Battle revamps

[Empress]

Because I'm behind, I thought I would just throw this out here and let it be seen faster and figured out with more input.


To start this, Let me say that I have really sat and thought this over in the off hours and reflected on alot of the past battles, and compared them to both modern navy/deployments as well as major battles in Star Wars ( clone wars has actually been useful visually for once)

1: Fleets sizes, and their deployment need to be of realistic scale: Typically any major battle, namely those seeking planets rarely utilized more than 4, or 5 ISDs during the height of the Empire. ( Battle of Endor seeming more of an exception rather than a norm. ) And once you start throwing out insane numbers too it increases the odds of ooc bickering, and or munchkin like power-play ( IE, Player goes overboard with the high and mighty, can do whatever.)

and remember too. Large capital craft " along the lines of a star destroyer or mon cal size" require around 40 thousand + people to fully operate

Spoiler: Star destroyer details

• Officers (9,235)[1]
• Infantry (9,700)[1]
• Enlisted (27,850)[1]
• Gunners (275)[6]

Spoiler: ISD equipment amounts: Fighters/walkkers etc

• TIE/ln starfighter (48)[1]
• TIE/sa bomber (12)[1]
• TIE boarding craft (12)[1]
• Lambda-class shuttles (8)[6]
• Delta-class stormtrooper transports (15)[1]
• Assault gunboats (5)[6]
• A variable number of Skipray Blastboats
• Gamma-class assault shuttle (1+)
• Repair and recovery vehicles
• Theta-class AT-AT barges
• Sentinel-class landing craft (12)[1]
• AT-AT walkers (20)[6]
• AT-ST walkers (30)[6]
• Prefabricated garrison base (1)

So with that I propose:

Generic fleet distributions.

• Max capital craft allowance 20 craft ( 5 cruisers max) for planetary attack

• Max capital craft Allowance of 10 ( 1-2 cruisers) for patrol fleets

• Max capital craft allowance of 5 ( 0-1 cruisers) for small outposts/fuel depots etc

Planetary Defense Fleets
( Meaning the default NPC fleets naturally there before an IC deployment of more craft)
​

Major Worlds: 3-5 major cruisers + support. MAX capital craft 15
Minor Worlds 1-3 major cruisers + support . Max Capital craft 8

Major, or Minor worlds with strategic value, or highly valuable resources may have more protection however no more than 25 and known between FL's.

IC/OOC Deployment

IC Battle fields should be kept open for others, however not become over saturated, and complex to read through and figure out what is involved.

Each battle may see no more than 5 individuals Per Major Faction with 1-2 persons in over all command

EXAMPLE

Admiral McPants is commanding the 28th fleet... though commodore happyshoe has a small task force present in orbit.... Lt commanders taco and baldy commanding hawk and viper squadrons
Bringing the Republic OOC total to 4 individuals

Also, it should be stated that players involved OOCly in Battle A- cannot jump to battle B as a commanding officer while there are OTHER OOC players available. This assures that battles do NOT become exclusive to a few individuals.


Star Fighters:
Star Fighters are Traditionally broken up as 12 fighters in a squadron, going in waves of 3 wings of 4 fighters

IC Fighter pilots may command " their" squadron.

The amount of IC squadrons may be pre-agreed on between FL's, or limited to one squadron per capital command ( IE, LT Commander Taco of Hawk squadron serves with Admiral Pants... LT Commander baldy serves under Commodore Happy shoe)



Blockades.

Blockades MUST be known to all Facton leaders before a battle happens
and must be addressed IC'ly

Most blockades can be constructed with asteroids or scrap, or other bodies of mass towed into a hyperspace lane..very very few are ever Interdictor caused. Though the tech is around, it is exceedingly rare and expensive.

* proposed allowance of Interdictors to 10 Faction wide can be used and moved ( BETWEEN BATTLES) and no more can be given, once they are wiped out, they are gone. ( this also offers a nice " secondary objective" to players. )

It is also expected too that FL's be mature about considering how Blockades work, and the vast amounts of effort needed with them. You cannot blockade EVERY system. Boarders and vital worlds in contested areas may see them, but they are less likely deeper into ones own territory unless it's risking being a contested area.




Hyperspace and back up:

In this era Hyperspace still depends on hyperspace beacons. Long trips require a ship to drop into real space every few markers to re-calculate
making it impossible to go from point A, to point C in one shot without stopping at B for 10, 15 min.

Hyperspace is done on known networks of routes. Traveling " off road" has been attempted, but have very very low success/survival rates without much time and effort to map the area and manually input it into a ships nav-computer.


Bringing in back up would also be limited: no more " count bulbous coming in from 10 systems away with 80000 ships" or "Admiral buck and her 20000" ships going to Mannan, from Corellia.

