SYSNES2: On the Lathe of Suns

Lots of words to get to a question about template refinement:

Manual p.33 said:
Once you have designed a ship and produced at least one example of said ship, you can spend the refinement cost in e and s to reduce the e cost of that ship design by 55% forever after.
Click to expand...
The normal sequence of events for fielding a ship is [Design Ship]+[Build Ship]+[Refine Ship]+[Build Refined Ship] which occurs over a minimum of four years. However, in the case of a template ship, things become less clear:

Manual p.46 said:
Templates are a special type of component in that they never actually will be built into a physical ship, instead acting as design placeholders. You can design a template ship with a template slot A, then design a second actual ship with component 1 in slot A and a third actual ship with component 2 in slot A. [...] In addition, if you refine the template, all daughter designs will also be refined.
Click to expand...

It's unclear how refining the ship fits into this process given no actual physical ship is constructed in making the template. Is the sequence of events:
  1. [Design Template/Refine Template/Design Ship]+[Build Refined Ship], over a minimum of two years?
  2. [Design Template/Refine Template]+[Design Ship]+[Build Refined Ship], over a minimum of three years?
  3. [Design Template/Design Ship]+[Refine Template]+[Build Refined Ship], over a minimum of three years?
  4. [Design Template]+[Refine Template]+[Design Ship]+[Build Refined Ship], over a minimum of four years?
Given the template is just allocating plug-and-play weapon hard-points and you inherently can come up with a loadout immediately, and are sacrificing at least two design slots, Option 1 makes the most sense to me as the "payoff" in rollout time for committing to a template design, since you're dealing exclusively with lots of s and a dedicated design process and no physical examples. If that's for some reason "overpowered," then Option 3 seems the most logical.

Of course, I'm asking, so I don't know for sure which it is.

---

In other news, pretty sure Algorithmic Interlocks' "?" code is broken, since it's possible to add three before it goes red at MTS4, and its TT entry doesn't iterate with each one added like it should.
 
Technically speaking since build phase occurs before research phase, could you not Build Ship and Refine Design in that very turn?
 
You can build the Prototype ship and refine it in the same year (since building happens before research), so its actually three years minimum.

The correct answer is none of those four options:

[Design Template]+[Refine Template/Design Ship]+[Build Ship] for a three year minimum, similar to the normal process with just the building prototype stage skipped but the refining template and designing a daughter potentially happening in the same year. The manual should also indicate it is daughters made after the template is refined that come refined.

Algorithmic is indeed broken, an '>' should be a '>='.

Symphony D. said:
Lots of words to get to a question about template refinement:


The normal sequence of events for fielding a ship is [Design Ship]+[Build Ship]+[Refine Ship]+[Build Refined Ship] which occurs over a minimum of four years. However, in the case of a template ship, things become less clear:



It's unclear how refining the ship fits into this process given no actual physical ship is constructed in making the template. Is the sequence of events:
  1. [Design Template/Refine Template/Design Ship]+[Build Refined Ship], over a minimum of two years?
  2. [Design Template/Refine Template]+[Design Ship]+[Build Refined Ship], over a minimum of three years?
  3. [Design Template/Design Ship]+[Refine Template]+[Build Refined Ship], over a minimum of three years?
  4. [Design Template]+[Refine Template]+[Design Ship]+[Build Refined Ship], over a minimum of four years?
Given the template is just allocating plug-and-play weapon hard-points and you inherently can come up with a loadout immediately, and are sacrificing at least two design slots, Option 1 makes the most sense to me as the "payoff" in rollout time for committing to a template design, since you're dealing exclusively with lots of s and a dedicated design process and no physical examples. If that's for some reason "overpowered," then Option 3 seems the most logical.

Of course, I'm asking, so I don't know for sure which it is.

---

In other news, pretty sure Algorithmic Interlocks' "?" code is broken, since it's possible to add three before it goes red at MTS4, and its TT entry doesn't iterate with each one added like it should.
Click to expand...
 
EEEP EEEP EEEP EEEP EEEP EEEP EEEP EEEP-

Jank Toller groaned, disentangling himself from his girlfriend and fumbling around in the dark for the source of the beeping noise.

A few blind steps, a slip on a blanket and a stubbed toe later, the young Hankish man placed his hand down on the small, faintly pulsing device. A few quick finger strokes later, the beeping had stopped.

“What’s it be Jank?”

“Checking Pip.”

A dull glow illuminated his face, as an unexpected image appeared.

