As Im starting to look at designs for my first warships, Im having a problem of aestetic design versus game mechanics. Hopefully, someone who has actual in game experience with this, and with naval combat, can lend some advice.

Typically, most combat type ships ( both real world naval vessels, and science fiction space warships ) mount a couple of the heaviest weapons, followed by several batteries of small support weapons. For example, a WWII Battleship might mount 9 16" guns, 20 5" guns, 60 40mm and 20-65 20mm guns. Or a Minbari War Cruiser would mount 1 Antimatter Cannon, 18 Gavitic Fusion Beam Cannons, 24 EM Fusion Beam Cannons, and 42 Electro-Pulse Guns. The reasons for doing this are many... Firing the heaviest weapons takes more resources ( bigger shells or more drain on the engines ), and often they are overkill for use on smaller ships(swatting flies with sledgehammers). Numerous smaller guns allow better dispersion of fire, usually with more precision and less chance of collateral damage or "friendly fire" casualties during large combats, and many smaller systems leaves less chance of being left helpless by a lucky hit on your main armaments.

However, as I see the mechanics of combat working here, it strongly weighs AGAINST that type of design. Unless I am missing something, there is no point in not mounting all of the heaviest weapons you can build. Weight for weight, they do the most damage, of course. Since there is no provision for energy or projectile usage, the heaviest weapons can fire just as often as lighter ones at no additional "cost". The number of targets is dependant solely on the bridge strength (and commanders, etc), so one large weapon can engage just as many enemy ships as several smaller ones, and is just as accurate. And since damage taken by a ship degrades systems proportionally instead of destroying individual systems, there is no point in having numerous "backup" weapons, since the main guns will still do more numerical damage.

Aestetically, I would love to design a Battleship with a couple of Heavy Pulse Laser cannons, a few Medium Pulse Lasers, and then several batteries of Medium and Light Beam Lasers. This is the way the ship SHOULD be designed (IMHO). But I have a strong feeling that I would be shooting myself in the foot by doing so, if such a ship (and its attendant fleet) came up against an opponent whose ships had nothing but the heaviest weapons he had available.

Magus666,

I sympathize. I have to admit that very often, my own decisions are driven as much by aesthetics as by mathematical analysis. One of the wonderful features of this game system is that you do not, necessarily, have to choose between the two.

It is true that, for any given branch of a weapons tech tree, "lighter" weapons are also the less technological advanced. Your analysis there is right on target.

However, there are ways to mount both large and small guns, of equal effectiveness (bang per mass) on a single ship. Just diversify your weapon techs. That is what the example ships in you presented have done. Let me illustrate:

On a single ship, you use multiple weapons techs. You could, for example, mount a battery of three Heavy Magnetic Grapples (3,500 tons each, "Adequate" firepower) and 70 Mk III Interceptor Missiles (200 tons each, also "Adequate"). This also has the benefit of diversifying the weapons types on your ship, making it more difficult to defend against.

Or, on a single ship, you could use multiple branches of the same weapons tech tree. For example, using ballistic projectile technology, mount a single 100 cm Spinal Rail gun (10,000 tons, "Impressive" firepower) and several dozen 80cm Gauss Guns (3,200 tons, "Impressive") and several hundred 5cm Needlers (40 tons, "Impressive").

Of course, there are some drawbacks to these examples (which, no doubt, others will point out for you) but everything in life is a trade-off.

The point is, that you need not choose between warship designs that are at peak effectiviness, and those that give you a warm feeling in your soul.

TErnest

As TErnest has pointed out you are free to pursue the path of aesthetics, however my philosphy of warship design is that you must balance several elements to meet the operational and strategic requirements of that class of ships. The elements that you must balance are, Offense, Defense, Bridge, Engines, Warp Bubble, Sensors, Fuel. The weight you give to each factor depends on what you plan to do with it.

For Weapons (Offense), it really boils down to points of damage per ton. Most weapons are similar (Fighters and Drones excepted) in the damage they do for a given level of tech.

