R/C Naval Combat

Again, looking forward, what aspects of the sport (hobby) would you change? Consider just "OK" to change, or "should" change. Or, is everything just perfect as-is?

JM

Given the various rule sets out there, I think that we have a wide range to choose from. Big Gun (counting Queen's Own and 1/96 as Big Gun) and Fast Gun give two very different combat experiences. Treaty is somewhere in the middle. Pick the experience that is right for you, and if noone near you plays with those rules, start your own club and start recruiting.

Mike D

I think the biggest thing that should change (but probably won't) is that the sport attracts a few unpleasant people along with the decent folks. My club has half a handful of drunken @#$%@#$'s who never fight their ships (because those don't work anyway) and whose only fun comes from ruining other people's fun. I was just disqualified today from the WWCC's annual Last Man Standing event by a particularly @#$%@#!$ Combat Director who hates me so much he spent his time following me and inspecting my ship for any possible excuse to eliminate it from the game, rather than actually watching the combat like he was supposed to. In the end I was kicked out when he dug up an archaic rule about reloading times (which is a leftover from years ago and has never been enforced) and claimed I took 5 seconds too long to reload my ship. Am I bitter? Just a little. Is this wishful thinking? Yes. But if I could change any one thing about this sport, it would be to make it less attractive to the people who prefer breaking the game to playing it.

First let me say that no club is going to change a thing unless their members WANT it to change, & VOTE changes in. I say this because I sense a certain "fear of the future" among some responses. Some people seem to think that a "Major League" of warship combat sport would push them away from the hobby that they love because they would be unable to keep up, either with the level of competition or the cost. I would say this:

- The fact that there are professional fishermen & high-dollar tournaments doesn't keep millions of people from enjoying a day on a lake or river, wetting a hook.

- The fact that the NBA exists doesn't keep millions of kids from having pick-up basketball games all over the world.

- The existence of NASCAR, IRL, CART, & NHRA have never prevented anybody from building a race car in their garage or campaigning it at the local track on weekends.

I could name lots of sports that have professional levels with high-end, high-dollar equipment & facilities, that also have "hobby-level" participants that outnumber the pros. In every case I can think of, the exposure & technologies developed at the upper levels, where the money is, finds its way down to the "sportsman" classes. It also gives those at the lower levels something to aspire to and work towards if they want. Elevating the hobby to a sport would ultimately benefit all of us in ways that are hard to quantify right now.

JM

There may not be enough crazy people to sustain multiple levels.
Why try to split things up to every smaller parts, when if we all play at once we could have some really huge battles.
MWC nats had a largest fleet battle of 44 ships this year. However, even larger size battles are possible.

Big dolars spend on a ship does not mean much really.
Given that every Captain has to be Dock Worker, Cheif Engineer, and Crew, the knolge and skill of the Captain is more important that mear $s.

You need enough $ to buy quailty stuff to go into the ship, but that is not enough.
You have to know how to put it together. You can't pay someone to build a ship for you- or atleast not a good one.
The best guys won't build a boat for money.
And this is a hobby, not a sport.... you can tell because, if you ask someone how they did something they will show you how.
Try that in motor-sports and see what happens.

The concept of a Major league is also very anti-egalitarian.
A bunch of guys putting on airs of superiority would really make me cranky, they would be worse than axis.
I think they would have to sink.

quote:

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Originally posted by specialist
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The concept of a Major league is also very anti-egalitarian.
A bunch of guys putting on airs of superiority would really make me cranky, they would be worse than axis.
I think they would have to sink.

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Right, just like how Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, & their ilk totally RUINED the game of golf for the average player. Used to be that for under $200 you could get yourself a set of clubs, a box of balls, & some tees, & you were good to go! No more. Now they've got titanium club heads, custom grips, carbon fiber shafts, all kinds of other stuff to suck THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS out of you. Just try to get past the gate of one of those swanky country clubs.

& talk about guys with superior attitudes! Last time the PGA tour came through here, I sent Tiger a note inviting him to drop by the local par 3 to knock some balls around, & toss back a few cold ones. He didn't show, & didn't even bother to call to say "No thanks"!

