STGOD 2k8 Planning thread

[Hawkwings]

That's what I thought too, but then I did the math. Turns out that in a battle between a 100 pt fleet vs a 90+10D fleet, the 90+10 fleet wins with about 14 base fleet points left. Which I thought is what it should be: the fleet with the fancy tech barely gets a victory.

Incidentally, now ships with O and ships without do the exact same damage. The only downside to having O ships is that your fleet has fewer hit points, which I consider an acceptable cost for having targetable firepower.

[Nephtys]

Sooo. We continuing or what?

[Hawkwings]

Well, we don't seem to have the GMs around a lot, but that's a problem that can be solved with good roleplaying!

Since the other rules-lawyers don't seem to be around, I'll put up these combat mechanics and anything else I can fill in.

Why don't we have everyone interested in playing make a post in the current main game thread, just to express their interest?

[Crossroads Inc.]

I must ask to Darkevilme... What is exactly happening to your Humans with this "Into pillar of Fire" thing? Are you killing your slaves or moving them?

[Darkevilme]

Moving them. tis a harvesting operation.

[Darkevilme]

Random curiousity and thinking ahead. What was the bonus for using LOTS of low point ships instead of big caps? you know to offset them dropping like flies every battle.

I only ask cause i have an idea for my next race, which is good as it means i can be outright insane/entertaining/xenocidal with this one and it's no biggy as i'll come back with them instead, and the Pikwik standard attack ship is 2 points (1base+1O) and they use hundreds of them.

[Hawkwings]

The bonus is that you can cover more ground with a lot of 2 pt ships than you can with 4 50-point ships. There's nothing in the mechanics that gives you a bonus.

[Thirdfain]

Is there any way to improve the tactical speed and maneuverability of my ships? After all, most of my largest vessels are large cruisers as opposed to battleships, and I was sort of hoping to be able to spend points on agility as opposed to raw firepower, in the vein of Victorian armoured cruisers, which were often the same size or larger than contemporary battleships, using their size for speed and duration rather than raw firepower.

[Hawkwings]

Sounds like you want to add D to your ships, and RP it as avoiding enemy fire.

[Thirdfain]

Tactical speed is not just "D." The idea is to not come under fire at all, or come under fire only when wanted.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Is ther another updated map? I want to know if theres anyone else in my corner of space i can attack

[Hawkwings]

Tactical speed is not just "D." The idea is to not come under fire at all, or come under fire only when wanted.

If this tactical speed did not affect battle mechanics, then I could possibly see this happening. What's your specific rule proposal?

Note to everyone: we should finalize the rules soon so everyone can finalize their OOBs. If you have concerns, now is the time to bring them up.

[Thirdfain]

I want to be able to withdraw quickly; I want to be able to move forces around in a system to avoid contact with the enemy until I'm good and ready. I'm not sure how you'd model that; but then, you're the rules maven. We've got 2 off the classic 3 elements of warship design, protection and firepower- where's speed?

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

Realspace Engines

Realspace Engines determine your speed in realspace. Like Stealth and Hyperdrives, Realspace Ratings scale to favor smaller vessels, and use the same calculations for determining the rating. The rating is also used as a speed modifier for tactical map movement, generally interpreted as a multiplier. A 40+10R ship would move 350% of normal movement speed, while a ship with basic engines moves 100% of normal movement speed as determined by its natural +1 Realspace Rating.

• Abbreviation: R
• Determining the Value: The value of Realspace Engines decreases based on the overall size of the vessel, like with Stealth and Hyperdrives. Realspace Engines are not counted when determining the overall size of the vessel. In plain terms, your Realspace Rating is equal to +N divided by one-tenth the cost of the overall non-engine vessel size, and then added to the automatic +1 Realspace all ships have. A 40+10R vessel would have, therefore, a Realspace Rating of +3.5, or [(10/4)+1].
  
  To compute a vessel's Realspace Rating, use the following calculation:
  
  +R divided by (one-tenth total ship cost besides Realspace Engines) +1 Basic Realspace = Realspace Rating
• Attribute Interactions: [to be determined]

That's how I'd go about it, at least. All we need is to determine just how it interacts with other attributes.

[Thirdfain]

Sure, sounds great to me.

[Hawkwings]

It would, wouldn't it?

The problem with Shinn's system is that any ship with +1 to R would be technically faster than any ship without R, and could avoid any engagement with unmodded ships. Dealing with cutoffs and how much faster will just cause headaches and yelling. Do you need 50% more speed to avoid a "slower" ship? Why? Shouldn't a ship with just 1% more speed be able to avoid engagement indefinitely? My thought would have to introduce a new mechanic: small ships are faster than big ships. That's the counter to ships with R.

For a really simple system, we could say that a ship's base weight is also its speed value. The smaller a ship's base weight is, the faster it is. A ship can avoid engagement with a ship of equal speed or slower, while a faster ship can force an engagement on a slower ship.

An equation might go like "For every two points of R, reduce a ship's base points by 1 point for speed calculations only. With this, a 5pt ship is faster than a 10pt ship, but a 10+10S ship is just as fast as a 5pt ship. That would mean that the biggest possible default ship, 40+10S, would have the same tactical speed as a 35-point ship.

The mechanics of speed might go something like this: ships that are faster may avoid engagement with enemy ships as long as they are not surrounded, not heading towards the enemy ships, and were not pulled out of hyperspace by an interdictor.

So if you jumped into a system with a fleet of 40+10R ships, you can avoid all the 50-pt bruisers that constitute the system's defense. however, the 30-pt cruisers also in-system can force an engagement with you.

