Really Big Guns

[Ayden Cater]

[member="Popo"]

The problem is that at a certain level of consolidation, there's the expectation that "Wow, my one gun has as much firepower as their whole ship. It's gotta kill them in one shot."

 

[Ayden Cater]

[member="Ashin Varanin"] [member="Popo"]

And if there need be any proof to the above post, you need only look here.

This is, quite literally, the perfect example of why I want to put a limit to just how many consolidated guns can be put on a ship. Cause the moment the first person makes a ship like this and uses it, then that's all anyone is ever going to make and use.

 

[Popo]

[member="Ayden Cater"] [member="Ashin Varanin"]
Arguably, it's Circe. Her development threads are full of inconsistencies and blatant powergaming, if it manages to stay on task for long than three posts before devolving into innuendos, double ententes, and borderline over-the-PG13 rating of the board.

Also, arguably, consolidating most if not all of the guns can do damage on the shipkilling scale, but causes flaws in the design.

However, if we're going to limit the amount of consolidation, how about we limit the max gun points possible for consolidation instead of a percentage of the ship. That prevents the largest ships from consolidating their entire armament into a single kark-you cannon, while allowing smaller ships the ability to specialize (ie, spinal mounts on escorts, planetary assault guns on cruisers/Light SDs, etc.). So, let's go with this statement as the max consolidation possible:

A theoretical long range battery of heavy quad turbolasers is equal to a staggering one hundred sixty (160) turbolasers!

Anything over 50 gun points requires a tech submission through the factory. Consolidation beyond 160 gun points is not possible.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

I may digress slightly, but I like the direction this is headed. If 160 becomes our max for weapon system subs, that actually lets us remove some obsolete whatnots from our rules and practices. So what if it's a proton beam or a composite beam? It's still only worth 160, no more, no special advantage. The proton beam line was TechMatt's slam on Mark and is old, old, old. Thoughts?

 

[Popo]

[member="Ashin Varanin"]
I like it. It means less detailed, specific restrictions and blankets it for "cannot exceed x amount" instead, making it simpler and easier to follow. It becomes less "Dude, can't have Proton Beam Cannons/Composite Beam Weapons/Epic Lazorz on this thing, they're restricted" and more along the lines of "Toss what you want (within reason), but it can't exceed 160 gun count equivalent."

Toss in a required Tech Sub for anything 50 gun equivalent or higher and you make more room for definitive strengths, weaknesses, and ranges/fluff for each submission plus you'll start seeing far more unique submissions for each faction and company. For example, a Republic Heavy, Quad, Long Range Turbolaser battery might be more liable to blow up, but can target corvettes and frigates and such, whereas the OP's version of the same weapon might be more resilient and harder to damage, but can't target anything smaller than, say, a Heavy Cruiser. More creativity, more fluff, more effort into submissions, and more cooperation between Tech and Starships.

 

[Ayden Cater]

Maybe, but I still feel like consolidating any more than a third of a ship's power invites abuse and problems. It's exceedingly rare to make a ship that overspecialized, especially anything larger than a heavy cruiser.

[member="Popo"], [member="Ashin Varanin"]

 

[Popo]

[member="Ayden Cater"] [member="Ashin Varanin"]
Honestly, I can see where you're coming from, but if we're gonna go that route, we probably should yank any grandfather clauses on it where that applies. Otherwise, why enforce minimal gun consolidation when other subs got through beforehand? The Starship Guide even says that it only applies to stuff from 2.0 onwards, which means anything from 2.0, where most of the gun consolidation is, applies as a precedent. This, in turn, means that the potential for abuse is still there regardless. Sure, you have the report option, but let's be honest here. Folks will spam that the first second they get when the realize x ship has y gun consolidation and is being used against them, so they should report it anyways. At that point, it'd have to be nerfed more or less on concept of the report, even if there was no hardcore abuse. Having a blanket limit on gun consolidation instead of a maximum percentage on ships reduces headaches, math, and simplifies the process.

Doing it this way with a max consolidation of 160 points per individual battery is probably the best way to do it and allows a lot more creativity for the writers and less headaches than by going with percentages. Not everyone's great at math and I'd tear (what's left of) my hair out trying to figure out what percentage of this or that I can consolidate without going overboard.

A good idea for a middle ground, though, is if the entire armament for, say, anything Light SD sized or up is consolidated to the maximum, require a dev thread for it. Regardless of whether it's vanilla or not. It let's people show effort and prevents the usual individuals who'd abuse the crap outta the proposed system from handwaving stuff as they'd have to do the tech subs with any dev threads there required plus a dev thread and starship sub for the actual ship. Loads of safety nets and few cracks to fall through, so long as everyone does their job correctly.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

@[member="Popo"] @[member="Ayden Cater"] @[member="Domino"]

How's this for a draft?

If you wish to consolidate portions of your gun count by making large weapons systems (special hypervelocity guns, composite beams, proton beams, etc.), any weapons system equivalent to more than 50 turbolasers requires a tech submission. No such weapons system may exceed 160 turbolasers in equivalency. When vessels consolidate large percentages of their gun count into a handful of large weapons, especially for larger warships, judges reserve the right to require a substantial development thread and significant other weaknesses.

 

[Popo]

[member="Ashin Varanin"]
I like it lol

 

[Ayden Cater]

[member="Ashin Varanin"], [member="Popo"]

A good first draft. I like.

 

[Asemir]

I like.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

@Popo @Ayden Cater
When you gentlemen get a moment, break it. Find the edge cases, the exploits. Get around it like Circe or Waid would, and then we'll fine-tune from there.

 

[Asemir]

Can you consolidate a consolidated weapon system ?

For example:

Consolidate two 140-equivalent systems to make a single 280 system?

Or, take a series is separate 100-equivalents and have them combine fire to make a bigger effect, a la Death Star super laser?

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

 

[Popo]

[member="Asemir Lor'kora"] [member="Ashin Varanin"]
I'd say no. The 160 gun count is the limit. If you wanna dual mount two 80 gun count weapons, by all means. Dual mount two 90 gun count weapons? Nope.

I can see perhaps letting it get bumped a teeny bit in the event of major dev threads or huge concessions, but that's something for way down the line. For now, this should not be worked around or wiggled through. Until this becomes a standard and established, if it stays, let's make the 160 gun count immobile and solid.

 

[Valik]

Now, forgive me if I'm wrong as I'm admittedly not great with ships, but isn't the biggest issue with Consolidating guns how wide the fire arc is? If you have an SD that has it's gun consolidated into say, 8 barrels but you've only got say a 90 degree arc you can take a few cruisers or bombers or what have you, run along the side and hit it's more exposed sides as it's not quick enough to turn around and get you. It's a bit more complex I'll grant you, but would a rule to the effects of "This gun is really big so it needs to more firmly planted on the ship can only fire in X direction/degree" assist in anyway?

 

[Asemir]

[member=Popo]

Ashin asked to see if we can prevent edge cases, so I was trying to.

[member=Valik]

I'm actually surprised there aren't rules governing firing arcs of weapons (i.e. aft and fore broadsides, aft arcs, etc.). It's something to consider if more in-depth construction rules are created. That and volume of equipment/weapons.

As an aside, a well-designed vessel should be able to turn easily by rotating along its y-axis. Then again, I've never seen SW ships portrayed as adhering to "common sense" black navy tactics, such as rolling, coasting, yawing, etc., so they may lack the standard positioning and maneuvering drives I take for granted.