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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

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To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest) Starfleet Ship Design Bureau, Refit ("To Boldly Go...")
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SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
I am arguing that, I'm afraid. It doesn't really bother me that you think I can't.
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("that" = "that Decisive Battle is inherently incapable of working" and/or "doctrine itself is illegitimate")

Okay, well, I don't consider that position to be something that needs to be debated on its own terms "in-universe". All doctrines are legitimate, useful choices, because this is a game and if they weren't legitimate, useful choices they wouldn't be presented to us. It's inherently capable of working because this is a game largely written narratively, and if the QM think it's reasonable for decisive battle to work then it'll work.

We've been told some doctrines will oppose each other more effectively than others and there will be adjustments depending on the situations we're fighting in, so if you wanted to argue that there's more situations/enemies where Base Strike will be useful then fair enough. (Decisive Battle will apparently be adjudicated as working less well against Fleet-in-Being, and Base Strike less well against Forward Defense.) But "Decisive Battle is incapable of working" is just axiomatically untrue.
 
...If this operation turns out to have happened after all, I hope we get to keep the ship. Rechristen it something cheeky, crew it with Sydraxian asylum-seekers, fly it against the Cardies, laugh.
 
And here's our first Sulu Interrupt intelligence operation.

Vebyast said:
...If this operation turns out to have happened after all, I hope we get to keep the ship. Rechristen it something cheeky, crew it with Sydraxian asylum-seekers, fly it against the Cardies, laugh.
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Why would we get to keep it?

The point is to keep it out of the hands of the Reds.
 
OneirosTheWriter said:
Okay, I had to go home early from work with a headache, and only got up again a couple hours ago (damned rain).

Because of the import of the doctrine votes, I'm going to leave this vote open for another day.


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Intelligence Analysis of Doctrinal Beliefs of Various Tier 1 and Tier 2 Powers

Please review the following:
Name Fleet Design Offensive Doctrine Defensive Doctrine
United Earth SPA Combined Decisive Battle Fleet in Being
Tellarite State Forces Combined Decisive Battle Fleet in Being
Andorian Guard Combined Decisive Battle Fleet in Being
Apiata All-Hives Swarm Wolf Pack Forward Defence
C of Amarkia Navy Combined Base Strike Forward Defence
Caitian Grand Fleet Swarm Wolf Pack Fleet in Being
Rigel Defence Force Turtle Base Strike Fleet in Being
Seyek Lone Ranger Decisive Battle Fleet in Being
Honiani Lone Ranger Base Strike Forward Defence
Arcadian Empire Technical Wolf Pack Fleet in Being
Magen Chalal (KP) Lone Ranger Base Strike Fleet in Being
Yrillians Swarm Wolf Pack Forward Defence
Cardassia Combined * Decisive Batle Forward Defence
Sydraxians Swarm Wolf Pack Forward Defence
Klingons Swarm** Any*** Forward Defence
Romulans Combined Wolf Pack Fleet in Being
* = Variant
** = Klingons are starting to shift to a specialised doctrine with larger ships
*** = You don't spend your whole day thinking about Glory and Honour without thinking out a few tricks
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By the way, could we possibly get this thread-marked somewhere? It's pretty important information.
 
Briefvoice said:
("that" = "that Decisive Battle is inherently incapable of working" and/or "doctrine itself is illegitimate")

Okay, well, I don't consider that position to be something that needs to be debated on its own terms "in-universe". All doctrines are legitimate, useful choices, because this is a game and if they weren't legitimate, useful choices they wouldn't be presented to us. It's inherently capable of working because this is a game largely written narratively, and if the QM think it's reasonable for decisive battle to work then it'll work.

We've been told some doctrines will oppose each other more effectively than others and there will be adjustments depending on the situations we're fighting in, so if you wanted to argue that there's more situations/enemies where Base Strike will be useful then fair enough. (Decisive Battle will apparently be adjudicated as working less well against Fleet-in-Being, and Base Strike less well against Forward Defense.) But "Decisive Battle is incapable of working" is just axiomatically untrue.
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Decisive Battle is an inherently flawed set of operational choices, some of which work at cross-purposes to its stated objective. It can produce both single victories and overall victory, but I believe it would produce worse overall results than other doctrines.

And like, it was pretty thoroughly discredited in real life, which is not really an argument that can be made here but matters to me.
 
