Rejected Submission Military Buildup Limitations Update (Again)

[FrostJaeger]

Submission URL

https://stararmy.com/wiki/doku.php?id=guide:military_buildup_limitations

• Submission Type: Rules Update
• Faction: N/A
• FM Approved Yet? No, @Wes.
• Faction Requires Art? No.

For Reviewers:

• Contains Unapproved Sub-Articles? No.
• Contains Links to Unapproved Articles? No.
• Contains New Art? No.
• Previously Submitted? Yes; was approved by Wes.
• Changelog: See below.
• Checklist Requested? Yes.

I created this based upon what @Fred said here and what @Wes said here - and before it gets brought up, I know it’s an extremely steep reduction. Reducing naval forces to these levels, however, will in my opinion...

• Still allow for gigantic fleet battles to occur. The Star Army of Yamatai and Nepleslian Star Navy, for instance, would be respectively capable of maintaining 1,625 combat starships (650 capital ships/975 warships) and 800 combat starships (320 capital ships/480 warships), which in my opinion is more then enough for a cinematic conflict such as that which occurred in Operation Return - especially when one considers that the Federation “only” had 627 starships participating in the on-screen portions of that battle (source).
• Place more emphasis on the actions of individual starships. As Fred pointed out, it currently makes little sense for military starships (especially gunships such as the Plumeria and Fuji) to “boldly go where no man has gone before” by themselves - not when they’re so easily destroyed by the squadrons of warships employed by (to the best of my knowledge) practically every military in the setting. Reducing the number of warships in the setting would naturally force navies to spread their forces out much more thinly, thus giving plotships a justifiable in-universe reason to “go solo” - and would let them exert a greater influence in the aforementioned fleet battles, instead of being just another “ship in the swarm.”
• Decrease the amount of OOC wiki work Faction Managers have to do. It’s a lot easier to keep track of 25 warships instead of 250.
• Create more roleplaying opportunities. Starships don’t just magically disappear, they get destroyed/scrapped/stolen/etc., and being a part of roleplay in which hundreds or even thousands of ships are destroyed isn’t exactly something that happens every day - nor does it have to be something dull or boring.

Spoiler: List of Changes

• Factions can now support the following for every industrialized star system they control:
  • 1 Huge Space Station
  • 5 Shipyards (Original Amount: 10 Shipyards)
  • 10 System Defense Platforms (Original Amount: 25 System Defense Platforms)
  • 10 Capital Ships (Original Amount: 100)
  • 15 Other Warships (Original Amount: 150)
  • 25 Military Support Ships (Original Amount: 250 Military Support Ships)
  • 250 Additional Small Craft (Original Amount: 25,000)
• Corporations can now support the following for every system they have a major presence in:
  • 1 Huge Space Station
  • 1 Shipyard (Original Amount: 3 Shipyards)
  • 2 System Defense Platforms (Original Amount: 5 System Defense Platforms)
  • 1 Capital Ship
  • 9 Starships (Original Amount: 100)
  • 100 Additional Small Craft (Original Amount: 500)
• A subsidiary corporation’s facilities are now considered when determining whether or not their parent corporation has a major presence in a star system.
• Huge space stations can now build a maximum of ten starships at a time.
• Shipyards can now build one ship at a time.
• System Defense Platforms now have a maximum size of Tier 12 (Heavy Starship).

Apologies for how brief this is - I’d originally planned on explaining my reasoning for this submission via a JägerBomb-worthy post the length of a short essay, time constraints (and needing to have dinner) prevented me from doing so. >.<

 

[Rizzo]

It seems a little soon for another update and the posts you've linked are 10 years old. A lot has changed since then and while I agree that fewer ships would make for better screenplay and easier game management the SARPiverse has a long history of impossibly huge superstructures, massive fleets, and takes place in the single largest location ever. Space. There is so much empty space in space that when you think about it you'll find that it would be impossible to occupy all of the space between planets. With that in mind, I think these numbers would be extremely low considering our current setting but would definitely be preferable for storytelling. In order for such a large change, compared to the limitations prior to the latest change, we would need a solid setting-wide IC justification for it.

