What changes???????? The only ones I have found are the new combat emergency fixes....

Goth

http://www.spacious.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=795

It was not the intention, but its something to think about.
You will produce tehm the same way normal naval officers are produced, and then tehy can gain skill etc.

DNT stops you getting a target onto your locked target list, however it does not remove a target from the locked target list (say if it changes ownership during a battle).

So a piece of ship equipment that allows you to preform an Air-Drop of equipment to a GP/SB at any time, including during combat?

So if you fail to flee because of no movement speed (no engines/Tractor'd), you will instead return fire (assuming you have weapons)? Or just sit there taking fire for the rest of that day?

I am not rreally sure if this is realistic or good.

I do know that some traders tend to use GP's as an sort of stockpile. An GP is in my eyes no more then an bunch of items guarded by some troops. In history we have seen those kind of situations often, think about Fuel Dumps in WW2 or ammo depots.

In current time, harbours are full with goods lying around

Why not??

And will be considered an combat. An couple of months ago, it took me two weeks to clean out the planet on which my base was located from some enemy GP's. It would be very unrealistic and very annoying if I wasn't able to use my HiPorts due to that.
In that period those GP's did ZERO damage.

I can understand that you want to try to prevent people from taking the best goodies if the base is going to fall, but make sure that this new rule is only active when the combat side has an realistic chance in taking over the starbase. Otherwise I will see small suicide GP's moving into big trade starbases so that they can't trade for the duration of the combat.

Too expensive to have more than one a ship then <g>.

Geoff

How can you equate a harbour or an ammo depot to a "Ground Party"? A Unit of soldiers is a GP, a unit of tanks is a GP, the A-Team is a GP, but a warehouse with a night watchman is not a GP, nor is a huge great pile of ore with someone sitting on top of it.

So if say a Starbase has a 1 troop GP in each square around it, would you expect a 2000 tank GP to be stopped by it for a day's battle even though it would take about 3 seconds to dispose of?

You could put them 5 deep and buy yourself 5 days to get in reinforements while the approaching GP is stopped by GP after GP on its way to attack you (or more for longer).

That's ridiculous, there's got to be a better way to handle it. the IMPs or DTR might be able to delay an army for a day with paperwork after killing a sinlge enemy troop, but a lot of other affs wouldn't bat an eyelid and just keep rolling forward.

I kind of agree with this, although I can imagine reasons for it (bigger gun allows more targetting "curcuits/add-on" gubbins). But it would seem more sensible from a mechanics point of view to reverse the accuracy? Smaller guns are more accurate but do less damage; Larger guns are less accurate but do more damage.

I'd have said better armour factor rather than more damage, but the point is one i agree with. We have the case where big guns should be targeted and small fast ships and smaller ones at large slow ships, that can't be right.

Although if you gave the big guns more damage it would destory the balance between the weapons.

A big weapon hits a larger area.

It may be difficult to hit a small target hung on a barn door from a hundred yards with a revolver.
It is quite easy to hit target hung on the barn door from a hundred yards if your weapon will take out the entire barn and half the surrounding yard.

Same principle applies here.

The argument that it means that the larger weapons are therefore better at taking out specific weapons also holds true. You will hit the weapon you are aiming for, but the overspill damage, as the applied damage is invariably greater than the target weapon will still be hammered into the rest of the position (the barn door, the barn and the surrounding yard in the above example).

Yes they will be low powered offensive weapons - but their effect is only against enemy offensive units (not resupply cargo ships). Their actions will counter the anomaly which is the xlight-torp and a number of other dubious actions.
Note that if the xlight-torp carries magazines then it's stomp power is much reduced.
As we have always said, the pecking order is Heavy > Xlight. Why shouldn't the mechanics ensure this? There are plenty of tactics in the game without the need for the munchkin method.
The damage they deliver is only a threat to aggressive xlight/light ships. They will not be any use in smashing passive ships between rounds.

Not convinced. I don't think your example accurately describes the situation.

Your example explains why area effect weapons have a better chance to hit something. But their targeting bonus is bought on the cost of being area effect, i.e. high AF value and overall low damage.
Big guns do not hit a larger area. That is expressed by damage and AF values, not accuracy.

