R/C Naval Combat

quote:

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Originally posted by JohnmCA72


The only scoring system that accurately reflects warfare: "To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women" scores 1 point; everything else scores 0.

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Yes by Crom!

Hulls for the Hull Throne! Balsa for the balsa god!

Scoring is a tough one...

Just like John said, real navies don't score with points. And I must agree with others that counting holes is too much like bean counting... a sink is a sink.

I still think that scoring should be based soley on tonnage sunk, disabled, or captured.

Points awarded should be based on the actual ship. Say, a 35,000 ton battleship is sunk its worth 35 points, if its disabled but makes it back to port its worth 18, if it surrenders on the pond its worth 35, same as a sink.

For one side to claim a clear victory, one of two things must be achieved. The winning team must accomplish all goals needed for victory as outlined in the scenario.... or.... the winning team is the side that neutralizes the greatest percentage of the other fleet's total fleet tonnage.

To elaborate me on my previous post,

Tonnage based scoring would also increase the number of smaller ships being built and battled. Small, torpedo armed vessels would have a high lethality to tonnage ratio. A large number of small vessels would force the BB's to stay to together maximize the effective fire of their secondary batteries to keep the smaller ships at distance.

A destroyer, light cruiser or sub armed with torpedoes is a battleship killer, plain and simple. Sacrificing a few smaller ships in a mad dash is a calculated risk that could pay off big time if you take a battleship or two down as well.

Merchant ships doing cargo runs is also and easy way to rack up points, if you score a completed run by tonnage as well. Lets say your merchant ship is 5,000 tons. 4 completed runs is worth the same as sinking a dreanought. That is if you rule the pond and the ships can make their runs safely.

quote:

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Originally posted by PreDread

Scoring is a tough one...

Just like John said, real navies don't score with points. And I must agree with others that counting holes is too much like bean counting... a sink is a sink.

I still think that scoring should be based soley on tonnage sunk, disabled, or captured.

Points awarded should be based on the actual ship. Say, a 35,000 ton battleship is sunk its worth 35 points, if its disabled but makes it back to port its worth 18, if it surrenders on the pond its worth 35, same as a sink.

For one side to claim a clear victory, one of two things must be achieved. The winning team must accomplish all goals needed for victory as outlined in the scenario.... or.... the winning team is the side that neutralizes the greatest percentage of the other fleet's total fleet tonnage.

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Agreed. I like the surrendered being equal to a sink.

So for general guidelines

1 pt for ton of ship sunk or captured
.5 pt for disabled ship making it back to port. (we may need to come up with a definition as to what counts as disabled.)
1 pt for each ton of cargo delivered or interdicted. Obviously you will not be getting points for both unless the scenario calls for it.

Fixed point values for shore batteries disabled. Perhaps 1 point per 1 barrel of shore battery.

Tugboat-san, lets say we adopt these for Battlestations.

WWCC sink/surrender/Did Not Return scoring:

sink value = base sink + damage
surrender = 20 + sink value
Did Not Return = 25 pts + damage

base sink:
<20k......20 pts
20k-30k...40 pts
30k-50k...60 pts
>50.......80 pts

damage:
grey = 3 pts
black = 5 pts
red = 10 pts

slow transports = 20 pts/lap
fast transports = 10 pts/lap
shore targets = 5 pts/target
ram sink = 3 * sink value

We count damage because we have short battles. Sometimes many ships get sunk, sometimes no ships get sunk and we still want to know who won. A larger, longer lasting battle won't need to count damage, but everything else is applicable. Larger ships are worth more than smaller ships. Surrenders are worse than sinks. It takes a certain amount of effort to bring a disabled ship back home, which may not be worth it for smaller ships. Slow transports are worth more so the pond isn't flooded with Queen Marys and Normandies. Shore targets are worth a small value, but many will add up. Ram sinks are a real killer for your team.

Then again, assigning points for objectives or only keeping track of the objectives is also a simple and fun idea. We ran two convoy missions at the Maker Faire, with all the transports on one side. In the first one the Allies kept their transports afloat, and won. The second battle, the Axis transports were all sunk, and they lost. Although, from that perspective, the Allies won the First Battle of Savo Island by defending the transports and the Japanese won the Battle off Cape Engaño by drawing Bull Halsey's forces out of position.