" incoming back up" should be limited to systems less than an hour away."








It should be noted however that build ups, and entrenching should be fine if it's stated OOCly first. such as " Republic are massing themselves around the Hutt planet ______ " Hutts are able to relocate forces in that time as well to match the enemy.

just once a battle starts. it's more or less locked in.

This is just a quick throw together, I can clarify better, and alter things, but this I believe offers a much more realistic scale, should cut back on OOC bitchfests, and open the doors for more people to participate in different things.
​

 

[Empress]

I wanted to add that this system is more or less how the old battles were done...

and I know it may look off when it comes to numbers of ships at hand , like.. 20 hutt ships attacking a rep world of 15, with an additional 20 able to be re-enforced giving a 35 to 20:

However keep in mind that is why strategy is important; The Hutts in that case can get back up in too granted they have a reasonable route in and out.

however FL's can agree on elevated ship numbers, though it's case by case. It's natural that a major assault on a major world of value will have more force behind them.

they just need to be scaled down to more realistic numbers.


I also site too that resources and supplies are vital to consider: you CANT support a fleet that is cut off from you, or too deep into enemy territory, you NEED to have lines for supplies, and communications, and or utilize smugglers ( more over a indi faction ^_^ )


there is also a limit to navy size; if you loose 200 ships over a course of a month, you need to factor in the time to repair or rebuild, and more over restaff those ships. as well as the cost.

the Republic for example has: Jayde Enterprises, Kuat Drive yards and Costa industries as far as IC ship builders go. with CARD playing both sides. That given the ability to replace craft is easier for the Republic. Though the cost may be high and higher as resources become harder to obtain.

That being said, Hutts may have a harder time replacing things as fast as the Republic, yet they make up for it with more combat able allied factions than the Republic.

 

[Santoro]

My immediate issue is limiting how many ships can be on the field at once. While the hutt system of battlegroups works for 16 ships, there should be a way to have 32- I'd rather it be 20 ship limit per commander, ignoring special circumstances (ie the Hutts raiding Coruscant, which would likely have a hundred vessels).

Reinforcements are an issue, and I think only the addition of a player should ever justify reinforcements. We shouldn't have a set limit on these, but maybe do it on a case by case deal- that way, if the Republic has been building at a border world it can reflect that.

Something we need to seriously address is how regions are taken. Naturally we can't fight over every planet, so we need to identify key planets that can each give specific goals- X planet gains control south of the Perlimian, Y gets more ships, etc.


Edit: also, the Hutt buildup was explained in a memo where the Empire took control of private shipyards to fuel the war effort- same manner was the draft.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Yeah, we do need to talk about that. I'd like all faction leaders and admins to put together some suggestions for that. I don't know if we can finish that before the battles that will be launched immediately after the time skip, but at least for the second round of battles it can be implemented.

 

[Lavi]

Personally, I'd like there to be a cap on the total number of ships in the battle to prevent seemingly small battles from jumping to gigantic proportions since that rarely is the case in actual battles. What I have in mind is that the "cap" on the number of ships is done on a case-by-case basis; both sides state how many ships they have deployed and OOCly inform the RP admin the makeup of ships that they have as reinforcements in the case that the faction wants/needs to deploy them.

The RP admin would have to give the thumbs up for the figures before the battle goes underway.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Personally, I'd like there to be a cap on the total number of ships in the battle to prevent seemingly small battles from jumping to gigantic proportions since that rarely is the case in actual battles. What I have in mind is that the "cap" on the number of ships is done on a case-by-case basis; both sides state how many ships they have deployed and OOCly inform the RP admin the makeup of ships that they have as reinforcements in the case that the faction wants/needs to deploy them.

The RP admin would have to give the thumbs up for the figures before the battle goes underway.

I like that. It also lets the RP admin know in advance what they're basically going to be managing in terms of GMing the thread.

 

[Empress]

Personally, I'd like there to be a cap on the total number of ships in the battle to prevent seemingly small battles from jumping to gigantic proportions since that rarely is the case in actual battles. What I have in mind is that the "cap" on the number of ships is done on a case-by-case basis; both sides state how many ships they have deployed and OOCly inform the RP admin the makeup of ships that they have as reinforcements in the case that the faction wants/needs to deploy them.

The RP admin would have to give the thumbs up for the figures before the battle goes underway.

I think we had something like that IIRC where admins had to approve the sizes.. I remember Lirr doing that alot during the great war. pissed raider off when his pirates would magically be like 2000 ships showing up in a 50/50 Republic/Sith battle


the biggest thing is to gut down on the:

" We're attacking with 200 ships and like 150 of them are main line cruisers!"

