SDN World 3 Rules Discussion Thread

[Norade]

Mine still makes sense both ways as I have a total to keep track of sub three month build times and a quarterly for the rest so I can do a full year per post.

[Minister of Pigeonry]

The floatplanes on line warships are negligible at this scale, so don't count them. I figure the auxiliary ships are actually part of the maintenance cost, in terms of keeping them operating. Naval aircraft on carriers should, OTOH, be counted IMHO. Not that you'd have many, people should have like 40 or so at most, presuming two carriers.

Ahh, alright, I'll leave Aux ships, planes and those floatplanes out of the figures then. I do, and have, counted all aircraft aboard my Seaplane Tenders though, since they're the closest things to carrier I have at this point.

No more "per quarter" marker, because IBPs are not a currency, they are a reflect of capacity. The government-directed projects and production that your country's industries can support.

For example, you have 3/3 in Ind and Econ and thus 300 IBPs. You spend 100 IBPs each in Navy, Army, and Air Force. This is not a case where every quarter you go and spend 100 more IBPs for these items. Rather, so long as those Navy, Army, and Air Force things are building, they count against your cap of 300 IBPs.

Quarterly queue updates are simply to keep track of how you're using your IBP allotment, especially since most things are finished in multiples of 3 months, so you can use these queue updates to reflect something is done and then spend the freed up IBPs for something else.

Sometimes your queue update will simply be seeing nothing was completed at the start of that quarter, changing the header of the queue from "Quarter 1 1926" to "Quarter 2 1926", and clicking "submit".

I'm probably wrong here but does this mean our IBP "Budget"* is now 300/400/500 (depending on Ind score) per year? Or are we still given 300/400/500 per quarter with a total yearly "budget"* of 1200/1600/2000? If the latter I'm not sure I really need to change my figures any since I'm using exactly 300 for Q1 expenses. Several projects will last multiple quarters with both the total coast and "quarterly" costs included. Some things I've got, like Submarine tech research, Aviation research, Industrial Base investment I'm just sort of throwing points at and assuming the programs will continue through each quarter with RP updates on progress.

Now, with the maintenance cost coming in Q2 I'll have to cut just about all of those latter projects so I'm not sure what will happen there since they only existed as funded programs for three months before cancellation.

So basically, I'm just curious if I need to change anything in the figures I currently have for Q1 there and whether or not I still have a yearly 1200 "budget"* with up to 300 "spendable"* within a 3 month period.

*By "budget" and "spendable" I mean capacity to produce and such within a given period. The way I thought this worked given what you stated above works out as an Ind/Econ of 3/3 can produce up to 300 points of stuff within 3 months. 1200 points worth of stuff over 1 years time.

[Steve]

I'm probably wrong here but does this mean our IBP "Budget"* is now 300/400/500 (depending on Ind score) per year? Or are we still given 300/400/500 per quarter with a total yearly "budget"* of 1200/1600/2000? If the latter I'm not sure I really need to change my figures any since I'm using exactly 300 for Q1 expenses. Several projects will last multiple quarters with both the total coast and "quarterly" costs included. Some things I've got, like Submarine tech research, Aviation research, Industrial Base investment I'm just sort of throwing points at and assuming the programs will continue through each quarter with RP updates on progress.

Now, with the maintenance cost coming in Q2 I'll have to cut just about all of those latter projects so I'm not sure what will happen there since they only existed as funded programs for three months before cancellation.

So basically, I'm just curious if I need to change anything in the figures I currently have for Q1 there and whether or not I still have a yearly 1200 "budget"* with up to 300 "spendable"* within a 3 month period.

*By "budget" and "spendable" I mean capacity to produce and such within a given period. The way I thought this worked given what you stated above works out as an Ind/Econ of 3/3 can produce up to 300 points of stuff within 3 months. 1200 points worth of stuff over 1 years time.

That's not what's intended. That's why I specifically removed the "points/quarter" in the rules and simply refer to it as capacity.

Anyone ever play Hearts of Iron 1 or 2? IBPs work like IC. Something's "cost" relates to how much your government can order produced at any given time without overstretching available industrial resources. Wartime will see a multiplication of points (through mobilization, amount determined by Econ score) to reflect increased government control of the economy for the purpose of the war effort.

Any "budget" would merely be a detailed plan of what you plan to build over a year or two within the limits of your IBP cap. Quarterly updates to construction queue are simply a way of keeping track of how one is using their available IBPs.

[Minister of Pigeonry]

Woah.. then... woah. I think I'm way off here, then. I figured most of my IBP stuff based off of an estimate from Thanas for the six ships I planned to build. He gave me a total figure for the construction phase: 2016, with the cost per quarter worked out: 252, and the total for the final year (trials/fitting out) I worked down to 12.6 points based on the 95% drop.

