Rejected Submission [Submission Rules] Armament Limitations

[FrostJaeger]

• Submission Type: Submission Rules Addendum
• Submission URL: Linky
• Faction: N/A
• FM Approved Yet? No, @Wes

• Faction requires art: Nope.
• Contains unapproved sub-articles? Nope.
• Contains new art? Nope.
• Previously submitted? Nope, though it contains elements from this and this.

Well, here you have it, ladies and/or gentlemen. The expanded, fleshed-out, more-thoroughly-explained (no offense @Fred) replacement/re-installment/I don't even know because I typed this up at 4 in the morning for DRv3's weapon limitations.

I'd like to thank @Arbitrated, @META_mahn, @Talarn, and the rest of the SARPChat Discord server for acting as reviewers/moral support/editors/etc. and @Fred for creating the basis of the system in the first place, but, uh, yeah, that's pretty much all I have to say due to being really, really tired at the time of writing.

As before, would @Wes, @Doshii Jun, @Fred, @Ametheliana, and @CadetNewb (plus anyone else who has constructive criticism) mind looking at this thing (or a derivative of it, anyways) one more time?

Also, one other minor request @Wes: Would you lock and/or move the original thread to the "Rejected or Abandoned Submissions" sub-forum, please? In my opinion, this submission kind of, uh, supersedes the older one in terms of purpose and scope.

P.S.: @Zack My apologies for not replying to the 4th Elysian Empire submission in a more timely fashion; I'll be doing so tomorrow - and it's something I'll do my best to be more "on top of" in the future.

 

[Syaoran]

That isn't the logic you want to use. You're doing the equivalent of saying "Well you can have barriers to help deal with shields, so there's no reason to worry about someone firing 50 guns at one target all at once." Missiles are a weapon, just like guns are a weapon. Why is it that there is concerns about how many beams or how much lead you can throw at one thing at once without it being OP or in need of regulation, but there are no concerns over missiles? There are anti beam measures that can disrupt beams, and there are measures that can disrupt solid projectiles, like super heated energy curtains. Missiles are the only thing that can be intercepted, just on the site we don't have much(or maybe even anything) that directly says "Intercepts beams" or "Intercepts bullets", and it's a bit harder to do it with direct fire weapons.

Missiles are not a 'special' weapon, they are a -different- weapon. Yes they need some different concerns, but they're not magically more disadvantaged than other weapons, so while maybe they might have different rules to keep the weapons able to compete, they need to be measured with the same scrutiny.

 

[CadetNewb]

I'm sorry, but I'm actually not entirely sure what your concern is Syaoran.

The comparison between missiles and guns that you made isn't a very good one since, as you pointed out, missiles are a different weapon. One with different advantages, disadvantages and countermeasures. With the 50 guns at one target example, it's impractical for a PA to sport that many of them, while it can be practical with missiles. At the same time, the missiles have other disadvantages which offset this, such as being limited in number and vulnerable to very cheap and already present interception systems. Yes, there is concern about missiles being too much, but as I pointed out, I also believe that a lot of people have very simply forgotten a lot of the tools that are in the setting. Rather than making new rules and such, what I am suggesting is that we use what's already there to counter-balance any possible excess with one system or another.

That is, I'm suggesting we more clearly define how missiles behave and interact with other things in the setting, rather than just slapping on a bunch of numbers and rules. It will feel more natural and intuitive this way, especially since all the tools we need are right there in roleplay already.

 

[Navian]

Missiles come in many varieties. The most typical missiles are low-tech, high cost, a weapon to use as a surprise tactic (hoping their point defenses aren't ready) or as a desperation tactic (hoping to overwhelm a target, even though the cost of the missiles that get shot down exceeds the cost of entire ships). Both of these tactics are likely to be preferred by factions that have a severe technological disadvantage.

The second is as a killing blow against a target that's been made vulnerable because its systems are off-line and no one else's point defense is defending it. This is useful to all factions, and those with a technological advantage can use this on stronger opponents, since they have more ways to use shock and awe to disable, divide and conquer, or use blitz tactics on foes.

Still, in both these examples the attacker needs to have an advantage before the missiles are relevant. They're not a means to gain an advantage or to win a battle on their own, while energy weapons can do that. These are similar to the two types of missiles Zack outlined but the categories are more broad.

