Looking Forward: Military Tech Categories

[drek]

Ideas?

Names should change, but I like the idea of basing the categories on the doctrines suggested by the wacky hull types that were described in another thread. You'd research in all categories, mixing and matching parts with hulls....the hull techs would be expensive, so you'd probably only want to research one particular kind of hull.

* Rock Big, slow ships with big slow protectile weapons. Massive hulls, the heaviest armor, and big guns (mass drivers, for example).

* Metal Call this the "gritty archer" branch of the tree. Missles, fighters, perhaps point defense, ground tanks/mechs. Engineering bays?

* Energy Energy hulls would be very advanced--very high up the tree. Implies speed. Lower levels would be lasers, shields, engines/starlane drives. Tractor beams fit into the energy/speed theme as well (though they also seem like cheap tricks, as in Shadow.)

* Organic Living hulls, weapons that effect living critters (biobombs, etc.) Living critters themselves, including conquering troops, boarding marines.

* Shadow At the lower levels of the tree, cloaks, sensors, and cheap tricks. At the top, jedi mind tricks and hulls made of psi-stuff. Think B5's Psi-corp.

In short: Rock is Power/Resilience, Metal is Range, Energy is Speed, Organic is Ground Combat, Shadow is Tricks....with a bit of leakage between the categories.

Not 100% happy with the above yet...it's just my first pass idea.

[Geoff the Medio]

Rock, Metal, Energy and Organic are fine names by me. I still say psi-hulls are just a type of energy hull, though (and could be the only type of energy hull, actually...).

Having hull types and weapons types grouped as you suggest seems rather contrary to the plan to make it easy to find things... It's not immediately obvious that mass drivers would be in the "Rock" category, or missiles in the "Metal" category (if those terms are though of as representing types of hulls, and not more generalized groupings by primary construction material...). Having ground combat stuff in a ship category is more confusing... there's nothing common between growing living spacecraft, building tanks and training infantry. (You could stick tanks in metal, but I don't think putting infantry in organic could be justified... not everybody's cloning their troopers, and cloning should be in the growth / biology / life sciences / farming category anyway)

There could also be a lot of redundancy or ambiguity in the grouping for things common ship tech stuff, like engines, sensors, misc. components. Either you'd have 4 or 5 different sets of engine techs (one per category), or have one set, but have it accessible in all categories, which sort of defeats the purpose of categorizing things.

Built into your categorization is the idea that one type of ship hull (organic, metal, rock, energy) will be able to easily mount parts from other hull types, presumably thereby making your version of hybrid hulls. Obviously I'm not terribly fond of that, though that's just my personal preference. However, this point does suggest a possible "solution" to some of my above issues...

First, we could embrace the redundancy issue with engines, and make redundancy of that sort even more prevalent. This would involve making the various ship tech categories (one each for the hull type) mostly independent and mutually incompatible. A given category would have all the techs you'd need to build all the possible ships based on hulls in that category... There would be versions of all the ship components that a given class of ship could use in its own category. The customized versions of the components would be slightly different in each category, corresponding to the differences between the categories. There would likely not be any hybrid hulls in such a system.

[drek]

Built into your categorization is the idea that one type of ship hull (organic, metal, rock, energy) will be able to easily mount parts from other hull types, presumably thereby making your version of hybrid hulls. Obviously I'm not terribly fond of that, though that's just my personal preference. However, this point does suggest a possible "solution" to some of my above issues...

Naming the categories after hull types is perhaps a bit confusing. They are doctrines. Rock is "Big, slow, hard hitting." Energy is "small, fast, and accurate." Metal is average size, ranged. Organic is good at conquering and futzing up planets, and so would include those techs. Shadow are tricks, stealth, and sensors.

All the engine stuff would be in "Energy". Every ship would get their engines, lasers, and shields from the "Energy" category. Every armor would be in the "Rock" category....every ship would derive it's armor from this category.

The final category names would reflect the doctrine, rather than the hull. The hull is just the best sort for that particular doctine. At the highest levels of the Energy category, you'd be able to research Energy hulls. And near the bottom of the "big, slow, hardhitting" category, there'd be some Rock hulls.

