STGOD: A Dead Art?

[Crossroads Inc.]

If we want to go with something new, I think a sort of post-Imperial, end of Dark Ages thing could work well. It lets you have lots of nation states all looking to carve out their own new empires while making sure that no one group has any sort of major advantage over another of a particular size because one is older than the other or such. It also gives you lots of unexplored territory where swarms of unholy warmachines still slumber, waiting for some fool to awaken them and unleash their wrath (*cough*mods*cough*).

I like this idea a great deal... It would give us all relativly equal fotting in tech, but allow for a great deal of variability in how wie play. Also I like the idea of a "Emerganing from Dark ages" type of setting, Lots of old secrets about, lots of things that have been forgotton. lots of room for surprises.

[Thirdfain]

I am sort of leaning towards a low-scale game- Star Trek tech level in terms of speed and firepower, based in a region of a couple thousand stars just around Earth, a few centuries in the future. Crazy shit, aliens, magicians, vampires, or whatever, with nations having land on Earth and multiple planets and colonies, or maybe just distant planets, or orbitals, or whatever. How's that sound? Essentially, tjhe bare-bones approach of STGOD1, which had no real predecessor here?

[Hawkwings]

I'd like to get involved, but all the previous ones have had so much backstory and stuff that jumping in just didn't feel like it would work.

[Stormbringer]

Essentially, tjhe bare-bones approach of STGOD1, which had no real predecessor here?

That works. I'd just prefer a roughed out history if only to make for something in which to base this.

[Tasoth]

I like thirdfain's suggestion. As for combat, was there a cap imposed on the big ships before? If there was, don't mind the following. Anyways, if you were to cap the big ships, say battleship and above, and force them to be a fleets core, you'd force more battles between cruisers and smaller, potential creating the need for feeler units of smaller ships to find the enemy so you can drop the hammer of overwhelming force of your big ships down on them. But if you can easily churn out bigger ships as easily as smaller ships, well then, no need for smaller ships.

EDIT: As for the CPV3 suggestion, I can make a sample corp/faction sheet if anyone is interested.

[Thirdfain]

In the past, each power would get a certain number of ships of each size- Escort, Cruiser, and Capital, with there being a great deal of leeway and blurring between the categories. Capitals would b much fewer than cruisers or escorts... I recall having set-ups like 25 capital, 200 cruiser, 1000 escorts, for instance.

[Spyder]

A new universe would be ideal. One of the reasons why I'm advocating freeform is that it's going to make it much eaaa..sssier to throw ships into a fight, loose, then bounce back. I think we should try to discourage playing it safe."

"Of course, the fine details are up to you, gentlemen. Personally, I know what I'd like to achieve and I have a fair idea how I'd like to achieve it. This might just fade into obscurity like the rest of them but at least I'll know I tried."

"Huh? Spyder, are you sure we're still on the same topic here."

"Oh, I'm reasonably sure...wait something's wrong..."

Before further contemplation, an explosion rippled through the facility sending smoke and debris in all directions. As the various persons caughed their way back to their feet the moment was further disrupted by gunfire.

Suddenly Spyder feels a tight grip on his upper left arm.
"Sir, we're here to rescue you!"
"What the fuck for!? I was doing fine until a moment ago!"
"You must come with us."

As Spyder was being dragged away a great many questions were being left without satisfactory answer.
"Who's doing all the shooting!?"
"A whole bunch of people, we're doing some."
"Why? Who are you shooting at?"
"We don't know. Now in here!"

A moment later, Spyder found himself being launched into space, a small cluster of starships ready to collect.

"He will be onboard soon sir."
"Excellent, now target the meeting site and prepare for bombardment."
"But sir, that's not our mission! They'll be killed!"
"Precisely, you know as well as I do the destruction and bloodshed they're planning to cause. They're all together, we could wipe them out in one swift stroke! You have your orders, proceed with the attack."

The fate of the universe was about to be decided at the touch of a button. STGOD: A Dead Art. It was as good a title as any...

[Hotfoot]

In the past, each power would get a certain number of ships of each size- Escort, Cruiser, and Capital, with there being a great deal of leeway and blurring between the categories. Capitals would b much fewer than cruisers or escorts... I recall having set-ups like 25 capital, 200 cruiser, 1000 escorts, for instance.

