Operational Level Gaming

[Hal]

In general, I'd like to see a SINGLE concept that reads along the lines of:

A) how much of the world's GDP is from trade and how much is internal (Sort of like World Tamer's Handbook)

B) Determine how much of that "Trade" is spread amongst planets that are nearby. If 20% of Trin's GDP is from Trade - that's going to be a HEFTY amount of trade! But having 20% of the trade to divvy up with 10 planets gives a GM a way to gauge who the trading partners should be and why.

If one uses the trade model in GURPS FAR TRADER - the sum of all of the trade between individual pairings is greater than the whole of any given world's GDP

Point is however, that by being able to estimate trade, one can then begin to estimate the shipping required to service that trade. If you have that, and you have the number of hulls that have to be maintenance - the left over capacity of a shipyard AFTER accounting for maintenance - will let people determine how much "production" in new ship hulls any given Shipyard/starport engages in.

Just a thought. I don't need a more functional trade example per se - I tried computerizing the trade system from GURPS TRAVELLER: FAR TRADER and came away with the conclusion that if there is more than enough freight/cargo being produced available for tramp freighters, there is almost zero reason for the tramp freighter's hold to be empty or even partially empty. A world like Lunion would permit cargo capacity to almost 98% if the person is careful enough in bidding for freight lots.

I'm not certain I like the T5 version or any other version to be honest with you, but then again, I'm finicky that way.

 

[CliffBates]

This is a very good idea. I strongly concur.

Just to throw a curveball in "concepts" here...

One thing I always wondered at an operational/strategic level was this:

How do Starports figure into this when having to deal with the following:

Commercial Ship maintenance
Commercial ship building program
Warship maintenance
Warship Building program

Then came the issue of "how many dTons of hull are required to transport freight/cargo throughout the Traveller Sector?"

If you think about it, ships are sort of like people in a demographical sense in that ships are born, live out their lives, and then die (Metaphorically speaking). They're built, are used for a purpose, and then eventually are either destroyed or scrapped when no longer useful.

So, how many ships are there in any given sector? Traveller after all of these years, has NEVER once answered that question. Presumably, because that is the domain of the GM right? But until GURPS TRAVELLER: FAR TRADER came out, we didn't even have a way of determining how many dTons of freight/cargo were being shipped from one location to another...

Now imagine this if you will...

Each 2 week period of maintenance ties up 2 weeks worth of ship production capacity at a ship yard. A 200 dton ship being maintained by the starport crew means that crew (and facility!) is not producing any construction towards a new ship. So, for example, fifty 200 dton hulls being put into maintenance, counts as utilizing 200 dton's worth of ship construction facilities for 1 year.

Then you need to break a ship down. What kind of sophant (almost said human here!) resources are required to do that?

Then you need new hulls to replace those hulls lost due to damage, accident, old age, or hostile action.

In the end - there has to be SOME way of being able to run a simulation where the key to how much activity can occur, is based upon the Star Port itself, the population that runs it (from the rules on how much capacity a star port has) and how they all interact with each other.

Tramp freighters go where they will without any real "rhyme nor reason". Imagine a GM telling a player who is the captain of a tramp freighter "Um, at present, maintenance resources are booked solid until two months from now. Why not try that Class B starport in the next system, they might have some openings available?"

GURPS TRAVELLER STARSHIPS had an interesting rule that I rather liked. It stated that Class A and B starports could conduct maintenance in the standard 2 weeks. Class C or less starports took longer, and where there were no official star port facilities (such as a class X starport), the crew could conduct its own maintenance provided they had the spare parts already purchased and in the ship's hold.

THESE kind of rules are the kinds I wish had been laid down when TRAVELLER first came into being. Even if no one wanted to flesh out a Sector's worth of information to this level, I wish that the rules allowing GMs who wanted to do that, existed from the getgo. I know I would have gone through the effort to make that kind of detail available for myself for my Traveller games. This way, I could have customized the ship encounters for each star system based upon trade conditions. I would have customized my own "earnings schedule" for merchant ships based on the idea that if a ship can't make a "living" (Ie survive!) running freight to system Alpha because there wasn't enough cargo/freight to make it worth the standard fee of 1,000 credits per dTon - then, in order for a ship to survive going there, it might have to charge 4,000 credits per Dton to deliver to there and to take shipments out from there.

Do the math. If you have laser rifles that cost 100 credits per, and you can ship 100 units per dTon - the cost increase for the laser rifle (when you include the shipping cost) at 1,000 credits per Dton, makes each individual Rifle cost a further 100 credits (initial cost of the unit) plus 1000/100 or 10 credits. A laser rifle that costs 110 credits after accounting for shipping costs isn't TOO far from one that costs 140 credits due to the increased cost for shipping.

So - we need rules for freight generation based upon a world's infrastructure and tech level and population. If that world is a net importer, we need for the rules to show how much extra it will try and import. We need rules for variable income based upon conditions at any given world. GURPS FAR TRADER introduced the concept where a captain could bid upon freight lots, and have a standard going rate at that star system. THAT is simple enough to implement in any Traveller simulation.

