SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread IV

[Shroom Man 777]

Maybe the Datton's sensors just picked up a Lost Space Kraken taking a shits.

Er, I mean, venting coolant or whatever.

[Shroom Man 777]

And the Solarian Adventure begins!

That was beautiful.

[Simon_Jester]

CN, I think the mods are going to have to go over your idea of a refit schedule rather carefully, under the circumstances; please stand by while we work it out.

[Shroom Man 777]

You are a terrible, terrible man Simons. THE ASTONISHING BULK!

Man, BEEEF.

Congrats guise, we made it to page two!

[Karmic Knight]

I apologize to fgalkin for not responding to the diplomatic offer, but I unluckily fell ill. I hope to have my response up later.

[Steve]

CN, your six month timeframe is rejected. Try, I dunno, 3 or so years at least for such a complete overhaul?

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

That reminds me, are there even any set rules regarding ship upgrades?

[Chaotic Neutral]

Not that I've seen, I just assumed they'd be a bit faster and more expensive than building.

[fgalkin]

Not that I've seen, I just assumed they'd be a bit faster and more expensive than building.

It would depend on what you're doing, of course. If you're just replacing the gun turrets on the ship, yeah. If you're upgrading the ship's reactor, or, say, the hyperdrive, you'd have to pretty much cut the ship open and then put it back together again, and that might take time. Easily over a year for a 1500 pt ship.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[fgalkin]

There, made things a bit more interesting in sector C6.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Chaotic Neutral]

You don't need to cut out the reactor on a 1500 point ship to give it extra 50 points. That would be coming from better turrets.

[Shroom Man 777]

You don't need to cut out the reactor on a 1500 point ship to give it extra 50 points. That would be coming from better turrets.

It would depend on what you're doing, of course. If you're just replacing the gun turrets on the ship, yeah. If you're upgrading the ship's reactor, or, say, the hyperdrive, you'd have to pretty much cut the ship open and then put it back together again, and that might take time. Easily over a year for a 1500 pt ship.

[Kartr_Kana]

CN the problem here is that you're being a wanker. Here's a list of problems with your current upgrade scheme.

1) You're from a different galaxy and by your own admission things here are more advanced/different from back home
2) It's going to realistically take a year or more for your scientists and engineers to examine this galaxy's technology to the point where they can start theorizing how to use it in your own equipment.
3) After your scientists and engineers have a handle on this new tech it's still going to take time for them to prototype, test and de-bug it.
4) Now you have to figure out how to adapt it to your current technology and ships, another year or more realistically.
5) Now that you've adapted it you can start upgrading, but there's going to be bugs that you have to find and eliminate.
6) The upgrading takes time and systems like power trunking (which you mentioned in your post) are going to require massive work inside the ships themselves ie "cutting them open".
7) You go through all the work to upgrade your ships, now you have to retrain all your people (re-program your AI's) to be able to maintain, repair and operate the new equipment.

Personally if I was in your situation I'd be figuring at least a decade before ships upgraded with this amazing new technology were available and reliable. Maybe I'm over estimating how much time the whole process would take though. Still you'd be better off simply researching and experimenting on this new technology for a couple of years and then designing a whole new line of vessels built from the ground up. New crews can be trained from the start to operate on this new equipment and older ships can slowly be phased out while their crews are retrained. It's still going to take years though to really study and then prototype new equipment/ships.

If I were you I'd snip that post or re-write it so that your people aren't gushing about how amazing this galaxy's tech is. Simply accept that some of it is different and your scientists are exited about it and that thanks to the points system your ships are already competitive with those of this galaxy. You didn't just level up or unlock a new tier of research and this isn't an RTS.

[KlavoHunter]

Also, for other reasons that will soon become clear if it was not already so, you really probably don't want to have the majority of your fleet in drydock.

[Simon_Jester]

Currently drafting a mod response to the issue of CN's fleet refits. Please stand by; watch this space.

[Chaotic Neutral]

7) You go through all the work to upgrade your ships, now you have to retrain all your people (re-program your AI's) to be able to maintain, repair and operate the new equipment.

Thus why it costs $60 for $50 of upgrades.

Personally if I was in your situation I'd be figuring at least a decade before ships upgraded with this amazing new technology were available and reliable. Maybe I'm over estimating how much time the whole process would take though. Still you'd be better off simply researching and experimenting on this new technology for a couple of years and then designing a whole new line of vessels built from the ground up. New crews can be trained from the start to operate on this new equipment and older ships can slowly be phased out while their crews are retrained. It's still going to take years though to really study and then prototype new equipment/ships.

