Using VBAM for an Honorverse-type Setting

[jscott991]

The economy will be scaled up. Right now I'm working with numbers that give the Haven system a 500 EP output and have the Haven fleet costing about 1300 EP in maintenance. I figure the entire PRH will need to gross around 2000 EP. Manticore will have to be similar (perhaps using extensive trade fleets to generate some of its income).

I was mostly curious as to whether the ship values would work. In this scenario, the economy has to be built around the OOB and reducing the OOBs by 80% is as low as I'm willing to go (and I'm not willing to work with squadrons).

[jscott991]

On reflection, there's no reason to not just cut the proposed costs by 80% and use RAW alone to manipulate the economy. This produces a Haven economy of around 400 EP, a Manticore of around 300 EP, with maintenance costs of 263 and 168 respectively.

[Charles Lewis]

I've managed to lose my conversion file for SITS, so I'm afraid I'll be of no help in that direction.

In the meantime, it looks like you've already made the leap to the point I was getting ready to make - the ship costs can be tweaked to suit the economy.

[jscott991]

I'm not sure why I didn't think of it before. By cutting the costs back, I can use all the default rules on construction time, shipyard costs, trade fleet costs, etc.

The movement system is the next major hurdle. Weber's ships can move REALLY fast in a month (military ships can move 3,000c, which means that Basilisk Station is reachable from Manticore in less than a month, and RMN units can be in Haven in less than 2).

The map I have now is a hex map, with each hex being 10 LY. I'm thinking of scaling movement back to 10 hexes per turn (which is still a lot for VBAM).

[Gareth_Perkins]

Remember that a month can cover a lot more than just travel (it might include time spent loading and offloading cargo or consumables, travel into or out of a system (which is much slower), etc),

Also consider that you could re-frame the turn period to one-week turns if it seems more appropriate (you may also need to make a couple of other minor alterations to the system to do this, but it is viable),

[jscott991]

Since it will be a solo scenario, I was thinking maybe of having 4 movement pulses during the turn to allow some reaction movement. If Manticore takes a system 20 LY away from a major Haven base (or vice versa), it might not work to allow them to hold it for an entire month when Haven could just come right back.

[Gareth_Perkins]

Superdreadnought, Cost: 100, Maint:10, Long Range Attack:61, DV:100, CR:30, CC:4
Dreadnought, Cost:90, MT:9, LR:51, DV:90, CR:24, CC:3
BB, Cost:45, MT:4.5, LR:27, DV:45, CR:18, CC:2.5
BC, Cost:11, MT:1.1, LR:10, DV:11, CR:10, CC:1.5
CA, Cost:4, MT.4, LR:4, DV:4, CR:4, CC: .5
CL, Cost:2, MT:.2, LR:1.6, DV:2, CR:5, CC: .75
DD, Cost:1.5, MT:.15, LR:1.4, DV:1, CR:4, CC: .5

Some quick thoughts on this:

HV ships defensive capabilities vs. missiles stack up quickly - put some thought into giving a large formation bonus to groups of ships (squadrons),

The CRs and CCs are designed to allow one ship to command 7 of its brethren. I have no idea if/how this would work in VBAM's strategic combat system, but a squadron in the Honorverse is generally 8 ships, led by one of its own (DD and CL squadrons are bigger, but that can be fudged).

Consider that most SITS vessels have speciality command ships with flag bridges (Prince Consort IIRC for example),

So it may be apt for some classes (especially the small ones) to generally have low CRs, but to have "command" variants with slightly lower firepower,

The Long range attack value is something I was noodling with. I was going to split combat into Long Range and Short Range and come up with a way to allow a fleet to keep the range open if it wanted (like how the surprise attack option works in the Moderator's Companion). So I have short range attack values worked out for each ship too.

Good thinking - Short ranged fire should bypass formation bonuses to ensure suitable mayhem when performing close-passes,

[jscott991]

Good suggestions.

I'm going to bypass the command ships, even though there is at least one example of that class in SITs (RMN Crusader CAs serve as flags for Prince Consort squadrons). I've never liked specialty command ships. It just adds another column to the spreadsheet and it can be assumed that everyone is going to build them anyway. I never used the command datagroup option in Starfire for this very reason.

I do like the formation bonus idea, and losing it during short range energy fights.

[Gareth_Perkins]

Oh, another quick thought - consider the defensive bonus for formations to always be in effect for long-ranged fire (by default the formation bonus only applies to targeted fire in VBAM),

These small tweaks should ensure a nice HV-feel to the campaign IMO,

[XSiberia]

1. ME TOO, PLEASE: Whatever your final result, I'd love to get a copy. Honorverse for VBAM is something I've wanted to 'eventually' get to for a long time now and it would be great not to have to re-create the wheel.