In all, POCKET EMPIRES (and it seems that T5 benefitted from some of those concepts) plus GURPS FAR TRADER plus some of the maintenance rules elsewhere - would (in my opinion) be worth compiling into a single set of rules for use with maintaining a Traveller Universe. There probably wouldn't be a HIGH demand for such a product, which is why it might never see the light of day. On the other hand, someone such as myself willing to take rules from multiple sources and building a hybrid set of rules for my own use is a viable undertaking. It might even be worth turning into its own thread where people propose their own ideas, or build upon what is in the thread, to propose ways of making the rules mesh together in a coherent whole.

Just a thought.

 

[coliver988]

This is a very good idea. I strongly concur.

As do I. I wrote a trade program (probably still hanging around in the files section; also gave the source code to someone else and I believe he furthered it) that took into account a lot of the Far Trader stuff and automated chunks of it. I liked the idea of knowing that generally x tons of cargo were bound for planet A every 2 weeks. Gave an idea of the interconnectedness of it all. As well as potential plot lines.

I can see a relatively small supplement handling this. Far Trader was...a bit intense. But very useful in an operational point of view. Well worth reading if just for the chrome and not all the accounting as well.

(Hopefully a deal is going through to get the GURPS Traveller stuff on CD - that stuff is well worth reading and I never played GURPS Traveller. Just used the chrome and ideas in there)

 

[CliffBates]

Given that commerce raiding and disrupting the ability of the opposing side to economically support the war effort is very much tied to how to fight a war, I hope such issues will be taken into account if and when we go with such a game run.

Who really would like to join in? I would...

 

[CliffBates]

As do I. I wrote a trade program (probably still hanging around in the files section; also gave the source code to someone else and I believe he furthered it) that took into account a lot of the Far Trader stuff and automated chunks of it. I liked the idea of knowing that generally x tons of cargo were bound for planet A every 2 weeks. Gave an idea of the interconnectedness of it all. As well as potential plot lines.

I can see a relatively small supplement handling this. Far Trader was...a bit intense. But very useful in an operational point of view. Well worth reading if just for the chrome and not all the accounting as well.

(Hopefully a deal is going through to get the GURPS Traveller stuff on CD - that stuff is well worth reading and I never played GURPS Traveller. Just used the chrome and ideas in there)

This would be very interesting. What kind of code program? Would it work on java?

 

[Ulsyus]

(shrug) no, not a house-rule variant of hg, rather a stub combat system. the point was to study the effects of jump itself rather than any particular combat system. that's why I named the thread "jump".

My original concept was based around what happens inside a star system. Of course, it depends on what your definition of OPERATIONAL is, which is shaped by the extent of the conflict.

It was the movement of vessels inside a system during a conflict that is interesting. The whole things of course does sit within a greater strategic concept. If there's several other systems to be taken, then attrition/losses taken in one system can have a significant effect on the subsequent phases of a campaign. Whether a gas giant is taken or not would clearly be a decision point on one of a commanders lines of operation (LOO - a staff planning tool). So failure to take it wouldn't end an operation but drive branches on the LOO leading to alternative tactical ops.

A great example of that is the siege of Jewell in the 5FW. The Joes attacked, failed to take the system, so left a covering force and barreled on elsewhere through the sector.

 

[Ulsyus]

Just to throw a curveball in "concepts" here...

One thing I always wondered at an operational/strategic level was this:

How do Starports figure into this when having to deal with the following:

Commercial Ship maintenance
Commercial ship building program
Warship maintenance
Warship Building program

Great ideas for a strategic game, but the time of each turn would be a limiting factor.

At an operational level the logistical issues could come down to a few basis classes of supply: food, fuel, ammunition. Support considerations like battlespace recovery and medical would be important in a campaign, so could be modeled as they would take the game away from a purely tactical shooting match.

If an attacking force was beaten off by a defender but couldn't recover their damaged hulls, then they're going to be much worse off later on. The first RW example that springs to mind is the recovery of mobility-killed tank hulls in WW2. When Axis forces failed to retain the field at the end of a conflict it was more damaging to them than for the Allies due to their lesser industrial output, which shaped later decisions on where to defend and with what. So the strategic and the tactical both had an impact on that bit in the middle - the operational.

An operational game should be playable by itself, or be a setting for tactical encounters methinks.

 

[Ulsyus]

Since an invading force can find fuel from comets then the out system 'box' becomes free refuelling for anyone. The recent data from Pluto shows it could be used as a refuelling point.

That's when time limits for offensives could drive those sorts of decisions. If they're going to refuel in the outer system and not jump further in, how long's it going to take them to get in? What options does that give the defender to redeploy defensive elements? What time constraints does the attacker have - how long would it take relief forces to arrive? All things that take away absolute freedom of action from the attacker and force them into harsh decision making...

