An SDNW Proposal

[Darkevilme]

Gunship sized craft have limited FTL.

Personally i'll be going with my carriers having drones which are automated fighters, And my cruisers also each carry a pair of scout gunboats with short range FTL to aid in their patrols

[KroLazuxy_87]

How are things like stealth missions, smuggling, and espionage handled? Posting, "I secretly send a fleet of battleships through uncharted space as a surprise attack on Player X." kinda gives it away... How do we keep an accurate record of what a player is doing while keeping it secret from the others?

[RogueIce]

How are things like stealth missions, smuggling, and espionage handled? Posting, "I secretly send a fleet of battleships through uncharted space as a surprise attack on Player X." kinda gives it away... How do we keep an accurate record of what a player is doing while keeping it secret from the others?

That falls under: "Thou Shalt Not Use OOC Knowledge in an IC Manner." Also: don't be a douchecock.

Essentially, if you do a "secret mission" and the mod(s) agree that you managed to pull it off without being compromised, the player who was your target cannot then turn around and declare cassus belli on your ass for blowing up his spacedock, as said player's nation does not know it was you who did it.

Granted people will know OOC and might be dicks about it (Oh hey, I suddenly don't like you/am fabricating evidence for a war on false pretenses, but it's purely coincidence I swear!) and, in those cases, it'd be up to the mod(s) to lay the smackdown, if appropriate.

I suppose, if one wanted to be really paranoid (and the mods were so willing) you send your writeup to them via PM, and if it's approved and stays a secret, they could post on your behalf as a, "Secretly, a crack commando team from another nation blew up XYZ's Spacedock" or whatever. But hopefully, that shouldn't be necessary as people seperate OOC knowledge (and other OOC factors...) from how they act during in-game storyposts.

[Agent Sorchus]

I think We are kinda forgetting one thing about carriers, that when you combine the survivability of both the carrier and the fighters the ratio to cost of survivability should break even. A carriers fighter group is has a total offense to cost ratio of 1/3 but has 1/1 ratio of defense. I propose that for all intents a carrier should be slightly tougher than it's cost. Fighters remain 1/1 for their cost ratio while a carrier can survive twice it's cost of incoming fire, if it has no offenses except it's fighter group. This almost breaks even in favor of fighters.

[RogueIce]

So one thing I'll bring up, is the issue of players joining later, which this game seems made for, in some part. The obvious issue being, if someone joins a couple RL months in, them using the starting system will leave them at a permenant disadvantage compared to players who've been in (and expanding/building/whatever) since the start.

Ideally, I think this should best be handled on a case-by-case basis between any interested new players and the mods, so that one can get a general feel for galactic power balances and come up with a reasonable situation so they can be, at least, on a reasonable footing with others (although not necessarily on the top of the power curve...). Assuming, of course, people don't mind players joining up when the game has been going on a couple months or so.

That would work better than coming up with a rigid mechanic, I'd think. Anyway, just tossing it out there as food for thought.

[Steve]

Okay, given the arguments I was considering letting people have free spacecraft for their ships, without having to purchase them on top of starting ships; the prices quoted are to let you know capacity and give an idea on their cost in expanding or restoring your spacecraft numbers.

I do also think letting fighters and gunboats effectively tangle with units twice their cost profile is a balanced way to let carriers be an effective tool in the setting but keeping them balanced. A parasite vessel has no FTL save the tactical-ranged "hyperhop" drives on a gunboat and has to engage at sublight ranges, therefore it is a fair tradeoff.

As for using non-hyper Ultralight and Light hulls in Superheavy and Ultraheavy carrier configurations, I'm not sure "doubling in effective power" should be kept, if only because ships of that size are rather easier to hit. That said, they would have a qualitative advantage of about 1.5x when accounting for more power for weapons/shields/sublight drives, more defenses, and more sustainability without a hyperdrive assembly that can be damaged.

Ultimately, though, I want to keep this abstracted as much as possible for players' benefit. So long as you behave well and don't try to be a munchkin or a douche (or both), quantifying further combat rules will probably just result in more debates.

[Siege]

The idea of fighters simply being included in the cost of a ship, and a 500 point ship therefore being similarly powerful regardless of whether it's a carrier or a cruiser is so beautiful in its crushing simplicity I can't believe I didn't think of it before.