" Oh, we have 300 there already waiting, and another 200 on the way! "

" oh yeah, well we also have 400 coming in and they have supah lazors!"


at the end of it all there needs to be a finite " default" number defending to more or less " expect" though yes it's a given that there are a few case by cases where it may be more or less...but it serves as a starting point for FL's to work with.

and again the re-enforcements should be kept realistic...nobody is going to easily pull 200 all cruiser fleet from 10 systems away fast, nor be able to get around fast on good travel days, let alone having to contend with obstacles


I personally would not oocly allow the Republic to send a massive backup into a battle thread where we realistically could not get there 1) in time " meaning really close by" or 2) bad navigational lines. just the same would contest anyone else doing the same.


it may seem like a face palm obvious thing.. but I have seen enough battles in this timeline to see that this is...well how almost everything plays out like there is an infinite amount of available resources on both sides... which really just adds tot he bickering.


There is plenty of room to adjusting numbers, I just threw out some loose figures. but the point being there still needs to be something controlled... easier for us and admins to police, and keeps players from full on power trips, and allows some forethought into what is being done.

keeping the power plays, and Meta out of it will ease alot of that ooc bitching too.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

I also think that when a battle is being planned and presented to the RP admins, the faction leader giving us the plan needs to tell us the route they're taking to get there. As in, look at the regional or galaxy maps, and show us a) where you're coming from, b) where you're going, and c) how you're getting there.

 

[Empress]

yes thats pretty damn important.. RP admins should be given updated blockade locations too just so they know exactly where

 

[Santoro]

I'm fine with telling fleet numbers and movements to an RP admin before the battle starts- I can have them for the coming battles by the end of tonight, I don't believe any of the Hutt fleets need to be over 20 for this round should you want to limit the republic likewise, Adena.

 

[Empress]

I don't believe any of the Hutt fleets need to be over 20 for this round should you want to limit the republic likewise, Adena.

Write up has me massing the boarders pretty good, and blockading routes...though Im keeping that in relative perspective and keeping them in areas of high value so there is no chance any commanders taking the assaults can try to pull anything cheep.

and I also have a " default local" number in most places IN orbit. majority of defenses ( though smaller ) are kept out of the systems to force conflicts before they threaten the planet itself and buy time.

I'll deal with exact things though tonight

 

[Jake]

A few questions:

"Major Worlds: 3-5 major cruisers + support. MAX capital craft 15"

Does this 'max' represent maximum NPC defenses or the max amount of ships we can bring to defend?

Besides that I'm a little confused as to 'capital craft' and 'cruisers' being thrown around.

"Max capital craft allowance 20 craft ( 5 cruisers max) for planetary attack"

Capital craft = corvettes, star destroyers? Why the special limit for cruisers?

Besides that I don't think there should be a limit phrased quite like that. The Hutt military works off a hexadecimal system (16 ships to a battlegroup) so 20 makes it somewhat awkward and unwieldy for us.

I like the idea of telling an RP admin our unit count before a battle begins. If we could offer reasoning for special cases where we have more than the established limit (ie like Santoro mentioned, a raid on Coruscant having a lot of extra ships) that would be cool.

I also like the idea of reinforcements being pulled from exclusively local systems, as in pulling from either patrols in that area or from the NPC defenses. I think there should be an opportunity for special cases near the Republic/Hutt border though, where we send out an invasion force and they arrive in waves from different planets. Not that that would happen frequently mind you.

I don't really like the idea of the Republic/Hutt getting specific bonuses either. If you guys have IC RPs with your PC-owned shipyards, I think it would be awesome if that spawned unique ships or something, but faster rebuilding? It starts to sound more like a real-time strategy game and I would hate for the RP to move in that direction.

The same goes for us. We could justify rebuild times too - we militarized private industries, plus we have a fair share of prominent manufacturing planets ourselves. Also, I don't really say how we have more "combat able" relations than the Republic. The Pentacle Athame and Labous Ankou and whoever else are cool and everything, but how are they actually useful in a conventional military situation? They're not numerous enough to do much besides serve as a distraction and give us a buffer against the Jedi.

That's pretty much my view on these changes, so I agree with mostly everything, just have a few questions and whatnot.

 

[Empress]

there is not a bonus really.. except you do need resources to maintain the faction, food, oar, medical... and that system has...or was Always part of the initial battle rules. "If you can't support it/afford it you can't have it"

in the first timeline Af'El was a major major target as it was pretty much the backbone to the durosteel industry needed to repair build ships... and really anything.

