SDNW5 Rules Discussion Thread

[Feralgnoll]

The troops... I'm just going to assume their net value is 5000$/point, from the way you described them.*

I had them at (20,000*1,500)/4 So "Elites" with x4 Kit.

So, yes, if you want the ships to be combat-capable you do have an issue. It's certainly legal to make ships with one point direct combat value and one point troop carriage- they'd be pretty vulnerable to antiship weapons of their own, and still physically large enough to carry a small brigade or reinforced regiment of troops, but the concept works and there's nothing in the rules that says you can't do it.

Their only role is to literally slam into other ships like a torpedo, but drop off a boarding party of super elite combat troops to capture a ship. They agile fast, and tough, but in no way useful without fire support.

Then also to land these troops on the ground in strategic locations. The inspiration for these are 40k drop pods that can be used against other ships and for planetary invasions.

[Panzersharkcat]

And I may do something similar, too. (The Bastians were originally a species intended for a potential Trek fan fic as a way for the Federation to clean house. It was a long way off and never got further than some planning stages. They were later adapted for the Pariah Corps-verse, a homebrew game system/comic book universe I've been building up for years, and now this STGOD. Crashing in like that was one of their methods of boarding because they have no transporters.) Perhaps the history of it was they were co-developed between the Bastians and Braxians.

[White Haven]

There's been some discussion and confusion about the proposed SDNW5 carrier rules, and I figured I'd post some clarifications and food for thought. Again, I am not at all a mod, this is just a visual aid to help people get used to the way carriers are, provisionally, working this time around.

I view pointed vs. pointless carriers as akin to that one Battlestar episode, where Galactica jumped in with no fighters as a decoy, when the fighters were all hidden in a repurposed freighter. The freighter is a zero-point carrier that is utterly harmless and helpless absent the vipers hidden in its cargo containers. Galactica is a FUCKOFF-pointed carrier that's a big mean bitch with or without its strike wing. Now, I had huge fuckoff fleet carriers in SDNW4, and if I were pointing them in SDNW5, they'd STILL be huge fuckoff carriers. This is because when they had empty decks, they had a new role in fleet combat, one described by a phrase that should never even exist: Escort superdreadnoughts. Sure, they had shit-all for offensively weaponry of any real weight with their strike craft elsewhere, but they had slablike armour, massive, overlapping shield generators, and more close-defense and point-defense weapons than you ever want to try to punch a missile salvo or close-attack squadron past. They also made great fleet and battle-squadron command ships, which also offers an actual benefit to line combat. If that's the kind of carrier you want, spend points on it, because it's a pointed asset with or without fighters. If not, then don't point it at all.

EDIT: It's the difference, too, between a technical and a tank in that the technical is just a cheapass way to get the machine gun where you want it to go, where the tank is a big fuckoff deathmachine that ALSO serves to get its gun where you want it to go.

[Simon_Jester]

Their only role is to literally slam into other ships like a torpedo, but drop off a boarding party of super elite combat troops to capture a ship. They agile fast, and tough, but in no way useful without fire support.

Then also to land these troops on the ground in strategic locations. The inspiration for these are 40k drop pods that can be used against other ships and for planetary invasions.

It might be better to pitch them as somewhat more conventional ships that launch drop pods like ammunition.

You're ROTC, have you ever read the novel Starship Troopers? Remember what the ships the Mobile Infantry deploy from are like, with individual troopers being deployed from orbit in capsules that are fired out of a shipboard 'magazine' like so many bullets from a gun? Something like that.

In which case the ship's space-to-space combat power could well represent its ability to fire drop pods into enemy hulls and be worth more than the ground troop carriage. Because a typical 50-point ship that does not carry its own major troop complement would be easily overpowered by much, much less than 50 points of boarding troops.

Even if your ship can only actually directly fire a small minority of its boarding troops as ship to ship attacks, it could still be very effective in combat.

EDIT: the rest of the ship's troop complement might have to land more conventionally- say, the ship uses drop-pods to put a single regiment on the ground to secure a landing zone, then physically lands in the middle of it and deploys the corps-sized army contingent on board.

EDIT MK II: Of course, a drop pod capable of punching through the armor belts of 'Simonverse' warships would be pretty epic- but then, that's one of the reasons we have "points are points are points" in the first place, to avoid having the game derailed by people asking questions like that. So ignore me about that.

[Feralgnoll]

Ok so if I'm getting this correctly, I should keep the ship and ground troop rules separate?