And then things would turn into people dedicating as much as possible into capital classes, hence my observation of the others being useless in fleet battles. You might as well have "ships of the line" and "border patrol" for what little use escorts and cruisers are in most combats. It simplifies things further and lets players focus on effective offense and defense, rather than negligable details.

[Tasoth]

You could set out with a limited number of points per ship, maybe a fifth or so of what hotfoot posted, as the base and then depending on what your nation focused on add multipliers to the number of points for ships. That would mean each ship would be pressure for a less industrial or militant society. Then you just have to balance out so that people who focus on getting a massive amount of ships simply don't steam roll the less militant societies.

[Duckie]

Okay, allow me to share my idea in terms of making the emphasis on Big Ships decline while still retaining their importance as, well, Big Ships. Hotfoot, in a way you're right, but I don't think you're thinking about it correctly. In fact, I don't think any of us have really ever talked in specificity and length about the proper use of light units except maybe Thirdfain whose comment two years ago when I remarked the same thing (Cruisers are useless) sparked this memory/connection.

First off, every single SDN Navy is a Brown Water Austro-Hungarian Navy. In WWI let me assemble two OOBs, one for Italy, one for Austria. These are totally false but close to accurate in terms of proportion.

Royal Italian Navy:
6 Battleships
15 Armored Cruisers
22 Light Cruisers
40 Destroyers
Various Frigates and Gunboats and such

Kaiserliche und Königreich Navy:
12 Battleships
20 Armored Cruisers
10 Light Cruisers

The Austrian navy was specifically designed not to protect colonies or even protect the Empire itself from enemy navies (since the Empire's sea-side territory in Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy was at best marginally worth of consideration compared to landlocked areas such as Austria proper and Hungary). The Austrian Navy was meant to send the Italian Navy to the bottom and cripple Italy's power as a colonial nation. Let me explain.

Simply put, Battleships and Ships of the Wall will always be more efficient at destroying enemies. They have more reactor room, and thus power for shielding, active countermeasures, and mass for weaponry.

HOWEVER, the cost of producing a Battleship or larger Ship of the Wall known in some navies as Superbattleships, Dreadnoughts, et cetera, is almost equally large. As such, navies that field heavy ships tend to be smaller in terms of hull numbers, if not absolute tonnage.

One must also consider the fact that a single ship can only be in one place at one time. Battleships, by virtue of the fact that a single ship of the wall could easily be numerous small ships, if the budget were adjusted, are extremely susceptable to loss of supply due to outmaneuvering.

Avoidance of decisive battle tactics by swarm navies that do not field giant ships in large quantities is another thing. If you cannot win a direct confrontation, avoid it. Go around the enemy fleet. For every planet he takes from you, your ships can spread out and take five. Remember, a single ship if it can defeat orbital defenses can inflict grievous damage through Ortillery strikes against civilian or industrial infrastructure.

If a Battleship has not fuel, whence comes its advantage in battle?

So, as such, there are three reasons to field a large number of escorts.
ONE: You are worried about being overstretched in supply lines or territory
TWO: You are a colonial power with many planets (see ONE)
THREE: You are more interested in keeping your own holdings intact in the long run and defeating the enemy in raids and maneuvers rather than destroying the enemy's livelihood and fleet in a single crushing assault.

However, in the STGOD, we have little reason to worry about one or two, as it seems that colonial powers that have lots of cruisers don't use their numerical superiority to outflank enemies, instead treating 4 cruisers like 1 battleship in their walls. That is not how you use cruisers. A battleship, a cruiser, hell, even a destroyer of significant tonnage in orbit above a defenseless enemy planet means you just took that planet. Numbers in a system don't matter if you hold the high orbit, so spread out if you aren't expecting resistance. Probe, use pickets to scout.

The reason Three is not used in STGODs is STGODs don't seem to have that much of an industrial base. If your planet is BDZed, it doesn't seem to affect your war effort or manufacturing capacity very much. I leave it up to the Mods and brighter minds to figure if we need a way to represent that or if we can just rely on user honor to designate important systems and roleplay disadvantages if they suffer damage to their nation as much as they roleplay damage causing trouble to any starship.

