I'm moving this over here from the General Discussion thread.

So here is a thought--in discussions about F+E strategy, over and over again, the idea that it isn't really important to kill SBs comes up. Yeah, SBs are handy as a base for an offensive, but when it comes down to it, it is simply too easy for a race to bypass a SB by pinning any ships on it and then surrounding it with FFs to keep supply open.

Would it possibly be worth tweaking the SB rules, such that enemy SBs block supply through the SB hex and any adjacent hexes, even if there are friendly ships in those hexes? I'm wondering if this would have been a good idea in the first place--it would make killing those Kzinti and Hydran SBs actually somthing the Coalition would need to destroy to keep going deeper into Alliance space, and would make killing those Fed SBs important, rather than just surrounding them.

As noted in the general discussion thread, this could have significant impact on the early portion of the war, as the Klingons could not really hit the Kzinti capital without killing the Duke's SB first, meaning that the Kzintis could afford to defend the Duke's SB, and the Klingons would have to fight the Kzintis over the Duke's SB. It might have an impact on attacking the Hydran Capital, and would really only have minimal impact on attacking the Federation. But in any case, having a Star Base block supply in its own hex and all surrounding hexes, even if enemy units are there means that you can't just willy nilly ignore the Star Bases like you can currently.

I realize that this might be a pretty significant rules change, and would change the dynamic of the early part of the game a great deal, but might be worth trying out as an optional rule or variant.

-Peter

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Wednesday, November 01, 2006 - 06:58 pm: Edit

Kevin wrote:
>>I like the idea, but my concern is that it seems we're swapping extremes.>>

That is a possibility. I still need to look at the map closely to see what kind of "going around the SB routes" there are into Kzinti and Hydran space, but I suspect, what the options would be are:

-Kill Star Base and take damage.

or

-Go around Star Base, but very teniously and seriously risk getting cut off of supply.

>>Before: 50 Ships sit on the Duke's starbase, one frigate moves in adjacent to it, thus preserving both supply and a retrograde route to and from the Kzin Capital.

After: The Duke's starbase is left undefended, and the Klingons move a force of 50 ships adjacent to insure a valid supply line. But it's a starbase, and 50 ships is not enough to push past the SB's outer-reaction defenses. The capital raid fails.>>

Sure, but my hope is that this rule generates the *need* to kill the Star Bases that is currently absent from the game--the Klingons whould pretty much be forced to kill the Duke's SB on T2 (or 3) to hit the Kzinti capital, or figure out a way around it. It would be a significant change to the tempo of the game, which might have serious balance impacts. But I think the idea is neat and probably worth messing around with.

>>Now granted, both of the above examples are contrived - neither ever really happens (the first example would see the Klingons send a fleet to pin the defenders, while in the second example, the 50 Klingons would just attack the starbase and crush it). But by the proposed rules, both above examples would be legal, and it doesn't make sense that the Starbase can now block supply without any actual fleet based there.>>

That might be something that could be adjusted--maybe the Star Base needs to have actual ships on it? I kinda don't want to end up with some sort of SE war for the supply issue, as the Coalition are pretty much always going to be able to meet any necessary SE number, so the rule would become mostly moot. I'm really hoping to end up with a situation where the Coalition is mostly forced to kill the front line SBs before advancing to the capital *or* face significant problem going behind the SB.

>>How about if the invader had to have a greater ship equivalent of ships to the defending force before they could push a supply line through? Or, if that's not enough, they need double the ship equivalents to push past a starbase?>>

Maybe, but again, the Coalition never are going to have a problem with this. Certainly in the first 4 turns or so in, say, Kzinti space, the Coalition have *sooooo* many more ships than the Kzinti that even having to leave 2 ships behind for every one that the Kzinti leave on the Duke's SB isn't going to blunt their offensive.

-Peter

By Grant Strong (Phoenix) on Thursday, November 02, 2006 - 12:07 am: Edit

"Maybe, but again, the Coalition never are going to have a problem with this. Certainly in the first 4 turns or so in, say, Kzinti space, the Coalition have *sooooo* many more ships than the Kzinti that even having to leave 2 ships behind for every one that the Kzinti leave on the Duke's SB isn't going to blunt their offensive.
"

Good, it won't effect game balence much till turn 7

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Thursday, November 02, 2006 - 10:58 am: Edit

>>How about if the invader had to have a greater ship equivalent of ships to the defending force before they could push a supply line through? Or, if that's not enough, they need double the ship equivalents to push past a starbase?>>

"Maybe, but again, the Coalition never are going to have a problem with this. Certainly in the first 4 turns or so in, say, Kzinti space, the Coalition have *sooooo* many more ships than the Kzinti that even having to leave 2 ships behind for every one that the Kzinti leave on the Duke's SB isn't going to blunt their offensive."