I don't think we're worried about less common types of missiles, we're worried about people trying to use missiles as an opening move even when they don't have an advantage. When this happens it's reasonable to have most of them get shot down, and the ship that fired them, now having disarmed itself, to be entirely at the mercy of its opponents. We just don't want this tactic to work in most situations, so we'll reserve it for special cases. ...That's the only rule we need for it, explaining why is just fluff.

 

[Syaoran]

The point of a ruling against missiles isn't to stop missiles from working. It's to make it against the rules to simply go "I'm going to put on enough stuff that it simply is too much for any reasonable defense system." For instance, the 50 guns example. Yeah carrying 50 guns in PA isn't gonna happen. But two of the launches I linked earlier can sigh out nearly 50 missiles rather easily. If we have no fire rate restrictions or other limits on missile spam, you want to tell me how any PA or Mech tools we currently have are going to deal with that? Or a star ship within a kilometer firing off like around 200 missiles. You say use what we already have, but what we already have, but what we already have can't actually deal with missile -spam-. There's a difference between firing off a large salvo, and just spamming missiles.

The problem with relying on in canon technology to curb a meta problem in an expanding universe with user submissions is there is always a way around it. For instance, having trouble with anti missile lasers shooting down your missiles? Let's just throw in some early detonating missiles that explode into beam diffusion chaff or something similar, then simply more Dakka, and you're back to the problem. And yes those kinds of missiles exist in the setting, I've used them. Something similar could be done with bullets and gravity systems to help repel matter and weaken the bullet's impact so they're not shot down as easy.

 

[Navian]

The only way to have enough missiles to be guaranteed to hit is to have more missiles than the total number of shots all the target's point defense weapons combined can fire. This is infeasible. Each point defense laser can potentially fire hundreds of shots at incoming. Usually most will miss, but it depends on the situation--more incoming missiles means more will be hit! If a launch fired enough missiles to overwhelm a point defense gun entirely, the missiles would have to be so small they'd bounce off its hull like raindrops.

The only situation where you can expect an alpha strike of missiles to be able to overwhelm a warship that's ready for battle---as their opening move--is when the defending warship is outmassed by the fleet of missile boats by some big multiple... and if that's the case, it would have been cheaper to send a smaller number of more conventional warships to do the same job, so it's not a problem. (This is assuming that the balance remains the same regardless of tech level, which isn't strictly true, but I don't want to add that dimension into it right now.)

Another way of putting it is, if this were a real problem missiles would be the dominant weapon in the setting. They're not. Therefore missiles can't do this, because point defenses work sufficiently well that missile-heavy designs are forced out of the main battle line and into niche roles. We should be reserving them for those niche roles--torpedo bombers, artillery support, shock weapons. Any missile cruiser design should be assumed not to be able to defend a comparable warship that is not a missile cruiser in a straight-up fight, as a rule. That's all we need to do.

 

[Ametheliana]

I feel like it has to be said too often than not: Do not bring up points that do not directly have to do with a submission and its contents. You're starting side conversations that can have their own threads if need be, but they don't really need to be in this thread. What needs to be here is constructive commentary (I think Frost even said this in the OP) about what could make this better.

So far I haven't heard exactly what makes this submission bad, just that some people don't want it or have their own ideas for submissions.

 

[Syaoran]

The only way to have enough missiles to be guaranteed to hit is to have more missiles than the total number of shots all the target's point defense weapons combined can fire. This is infeasible. Each point defense laser can potentially fire hundreds of shots at incoming. Usually most will miss, but it depends on the situation--more incoming missiles means more will be hit! If a launch fired enough missiles to overwhelm a point defense gun entirely, the missiles would have to be so small they'd bounce off its hull like raindrops.

The only situation where you can expect an alpha strike of missiles to be able to overwhelm a warship that's ready for battle---as their opening move--is when the defending warship is outmassed by the fleet of missile boats by some big multiple... and if that's the case, it would have been cheaper to send a smaller number of more conventional warships to do the same job, so it's not a problem. (This is assuming that the balance remains the same regardless of tech level, which isn't strictly true, but I don't want to add that dimension into it right now.)