If these explanations still don't cut it for why Cruisers are being misused and the current strategic thinking of Walls of Battle and glorious combat for colonial nations as a means of victory (note that your own battleships and smaller fleets can engage enemy Battleship Armadas in defense or even on offense in order to achieve ends, but remember that you won't win by sinking them. That's not how it's done. You win by taking his industrial base out from under him while two thirds of his 50 wanky superships are away from home)... well, we could always make Fighters more effective against Heavy Warships and Rock Paper Scissors it. (Blech).

That's why I like the 2k5 points system for ships. You could make your Cruisers [+X vs. Warships] which would make your cruisers able to fight in a wall of battle if you subscribe to Decisive Battle, but you'd be vulnerable to small, darting fighters dodging your cumbersome anti-ship guns and picking you apart. Similarly, Cruisers that are balanced or equipped against Fighters would not fair well in the wall but work well for scouting, patrol, or the maneuver-based tactics I discussed above, while Cruisers with Anti-Stationary focus would be even better for raids because they could capture systems and raid industry by defeating fixed defenses while avoiding slower enemy capital ships if the system is occupied, yet they're all nearly the same points and balanced by their relative advantages/disadvantages.

And if we must use the 25 Wall, 200 Escorts, etc. type quotas, then I propose we at least be allowed to adjust, say, having 50 wall ships that are half as powerful or 10 that are 2.5x as good or something. Allowing some amount of customization is a good thing.


EDIT- In fact, I'd go as far as to state that like in real life, the Cruiser is the epitome of the ship. Ships of the Wall are sluggish and can't stray from main fleets because they have to slug it out over valuable targets and such. Yet if you don't have enough other ships to prevent counters, the Battleship Swarm idea that Hotfoot notes happens every time we're allowed to buy ships by point is in theory if countered right completely useless.

On the other end, Escorts, even in flotillas, are too small to really do much, and can be defeated by defensive fortifications and garrison fleets. Similarly, having masses of escorts or fighters to maximize your spread-out, claim land, outmaneuver capacity in taking "my" idea above to the extreme would be useless as you wouldn't be able to deal enough damage to make it worthwhile and the enemy would gain more out of taking your land than you do battering helplessly at their defenses with midget ships.

Cruisers are just big enough to destroy defenses in reasonable numbers, small enough to allow independent action, big enough to fight in the wall if necessary, and combine the good parts of Escorts except numbers with the good parts of Ships of the Wall save their power.

If I had to choose one type of ship to make my entire navy out of, I'd pick Cruisers. Useless indeed.

[Dahak]

A clean, new universe is ok by me, as much as I would like to re-visit STGOD4. I loved my nation
But I don't like the idea of Star Trek-level tech. It just feels so...simple.

[Lonestar]

I'm game. Let the games begin!

[GuppyShark]

This seems similar to the Space Empires games we're already playing, only we can skip the boring bits!

My preferences: Clean slate, with a post-Imperial setting to explain why everyone is coincidentally on an even footing.

I also like the idea of combat results being decided before people start writing the RP. Mods going "This turn, five ships from the Dagnabits have been attacked by seven of the Slime Lords." (Dice are rolled) "Two Dagnabit ships disabled, four Slime Lords lost."

I don't know - maybe half the fun of an STGOD is trying to turn the tide of battle with your RP? It seems like a recipe for grief from where I'm sitting.

[White Haven]

Well, if we use TrekTek levels, then planets will be relatively safe from orbital bugfuckery from anything short of an all-out battlefleet, if nothing else. I'd favor something either higher-tech or lower-tech, myself...Trek's just too much of an in-the-middle feel. Too weak to really crack knuckles in, too strong to go for a hard-SF style.

EDIT: To clarify, I'm not saying I wouldn't play in a trekkish game, just pointing something out.

[Noble Ire]

I'd be alright with Trek-level tech. I suppose lower power tiers might be alright, too, but I don't like the idea of technology being so advanced that a single mistake early in the game could essentially doom a player; "He he, you moved your defense fleet to the other side of your world. I'm going to move my frigate from the other side of the Galaxy and immolate your capital with my wankage lay-Zorz!"

[Academia Nut]

Trek levels work, and while strategic feints are difficult to pull off and there should be a reward for such trickery, the slower speeds do mean that it could be harder to adequately respond to such events. I'm good with just about anything, my ideas can fairly easily be slid up and down the power scale from a Space Age of Sail type power level all the way up to "No, I'm God."