I charged myself 252 for the six 40kt ships (with a 10% markup for ships built in German yards) per quarter for the 2 years.. If I'm finally grasping things now.. the ACTUAL total for the six ships over the 2 years of construction is ONLY 252 NOT 252*8.

Thus for the Six ships I'd pay 252 over two years for Construction and 12.6 over one year for Trails/Fitting out. And I just give quarterly updates on the project? So, 31.5 spent over three months reported. Six Ships = 126 points/300 points for 1925?

If I'm really right here, then I've got ALOT more points to use for things and Thanas and I were off on how things work.

Does this sound right?

[Steve]

Woah.. then... woah. I think I'm way off here, then. I figured most of my IBP stuff based off of an estimate from Thanas for the six ships I planned to build. He gave me a total figure for the construction phase: 2016, with the cost per quarter worked out: 252, and the total for the final year (trials/fitting out) I worked down to 12.6 points based on the 95% drop.

I charged myself 252 for the six 40kt ships (with a 10% markup for ships built in German yards) per quarter for the 2 years.. If I'm finally grasping things now.. the ACTUAL total for the six ships over the 2 years of construction is ONLY 252 NOT 252*8.

Thus for the Six ships I'd pay 252 over two years for Construction and 12.6 over one year for Trails/Fitting out. And I just give quarterly updates on the project? So, 31.5 spent over three months reported. Six Ships = 126 points/300 points for 1925?

If I'm really right here, then I've got ALOT more points to use for things and Thanas and I were off on how things work.

Does this sound right?

Those ships would count for 252 IBPs against your IBP cap until construction was complete, then it would be 12.6 IBPs for the fitting out phase. This means that until construction is done you are always spending that 252. You can't lower it by seven-eighths and spend that for the construction phase.

What's your IBP total again? 300?

That means that 252 IBPs out of 300 are being spent on those ships. You'd only have 48 IBPs to build other things with until the ships are finished or you cancel the construction (and I'm not sure yet what penalties I'd give for that beyond making the slip unavailable for a while to reflect scrapping the incomplete vessel).

[Coyote]

Yeah, I guess my calcs were off, too; I thought I get 200 IBPs per year but it looks like I get 200 IBPs per quarter under the original method and now I get 800 per year.

I may have to go on a shopping spree soon. Maybe buy some rocket-powered Zeppelins, a few titanium-hulled submarines, maybe dig a tunnel to Cyprus.

[Norade]

No, you're even more wrong now.

What Steve means is that a while you have say, 300 IBP per quarter they don't ever carry over. Thus you can never spend over that much in a quarter. A 50kt ship will use 50 IBP for 8 quarters, and then 2.5 over the next four so in budget it might look somewhat like this:

Q1 1925: 50kt ship (50 IBP)
Q2 1925: 50kt ship (50 IBP)
Q3 1925: 50kt ship (50 IBP)
Q4 1925: 50kt ship (50 IBP)
Q1 1926: 50kt ship (50 IBP)
Q2 1926: 50kt ship (50 IBP)
Q3 1926: 50kt ship (50 IBP)
Q4 1926: 50kt ship (50 IBP)
Q1 1927: 50kt ship (2.5 IBP)
Q2 1927: 50kt ship (2.5 IBP)
Q3 1927: 50kt ship (2.5 IBP)
Q4 1927: 50kt ship (2.5 IBP)
Q1 1928: 50kt ship (Finished)

Thus in from Q1 1925 to Q4 1916 you may only spend 250 points per quarter, and 297.5 in Q1 to Q4 1927.

[Coyote]

Ahhh, crud. [stops digging]

[Minister of Pigeonry]

I think I finally get it now. It's like a bar that drops and rises based upon what you're doing with it. Building my ships drops the bar to 48 points, when they reach the Trials/Fitting out phase, the bar rises to 287.4. With maintenance costs at 26.4 (my costs) even if I have nothing building, the cap only ever reaches 273.6 available.

The points figure is just the cap, the actual IBP pool doesn't get "spent" it gets committed to a project for the project's duration like 2 carpenters would be committed to a house that takes 4 months to build. Once it's done, they're freed up to take on another job. The company that employs them doesn't fire them when the house is done (and hire two news ones), it just shifts them to a new house, etc. I think that may be a decent analogy.

So, with my six ships building, my maintenance cost in there, that 15 point seaplane carrier a-building I have 6.6 points left, until the carrier changes over, (16 months down the road) uncommitted.