“Proximity? What? We shouldn’t have anything in the system for the next...”

Jank flipped quickly through his ledger to check the schedule.

“Didn’t Jeren say he’d be arriving sometime around nowish?”

Jank cast a quick glance in Pip’s direction, noting her eyes focused on his activity. She looked even lovelier in the dark... and why did that sound like an insult? Returning his gaze to the projection, Jank frowned at the thought and opened up a few entries.

“Argent Voyage. Jeren Killar. Delayed at SAF3, not due for a month.”

Jank would have checked further appointments, but a chain of missed messages caught his attention. He opened it up, to see a familiar face looking at him.

“Vin? What’s this one need now, I’m off hours.”

“Off hours or not, why the hell are you disconnected?”

“I prefer not to be distracted while intimate.”

“You Hankish, yeesh.”

“Hmm?”

“So technophobic. I’ve always thought that being plugged in would enhance... er, hell, I’m getting distracted.”

Jank leaned up against the wall and brushed unruly hair out of his eyes.

“What is it Vin?”

“F***ing huge Standardite fleet showed up a few hours ago.”

“What do they want, have they run out of Mernt?”

“Not even funny man, my sister’s married to a OH S***!”

“Vin? Vin? Talk to me!”

“F***! Idiots! They’ve opened fire! The station just got a message a few minutes ago saying that there’s two different groups of Standards or something, and that everyone should be on alert in the station, but...”

Vincent’s messages trailed off into more distracted cursing and disconnected.

Jank’s wide eyes met Pip’s.

“Well s***.”
 
*CRUNCH hrunch hrnch crnch* *CRUNCH HRUNCH hrnch hrnch cnrch CRUNCH* "Mhm, this is good!" *hrunch cnrch crnch CRUNCH hrunch hrnch crnch*

The door to the President's private dining room opened.

"Oh hey Zef! You want some of this? It's some sort of delicacy those Mernt refugees cooked to thank me. Damn good!"

"Harus. There's rioting outside the Presidential Palace again. The Corans have expelled all Yanii diplomatic personnel following our, or rather your, trade expansion into their markets. An international incident is starting to develop around your decision to just give the Valk a sizable sum of money 'for peace and prosperity.' Oh, and the Forest has been plunged into a widespread chaotic war."

"Hey! Zef! Do you see me eating here? There's a time for business and there's a time for pleasure. This is the latter.
Damn, these Mernt know how to cook!"
 
Lessons of Torpor

The Recent battle of Torpor elucidates a few clear lessons.

Know what your Mission Critical Elements are.

In the Battle of Torpor:

The Csserians wanted to ensure that the Space Station Survived. Survival of the fleet was secondary to this goal.

The Standard Rebels wanted to capture as many Commodore ships as possible. Survival is more important than dealing damage.

The Commodore Fleet had two goals, destroy Torpor and its Defenders. Survive to influence the coming rebellion.


For the Csserians and Commodore fleets the Pivotal Units are the two Commodore Marksman Beam Satellites (MBSs). The Rebels would like to capture the MBSs but they can live without them. However, the Commodores are likely to use the MBSs against the Ne'er Do Wells or threaten to. So prior to attempting to capture more ships the Rebels will have to deal with the Commodores MBSs.

It is here that the initial mistake was made by the Csserian Fleet. Not firing in the initial Long Range Phase made it impossible for them to do anything about the MBSs. Even with a lack of information in the first round (and assuming no new information) they should have targeted the MBSs. If asked to weigh up pissing off the Standard Rebels or ensuring that the Torpor station is not destroyed, countless trade routes and Market Shares that depend on these routes and of course the resources exported via the Torpor station, there seems to be little to think about.

The Csserians Long Range missile fire would have a 24% to destroy both MBS, a 54% to destroy one and damage the other and a 23% to only damage both MBSs (rounding errors). All of these scenarios are survivable but the scenarios where the Csserians fail to destroy MBSs they depend on the Rebels to some extent.

The Commodores in turn should have attempted to take out all the Csserian Fairfaxes, the Marksman can take out a Fairfax each. Whilst the 4 Commodore NDWs have a 66% to destroy the last. Failure or Success here is not as important, the Commodores still have to worry about the plethora of Rebel Razorfins.

Here the mistake of the battle was made. It was made by the Standard Rebels. Failing to concentrate on a single MBS ensured that they would not engage them in sufficient numbers to be able to board them in later rounds. Without this focus the Razorfins could not hope to deal with the MBS's.

