Ship Lengths and Minor Factions; Would reform be helpful?

[Captain Larraq]

So, in continuation with this thread and the suggestions within, I've gone ahead and created this poll. I had an idea recently that Minor Factions should be allowed a maximum ship size of 1,600 meters instead of 1,000 meters. The current rules state that for each unique writer involved in a Minor Faction, that faction is allowed one ship of upto 1,000 meters. I would like to see that limit increased to 1,600 meters per writer. The main reason for this is that I want writers to have the option of commanding the iconic Imperial II-class Star Destroyer without being forced to join a Major Faction. There are some supporting arguments to be made in regards to how this positively or negatively effects competitive roleplaying during skirmishes, invasions, and duels where Minor Factions are involved... There are also some supporting arguments to be made in regard to how this compares to the new-ish Ship Size limits for Major Factions and Flagships...

But for me? I mainly just want people to be able to command an ISDII without causing a fuss.

Original Proposal

Spoiler

So, in light of a recent blurp of drama and reports, I'd like to make a simple request/suggestion for staff consideration.

Bump up the Minor Faction maximum PC piloted starship length to 1,600 meters.

There are two justifications here...

The first is that the maximum length for Major Factions increased by 1,000 meters during the last update, while the Minor Faction limit remained the same. And with the establishment of a system to create 5,000 meter long ships... 1,000 meters is no longer the 'halfway point'.

Secondly, even though Star Wars Chaos takes place in the distant, distant future when compared to the movies, cartoons, and the vast majority of canon... The Imperial Star Destroyer is one of the most iconic ships in all of Science Fiction. It's very much a shame that a writer wishing to enjoy the command of such an iconic piece of Star Wars is currently forced to join one of a handful of major factions, even in the relative seclusion of private and faction (or 'campaign' apparently) threads.

Tefka's Suggestion

Spoiler

I propose you put it to a community vote. Do it in the RP Discussion forum. Encourage discussion. More visibility, more activity will get you a Staff Vote - not likes under your post.

While I'm at it, another idea occurred to me in regard to reforming the rules involved with Minor Factions and fleets. At this time, escorts are not taken into consideration... True, any ship under 400 meters may be owned by a character... And I've always taken it that a Minor Faction can have X number of 1,000 meter long capital ships and 'unlimited' number of 400 meter or shorter escorts... But maybe there is room to improve here? We could change it to "1,000 meters cumulative of ships" instead of "One ship of upto 1,000 meters in length". Or... if the above rule change goes into effect... it could possibly be "1,600 meters cumulative of ships per unique writer" for each Minor Faction.


All in all... I want to hear the thoughts and proposals of others. Arguments for or against it... tweaks and alternatives to my proposals... all of it. So please, vote and discuss!

 

[Boethiah]

Consider my no vote in the second question as abstaining because I don't like the current suggestion but I may support a suggested revision by another.

Unfortunately I had to vote for both in order to vote for one.

 

[Aithne Charr]

To be frank about the second question, and in complete and utter honestly. Its a horrible and highly unfair idea. It would limit the power of Minor factions that are already seen as shit to certain major factions. It pampers to a Major faction's need to be superior on this board and honestly it ruins the sport of the site in creating a story while trying to defend yourself... as for the first question. I voted yes just because i see no reason why they shouldn't be allowed to.

 

[Solariel Eldara]

As pro-fleeting as I am, and believe me I am pro-fleeting, I do feel that it is necessary to set length and power limitations on minor factions. And I believe the system that is in place already vastly outweighs the capabilities of most of the minor factions that we have. But this is just my own conservative opinion. And this is also based on role-playing in a galaxy that is 1000 years in the past.

Fleeters should remember that a single Imperial Star Destroyer was responsible for keeping entire sectors in line. They sustained enough firepower and manpower to topple a planetary government with relative ease. An orbital bombardment from an ISD or ISD2 was also capable of shattering a planets crust to the core over some period of time, rendering a planet uninhabitable if it wanted to. But this is all based on books I've read in the expanded universe.

In my opinion, a single star destroyer should be nothing to gawk at. Having a 1,600 meter long star destroyer should be a significant accomplishment for any faction, let alone super-star destroyers or entire fleets of star destroyers. Then again, we are nearly 1,000 years in the future from the time when ISD's were considered to be menacing.