It doesn't need to be a massive leap to make an improve technology. It could be something as simple as "If we use unobtanium in our neutrino radiatiors, we can get 50% faster cooling, allowing our guns to fire faster! (Buys 200 million tons of unobtanium.)" After that part gets figured out, you just need to build new gun turrets with unobtanium enhanced radiators, and you have the 50 point boost.

So yeah, it's not anywhere near that difficult.

[Simon_Jester]

[puts on modhat, cracks knuckles]

Hi, Chaotic Neutral. Let us begin with an excerpt from a PM you sent to Steve on this subject:

Not really, 8 space docks per system x 4 = 32 docks - 2 for secret construction = 30 docks. 66 ships are scheduled for refit. I can easily have 22 ships get refitted at a time and still have space left over for civilians.

We don't do dockyard space calculations. We do do construction time, though, and that's really the more important factor in this context.

But if you want to play this way, I've decided it's time to commit you to playing this way. You're throwing your weight around while scrambling and trying to play Spreadsheets of Iron looking for an edge, a way to game the system, with any question of realism, simulation- or, hell, plot going out the window.

So, let's think through the predictable consequences of the actions you propose to undertake. Bearing in mind that no, this is not Age of Space Empires and you did not just progress to the Superheroic Age.

First obvious consequence:
You have now allotted your FY 3400 fleet construction budget to upgrades for your existing fleet. Previously you had planned to place a large order for Centrality Blitz-class frigvettes, using the money from the FY 3400 fleet construction budget. Needless to say, you cannot spend the money in two places at once. Therefore, I rule that your purchase order for those ships has been canceled. You receive no frigvettes.

...

Now, refitting ships is loosely covered under the rules, something of a gray area. In real life, you cannot increase the performance of a warship (or any other military system) simply by upgrading one component of the unit. Giving your infantry guns that fire twice as fast does not make them twice as effective, unless you update their tactics, the logistics system you use to get ammunition to the battlefield, and many other things at the same time.

Replacing the old fighters in an air defense network with new fighters does not necessarily make it a better defense network- same thing. To upgrade the system, you must upgrade all the parts. Otherwise, you are left with very shiny fighters, no radar to spot the enemy planes, and no usable command center to tell them where to go. Your very shiny fighters might as well be very shiny lawn ornaments.

Therefore, no you cannot achieve a 20% performance increase in a warship simply by installing new turrets. You also need the fire control software to aim the more powerful guns, improved power distribution systems to power the guns, safety measures to keep aforesaid power distribution systems from blowing up on you... it gets complicated.

In practice, when people try to do this, they sit down at the drawing board for months and hash out every detail ahead of time, then spend yet more months laboriously fitting improvements to the ship. In general, people don't even try: ships are built with pretty much every major feature they're going to have, or with space for those features to be installed later on.

Instead, you have decided that all this can be done in two months per ship, six months total for the entire fleet. Six months for an upgrade that is supposed to increase ship combat potential by up to 25% for your 240-pointers. 25% performance increase... on carriers. As in, these modifications increase the available space on the carrier for fighters by 25%. Which means, at some point, that you must physically rip out entire rooms on the ships and replace those rooms with more space for fighters.

I can't believe you didn't expect us to notice this.

So, you're planning to make drastic changes to the ships, in some cases physically rearranging large portions of the ships. In two months per ship. These modifications are advertised as providing 25% performance increases to your 240-point "frigates," 11% increase to your 450-point "cruisers," and enhancements on the order of a few percent to your 800-point battleships and 1500-point fleet flagship, the Pallaeon (which I would be more impressed by if you could settle for yourself how you're going to spell it).

This sounds less like an upgrade than jury rigged integration of stuff they bought from Ackbah'sterd the completely and totally honestly legitimate ship parts merchant. And that sort of rushing is not wise when you have billion bigawatt power conduits running energy through these new, experimental, untested, unshaken down systems.

So... Second obvious consequence:

Your upgrades are going to be among the shoddiest engineering in recent galactic history, and this includes ork designs. I will allow, nay, impose that the upgrades go through, with the predictable consequences. Nominally, the ships' combat potential is greatly increased, under ideal circumstances and as long as nothing blows up. However, I rule that your upgraded ships are now vulnerable to spontaneous systems failures, at awkward moments not of your choosing.