Another way of putting it is, if this were a real problem missiles would be the dominant weapon in the setting. They're not. Therefore missiles can't do this, because point defenses work sufficiently well that missile-heavy designs are forced out of the main battle line and into niche roles. We should be reserving them for those niche roles--torpedo bombers, artillery support, shock weapons. Any missile cruiser design should be assumed not to be able to defend a comparable warship that is not a missile cruiser in a straight-up fight, as a rule. That's all we need to do.

You are aware that missiles -were- a problem previously on the site and that steps were done to actually prevent Alpha strikes form being so strong? Or as it's commonly been called "Macross attacks". You also totally glanced over the fact that point defense can be bypassed in total with other tech. Are you going to limit anti-anti-tech? Also point defense work sufficiently because there has been nothing in the setting as of late that is a missile spammer, but there is literally a ship on the approval block that is just that. Another factor was DR targeting restrictions. As in you could only send so much DR a single target's direction, and missile vague counting for how many count as a 'shot' made it difficult to spam. You can't rely on someone making something 'reasonable' and basing whether or not you need a ruling on that. You assume the unreasonable will happen, but you make a rule that doesn't effect the reasonable and only the unreasonable.


The way I see it there are a few things that are important that need to be solved in relation to 'ship creation' that make me think some set of rules or guidelines are needed, and not just a loose or vague persuasive wording.

• A standard for what is 'too much' in concern to weapons, so that the mods can have something to show when they're called bias for rejecting someone's submission, and it's not left up to mod opinion
• A method to prevent people from simply overpowering defensive countermeasures with raw power/numbers consistently. This doesn't mean they're unbeatable. It just means that you shouldn't be able to win a neutral or disadvantaged situation by simply going "I'll just fire everything"
• What counts as an individual 'weapon' (This is mostly for missiles, but it can also get tricky depending on how you look at point defense systems, since an anti-missile gun that is only on one side of your ship isn't very reliable)

Frost's system hits on these points for the most part. Not perfectly, but it hits on them, rather than ignoring them. It's also not really that hard of a system and people say that it'll effect roleplay, but it wont at all. Unless you're making a tech submission wiki article through role play it wont effect that. What it'll effect is the thought you put into designing articles. Could the numbers use some adjustments, sure, but I don't know the numbers that would for sure be 'better'. I do feel 8 weapons is a little low for War-grade star ships. There is the possibility of making the number of weapons restricted to the class, or DR of the ship, but then that would require us to create standards for what something must do to fit into certain categories so someone doesn't just claim their ship is the max size so they can get the most weapons.

 

[Navian]

The setting balance doesn't change in favour of missiles because someone designed a ship, it changes if we decide we want it to change. Until then, any attempt to do it without a consensus should fail. SARP isn't a war game, the whole reason we design ships at all is so that we can use them to reenact sci-fi battles for fun. I haven't seen Macross, but I'm aware that the main characters, at least, routinely survived the series' famous missile barrages.

If missile spam tactics were a problem on the site previously, it's only because we allowed them to be--probably because when people argued they should work or tried to explain how they would, we listened to them, even though we don't want them to work. That's not a difficult problem to solve, it's as simple as flatly refusing.

The DR rules make it harder because people assume that allowing someone to use weapons implies allowing those weapons to work. The solution there is to not do that--we don't want missiles to dominate the setting, right? If someone is worried about their design being ineffective when used in a standard role, they can tweak it to be more like the designs we've established as successful, already.

When someone comes up with an unreasonable design, you don't go 'oh no, this is too good', you go 'this is an oddball and it's going to perform like one, was that your intention?'

I could say this so many other ways... We just don't need to let this become a problem.

I don't know about missiles that can bypass point defense, though energy weapons clearly can. We already had a discussion about how hyperspace weapons are forbidden. I don't see how else you can do it except by sending a weapon through another dimension, and even then, that just means the defending ship needs to be able to defend in that other dimension. Sending missiles in faster makes them harder to stop, but it just makes it harder, it doesn't make it impossible. And it becomes harder to send them in at extreme speeds, so it doesn't work as well for massive missile spam, it's better for sneak attacks.

Some guidelines are needed, and they shouldn't be vague. I'm not suggesting vague guidelines, I'm suggesting detailed faction-specific guidelines. I just don't think they should be focused on numbers.