If you can push, pull, cajole, bribe, or simply yell at a ship so that it returns back to it's home port, it is considered perfectly healthy. If a ship is unable to return to port within five minutes of the end of a short battle, it is considered a DNR. In a longer battle, I would think a ship that loses propulsion, but survives 5-10 minutes without an enemy ship entering within a 10-20 foot radius may be scored as DNR and pulled. That way the skipper can get back into the action and have fun. Or someone could make an ocean-going tug to rescue ships without paying the DNR fee.

quote:

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Originally posted by Anachronus



Agreed. I like the surrendered being equal to a sink.

So for general guidelines

1 pt for ton of ship sunk or captured
.5 pt for disabled ship making it back to port. (we may need to come up with a definition as to what counts as disabled.)
1 pt for each ton of cargo delivered or interdicted. Obviously you will not be getting points for both unless the scenario calls for it.

Fixed point values for shore batteries disabled. Perhaps 1 point per 1 barrel of shore battery.

Tugboat-san, lets say we adopt these for Battlestations.

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A surrender is as good as a sink, it removes a ship's fighting ability just the same as if the ship were swimming with the fishes.

Surrendering is... *gulp*, an option to think about in a larger scale club if you have 100+ pound dreadnoughts that you don't want to pull out of the mud. If you know your ship is in trouble, you can surrender and get it to shallow water or port before it sinks. Or you can take your chances and try to get to port under fire and only be counted as "disabled".

For scoring based on tonnage, I'd go with one point for every 1,000 tons, instead of every ton, rounding to the nearest 1,000, with a 1 point minimum for every ship. It just makes the math easier.

I like the 1 point per barrel shore battery idea too. A shore battery with a few guns isn't worth much points wise, but disabling them ties up a lot of enemy tonnage, because you don't want to just ignore them and let them take pot shots at you all afternoon. Think the Dardenelles in WW1...

Disabled ships: The definition of disabled could vary depending on what kind of scenarios you want to play. Simply returning to port does not count as disabled, since ships need to refuel and re-arm, especially ships with Propel torps. I'd say any ship that must return to port must stay in port at least 10 or 15 mins. During that time you can change batteries, re-arm, and repair any mechanical damage (but no patching). Any ship that cannot return to the pond after 20 to 25 mins will be counted as disabled. Of course those time limits are just pulled out of thin air, real world times could vary.

One more idea of mine,

I would allow all ships to return to port at least once without the time limit, even going so far as to pull them from the water and keep them in "reserve" until later in a battle. In addition, not all ships need to be launched at the beginning of a battle.

My goal with a fleet style action is to make battling more fluid, not all ships are on the pond at the same time. Rather than short timed events, I'm thinking more along the lines of beginning a battle at say, noon, and then continuing the battle under there is a clear winner, or until the end of the day.

Battling like that would require some careful strategy. One team may chooses to keep there main battlefleet in reserve, while trying to soften up the other team with subs and smaller craft. Maybe one team trys to entice only a portion of the other fleet to come out of port.

The potential is there to have lots fast, furious mini-battles during the afternoon involving different kinds of ships. A short range destroyer brawl, a speedy cruiser action, anti-submarine action, or a Jutland style match with both big gun fleets.

quote:

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Originally posted by PreDread
For scoring based on tonnage, I'd go with one point for every 1,000 tons, instead of every ton, rounding to the nearest 1,000, with a 1 point minimum for every ship. It just makes the math easier.

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That is what I meant. I was having a major brain-fart/senilty attack.

[:p]

Heh. For all the faults in fast gun, in MWC, a declared sink (surrender) costs you double sink points for your ship. Maybe it's an extra penalty to represent the horrible things the enemy will do to captured sailors...

A surrender will not only eliminate a ship from your own order of battle, but it will provide the enemy with a huge intelligence boon. You're showing them your charts, code books, radios and radar, cannons and armor for testing, not to mention the shame in surrendering rather than fighting for glory. Now, I'll admit that there are times when surrender is the preferred option. That is usually related to having a large ship that is going to sink, or a ship that hasn't yet taken critical damage but is just about to. I refused to surrender my ship which was caught in mines when a destroyer with a single torpedo tube tried to attack me (he missed) but I did surrender when a pocket battleship pulled up and threatened to pound me for the next five minutes. I would also surrender a very large and heavy ship if it were in danger of sinking in a deep pond.

The way I figure, if you are able to get back to home port at all, you are not disabled: you are simply returning for routine maintenance or minor repairs. If you are too far away for your allies to help you return to port, you are disabled and must pay a price to return home and repair. That is the DNR penalty, and represents the cost of calling for a tug to tow you back to port. If the enemy is nearby, your tugs cannot help you, and you must wait until the enemy leaves. The other option is to surrender.

