Costing a Subsector Fleet

[rancke]

However, in HG2, I have designed around a hundred vessels by hand. I know roughly what volumes are left over for J-3 and J-4 vessels. The modern Imperial fleet is J-4, so J-4 tankers would be required. A million dTon J-4 tanker would have around 200,000 dTons of volume for tankage after other requirements (give or take a few tens of thousands of dTons).

Judging by the countermix in FFW, the current Imperial tankers are jump-3. Probably a compromise between being able to keep up with a fleet moving at jump-4 (i.e. the fleet will have to move at J3 if it wants tankers along) and carrying as much extra fuel as possible. Also, at least some of the Imperium's BatRons are only jump-3.


Hans

 

[Rigel Stardin]

Judging by the countermix in FFW, the current Imperial tankers are jump-3. Probably a compromise between being able to keep up with a fleet moving at jump-4 (i.e. the fleet will have to move at J3 if it wants tankers along) and carrying as much extra fuel as possible. Also, at least some of the Imperium's BatRons are only jump-3.


Hans

Or the could set up a foreward supply point, 1 jump away from the intended target where combat ships could come in and resupply their vessel before renewing the fight.

 

[RainOfSteel]

It's hard for me to say. HG2 combat does not seem like it would make any of that possible. There just aren't many tactical or strategic options.

Perhaps some other variant rules regarding play would make the options you described more clear. I didn't get TCS or PE until around 2003/2004, and honestly I never read them except to skim for a bit.

I wouldn't engage a monitor fleet without an overwhelming advantage; anything else would only be done under a screaming emergency. If I, as the attacker, had any influence in capacity planning, I would make sure the fleet I was bringing along, massed from an entire empire's worth of available ships for a mission into foreign space, would have more than enough to obliterate any "homeworld fleet" of monitors. Does Mora/Mora maintain 200 monitors and support? Guess what? The Zhondane commander is bringing along 800 dreadnoughts and support.

 

[rancke]

I wouldn't engage a monitor fleet without an overwhelming advantage; anything else would only be done under a screaming emergency. If I, as the attacker, had any influence in capacity planning, I would make sure the fleet I was bringing along, massed from an entire empire's worth of available ships for a mission into foreign space, would have more than enough to obliterate any "homeworld fleet" of monitors. Does Mora/Mora maintain 200 monitors and support? Guess what? The Zhondane commander is bringing along 800 dreadnoughts and support.

The canonical history of the Fifth Frontier War seems to imply that for some reason that apparently does not show up in the combat rules, defenders enjoy some sort of advantage that makes it necessary for an attacking fleet to spend months on whittling down the defenses.

Perhaps overwhelming odds such as you describe would allow the Zhodani to win a quick victory, but at the cost of losing three quarters of the attacking fleet. Does the Zhodani spend 600 dreadnoughts on destroying 200 monitors around Mora? They're going to miss those dreadnaughts dreadfully when the Imperial fleets from Trin and Rhylanor and Glisten and Lintl and Deneb and Corridor counterattacks and conquer a dozen Zhodani high-pop worlds in retaliation. So they don't.


Hans

 

[pendragonman]

The canonical history of the Fifth Frontier War seems to imply that for some reason that apparently does not show up in the combat rules, defenders enjoy some sort of advantage that makes it necessary for an attacking fleet to spend months on whittling down the defenses.

Perhaps overwhelming odds such as you describe would allow the Zhodani to win a quick victory, but at the cost of losing three quarters of the attacking fleet. Does the Zhodani spend 600 dreadnoughts on destroying 200 monitors around Mora? They're going to miss those dreadnaughts dreadfully when the Imperial fleets from Trin and Rhylanor and Glisten and Lintl and Deneb and Corridor counterattacks and conquer a dozen Zhodani high-pop worlds in retaliation. So they don't.


Hans

Exactly. For a one-off, non campaign type battle the Zho player can get away with massing 800 DNs in the same fleet. But if the Zho player can afford to mass 800 DNs in one fleet, how many can the Imps do?

Oh? It is a campaign game and you say you got "strategic surprise" and was able to hit Mora with all that without the Imps being able to counter immediately? Perhaps they let you hit Mora that way to take entire subsectors in the coming months.

 

[Matt123]

It's hard for me to say. HG2 combat does not seem like it would make any of that possible. There just aren't many tactical or strategic options.

*cough*

HG2 & TCS is all about Grand Strategy, the movement of Fleets and a (relatively) quick combat system to resolve confrontations. HG2 by itself is far less interesting without a Strategic context to put your fleets into.

HG2 deliberately lacks on the Tactical scale, but thats not something I personally have ever missed. I like the Grand Admiral aspect, less so the Fleet/Ship/Squadron Commander where I would turn to Bk2.