For your three points, this system doesn't satisfy the first one right now because there's still ways around the restrictions. I think we need to stop people from trying to find ways around them, because there are just so many that it'll take forever to rule them all out. After I wrote my suggestions for what a table of 'virtual tier' modifications to different weapons might look like, immediately after I was done--even though I'd already suggested covering more than twice as many possibilities as we did already--I came up with several more, and that was without trying to think of more. Other people are going to be thinking of them.

I still don't see why the second point you listed even applies--why did we ever have an issue where people could fight their way out from a disadvantage by saying 'I fire everything'? Weapons are less effective the less advantageous your position is, this is basic. Firing everything when you're at a disadvantage is a waste of firepower, and if it has any effect, it's probably psychological--or just up to luck, which is the GM's prerogative. Have we been forgetting this due to overreliance on the rigid combat system we used to have?

Without addressing the first point in more detail, the third one as a 'fix' is really just a mirage. Even once you get everything in line about the 'number of weapons', you still need to sort out the value of them. Accuracy, rate of fire, special abilities, range, and the ability to bypass defenses are just some of the factors aside from all those the we've already covered that can make 1000 weapons less dangerous than 1, even with the same DR. When you knock one down, there'll be another and another. It won't go on forever, but it'll take months to sort out, and once we're done we'll have a game system. Only, instead of designing it as a simplified gaming abstraction we'll have designed it to permit creative ship designs, so it'll be more extravagant than the ones RPG companies put tens of thousands of dollars into developing.

I would much rather we focused on explaining what we want writers to do than on creating rules for what they can and can't do! There's my bottom line. If we can't agree on this, I have no more business helping with this submission.

 

[Syaoran]

I have to get to bed now, so I didn't have time to read all that just now I'll read the rest in the morning, but for the first half, Navian, all what you said works, if only 1 person is in charge of it all. When there are multiple people you get accusations for bias is there is no standard. Same with how effective weapons are, if you have a 'PvP' plot, that's a cross over between two plots, how do you decide which GMs ruling is right on the effectiveness of something? The problem comes in that each person has their own ideas of what is 'wrong' and 'right'. If it were something that could simply be solved by everyone going on their own opinion, the very concept of rules in human society wouldn't exist. Rules and/or guidelines are there to set a standard for judging what is 'odd' or 'extreme' or how effective something should be or whatever, so that the answer someone gets doesn't depend on who they ask and how they're feeling.

 

[Navian]

I answered this already when Fred asked me about it: https://stararmy.com/roleplay-forum...armament-limitations.55186/page-2#post-340558

And again in the next post, since he apparently still didn't get it: https://stararmy.com/roleplay-forum...armament-limitations.55186/page-2#post-340573

I'm not sure if I need to give you a full article example before I can get the idea across, or what. My suggestion is explicitly to create not just a standard, but an organized set of standards for each faction, describing how each faction designs its ships in general and what roles it needs filled, and at the lowest level, what new ship designs need in order to fill those roles, and what ships in those roles can be expected to do. After we've done this, the only time we'll ever see a missile cruiser is when we're designing a missile cruiser to be a missile cruiser--problem solved!

It looks like you're just telling me about problems I've already provided the answer to--in this thread. I have explained how we avoid the problem of accusations of bias and differences in subjective opinions--we write things down and agree on ship roles and how they interact between factions in advance, before anyone even begins writing new ship submissions, let alone starts using them in PvP crossovers. Please tell me if you missed something, but I was tired of repeating myself pages ago.

 

[CadetNewb]

I leave for a bit, and this is what happens.

Look, I honestly think you guys are making mountains out of anthills when it comes to this. The DR Limitations are cumbersome, a hassle to deal with, and when represented in roleplay, can even feel unnatural. Especially when designs start showing visible signs of being curbed by some unknown, unspoken, godlike commandment from an IC perspective. The thing I fear the most is something that is the antithesis to RP; some sort of PvP game mechanic, complete with squabbling devs who can't decide on what the ideal balance will be...which is what all of this is starting to shape up to. Worse yet, it seems like when people aren't overthinking, they're under-thinking. I'm sorry if I come off as offensive Syaoran, but if a boss opens up with an epic missile barrage, there's a lot you can do to come out on top. As fellow sci-fi geeks and nerds, I like to think we've all been in that situation and managed to come out of it alive.

