Ok The rules committee thought maybe we let some feedback develop on the following question.:

CW/DW shipyards: It has been allowed to preorder ships (paying for them all fully with crew and EP), so far the norm has been 6 at a time. However the rules do not say one way or the other how many you can build preorder.

So can you build say 36 CW in a single CWSY in a single turn (assuming you haev the EP)? Granted they will come out 1/turn...but are there any problems in doing so???

Let the debate begin......

By Charles "Lucky" Coleman (Mwmiyd) on Monday, August 12, 2013 - 09:11 pm: Edit

I don't see a problem with ordering more than 6 at a time, however, as per B11.80 you can only get a max of a 24% discount when you pay for them all at once. (and I think that is a good figure) So if you paid for 36 of them at a normal cost of 100 EP each, then "normally" you would pay 3600 for them, but with the 24% discount you pay 2736 for them.

You can only produce them as per the number of DW or CW SY's you have per turn so no problem there.

Crew on the other hand may be a separate issue.. Normally the crew is "produced" when the ship is paid for.. Prorated if you don't pay for it all at once. So if you paid for 36 at one time, you would produce the crews then, and the ships later? Could be a logistical nightmare for the GM? Maybe not, unless they are building other DW/CW's at the same time and paying for them separately. If you timed it right you could pay for them during RB and get a BUNCH of outstanding crews. May be a balancing issue there as well.

Could just have a standard % poor crew/outstanding crew based on the EE counter and the number of SY vs number of ships ordered.. again, logistical nightmare.

I would think the best method for crew units on multi purchased DW/CW ships over a period of time would be to apply the crew when the ships come off the slip.

Conversions apply when the ship comes off the slip, so that wouldn't be an issue as long as you stay within your conversion limits.

FRAX Prime
U5

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Monday, August 12, 2013 - 10:05 pm: Edit

The RB angle is one. The one that made me think of it is that my poor crew percentage is higher than I'd like, and until I get to 20 majors (at some future date), it is going to continue to trend upwards faster than I'd like. I can buy a bunch of CWs now at x%, or I can buy 6 @ x%, 6 @ x+%, 6 @ x++% and so on...

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Monday, August 12, 2013 - 10:13 pm: Edit

My original posting on the topic:

The rules committee has been pondering how to handle prepaid builds for CW/DW class hulls. In particular, if I have multiple shipyards (I'll stick with CW from now on for conciseness, but this should be assumed to apply to both CW and DW class hulls) that are co-located. Consider the common case of having 6xCWSY at your homeworld. Most players just buy 6xCW each turn (about 500-600EPs). One could, depending upon how you read the rules, treat those 6 shipyards as being independent and buy six sets of 6xCW every 6 turns. This would set you back 3000-3600EPs, which for an empire with 15 majors is quite doable, and with 5 turns in the middle to recover, possible to do indefinitely.

On the down side, this is a big chunk of change, albeit manageable. It also means a great deal of preplanning to handle variants, and reduced flexibility (if you need a type Z but didn't pay for one, you may have to wait several turns for it to become available).

On the plus side, this allows some very creative games with crew units- if you are on RB, you get about 1 1/3 ships with an outstanding crew for "free"; if your PCU % is trending upward, you've locked in 5 extra turns of crew units at the current rate (assuming typical rolls, an average about a 2% overall ((0.7+1.4+2.1+2.8+3.5)/5), which means about 10-25 PCU that you won't generate).

I as a player do not have a strong position on which way to go, but as an empire at 12 majors and trending to 15, I am looking at the possibilities. A few other empires are in or nearing a similar decision point.

Here is a specific example. The Romulan economy (at 15 majors) is going to be around 3000EPs on Full War/CAN-3, and 36xSPA (not SPA+) is only 3420EPs. Clearly that is very much doable without outside help/minimal planning ahead, and with 5 turns to reload the coffers and deal with EE totals, is probably repeatable indefinitely.

Obviously if co-located ones are restricted to a "buy up to 6" restriction (vs. buy up to 6 for the single SY) nothing stops me from having them in 6 different hexes and getting the 6/36 plan anyway. The later just means I have a headache for getting all the ships formed up into squadrons.