 

[Soban]

A couple of notes

Other warships specifies 200 meters as the size for an "Other Warship" however this is in the middle of their 11 (100-250 meters). I feel this also contradicts "What Is Considered a Warship?" I feel like the word Warship should be used consistently throughout the document.

Build times are based on Structural Points which are not required by DRv3. We should rework all instances of SP to something more in line with DRv3. Along that line of thought, we may also want to consider removing other uses of DRv2 terminology. This will promote ease of reading and consistency throughout.

Also most of the reductions are by 10, however the small craft reduction is by 100, why?

 

[FrostJaeger]

The setting-wide justification could, in my opinion, be any of the following:

• The Kuvexian War, for those participating in it - perhaps in the form of a massive “rush” of Kuvexian warships?
• Terrorism- and/or rebel-related activity for those not participating in the aforementioned war - if memory serves, both the Iroma and Neshaten are engaged in conflicts with domestic groups.
• An attack by another faction - USO, for instance, is to the best of my knowledge currently threatened by the 4GECE and/or the Mishhuvurthyar.

In my opinion, occupying/defending planets, maintaining border security, and escorting convoys wouldn’t be issues, either - not with the ludicrous sensor ranges and speeds available to most (if not all) factions in the setting.

Edit: Thanks for catching that, Soban. I’ve removed the mention of size from the “Other Warships” definition, the mentions of DRv2, and the redundant “What is not Considered a Warship?” section (as its contents were already covered by the first “Notes” section); regarding the usage of the word “warship,” where is it not being used consistently?
(Not trying to be rude - I’m just curious. >.<)

I reduced the number of small craft by a factor of 100 because in my opinion 2,000 (or even 1,000) strike craft are enough to easily wipe out a capital ship, thus encouraging the “meta” of favoring carriers instead of battleships due to the former’s ability to carry strike craft and point defenses of its own. To put it another way: 2,500 strike craft is the equivalent of 8 to 10 carriers. Requiring that many carriers to defeat an enemy’s system defense forces would leave little room for battleships - and would leave no capacity whatsoever for the carriers required to keep up with the enemy’s carriers.

Edit #2: Apologies for not communicating this clearer and sooner - and thank you, Alex, for pointing this out - but the in-character reductions in starship/shipyard/etc. quantities would not have to happen right away.

 

[Zack]

Has any work been done to figure out what the correct number of ships would be to fit the theme we want? No? Then this is going to fail. Scoping out a project should always be the first step and you're skipping past that again just like Fred did the first time a reduction was proposed.

 

[Alex Hart]

Personally, I'm just not sure why we're doing this again so soon, but since it's here less than a month after the most recent MBL update I might as well say my piece.

I like the idea of fewer ships, but this feels like a little too few. There's no provision for "Oh these are literally the smallest possible thing we could make combat capable and still be a full ship". This leaves little room for naval doctrine of any sort, forcing everyone down the path of "Make the biggest possible ships with those 15 slots that aren't capital ships." It doesn't let us envision how valuable ships are in comparison to each other, it just lets us know that capital ships are more valuable than anything else.

I don't want to push for anything right now but I'd like to see some discussion on how ship size plays into how many you can build.

A while back Fred made a suggestion for how ship tier plays into MBL, and I think that could work well. That being, 8 top tier capital ships (15). Each capital ship is worth two ships of the tier below it and so on. This would jive with tier being used for build time, which it is under the current MBL rules.

However, what I'm not sure about is how far down the tier ladder this should go. Should we touch the small craft, or keep them at the current levels set by the already approved update.

(The part at the top is bolded because it's what concerns me most. Rapid, undiscussed rules rollouts in super short succession. It's like overthrowing the perfectly good government you put in place after overthrowing another slightly less good government)

 

[META_mahn]

I need to read through this...

 

[Fred]

Personally, I'm just not sure why we're doing this again so soon, but since it's here less than a month after the most recent MBL update I might as well say my piece.