Personally, I liked the system that some of the older communities used to use that required factions to sustain production planets and have shipyards. Each shipyard was permitted to work on one ship at a time, and was allowed a maximum number of meters that it could produce per day. This made building a ship and owning a ship much more difficult (I believe with the last system I played under, you got to have 1 production planet per 4 planets you "dominioned," so planet 1, 5, 10, 15, 20 etc could sustain a single shipyard. This meant that the size of your faction directly impacted how large your fleet could be. Each planet you owned also contributed to a "meter cap" I believe each planet was 2,000 meters-5,000 meters. I can't remember. So this meant if you owned (at a 2,000 meter ratio) 2 planets, you were allowed to sustain a maximum of 4,000 meters of warship at any given time.

This also made warfare much more complex, because when you build a tangible warship that you can lose (and sacrifice months of production time), it meant that withdrawing your forces, fleeing, or simply rethinking your invasion was essential, and planning took a lot more thought rather than just saying "I'm jumping to this planet with 15 star destroyers just because I am in a major faction."

This also ended the debate or discussion about where your ship came from. It would have been physically built in a thread exampled below:

If, for example, you were allowed to build 50 meters per day, you would have to post in your construction thread the following;

Ship Class: Imperial-class Star Destroyer - SHIPNAME
Size: 1,600 meters
Start Date: 06/01/2015
End Date: 07/02/2015

The ship would take 32 IRL days to construct, and by IC standards, that could mean months which is actually quite realistic.

It made you value your assets and use them sparingly.

It also made your size only comparable to the size of what you actually own. Sprawling empires could sustain a larger fleet because they owned enough planets to sustain them. And that wasa a right that had to be earned through IC roleplaying and planetary takeovers.

 

[Camellia Swift]

[member="Julius Octavian"]

That is something similar to what I tried to encourage a test for, and which a group on site has also attempted to organize.

http://starwarsrp.net/topic/56334-non-canon-voluntary-realistic-warfare-test/#entry843471
http://starwarsrp.net/forum/1873-the-warmongers-reborn/

:3

I very much have wanted to see wars become more realistic in nature. A lost ship or tank or infantry brigade not just being a casual throw off but actually affecting the tide of a war if you aren't careful.

 

[Captain Larraq]

Consider my no vote in the second question as abstaining because I don't like the current suggestion but I may support a suggested revision by another.

Unfortunately I had to vote for both in order to vote for one.

I added an Abstaining option to the poll.

 

[Solariel Eldara]

[member="Camellia Swift"], I'd love to see more tangible assets capable of making a faction rethink an invasion. I think it adds a sense of true accomplishment to the game; a sense that you actually worked together as a group to build something and now you were a true force to be reckoned with because of it.

I remember a time when certain factions had to literally band together to curb growth because other factions were becoming too powerful. Having real assets adds an enormous amount of intrigue to the game, even on a political level.... If the Empire has 30 planets and the Rebellion has 5 they're going to need some serious help fighting. But the beauty is that the tide can be turned. Empires can rise and fall. The Rebellion might get a large coalition built and attack the Empire head on, at which point ships would start to be lost... if the Empire lost enough ships, they would take time to rebuild. Which would give them two options; figure out a way to make peace, or pull back and regroup and pray that the Rebellion stopped.

When one fish gets too big, the others are going to want a piece.

I also remember "capturing" warships in battle was quite enjoyable.

 

[Wes Redtree]

If it is acquired through valid RP's the faction should be able to have it. If five writers go and do 100 post to build or find a 1600 meter ship why shouldn't they be able to use it? If a thread is put up and opposing groups try and steal a powerful ship is it wrong for them to use it? I agree they would be limited as far as man power as minor groups but if my minor faction has 2 or 3 companies in it then production of large ships would be reasonable.

TLR Writers put in work, they get what they worked for.

 

[Camellia Swift]

[member="Julius Octavian"]

Plus skirmishes and raids mean nothing now. Imagine losing a few ships in a skirmish and then the enemy raids your shipyard if they can to destroy the unit in production. It actually has an effect on the war!

I wanted to institute it in a finances way too, with credit/income so that you can also see the companies/business on site get into their bits.

Someone from the warmonger as part of their event system was trying to work out travel times too.

 

[Solariel Eldara]

[member="Wes Redtree"], all well-and-good Wes. But the faction that has it should also be able to sustain it. Hence the meter cap per planet owned.