 

[mike wightman]

Jump to the outsystem and then refuel.

If your ships have fuel enough for jump 2 they can jump insystem with enough fuel to jump outsystem to refuel again if necessary.

If your ships have tanks enough for jump 3 then they have even more tactical flexibility within the system.

 

[whartung]

That's when time limits for offensives could drive those sorts of decisions. If they're going to refuel in the outer system and not jump further in, how long's it going to take them to get in? What options does that give the defender to redeploy defensive elements? What time constraints does the attacker have - how long would it take relief forces to arrive? All things that take away absolute freedom of action from the attacker and force them into harsh decision making...

With jump scatter, the defenders are going to either have "no time" to respond, or lots of time to respond.

With a single ship intruder, the ship arrives when it arrives, and it's operational immediately.

With more than one ship, if the encroaching fleet cares about cohesiveness, the defender may have up to 32 hrs to respond as the rest of the attacking fleet arrives, as it's basically folly to attack with an unassembled fleet.

The ramification of that is basically that an encroaching fleet will want to arrive "32 hours from anything" in order to help ensure that the fleet arrives unmolested. It can start the attack earlier than that, of course, if the fleet assembles early, but the assembly point would by necessity need to be 32 hours of maneuver away from any anticipated defender.

Experience may well shorten that window (20 hours, say, playing averages).

But, save for a lone raider jumping in at that 100D mark, there's not much "tactical" surprise. Everyone knows mostly where everyone is for some time and has a reasonable chance to react and assemble to meet it.

The key point, though, is that all of this will take place well within the "2 week" strategic response window. Dumb luck or clever foresight can help here, where your reinforcement fleet just happens to be arriving after the attacking fleet is arriving, but in the strategic picture -- whatever is in the system, is what you have to deal with the threat, there's not much you can do to respond to it, and the attacking fleet can do quite a bit of damage in the 2 weeks it has available if left unopposed.

Also, for most systems, particularly the generic "1 home world in solar orbit, 1 gas giant" systems, any defenders at one point (planet or gas giant) can not respond in time to a threat to the other, even given the 32 hr window.

As I've mentioned before, I don't consider movement at the system level to be a particularly interesting problem in most cases, because of these issues and the issue of not being able to stop the attacker from advancing to their target no matter what. Better to attack them when they're decelerating on to their target, when they're the most vulnerable.

 

[Ulsyus]

Even if an aggressor has an overwhelming advantage over a defender, what's their first option for refueling? Would it be the gas giant where scooping is straightforward (relatively) or would they go for searching for mountains of ice in an asteroid/Kuiper belt? Which would be technically easier? Which would be faster?

 

[flykiller]

their first option for refueling is whatever results in the least casualties. usually.

the gas giant

there may be more than one. and other planets may have some kind of oceans. and some systems will have one rockball world and nothing else, and you gotta go get it.

would they go for searching for mountains of ice in an asteroid/Kuiper belt?

those will be few and far between, and when found may turn out to consist mostly of nitrogen, gravel, and dust.

 

[aramis]

those will be few and far between, and when found may turn out to consist mostly of nitrogen, gravel, and dust.

Funny, but the compositions being noted are mostly methane and ammonia... with some gravel, rock, and ice... and it's canonical that the icy ones can be used for refueling. KBO's are mostly comets. Lots of ices - Water, Ammonia, Methane.

 

[pendragonman]

Funny, but the compositions being noted are mostly methane and ammonia... with some gravel, rock, and ice... and it's canonical that the icy ones can be used for refueling. KBO's are mostly comets. Lots of ices - Water, Ammonia, Methane.

Plenty of Hydrogen in methane and ammonia.

 

[aramis]

Plenty of Hydrogen in methane and ammonia.

That was, essentially the point...

 

[flykiller]

ok, points noted ....

http://www.universetoday.com/32522/oort-cloud/

hm. the innermost edge is about 3500 au out.

 

[aramis]

ok, points noted ....

http://www.universetoday.com/32522/oort-cloud/

hm. the innermost edge is about 3500 au out.

Times 8.3 LM, divided by 60 is 484 hours. which is some 20 days. And that's not the figure I've seen used more commonly; which is about 5000 AU.

 

[flykiller]

I saw several ranges, I picked the average.

well. in my in-system game it was stupid of me to call the off-map region the oort cloud. I'll have to call it the outer system (back to book ... what, 2?) and it has nothing.

 

[aramis]

I saw several ranges, I picked the average.

well. in my in-system game it was stupid of me to call the off-map region the oort cloud. I'll have to call it the outer system (back to book ... what, 2?) and it has nothing.

Far Kuiper... it runs to a couple thousand AU.

 

[kilemall]

TCS defines a lot of this sort of thing- fueling by starport class, shipyard capacity, revenue (assumed 500 Cr per capita against local currency value) - the last two modified by population and government type and whether they are at peace or at war.