When were Black Globes found?

[rancke]

1020 Discovery. A cache of "more than 2,000" ancient Factor-4 black globe generators are discovered on Knorbes (A12 pp14-15), followed promptly by the Kokirrak class being designed to take advantage of the cache (S9 pp19,32,42). Kokirrak development is slipped into the budget and production schedule along with post-Rim War refits et al. Perhaps half of these black globes are still functional (S9 p42); thus, 300,000 years is a rough shelf-half-life for the technology (estimated around TL18 to 21).

FS:42 does not say that half the globes installed in the Kokirraks were non-functioning. What would be the sense of installing non-functional globes? What would be the sense of building ships for the purpose of installing non-functioning globes? What is says is that in 1107 any random Kokirrak has a 50% chance of its BGG having ceased to work in the years since they were first installed. (As Bill and I have suggested, this is probably due to some sort of mishandling; I see no reason to suppose that they didn't all work originally).

How did you arrive at the estimate of the TL?

1030 First Flight. All Kokirraks receive one of these BGGs -- approximately 800 ships (5FW p19). The Kokirraks fly for the next several decades and begin to leave service after the turn of the new century due to globe failures (S9, p??). By 1100 or so, 50% of them have operational BGGs.

I've mislaid my FFW booklet. Could you quote the passage, please?

I've also mislaid my TCS. Can someone please tell me how long it takes to build a 200,000T ship?

The Kokirraks are not being phased out because of globe failures. If they were, there wouldn't be a 50% chance that a random one had a non-functioning generator (Unless, of course, they all failed at roughly the same time. Maybe just after the warranty expired? ). Presumbly they're being phased out because they're reaching the end of their service life. After all, they are one of the older classes of dreadnaughts in Imperial service.

1060 Prototypes. Operational data from the Kokirrak globes combines with painstaking research; somewhere around 1060, someone manages to build an experimental Factor-1, then a second... The navy orders 25 prototypes as a test, and designs the Kinunir-class "frontier cruisers" as a financial dodge; the money boys are not told the tonnage.

1070 Deployment. Approvals for the frontier cruiser hit around 1073, and they go into service in 1077 (A1). These new BGGs are inferior to the old ones, and the project is shelved (S5 p3).

Not quite how I imagine it. IMO the Kinunirs are best explained as a live field test.

1103 Second-Gen Deployment. The old BGGs from the cache which are still in service made a dent in the 4FW, so the project gets picked back up, and pushed for more for the impending 5FW, with a line finally starting serious production around 1103. Thus, a shortage of BGGs for the Lightning-class cruisers is relieved by 1104 (S5 p3).

The black globes that some Azhanitis were refitted with are all built by Vlandian. (LCC, p. 5).


Hans

 

[robject]

FS:42 does not say that half the globes installed in the Kokirraks were non-functioning.

Modified: half the globes as of 1107 [...]

I've also mislaid my TCS. Can someone please tell me how long it takes to build a 200,000T ship?

Varies. What's the low end? 36 months, or less. 24 months, possibly?

Presumbly they're being phased out because they're reaching the end of their service life.

Yes, that's right. Modified.

The black globes that some Azhanitis were refitted with are all built by Vlandian. (LCC, p. 5).

What's LCC?

 

[robject]

Next Summary Iteration

1020 Discovery. A cache of "more than 2,000" ancient Factor-4 black globe generators, probably TL18, are discovered on Knorbes (A12 pp14-15), followed promptly by the Kokirrak class being designed to take advantage of the cache (S9 pp19,32,42). Kokirrak development is slipped into the budget and production schedule along with post-Rim War refits et al.

1030 First Flight. All Kokirraks receive one of these BGGs -- approximately 800 ships (5FW p19). The Kokirraks fly for the next several decades, with a service life extending thru the turn of the century.