[member="Camellia Swift"], I think you'll find that a system for credits may be too complex without a program to manage who has how many credits, how they're earning them, etc. However, corporations could offer a competitive advantage by having ship yards. If a rule was in place stating that a corporation had to be Tier 5, for example, to maintain a shipyard. Then that corporation could build ships and give them to factions for services rendered (whether it be through RP, design trades, ship trades, favors, etc).

Some of the corporations that used to do so in the old galaxies I played in used it to get designs from one faction and sell them to another faction, or to get one faction to seize a planet or facility from another faction to further their own political endeavors.

So much intrigue is involved when assets are real and can be destroyed.

So. Much.

And you ALWAYS have to be careful of what you do and who you backstab.... because karma is a royal queen when assets are real.

 

[Wes Redtree]

[member="Julius Octavian"]

Minor factions can't own planets.

 

[Solariel Eldara]

[member="Wes Redtree"], If a system like this were implemented, they would be able to. Of course, maintaining the planets they take would be up to them. It takes a lot more to do a takeover than it does to do an invasion. So they'd need to tread cautiously, as a minor faction should, against a much larger superpower.

 

[Sempra the Hutt]

Thats the problem. There are rules to keep minor and major factions apart. If minor factions start flying around with too powerful ships it would just be strange that tey cant "dominate" a planet or two.
Hence I voted no.

I do belive that major factions would need really good RP reasons to engage with minor factions though, I am not sure thats Always the case.- but thats Another question.

 

[Solariel Eldara]

I think any role play where you're attempting to take over an entire planet needs to be well played and well thought out.

A lot of times people forget that it's an entire planet that's being taken. Not just a city or a fortress, but a celestial body housing hundreds of thousands, if not hundreds of billions (or possibly even trillions) of people.

 

[Darth Kentarch]

In canon, after the deaths of Palpatine and Vader the empire broke down into several minor galactic states, in some cases these were warlords with a handful of Star Destroyers and a planet. I understand the size limitation rule to fleets, to prevent some moron from say grabbing 50 capital ships and storming the gates of Coruscant. But what if I want to be a warlord on the edge of galactic space and what not? What if I want to write that kind of story?

In the end, the way I see it. Only a major factor faction to can take or domain planets and regions of space from dominions or invasions. Its not like I can claim a region of space form myself. No keeps count of the number of capital ships or SDs cranked out and lost, rebuilt or reissued. There is no basis of keeping track of how much manpower, how much money, and how many ships factions can even afford to maintain. And furthermore no one even really accounts for losses post invasion anyways. We always simply refill ships for invasions like a glass of water. So why does it matter that someone has a ship thats 1,600 meters long?

 

[Solariel Eldara]

[member="Darth Kentarch"], where I used to play you were permitted to write story lines however you wanted. But ships that were actually built using the rules would trump your NPC ships every time because your NPC ships wouldn't be able to destroy a ship that was actually built unless it was extremely well-written.

Furthermore, the system of tracking is actually quite simple. One ship yard is one post. You post a construction start and finish time, and onc ethe ship is completed, you add it to your fleet manifest. If you have 12 ISD's but your shipyard shows that you've only built 10, you're cheating and punished accordingly. I remember one faction got caught inflating their numbers and they were punished by the staff taking 1/2 of their ships away.

Why shouldn't you be able to have an ISD by yourself?

Because it takes a crew of almost a quarter of a million people to operate at full staff.

So unless your character is feeding, paying, recruiting and housing 150-250,000 people though some miracle and some damn good role playing, it makes sense that you wouldn't be piloting an ISD alone.

 

[Jsc]

Minor Faction don't have fleets nor should they concern themselves with such.

I say drop the dumb rule entirely and let the: 1 PC = 400 meter ship, apply in all cases underneath joining a Major Faction.

You want a ship bigger than 400 meters? Go join a Major Faction. Debating what is, and what is not, 'the middle ground' is silly.

 

[Darren Onyx]

I have voted stating "yes". I do believe that, although minor factions are minor and shouldn't have massive fleets like the major factions, I believe they have the right to obtain something of worth that would promote their faction. You think the Rebel Alliance led by Luke was a major faction? It was just one fleet, a minor faction, yet look what they did.

I feel every faction, minor or major, deserves some what equal respects. I do understand that major factions have more resources to work with, but again, look at the Rebel Alliance.