So If i re-purpose my 3000 points, I'll take 50 Medium ships at 60 points each. These ships fire Elite Troops into other ships to take them over. This would make them effective against things smaller than themselves. But not against larger targets like I planned.

[Simon_Jester]

You can choose.

To take an example, my strike cruisers are 40-pt warships with a 20-pt ground contingent. That's fine- their space combat point value represents beam weapons and torpedoes.

But there's nothing stopping me from saying the ship is armed with something like 40k boarding torpedoes, and can fire SOME of its troops into enemy hulls to capture them, as a form of ship-to-ship attack. And then I might have a 40-pt warship with 20-pts of ground troops attached to it, standing on board and always with it, which attacks ship-to-ship by forcibly boarding the enemy vessel with its troops.

That doesn't mean its troop contingent is seriously depleted by doing this, of course- it may have thousands and thousands of soldiers and only need to launch a small fraction of them to capture a ship. Then again, it's at risk when making this sort of maneuver, so if your "worth 40 points in a space fight" ship tangles with my 60-point ship, it's liable to lose- the ground troops aren't adding their point value to the ship-to-ship fight.

Unless people would rather the ground troops DO participate and their point value counts, which is a different way of doing things that I'm open to.

What do you think, guys?

[Dark Hellion]

I would rather have boarding troops be "ship points" and transported troops be "ground points". Basically, your boarder contribute to ship to ship combat in the points is points is points capacity and Transport Capacity is used for groundpounders who unload planet/habitat-side and do there thing. I think it just keeps it simpler than worrying about boarding troops being attritioned off over serial boarding actions and other such nonsense.

[Simon_Jester]

That's pretty much what I had in mind. But the ships don't have to be partitioned: the same ship can carry a large body of troops and a small body of boarding commandoes, with the boarding commandoes being treated as "ammunition" for the ship's "guns," while the majority of the troops are "cargo" to be deployed on a target planet.

[OmegaChief]

I'd agree with that, boarding actions should be covered by space combat points value, that isn't to say you can't try boarding actions with these kinds of assault ships, just that they've got more troops on board then they can usfully deploy fora space combat operation, given starships don't exactly have much room for deploying the various mecha and main abttel tanks and battalions of infantry and all.

Points are points are points after all, if it's a space karen, psychic powers, lasers or boarding actions is just fluff for how the points collide in action!

[Feralgnoll]

Then again, it's at risk when making this sort of maneuver, so if your "worth 40 points in a space fight" ship tangles with my 60-point ship, it's liable to lose- the ground troops aren't adding their point value to the ship-to-ship fight

Scrapping the Drop pod idea, and having them only good in space fight.
A 60 point ship, not carrying a ground troops and ONLY boarding commandos, would be better than a 40 space, 20 ground right? Thinking of a turtle tank like ship, heavy armored, but attacks by shooting boarding party. Only good in a space fight. That would make it "points is points is points" right?

Sorry for the trouble. Just trying to get it all hammered out and not cause problems.

[OmegaChief]

If it's -only- used in space fights, don't give it a ground compliment at all, just make it a 60 point space ship, just fluffwise it has man cannons sintead of beam cannons.

[Simon_Jester]

Then again, it's at risk when making this sort of maneuver, so if your "worth 40 points in a space fight" ship tangles with my 60-point ship, it's liable to lose- the ground troops aren't adding their point value to the ship-to-ship fight

Scrapping the Drop pod idea, and having them only good in space fight.
A 60 point ship, not carrying a ground troops and ONLY boarding commandos, would be better than a 40 space, 20 ground right? Thinking of a turtle tank like ship, heavy armored, but attacks by shooting boarding party. Only good in a space fight. That would make it "points is points is points" right?

Sorry for the trouble. Just trying to get it all hammered out and not cause problems.

That would work, but it would also not carry any meaningful force of ground troops, which would sort of defeat the purpose you invented the ships for in the first place.

So decide: are these troopships* that defend themselves by firing man-cannons at the enemy? Or are they just ships with man-cannons, but that can't drop an operationally important force on a planet?

Do you have any troopships* that can contribute to space battles by firing man-cannons? If so, it would be sensible to make them hybrid ships, that have a space-to-space point value (due to the firing of man-cannons), and ALSO a box full of ground troops that they cart around. That is TOTALLY LEGAL, and I myself am doing EXACTLY THAT, only I didn't think of man-cannons.