JM

Golf & RC ships are a little different.
Public golf courses welcome you and are every where.
Battling ponds are hard to find, then the city tells you to leave or they build a house right next to it.
Go to store get clubs and bag, take a couple hours.
Got to build you own ship takes a couple months.
Feel like golfing today head to a course play around.
Feel like battling today, well hope you like battling with yourself because no one can make it tonight.
We all need to find more people to join the hobby to have any chance of doing this stuff.

I think you should look at paintball.
And how the impact of profesional play has effected sportsmanship.


Not to worry about the attitude.... adopted for example only. (and worked well too)

I don't think there is a market for profesional warship combat.
Any sponser would need to see some sort of payback.
Given the market in warship combat is in the low hundreds, there is not anything to be gained by providing sponserships.
Also the motor-sport type sponership does not work either. No crowds of chearing spectators.
Anyway, could you see a battleship painted up like a INDY car?

The kind of $s it would take to create a truly improved warship is unlikly to be present in sponserships for a sport/hobby that number in so low numbers.
A warship now costs say $1000 +/- depending on stuff used- and can actualy go up to about $3K.
But development costs time and money, and more money than a just a ship would take to build.
I don't see anyone forking out that kind of money.

I think there would have to be many tens of thousands of people into warship combat before such a concept as a Profesional RC Captain could be viable.

Getting that many people interested would involve a major shift in what the hobby is.
If it became something you could just fool around with for a few hours on a weekend afternoon- like golf- it might happen.
But consider, would that be a good thing? Once you get the "general public" involved, you get the drunks, the crazys, the punk kids bent on distruction and people that just like messing with other people. Granted you also get mostly nice people, but without the effort filter to get rid of the chaff, many problems will result.

If it is a really good idea, cook up that RTF ship and market it. But get a good lawyer 1st, product libilty and all that.

Let me share what I would just as soon lose from the current state of the "hobby". My perception/experience has been that the priorities of this hobby in general are, in order:

1. Talking about general topics
2. Talking about technology
3. Talking about history
4. Talking about ships
5. Talking about scale combat
6. Tinkering with technology
7. Building & tinkering with ships
8. Actual scale combat

How ironic, that the one thing that most distinguishes the hobby from others - combat - is the lowest priority! Personally, I'm interested in action not talk. I think that combat should be the highest priority, not the lowest, & if I can't get that here I'll make it happen somewhere else.

Take away all the sitting around talking & what do you have?

- Poor scale ship modeling
- Lame competition when there IS a battle

Why is everybody so surprised that it's tough to get new people involved? I'll tell you why: It's because people crave more action these days, that's why.

For most people, a bunch of ships just shooting at each other pell-mell gets old pretty quickly. That's why I've been a strong advocate of more scenario play for a long time, to add dimensions to the game. Why do so many of those that get recruited drift away after a short while? It's because there's so little going on to keep their attention. It's not because you can't go down to Walmart & get a RTF warship for $150, it's because the game itself is lame.

I've been trying to pry this answer out of people in a number of forums for quite awhile now, but nobody seems to be quite ready to say it. They'll dance around it, but won't come right out & admit it. Why is it so tough to get more people into this hobby? Lots of people fish, ski (water or snow), ride ATVs, & do all sorts of things for fun that cost a heck of a lot more than warship combat. There's an elephant in the room, but nobody seems to be willing to see it.

People use a "value equation" when deciding how to spend their money, especially on recreation. What's the cost (time, money, new stuff to learn, etc.) vs. the value I get out of it (i.e. fun)? Everybody in this hobby seems to think that the only way to improve that value equation is to reduce the cost to near zero. I'm telling you that there's another way, & the proof of that is the fact that people ARE willing to spend enormous amounts of money for their hobbies - just not for this hobby.

If people are willing to spend the money on other hobbies, why not this one?

It's because R/C warship combat, as it's practiced today, JUST ISN'T THAT MUCH FUN, that's why.

Instead of trying to drive the cost down, I'm proposing a way to drive the fun factor way up. People will pay big money, but only for big fun. We've pretty much got the fun at max. level for the way it's structured right now. To drive the fun up, there's got to be something more interesting going on than poor ship modeling & lame combat. To take that next step, the emphasis needs to move away from model building & amateur history, toward what was supposed to be this "hobby's" defining attribute: The action sport of warship combat.