TCS also abstracts a lot for the sake of a bigger picture, to the extent that for example all GG's are lumped into "one" defendable location and only the Mainworld has oceans or Ice Caps.

But despite that and other abstractions, it works to give a feel for for Grand Strategy. And of course you can house rule those areas you feel are abstracted too far.

I found PE quite late, but loved it. I have two spreadsheets that combined can track an entire Sector under PE's rules. Quite a lot of fun to develop, but it pushed the limits of spreadsheeting (ie slow, difficult to use & it is prone to causing system crashs). If I can get the hang of databasing, I might revisit it. Ahh, one day...

 

[whartung]

The cold truth about HG2 combat is that the fleet compositions pretty much determine the outcome, the dice are there only to determine how much is costs. It's really not much more sophisticated than Risk combat at the high level. A slug fest of players throwing dice at each other.

That conclusion came to a blinding crescendo if you ever look at the rules and designer notes for Battle Rider. Effectively, all that matters are Critical Hits, everything else is just show.

That said, it's difficult to grasp the "grinding then down over months and months" scenario, considering the expense and time it takes to muster and jump a fleet in to a target system.

If the fleet leaves, then the target system isn't interdicted and can be, potentially, resupplied. If both forces are in the system, and there is not a decisive advantage to either of them, then I can see an attacking fleet simply parking in the outer system, and possibly interdicting freight traffic, while waiting for reinforcements. But if one fleet does have a decisive advantage, the only reason to stay is to make the conquest more expensive for the opponent, the price paid being your fleet/defense and whatever it takes with it in terms of the enemy.

Speaking of which, has anyone ever written up the mechanics for attacking a planet with deep meson sites? Do you treat them as, say, 5-10k dton ships with infinite armor (like meson guns care) and 0 agility, with the best screens, computers, and redundant systems?

Basically a docked meson only M0 Battle Rider?

How many sites would a planet have? 10? 100?

A meson only Battle Rider / Monitor is more expensive, but not insanely so than a meson site. You'd think a static site might be cheaper to maintain. So, deep site or monitor...hmm.

 

[Matt123]

Don't confuse gaining Space Superiority with conquering the planet.

One is relatively quick, the other can take decades even without deep site meson guns.

For a start, when is a planet conquered? At the point major combat units (ground, air, wet & space) are combat ineffective? At the point organised resistence is crushed? When the insurgents are all killed? When the random bombs stop going off in your newly aquired transport systems? At the point you as the new owners can provide the infrastructure the locals once enjoyed (before you or the insurgents blew it up)?

TCS abstracts this all away with the 100 weapon factors rule. Which suits me fine, its a bit too messy & prolonged for my gaming tastes.

[FONT=arial,helvetica]That conclusion came to a blinding crescendo if you ever look at the rules and designer notes for Battle Rider. Effectively, all that matters are Critical Hits, everything else is just show.

Not so, take a closer look. A spinal mount is only guaranteed one turn at full effectiveness. Once missile hits have whittled it down some, no more criticals. And those sub 2000tn ships are pretty hard to hit with your spinal (the explosions look pretty tho' when you do!).
[/FONT]

 

[robject]

I found T4's Pocket Empires to be more enlightening than the other books, though it's more complex - you need a spreadsheet as well as a calculator if you don't want to tear your hair out (and you still might).

Or try out my old, old, old JavaScript code:

http://eaglestone.pocketempires.com/scripts/t4tools/PocketEmpires.html

 

[robject]

There are SO MANY key concepts being batted around here. Can someone post the main concepts in one summary message? I know this has been discussed many times over on many forums, including the TML of course. So I know we've got people here who have a text file on their computer that enumerates all considerations -- including the different requirements based on the different kinds of settings (i.e. strategic vs operational vs tactical, or whatever).

 

[aramis]

Speaking of which, has anyone ever written up the mechanics for attacking a planet with deep meson sites? Do you treat them as, say, 5-10k dton ships with infinite armor (like meson guns care) and 0 agility, with the best screens, computers, and redundant systems?

IMTU...
They are treated as buffered planetoids, but with infinite armor. Why buffered? because you'll need the structure of a buffered to ensure it survives the ground pressures under fire. Figure out all the non bridge installed stuff, and bridge tonnage is 1/19th of that, minimum 20. Tunnel out this amount. Overall tonnage for Power rating and maintenance crew is 2.5x tonnage of systems+bridge. Figure also 340 tons minimum access tunneling. (that's 1km at 1.5m x 3m, and allows about 10 people/minute, one way at a time only.)

full rotation DMS mesons are much bigger. I limit non-full-rotation to ±30°, using normal tonnage, and "full" rotation any direction, MCr0.001 per base ton extra cost, and carved volume x1000 Tonnage... which must be dug out. Figure agility based upon the tonnage of the cavern for full rotation ones; fixed are agility 0.

