Dramatic SFB: Fleet limits

david at jannke.com david at jannke.com
Fri Oct 13 10:12:59 PDT 2017


I think it would be handy for me to understand the reasons behind fleet limits. As I understand it they are:
 
1) Limit fleets to playable numbers
 
2) Limit the power of overwhelming empires (i.e. even the most powerful empire can only put 8 ships into an 8 ship battle and less powerful empires can still field that number)
 
3) Encourage the use of different ship sizes and types
 
4) Avoid "unrealistic" fleets (unescorted DNs, Carriers, solo escorts, etc)
 
5) Add to the realism of the scenarios (i.e. why is there a DN escorting a convoy)
 
Did I miss anything? If I have it right:
 
- S8.0 (CR) strikes at #1 but I'm not sure if it gets all the way there. Would it make sense to have smaller max ship deployment numbers early in the campaign?
- Scenario limits or reduced CR would help with #2 by reducing the fleet size. Limiting to size class or movement cost would help a bit later in the game at the cost of empires with a crappy mix of movement cost/size class effectiveness. 
- S8.0 hits hard on #4. 
- S8.0 works on #5 but the scenario specific restrictions would make sense to get all the way there.
 
It seems to me varying limits on fleet size by a range of years might encourage equally sized fleets to engage and make sense in a game sense (reflecting the development of improved command infrastructure or whatever). That could be by having larger scenario limits late in the campaign or by having an artificially lower CR limit early. 
  
- Add fleet Limits
 While editing the scenarios for their rewards, I'll be introducing fleet
 limits on some scenarios. Particularly the common ones where it's
 unreasonable to see large fleet elements. Since I am planning to keep the CR
 system (I had floated the idea earlier to use the BPV cap system and it was
 unpopular), My original intent was to limit the size class (and thus limit
 the fleet size) allowed at certain scenarios. I might instead limit it by
 Move Cost (which will have the same effect - No ship with MC greater than
 0.5 at such-and-such scenario) or by move-cost of all ships on a side (so
 limit one to MC 3.0, which would be three cruisers of six destroyers.) Other
 methods exist. Different scenarios might have different methods
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