[Beowulf]

Smaller ships being faster isn't new. It's been assumed throughout. Which is why Shinn's system fails. However, that should be relatively easily fixable by making the base realspace rating something other than 1. For example, 5-ln(points).

[consequences]

So if you jumped into a system with a fleet of 40+10R ships, you can avoid all the 50-pt bruisers that constitute the system's defense. however, the 30-pt cruisers also in-system can force an engagement with you.

Only if you aren't actually willing to engage for the length of time required to do any significant damage(especially if you are trying to land troops and actually take anything), and presuming a lack of stealth, planetary jamming, extended sensor networks for prepositioning on your arrival vector, or any other cleverness that the defender can come up with. Of course, the question then arises 'why did you even bother to show up?', followed by 'who gets first crack at your undefended homeworlds while you are pissing about?'. Oh, and 'how do you expect to support your fast squadrons when the fifty point bruiser fleet rolls over or past them to take your capital?'

More realistically, you could probably avoid the 50-pt bruisers that constitute the system's reinforcements. Presuming that they don't have the stealth to sneak up on you, the jamming support from planetary defenses to do the same, or the numbers to just say 'screw it' and englobe your ass.

Personally, I'd just lump it under D to represent the ability to dictate the terms of engagement better as well as avoiding incoming fire more successfully, or H for the purpose of getting clear of interdictors and dictating the terms of engagement in the first place, depending on what the builder's intended purpose was, rather than try to figure out additional rules interactions with everything.

Of course, the following thought occurs to me now: How exactly are you supposed to break contact with a fleet that has I equal to or greater than your H, and H>I themselves? Or is it being assumed that if you put that much effort into your ship deigns then you've earned the right to jump ahead and pull the enemy out of ftl for a free shot at them as many times as you feel like?

[Darkevilme]

Of course, the following thought occurs to me now: How exactly are you supposed to break contact with a fleet that has I equal to or greater than your H, and H>I themselves? Or is it being assumed that if you put that much effort into your ship deigns then you've earned the right to jump ahead and pull the enemy out of ftl for a free shot at them as many times as you feel like?

Damn, someone has uncovered my evil plans >.>

[Academia Nut]

Really, we should take the time now to define just how FTL will work, because if it can be used with some degree tactically then having bigger realspace engines won't be much good as all that needs to be done for a slower fleet to catch up is to engage their hyperdrives, make a microjump, and then quicker than you can say "BAMF!" the guys who invested in bigger engines will wonder why they didn't invest in bigger guns instead.

Plus, we might as well define how our combat ranges will work, because seeing as how most of our weapons will be lightspeend or relativistic anyway, bigger realspace engines might not be all that useful anyway seeing as how unless your ships are fast enough to be used as relativistic kill vehicles (definitely something that will be hit with a mod hammer), it's not like you can exactly do anything but stay outside the range of the enemy's capacity to get a good lock on you, which is kind of like D anyway. And its got to be at least a couple of light seconds to stay outside the range of lasers, relativistic slugs, and any of the other types of weaponry likely to be travelling around c.

[consequences]

Of course, the following thought occurs to me now: How exactly are you supposed to break contact with a fleet that has I equal to or greater than your H, and H>I themselves? Or is it being assumed that if you put that much effort into your ship deigns then you've earned the right to jump ahead and pull the enemy out of ftl for a free shot at them as many times as you feel like?

Damn, someone has uncovered my evil plans >.>

If you were anywhere closer to me, I'd present the one critical flaw in those plans. however, even Tarnok isn't batshit insane enough to try to fight his fleet across the entirety of known space just to prove his point(yet).

BTW, you overspent by fifty points on improved industry.

[Hawkwings]

Of course, the following thought occurs to me now: How exactly are you supposed to break contact with a fleet that has I equal to or greater than your H, and H>I themselves? Or is it being assumed that if you put that much effort into your ship deigns then you've earned the right to jump ahead and pull the enemy out of ftl for a free shot at them as many times as you feel like?

Assuming equal fleet point value, your ships will win in an engagement, because your ships are optimized for combat, not pulling you out of hyperspace. If he brought enough ships to win, well, that's a significant resource sink. Good job! You're drawing away a large portion of the enemy's starfleet!

Hyperspace:
One hex on the galactic map takes 1 day to cross with standard hyperdrives. I am in favor of the "no microjumps" rules, which would be enforced by saying "jumps are inaccurate around gravity wells" or "Your ship can't handle the stress of entering and exiting hyperspace within a short time frame" etc.

Combat ranges:
There is no combat range, partially because there is no system map either. Players agree to have a fight, and then they do, at full effectiveness (barring any modifiers). This means that we can't model tactical speed with D, because there's concept of "range" in the combat mechanics. And there shouldn't be: it's too complicated and has too many things to keep track of.

I think it's safe to say that if a ship is actively avoiding another ship of equal speed at a not already in combat distance, the fleeing ship can make itself almost impossible to hit with lightspeed weapons.

[Darkevilme]

Well as i see it extra hyperspace engines means i can leave a battle quicker if i'm losing it so provided retreat is an option that just became a darn sight more convenient. Interdiction added to that means i can choose to engage any fleet, so while yes i'm nerfed by something over 200 points (the cost for the entire fleet to have speed boosts) I have some nice strategic options.

Though i could be wrong, i'm not even an armchair general here.

As for the improved industry((i assume this means the shipyards)) that's because they're secret shipyards. secret like the Chamaran home system is secret.

[Crossroads Inc.]

You people! You are "rule"-ing this hting to death!
go! play! blow shit up!

[Thirdfain]

You people! You are "rule"-ing this hting to death!
go! play! blow shit up!

Don't be silly. Look how awesome the main game thread is so far