You do not need to feel bad about it, it will not cause problems, and you are free to go right ahead and do that because it sounds really cool.
____________

*"Troopship" is defined as "carries 1 or more points worth of troops," so that it can deliver an operationally relevant force on the ground in a war zone.

[Feralgnoll]

Then again, it's at risk when making this sort of maneuver, so if your "worth 40 points in a space fight" ship tangles with my 60-point ship, it's liable to lose- the ground troops aren't adding their point value to the ship-to-ship fight

Scrapping the Drop pod idea, and having them only good in space fight.
A 60 point ship, not carrying a ground troops and ONLY boarding commandos, would be better than a 40 space, 20 ground right? Thinking of a turtle tank like ship, heavy armored, but attacks by shooting boarding party. Only good in a space fight. That would make it "points is points is points" right?

Sorry for the trouble. Just trying to get it all hammered out and not cause problems.

That would work, but it would also not carry any meaningful force of ground troops, which would sort of defeat the purpose you invented the ships for in the first place.

I had originally wanted them dual role, but I scrapped that idea. They are just meant for boarding and capturing other ships.
The idea sparked because the Braxians are better troopers than they are Naval Combatants and needed a way to level the odds. A boarding party of 9ft tall lizard people would definitely cause some havoc on a ship.

[Simon_Jester]

[From the distance, a chorus of voices:]

"AYE!"

OK, seriously, that's fine.

[Feralgnoll]

Yay! Thanks for clearing it up.

[Dark Hellion]

Odd question for you Simon. What is your opinion on having multiple trade routes that go to the same nation as a representation of extremely extensive trading? Clearly, there should probably be some limit on it (2 or 3?) to prevent abuse.

Just curious because that may end up being an option I would take for my open trade routes. But it might end up a bit too gamey too so I want your and others opinion.

[OmegaChief]

If you end up with trade routes you can use, you can always trade them for GDP boosts! They're basically the same, just as an alternate option is all I'm saying.

[Simon_Jester]

Personally, I would rather not have any nation spend two or three NCPs on trade going to a single partner, unless those two nations are extraordinarily tightly intertwined, to the point of being effectively joined at the hip. It would also make them extraordinarily vulnerable to any event that disrupted the trade- something like a 10% or more drop in national GDP, it'd be an economic disaster on par with the Great Depression.

If you wish to do this thing, be warned that it could go awry. And then your nation would have bread lines, and Herbert Hoover in charge, and the entire nation would fade into black and white with no color to be seen, and all men would wear hats. And other, worse things, might happen.

[Rabid]

*look at the third of his own GDP coming from living in other people's territories and trading with them by the way*

... Nope, I see nothing wrong with having strong commercial ties with other Nations.

[Skywalker_T-65]

*Looks at the fact that he only has two trade routes...one of which is the Nation Fleet in Nome Sector

Yeah, I don't have anything to worry about here. See, being Space Sweden has its advantages!

[Simon_Jester]

*look at the third of his own GDP coming from living in other people's territories and trading with them by the way*

... Nope, I see nothing wrong with having strong commercial ties with other Nations.

In your case, the trade links are distributed, which makes you safer than you would be otherwise. What I'm saying is that being immensely dependent on trade with a single nation is risky.

[Simon_Jester]

Addendum to Rule Zero added.

[Skywalker_T-65]

I have a quick question...how many ships can one have building at once? I need to know for my OOB (if that is a completely different rule set then ignore this post...)

[Simon_Jester]

There can be an arbitrary number of ships under construction at a time since I don't give a damn about anything as ridiculous as tracking number of building slips; that was tried and failed in SDNW3.

However, with a FEW exceptions (I have mine for a reason that is related to matters of plot), I don't think you should have many such ships. That ties into the upgrade and unit construction rules, which I will put up later when I'm not busy grading a huge pile of exams.

One note: everyone will get to start building a new crop of ships (not as large as their starting military, but big enough to be noticeable) right at game start.

There should be, and therefore will be if I have anything to say about it, no concrete advantage to be had by spending points on hulls under construction. You don't gain anything by having a half-finished 400-point ship that you wouldn't gain by buying yourself a 200 point ship and building another 200 point ship starting at the moment the game begins. Again, the only reason I'm doing it with nine capital ships is so that I can dovetail a plot I started for SDNW4 into SDNW5, so that I actually get a chance to finish what I started.

My first prologue post was related to that- look at my order of battle and my prologue post, and put two and two together...

[Skywalker_T-65]

Okay...that makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up. Now I need to keep an eye on my OOB and change it when I figure out how many we can have building/upgrading.