But more importantly, it's not that big a deal, because I've spent $80, $70, $60, and $25 for lesser upgrades, which wastes most of my points.

And this leads me to the third, not-so-obvious consequence. Since I am feeling generous...

I rule that you may upgrade the ships by the full nominal point value spent on upgrades, rather than wasting arbitrary fractions of the point value. Your 240-point ships will be upgraded to 310-point ships, your 450-pointers to 510-point ships, your 800-point ships to 825-point ships, and your 1500-point Pallaeon/Pellaeon/Density-class flagship to 1600 points.

However, this nominal point value is somewhat undermined by, and this is important, the fact that your upgraded ships are now vulnerable to spontaneous systems failures at awkward moments not of your choosing.

You have made your bed. You are now welcomed- no, required to lie in it.

I feel that a reasonable schedule for these hyper-accelerated, jury-rigged upgrades is as follows.

---

Assuming you arrived on July 1, the decision to make these upgrades would be finished and the ships in position on or about October 1, based on your "two months plus one month" figure.

Starting on October 1, one third of the ships to be refitted enter the yards for modifications, tying down:
-Eleven 240-point "frigate" sized Acclamation/Acclamation-carrier-variant ships
-Six 450-point "cruiser" sized Vindicator/Escort-carrier ships
-Five 800-point "battleship" sized Victorious II/Valiant-carrier ships.
-The 1500-point flagship Pallaeon, Pellaeon, or Density, whichever its name is.

The smaller ships emerge from the yards on or about December 1, as 310, 510, and 825-point ships respectively, but now with the tendency to malfunction at awkward moments not of your choosing.

The flagship will take longer, as it is physically larger and because you're integrating the most systems into it on an absolute basis.

The next wave of ships enters the yards on or about December 1:
-Eleven 240-point "frigate" sized Acclamation/Acclamation-carrier-variant ships
-Six 450-point "cruiser" sized Vindicator/Escort-carrier ships
-Five 800-point "battleship" sized Victorious II/Valiant-carrier ships.

These ships emerge from the yards on or about February 1, 3401, as 310, 510, and 825-point ships respectively, but now with the tendency to malfunction at awkward moments not of your choosing. The flagship also completes its 'upgrades' on or about February 1, 3401, and is now a 1600-point ship, but with the tendency to malfunction at awkward moments not of your choosing.

The third and last wave of ships enters the yards on or about February 1, 3401:
-Ten 240-point "frigate" sized Acclamation/Acclamation-carrier-variant ships
-Six 450-point "cruiser" sized Vindicator/Escort-carrier ships
-Five 800-point "battleship" sized Victorious II/Valiant-carrier ships.

These ships emerge from the yards on or about April 1, 3401, as 310, 510, and 825-point ships respectively, but now with the tendency to malfunction at awkward moments not of your choosing.

Thus, your upgrades will be completed on April Fool's Day, 3401, with all ships in the listed classes being modified according to the plans you have outlined.

---

So, to recap:

We have this schedule, and the following rulings:

1) You will not be buying any Centralist frigvettes.
This is because you have chosen to spend the money on something else.

2) Your upgrades are going to be shitty engineering, prone to random systems failures.
This is because you did a rush job. The ships will have their full theoretical point value, but in practice, this will last only until something goes horribly wrong during combat. Which is will tend to do at awkward moments not of your choosing.

3) You get one point of theoretical value per dollar spent on the upgrades.
It makes no sense for you to lose some arbitrary, variable percentage of the money you put in. I suspect you did this in hopes that no one would notice that you were trying to do something utterly ridiculous, in an attempt to further beef up your already comically beefed-up ships, for reasons known only to you. Be advised that everyone sees and understands what you are doing.

4) You are now committed to this schedule of modifications for your ships whether you like it or not.
You have been proposing dangerous, nonsensical, and dumb things for your nation to do since you joined the game, and have generally been able to back out before anyone actually got a chance to exploit your obvious, ill-considered actions. At no time have you demonstrated any degree of caution, statecraft, or even common sense.

This time, you're going to have to live with the blunder you saw fit to make a story post out of.

[fgalkin]

Update posted....I think I've just set a record for most images in a single post.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Dark Hellion]

Also, for other reasons that will soon become clear if it was not already so, you really probably don't want to have the majority of your fleet in drydock.