Spoiler:

I figure a 35:1 L/W is typical... (AHL shows about 375 long, and 11m wide..)... and get roughly x1321 volume. Assume some folding, and trim it to a nice x1000.

 

[Icosahedron]

For a start, when is a planet conquered?

IMO (and backed by PE) - when you can use its resources to aid your war effort elsewhere.

 

[Hemdian]

<snip>

Nice.

 

[RainOfSteel]

The canonical history of the Fifth Frontier War

That's one I don't have, so I can't discuss its game mechanics. My apologies.

 

[RainOfSteel]

*cough*

HG2 & TCS

*cough*

I had written:

I didn't get TCS

is all about Grand Strategy,

TCS might well be as the game itself suggests it, but I was discussing HG2 combat alone.

and a (relatively) quick combat system to resolve confrontations.

You roll your batteries for each ship. I suppose you'd have to decide whether to use spinal mounts first, or not.

HG2 by itself is far less interesting without a Strategic context to put your fleets into.

I have run some HG2 combat simulation. When major combats (with hundreds of batteries each) are facing one another, it takes a very long time to roll the batteries of one ship for one turn and record the damage. As soon as you make the leap to squadrons of major combatants, the time requirement becomes terrible.

This is the primary reason I never TCS until almost twenty years later. I literally could not imagine running HG2 combat with fleets.

 

[Matt123]

You roll your batteries for each ship. I suppose you'd have to decide whether to use spinal mounts first, or not.

Each turns combat is simultaneous. Your Spinal is guaranteed a shot at full effectiveness.

I have run some HG2 combat simulation. When major combats (with hundreds of batteries each) are facing one another, it takes a very long time to roll the batteries of one ship for one turn and record the damage. As soon as you make the leap to squadrons of major combatants, the time requirement becomes terrible.

This is the primary reason I never TCS until almost twenty years later. I literally could not imagine running HG2 combat with fleets.

TCS pg 15, Statistical Combat Resolution.

 

[RainOfSteel]

That conclusion came to a blinding crescendo if you ever look at the rules and designer notes for Battle Rider. Effectively, all that matters are Critical Hits, everything else is just show.

For major battles in HG2, you also needed T-size ships to avoid being multi-critted by T-type spinal mounts, or any spinal mount with a size-class larger that your vessels' size-class. (I never liked that rule.)

If you jump to T20 combat, it's another matter. You mount the smallest meson spinal mount in the smallest hull possible and go to town wiping out the enemy battleships (actually, the enemy wouldn't have any because it will be silly to build them: T20 Drednaughts? What is the point?)

Speaking of which, has anyone ever written up the mechanics for attacking a planet with deep meson sites? Do you treat them as, say, 5-10k dton ships with infinite armor (like meson guns care) and 0 agility, with the best screens, computers, and redundant systems?

Rules? Not me. But it was discussed to some degree in Invading Star Systems/Defending Them

It is my personal opinion that deep meson gun sites could not be located and would be immune to return fire. They should, technically speaking, make it impossible to bring a fleet within range of a planet.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Each turns combat is simultaneous. Your Spinal is guaranteed a shot at full effectiveness.

I didn't say it wasn't.

 

[rancke]

That's one I don't have, so I can't discuss its game mechanics. My apologies.

It's not a game. It's background material. The Zhodani spend months laying siege to Jewell and Efate.


Hans

 

[Dagrill]

I haven't read Grand Fleet either, but I use 1% for the Imperium budget (30% of world military spend from Striker). Also I assume a huge chunk of that 1% goes to support the Imperial bureaucracy, MoJ, Scouts and army, besides the Imperial Navy.

It's true that any high tech high pop world with a dictator or military government of some type) can purchase an awful lot of ships, when I did the Albe Navy I assumed they built 10% at TL10 and stationed it in Realgar as an early warning force, the population of Realgar being too small to argue....

Regards

david

This is an old, old problem. Basically it boils down to the fact that billions of people can afford a lot of ships. The only way to avoid that is to make ships more expensive, which runs up against the desire to have small groups of itinerant player characters flying around in affordable starships.

I haven't read Grand Fleet, but it sounds like it ignores anything that has happened since GDW realized that worlds with population sizes 8 and up could afford an awful lot of ships.

And lets not overlook that the Imperium's average 3% of GWP spent on its military is on the low side, probably due to it being so very big. A subsector-sized polity with similar-sized rival polities for neighbors might easily spend more than that -- it would depend on how threatened it feels.


If you want a plausible setup that results in small ship fleets, slash population figures.


Hans