Here is an example, using the scoring that I described above. You put your battleship in the water and push it out of port, but realize you forgot to turn on the power. Your allies take a minute or two to push your boat back into port so you can flip the power switch. You then launch, sail across the pond and engage the enemy in vicious combat. You run out of ammo and return to port to reload. You launch again and sail halfway across the pond before you realize you forgot to change batteries and run out of power. You call five, wait out your time with a pair of destroyers as escort, then retrieve the boat. You cost your team a DNR, but are able to return to battle quickly. You change batteries, top off your gas and ammo, and launch again. As you pass through a heavily traveled area, you get caught on some mines. You call five, but an enemy sub closes to engage you, so the timer stops. The sub scores a hit before your escorting destroyers fight it off and the timer resumes. Then you notice that the whole enemy battle line is approaching and the only allies who are near enough to help are your two escorting destroyers who are not strong enough to fight against battleships. Instead of losing a battleship and two destroyers (60pts + 20pts + 20pts + time to recover after a sink), you send the destroyers home and surrender (80pts + time to carry your ship back to port). You don't have to spend any time flushing out servos or cannons, and are able to join the whole battle line in an attack on a convoy. You and your allies sink cargo vessels and destroyers before the enemy battle line appears in response.

Its difficult to discuss some of my ideas without bringing up more...

Everything I have in mind is much more intercontected than it seems at first glance. Disabled ships is one example, I see a disabled ship as something resembling the HSF battlecruisers after Jutland. Of the ships that made it to port, only Seydlitz was in real danger of sinking, but most of the other BCs were in no condition to go back out for another battle.

One of my ideas is internal bulkheads that subdivide the hull of a ship. The number of bulkheads depends on tonnage, larger ship, more bulkheads, harder to sink. But at the same time, no hull blast shields or water channeling. All expensive parts have their own shields, but nothing stops a penetrating shot from flying around inside...

Internal bulkheads, combined with much reduced pump rates, would mean that large ships may have a large amount of water sloshing around inside, much more than the pumps could handle, but the bulkheads are keeping it afloat. My armor scaling means that while most BB's have thick belts amidships, the bow and stern are weakly armored, if at all. Riddling the ends means lots of water pulling the ends down, or possibly a large list.

Failure of one of the thin balsa bulkheads, by surging water pressure, or a by a lucky shot, could mean a sudden, rapid sink.

Another idea concerns fire control, I want to aim and fire all my weapons with a streamlined, microcontroller based director system. The system works on feedback though, any turret, or series of linked guns in battery, that do not respond to a command... become "disabled", requiring a re-set in port. Reasons a turret might break down could be a mechanical glitch or battle damage, such as a shot or balsa splinter jamming the turrent in train, jammed gun, etc.

I agree that some difference needs to be established between ships that simply return to port and don't venture back out, and ships with mechanical trouble or that are on the ragged edge of sinking that cannot be returned to action in a set time limit.

Does mechanical damage really need to be scored? I think that the time spent fixing it should be enough of a loss to the team. The 2007 Campaign Game, the many of the Allied battlewagons spent their time in port fixing mechanical problems, repairing torpedo blasts, and untangling strings of mines from their props. They never sortied together, instead coming out piecemeal and getting torn up as individuals. That was a large part of why the Axis were able to set up a blockade and score the most decisive victory since the Axis surrendered halfway through the 2004 Campaign Game.

Would love to see that surrendered vessel fight on the other side. That would go over well. Then the side it surrendered from could get a crack at that gutless yellow turd and teach him why you do not surrender.

for fleet action why don't you have like 2 assists where ww2 bombers bomb the boats with small explosives like a gun shell about half an inch.

As I'm sure Tuggy would put it: Pyrotechnik ist VERBOTEN.
No explosives, not ever.
However, if you know of a way to build scale bombers that could drop a marker onto a ship at sea, then I would love to see it.
Honestly, I really would.

that is a very good possibility.

I love the idea of watertight bulkhead und mechanical damage as much as the next crazed Axis captain, but honestly, there are enough (and then some) technical problems lakeside without adding intentional damage to the mix. I count it a good battle if I have one prop turning, the rudder reesponds and half the guns fire well

If where you're battling, a quarter of you don't have technical issues, you're playing on a computer with th realism slider way down on 'Fake' Heh.

That's dead right Tuggy, the hobby has a sufficient degree of difficulty in it's current form.

I apply the "would you like it if I did that to your ship" rule to any new ideas, most times the answer is NO.

Sometimes, however the answer is different.

For example, should anyone feel the need to ram the HMS Rodney with a merchant, then by all means, have at it. Just don't whine when all nine barrels say "hello there".