Any difference between ships in terms of speed or minor armour variations can just be RP'ed; i.e. you'll have the advantage of an alpha strike with fighters whilst their launch platform is safely hanging out a few AU out, but on the other hand carriers will have to run the hell away when the enemy battlewall draws closer, they might have to retrieve their fighters between hypering out, etc.

[CmdrWilkens]

The idea of fighters simply being included in the cost of a ship, and a 500 point ship therefore being similarly powerful regardless of whether it's a carrier or a cruiser is so beautiful in its crushing simplicity I can't believe I didn't think of it before.

Going on this I continue to maintain that we are better off RPing everything except the general classification of our ships. I think it would be easier to buy in (and produce shit loads less rules-lawyering) to simply say if you have X points then you can put oh so many in to your economy, in to your population base/territory, your army and your navy...and however many points you spend are how effective that set is regardless of how you write it up. e.g. I spend "10" points on my Navy then write up an OOB with 1,000 Cap Ships and 10,000 fighters (gunboats, small craft, etc), you spend "12" points on your Navy and write up an OOB with 500 Cap Ships and 100,000 fighters (etc) ... your Navy is 20% more effective than mine somehow some way and the details are all RP.

[Simon_Jester]

I'd think a simple way is this:

You have your non-FTL fighters/bombers in a dedicated "attack carrier" that is, essentially, the same combat value as any other ship of a given size/price. You can also have more general "fleet carriers" that carry FTL-equipped fighters/bombers (they can have that limited FTL, right?) and those probably are underpowered for the cost as you buy the fighters seperate from the carrier (thus adding their cost to the ship).

This should be reasonable, as your non-FTL fighters can devote more space to carrying a larger payload, more power to their pew-pew lasers, etc. Whereas FTL fighters are sacrificing some of that striking power for the sake of flexibility: they can do advanced scouting, do raids against enemies without bringing the carrier into the open, etc.

Implementing that in gameplay will have to rely heavily on moderator discretion, though.

There's room for balance and playtesting here, to be sure, so that people who enjoy the idea of space fighters don't get screwed (and also for non-FTL planetary defense fighters and so forth) by the space BB/BBG crowd. And since we're already breaking physics with FTL in the first place, I say fuck it: why not? Also why I posted earlier about not "nerfing" mechs just because some people get their panties in a twist over the concept. If people like mechs they can use them as far as I'm concerned, so long as they're semi-reasonable in the setting (no aircraft carrier sized Transformers generic transforming robot which may or may not be in disguise).

Well, if there are going to be giant transformers they should be cost-appropriate. If you want to build something that fights like a battleship in space and can stomp over anything short of an armored division on the ground... it had by God better be a lot more expensive than a battleship or armored division.

The point of unit costs is to impose balance on the players; as long as costs are used correctly to balance things, it's all good.

[Darkevilme]

If we get rid of the idea of sublight fighters as seperate entities then i suggest we get rid of dropships as such as well. Therefore troop carrying capacity INCLUDES dropship capability if the player wishes it or if the ship can't actually land on account of being the size of Manhattan.

So ship construction is reduced to A. how powerful it is. and B. how many troops it can carry and convey to a planet surface either by landing itself or launching dropships.

[Steve]

If we get rid of the idea of sublight fighters as seperate entities then i suggest we get rid of dropships as such as well. Therefore troop carrying capacity INCLUDES dropship capability if the player wishes it or if the ship can't actually land on account of being the size of Manhattan.

So ship construction is reduced to A. how powerful it is. and B. how many troops it can carry and convey to a planet surface either by landing itself or launching dropships.

I'm going to keep the values listed so A) we can track if a player's losses to spacecraft contingents is reaching a noticable level and B) to give an idea on the basic, most minimal capability of each kind of spacecraft. But at game start all starships are presumed to have full spacecraft complements included in their hull cost.

[Darkevilme]

I think in the grand scheme of things that keeping track of the exact number of fighters and having to pay to replace them is a lot of trouble to deal with something that is compared to most other things fairly trivial. Sure we can have ships run out of fighters narratively and in vague terms, but replacing them shouldn't cost anything and should be just part of resupplying same as restocking your long range missiles and etcetera.

I just dont think playing fighter accountant is going to add anything to people's enjoyment of the game, please people correct me if i'm wrong on this.

And yes i'm aware there's folks here who consider the current trimmed down level of things to not add too much to the game, everyone's line between 'needed structure' and 'overcomplicated makework between me and the fun' is different though.