The idea is that Energy hulls would have more power to supply shields and lasers, plus would be naturlly quite fast. Rock hulls would have bonuses to armor and more big slots to position the big projectile guns. Shadow ships (psi-hull, made from Hollow Matter) would be late tech and have more psi-power for jedi mind tricks, gain bonuses to sensors and cloak. Metal ships would just have a lot of slots--ample room for "ammo" (like fighters and missles), but really jack-of-all trades. Organic ships would gain some sort of bonus when launching ground attacks.

[Impaler]

I think this Hull stuff (which realy I dont like that much at present) should all go under 1 catagory say "StarShip Enginering" or "StarShip Hulls". The idea of these Hulls seems so radical to me that I cant imagine a race using ALL of them interchangable, more like each race has it as a constant modifier on all the ships they build which would make it more of a Racial Special then a Tecnology. I am reminded somewhat of the specialized "mini-trees" that SEIV has. Theirs a Crystalin branch and an Organic Branch and Religion Branch if I remember corectly. Each is either on/off for a race giving them extra reserch/component options. What the best means of doing all this is dont realy know.

Lets start with the basic Sub-Units and start grouping them together

Shields
Energy/Laser Weapons
Projectile Weapons
Missles/Warheads
Propulsion FTL
Propulsion Sub-light
Fighters
Mines and Minefields
Ship Hulls (differnt types)
Ship Hulls (differnt sizes including Space Stations)
Sensors (if not going into Information catagory)
Control and Comunications (to modify responsivness in Battle)
Ground Troops and stuff to Transporting them
Tactics and other non-component Modifiers (I think this should be a catagory)
Repair system
Bombs for Planets
Special zany Weapons

Any others??

[Geoff the Medio]

...more like each race has it as a constant modifier on all the ships they build which would make it more of a Racial Special then a Tecnology.

This would effectively make all races' ships identical. The idea of having different hull types (for me) was originally that they would actually function differently in a meaningful and significant way. Some of the ideas we've discussed can work with simple modifiers, but not all.

[muxec]

No, no, no! We do not need separate military techs.

(But if we need rock, energy and metal like system is OK)

[drek]

Lets start with the basic Sub-Units and start grouping them together

Shields (Energy/Speed)
Energy/Laser Weapons (Energy/Speed)
Projectile Weapons (Rock/Power)
Missles/Warheads (Metal/Ranged)
Propulsion FTL (Energy/Speed)
Propulsion Sub-light (Energy/Speed)
Fighters (Metal/Ranged)
Mines and Minefields (Civil Defense, unknown. Possibly Statecraft, for their effect on the Security meter)
Ship Hulls (differnt types) (Various)
Ship Hulls (differnt sizes including Space Stations) (space stations might be considered build projects rather than ships. Production or Development perhaps.)
Sensors (if not going into Information catagory) (Shadow)
Control and Comunications (to modify responsivness in Battle) (hrm. Perhaps Statecraft. Buildings that effect C&C....hrm.)
Ground Troops and stuff to Transporting them (Organic/Ground)
Tactics and other non-component Modifiers (I think this should be a catagory) (...)
Repair system (hrm.)
Bombs for Planets (Organic/Ground)
Special zany Weapons (most in Shadow)

Any others??

It is useful to come up with a list like this, but don't think all these warrent "subcategories".

(Tactics and C&C can probably be considered the same thing, imo.)

Additions:
Armor (Rock, with some special ones in Organic)
Cloak & Stealth (Shadow)
Point Defense (Rock or Metal)
Mine Sweeping (Rock)
Tractor Beams (Energy or Shadow)
Marines (boarding) (...Organic?)
Psi-Attacks (killing crew, mind controls, psi sweeps instead of sensors) (Shadow)
Temporal Attacks (pausing, slowing) (? Probably Shadow)


I've noted where each system would fit into my dotrine categories. Notice, things are a bit flakey...obvously my categories still need some thought.