I think I'll put 3 into long term Sub research and 3 into Aviation research and RP out the results as time passes. That leaves me with virtually all of my points at work.

My God, I have no brain. Can't believe I didn't get this sooner. Thanks for helping me grasp this, guys.

[Norade]

No problem, we've all, like as not, done something stupid like that before.

[Steve]

Excellent, you understand, and hopefully your own description will help others understand!

Otherwise I may need to start handing out dunce caps....

[Minister of Pigeonry]

Yay! Yeah, I was just going off of other things for so long, this all really had me confused. Will probably need to shoot a PM off to Thanas when he gets back as I think he may still be operating under the "older" system.

Anyhoo, I'm off to the Queue thread to revise my allotments and such.

[Coyote]

I think I finally get it now....

The points figure is just the cap, the actual IBP pool doesn't get "spent" it gets committed to a project for the project's duration like 2 carpenters would be committed to a house that takes 4 months to build. Once it's done, they're freed up to take on another job. The company that employs them doesn't fire them when the house is done (and hire two news ones), it just shifts them to a new house, etc. I think that may be a decent analogy.

...My God, I have no brain. Can't believe I didn't get this sooner. Thanks for helping me grasp this, guys.

No, I didn't get it at first either, and saw IBPs as a sort of currency rather than just a maximum potential output cap. I am PM'ing Steve with an idea about what and how IBP's can be utilized to more easily keep track of projects.

[Steve]

PM replied to, Coyote.

[Coyote]

I know what ya mean by number-crunching, which is usually the bane of my existence, but you know the deal, there's always that fine balance point between realism and playability.

The thing that I was worried about was the "fortress dispute" about Lonestar's fort in the Red Sea, and the building of fortifications all over "because they are cheap". Without any actual control, it allows for proliferation.

What I gave Steve was an idea about how an IBP would equate 10 km of railroad, for example, so if you had a 100km railroad to build it'd be 10 IBPs, or if you had a 1000km railroad to build, it'd be 100 IBPs, and so on. It had similar plans for telegraph line, pipelines, etc. There was maths involved so I think that unless it becomes a problem ("Hey, whaddaya know, I just built the entire Trans-Siberial Railway in April!") it's best to avoid it if we can.

But I suppose we can be warned... a number-crunching system is ready to go if abuse is detected, bwaahaahaahaaaa!

[Steve]

That works better, yes.

And I think I will go with reducing Motorized Divisions by 1 IBP so it fits up with 3 IBPs per brigade.

[loomer]

Did the start of my orbat - am I right in being able to field up to 240,000 men without worrying about reserves, or do I need to keep that extra 80% of men? (As in, can I build just say, five brigades for full combat strength at the present time, or would only one of them be counted as fully active?)

Edit: Actually, though I know we're meant to stick to the basic rules, would it be acceptable for me to have a one point discount on regular (not artillery, of course) cavalry? Afghanistan's army is mostly drawn from the regional militias, and the Arabs have got a proud history of camelmen - obviously, as soon as I start using motorized divisions we could drop the discount for balance. If not, no big deal, obviously, but it'd provide an interesting flavour.

[Steve]

If your SML is 3, then 20% of your army is active and 80% is reserve. Building new units doesn't count toward that, you raise 3 new infantry divisions for your actives and they show up, none shunted into the reserves.

[Steve]

I've been asked to remove maintenance costs from the game rules on the grounds that they invoke too much number-crunching and unbalance the game. Does anyone feel the same way or, alternatively, are opposed to a removal of maintenance costs?

[Thanas]

Being the one who asked, I do of course support this request.

[Norseman]

Actually I support some kind of maintenance cost, simply because otherwise nothing keeps us from building ginormous multi-million man armies. Also without maintenance costs fighting wars won't cost IBPs. That said I do worry about numbercrunching so lets keep it rules light.

[Coyote]

I think it'd be a lot easier to go without, and use common sense and RP'ing to keep things from getting out of control. We can always re-institute a system if it becomes necessary.

[Minister of Pigeonry]

I don't mind too much either way, though, perhaps some small cost could be required to repair ships/aircraft/equipment and units that are damaged in combat or the like. It would be a maintenance cost of sorts but only for things that really get used.

Also, on the subject of IBPs, Thanas did charge me that 10% mark up for allowing my ships to be built in his yards, I know it doesn't make a great deal of sense as we're not using IBPs as currency, but, for the duration of the Ships construction, Q1, 1925-Q4, 1926 could those 12 mark up points be added to his IBP cap so he profits in some form from "renting" out those slipways to me?

[Thanas]

Steve already approved of that.

[Steve]

Indeed I did.