[Simon_Jester]

Note: I distinguish between "heavy" missiles (equivalent to ICBMs or theater ballistic missiles in modern usage) and "light" missiles (equivalent to artillery in modern usage). Just to define my terms.

Arguably, players who rely heavily on the use of fighters or heavy missiles launched from dedicated carrier platforms should have to keep track, or at least be aware of their upkeep costs. Carriers shouldn't be modeled as exactly like battleships. For example, they can drop off half their combat power in a single star system to reinforce it temporarily while running home to pick up another load of fighters; battleships can't do that.

We lose a lot of interesting strategic possibilities if we ignore that sort of thing. But to model it, we need at least some limited awareness of the cost of maintaining the fighter arm. If nothing else, the Mod needs to be able to say "your strategy of launching kamikaze fighter raids/long range missile attacks and then fleeing into hyperspace is doing the enemy a lot of damage and keeping your capital ships safe from counterattack, but it's also costing you a lot of expensive units; your upkeep costs on the First Aerospace Fleet are increased by 50% this quarter."

EDIT: I think there are a fair number of issues like this- they don't need to be things the players keep a constant eye too, but the game mechanics need to exist so that the moderator has guidelines to keep anyone from doing anything screwy by imposing realistic penalties for what would otherwise be an exploit.

[Steve]

I think in the grand scheme of things that keeping track of the exact number of fighters and having to pay to replace them is a lot of trouble to deal with something that is compared to most other things fairly trivial. Sure we can have ships run out of fighters narratively and in vague terms, but replacing them shouldn't cost anything and should be just part of resupplying same as restocking your long range missiles and etcetera.

I just dont think playing fighter accountant is going to add anything to people's enjoyment of the game, please people correct me if i'm wrong on this.

And yes i'm aware there's folks here who consider the current trimmed down level of things to not add too much to the game, everyone's line between 'needed structure' and 'overcomplicated makework between me and the fun' is different though.

It's more of a case that if someone is suffering excessive fighter losses their replacement rate will be appreciable and it relates to us tracking how replacement costs are relating to one's economy just in case someone's being a munchkin. And, as mentioned, it gives a scale for the effective cost/capability of the fighter and gunboat compared to other things.

[Darkevilme]

Okay good points. Though on introspection i'm not so much objecting to the idea of paying for new drones as the book keeping of keeping track of thousands of the damned things spread across eighteen carriers and numerous ground bases. If a player has to use a spreadsheet for anything we've gone too far. Therefore if we only have to worry about in approximations like full, half full, empty. then that's okay.

Provided we keep it SIMPLE regarding fighter quantity tracking then i withdraw my objection to making players worry about it and have to pay for new fighters.

[Steve]

Spreadsheets for what?

Player A has conflict. Player A loses 1,000 Fighters @ 5 for $1 cost and 240 Gunboats valued at $2 per (Player A wanted betted gunboats). Player A's replacement program will cost $200 + $480. Then you see what else he's building and can decide if Player A is building too much for a non-mobilized peacetime economy and should suffer some effects like legislative resistance to military spending or stock market declines due to an increase in debt spending.

[Siege]

Thing is, why should we need to look at boring OOC expenditures to determine that? If people want to spend excessively, why don't they write about getting those excessive expenditures green-lighted by their Parliament/Privy Council/Chamber of Lords/Grand Assembly/Whatever? Then we can still react to it, but we'll have something in-game to show for it as well. If there's one thing I loathe about the previous SDNW game it's the fact that the ship design and OrBat threads are for all intents and purposes more active than the damned in-game story thread.

[Steve]

I mean more like this.

Player A posts massive military expenditures in Year 2. People look through what he's ordering, check his GDP, realize he's spending a third or even half of his GDP on military expenditures. He's not at war, so this is pointed out as excessive. Player A is being a munchkin and doesn't care, he wants his bigass military. Mods bring mod hammer down with post about stock market crash and forced cancellation of military orders by the legislature slashing the budget.

Without the number figures, Player A could whine "but I'm not building that much!" With the figures, mods can point to it and say "Quit your bitching or you get another smack with the hammer".

[Steve]

Alright, here's a test writeup using the rules. Any questions?