1060 Prototypes. Operational data from the Kokirrak globes combines with painstaking research; somewhere around 1060, someone manages to build an experimental Factor-1, then a second... The navy orders 25 prototypes as a test, and designs the Kinunir-class "frontier cruisers" as a financial dodge; the money boys are not told the tonnage.

1070 Deployment. Approvals for the frontier cruiser hit around 1073, and they go into service in 1077 (A1). These new BGGs are inferior to the old ones, and the project is shelved (S5 p3).

1103 Second-Gen Deployment. The old BGGs from the cache which are still in service made a dent in the 4FW, so the project gets picked back up, and pushed for more for the impending 5FW, with a line finally starting serious production of Factor-1 BGGs around 1103 at Vlandian shipyards (S5 p5). Thus, a shortage of BGGs for the Lightning-class cruisers is relieved by 1104 (S5 p3).

1104 Kokirrak BGG Disposition. Half of the Kokirraks are still in service; of these, only half still have a functioning BGG by 1104 (S9 p42). Thus the operational half-life of the Ancient BGGs is appx 40 years.

 

[aramis]

thus, 300,000 years is a rough shelf-half-life for the technology (estimated around TL18 to 21).

No evidence of this. The find was of 2000+ working BGG's.

What it implies is that attrition in field use is a half life of 40-80 years. (especially since half the kokiraks are not in service by 1107, so only 1/4 of those mounted on kokiraks are still functioning on kokiraks.

Since it's obvious that globe failure isn't always catastrophic (combat failure tends to be, see CT Bk5), and that half the 1104 kokiraks have working BGGs, but all mounted one at commissioning, it implies that the halflife in service is 40 years, but the shelf-life exceeds 300000 years.

 

[rancke]

Varies. What's the low end? 36 months, or less. 24 months, possibly?

I thought there were rules for that in TCS?

What's LCC?

Lightning Class Cruisers. I find it easier to remember titles by initials than by 'S#' and 'A#' and 'DA#', so I tend to use initials as abbreviations.


Hans

 

[rancke]

1030 First Flight. All Kokirraks receive one of these BGGs -- approximately 800 ships (5FW p19).

Could you quote the passage, please? I assume it's only a few sentences, not a long screed.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Could you quote the passage, please? I assume it's only a few sentences, not a long screed.


Hans

Rob got the citation wrong, to boot...

Black Globe Generators: This class of dreadnaught, when originally designed and constructed, mounted black globe force field generators. Over the years, various ships have suffered black globe generator failures, and the devices have not been replaced. When encountered, there is approximately a 50% chance that the ship will mount a functioning black globe (factor-4).

 

[rancke]

Rob got the citation wrong, to boot...

I thought '5FW p19' referred to p. 19 of the rules booklet in the FFW boardgame. That's where Rob gets the figure of 800 Kokirraks, and I was wondering what the actual text said.


Hans

 

[robject]

Hans et al, regarding your questions: I extrapolated most of those data from Wil, and a bit probably from Bill, in this thread.

The 800 Kokirraks, for example, is from Wil and Bill doing some back-of-the-envelope calcs based on 5Fw.

The TL18-21 range, for example, is from Wil's notes about "typical" Ancient tech. IIRC though Factor-n represents TL14 + n, so they would be TL18 unless otherwise acted upon by an external, unbalancing, canonical force.

Now, if Wil is right, then only 50% of 50% of the original 800 Kokirraks have a functioning BGG in 1104. So the operational half-life appears to be a close enough to 40 years as to make no never-mind.

 

[Whipsnade]

Hans,

According to TCS, construction time for a 200,000 dTon vessel is 224 weeks.

Getting back to the four black globe squadrons in FFW. S:9 says the homeport of one Marches squadron of Kokirraks at Mora and Mora is not on the FFW map. Are you suggesting that, because Mora is off-map, the Kokirraks stationed there can only appear as reinforcements? That they cannot start on the map because their homeport is off the map?

If so, you'll have to explain why the Vargr forces and the Joyuese fleet start on the map.

Next...