As to the whole thing with cruisers and battleships, I have a suggestion. Use a simple points based system for ships, and then have another set of industrial points to represent your empire's production capacity. You then have to divvy up your industrial points amongst your planets. Thus if you have lots and lots of colonies its much harder for you to defend them, but you're not in as much danger of a total knock-out than if you only had one or two industrial centres. Thus at some point in your OOB you would have something like:

1 50 point capital
10 30 point worlds
50 1 point colonies

Or some such thing, but you get the point.

And if you like that idea, I have a few others relating to this that, while adding some complexity, might avoid a few obvious cheats, the biggest one being: "I have 500 1 point colonies and I'm building super dreadnoughts! Try and kill me!" Thus I would propose that there be caps on how much certain planets could build. If the project exceeds double the industrial capacity of a world, then the project takes a 25% decrease in efficiency (or 1.5 times longer) due to lack of proper construction facilities (ie your 50 point capital could build a 100 point ship in 2 turns, but a 150 point ship would take 4.5 turns instead of 3 because you don't have the proper facilities to do things and you end up with industrial back-logs. Then, if a project exceeds three times the industrial capacity of the world then the project is impossible. Therefore, while they are big juicy targets, your industrial worlds are necessary because without them all you can do is build small frigates or destroyers or hire masses of farmboys to fly your fighters. That said, a "component" rule could be used, whereby you could have some worlds producing components for a project, contributing 1/2 their industrial capacity to the apparent capacity of another world. So if you want to build that mega-killnought, you could have your colonies contribute 25 points and your industrial worlds 150 points to your capital, giving it an apparent capacity of 225 points so you could build a 675 point monster in 4.5 turns. Or something like that, I was just pulling numbers out of my ass really.

[Starglider]

Trek tech level is ok with me.

If production facilities are actually being modelled, a simple way to limit battleship numbers is to have the shipyards that can make them be a) really expensive and b) only possible on the most developed planets. Limit supply, limit the numbers.

The game mechanics way to prevent battleship wank is to simulate fighting at ranges where ship size has a significant impact on hit probability, such that cruisers punch above their weight when fighting battleships because they hit more often than they get hit. Balancing all the relevant curves properly takes a bit of (which is to say a few million runs of) Monte Carlo simulation, but that's all behind the scenes and done properly results in a game where a 'balanced' fleet really is the most cost effective in terms of general battlefield capability. But that requires a lot of game mechanics.

[Academia Nut]

Well, I think the fundamental issue here is that for the most part the STGODs in the past have been freeform effects based systems with the points being simply a way of abjucating things, thus you get more for roleplaying and being clever than for having figured out how to get the most out of your build or having figured out an exploit to the system. Plus as has been mentioned, things can get weird in these things. In some of the STGOD's some groups used magical wand cannons while others used stranger things than that. Plus battles might take days as the fighting parties describe what is happening in a gritty slugfest, which is half the fun really.

[Ace Pace]

Trek tech level is ok with me.

If production facilities are actually being modelled, a simple way to limit battleship numbers is to have the shipyards that can make them be a) really expensive and b) only possible on the most developed planets. Limit supply, limit the numbers.

The game mechanics way to prevent battleship wank is to simulate fighting at ranges where ship size has a significant impact on hit probability, such that cruisers punch above their weight when fighting battleships because they hit more often than they get hit. Balancing all the relevant curves properly takes a bit of (which is to say a few million runs of) Monte Carlo simulation, but that's all behind the scenes and done properly results in a game where a 'balanced' fleet really is the most cost effective in terms of general battlefield capability. But that requires a lot of game mechanics.

I generally think trying to codify(in terms of actual code) how combat, or infact, any player interaction, is taking away part of the game which was most interesting. If we wanted a space game that used fully laid out mechanics, I'd tell Innnocent to codify Twlight Imperium 3.

[Starglider]

I generally think trying to codify(in terms of actual code) how combat, or infact, any player interaction, is taking away part of the game which was most interesting. If we wanted a space game that used fully laid out mechanics, I'd tell Innnocent to codify Twlight Imperium 3.