Reasons besides his genocidal robot neighbors?

So, I have been suffering from a bit of lack of motivation to post stuff for the last week or so but I can lay out what I need to get done to advance to 3401. I have to complete my mercs storyline that started on Salsa Secundus, I have a planned post for Emissary mercenaries in the Gallian conflict, a little bit more with the BEEEF, a diplomatic communication and once I have those down I can get some kind of joint patrol post up with CN which will start the ball rolling on all the stuff that my posts have been leading up to. I also have a side post planned about the Terrordrone left on Salsa Secundus and a large, serious backstory post to a pair of characters I would like to introduce. I have way more shit planned than I am finding time and energy to post. Thought I'd get some of this done over the weekend but I've been feeling a bit sick. Maybe I'll get something done tomorrow.

[Chaotic Neutral]

I rule that you may upgrade the ships by the full nominal point value spent on upgrades, rather than wasting arbitrary fractions of the point value. Your 240-point ships will be upgraded to 310-point ships, your 450-pointers to 510-point ships, your 800-point ships to 825-point ships, and your 1500-point Pallaeon/Pellaeon/Density-class flagship to 1600 points.

I only spent money on strikecraft to fit into the reduced value versions. Buying more to fit in these versions puts me over the spending limit.

And for the record, it's Pellaeon Class, and the ship is named The Density.

Also, for other reasons that will soon become clear if it was not already so, you really probably don't want to have the majority of your fleet in drydock.

Reasons besides his genocidal robot neighbors?

Almost no two factions in the galaxy can have an all-out war without ending in a stalemate or suffering hideous losses.

[Simon_Jester]

I only spent money on strikecraft to fit into the reduced value versions. Buying more to fit in these versions puts me over the spending limit.

You spent some hundreds of points on things other than the construction budget.

As far as I'm concerned, you can have your extra strike craft budget out of that. Or make up the difference in the opening months of 3401.

[Chaotic Neutral]

I only spent money on strikecraft to fit into the reduced value versions. Buying more to fit in these versions puts me over the spending limit.

You spent some hundreds of points on things other than the construction budget.

Yeah, like the extra maintenance and supplies so things wouldn't randomly break...

[RogueIce]

I only spent money on strikecraft to fit into the reduced value versions. Buying more to fit in these versions puts me over the spending limit.

You spent some hundreds of points on things other than the construction budget.

Yeah, like the extra maintenance and supplies so things wouldn't randomly break...

Alright, let's just make this simple:

The ruling is the ruling. End of story. Your fighters can be dealt with in the manner(s) Simon suggested. Whichever you pick is up to you, but we're not going to quibble over the details. It is what it is.

[Simon_Jester]

No one is obliged to spend construction-budget money on maintenance of existing equipment. This is a general principle, one that applies to everyone, without fear or favor.

The fact that the maintenance of existing equipment is assumed to be covered is one of the limiting factors on peacetime military expenses- the cost of maintaining your existing military establishment will be hidden but significant, and thus there are practical limits to how much stuff you can build over and above that. Hence the 5-10% rule.

[Kartr_Kana]

Personally if I was in your situation I'd be figuring at least a decade before ships upgraded with this amazing new technology were available and reliable. Maybe I'm over estimating how much time the whole process would take though. Still you'd be better off simply researching and experimenting on this new technology for a couple of years and then designing a whole new line of vessels built from the ground up. New crews can be trained from the start to operate on this new equipment and older ships can slowly be phased out while their crews are retrained. It's still going to take years though to really study and then prototype new equipment/ships.

It doesn't need to be a massive leap to make an improve technology. It could be something as simple as "If we use unobtanium in our neutrino radiatiors, we can get 50% faster cooling, allowing our guns to fire faster! (Buys 200 million tons of unobtanium.)" After that part gets figured out, you just need to build new gun turrets with unobtanium enhanced radiators, and you have the 50 point boost.

So yeah, it's not anywhere near that difficult.

First you have to learn how to extract raw "unobtanium" then you have to figure out how to refine it, then you have to figure out how to shape it, alloy it, what it's strengths and weaknesses are and then you have to design this neutrino radiator, make sure it works, de-bug it design an adapter for it to fit onto your existing ships, mass produce it, mass install it, train your people on using maintaining and repairing it. It's not as simple as you make it sound, it never is. In the real world things take time to go from new material/technology breakthroughs to wide scale implementation.