The practices of a star navy with 20,000 combat vessels is perhaps not exactly analogous to the practices of a wet navy with a dozen major units.

Yet you're presuming analogous practices when you suggest that a few levels admirals are missing from the IN command structure. Where do you want to draw the line concerning what can be analogous and what cannot be analogous?

And I'm propounding the opinion that the norm for the Imperial Navy is to assign eight ships to squadrons. A norm that may not always be afhered to, but usually is. I've said absolutely nothing about how many of those eqight might be deployed at any particular time.

That's what I'm suggesting too. Eight vessels assigned doesn't automatically mean eight vessels deployed. We also know that squadrons are routinely broken up in order that divisions and even individual ships may be deployed.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

Now, if Wil is right, then only 50% of 50% of the original 800 Kokirraks have a functioning BGG in 1104. So the operational half-life appears to be a close enough to 40 years as to make no never-mind.

Robject,

No, that's not what Wil and I have been trying to say. Let me try again.

The Imperium finds 2,000+ working black globe generators on Knorbes and learns how to (somewhat) use them.

The Imperium builds approximately 800 Kokirrak-class dreadnoughts and mounts a working black globe generator in each and every one of those ships.

Time flows on on a greased groove.

By 1104, the Kokirraks, one of the oldest classes of dreadnoughts in the Imperium, are being phased out of service. S:9 states that "Within the last decade, several ships have been disposed of to other services such as the scouts, and to other governments, including sector navies and client-states in the Spinward border regions of the Imperium. Of the ships remaining in the service of the Imperial Navy, S:9 states that "When encountered, there is approximately a 50% chance that the ship will mount a functioning black globe".

So, our timeline looks like:

• The Imperium builds ~800 Kokis each with working black globe generators
• Decades pass.
• Ships get old and black globe generators begin to fail.
• In 1094, the Imperium begins phasing Kokis out of IN service.
• By 1104, half of those Kokis remaining in service have broken generators.

Hope that helps.


Regards,
Bill

 

[aramis]

I took 50% in service as a point where phaseout is likely; It has been the threshold for most classes in US and UK service. We have indicators that the halflife of a class is about 50-70 years in the pricing for used ships in various editions, and the Kokirraks served through a war already, as the preferred flag vessel (S09 FS). Further, while formal hostilities ceased in the Rim, the actual cold-war continues in 1105. One of the adventures mentions it.

 

[robject]

Right; so, 50% Kokirraks left in service = 400 ships. 50% of them have working BGGs = 200 globes (out of the original 800) still working.

Hence, these BGGs, for whatever reason, have an operational half-life of 40 years.

 

[Whipsnade]

Right; so, 50% Kokirraks left in service = 400 ships. 50% of them have working BGGs = 200 globes (out of the original 800) still working.

Robject,

Agreed.

Hence, these BGGs, for whatever reason, have an operational half-life of 40 years.

D'oh! That's what you were talking about! I am a moron more and more lately.

Agreed on the operational half-life angle. Remember though, the Imperium isn't using/operating them exactly like the Ancients would have. That's why the globes were still operational after 300,000 years buried on Knorbes and why they're also breaking down after a few decades aboard IN warships.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Kyron]

The navy orders 25 prototypes as a test, and designs the Kinunir-class "frontier cruisers" as a financial dodge; the money boys are not told the tonnage.

And now we know how a 1200dt ship becomes a battlecruiser... they're not told the tonnage... lmao

 

[robject]

Agreed on the operational half-life angle. Remember though, the Imperium isn't using/operating them exactly like the Ancients would have. That's why the globes were still operational after 300,000 years buried on Knorbes and why they're also breaking down after a few decades aboard IN warships.

Reasonable. I will omit commentary since I don't feel like going out on a limb for that one.

My new question: over 2,000 operational BGGs are found. Do you suppose this means it's possible that an unspecified number of non-operational BGGs were also in the cache?