[Impaler]

This would effectively make all races' ships identical. The idea of having different hull types (for me) was originally that they would actually function differently in a meaningful and significant way. Some of the ideas we've discussed can work with simple modifiers, but not all.

Ummm Geoff theis going to be Ship designing with differn combinations of weapons/armor/Engines ect ect. It most definatly dose not make them all Identical

It makes your whole races Fleet BLANK-ER

faster, stronger, stealthier, better armored, slower
Basicaly what ever kind of modifiers we want to create that will make your fleet as a whole unique from that of other races and encourage you to produce a unique strategy for it.

Think of StarCraft all the Zerg have the unique regeneration ability that is fundamental to their "zergyness". Likewise if a race has the "Bio-Hulls" racial trait all their ships regenerate and have other modificatins to them (like giant acidic tenticles that burrow into other ships )

This seems much better then making a "Giant acidic tenticle" tecnology that can be reserched and used by everyone.

Perhaps yall are thinking that thes Rock/Energy/Bio/Shadow ships will serve as the basis for combined arms battles. I dont see any reason why the effect produced cant be replicated by the normal ship design process or the creation of less radical sounding ship modifiers. For example instead of "Asteroid Hull" you could have the ship wide Modifier "Double Reinforced Armor Plating" that lets you put on twice as much armor as normal. BAM a Big slow heavy armored ship to stand in the front line of your Armada. Now the Energy and Biohulls can be used as Racial Traits to get that extra super specialization that many of us crave and make our races more Unique at the same time.

[Velizar]

Absolutely agree with Impaler. Each race should have its own strategies and differences. What on Earth would make humans go for organic ships? (well, regular, normal humans anyway ). It's a large part of racial uniqueness, both graphical and statistical.
And I don't want any stinkin' rock ships. Super Reinforced Double Omega Duraluminium Plating Mark III is good enough for me.

[discord]

actualy on 'energy hulls' a little idea we had over here, was about the trek universe, and the little used powers of the holodeck....

as they can create 'hard light' and it is quite possible to create the 'holograms' outside of the emitter(wich was proven in voyager by the doctors 'mobile emitter', and prolly a few other places...)...why not make the entire ship out of holograms? would make for REAL interesting boardings...you got power cores, emitters, and engines(prolly at the same place) everything else is re defined on the fly....could be pretty confusing....

//discord

/edit
to note, you could have several such 'cores' with engine/power/emitter systems, and easily 'detach' a part of the ship, and go seperate ways....
/edit

[Geoff the Medio]

This would effectively make all races' ships identical. The idea of having different hull types (for me) was originally that they would actually function differently in a meaningful and significant way. Some of the ideas we've discussed can work with simple modifiers, but not all.

Ummm Geoff theis going to be Ship designing with differn combinations of weapons/armor/Engines ect ect. It most definatly dose not make them all Identical

I said "make all races' ships identical", not "make all ships identical".

It makes your whole races Fleet BLANK-ER

faster, stronger, stealthier, better armored, slower
Basicaly what ever kind of modifiers we want to create that will make your fleet as a whole unique from that of other races and encourage you to produce a unique strategy for it.

Sounds simple, but in practice this doesn't work like you expect. Making a race's ships have more armour just means they don't need to put on (research and actually build) as much armour as other races for the same effect. Making them faster just means they can get away with cheaper engines. If everything is "balanced", then everybody's bonuses are worth about the same, and everybody compensates for their bonus to produce cost-balanced ships, and everybody ends up with the same ships as everyone else. No different strategies arise from this.

The alternative is to actually make the different ship hull types work differently in a way that can't be compensated for so easily. This will actually make different hull types different strategically.

