The Freethinkers
04-03-2005, 16:53
OOC: The following is a list of basic problems I’ve found with Naval Role-play and Ship-Design within NS. This is not an authoritative guide or anything but is useful for pointing out many faults in people’s role-play regarding these issues. These items listed below can be easily applied to other aspects of military roleplay. Enjoy!
The Ten Basic Rules
1) Capability Costs! You see, its perfectly possible to have a ship twice as powerful, twice as armed, twice as armoured and twice as capable as a RL design. What is not possible is to have a ship twice as powerful, twice as armed, twice as armoured and twice as capable which costs the same as the RL design. You stick that new weapon system, or that brilliant new radar onto the ship it’s gonna cost more. Simple as that.
2) Research Matters! The quality, capability and effectiveness of your vessel directly corresponds to amount of time you spend researching and creating your design. Half an hour’s work righting out stats copy and pasted from Fas.org isn’t going to cut it against a well-thought-out opponent. Another point, however, is: don’t believe everything you read. Many articles in technical journals and magazines have an obvious bias towards one side or another, and it’s the same with official Navy websites too. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.
3) Economies Of Scale Work Both Ways! One of the most annoying things I’ve seen about seeing low-price designs is how people justify it by stating either: a) I’ve eliminated the corruption that inherent in RL building, or b) I produce so many it’s really cheap for each one! In Reality, the small levels of corruption make no significant changes in production costs and it is likely that such price-inflation and corruption is present in EVERY system, including YOURS, and as for the mass-production question the truth is that the Economies of Scale (the cost reductions gained because of large scale production) actually decrease and then turn into Diseconomies of Scale as production expands. BE forewarned.
4) You Get What You Pay For! Pretty obvious. The higher the price you pay the better quality ship you can buy. Should be common sense, but you would be surprised by people’s expectations.
5) Good Quality Ships Take A Long Time To Build It can take a decade or so to produce really large, complicated ships, especially if you are having to install the most advanced systems around. Rushing a carrier through in a year or so means that the ship will be so poorly made it will be unlikely to survive seaworthy for any amount of time and will be plagued by trouble for all its career. Yes, wartime production can build ships extremely quickly, but these are designed for short-run, ‘maximum hulls in water’ crisis thinking. Don’t expect them to last long in a fire fight with a more thoroughly made combatant.
Another add on point to this is the excuse of building ‘stocks’ of ships ready to sell on. Whereas the capacity to build ships without orders is not in question (though the business sense of a company building tens of billions of dollars worth of equipment without guaranteed income is….questionable), the quality of a ship, even maintained, sitting unused for years is going to diminish significantly.
6) Escorts Are Expendable. Capital Ships Are Not. This is the basic difference between the two. Remember when you design escort classes that a Frigate’s or Destroyer’s ultimate goal is to be launched, fight a bit and then take the bullet for your Carriers and Battleships. If you can’t afford to lose it then it’s not an escort, remember that when you are piling in the equipment and weapons onto that Escort Destroyer.
7) Teething Troubles No ship ever launched has worked perfectly first time. Never. The reasons being quite obviously that you never know for certain how things are going to operate in real life, and it will be the same for you too. It presents a good way to correct any details someone has pointed out after launch, and by identifying problems you can become a better designer because of it. This leads us into Rule #8:
8) What? It Broke? Things breakdown, go kaput, stop working on a ship almost all the time. When you consider how complex a vessel is this isn’t surprising. But people very rarely think that their vessel is going to be in anything other than perfect condition. To put it in perspective when I was aboard HMS Kent a few years back, neither the 114mm Main Gun or the ML Torpedo Tubes were operational. Simulating breakdowns and failures further shows that you have a realistic grasp of how ship’s behave and should enhance your reputation.
9) Constructive Criticism Learn to grow a thick skin, and be willing to take criticism from time to time. Read comments, listen to what people say and don’t be afraid to ask for help from established shipbuilders. No one starts out perfect, and even the best are learning continuously.