Wes appeared open to discussing the topic further for iteration as long as something workable was already in place. "We refine, we get better", kind of. A submission is a pretty good way to kick discussion into high gear.

A while back Fred made a suggestion for how ship tier plays into MBL, and I think that could work well. That being, 8 top tier capital ships (15). Each capital ship is worth two ships of the tier below it and so on. This would jive with tier being used for build time, which it is under the current MBL rules.

I admit to bias in liking this better, since it kept the number of frigates closer to the number of expected warships that were originally scoped out for starsystems: 250. That would still allow for the numbers to be kept up; with investment in bigger vessels weighting that down in consideration to the power they bring to the table.

Scoping out a project should always be the first step and you're skipping past that again just like Fred did the first time a reduction was proposed.

I say things to this person, and it's like talking to a wall. Help.

 

[Alex Hart]

I should specify, the tier system won't work well for anything EXCEPT warships. My suggestion as far as the set numbers are as follows, huge space stations stay at 1, shipyards stay at 10 and system defense platforms stay at 25. Military support ships go down to 150, and small craft go down to either 5000, 7500 or 10000.

 

[FrostJaeger]

Using 4 days as a base for T10 starships, I’ve gone ahead and updated the Building Times to reflect that each ship tier is for the most part twice the size of the previous one.

Regarding the usage of the tier system in lieu of what’s currently there, I’m unfortunately going to have to say no to its inclusion in this update of the Military Buildup Limitations. I mean no offense, @Alex Hart and @Fred, but as I was laying awake last night, I came to several conclusions:

• Adding the tier system would, in my opinion, be too drastic of a change from the system currently in place.
• Having the tier system only be utilized for warships would require an additional explanatory section, increasing the complexity of an already-daunting article even further.
• The introduction of the tier system would remove the need for the section describing what is and isn’t considered a capital ship in Star Army - and that, in all honesty, is not something I feel comfortable doing.

Again, I’m sorry - I like the idea, and I would have preferred for it to be implemented. I just...don’t think it’s something that’s ready quite yet.

As for the reduced number of ships limiting one’s naval doctrine and forcing everyone to build cruisers, I respectfully disagree. There’s nothing limiting one’s naval doctrine - not really, anyways. Does the lesser numbers of ships place a slightly higher emphasis on lighter patrol units? Yes - but there’s no reason those patrol units can’t also be your fleet’s divisions of destroyers/escorts/gunships/etc. For similar reasons, there’s nothing forcing people to only build T12 units - which, mind you, is something that’s quite possible under the current Military Buildup Limitations. It might be the “optimal” strategy for things like PvP, yes, but from what I’ve seen, most of the Faction Managers here on Star Army (and, more importantly, the Big Kahuna himself) are not powergamers - thus I feel confident in saying that they will not build fleets consisting only of cruisers and dreadnoughts.

(Apologies if I came across as a bit rambly - I wrote this on four hours of sleep. >.<)

 

[Alex Hart]

Well I don’t know how else you’re going to reflect the values of noncapital warships in relation to each other. And as far as it not forcing you to subscribe to a specific doctrine, I disagree.

PvP isn’t the only place where this is applicable. The fact that you have only 25 total warships regardless of their size makes no sense to me and does force people to build as large as they can, since there’s no benefit to doing anything else.

There’s nothing limiting one’s naval doctrine - not really, anyways. Does the lesser numbers of ships place a slightly higher emphasis on lighter patrol units? Yes - but there’s no reason those patrol units can’t also be your fleet’s divisions of destroyers/escorts/gunships/etc.

The limit to doctrine is the 25 warships limit, and this doesn’t place emphasis on smaller units, because you can’t build more of a smaller unit for the same cost as a larger one. You have 25 total warships and building them smaller does nothing to allow you more, thereby placing emphasis on large units.

Simply reducing ship numbers doesn’t help us recognize ship value, implementing a system of comparison between ships in relation to their difficulty to build and maintain does.