Specific targeting is only relevant for beam weapons as far as I now. I suggest first to balance beam weapons against other weapons in the game, then adjusting the Specific Targeting rules to the new beam weapon parameters.
How about improving the targeting of beam weapons by +3 across the board (+1 per tech level) and at the same time make specific targeting +3 more difficult?

Btw, I really like ptb's idea about improving the AF value as guns get bigger! Could this be a way forward for rail weaponry?

I wasn't suggesting giving bigger weapons more damage I was saying that they already get more damage, so now they get more accuracy as well?

Mica, I see your point although accuracy does not conjure images of mass destruction to me (why bother with high spec sniper rifles and highly trained marksmen when you just drop a dirty great bomb?), but in terms of chance to hit (as it means in this game) I suppose it's fair enough. I mainly thinking of balancing the weapons a bit more (to give lighter weapons more use than just killing freighters, i.e. if you want specific targetting to work - use light weapons, it hits what you want and nothing else - more "accurate" - e.g. for capturing ships practically intact rather than an empty shell).

"Right Soldier, I want that machine gun nest taken out so we capture the enemy HQ."

"BOOM! One Machine gun nest destroyed sir!"

"Where the hell did the HQ go Private?!"

"Erm... gulp..."

A more "accurate" solution (no pun intended) might be to have 2 accuracy bonuses. One as it is now a simply "to hit" chance (general targetting), but another that is applied for specific targetting. Thus larger weapons (wider beams) get better to hit general targetting, but smaller weapons (narrower beams) get better specific targetting accuracy.

An GP can consist of everything.. Lets look around and think.

If you are shoveling goods from one side of an country to another side, does it ALWAYS sit on an vehincle which is capable of carrying it around?? Never seen an pile of goods with just an guard???

In my eyes, an GP can be everything, which doesn't need an ship or an pernament structure. Or it was something like.

And why should an GP have enough shuttle capacity to hold the items, they ar not flying away or something like it. Yes, it can't be moved, but thats not an issue why you can't store it like this way.

To get back to your question: an Ammo Depot.
Isn't that no more then just an pile of ammo, with some guards protecting it?? Why should it be in an vehincle?? Or is it smart to keep it in an vehincle all the times??

Er... actually no. They are either on the quay, i.e. in a harbour (a fixed position), in a station (another fixed position), in a container on a truck or in a yard. I really can't remember the last time I travelled down a road and glanced out of my window to see an open field filled with merchandise in prestine condition just sitting there in a dirty great lump with no railings around it (fixed position).
The closest thing I have seen is a circus... hold on, ain't they mobile?

So, if you want to dump your stuff, then you need temporary shelter - a dome should do quite nicely. There is nothing stopping you dismantling it after it has served its purpose. It makes sense whether this is on the ground, in orbit or in the middle of space. If it gives more power to ships, then again, it is not a bad thing.

I don't think I can really agree with you.

The last time I watched tv-series like MASH or such, they were clearly using tents. Which is pretty much 'short term'. As Phoenix doesn't have that kind of structures... Also an fuel dump would consist (in war situations) would consists of simply barrels of fuels guarded by some soldiers. Why do you should build pernament structures if you are planning to leave in an couple of weeks??

About those quays, you as player doens't need to control those quays it could be quays owned by the local civies. The NEW thinking about GP clearly seems to forget the realities in military life (and trade life) people tend to use storage room which they can take from others.. they rent it or whatever.

And in space.. why should the holding limit be limited to the shuttle capacity of the GP. There is NOTHING preventing you from shutteling it our of your ship and pick it up in an couple days, put an guy with it (if needed in an nice shuttle) to guard it and you are ready.

Compared to the current situation the new GP rules sucks. Its not realistic and its going to be very annoying. And building an dome, everytime I need some short term storage is an big no-no.

You seem to be saying that you do this a lot? I've never done anything like this (that I can think of) so how about you provide some Phoenix specific examples of when you would do this and why?

Where would you put the stuff in space? Just leave it floating there? What stops it just drifting apart?

Not to mention the significant proportion of game items that probably wouldn't cope terribly well in a vacuum and with no radiation protection...

I think we can change that to banning, jettison from gps in combat.

