck it up in person.

How about they don't do anything to production but I will leave it to player discretion what if any other problems they cause. They're essentially a nuisance effect. However in that case I hope the interdiction minelayers actually work.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2007-06-21 03:52pm

InnocentBystander wrote:
SirNitram wrote:3) +speed is FTL speed as earlier said, and will be factored into interdiction rulings. STL speed is defined by the size of the ship in points(DD's outrun CA's).
Err, I'd kinda like to protest this. FTL speed bonus should be independant of interdiction defeat bonuses. Interdiction is like mud, spinning your wheels faster won't help, you need traction.

Well, if you don't have traction, your FTL drive is useless either way. It's not like there's highways, it's all off-road.

+speed would represent more power shunted to the jump drive. That's the only realistic way you'll defeat interdiction.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2007-06-21 03:57pm

SirNitram wrote:
InnocentBystander wrote:
SirNitram wrote:3) +speed is FTL speed as earlier said, and will be factored into interdiction rulings. STL speed is defined by the size of the ship in points(DD's outrun CA's).
Err, I'd kinda like to protest this. FTL speed bonus should be independant of interdiction defeat bonuses. Interdiction is like mud, spinning your wheels faster won't help, you need traction.
Well, if you don't have traction, your FTL drive is useless either way. It's not like there's highways, it's all off-road.

+speed would represent more power shunted to the jump drive. That's the only realistic way* you'll defeat interdiction.

*that does not involve multimegaton firepower

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-06-21 03:58pm

SirNitram wrote:+speed would represent more power shunted to the jump drive. That's the only realistic way you'll defeat interdiction.

Noble Ire specifically spent points on 'anti-interdiction' technobabble. AFAIK he's the only one. Presumably that counts better against interdictors than speed, if it's a valid advantage.

Hawkwings · Post by **Hawkwings** » 2007-06-21 04:05pm

Do sensors count in the EW category, or would they be separate?

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2007-06-21 04:07pm

Hawkwings wrote:Do sensors count in the EW category, or would they be separate?

Yes. EW = Sensors/ECM/ECCM/etc.

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2007-06-21 04:29pm

MOD VOICE ON:

Sorry Starglider, after consulting the Nitram, its too abusable and sets a bad precident to have a "fuck with a guy from light years away and no risk to my dudes" effect. The disquiet platforms are a cool idea, but they aren't going to work for the game.

The mine layers are kosher though.