Again, we need to keep the solution to potentially OP stuff simple and easy to work with, otherwise we're all going to basically end up tripping over everything and getting bogged down by a rulebook that's heavy enough to crush our ribs. Since missiles seem to be the main concern of this proposed DR change, I suggest just further defining the nature of the missiles themselves; what they are capable of, and their limits.

Everything falls into place once that's done, and they're nowhere near as scary as some of you seem to think they are.

 

[Doshii Jun]

The only thing wrong with it, as a player or a potential tech submitter, is that it adds a layer of rules I don't need.

It tries to do the same thing the previous attempts did -- it removes power from the NTSE while adding a layer of finite detail players don't require. You could argue that those points don't qualify as "something wrong with the submission", but the checklist provides the exact point on which I argue this submission fails:

[ ] Needed and/or useful to the setting

It isn't needed. DRv3 covers it well enough.

It isn't useful. It adds finite complication where none is needed.

That rule is subjective, I know. That's what NTSE mods are for: thoughtful, subjective reasoning and rules application. They are trusted with power for a reason.

Unless their vision of submissions moderation equates to no moderation outside of rules, the rule addendum is unnecessary and not useful.

As before, the above is said with great respect to Jaegerman, who time and again submits exhaustively linked, pointedly researched material. I believe his heart always is in the right place -- the overall health of SARP.

 

[CadetNewb]

Thanks Doshii. I think you summed it up very well.

Though Frost worked hard on this article, it doesn't provide what the site needs, and instead would give it something detrimental. Because of that, I suggest stopping with this one, and trying again at square one, but from another angle and using different techniques.

 

[FrostJaeger]

@Navian, the reason I didn't respond to your posts is because, frankly, they are not relevant to this thread whatsoever. If you have such a brilliant idea for how the system ought to be, then please make a wiki article about it and submit it for review, instead of derailing this thread any further. I asked for constructive criticism, not posts that extolled the virtues of something completely different while providing little feedback besides "this is wrong." As @Fred stated here...

We want-
We need-
We should-

I don't intend to come across as mean, but this is the foremost reason why I don't relate with the concepts you're offering. You envision an idea, and you seem pretty certain it's a winning equation, but I don't see it.

Because you haven't shown me it might work. So, we end up with this monumental task, and with no idea of how to get started to make this successful.

Navian, if you want to sell this, you'll have to build this foundation. I sure am not in your head, seeing how that's the answer to our problems. It's not like haggling around in the NTSE and basing on precedents is exactly new.

...and @Ametheliana stated here...

I feel like it has to be said too often than not: Do not bring up points that do not directly have to do with a submission and its contents. You're starting side conversations that can have their own threads if need be, but they don't really need to be in this thread. What needs to be here is constructive commentary (I think Frost even said this in the OP) about what could make this better.

So far I haven't heard exactly what makes this submission bad, just that some people don't want it or have their own ideas for submissions.

Anyways.

[...]

The thing is, excessively complex and heavy rule-sets are only going to get in the way of why we're all here; to roleplay. I know Frost put a lot of work into this, but this is only going to make things that much more difficult for players to make tech, and my job that much harder as a tech mod, and it's already an unpleasant job to begin with.

How so? As @Ametheliana said here...

This, to me, is not too complicated or too bloated. I even did the math for the fighter loadout example, though it should be pretty intuitive as it's just adding and multiplying by two if you look at it the right way. So, I read it, even fact-checked it, and found it to not be too bloated.

However, I think Navian is on to something, though, as Fred pointed out, they haven't quite gotten there yet. Right now, it looks like the primary issue would be the nature of missiles and how they are used. Though it was my own fault that the 8 Weapon rule was initially implemented out of similar and very same concerns, I don't think it's the way forward.

Rather, I suggest something else entirely regarding missiles in specific; why not define the nature of missiles directly? Attack this problem at the root? I see some people worrying that such a barrage of missiles is massively OP, but I don't see that at all. I mean, you can just shoot them down; even the Mass Effect-verse has the G.A.R.D.I.A.N. system. A massive barrage of missiles that blots out the local star might be intimidating, but not if it's suddenly swept aside by countermeasures. When that happens, the tables are turned, and the guys that just launched them all need brown pants.