23 NCPs

1 Home Sector w/ free Junction and Warp Gate
2 Core Sectors - 8 NCPs
3 Midrange Sectors - 9 NCPs, 1 Hyperspace Junction @ 2 NCP, improved Population and GDP @ 1 NCP/each
2 Colony Sectors - 2 NCPs

0

Home Sector
60 Billion/$14,000
HJ
WG

Core Sector 1
50 Billion/$10,000

Core Sector 2
50 Billion/$10,000

Midrange 1
30 + 5 Billion/$6,000 + $1,000 + $1,000
HJ

Midrange 2
30 Billion/$6,000

Midrange 3
30 Billion/$6,000

Colony 1
10 Billion/$1,000

Colony 2
10 Billion/$1,000

275 Billion
$56,000 GDP


Military Forces:

Planetary:

24,500,000 Elites w/ Elite Kit - $1,470
100,000,000 Regulars w/ Elite Kit - $3,000
250,000,000 Regulars w/ Regular Kit = $5,000
500,000,000 Regulars w/ Baseline Kit = $7,500
500,000,000 Conscripts w/ Baseline Kit = $3,000

Total Planetary Expenditure: $19,970

$36,030 left

Space:

5 Ultraheavy Hulls @ $600 - $3,000
20 Superheavy Hulls @ $300 - $6,000
50 Heavy Hulls @ $200 - $10,000
10 Heavy Hulls @ $150 - $1,500
10 Medium Hulls @ $120 - $1,200
20 Medium Hulls @ $110 - $2,200
50 Medium Hulls @ $80 - $4,000
160 Light Hulls @ $40 - $6,400
80 Ultralight Hulls @ $20 - $1,600
3 Yacht Hulls @ $10 - $30
20 Yacht Hulls @ $5 - $100

Total Space Expenditure: $36,030

$0 left

[Teleros]

Looks okay to me, although my first thought is that the space fleet is a bit top-heavy (intentional?).

People look through what he's ordering, check his GDP, realize he's spending a third or even half of his GDP on military expenditures.

Hmm, how exactly are those GDP figures working? It looks to me like GDP is actual GDP (ie not tax revenues etc), and then players have a "military production tax" of that figure (because 30% is excessive when not in war... let's say 10% using the above example). So your weekly / monthly expenditure is £56,000 * 0.1 = £5,600, which is enough to lay down a lot of keels per month in peacetime (in what was it... 4 years? I can have 9 Ultraheavies coming off the line every month, before population & GDP growth, and trade income).

In addition, as I understand it now, income from trade agreements will be up to players. Let's say I can bring in an extra £10,000 in "GDP" from that... another £1,000 per month to spend on more warships.

In short, I'm still wondering about some sort of framework / rules for trade agreements & shipyards as a cap on ship production.

[Ryan Thunder]

Oh, that reminds me; what percentage of our GDP is avaliable for our expenditure? I mean, realistically, what is the absolute maximum that a government could command without imploding the economy? Obviously, consuming 90% or more of it would probably be very bad, but I've no idea how to determine a rule for this myself with any sort of certainty...

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Hah.

I'm mildly tempted to go into a Total War mode where all resources belong to the government (including every human body). All men and women shall serve the God Emperor, be it as a soldier, scientist, engineer, technician etc. There shall be unending WAR!

But obviously, I kid.

[loomer]

I still think I'm going to end up throwing gears into the works later by virtue of playing multiple small societies.

[Simon_Jester]

I'll weigh in:

I definitely favor having a set of rules for how much things cost, something that at least roughly factors in upkeep and defines a reasonable percentage of GDP to spend on the military.

That's not because I love spreadsheets and arithmetic, even though I do. It's because otherwise game moderation becomes not just powerful, but arbitrary. If we don't have figures for how much money a given nation with a stated scale of mobilization can afford to put into its military, and comparable figures for infrastructure creation, research, and so on... we're going to hit trouble of the "nuh-uh, that's not fair!" sort.

To some extent, the rules should be negotiable, allowing the players some flexibility, as long as what they do doesn't allow them to overpower their rivals. Having fun trumps having elaborate spreadsheets. But the rules still need to be there, so that the moderator can publically document "this is why we think what you're doing is unreasonable" according to some agreed upon standard.

Now, I've talked to Steve about this, and I'm pretty sure that's what he's been calling for all along: a set of reasonably well defined rules that serve as guidelines for the moderator's benefit, so that he has something public to appeal to if people start trying shit that's really far out of line.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

If anyone is going to suggest an elaborate ruleset, let him write up the spreadsheet/program/whatever and then distribute it out. Otherwise, don't bother suggesting one because not everyone has the damn time to write his/her own spreadsheet.