10) Most Importantly, It’s All About The Role-play! Perhaps too often forgotten when the latest, most high-tech battlewagon is rolled out, the main point of NS is to create enjoyable Role-plays. The main purpose of your new designs is to enhance the role-play experience that you partake in, not to try and prove how powerful you are.
The Ten Basic Rules
1) Capability Costs! You see, its perfectly possible to have a ship twice as powerful, twice as armed, twice as armoured and twice as capable as a RL design. What is not possible is to have a ship twice as powerful, twice as armed, twice as armoured and twice as capable which costs the same as the RL design. You stick that new weapon system, or that brilliant new radar onto the ship it’s gonna cost more. Simple as that.
2) Research Matters! The quality, capability and effectiveness of your vessel directly corresponds to amount of time you spend researching and creating your design. Half an hour’s work righting out stats copy and pasted from Fas.org isn’t going to cut it against a well-thought-out opponent. Another point, however, is: don’t believe everything you read. Many articles in technical journals and magazines have an obvious bias towards one side or another, and it’s the same with official Navy websites too. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.
3) Economies Of Scale Work Both Ways! One of the most annoying things I’ve seen about seeing low-price designs is how people justify it by stating either: a) I’ve eliminated the corruption that inherent in RL building, or b) I produce so many it’s really cheap for each one! In Reality, the small levels of corruption make no significant changes in production costs and it is likely that such price-inflation and corruption is present in EVERY system, including YOURS, and as for the mass-production question the truth is that the Economies of Scale (the cost reductions gained because of large scale production) actually decrease and then turn into Diseconomies of Scale as production expands. BE forewarned.
4) You Get What You Pay For! Pretty obvious. The higher the price you pay the better quality ship you can buy. Should be common sense, but you would be surprised by people’s expectations.
5) Good Quality Ships Take A Long Time To Build It can take a decade or so to produce really large, complicated ships, especially if you are having to install the most advanced systems around. Rushing a carrier through in a year or so means that the ship will be so poorly made it will be unlikely to survive seaworthy for any amount of time and will be plagued by trouble for all its career. Yes, wartime production can build ships extremely quickly, but these are designed for short-run, ‘maximum hulls in water’ crisis thinking. Don’t expect them to last long in a fire fight with a more thoroughly made combatant.
Another add on point to this is the excuse of building ‘stocks’ of ships ready to sell on. Whereas the capacity to build ships without orders is not in question (though the business sense of a company building tens of billions of dollars worth of equipment without guaranteed income is….questionable), the quality of a ship, even maintained, sitting unused for years is going to diminish significantly.
6) Escorts Are Expendable. Capital Ships Are Not. This is the basic difference between the two. Remember when you design escort classes that a Frigate’s or Destroyer’s ultimate goal is to be launched, fight a bit and then take the bullet for your Carriers and Battleships. If you can’t afford to lose it then it’s not an escort, remember that when you are piling in the equipment and weapons onto that Escort Destroyer.
7) Teething Troubles No ship ever launched has worked perfectly first time. Never. The reasons being quite obviously that you never know for certain how things are going to operate in real life, and it will be the same for you too. It presents a good way to correct any details someone has pointed out after launch, and by identifying problems you can become a better designer because of it. This leads us into Rule #8:
8) What? It Broke? Things breakdown, go kaput, stop working on a ship almost all the time. When you consider how complex a vessel is this isn’t surprising. But people very rarely think that their vessel is going to be in anything other than perfect condition. To put it in perspective when I was aboard HMS Kent a few years back, neither the 114mm Main Gun or the ML Torpedo Tubes were operational. Simulating breakdowns and failures further shows that you have a realistic grasp of how ship’s behave and should enhance your reputation.
9) Constructive Criticism Learn to grow a thick skin, and be willing to take criticism from time to time. Read comments, listen to what people say and don’t be afraid to ask for help from established shipbuilders. No one starts out perfect, and even the best are learning continuously.
10) Most Importantly, It’s All About The Role-play! Perhaps too often forgotten when the latest, most high-tech battlewagon is rolled out, the main point of NS is to create enjoyable Role-plays. The main purpose of your new designs is to enhance the role-play experience that you partake in, not to try and prove how powerful you are.