By Charles "Lucky" Coleman (Mwmiyd) on Monday, August 12, 2013 - 10:20 pm: Edit

Yea, I think the biggest issue is going to be crew units and the effects of those crew units on game balance. Of course there may be no issue at all on game balance, I'm too new to really say there is or isn't actually.

By John Coleman (Aligato) on Monday, August 12, 2013 - 10:38 pm: Edit

You can't crew a ship that's not there yet and there ought to be some sort of tradeoff if you order more than say what the norm has been (6).
If you order 36 ships and can only activate 6 per turn, who's to say what condition you'll be in 3 years from the date of the initial order, whether you'll be in RB or FW, What if you have to mothball ship, etc. I see a problem if you don't set some sort of conditions on the number that can be pre-ordered.
Poor/Outstanding % ought to apply when the ship is activated, not when it is ordered, that would alleviate BUNCHING.

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Monday, August 12, 2013 - 11:35 pm: Edit

Since I managed a "stump the GM" moment (which is far more common for Romulan specific things than generic stuff), I don't think any of us know for sure how it would impact the game. It may even be benign until it is stacked with something else.

There is a tradeoff. If I order 6 at a time, I'm committed for one to six turns to building that stuff, with the typical number being 1-3 turns. One can typically predict things that far out. Six turns out is pushing it (my "master economic buildout plan" tried to look out 8 turns and went off the rails on turn 3 when the Vari/Jind war went cold...). As long as you don't overcommit on variants, the econ level along the way isn't relevant (and the Romulan limits are different enough I didn't even have to project that). Also note that ICR-WAR can help if it comes into play part way down the pike (of course if the dice go against you life can get "interesting").

Note that one can abuse things (once) even if crew unit percentages are moved from the current "prorated, based upon when the funds are spent" to "last turn of construction"- nothing stops me from having a bunch of CW/DW SYs "pop up" at the proper time (and then scrapped if I am really determined).

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Tuesday, August 13, 2013 - 12:50 am: Edit

I agree with Charles and John. The CW/DW may be pre-ordered. The more you pay for in advance the greater the discount. The actual number of shipyards available does not matter at the time of the order.

I would say that the player can decide what crew units are applied to the ships as they are actually built.

My question is: does one have to specify the conversions at the time of the pre-order? The price does vary from the base CW/DW and there is a limit to the number of conversions allowed in a turn.

I have a second question. Does the pre-order have to be completed before doing another pre-order?

John

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Tuesday, August 13, 2013 - 09:54 am: Edit

You would have to place the order, including variants, at purchase time. Conversions are counted against your limit on the turn they are completed. This leads to a possible problem if you assume full war over the duration of the delivery period, but have a peacetime turn in there (or, as I noted before, you assume that you'll get ICR-WAR along the line, but fail to do so).

The "how far in advance can your order" question is the question. If you can go more than 6 turns deep, then presumably buying more before the order completes is legal. If you can't go deep, you can't order early.

Note that no one is advocating discounts greater than 24% (although it is amusing that with auto-sy tech, the CW/DW discount is actually less than for a normal shipyard). We are just looking at game impact on generating crew units way before they will be put out in the field.

By Charles "Lucky" Coleman (Mwmiyd) on Tuesday, August 13, 2013 - 06:23 pm: Edit

I agree with being able to order again before the other order finishes.. however, beings it is a new turn, your discount starts over, so if you only ordered 3 more, then you only get a 12% discount. In order to get a full discount, you would have to order another 6 or more (that would give you the 24% discount).

Crew units: lets say you are on RB on turn 168.1 and you order 20 DW's with 20 crew each and 4 DWSYs. That would be 400 crew with 16 of them outstanding and 5 turns to complete the builds.
Then on 169.1 you are on FW and you order another 20 DW's at 20 crew each and 5% poor for 20 poor crew units, and another 5 turns to build. However you still have 2 turns left on your first order. and you now have 144 normal crew already made but not allocated on top of the 16 outstanding (that you haven't put into ships yet), 20 poor and the other 380 normal you just created. Two turns later you order 10 and your on RB, two turns after that you order 6 on FW.. etc.. keeping track of the crew would be a nightmare for the GM. It is doable, but would have to be closely monitored for correctness.

