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Old 05-26-2022, 10:21 AM   #1
Curmudgeon
 
Join Date: Sep 2011
Default Naval Procurement Doctrine for Stellar Polities

As mentioned in another thread, I'm undertaking a conversion of FGU's Space Opera to a potential GURPS campaign. In doing so, I'm practically rewriting the game's premises, so for your enjoyment and possible use, here are the procurement strategies that I'm using for some of star nations I'll eventually be using. I'm teetering around on just how high the TL will be, and it is all GURPS 3rd Ed.

The Azuriarch Imperium has the deepest pockets of any of the star nations, so they can indulge their aesthetics. They have the best developed tech and they're the reason I'm teetering around about the TL. I had planned to make them TL 12, but I'm thinking about shifting them to TL13 just to get around the minimum output on one beam weapon, so I can give it a decent cyclic rate. In general, they go for cutting edge technology and put resources into things other star nations either don't or, more often, can't do. For example, if there is a compact option on any component, that's how the Imperium will build it. No other star nation has the money to waste on miniaturization. Likewise, the Imperium uses pop-up turrets and concealed weapons within the turret. Arguably, there's no good reason for it as there's no effective streamlining in space, but the Imperium likes the "clean lines" look that pop-up turrets give. There's some argument that pop-up turrets provide a surprise to attackers who think the vessel is unarmed, but at the ranges most space combat is initiated, no one can tell whether a vessel has turrets or not. The Imperium uses advanced materials wherever possible. The Imperium also puts a fair bit of effort into cloaking and detection technologies. They prefer to see you without you seeing them, until its too late. Their one other tendency is to have a variety of vehicles within a given class. It is usually a safe bet that even if a weapon or feature is nearly worthless, there's a vessel somewhere in the Imperium that mounts it as a testbed vehicle.

The Galactic Peoples' Republic is the Azuriarch Imperium's main rival. If the Imperium is TL 13, the GPR lags a TL behind; if not, they're technological equals. The GPR doesn't have as deep pockets as the Imperium but it can muster more people and its resources are, adequate. The GPR uses standard materials, occasional expensive materials, but it thinks of itself as preferring the tried and true. If anyone is still using UV lasers at TL12, it'll be the GPR. Likewise, they'll prefer the mature neutral particle beam to the new antiparticle beam. In general, the GPR standardizes its ships, usually having a single ship type in each class, and relies on numbers to make up for any lack of versatility. The GPR's view on cutting edge technology can be summed up as "Let the Imperium work the bugs out of it, and then we'll send in a spy or two to bring the design home for production." The Imperium is aware of this and offers GPR spies an uncomfortably warm reception.

The Mercantile League is loaded, but it is a confederation with a weak central government. It could theoretically match the Imperium for deep pockets and it has a penchant for getting the best "money can buy". It's weaknesses are its corporate mindset and decentralization. No one sees a need to spend money on the really big ships. The League has huge numbers of patrol ships and commerce-raiding corvettes, a competitive number of destroyers, and is a little thin on light and heavy cruisers. It has no battlestars (dreadnaughts), unlike the Imperium and the GPR, and only a few starbattleships (I haven't decided how few yet. I'm currently leaning toward one or two, but they almost certainly won't have more than a half-dozen. The Imperium and GPR will probably muster a dozen or more.) I may push them back to TL 10, but that's still up in the air.

The Terran Union is the new kid on the block. They are the most technologically backward of the lot, being TL 8, maybe TL 9. They are willing to play with the "big boys". They don't seem rich, but they have the resources and the willingness to spend those resources to be competitive. Their approach is "a technologically inferior weapon will take them down just fine. It's just a question of making it big enough to do the job."