Offense and Defense are often compared to Rock, Paper, Scissors. You try to guess what your opponent has and defend (or attack) against it. Therefore a case can be made that you should have two different systems to improve your chances of success especially when you don't know what your opponent has.

Thats my 2 cents.

On a single ship, you use multiple weapons techs. You could, for example, mount a battery of three Heavy Magnetic Grapples (3,500 tons each, "Adequate" firepower) and 70 Mk III Interceptor Missiles (200 tons each, also "Adequate"). This also has the benefit of diversifying the weapons types on your ship, making it more difficult to defend against.

Or, on a single ship, you could use multiple branches of the same weapons tech tree. For example, using ballistic projectile technology, mount a single 100 cm Spinal Rail gun (10,000 tons, "Impressive" firepower) and several dozen 80cm Gauss Guns (3,200 tons, "Impressive") and several hundred 5cm Needlers (40 tons, "Impressive").

Well, THAT I like It does sound like that is the way to go...at least in regards to what I was talking about. It would allow for a nice "feel" to the ship design, while not seriously crippling myself on the math. Thanks! Ill just have to watch for those alternate paths to open up.

Ali - of course, there are alot of elements to consider besides just raw firepower. But I think that the weapons tech is probably the most diverse, and the one that gives the most "flavor" to a design. Having more and better computers can certainly make for a better, and more effective ship, as do better engines. Armor is obviously a critical factor in combat. But I dont think most players get that warm, fuzzy, imperialistic feeling thinking about the thickness of the advanced composites on their new War Cruiser or the effectiveness of their "Gravitation Screens". Imagining the ship bristling with those just slightly evil looking "Heavy Disrupter Cannons", "Medium Fusion Chain Reaction Beams", and "Antimatter Missile Launchers"...is a different story. Its the intrinsic "oooh!" factor. Some other things can ALSO give that...like Cloaking, but I understand that that isnt currently working very well.

Hey if this makes you happy, do it. That is what SN:ROTE is all about in my book. Keep in mind the only time you get to see someone else's "cool" design is in combat.

Magnus,

Is there anything we can try and include in the Snrote Reader that might help in this area?

Lord SaHeru (co-editor)
SnroteReader@yahoo.com

In a future Incarnation of the game it would be nice if FC was based in part on the weapons chosen. I find it difficult to see how one can split a single Plasma Torp into the 20 globs of damage to target multiple targets. This would lend itself well to the theory of combined arms and multiple weapons systems being superior to a single system.

Yes, I think it would be nice if the "combined arms", which is so important in ground combat, carried over to naval combat. Heavy, slow weapons like Torpedoes could be alot more effective if enemy ships were pinned down by heavy laser fire or slowed down by tractor beams. A "sonic" weapon could be alot more devastating if a vessels armor were allready brittle from an attack with a cold based weapon.

I suppose on some level, there is allready a very minor form of this in place since weapons damage degrades all of the ships systems. So damage from one type of weapon which penetrates degrades the defensive systems which might otherwise protect against a different weapon.

Also don't forget the effect of game mechanics on your "cool choices". For example, I had decided that the Gremloids were going to be a slightly *ahem* xenophobic race who were really scared of space and rather non violent in nature and really only ventured into space in heavily armored and shielded ships. Being peaceful in nature I decided to go with the Stun weapon path since I believed the fluff about stunning crews and being able to capture them I also chose grapples as my secondary weapon path. I was a bit frizzled to discover that both these ended at Heavy Stun Beams and Heavy Magnetic Grapples (adequate strength) and didn't open up to anything new for higher levels and thus had to start researching new lines of weaponry, even more so to discover that my belief that I was actually going to be able to capture ships was misguided but there you go...

Cheers
/Locklyn

Well I dont know this from personal experience (being quite new and not having the research) but at the very least, the Light Stun Beam opens a path for the Light Sonic Disruptor, and the Light Magnetic Grapple opens a path for the Light Tractor Beam both of which, I believe, can take you higher than "Adequate" levels, and which may, in themselves, open other paths.