Creating the crews on the turn the ship is launched is a lot less complicated. (this would be an exception to the normal crew generation rules and would apply only to the pre-ordered DW/CW hulls).

There are a few tricks for generating massive amounts of outstanding crews and this is manageable by the player and doesn't put a lot on the GM to monitor.

Getting rid of the high poor crew generation percentage is also manageable by the player and does not put a lot on the GM.

By John Burton Steele Sr. (Johnbsteele) on Tuesday, August 13, 2013 - 07:31 pm: Edit

If an empire only has 1 CWSY or DWSY could that empire build 5 or more units (overstuffing the shipyard) and get the cost reduction?

I agree with Lucky. The ability to have 50 ships waiting to be built on 1 CWSY and getting the OCU now is something that needs to be addressed.

To me the whole idea could be achieved with that same empire bankrolling the epv to be spent and spending it at the appropriate time. Other than that somebody is trying to find a sneaky loophole to get an advantage (I know... I found several that have been resolved in this game).

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Tuesday, August 13, 2013 - 09:54 pm: Edit

There is a reason I asked first...

I'm not advocating or trying to finesse costs- buy 6 (or more) at the same time in the same hex, get the 24%. Buy fewer, get the lower discount. Large empires have enough bonuses as it is. This is simply an attempt to get more favourable crew quality.

Presumably ships would be first paid, first built. Only once a given batch has been finished could you move on to the next. Otherwise you'd be able to defer poorly crewed ships from ever being built.

High poor crew rates- only to a limited extent. If the dice are against you, you are up a creek.

Disclaimer- I'm playing Devil's Advocate. Opinions above may not be my personal position.

By John D Berg (Kerg) on Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - 10:12 am: Edit

I am reading...continue the debate--grin

By Charles "Lucky" Coleman (Mwmiyd) on Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - 05:03 pm: Edit

"Presumably ships would be first paid, first built. Only once a given batch has been finished could you move on to the next. Otherwise you'd be able to defer poorly crewed ships from ever being built."
Correct, I was merely stating what a nightmare it would be to keep track of if someone just went wild with it and overlapped multiple orders. A nightmare for the GM anyway.

If all you want is outstanding crews all you have to do is build everything on turn 3. 2xFW turns, 1xRB turn. rinse, repeat. Never a poor crew. Multi-turn ships CAs, DNs, etc. just pay for it on the RB turn and let it come off the slip next turn. The crew is prorated.. max outstanding crews. DW/CW's prepay on RB turn only. Build fighters or something in your SC4SY's so you don't generate poor crews. What I was saying was there are many tricks to get outstanding crews and they don't involve the GM having a huge nightmare to track it.
And the above method takes care of those large poor crew percent ratings too. Only one method out of many available. Again, manageable by the player and not the GM.

So to limit the amount of "tricks" available to finesse the system DW/CW crews could be applied when the ship is built and not when it is paid for.
This also reduces the amount of checking and rechecking that the GM would have to do for tracking crews paid for by multiple empires over multiple turns.

While I'm normally all for milking the rules for all they are worth, I am also a big fan of keeping it simple for the GM. The two don't always go together.

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - 05:16 pm: Edit

Nitpick- just because you are not building any ships on the war turns, doesn't mean you won't have PCU generated. Consider:

T0, PC% is 0.0%
T1 war, 0.7% at end of turn.
T2 war, 1.4% at end of turn.
T3 TB, 0.7% at end of turn- BUT construction happens with the 1.4% rate no matter how the dice go.

The numbers above are averages and assume no empire special rules.

From memory, but I think it is 2d6 for each turn of war, and 2d6 for each turn of RB (Peace is 1d6).

By John Burton Steele Sr. (Johnbsteele) on Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - 05:48 pm: Edit

If this is about reducing the number of poor crew units the best way that comes to mind is to put them on the gun line.