Why not create an temporary efficiency drop?? And make it proportionel to the number of troops/combat units added??

You could make the first 4kmus of stuff without efficiency drop, but the rest is going to wreck havoc.. Try to get a new army of 400kmus organised within an couple of seconds :-)

The only obvious ones I can think off:

A load of troops and a lot of sensors in order to GPI a planet.

Leaving a load of items to be picked up by pirates without the risk of loosing a ship.

Leaving stuff in a GP within the OQ/linked celestial body and pick up from a hidden outpost via the shuttle ports without the other factions on the world knowing.

Stockpiling un-needed items due to the bug in the crew factors???

Mass producing certain naval items for later use, and then moving it temporary to an GP?? So that it wont effect the combat efficiency??

Buying some items for someone and storing it for later pickup??

And indeed I got severall GPI's GP in orbit around worlds.. its easier to setup then to redesign specific ships.

Moving per shuttles some modules so that your GP can build new Outposts?? especially if the planet is quite heavy??

Two obvious solutions:
A quick battle check in the same manner as stopping a large GP with a tiny one should be applied to a starbase assault seems reasonable. A trivial GP will not even make it to combat.
Or
A starbase is only prevented from acting after the first day of combat, i.e. the attacker has to be around for more than a day.

As capture and destruction scenario. We could change it so that all scrapping complexes and jettisoning items in an active starbase requires man-hours. Military use is not an option as it is simply too dangerous in a starbase to blow things up, they have to be systematically broken down and the waste has to be dealt with.Even in the real world, before a building is demolished through the use of explosives, the work that goes into preparing the site is significant.
If you want to blow it up (retreating army style), evacuate the starbase military equipment into the starport, open fire and keep firing until it is rubble. Theoretically, you do not even need to take everyone out, just start shooting.

Does this mean that officers can no longer survive if a ship is destroyed? (And i still don't like the whole training thing )

I prefer the first solution. Because the second one give the player the option to attack with severall small gp's. Maybe another option is to take out those small gp's (as long as they are not armed with tanks etc) using the security forces??

An one soldier GP should be taken care by an small opposing force. Thats why you also have security complexes..

Starbases also provide for jobs for the local civilian population, so we could have some excuses why you can't just scrap complexes when the base changes hands.

Can't I use my rail guns for that?

Well, you can deliver ammo that way... I think it's refered to as Blue-On-Blue

It was a bit vague: It is going to use and destroy an item from the ship to do the drop. Ie you have to carry orbital drop capsules that destroyed during the action. ie it will only be used when necessary and they are essentially a 1 shot shuttle.

We can make the restrictions only apply if control <100% ie you are being attacked by something that its entering the starbase and stopping you doing stuff.

The idea is that you can get stuff into the starbase (but not out). However using a hiport means that you don't need to have any investment to shift a whole starbase - fine in normal situations, not so good when theings get destroyed by it.

Nice Idea this..

Should suite the sneakiest most underhanded amongst us quite perfectly.

Archangel

This idea could be extended to constrain the amount of items that can be scrapped by setting the limit to not exceed the control percentage.

Presumably this is on an MU for MU basis in most cases. However, with Platform Hulls (90) - would this be 1 Hull per 100 MU converted, or 1 hull per 200 MU (Production cost) converted?

I also assume this doesn't allow higher marque shields/generators when we have the blueprints?

Are point defense items (Gatling, Phalanx, Phalanx Missiles) included in the weapons category?

Shuttle cargo capacity carries lifeforms.

Also, are Space Bombers included?

Best I can manage is 14,000 MU internal capacity <g>. Got half a million stellars handy?

By the way, the cargo drop order - I'm guessing you can use it to drop items to positions where you already have the position number. So theoretically you can drop from multiple ships to the same GP/starbase.

Why not just pick the contents of the GP up instead?

This would induce an ambiguous meaning to the term 'cargo capacity'. When is cargo capacity suitable for lifeform support, and when is it not?

It is suitable aboard GPs, but not suitable aboard ships.

That do? As far as I recollect that's always been the case, too..? At least, on most of my oldest GPs it has been.

Just to answer my own question - platform hulls are counted as 100 MU for conversion purposes. Get building those 2000+ hull platforms lads!