I'm not so sure of that. Consider the following example, which is not terribly uncommon in my games.

Defender has 20 ships on a Starbase. Attacker moves a frigate to within 2 hexes to the side, thus providing a valid supply line to that hex and every adjacent hex (the supply line now goes right past the SB). If the defender reacts out, the attacker sends more ships, keep increasing the open-space fight. If the defender sends only a few, beat up on them in open space. If they send alot, switch focus to the SB and kill it. Ultimately, the defender opts to just leave it alone, so they are available to react to other threats.

The attacker then goes around, ignores the SB, and hits the capital, using the supply line and retrograde route provided by a single frigate.

If the attacker had to leave back 20 ships, instead of just 1, it *would* make a difference. Yes, the coalition has the ships to do it, but I'm commonly finding that by manevering my ships just right, I can get 10 more Klinks available, and thus increase my odds at a battle, or hit another target elsewhere. If I'm finding 10 ships more will help, then 20 less ships must obviously hurt.

And if then the SB is tying up 20 ships anyway, I might as well send 50, and kill the thing so it doesn't tie me up anymore. And that's what we want, ultimately.

*~*~*

I do think that we will see still starbases being bypassed, but that's perfectly alright. The Fed's 3rd fleet SB was bypassed, but that's because the Klingons had a huge frontline, with plenty of space available to go around it. The Duke's to Count's to Marquis network of SB makes it not impossible, but difficult enough to go around, to the point that chopping a SB down to drive the offensive seems like the more logical plan.

I'm planning on starting a new game soon (well, semi-soon). If we can hash together a basic proposal, I'd be interested in trying it out. Those StarBases really should be a threat when ignored and left standing.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Thursday, November 02, 2006 - 11:05 am: Edit

Supply, being a basic cornerstone of the game, cannot just be changed. It would require a good number of tweaks and balances if you begin messing with something like that.

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, November 02, 2006 - 11:57 am: Edit

Chris wrote:
>>Supply, being a basic cornerstone of the game, cannot just be changed.>>

Yeah, I know. I wrote just that in my initial post. But it might have been a good idea from day one, and I'm interested in the idea enough to propose messing around with it to see what happens.

-Peter

By Peter D Bakija (Bakija) on Thursday, November 02, 2006 - 12:04 pm: Edit

Kevin wrote:
>>I'm planning on starting a new game soon (well, semi-soon). If we can hash together a basic proposal, I'd be interested in trying it out. Those StarBases really should be a threat when ignored and left standing.>>

Yeah, that is my hope--that leaving the SBs behind actually becomes problematic for the race on the offense. Maybe a "SE needed to open supply" plan might be workable, but I tend to like the nice simple plans, such that my initial inclination is just to try out "Star Bases block enemy supply through their hex and any adjacent hexes regardless of the presence of enemy ships" and see what happens. In terms of some of the little sticky points, I'd assume:

A) Crippled SBs have the same effect (just kill them already!)

B) Enemy supply points adjacent to SBs (planets or tugs) don't count as supply points.

-Peter

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - 05:51 am: Edit

I think a SB should have to have at least a certain number of ships or COMPOT on it to achieve this effect. For simiplicity, I would say 10. This would then represent those ship's ability to raid away from the SB even when heavily outnumbered locally, and get back before anyone realises they left. It would be semi-realistic as there would probably be an infrastucture of secret resupply and scout bases near the SB for these kind of operations.

One thing that I would say is inevitable. Defenders would make EVERY effort to make it difficult for the enemy to stay in supply in the defender's space, even when the defenders are hugely outnumbered. The Kzinti war council would know that their capital is within strategic range of klingon bases, and would take measures to try and make it impractical for the Klingons to do a deep strike. And the bottom line is, they should be able to succeed. It would only take a few ships well hidden in an asteroid and some secret resupply bases, and the Klingons could be in deep trouble. These ships could be running around behind the klingon fleet, getting infomation from secret sensor webs, and striking the Klingon convoys. The klingons would have to commit major resources to make sure that the convoys got through.

Now, this SB proposal isn't exactly that, but the thing it achieves is the same - it should be harder to trace supply though enemy space than freindly space.

Another alternative proposal below....

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - 05:56 am: Edit

This proposal isn't going to be accepted, but I put it up here to give food for thought.

1) Tracing supply in home space, neutral space, or enemy provinces that have no bases/planets with PDUs is done normally.