Basically, what I'm suggesting is that we specifically define the SP and Shields that missiles can use in relation to their damage output. It simply and efficiently gets rid of the missile problem in its entirety I believe. Though this may leave some concerns regarding torpedoes, considering their Star Trek origins and style, I simply suggest that they are beefy, powerful and tough to the point they give no f*ks, travel in simple paths, and can only be stopped by a lot of firepower so most folks don't bother and just take it. And like a Neko Girlfriend, are ultra high maintenance/expensive. In this suggestion that I make, missiles are simply a trade-off. Where directed energy and even kinetic projectile weapons are more expensive than their munitions, missiles are more expensive than their launchers.

You do run the risk of breaking the bank in return for its potentially huge payoffs if it all hits, but that comes with the aforementioned limitations.

@CadetNewb, I already tried that here. It, for fairly self-evident reasons, didn't work due to being far too unwieldy and cumbersome.

To be honest, I think both should remain viable.
The missile destroyer is a specialized ship with specialized weapons and can be countered with a similar platform; the PT boat on steroids. Basically, a point defense ship, though, even normal ships can simply hunker down together and combine their fields of fire to ward off missile destroyer barrages. Meanwhile, the torpedo wielding fighter-bomber itself gives us a very, very, very important and classical mechanic that can be played on both sides by the players.

Both of the above examples are, in my humble opinion, quite doable under what I have proposed.

I leave for a bit, and this is what happens.

Look, I honestly think you guys are making mountains out of anthills when it comes to this. The DR Limitations are cumbersome, a hassle to deal with, and when represented in roleplay, can even feel unnatural. Especially when designs start showing visible signs of being curbed by some unknown, unspoken, godlike commandment from an IC perspective.

How are they "unnatural" or "cumbersome?" I can tell you from personal experience that converting the Star Military's to DRv3 hardly made me feel like I was "curbing" anything - and the only designs that will be affected negatively are the blatantly overpowered ones certain individuals love to create.

The thing I fear the most is something that is the antithesis to RP; some sort of PvP game mechanic, complete with squabbling devs who can't decide on what the ideal balance will be...which is what all of this is starting to shape up to.

Only certain individuals here advocate the return of the long-dead practice of PvP in SARP, nor do I see how your comparison is particularly relevant, especially when one ignores all of the off-topic posts made in this thread.

Worse yet, it seems like when people aren't overthinking, they're under-thinking. I'm sorry if I come off as offensive Syaoran, but if a boss opens up with an epic missile barrage, there's a lot you can do to come out on top. As fellow sci-fi geeks and nerds, I like to think we've all been in that situation and managed to come out of it alive.

Can we please keep it civil here, @CadetNewb?

Again, we need to keep the solution to potentially OP stuff simple and easy to work with, otherwise we're all going to basically end up tripping over everything and getting bogged down by a rulebook that's heavy enough to crush our ribs. Since missiles seem to be the main concern of this proposed DR change, I suggest just further defining the nature of the missiles themselves; what they are capable of, and their limits.

Everything falls into place once that's done, and they're nowhere near as scary as some of you seem to think they are.

That, I kid you not, is the exact purpose of this submission - to present a (relatively) simple solution to submissions that are potentially overpowered that also addresses missile-based weapon systems.

The only thing wrong with it, as a player or a potential tech submitter, is that it adds a layer of rules I don't need.

It tries to do the same thing the previous attempts did -- it removes power from the NTSE while adding a layer of finite detail players don't require. You could argue that those points don't qualify as "something wrong with the submission", but the checklist provides the exact point on which I argue this submission fails:

[ ] Needed and/or useful to the setting

It isn't needed. DRv3 covers it well enough.

It isn't useful. It adds finite complication where none is needed.

That rule is subjective, I know. That's what NTSE mods are for: thoughtful, subjective reasoning and rules application. They are trusted with power for a reason.

Unless their vision of submissions moderation equates to no moderation outside of rules, the rule addendum is unnecessary and not useful.

As before, the above is said with great respect to Jaegerman, who time and again submits exhaustively linked, pointedly researched material. I believe his heart always is in the right place -- the overall health of SARP.

With all due respect @Doshii Jun, this isn't meant to remove any power from NTSE moderators - it's meant to be nothing more than a tool at their disposal; furthermore, its necessity has been amply demonstrated by recent submissions to this setting that, should they have been passed, would have drastically upset the "balance of power" between starships within SARP and required the redesign of countless pre-existing starships.

