Supply

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Tyrel Lohr
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Supply

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

Supply is something that needs to be better explained, and probably modified extensively to make it both easier and more consistent to deal with.

First of all, I already changed it so that supply points as they existed in 1E/2E are replaced by supply depots. Your homeworld* is going to act as a limited supply depot, resupplying units in the same system, just to cover situations where an empire lacks the tech of finances to afford one.

*I am using this term instead of Capital, because I really don't see any point in keeping the Capitals around at this point. They really don't serve any significant purpose. We can just say that Homeworlds have the limited supply advantage and be fine.

The reason for this change is that is exposes the supply infrastructure to enemy attacks and makes the game generally more interesting. Before you couldn't disrupt an enemy's supply network because the colony WAS the supply network. Now, you could conceivably launch a lightning raid deep into enemy space to generate a Defensive scenario and knock out their supply depot.

The rules for supply routes also need to be made clearer. The 2 jump rule is fair, but then you start getting into the "except if it's Tuesday, and Mars is in Aquarius, then you have a royal Fizbin" situations. Let's break some of those out.

Restricted Lanes
This is probably the big one. VBAM up to this point has said that you can't trace supply over a restricted lane, then provided some finicky rules for using Supply ships to bridge the gap. I do like that the restricted lanes are too hazardous for civilian traffic and that it blocks supplies, but trying to mate up Supply value to jump across the lane is kind of tedious.

Instead, while I was doing some other things around the house today, I had this thought: what if a fleet could still trace a supply route over a restricted lane as long as there was a Supply ship in his fleet? This would represent that the Supply ship was helping to keep the fleet in supply by making trips back and forth to meet up with military-grade supply ships. It is gamey as all hell, but it's an easy check to verify that a fleet or system is in supply.

Speaking of systems, if having the Supply ship in the system might be enough to keep the supply route active and keep the entire system in supply.

You could extrapolate the above and say that the system can remain in supply as long as there is an amount of Supply based on the distance from the supply depot. This would be 1x for 1 jump and 2x for 2 jumps.

Image
Referring to the above example, let's assume that the Blue player has a supply depot in the Home system in the center of the map and he wants to get supply out to Minanao. Right now he would have to put Supply ships in Formosa and another in Mindanao and match them up, and the number of squadrons resupplied is based on the Supply value.. yadda yadda yadda. Instead, we could say that just having, say 4 Supply in Mindanao would be enough to trace that supply route and keep the system in supply from Home. That would be 2 Supply per jump as the requirement. For a lower tech empire, that is going to be 1-2 Supply ships that will have to stay there and not get crippled.

Contested Systems
Another sore point that we have is what happens when there are enemy fleets flying around causing problems for your supply lines.

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My current preference is that supply routes can traced INTO but not THROUGH contested systems. For example, the Yellow supply depot in Truk could trace supply to Soela (contested), but it could not trade supply beyond that into Rennell or Wewak.

The Green supply depot in Soela is more of a special case, and one worth examining. If this is the situation in the Supply Phase, would Green still be able to use that depot to get supply out to the other colonies? I'd say it could resupply friendly units in that system, but the enemy presence is going to make the regular dispatch of supplies out of the system dangerous. This isn't strictly a blockade situation, but I think it would disrupt the supply depot.

Thinking about it some more, we could use a system similar to what I described for Supply ships extending supply over restricted lanes in this context, just with the Blockade Runner ability. So if Soela is effectively blockaded for the purposes of supply (and ignoring that Rennell already has a supply depot!), maybe having 2 Blockade Runners in Rennell would be sufficient to keep the blockaded supply lines open? That would give Blockade Runners an actual strategic ability, and one that would be useful during wartime.

Of course, we wouldn't want systems to be blockaded by a single ship, but if the number of enemy ships is greater than or equal to your own number of ships, then I'd say that the system would be "blockaded" at least for the purposes of supply.

...

Wait a minute. What if Supply ships worked exactly as I described for restricted lanes, but that applied to ALL military adventures beyond supply lines? For example, if I am 3 jumps from a friendly supply depot I would then need 6 Supply to remain in supply? The Supply ships would then not be consuming supplies so much as extending the effective range of your supply route. That would turn Supply into a passive ability that you wouldn't have to track and reduce upon use.

Combined with my original thought, it could even be as simple as "Fleets that are out of supply can use Supply ships to establish a temporary supply route back to a friendly supply depot. The maximum length of this basic supply route is equal to the total Supply functions in the system." So you'd get the 2 jump basic supply route everyone can use, but beyond that you're going to need Supply ships, and enough Supply to get a meaningful extension. This would make exploration a bit easier on players because sending 2 x Supply 2 ships would let the exploration fleet travel out 4 jumps away from base and still be in supply.

Planning for deep range military operations also becomes easier because you can just make sure to add enough Supply ships to your fleet to be able to maintain supply at that distance. But in so doing you are leaving yourself open for the enemy to target your support train via includes and cripple or destroy them. You'd then find yourself stranded and out of supply and racing home before you took too many losses.