Iteration Four, 10 Dec 2009

1020 Discovery. A cache of "more than 2,000" operational ancient Factor-4 black globe generators, are discovered on Knorbes (A12 pp14-15). This is followed shortly by the Kokirrak class being designed to take advantage of the cache (S9 pp19,32,42). Kokirrak development is slipped into the budget and production schedule along with post-Rim War refits et al. The presence or number of non-operational BGGs in the cache is not mentioned.

1030 First Flight. All Kokirraks receive one of these BGGs -- approximately 800 ships (extrapolated from 5FW p19). The Kokirraks fly for the next several decades, with a service life extending thru the turn of the century (reasonable assumption from Hans, Wil, Bill).

1060 Prototypes. Operational data from the Kokirrak globes combines with painstaking research; somewhere around 1060, someone manages to build an experimental Factor-1, then a second... The navy orders 25 prototypes as a test, and designs the Kinunir-class "frontier cruisers" as a financial dodge; the money boys are not told the tonnage.

1077 Deployment. Approvals for the frontier cruiser hit around 1073, and they go into service in 1077 (A1). These new BGGs are inferior to the old ones, and the project is shelved (S5 p3).

1103 Second-Gen Deployment. The old BGGs from the cache which are still in service made a dent in the 4FW, so the project gets picked back up, and pushed for more for the impending 5FW, with a line finally starting serious production of Factor-1 BGGs around 1103 at Vlandian shipyards (S5 p5). Thus, a shortage of BGGs for the Lightning-class cruisers is relieved by 1104 (S5 p3).

1104 Kokirrak BGG Disposition. Half of the Kokirraks are still in service; of these, only half still have a functioning BGG by 1104 (S9 p42). Thus the operational half-life of the Ancient BGGs (in this context) is 40 years.

 

[rancke]

According to TCS, construction time for a 200,000 dTon vessel is 224 weeks.

Thanks, Bill. That means it takes roughly 4 years (and 4 months) from the first ship is laid down to First Flight. I think six years is a little fast to figure out how to control the generators reliably and get a new ship class proposed, approved and designed. I'd suggest that 1030 is the date for laying down the first ships and 1034 is the date for First Flight.

Getting back to the four black globe squadrons in FFW. S:9 says the homeport of one Marches squadron of Kokirraks at Mora and Mora is not on the FFW map. Are you suggesting that, because Mora is off-map, the Kokirraks stationed there can only appear as reinforcements? That they cannot start on the map because their homeport is off the map?

That's exactly what I'm suggesting. Except that three of them are homeported on the map. Just not the fourth.

If so, you'll have to explain why the Vargr forces and the Joyuese fleet start on the map.

Nothing simpler. The Vargr and Zhodani open the ball by invading the area covered by the map. The Imperial player don't get to react preemptively. Thus Mora's Kokirrak squadron by all logic ought to be at Mora when the game starts. (And another should be broken up and spread all over the map, thus for game purposes counting as a reinforcement (because the individual BatDivs have to join up before they become a functioning squadron)).

(Just for the record: I'm pretty sure the four squadrons with BGGs are supposed to be Kokirraks. I'm just saying that I think the game designer who put in those four counters didn't think it through.)

The practices of a star navy with 20,000 combat vessels is perhaps not exactly analogous to the practices of a wet navy with a dozen major units.

Yet you're presuming analogous practices when you suggest that a few levels admirals are missing from the IN command structure. Where do you want to draw the line concerning what can be analogous and what cannot be analogous?

When the analogy is sound, of course. To take the case of the missing ranks, I compared the size of the slice of the Imperial Navy needed to support the IN in a single subsector (which I guesstimate to be of the same order of magnitude as the entire US Navy) with the US Navy[*]. That is, comparing two similarly sized outfits. Whereas here you are comparing the US Navy (or was it the Royal Navy?) with the entire Imperial Navy, which is 300 times bigger than a single fleet.