Thanks Doshii. I think you summed it up very well.

Though Frost worked hard on this article, it doesn't provide what the site needs, and instead would give it something detrimental. Because of that, I suggest stopping with this one, and trying again at square one, but from another angle and using different techniques.

Again, I have to respectfully disagree - this is something that is necessary to prevent "laserboating" and "missileboating" by certain individuals.

 

[Ametheliana]

Locking this thread until @Wes can put his eyes on it.

 

[Ametheliana]

What do you think about this, @Wes?

 

[Wes]

I think they add unnecessarily complication.

I think we should run a poll to see if there's popular support. If most players would use this, then I'd approve it.

 

[Ametheliana]

Okay everyone, I added a poll to the thread so we should be good to go on deciding something within 48 hours! I hope this clears up whether or not this submission should be added to the wiki and, thus, implemented in submissions and articles.

It will be important to note that I hope we can keep discussion of it civil and that there really shouldn't be any of the same problems that this submission faced in the past present in it now as it's not open for debate, it's as simple as a poll choice.

 

[Navian]

'Constructive criticism aims to show that an intent or purpose of something is better served by an alternative approach.' My criticism was constructive, it was just rejected. If providing constructive criticism 'derails the thread', it's not wanted--while you explicitly asked for it. I suppose Frost must have meant something else.

I did post one paragraph that served to expand on the current plan rather than providing an alternative, but it did seem to do a better job of illustrating the flaw in this plan--there are so many factors to account for that this 'solution' only works until someone puts a minimal effort into circumventing it again. Even if they do so unintentionally, or without noticing.

It's not going to hurt that much when it happens, it'll just make this a minor waste of everyone's time and delay finding a more permanent solution. I guess we can do that and see what happens.

 

[CadetNewb]

Uh, guys? I'm under the impression that the problems older and more experienced players like myself, Doshii and Wes see is going unnoticed for some reason. We got rid of the previous limitations due to these same problems, which this article is simply a modified version of. It is, like its predecessor, fundamentally flawed.

You guys may feel that this is a simple and easy series of calculations, but that's missing the point I am trying to make. The problem is that this would still inevitably make the player go through additional hurdles when trying to construct a ship. The player has to look at the upper limit allotted to them, and essentially choose what they will and will not have on board their ship with absolute precision. The player has to crunch the numbers for not only the same-tier weapons, but for anything above and below, and the lower they go, the more numerous and a hassle they will be to count. Not only that, but the NTSE Mod has to do this as well.

I don't want to do more work on top of the work I already have to do. Being an NTSE Mod has NEVER been a fun or rewarding job; even Soresu, the VERY FIRST will say that flat out.

More importantly, and since I wasn't clear enough, I'll explain why this article makes things unnatural and cumbersome. Imagine you got a three kilometer long ship, and besides having the typical complement of guns, you want to take some inspiration from The Finalizer and mount missiles. Hell, why not some anti-ship torpedoes? The torpedoes are going to be maybe the size of two eighteen-wheelers/semi-trailer trucks end to end. Massive. Huge. Way, way thicker and longer than telephone poles - city killers? Nope. Just one might crack a moon, and one against the hull will light up your class of ship like the Death Star. And you get eight auto-loaded tubes!

But that's only if you strip out every single other cannon, missile launcher and point defense system.

What's that? But you still got so much physical space left over, even with armor that's several meters thick! You could totally fit cannons on - there's even a massive energy surplus since a single tube uses as much power as a few 'massagers'! Well, back to the drawing board - single use tubes are way better. You get 64 of them! Except the ship is empty, empty, empty. There's like, almost nothing going on in this THREE KILOMETER long battleship, and the VLS tubes take up so little space since they're made to be space efficient to begin with. And you still got that problem about not being allowed any additional energy cannons. Even though you could definitely power plenty! Like, a whole Battleship's worth of cannons!

Gee, it's like some sort of godlike entity is deliberately stopping you from having a ship that makes sense.

Just stick to KISS and have things simple guys. Hell, the more I think about this, the more frustrated I am getting. The thing is, I could write you all something drastically superior, and you may not think it @FrostJaeger , but I could even go back and work off of your previous concept of making rules directly on missiles. And it'd still be drastically better than this.

I didn't want to be rude earlier, but apparently I have to; this is a pile of junk.