That to me sounds pretty COOL. It solves the problem of long range deployments while also eliminating the goofy supply ships across restricted lanes problem.

I also like that Blockade Runners would have something to do, and the ratio of Blockade Runners needed to maintain supply could be related to the force imbalance at the blockaded supply depot. For example, if Yellow had 10 units and Green only had 4, then you'd need 6 Blockade Runners in any system within 2 jumps that wants to keep that basic supply route alive. Since it's all based on number of ships, most Blockade Runners are going to be Corvettes or Destroyers: cheap to build, probably Atmospheric so that they could be built in the back country.

Blockades
I guess it's worth throwing this topic in here, too. Do we want to make blockades as simple as "there are two hostile forces in the same inhabited system, and the defender has fewer ships than the attacker"? And other than supply, what other consequences should there be? Should the local economy completely go into stasis with no income or unit production? I really am not sure what the right answer is here. In a larger game having a world be blockaded doesn't hurt, but if it's your homeworld and you lose all of your income then it's pretty much game over.
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Re: Supply

Post by aelius »

I like the supply rules you outlined. It would be nice to have a better role for blockade runners.
As for the consequences of a blockade I would recommend that the system produce one half EP and may only spend them in system.
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Re: Supply

Post by BroAdso »

I also like this set of rules MUCH better than keeping track of number of supply points and so on, which is especially unmoored now that we have no squadrons.

One question, which might have been answered above, but if so I missed it. Could you create a "line" of supply ships? Let's say I am in a system one jump outside of my Supply range and my fleet has three supply ships. Could I leave one of the Supply ships in this system and move to another system, now two jumps outside of my Supply range, and stay in supply because I have an undisturbed line of Supply ships back to my core supply range? Or is it just as you seemed to say, more that you can move a number of jumps away from your supply range equal to the number of Supply ships in your fleet?
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Re: Supply

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

BroAdso wrote:I also like this set of rules MUCH better than keeping track of number of supply points and so on, which is especially unmoored now that we have no squadrons.

One question, which might have been answered above, but if so I missed it. Could you create a "line" of supply ships? Let's say I am in a system one jump outside of my Supply range and my fleet has three supply ships. Could I leave one of the Supply ships in this system and move to another system, now two jumps outside of my Supply range, and stay in supply because I have an undisturbed line of Supply ships back to my core supply range? Or is it just as you seemed to say, more that you can move a number of jumps away from your supply range equal to the number of Supply ships in your fleet?
My recommendation was to have the length of the extended supply route that you could trace be equal to your total Supply in the fleet/system. If you have 6 Supply, then you can trace the supply route back to a friendly supply depot up to 6 jumps away.

The biggest issue with daisy chaining Supply ships is that then you have to worry about tracking all of those extra single ship fleets, and while your supply train is more vulnerable to direct attack it is still vulnerable in the above scenario because an enemy can move into the systems behind you and cut that supply route (as you won't be able to trace through enemy fleets).

I can see situations where being able to exhaust Supply to stay in supply when you're cut off could still be a useful function, but I want to get rid of the tedium of having to track how much Supply I've used. If I add an "emergency resupply" option it is going to have to be an "exhaust the entire Supply ship" (or maybe even cripple the Supply ship) to keep units in supply -- like 1 Supply per 10 units? But I'm still running through ways to cover that eventuality. I just have grown to like simpler solutions to these types of problems because they reduce the amount of bookkeeping you need to do.
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Re: Supply

Post by BroAdso »

That makes a lot more sense, and I think you are right that it's best to avoid keeping track of lots of tiny fleets that are just ferrying supplies.

Plus, in the new Single Squadron system, it will make the cat and mouse game of keeping your Supply ships out of the combat with Scout functions (when you have a big long range task force deep in enemy space) an important and interesting part of combat.
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Re: Supply

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

Definitely, and it gives players a more direct and reliable way of extending supply to their fleets as they push forward into enemy space. VBAM has long had the problem of players moving ahead 2 jumps to the edge of their existing supply length, then having to sit and consolidate while they ferry a new supply depot forward so that they could rinse and repeat.

While it's not going to be hard to get a significant amount of Supply in a fleet, you still have to worry about supply lines being cut or, like you said, trying to keep those Supply ships alive when the enemy sees that you're vulnerable if your supply train is eliminated. DD sized freighters aren't going to be hard to include in a scenario, either, and then it's just a case of shooting fish in a barrel and leaving your enemy stranded, out of supply, and with very few options but a forced retreat back to friendly territory.

The extended supply routes work great with Explorer ships that have Supply, as then you have one ship that can go out on the frontier and explore while remaining in supply the whole time.
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Re: Supply

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

I'm trying to move the content from this thread over to the Galaxies doc, but I ran into a few hiccups on the blockade rules that I think we need to discuss and work through first.