[utilae]

TRANSPORT
========
Propulsion FTL
Propulsion Sub-light
Troop Transport
Stargates
Dimensional Gate
Personnel Teleporter
Instant ship transport (teleport ship)
Freighters (Cargo Transport)
Starlane manipulation tech (increase starlane speed, etc)
BlackHole tranpsort (discover how to use black holes as instant gateways to another black hole)
Transport through nebulas (reducing effects of various nebulas)

WEAPONS/OFFENSE
=============
Energy/Laser Weapons
Projectile Weapons
Missles/Warheads
Planetary Bombs
Other Weapons (zany, wierd, etc)
Psi-Attacks (killing crew)
Various weapon effects (stop, slow, poison, haste, area/splash, disable weapons/disable movement)

SECURITY/DEFENSE
=============
Shields
Mines and Minefields
Armor
Point Defense
Security (protect against espionage of various types)
Ground To Ground weapons (to engage ground forces invading planet)
Ground To Space weapons

MILLITARY & TACTICS
==============
Cloak & Stealth
Ground Troops
Marines
Tanks
Troop/Marine/Ground force training
Ship crew training
Boarding
Tactics and other non-component Modifiers
Tractor Beams
Psi-Control (mind control)
Saboutage (destruction/disabling of enemy targets)
Armour types (anti missile/anti energy/anti heat)

SPACE CONSTRUCTION
===============
Fighters Hulls
Ship Hulls
Space Station Hulls
Repair systems
Space Industry improvements
Ship Space (to hold more weapons/cargo, etc)
Probes/Colonies/Outposts

INFORMATION COLLECTION & ANALYSIS
==========================
Sensors
Espionage (information collection)
Control and Comunications
Mine Sweeping
Psi-Scan (psi sweeps instead of sensors)
Scouting

Here's that list, better grouped under appropriate headings. At least what I tihnk they should be under.

* Rock Big, slow ships with big slow protectile weapons. Massive hulls, the heaviest armor, and big guns (mass drivers, for example).

* Metal Call this the "gritty archer" branch of the tree. Missles, fighters, perhaps point defense, ground tanks/mechs. Engineering bays?

* Energy Energy hulls would be very advanced--very high up the tree. Implies speed. Lower levels would be lasers, shields, engines/starlane drives. Tractor beams fit into the energy/speed theme as well (though they also seem like cheap tricks, as in Shadow.)

* Organic Living hulls, weapons that effect living critters (biobombs, etc.) Living critters themselves, including conquering troops, boarding marines.

* Shadow At the lower levels of the tree, cloaks, sensors, and cheap tricks. At the top, jedi mind tricks and hulls made of psi-stuff. Think B5's Psi-corp.

I can't say that I really like these. If these are mean't to be hull types, then why do they also describe the weapons and stuff.

I could see how weapons and systems could be grouped on things like: Energy, Biological, Chemical, etc, but some of these just aren't right. Rock is just big and slow (I would think propulsion would affect the slowness more). Metal appear to be ranged or missile based (why not call them archers, what is with Metal). Energy seem like propulsion and and energy weapons (though this has more to do with weapons and propulsion then hull types). Bio hulls seem ok. Shadow seems like it should more be forbidden, illegal things, also underhanded tractics, etc.

[drek]

hrm.

Utilae's categories look pretty good to me. If I can't figure out how to make the doctrine type categories work, then I'll probably support something like utilae's list.

[Impaler]

Looks good but I would like to see 5 Military Tecs Max to give a nice Duality with the 5 Non-Military Tecs. Information Catagory could be folded in with the prior "Academic/Science/Information" catagory though admitedly this would be mixing military/nonmilitary so perhaps theirs a better way to get down to 5 catagories.

Sounds simple, but in practice this doesn't work like you expect. Making a race's ships have more armour just means they don't need to put on (research and actually build) as much armour as other races for the same effect. Making them faster just means they can get away with cheaper engines. If everything is "balanced", then everybody's bonuses are worth about the same, and everybody compensates for their bonus to produce cost-balanced ships, and everybody ends up with the same ships as everyone else. No different strategies arise from this.

This is the philosophy called "Playing to ones weakness" aka trying to make yourself more "average". The oposite strategy is "Playing to your Strengths" inwhich you maximize your strengths even further and hammer your oponent with it. Think of the game SMAC, each faction has strengths and they are played very differntly. Its vary rare to see people play to their weakness in SMAC and I dont think including a Bonus of this type is going to result in playing to weaknesses.

[drek]

Could fold sensors into tactics.