IF the MBSs had been dealt with, the remaining ships could have easily dealt with the remaining Commodore forces, the Shepard in particular being effective against both Razorfins and NDWs and fairly immune to Kinetic Lances.

Having looked at the probabilities the outcome is that Csserian-Rebel cooperation should have won the day. Yet diluted Rebel efforts and assurances that they could handle the MBS lost them the battle.

BATTLE IMAGES
Sorry for jpg, it was late. I was tired.

Spoiler :

Turn 1
Post Long Range: Two Csserian Fairfaxes already destroyed
c4Q03.png

Engagement
2aKek.png


Turn 2
Long Range
GlxFk.png

Engagement
TEHJg.png

Close
74PCx.png


Turn 3
Long Range and Engagement
GxUep.png

Close
Rlwlj.png


Turn 4
Engage
3a0bv.png


Turns 5
mGEJg.png


Turn 6 and up
ZM4ly.png



 
Spoiler :
Kal'thzar said:
Lessons of Torpor

The Recent battle of Torpor elucidates a few clear lessons.

Know what your Mission Critical Elements are.

In the Battle of Torpor:

The Csserians wanted to ensure that the Space Station Survived. Survival of the fleet was secondary to this goal.

The Standard Rebels wanted to capture as many Commodore ships as possible. Survival is more important than dealing damage.

The Commodore Fleet had two goals, destroy Torpor and its Defenders. Survive to influence the coming rebellion.


For the Csserians and Commodore fleets the Pivotal Units are the two Commodore Marksman Beam Satellites (MBSs). The Rebels would like to capture the MBSs but they can live without them. However, the Commodores are likely to use the MBSs against the Ne'er Do Wells or threaten to. So prior to attempting to capture more ships the Rebels will have to deal with the Commodores MBSs.

It is here that the initial mistake was made by the Csserian Fleet. Not firing in the initial Long Range Phase made it impossible for them to do anything about the MBSs. Even with a lack of information in the first round (and assuming no new information) they should have targeted the MBSs. If asked to weigh up pissing off the Standard Rebels or ensuring that the Torpor station is not destroyed, countless trade routes and Market Shares that depend on these routes and of course the resources exported via the Torpor station, there seems to be little to think about.

The Csserians Long Range missile fire would have a 24% to destroy both MBS, a 54% to destroy one and damage the other and a 23% to only damage both MBSs (rounding errors). All of these scenarios are survivable but the scenarios where the Csserians fail to destroy MBSs they depend on the Rebels to some extent.

The Commodores in turn should have attempted to take out all the Csserian Fairfaxes, the Marksman can take out a Fairfax each. Whilst the 4 Commodore NDWs have a 66% to destroy the last. Failure or Success here is not as important, the Commodores still have to worry about the plethora of Rebel Razorfins.

Here the mistake of the battle was made. It was made by the Standard Rebels. Failing to concentrate on a single MBS ensured that they would not engage them in sufficient numbers to be able to board them in later rounds. Without this focus the Razorfins could not hope to deal with the MBS's.

IF the MBSs had been dealt with, the remaining ships could have easily dealt with the remaining Commodore forces, the Shepard in particular being effective against both Razorfins and NDWs and fairly immune to Kinetic Lances.

Having looked at the probabilities the outcome is that Csserian-Rebel cooperation should have won the day. Yet diluted Rebel efforts and assurances that they could handle the MBS lost them the battle.

BATTLE IMAGES
Sorry for jpg, it was late. I was tired.

Spoiler :

Turn 1
Post Long Range: Two Csserian Fairfaxes already destroyed
c4Q03.png

Engagement
2aKek.png


Turn 2
Long Range
GlxFk.png

Engagement
TEHJg.png

Close
74PCx.png


Turn 3
Long Range and Engagement
GxUep.png

Close
Rlwlj.png


Turn 4
Engage
3a0bv.png


Turns 5
mGEJg.png


Turn 6 and up
ZM4ly.png



Click to expand...

OOC: In complete agreement. (I'm helping increase post-count, happy dis?)
 
Just noting that even with the confusion of who the fleet was, the rebels could have told the Csserians that they had no Marksmen, and thus instructed the Csserians to direct fire at all the Marksmen they saw.

I'm sure the Csserian politicians will be very interested in why Common didn't inform them of that.
 