Those who are satisfied with a low-impact, low-action, talk-oriented hobby should not feel threatened. Nobody's going to take that away from you. The great majority of those who might be interested in a pro-level combat sport wouldn't be interested in the high talk-to-action ratio of the current hobby, anyway, so you're not losing anybody (at least, not anybody who'll be missed, or wouldn't go away sooner or later anyway).

I imagine that there was a time when somebody had the big idea to mount guns on model warships & have them battle one another.

"Oh, no, you can't do that! You'll never make that work."
"You'll destroy the ships if you shoot bbs at them hard enough to get through!"
"First time there's a crack or hole, the thing will just sink & you'll lose it."
"If you let those ships sink, all the stuff inside will be destroyed!"

But somebody managed to make it work, anyway, didn't they? They wouldn't have done it if they'd listened to everybody who told them that they couldn't. Thank goodness somebody had enough imagination & guts to try or we wouldn't have what we do. If the nay-sayers are right, & we never do get a pro warship combat league established, you can have the satisfaction of having said, "We told you so!" For those who don't mind a high talk-to-action ratio, that's probably accomplishment enough, but there are some of us that want more.

JM

John- perhaps you should have showed up at MWC nats this year when it was in Texas.
If you were looking for some battles, at nats is where to find them.
And if you think the action at nats is in "pel-mell" then, I am afraid you don't know what you are looking at.
While the tactics are not the same as those used by real warships, the tactics are very real.

It is pretty common that new guys don't understand what is going on, and they do tend to mill about.
But captains that know what they are doing are actualy trying to make something happen.
More often than not, what is tried does not actualy work- but that is the nature of combat.

More people don't do warship combat because its hard. It hard to get started, it requires work and money and time.

If you know exactly how combat should work, why not show up a nats and show everyone how its done?

And if you really need some intense combat I'll be glad to do a few 1-on-1 battles. Interested in a Texas Death Match?
Name your ship, I'll bring something compatable. That way it will be more fun, and the competition will not be lame.

See you next years at Nats?

I agree with John on one point and not the other.
I agree that battling is the way to get and keep poeple in the hobby. You need to have regular battles. This can't be a 1-3 battles a year hobby. Too much talk not enough battles. Here in MN we have a battle a month from ice out to freeze up. I'd LOVE to have a battle a week. But with all the things the 18 guys have going on up here that's hard to do. You have to battle a lot to stay interested. If you're building a ship it keeps you motivated to get it done faster, got to get on the water for the next battle.
I disagree that the battles now are borring. NATS (MWC) this year was a blast 47 ships battling at one time, tons of fun. There was stragity in fleet and campain battles, not just milling around. I like campain more then fleet and would like to do more of it. I have never been to a Big Gun battle but have seen the videos and read stories. I think it is a lot slower and more borring then fast gun. It's more like our campain was 6-7 years ago. Before people started bringing lots of convoy ships and cruisers.
I think the more like real naval combat you make the game the more borring it is. There is nothing scale about the way we battle.

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Originally posted by Bob

I agree with John on one point and not the other.
I agree that battling is the way to get and keep poeple in the hobby. You need to have regular battles. This can't be a 1-3 battles a year hobby. Too much talk not enough battles. Here in MN we have a battle a month from ice out to freeze up. I'd LOVE to have a battle a week. But with all the things the 18 guys have going on up here that's hard to do. You have to battle a lot to stay interested. If you're building a ship it keeps you motivated to get it done faster, got to get on the water for the next battle.
I disagree that the battles now are borring. NATS (MWC) this year was a blast 47 ships battling at one time, tons of fun. There was stragity in fleet and campain battles, not just milling around. I like campain more then fleet and would like to do more of it. I have never been to a Big Gun battle but have seen the videos and read stories. I think it is a lot slower and more borring then fast gun. It's more like our campain was 6-7 years ago. Before people started bringing lots of convoy ships and cruisers.
I think the more like real naval combat you make the game the more borring it is. There is nothing scale about the way we battle.

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It's not the battles that are boring, necessarily, although I do think they could stand some improvement. It's all the other stuff that seems to take precedence over battles. How often do you have this "NATS" & how far would I have to drive to get to one?