2) Tracing supply though an enemy province with an enemy base/PDU counts double for each hex (mobile bases do not count). Tracing supply though an enemy province with a starbase or capital counts triple for each hex. This is regardless of other considerations. If at any point the supply count goes above 6, no supply is traced

3) you always trace supply from the fleet to the base, not the base to the fleet. You do not count the hex the fleet is in but you do count the hex the base is in. (The supply status could theoretically change according to how the player counted if this was not stated).

e.g. if you hold a planet in the same province as an enemy starbase, and you are counting supply back from a fleet to this planet, and it is 5 supply "hexes" to the hex before the planet, the count to the planet reaches 8, and you cannot trace supply.
e.g. you can only trace supply three hexes through enemy-occupied space where the province(s) involved have battlestations.

So, on turn 2, the Klingons will still be able to attack the Zin capital in-supply, because they were in supply at the beginning of the turn. But unless they remove the border bases, they won't be able to retrograde.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - 06:08 am: Edit

One could potentially say that ships in the raid pool could be commited to enemy supply interdiction, and that each ship so commited allows a defender to specify one province (with a base) where the above takes effect. However, that is more record-keeping and I don't recommend it. Assume that this supply interdition is the duty of the home guard fleets, and leave it at that. A good way to introduce said fleets without having to bother with counters.

By jason murdoch (Jmurdoch) on Wednesday, November 08, 2006 - 12:39 pm: Edit

I like the idea as it adds the element of gossip sending the bases fighters out on recon patrols rather than having the pilots sitting in the officers mess all the time.
My vote would be for only SBs blocknig supply
A starbase would generate a huge amount of commerical traffic placing lots of trade and supply ships in nearby hexes that would spot hostile supply ships ferrying items to hostile fleet. B5 obtained most of its Tac-Intel from traders. I cant see a BATS/BASE creating enough trade to have an effect on supply;nor a PDU. Possibly in the EY/MY eras a BATS/BASE would block supply as thats all commerical traffic had to dock with.
Would the romulan cloak void the SBs effect on supply?

By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Wednesday, November 08, 2006 - 02:36 pm: Edit

No. The Romulans didn't put cloak on their civilian ships. And even if they did the effects of the cloak on movement would bring the supply chain down to 2 hexes anyway (and that's a good reason why they didn't (in addition to the expense)).

I can see a BATS having a similar effect. Any time there are hostile ships out there (and Orions) the nearest military station is the logical place to run to and congregate around. Maybe a BATS needs actual military ships stationed on it and the SB doesn't.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Wednesday, November 08, 2006 - 03:50 pm: Edit

But it must be remembered that these bases *do* have a whole bunch of military ships garrisoning them that are not yet represented in the game - the home guard. Even a Y110 CA can really wreck a badly-defended convoy. And note- ALL the invisible convoys doing supply in F&E are badly defended - not a single military ship is assigned to defend them by players.

By Robert Padilla (Zargan) on Wednesday, November 08, 2006 - 04:04 pm: Edit

I dunno, a hex is supposed to be pretty darn big isn't it? There's just something that feels 'wrong' about this. It would make a lot more sense if you could raid a hex to prevent supply being traced through that hex (the raider would be targetting those poorly defended convoys). Even with that, I am sure we'd be looking at a big game balance issue here.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Thursday, November 09, 2006 - 05:09 am: Edit

Robert.

It feels "wrong" to me that an undefended klingon supply convoy could just waltz through Kzinti space (which would still be full of as-yet undestroyed scout bouys) and make it to 1401 to supply the retrograde of the klingon fleet without so much as a hiccup. EVERY TIME. Now, the kzinti fleet in the main may be pinned down or in battle, but the Zin would know that it is well worthwhile commiting a few ships in some kind of "supply-interdiction" pool to make klingon supply difficult. And as you say - space is big. How on earth do the klingons know that they have not bypassed hidden Kzinti fleet elements during their advance?

Now, if the klingons had removed the SB in the way (duke's), most of the BATS, and captured a planet or two, waltzing in thier convoys looks a little more believable. By spending the time to destroy those bases, the klingons will have also probably have destroyed any infrastructure the Zin may have to hit Klingon convoys.

By Robert Padilla (Zargan) on Thursday, November 09, 2006 - 09:10 am: Edit

David,

Which was why I suggested being able to raid a hex to prevent supply being traced through it. Since all of these things we are talking about are not represented in the game, I think making rules to affect these things that are not in the game just seems weird. Let there be a raid mission called "supply interdiction", and maybe give it a special case that if you raid a hex adjacent to a base, there is no reaction battle as the said 'local' units cause some kind of diversion.