Kraznaya said:
Just noting that even with the confusion of who the fleet was, the rebels could have told the Csserians that they had no Marksmen, and thus instructed the Csserians to direct fire at all the Marksmen they saw.

I'm sure the Csserian politicians will be very interested in why Common didn't inform them of that.
Click to expand...

I only now realized how little the Commodores lost there. They basically just took some damage and traded a NDW for a Braveheart. Them still having a half-decent fighting force will sure be interesting.
 
qoou said:
I only now realized how little the Commodores lost there. They basically just took some damage and traded a NDW for a Braveheart. Them still having a half-decent fighting force will sure be interesting.
Click to expand...

It isn't really decent when the Csserian fleet, even divided as it was, could've blown it out of the sky if it had acted like it was at war.
 
Kraznaya said:
Just noting that even with the confusion of who the fleet was, the rebels could have told the Csserians that they had no Marksmen, and thus instructed the Csserians to direct fire at all the Marksmen they saw.

I'm sure the Csserian politicians will be very interested in why Common didn't inform them of that.
Click to expand...

I did inform them of that. The Css'erians made the crucial decision not to fire; it was done so at my request however.

The main pivot of the battle: I tasked 2 Razorfins each to engage each Marksman, and 2 Razorfins to engage Commodore NDW's. qoou intercepted 2 of those Razorfins before they could enter close-range with Marksmen. Had I sent 3 and 3 against the Marksmen, the beam sats would have been neutralized and the battle won.
 
Well, the Csserian politicians can have fun deducing the motivations of the Commoners in asking the Csserians to decline to engage, since after all the Standards should have a clear understanding of their own ships' capabilities. :p

That's only because the Commodores decided to roll the dice and have two razorfins engage the Fairfax. If they hadn't done that, your ploy still would have likely failed.
 
Gas Rockets don't seem to be working properly currently, as they're not boosting dodge regardless of how light/small the design is.

Both Fission Busters and Heavy Fission Busters have a normal and refined damage of 20, while Fusion Busters have 30/40; so how do Valk ships with Busters consistently have 24 damage?
ed1hl.gif
Pretty sure they used to refine to 24, but that was changed at some point.
 
Symphony D. said:
Gas Rockets don't seem to be working properly currently, as they're not boosting dodge regardless of how light/small the design is.

Both Fission Busters and Heavy Fission Busters have a normal and refined damage of 20, while Fusion Busters have 30/40; so how do Valk ships with Busters consistently have 24 damage?
ed1hl.gif
Pretty sure they used to refine to 24, but that was changed at some point.
Click to expand...

I dunno what to tell you? Gas rockets are adding dodge to the dodge value in the spreadsheets. Their effect also scales with PROP (though less effectively than Man jets, they have a base dodge value to compensate). May need to buff them?

The Valk thing is me forgetting to redo their ships stat lines after altering the ship designer :p.
 
OOC: Same situation with the Csser'ian Fairfax design :mischief: Redo battle of Torpor?!?! :D
 
Disenfrancised said:
I dunno what to tell you? Gas rockets are adding dodge to the dodge value in the spreadsheets. Their effect also scales with PROP (though less effectively than Man jets, they have a base dodge value to compensate). May need to buff them?
Click to expand...
I don't see why you'd really ever take them over Maneuvering Jets when they're so much heavier, consume equal or more resources (unless refined), same space, same power, and do a worse job of boosting dodge. I think they'd be more interesting as a crazy resource-intensive but crazy performance-boosting part like Gas Vents, myself, but that's just me.
 
Rule 1: You can't engage in long-range EW iff long-range jamming is occurring.
Rule 2: EW happens before jamming in the action order phase.

Hyperbolic result of the intersection: a ~700e satellite can single-handedly take down the entire Iris garrison, or even a good 50 or so Salamanders. COMP 3, MTS 3, MAT 2, CON 2. Refinement costs: 600e / 500s, though 300e / 200s of that can be foregone if you have some 150m to burn. Cyberorganized can do with only ~550e and CON 1.
IGNORING SURPRISE (which the Iris are guaranteed to have). If you don't ignore surprise, results aren't quite as hyperbolically silly.

But yeah, that ought to be fixed. Your ^0.85 factor sadly wouldn't do very much here, since it'd apply to both the defender and the attacker.
 
Possible Rules Patch: If not the one being surprised, you can choose to have jamming on or off at the start of the engagement. Problem solved?

Your face needs to be fixed.

Also missing the possibility of having all manner of nasty unknown things to do with EW ;).
 
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