By Charles "Lucky" Coleman (Mwmiyd) on Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - 08:28 pm: Edit

Howard - True
John - Even More True

So what is the census here?
1. Limit builds to 6 at a time/SY?
2. Limit crews to be applied at time of launch? (DW/CW pre-order only)
3. Allow pre-orders to have no restriction on quantity?
4. Allow pre-orders to overlap?
5. Allow crew to be applied at time of purchase? (DW/CW preorder only)

Here is my take:
1. No
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. Yes
5. No

However, I would be open to something like a 50-50 split on #'s 2 and 5. In other words allow 50% of the pre-order crews (past the current turns builds) to be locked in at the current turns rate. and the other 50% be applied at time of launch.

By Chris Reando (Sfbo11mav) on Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - 10:58 pm: Edit

I'd say limit it to 6/SY with the crew paid up front. I don't see a benefit from doing more than 6 unless your going to allow the crew to be paid up front as well. There is no cost benefit by doing more than the 6 right? Keep it the way it is and allow the crew to be a bonus of sorts if timed right. If I have multiple CW/DW yards on different planets can I do 6 in each at the best cost break?

By Howard Bampton (Bampton) on Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - 11:44 pm: Edit

Chris- CW/DW SYs that are in different hexes were always required to buy their stuff separately. If you wanted the 24% discount from all N shipyards, then you had to buy 6*N ships (possibly staggered into smaller lots of 6 so you didn't break the budget).

John Steele- There are a couple of sinks (in the mathematical sense) for poor crew that players use. The exact deployment strategy is a matter of debate, and heavily influenced by empire special rules (wait until you see my strategy...). My trying to derive the Romulan solution is what started this (and may be a future Captain's Log submission).

John Stiff- you'll no doubt find out soon enough. :-)

By John D Berg (Kerg) on Thursday, August 15, 2013 - 10:51 am: Edit

I think that the discount applies only for a given SY, not a mass distributed over an empire. This needs to be in the rule.

By John D Berg (Kerg) on Thursday, August 15, 2013 - 10:53 am: Edit

I am still not sure if I am hearing any abuses that can occur the ay the rule stands now regarding crew. So what if i make 350 crew.....it hurts more then it helps most of the time since poor crew numbers are only going to go up.

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Thursday, August 15, 2013 - 11:54 am: Edit

Did some reading. (B12.92) specifically states that crew for mass-produced CWs/DWs is assigned when the ship comes off. That handles any "buy them all during RB" issues.

(B11.80) suggests that the discount applies to all built within the empire. It specifically states "They could spread this over several turns if the SY capacity was lacking." (Must remember to change that "was" to "were" as a conditional.) That means that the rule EXPECTS there to be multiple SYs and only if there are not, does it take several turns.

By Charles "Lucky" Coleman (Mwmiyd) on Thursday, August 15, 2013 - 04:18 pm: Edit

I've been taking my discount spread over all my DW shipyards (or CW shipyards) and applying my crew at time of launch. Like Jean, that is how I interpreted the rules.
And I like those rules btw.

By John Burton Steele Sr. (Johnbsteele) on Thursday, August 15, 2013 - 06:43 pm: Edit

Me too lucky.

By John Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Thursday, August 15, 2013 - 11:16 pm: Edit

Thanks Jean.

One cannot pre-order 20 CW's at Restoration Mobility and expect to generate gobs of Oustanding Crew.

Using "Howard's spreadsheet", I envision indicating a "pre-paid CW" (i.e 0 EPS) for each CWSY and assigning whatever crew unit is currently avaialable. JB supplies these values on the turn result. The spreadsheet aids in the calculation next turn's crew units based on what crew assignments were made by the player for the current turn.

In the Frax's case that would be 40 cu for a CW. IF the Frax had 40 ocu available, great! That would be one CWo. The other CW (assuming 2 CWSY's) would have normal CW or poor CW, depending.


As far as JB statement..."I think that the discount applies only for a given SY, not a mass distributed over an empire. This needs to be in the rule."


This may be your intent, but the rule doesn't currently say that.


B11.8 ..."The EPV of CW and DW class ships is dependent on the number paid for in a single turn."

Further ..."They could spread this over several turns if the SY capacity was lacking."


So, if one has 1 CWSY, under the new rule you have proposed, it would take pre-ordering 6 CW's for the 1 CWSY to get the 24% discount?

If one had 4 CWSY (for example), one would have to pre-order 24 CW's (6 for each shipyard) to get the 24% discount?

Have I got this right?


I'll have to think on it...