As for capturing ships, yes, Ive seen several posts commenting that this ability has been severely limited. I also find this rather disappointing. Certain weapons like the grapples and stunners you mentioned, do seem designed specifically for this kind of action. And even some of the government types...like PIRATE...scream for the ability. How can you be a space pirate if you cant capture other ships?

Yes, what I meant was that many weapons lines open up at a new path at the end of their tree, the new path usually being equal to or a tad higher than where you were. Those didn't.

I agree, it would have been fun to be able to capture ships like pirates do but Pete was more worried that it would be abused to trade ships, which seems weird since you can trade all the components, so what would the problem be? If you are worried that Empire A will sit with fleets that he allows player B to capture them easily, Player B could just as easily have been given the components by Player A!? If they were warships then player B would take the risk of getting damaged or destroyed so I have so far failed to see why other than perhaps there is a problem with getting it to work in combat so it has been permanently "disabled" like many other features

Well you can be a Space Pirate and destroy others ships!...where the profit is in that is unknown at this point

Cheers
/Locklyn

Of course, in retrospect, to be a good pirate would generally also require another missing ability - the ability to transfer cargo between fleets in space.

"Aha! My fleet of swift Pirate Corsairs has engaged your Convoy of Cargo Ships heavily laden with valuable materials! Now I can....oh....all I can do is blow them up? But...I want to capture them. Oh....so if I DID capture them..I cant put the valuable stuff in my cargo holds and escape? I see...Id either have to drag the slow ships with me....or...what?? Plant a colony beacon on some planet, offload the cargo to the "colony" and then load the valuable stuff back onto my ships...right BEFORE making my "swift" getaway avoiding your fleets coming to get me? Maybe we should think about a revolution Captain, and give up Pirating...."

I can actually understand the "no transfer of stuff between fleets" thingy because the first thing I would do is setup a network of ships that ensured I could transfer stuff from one end of the empire to the other in one turn even without TWDs so I can understand that restriction.

Cheers
/Locklyn

That would seem like a fairly simple abuse to avoid, however. As I understand it, all fleet movement is calculated in "pulses" in order to determine if combats occur. If the fleets dont end up the same "pulse" in the same "location" then no combat occurs. I would think that the same thing could be used for cargo. If the two fleets dont end the same "pulse" in the same "location", you cant transfer cargo between them. So, one fleet couldnt use all its APs, transfer cargo to another fleet which THEN uses its APs to move further, etc, since they would all be moving (theoretically) at the same time. You could move that cargo fleet to the transfer point...but the other fleet has allready left.

Yes,
But that would mean more coding or fiddling with the code and Pete has WAY more things to actually fix in the game before he starts fiddling with that, at least in my book where this Gremloid is still waiting for a complete and accurate Naval Combat Document, FOBs that actually tell you the effect of your Species Space Combat Bonus and so on and revised Rules that reflect the actual game and much more

Cheers
/Locklyn

I suppose thats true. At least having rules that accurately reflect the actual game IS a little important. But I do keep hearing that there are "more important" upgrades and fixes to the program that Pete is working on. Im getting curious as to what they actually ARE....

...As are we all...
SNROE was launched prematurely and slowly Pete is catching up with some problems as well as implementing features that he didn't seem to have had time to put in initially and the game is growing towards the great wargame it can be. I wouldn't really call it a 4X game since there is really not much else to do in the universe to do than beat up a neighbour you don't like. You can trade with other neighbours to get shinier and bigger sticks to beath those neighbours you don't like. You can team up with other neighbours to beat up a solitary neighbour but otherwise it is much about building stuff to build bigger sticks. There is no story hidden in the universe, no Imperial Colonies holding out against these new upstarts, no vast Tckon Fleet looking to reclaim the universe in a long lost forgotten empires name but there are a lot of fun players with big shiny sticks, so get out there and meet new aliens and see who has the biggest, longest and shiniest one!