When the Sith finally clamped onto it not only did it mean less cost for us up front because we got it at cost, but we even sold to the Republic and other groups at inflated prices ( and they payed) allowing us to pay off the Mandalorians more for better kolto deals, and fund building our massive armada.

this also made the Republic weaker and more stretched for cash

it was also there in the second timeline, and I have no clue where it went but the whole thing gave the reason to fight much more importance, and held value to what was being done and forced strategic thinking




and when I say max of 20 capitals that would mean basically corvettes and up with typically only 1 to 3 cruiser ( were talking like Mon-cal, mon ramada, and VSD scale) flagships


how they are arranged and composed is really up to the commanders of said fleet and the faction leaders...

pure NPC fighters would be more or less capped at whatever said ships can carry.


but again that would be a generic " base" for things there is always the more specified situations and numbers that can be agreed on pre-battle .

 

[Santoro]

The more I sit on this, the less comfortable with it I feel. I agree with lowering ship numbers to realistic amounts and even telling an RP admin how many you can bring, reinforcements, and where, but too many details and we're heading straight for Risk- the same manner we're going with the grid by grid benefits.

All of that can be done through RP in its current form, if we start taking into account rigid stats we're losing free form and might as well roll up damage.

 

[Empress]

I...actually not trying to say there is a grid by grid perk thing.... when I say resources Im referring that by a planet to planet thing that was a major part of how battles even worked from the start, you cant have a war and an army with no means to upkeep them and move them. where that dissolved into kid like " OH YEAH WELL I HAVE..600000000! " followed by 5 pages of stats and more fighting" I have no clue

that has nothing to do with bonuses or anything, that's just how it was and forced tactic and rationing. It's still free form, the plans put to use, the way things play out, the surprises and tricks. That's never lost.

However that said, and again going off the very very very space battle heavy first timeline.. Admins knowing plans and helping make sure things are done fairly, taking into account resources and what not served some very important factors:

OOC fighting was almost none
Meta gaming and power plays were pretty much non existent

and for it alot of things came out smoother and more thrilling actually, as well as oocly much easier to deal with and keep track on.


and the grids well I went with " influence over an area/sector" purely for the ease of keeping track of it all, easy updating, and more over a very comprehensive " at a glance" factor.

a more complete fluid map would in my mind be wonderful , making it would take weeks, months if there is little help. and it would be more complicated to get a " general idea" at a glance.

 

[Jiang Winters]

After reading through this, I very much so like Adena's proposal and Bac/Lavi's thoughts, and I see no apparent issues with anything that's been proposed. Restricting the number of capital-class ships would be wonderful, and it'd make things a little less massive in scale. Plus it'd give RP'ers a chance to focus on commanding just one cruiser and its support craft, which would be pretty fun imo.

 

[Empress]

makes it easier to run starfighters, which we use to do with alot of success... and no shock though, a brazen and skilled group of pilots can really change the pitch of battle.

 

[Santoro]

I understand the concept, but all of that is really taken into account. In the initial Bothawui and Denon battle, I arrived with 16 ships a piece. It escalated from the hundreds thrown out, but still their presence was justified on both sides. We should go down on ship numbers and I'm fine with telling admins beforehand, but limiting X many capital ships and Y many starfighters isn't just a pain, it's restrictive.

My point is that everything here is present already, and I think it can be fixed without a full blown system but making the stakes clear before each battle.

 

[Cailst]

I understand the concept, but all of that is really taken into account. In the initial Bothawui and Denon battle, I arrived with 16 ships a piece. It escalated from the hundreds thrown out, but still their presence was justified on both sides. We should go down on ship numbers and I'm fine with telling admins beforehand, but limiting X many capital ships and Y many starfighters isn't just a pain, it's restrictive.

My point is that everything here is present already, and I think it can be fixed without a full blown system but making the stakes clear before each battle.

Perhaps if you start out with a lot of ships, it would take longer for reinforcements to arrive? Or if total fleet sizes go down, it's a lot harder to justify sending half the Republic fleet to one battle than it is to send a tenth. It would seem to be a more natural restriction than simply a cap on numbers.

For OOC justification, perhaps new developments in armor and gunnery made the massive fleets of yesteryear obsolete and more powerful but far more expensive fleets are now the norm? Sure, there might be the remnants of the previous huge fleets but they are probably mothballed and don't do much to the newer ships.

 

[Empress]

I believe I said at some point it's STILL largely a case by case thing.. those I put would serve really as nothing more as a " estimated average" something to play around with as a starting point.

IE meaning the actual numbers are teak-able, changeable it is just an " average"


I mean hell if someone wants to blow through their resources and post 5 armadas someplace because they are scared shitless of an attack there.. that happens time to time....if they want to throw 5 armadas worth into an attack...well its dumb as hell but it's workable granted it's taken into account that we dont have unlimited ships and no star forge to turn them out over night and realize when we stretch ourselves thin whatever works.