2. SCALE: I'm not sure if you've already rejected this approach to "large numbers of ships" or if you may have missed it so I thought I'd chime in. I agree that large numbers of ships are important to the Honorverse if you want to run a campaign there. However, if you are a campaign running it at the top strategic level it's not going to be any more practical for you to track individual ships than it is for the U.S. President to tell the Navy to move Destroyer X from Paint A to Point B. Your dealing with fleets, composed of squadrons. As I have considered this, you could, with very little tweaking, convert ship types to squadron types and with simply a change in wording you've increased your number of ships by an order of magnitude with no additional peper work.
Example 1: Say a destroyer has stat vlaues X, Y, Z for a 'traditional' VBAM campaign. You take the exacts same stats and now call it a destroyer squadron and you're done.
Example 2: Instead of specific types, a setting could call for mixed formations like a modern U.S. Navy surface action group (SAG). If certain mixes are what doctrine says will always fight together, then just determine the stats of what the combined firepower is relative to the other component units in your universe, give it a cost and track it just like VBAM tracks a discreet single ship.

You could argue that you need the ability to track single ships on picket duty or whatever, but...
1. There are ways to abstract that as well. Create a maintenance fee that is paid by each system. the higher the maintenance fee, the more likely that when an enemy attacks, there is a chance that a patrolling vessel of a certain type is physically present in the system (in the Honorverse, single ships routinely patrol sectors of space, but do you really want to keep track of pushing them all around on the map?). Then you just give that single ship really crappy combat stats relative to the squadron it will likely be facing (and destroyed by), which leads me too...
2. Who cares? At your level, single ships won't make a difference unless HH herself is in command (ye olde On Basilisk Station...), and if you really want to have that affect you can make her a special character like SITS does and give her some crazy bonuses to make her single unit competitive with a squadron strength force.

Bottom line, the numbers are all abstraction. Whether you say that a DV2 unit is a frigate or a squadron of frigates or a mixed force Level 1 Picket Formation it just does not matter as long as the costs and stats are all appropriately valued relative to each other.

[Tyrel Lohr]

I am a few months behind on the conversation, but I wanted to weigh in on the topic and throw in my two cents where appropriate.

1. Can VBAM be used to model a setting with lots of ships? Manticore and Haven have hundreds of ships each. Starfire works pretty well on larger numbers, but my understanding is that VBAM tends to emphasize smaller ship counts.

The game can handle the number of ships. The data tracking on fleets with a thousand ships each is going to be a nuisance because you'll have to keep track of where each squadron and/or task force is located or moving to each turn, but that really just means that each turn sheet is probably going to be a few pages long holding that information. Quite doable, however.

The largest CSCR battle that I have ever resolved in a game was a Klingon/Tholian battle that had about 200-250 ships total in the engagement. I was using the advanced CSCR rules that used squadron vs. squadron fire, so it took about 2 hours to resolve that fight. If you did normal task force vs. task force it would have taken probably half that amount of time. So, yes, the VBAM strategic combat engine can handle battles with that many units per side.

2. Can VBAM be used to model a universe that does not use warp points? I think the answer to this is yes.

It can, and hex or range based movement would be your best option. A hex map would probably be the friendliest option for the purposes of quick reference, but if you know or can compute the ranges between each of the systems on the map you could have the number of jumps/movement cost distance between two systems be equal to their light year distance on the map. From the sounds of things later in this thread you got this problem tackled, but I wanted to throw in the range-based option as an alternative.

Given the speeds of the Honorverse ships, I do think it would be a good idea to split each strategic turn into 4 tactical turns. That gives you more room to maneuver for assigning speeds to the ships and allowing them to move and engage and still have a chance to react to the enemy's own fleet movements.

Are you going to have messages and fleet orders be carried manually by courier boats?

3. Can VBAm be used to model a setting where a small, but very prosperous, empire is capable of economic output comparable to a big, ramshackle power? Starfire cannot do this. The low population and industry cap in Starfire means that every system tops out at a relatively low level. This means big empires are necessary to generate large economies (sort of like Russia and Austria being better economically than Britain and Prussia, which wasn't really true). This completely precludes it from being used as an Honorverse analogue, where the 3 planet Kingdom of Manticore has an economy capable of competing with the hundred star system Republican of Haven. My understanding is that VBAM does not do this very well (someone told me large systems top out around 100 EP).