/Locklyn

Hmmm ... if bigger and better weapons are bigger shiny sticks, then I have to ask. What would be a proper visual reference for more powerful (yet still only 10 tons a pop) Mass Destruction Devices? Bigger Mushroom Pizzas??? Following this I know I've located quite a varied collection of mushrooms with my explorations. And I have fleet of delivery trucks waiting to drop off large pizza orders. ....
nahhhh, can't go on, this is way to silly sounding. And I'm not quite this mindless ... yet.

Any suggestions on a better term?

Stones? They gotta drop sometime



/Locklyn

Anyone else noticed that the conversations on this forum get more 'interesting' (as in slightly wierd) the closer to turn results we get, as in every other Friday? And that the traffic drops off dramatically (except for 'where is empire XYZ #1234 near Neverneverland') immediately after turn results are received?

Or is it just me?

Octus

Octus it's an observable phenomenon (I spilt that right as well!).

We're all just going crazy wondering if we've managed to put together an order sequence without any errors. I'm always happy when that happens, which it does every blue moon

Yup, I have noticed that too. Its just a way to fill free time. I also have noticed that the questions from the new folks increase starting about two days after the turns are received and run for about a week.

And I read them carefully, because I learn something from every thread. Fortunately, my embarrassment for not having thought of what the newbies think up is limited to this forum....

Octus

Just to refresh it in my anti-allergen drug addled brain - hayfever and high pollen counts don't mix - the number of damage "globs" is solely a function of the Fire Control rating of your Fleet, the formula does not take into consideration the number of "muzzles" available to launch the destructive firepower (regardless of form), right?

If you have a Fleet with a combined FC rating of 4 and a combined Firepower rating of 4,000,000,000; you would get four "blobs" of destruction worth 1,000,000,000 each. It wouldn't matter if your Fleet consisted of one ship armed with one (1) Mk IX Doomblaster, or if the Fleet consisted of 4,000,000 ships armed with 1,000 Type A Red Ryder BB Guns each; correct?

Thanks in Advance,
-SK

That is correct.

Try noodling this one. Lets say you build a ship and include one and only one weapon on it. A Mk IX Long Range Torpedo that does say 18,000,000 damge. Now you include enough high end computers and get a FC rating of 200. So you get into a battle, and your one Mk IV Long Range Torpedo, when fired, breaks into 200 chunks or globs (of 90,000 damage each). OK .. who put the sieve on the front of the torpedo tube???

Of course all this is planned by Pete and some things, even if weird, are needed for the game balance and all the goodies he's designed to research. So changing it is never easy as one small change on "X" can throw off items and game processes A to G. Ahh .. the wonderful world of gaming.

Your battle computer is so awesome, it figures out the trick shot that lets the single torpedo hit 200 ships.

The answer is very simple. The missiles must be an MX missile.

I'd always understood these were torpedo batteries. So a single weapon is actually a collection of some unspecified number of torpedo launchers, along with the magazines required to feed them. I never had a problem with the fire control oddities because of that. That thinking is harder to apply to the spinal mount weapons though. So it still comes down to a game expediency thing in the end.

On the other hand I could never understand how the magazines could hold an unlimited number of torpedoes. I guess we've all developed the Mk I Magazine of Infinite Holding before we reached space! Or maybe that would be a Mk II Magazine of Infinite Provision since we never actually have to build munitions! Thank you Pete for that huge favor!

I think of it another way, each combat round consists of several salvoes of fire, which can then be targeted individually if you have enough fire control, e.g. a spinal cannon actually fires 20 packets of destruction each combat round, without fancy computers they all have to be aimed at 1 ship. Fancy computers allow you to spread these packets either by swerving you ship or using a barrel choke and the computers time the firing of the packet so that it is released whenever there is a target directly in front of it.

As an SFB player, I've actually found that it's the other way around. I use my heavy slow-firing torpedoes to herd my opponent into a corner and mug him with my phasers.
But the point is still valid.