The Ranan Horde is a stand-in for the communist Chinese, so I'm following the lead of Space Opera's writer. Just as the Imperium will always pick the compact option, the Horde will always go for the cheap option. I haven't quite decided on their TL yet. I might put them in at TL 12 as a third rival to the Imperium and GPR, but I'm leaning more to making them competitors to both the Mercantile League and Terran Union. So, probably TL9, maybe TL 10, making them competitive with the League, and if I do keep the Horde at TL 9, the Terran Union will probably be TL 8.
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Old 05-26-2022, 11:29 AM   #2
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: Naval Procurement Doctrine for Stellar Polities

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Originally Posted by Curmudgeon View Post

The Terran Union is the new kid on the block. They are the most technologically backward of the lot, being TL 8, maybe TL 9.
It's a little difficult to think in 3e TLs these days but if you're using default Ve2 numbers I don't think you can make an at all viable starship at TL8. Even handwaving the stardrive as Emergent Superscience you're left needing Reactionless Thrusters.

Then there's Force Screens. You generally need those too. Any stellar nation Space Opera called their TL7 (hence forth SOTL) would default to TL11 in Ve2. There weren't any stellar nations below SOTL 7.
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Old 05-26-2022, 02:19 PM   #3
Curmudgeon
 
Join Date: Sep 2011
Default Re: Naval Procurement Doctrine for Stellar Polities

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
It's a little difficult to think in 3e TLs these days but if you're using default Ve2 numbers I don't think you can make an at all viable starship at TL8. Even handwaving the stardrive as Emergent Superscience you're left needing Reactionless Thrusters.
True enough. Distinguishing starships from spaceships as the former being FTL-capable while the later are not, you need a stardrive in order to have a starship and that isn't possible before TL10, though one could go Kitty Hawk (the example vehicle in Vehicles) and handwave it as an advanced technology the Terran Union found, or somewhat more likely an old version of the technology that someone (maybe the Merchantile League, somewhat less likely the Imperium or GPR) is willing to sell to the Terran Union for a big enough return.

Stardrive aside, I think a practicable starship with TL 9, or maybe even TL 8 components could be made. Note that I said practicable, not practical. I would expect it to work in the sense of "you can get there from here with that thing and even have a fair fight when you get there," but anyone from TL 10 or beyond will be looking at it in wonderment. Not because it's such a terrific notion but because, like the bumblebee, it's such an amazing example of applying brute force to a problem better solved with elegance.

Quote:
Then there's Force Screens. You generally need those too. Any stellar nation Space Opera called their TL7 (hence forth SOTL) would default to TL11 in Ve2. There weren't any stellar nations below SOTL 7.
Yes, to force screens which are TL 11 in GURPS Vehicles. On the other hand, I'm going to be doing some serious hammering of the setting to get into even an approximate shape that I'll like. One of the changes that I'm entertaining at the moment is giving force screen technology to only one or two of the star nations and letting the ones without just armor up to meet the challenge. Given the amount of energy a screen can absorb in Space Opera (SO hereafter), and the fact that most warships mounted three layers of force screens, I think comparable armouring up would require something on the order of increasing the armour by a factor of ten. Given that SO's BattleArmor just reduced the penetration value by something on the order of half, my immediate conversion may just be increasing the starship's hit points by a factor of eighteen or maybe just armouring it to a DR with a value that's nine times that of the starship's hit points. And OTOH, I'll probably be using ablative armour, although durable ablative armour may be a better fit. I don't think I'll be using metal armour, or collapsed matter armor (which IIRC was what the "fluff" in SO suggested was what BattleArmor constituted.

Technically, all the star nations whose starships of war were shown, were all SOTL 10-11, which I read as TL 10 with some TL 11, except the Terran Union which was SOTL 11. However, their ships were apparently not sent to the breakers when they became outdated as each class of ships shown had statistics for all SOTLs from 7 onward.

I don't think I'm going to be running a Space Opera campaign as such, just hoovering up anything that looks good for a GURPS Space or GURPS Traveller campaign. Seldon's Starcraft Compendiums are a nice place to start and I may port most of the planets from the SO's Star Atlas series over, though some of them are going to need a rethink or two to make them a little less cartoony for my taste, and the aliens have little appeal for me. I am half-thinking that I might modify the Blarads and MekPurrs to be ElfQuest's Trolls and Elves respectively, but half-thinking is all I've done with it.
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