The rules can handle it, and I can see two ways you can achieve your goal. The simplest would be to jack the RAW values of some systems through the roof. Manticore, for example, could be given a RAW of 18, or about 3x the average for a VBAM home system. Combined with a commerce income bonus from the wormhole (either a flat bonus or just give the system a Trade special resource to simulate the effects) you would end up with a one-system power that has a remarkable economy compared to other powers.

Another option, and one that would definitely make economic gearup more expensive, would be to effectively double system Carrying Capacity, Census, and Productivity values. This would make it significantly more expensive for a player to build up economic infrastructure at a colony while at the same time allowing the colony higher levels of production and economic output, which would give you more room to maneuver when pricing your military units. A Manticore with 20 utilized Productivity and 18 RAW would generate 360 EP per turn, plus an additional ~72 EP per turn from trade revenue if I'm remembering the rules correctly. By contrast, Haven might only have 12 utilized Productivity and 5 RAW, for a total of 60 EP per turn.

Again, from the sounds of things in the rest of the thread it sounds like you managed to stat out the ships and assign costs that were at a level that would work within the confines of the original rules. In that case, if you want to restrict economic growth, you could increase the costs of Productivity increases to limit the rate at which empires could expand their industrial base.

4. Can VBAM be used to model a universe where colonization/exploration is not important (maybe not even going on anymore) and economic growth is primarily achieved by developing systems that are already well-settled at the start of the campaign? Starfire strikes out here, for the reasons listed above. Its economic system is built around dropping population on new planets as fast as possible. All 4X games are usually made this way, which is a major problem with the genre (for me at least).

I agree that this is a problem for most 4X games, and VBAM does suffer from the problem of smaller colonies being cheaper to turn into productive worlds. You can probably get around this in a setting by applying a flat Productivity cost in addition to the scaled portion. For example, you could have each Productivity increase cost 100 EP + 10 times the new Productivity value. That would make smaller colonies less attractive to upgrade, encouraging economic growth at more mature colonies.

VBAM 2E is addressing part of this problem by applying a colonization cost to new colonies equal to 10 times a system's Carrying Capacity. A player is essentially paying an economic surcharge to establish a colony in the system, front loading the economic penalty for those first few infrastructure upgrades. Larger colonies will gain advantages to defending against intel missions and bombardment, and changes to the construction rules in 2E means that some larger ship classes can only be built at colonies that have sufficient industry available. Only a player's homeworld might be able to build a 60 EP superdreadnought, for example, and smaller colonies won't even be able to build a 25 EP heavy cruiser because they just simply don't have enough shipyard capacity to do it.

[Darth_Bathrobe]

I've been thinking this out, and one thing that it struck me that could help with the scale of a game like this. Add team play. Each Player Entity would have multiple players. One in command, others representing staff officers, or perhaps force commanders at the operational level. To use an Honorverse example, the main player for Manticore would represent a combination of the RMN Admiralty and Parliament, and would be responsible for overall building and assignment of forces, setting overall objectives, running Intel, and diplomacy, while other players on her team would represent individual fleet and task force commanders, and would allocate the forces at their disposal to individual task forces, and planning/executing the details of operations assigned to them by the Admiralty.

[Tyrel Lohr]

Jay's ran a few Wing Commander games that operate something like this, with the exception that there was no predetermined "leader" on each side (though one usually appeared each time, I think, based on who had the most experience with the rules). Each player was given control of a few of the empire's systems and could build as they so chose, and then worked together as a team to meet their mission objectives.

Given how economic and ship building resources appear to be so centralized in the Honorverse, I think you're right that there would either need to be a central Admiralty to handle overall economic and construction operations; or else a mechanism for splitting those resources freely between all of the players. For example, I could see the Manitcoran players getting an even split of Manticore's resources, but then each of them drawing the income from the colonies in their command area and using the infrastructure at these colonies to perform limited construction, repairs, etc.

[Darth_Bathrobe]

That could actually work. Assign different facilities to each player, with an economic allocation to each one, to reflect the different functions of each yard. One player could, as part of their staff duties, be the de-facto C/O of Hephaestus, Vulcan, or Wayland, or, if assigned to a forward system with repair and construction facilities (such as Hancock,) in command of those facilities. Wayland, for example, might not have as much capacity as Hephaestus or Vulcan, but, reflecting it's role as the RMN's hub for R&D, might have an additional allocation for weapons and ship development.

[Tyrel Lohr]

I should at least allow each player some responsibility and control over their empire's strategic assets. I think it would get boring to play in a team game where all you got to do was push around ships on the map without any other input into the economic situation and they have to rely on someone else to do that for them. It would definitely replicate the life of an admiral, but I have a feeling that lack of control would be very frustrating for the player