Simon_Jester said:
The doctrine is based on optimizing the fleet for large battles, trying to arrange for the enemy's defeat in detail by amassing at least one large fleet heavier than anything the enemy can easily amass to stop it. It includes a strong focus on raw productivity to make it easier to outbuild the enemy and outgun them at the point of contact, too. The hope is that yes, our fleet meets theirs in 'symmetrical' confrontation... but ours is better at doing so than theirs, and so will be victorious.

Other doctrines ideally place the enemy in an impossible position as you say you desire... but this doesn't mean they're inherently superior to a doctrine that focuses on drawing the enemy into "symmetric" confrontations where we have an advantage of strength due to boosted production power and combat doctrines.

The kind of advantage I listed is an example of something our officers can be trained to seek out. Much of any doctrine reduces to "what are our officers trying to accomplish, and how will they make this happen?" There are a LOT of possible gimmicks that can be used to force an enemy to give battle; I mentioned only one. There are others, such as concealing part of your force and bluffing the enemy into thinking they are opportunistically snapping up a weak force, when in fact they're challenging a strong one.

The underlying, unifying principle is that if we focus on Decisive Battle, our commanders will use a thousand different tricks and strategems... all aimed at the same thing, namely maneuvering the enemy into giving battle. While no one of those tricks will work consistently and deterministically due to our efforts, the overall pattern created by officers seeking to use such maneuvers all the time makes it a lot easier to analyze what our enemies are doing.
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Sorry, @Simon_Jester, I meant to address these ideas, it just got lost in the post length.

Yes, there are tricks and strategems included in Decisive Battle. They amount to a +2 to force battles and a +2 to the scouting phase. Neither are the fleet effectiveness bonuses (like the 50% explorer damage) and production bonuses (like the quarter reduction) better than Base Strike or say, someone with Combined Fleet for its R&D advantages. They may not even be better than other unique doctrines. Overall, you're still fighting against the full enemy strength without any special tricks, because those tricks are abstracted down to doctrinal bonuses and the enemy has doctrinal bonuses too, which are just as equally applied.

So again, you're down strength vs strength and your best shot is to have/create an informational advantage or a numbers advantage or both. Which were the things I already mentioned.
 
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In a blatant display of flip-flopping, I decided I was fine with either doctrine for flavour purposes, which means the only reason to pick one over the other is which is better as-written.
I went back and looked through SWB's summarisation of the two:
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
A direct comparison of Base Strike and Decisive Battle. Ignoring Wolf Pack because. Bolding the areas where one doctrine has an obvious and useful advantage over the other.

  Base Strike Decisive Battle
Crit Rate +Improved critical rate
+Critical rate increased 		+Frigate crit rate
Fleet Value
(firing chance vs enemy) 		+Reduce enemy fleet value (note: fleet value is zero sum)
+2% per EC ship 		+0.25% per ship to max of 5%
Capital Firing Chance +50% capitals source of fire +50% capitals source of fire
Composition   +More cruisers in Vanguard
Damage Buffs +5% damage & 2% burnthrough vs structures +Increased damage to cruisers in Vanguard
Evasion   -halve enemy cruiser and capital ship evasion
Targetting Priorities +Starbases/Outposts
+Hull+HP Lost 		+Shield+Combat
+Reduce enemy sticky-targeting based on total frigate D vs enemy frigate D
+Increased enemy chance of hitting frigates over capitals
+50% increased enemy chance of hitting capitals
Stat Boosts +1H, +1L for Starbases/Outposts
+1L when outnumbered or defending Starbase 		+2S for scouting
+1L at reduced evasion and D (chosen per ship)
Minefields +Increased detection +1S for frigate minesweeping
Crew -20% round down for one capital ship
+1 all EC recruitment 		+15% academy
+Crew loss reduction (note: this is a hidden roll)
Build Time -25% reduction for one capital ship (4Q savings at minimum) -1Q all ships
PP Discounts +Free Starbase per new member without
+Cheaper shipyards 		+Cheaper shipyards and related
Out-of-Combat Rolls -2 enemy intercept
+2 avoid BZ intercepts
+2 to defend colony/installation 		+2 to initiating battle
Strategic Bonuses +Improved minefields +United Fleet Sector
+Further reduced garrison requirements in war
+25% Free Affiliate and Member Fleets
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I have to agree with him that Base Strike's numbers are better than Decisive Battle's. I don't necessarily buy that Decisive Battle can't work, but if Base Strike is better on paper and I don't have a preference for the non-numerical aspects of either then Base Strike is the obvious choice.