Previous 'epic scale RPs' I've been involved in have had no mechanics at all, so I suppose what I'm having trouble with is seeing the benefits of minimal mechanics over a) none (which requires everyone to write for narrative effect rather than trying to 'win') or b) decent ones kept out of the way (which results in a separate but parallel 'game' and 'narrative' threads). I think that was Hotfoot's point, to some extent, a minimal-mechanics compromise teases the gamers into thinking it's something they can actually play to win without being comprehensive enough to be actually fair and balanced. It seems to have worked ok in the past some of the time, but it's something of an unstable situation. I was kinda hoping throwing some software at the problem (as long as it can be hacked within minutes to add new possibilities, or just overriden by the mods) might make things balanced and keep the gamers happy without gumming up the narrative thread with game mechanics details, but then I am over-eager to throw technology at any problem (but at least I admit it ).

Oh on that subject, here's another idea for a board hack that might help with maps. I could implement something that turns this;

[map=http://tile_source]
....*...........S...
........*....*.......
....*............*..
.........S...*......
.....S....*....S....
..*.............*..
......S.......*.....
[/map]

(where * = planet, S = fleet, simple example)

into a proper visual map constructed by tiling images from the specified source as specified by the ASCII characters (via a HTML table). That would be much faster to load for people on 56k and would make a game world map that can be instantly copied/edited by anyone, without messing about with photoshop or imageshack or external sites. Any use?

[HSRTG]

Just a warning for people, I'm going to be away from the internet from the 27th to July 1st. If you start in that time frame, I'm going to be late getting everything in. Sorry.

[Starglider]

Oh on that subject, here's another idea for a board hack that might help with maps. I could implement something that turns this...
into a proper visual map

On second thoughts it might be better to make it take a list like this;

[map=5,5,http://tile-source]
3,4=planet,red,Mars - capital of the red alliance, planetary defence 5
3,1=planet,blue,Earth - seat of the blue federation, planetary defence 6
2,5=fleet,red,Battlefleet X - 2 battleships, 4 cruisers
2,2=fleet,blue,Space Force Alpha - 9 cruisers
[/map]

...since I'd use Javascript rather than PHP anyway to generate the map to save bandwidth, so doing it that way would allow a caption line at the bottom which would display the appropriate description as you moved your mouse pointer over the map, all embedded in a forum post. If that sounds good I'll try and implement it on the prototype board later tonight.

[Covenant]

I don't know - maybe half the fun of an STGOD is trying to turn the tide of battle with your RP? It seems like a recipe for grief from where I'm sitting.

Couldn't agree more! I never played STGODs before but I've done extremely similar types of games, and those always do best when math defines who lost what, rather than RP. People generally enjoy winning a fight more than losing one, especially since the game involves being eliminated at some point, and nobody really wants to be eliminated. So if you play along with someone who is just playing-to-win, you're going to get hammered on, and that's not fair. I would much rather let my opponent RP taking out my Deathcruiser with one of his pilot's last-breath suicide strike into my bridge after he's already been told that I lost the ship, rather than need to debate with him if that's even possible, let alone sportsmanlike to do.

Otherwise it seems way too exploitive.

[Starglider]

Couldn't agree more! I never played STGODs before but I've done extremely similar types of games, and those always do best when math defines who lost what, rather than RP.

Absolutely. It does sound much easier and more pleasant to write a description of a stunning victory, terrible defeat, or grinding stalemate when you don't have to worry about whether you're being fair or reasonable, or whether you forgot some critical mechanic, or whether the mods are going to jump on you. Thus my support for 'parallel game mechanic and narration threads'. But if the maths is being handled elsewhere anyway, and don't need to be kept down to minimise interruptions to the story, why do they need to be so simplistic in the first place? There's still a significant difference from just narrating an existing space game though, in that the maths can still be modified and overriden as required to account for novel strategies, which you can't do if the rules are fixed and binding.

[Thirdfain]

Traditional (successful) STGOD combat has been handled via the "Call no hits" rule, in which the attacker states what he's shooting, and the defender states what is lost. Generally, to keep things equitable, the attacker and defender converse in AIM or through PM prior to the post, discussing what they think fair losses are. If everyone is honest and friendly, we've been able to reach a concensus between the involved players. If they can't decide together what the outcome is, then they'll talk to a mod.

I personally would rather shy away from hard and fast rules as to the effects of combat. This is due to a number of things. Firstly, it relies on having constant mod attention. Second, more complex rules make it harder for players to join. Finally, due to the sheer variety of stuff people will be using, it makes it harder to set up an overarching system which works for every possible combat situation.