The drastic reduction you proposed won’t work unless there is some method of allowing people to build more smaller warships, because the numbers you have down now are restrictive to an extreme and will harm single system factions like the USO as well as any factions that emerge in the future.

You say you don’t want to have a super drastic change yet a reduction of 10 times is exactly that.

 

[FrostJaeger]

Neither the current Military Buildup Limitations nor the ones proposed in this submission mention anything about the value of non-capital warships in comparison to each other, @Alex Hart, and I don’t see a need for them to, as doing so would require additional rules that would only serve to constrain fleet compositions even further. If someone wants to powergame and make nothing but cruisers, that - and the in-character consequences of such an action - is on them.

Regarding the limit of twenty-five warships regardless of size not making sense and hindering doctrine, well, I don’t mean to be rude - but the same argument can be made of the current limit of two-hundred-and-fifty warships, as the former is simply a scaled-down representation of the latter; as for these limits encouraging people to “go big or go home,” Alex, like I said earlier: a faction manager can do that if they want to be That Guy™ and fulfill their powergaming fantasies, or they can do what most other faction managers currently do and keep on building smaller ships such as escorts, gunships, and scouts, even though it makes no sense for them to do so under the current rules.

It, put simply, is a case of powergaming versus roleplaying: those favoring the former build their ships and fleets based upon OOC rules, then try (and fail) their to justify their nonsensical IC actions via RP; those favoring the latter, however, build their ships and fleets based upon IC considerations, thus avoiding the difficulties the powergamers encounter - because even if a roleplayer’s fleet isn’t the strongest, it - unlike his or her munchkin counterpart - actually makes sense from an in-universe perspective.

Simply reducing ship amounts isn’t necessarily supposed to help recognize ship value, Alex - that’s why there’s the section detailing the differences between non-combat ships, warships, and capital ships. The purpose of this update is to increase the value of players via making it drastically easier for their actions to have an important effect on the setting - and the revised building times, in my opinion, already provide for a comparison between ships via how long it takes for them to be constructed. Consider, for example, a cruiser and a scout. The former is a powerhouse, sure, but it’s also one that takes (or, more accurately, would take) sixteen days to complete; the latter, while lightly armed, is also much more expendable - because a new one can be built every four days.

I believe that the “drastic reduction” I proposed will indeed work for the reasons I stated in my opening post,please don’t make unsupported allegations, as this won’t harm small factions - not when it’s a simple down-scaling of the current rules - and when I said I didn’t want to have a “super drastic change,” I meant that, Alex. Adopting an entirely new system in lieu of the one that’s worked for the past decade is what I’d call a “super drastic change” - but dividing some numbers by 10 is not.

 

[Alex Hart]

if you want to shrink the number of ships this isn’t the way to do it. I feel that just because a ship is quicker to construct doesn’t provide ample opportunities for doctrine.

Tier already plays a role in shipbuilding time, why is it such a stretch to have it used to help define how many ships you can support?

It’s not exactly a complicated system to use, and without it you’re stuck with a maximum of 25 combat vessels per system, with no allowance made for building lots more smaller ships instead of a single bigger one.

TL;DR, I’m opposed to such a large reduction in the allowances for ships if there’s no tier system in place to allow people to choose exactly how they want to build their fleet.

A smaller reduction wouldn’t neccesitate a tier system, but one of this magnitude absolutely has to have it.

 

[Soban]

I think I agree that we should probably reduce the numbers of ships. However, the lower the number of ships the heavier weight each one has. When you have a thousand ships, having a hundred ships that are lower then the optimal tier might be acceptable. However, when you have ten ships, having one ship lower then optimal is a lot more impacting. For that reason, I also like Fred's proposed 8 Tier 15 Tier equivalent units suggestion.

 

[Rizzo]

With all that's been going on lately it seems like this should probably be shelved for a while. Maybe give it some time to cook. @FrostJaeger would you like me to do that? It'll tidy up the submission board a bit.

 

[FrostJaeger]

Yes, @Rizzo.