[*] Incidentally, I've since realized that the TRUE reason why the IN would have rear admirals and vice admirals and admirals would be that the various armies with which it interacts have major generals and lieutenant generals and generals, and I just don't believe the IN would accept having their Fleet Admirals be mere two-stars when the general of a mere system force is a four-star. Not that I don't also think that the IN can easily find billets for two- three- and four-star admirals, but I now think that it's moot, because if the IN didn't have the imagination to come up with suitable positions, it would just not appoint any two-, three-, and four-star admirals and simply make their fleet admirals five-stars.​

That's what I'm suggesting too. Eight vessels assigned doesn't automatically mean eight vessels deployed. We also know that squadrons are routinely broken up in order that divisions and even individual ships may be deployed.

I agree, but I can't recall anything I've said that contradicts this.


Han

 

[rancke]

The Imperium finds 2,000+ working black globe generators on Knorbes and learns how to (somewhat) use them.

The Imperium builds approximately 800 Kokirrak-class dreadnoughts and mounts a working black globe generator in each and every one of those ships.

How did you arrive at 800 instead of, say, 1600? I've tried going back through your posts, but I can't spot it.

If the ratio of Kokirrak squadrons to fleets is roughly the same in the rest of the Imperium as in the Marches (not necessarily the case, I know), then there should be 960 (give or take) of them left in 1105.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Reasonable. I will omit commentary since I don't feel like going out on a limb for that one.

My new question: over 2,000 operational BGGs are found. Do you suppose this means it's possible that an unspecified number of non-operational BGGs were also in the cache?

Probably. I doubt, however, it was in significant numbers; those would have been torn apart for comprehension of the tech if they existed in significant numbers.

I concur with Bill on the reasons for the failures.

Iteration Four, 10 Dec 2009
[...]
1030 First Flight. All Kokirraks receive one of these BGGs -- approximately 800 ships (extrapolated from 5FW p19). The Kokirraks fly for the next several decades, with a service life extending thru the turn of the century (reasonable assumption from Hans, Wil, Bill).
[...]
1104 Kokirrak BGG Disposition. Half of the Kokirraks are still in service; of these, only half still have a functioning BGG by 1104 (S9 p42). Thus the operational half-life of the Ancient BGGs (in this context) is 40 years.

Suggested corrections: add delete

1030 First Flight. All Kokirraks receive one of these BGGs (S9 p42)-- approximately 800 ships (extrapolated from 5FW p19). The Kokirraks fly for the next several decades, with a service life extending thru the turn of the century (reasonable assumption from Hans, Wil, Bill S9 p42 ).

1104 Kokirrak BGG Disposition. Half of the Kokirraks are still in service (reasonable assumption by Wil, Bill ); of these, only half still have a functioning BGG by 1104 (S9 p42). Thus the operational half-life of the Ancient BGGs (in this context) is 40 years.​

 

[Whipsnade]

Nothing simpler. The Vargr and Zhodani open the ball by invading the area covered by the map.

Hans,

That's undoubtedly true. The Vargr and Zhodani do begin the war by invading the Imperium. Of course there have been months of tensions leading up to that invasion.

The Imperial player don't get to react preemptively.

The Imperium hasn't reacted in various preemptive ways to rising tensions in the Marches? No pre-war reinforcement of the counter-insurgency effort on Efate for example?

Thus Mora's Kokirrak squadron by all logic ought to be at Mora when the game starts.

Thus the bulk of the US Pacific Fleet by all logic should have been in San Diego, it's homeport, on December 7th, 1941 instead of being deployed forward to Pearl Harbor due to rising tensions between the United States of American and the Empire of Japan when that war started. Right?

There's a wholly plausible and historically supported reason for the Mora squadron of Kokirraks to be on the "map" so to speak.

When the analogy is sound, of course.

For the record, I think the both the flag officer and "deployed due to rising tensions" analogies happen to be sound.

Almost forgot. The 800 number was derived from various passages in the FFW booklet. Wil can discuss them in greater detail.


Regards,
Bill