JM

quote:

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Originally posted by specialist

John- perhaps you should have showed up at MWC nats this year when it was in Texas.
If you were looking for some battles, at nats is where to find them.
And if you think the action at nats is in "pel-mell" then, I am afraid you don't know what you are looking at.
While the tactics are not the same as those used by real warships, the tactics are very real.

It is pretty common that new guys don't understand what is going on, and they do tend to mill about.
But captains that know what they are doing are actualy trying to make something happen.
More often than not, what is tried does not actualy work- but that is the nature of combat.

More people don't do warship combat because its hard. It hard to get started, it requires work and money and time.

If you know exactly how combat should work, why not show up a nats and show everyone how its done?

And if you really need some intense combat I'll be glad to do a few 1-on-1 battles. Interested in a Texas Death Match?
Name your ship, I'll bring something compatable. That way it will be more fun, and the competition will not be lame.

See you next years at Nats?

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That happens how often? Where & when is the next one?

Doubt that I'll make it. Being a "new guy" (only about 80 battles) I probably wouldn't understand what's going on, anyway.

JM

We battle localy once a month with 10 ships (Spring Training) within an hour from everyone's house.
Battle Regional 2-3 times a year 20-25 ships (Regular season) drive 1-10 hours for everyone.
Battle at the Nationals, NATS, (World Series) once a year 40-50 ships.
Would be nice if battles were bigger and closer to home. But this works slowly. When I started in 2000 localy we had 7 working ships in the area. We now have 18. It takes a lot of time to add people. A new guy that finds us takes 6-12 months to get on the water. Then it takes a dozen battles before he becomes "good" with his guns and driving skills.

How offten do the Big Gun guys in your area battle? How many poeple are there?

quote:

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Originally posted by Bob
How offten do the Big Gun guys in your area battle? How many poeple are there?

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Once a month, year-round. I don't know how many they have these days.

JM

MWC Nats happens every year, normally in July, battle for a week.
Sort of a big event thing, we had 47 captains at this years in Houston.
I don't know of a larger event where more dedicated battlers can be found.
Location moves every year to a different state.
I think next year is either Missouri, or Minnesota.
If you like intense battles, Nats is where they are, and is worth the drive no mater the distance.

Sorry you can't make it.

Too bad it's not more often/more places.

JM

The WWCC had six battles this year, one per month from May until October. I would have liked to have many more. Having the battles once a month is nice, because it allows me to build only on the weekends and spend my weekdays talking with you guys. As much fun as it is to talk with everyone here, I'd rather spend my weekdays building and my weekends battling. I would also like to have battles all year round, but I'd need to have a heated pond before that'll happen (people don't like to go swimming because California is a very cold state :p ). There's a kid who just joined who will be getting my Cadorna as soon as I'm done patching it, but he won't be able to run it in an event until the first G&M in March, and the first battle isn't until May. I hope he stays interested long enough to really get involved.

quote:

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Originally posted by specialist
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More people don't do warship combat because its hard. It hard to get started, it requires work and money and time.
...

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Plenty of people do plenty of things that are "hard", & that require lots of money & time - much more of each than warship combat, for that matter.

The issue isn't how "hard" it is, or how much time & money needs to be invested (relatively little of each, compared to many other, more popular pastimes). The issue is, how much fun does a new guy get for his investment?

If you want more people to get involved, then you have to offer them more. People will pay enormous sums of money, & drop even what should be important activities to make time, for something that they perceive as being enough fun to justify the investment.

The "only way" to improve the "cost vs. fun ratio" IS NOT to try to drive the cost down; it can also be improved by driving the fun UP.

It's nice that there are 40-some-odd people who think that punching holes in each others ships is enough fun to be worth $1000 for a ship, the time & effort of building & practicing, plus a week of their time & the cost of entry & travel to get to NATS once a year. There are plenty of others who would take the plunge, & invest a lot more, if there was more to the hobby than that.

Lower cost is not always the only way to increase sales (which is what "recruitment" is all about, after all). As the cost approaches zero, the perception of value does as well. "Hobbies" in general are in decline, while "sports" are getting more popular than ever. If you want to grow warship combat, then I suggest repositioning it from a passive, builder-oriented "hobby" toward a more active, action-oriented "sport".

JM

Very well said JM,

I couldn't agree more.