Based on recommendations, I think we're looking at this right now:
  • A system is blockaded if the total number of enemy ships is greater than the total number of friendly ships
  • Blockaded systems only produce half their normal system income, and no commerce income
  • Supply routes cannot be traced through a blockaded system due to the presence of the blockading enemy fleet
  • Blockade Runners can still be used to trace basic supply routes (but NOT extended supply routes) through a blockade or enemy fleet
Now, the issue I ran into is how to determine how many Blockade Runners are needed to run a blockade? Originally I was going off of the difference between the number of enemy/friendly units in each system, but I realize now that this is divulging secret information that a player probably shouldn't have. We could go with a range based system instead, but we're only working with up to 2 jumps, so that doesn't make sense, either.

Part of my problem is self inflicted, as I'm trying to figure out to get supply both ways out of a blockaded system. If we were only worried about getting it into the system, then we could pretty easily say "the supply route cannot pass through systems containing any other enemy ships (other than the blockaded system) and the number of Blockade Runners required is equal to the total number of enemy ships minus the total number of friendly ships in the blockaded system." Then you'd only be worried about breaking the blockade, getting supply back to the system, and returning the system to full output. Which would still be pretty great.
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Re: Supply

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

Random thought to throw out there: right now out of supply levels are cleared automatically when you're in supply, so earning out of supply levels when you're still in supply has no effect. What do you guys think about an optional rule where units only remove 1 out of supply level per turn when they are in supply? That would force players to move ships back into supply to slowly build back their stores or repair damage.

I could see such a rule being paired with another option that says that out of supply levels can only be cleared at a supply depot, or that you had to use Supply functions to clear the out of supply levels. I think that is more trouble than its worth in most settings, but it would certainly give out of supply levels an extra bite.
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Re: Supply

Post by Emiricol »

Notes as I go!

OP:
- 2 supply ships per jump is a lot less fiddly! Love it. How would it affect things if it was 1 per jump lane, but 2 per restricted? Restricted lanes then still are a headache for supply, but still simple. I often just forgot to keep track of supply unless a fleet was in an unclaimed/enemy system, anyway.

- Keeping system in supply just like fleets is also nice and simple.

- Supply going into a contested system but not through it: this does what all the movies and most of the fiction I've read do. I like it. Makes it easy to cut off supply lines if you can get into the other power's system somewhere upstream, cutting off supply downstream.

- Contested System that contains a supply depot: see above! Rock on.

- Blockade Runners: become useful!

- Blockade: Yes, please make it that simple...

- Out of Supply(last post) - Sounds good, but of the options you gave, I like the idea that Out of Supply Levels can only be reduced at a supply depo, not a supply ship. Effectively supply ships would then only prevent them from gaining additional Out of Supply levels, and makes Depots significantly more useful.

- Suggest that a planet with a supply depot is a supply point for everything inside the blockade...
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Re: Supply

Post by Tyrel Lohr »

Emiricol wrote:- 2 supply ships per jump is a lot less fiddly! Love it. How would it affect things if it was 1 per jump lane, but 2 per restricted? Restricted lanes then still are a headache for supply, but still simple. I often just forgot to keep track of supply unless a fleet was in an unclaimed/enemy system, anyway.
I've been playing with 1 Supply function per jump in my Prelude to Federation game and that seems to be working. My Supply ships are destroyers with 2 Supply, so they help to extend the supply lines out to 4 jumps from the supply depot, plus getting supply over the restricted lanes. The problem of course is that they have low enough DV that a bad In Peril event destroys them. I could definitely see the benefits to having meatier Supply ships, or building Explorers that also are Supply ships.
- Keeping system in supply just like fleets is also nice and simple.
It does aid consistency!
- Supply going into a contested system but not through it: this does what all the movies and most of the fiction I've read do. I like it. Makes it easy to cut off supply lines if you can get into the other power's system somewhere upstream, cutting off supply downstream.
I'll make sure that I have this specified in the rules at that this point.
- Contested System that contains a supply depot: see above! Rock on.

- Blockade Runners: become useful!

- Blockade: Yes, please make it that simple...
I definitely want the blockades and blockade runners to be simple enough that we don't have to "fight" the rules as much to figure out what they do. I forget who has the idea, but having blockades just halve system output is great, then have blockade runners run the blockades from a distance to keep the supplies coming in. Then when the blockader is told his blockade isn't working, he'll know to send ships out to try and find and eliminate those pesky blockade runners.
- Out of Supply(last post) - Sounds good, but of the options you gave, I like the idea that Out of Supply Levels can only be reduced at a supply depo, not a supply ship. Effectively supply ships would then only prevent them from gaining additional Out of Supply levels, and makes Depots significantly more useful.
I'd like to playtest this one a bit, as I think it would make taking out of supply levels more of an issue, and actually removing them would take time at a supply depot. The bigger issue is the speed at which they could be cleared. Given that everything else is immediate at this point, I would say just staying in the same system as the supply depot for a turn would be enough to clear them. That still forces the ships to return back to a supply depot and go through the "refit" in the background to get them back up and ready.
- Suggest that a planet with a supply depot is a supply point for everything inside the blockade...
Good catch! I'll add that to the draft.
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