[X] [PLAN] Base Plan Re-balancing Analysis

[X] [SHIELDS] Andorian Academy : 2320s Deflector Emitters
[X] [DOCTRINE] Games & Theory Division : Base Strike Doctrine
[X] [STARBASE] Henn-Makad Engineering Institute : 2310s Starbase Design - Combat

[X][BOOST] Tiger Team, Taves Nar, Generic Teams 2, 3, 4.

The only possible issue is that the Cardassians also use Forward Defence, which makes it a bad matchup; but unless we end up being able to take multiple doctrines and switching between them, we have to take the long view.
 
And like, it was pretty thoroughly discredited in real life, which is not really an argument that can be made here but matters to me.
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@SynchronizedWritersBlock
The problem with that thought is that to say 'the strategic situations are VERY DIFFERENT' is the defining Understatement of human history. That said, I absolutely do not like the idea of throwing ships against starbases and the like period.
 
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Gravitas Hunt said:
So, on a note entirely unrelated to anything recently, does anyone have any ideas for the quotation for Renaissance's dedication plaque? I've mocked something up based on Excelsior's, but the quotation (from Feynman) would work far better on a science vessel.
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Something like the Phrase Ancora Imparo could fit, though it would also be good for a science vessel. It was attributed to Michelangelo and means something like "Yet i am learning."
 
is it me or is this year going by fast?

love how our counter Intel campaign looks to be going really well
also doing all the science on the things we have little clue on has so far not backfired as much as i thought it would

here hoping Q3 and Q4 do not ruin things for us

ps love hugs and like`s makes me feel all happy and stuff
 
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Gravitas Hunt said:
I'd actually quite like something original that could be attributed to a non-human member race, but I don't have the right mindset to come up with that kind of thing.
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I actually think it is more fitting for the Renaissance to have a human phrase. After all, the design of the Rennies started when humans were still the most important members of the Federation and on top of that we know that Mars and the UP are very heavily influenced by human cultural norms.
 
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Sure. But doctrine is a set of habitual guidelines, a description of the objective and methods that we consider "best" and strive towards. If we have a habit of building a fleet advantage and we destroy an outpost instead, we aren't really making progress unless the entire war goes the same way, which would call into question the viability of our doctrine choice. So if we have to settle for something outside of our doctrinal objectives, the result is usually quite a bit worse than if we got a win according to our doctrinal objectives. And in that way, the enemy can deny us overall victory.

We won't always "win" either. We will suffer defeats too. Over the course of a war we need to have larger wins and smaller defeats. That feeds back into that I posit it's more difficult to get large "win" with DB than with BS.
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It's not like fleet, infrastructure and economy are three completely independent victory criteria and progress towards one is irrelevant for the others, they all interact very closely. Destroying shipyards, mining facilities and factories and cutting off their shipping will weaken their fleet, and destroying their fleet makes them unable to defend themselves against infrastructure damage and blockading. Perhaps they aren't perfectly additive because there might be some slack in the system, but they are much closer to being perfectly additive than independent.

We were discussing the (somewhat silly) scenario of the enemy systematically denying us any opportunities for attempting to force decisive battles by either keeping their entire fleet behind fortifications in one place or splitting their fleet up to statically defend multiple places and allowing defeat in detail. Both are obviously doomed strategies unless that one adequately defended location is somehow entirely sufficient for the war effort. If a fleet following Decisive Battle Doctrine somehow intimidates the enemy enough to effectively give up on defending then the doctrine is evidently a huge success in that war. Otherwise the enemy will expose themselves to the risk of being forced into a decisive battle.


You mistake me, then. I'm saying that the wide uncertainty you proposed isn't a pin at all. It's not a forced move if there isn't a clear "best" option, and because of the uncertainty, there isn't. You aren't presenting a slate of bad options, you're presenting a slate of unknown options, some of which will be bad and some of which will be good. That's not nearly as desirable from our perspective, because we can presume some competence on the part of our opponents to reduce what's unknown and to estimate how bad and how good their choices.
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It doesn't matter whether you consider a situation that would be forcing the enemy into a desired move if they had better knowledge as forcing or not. My point is that in a purely adversarial game such ignorance is never (systematically) helpful. Anything you could do with real ignorance you could also do deliberately, in particular any good option you could ignorantly stumble into you could also deliberately pursue with at least the same probability of success. If some move would be the best move with better knowledge that means all other moves are systematically worse, and remain worse even without that knowledge. If there was some level of enemy knowledge at which a particular strategy is effective that strategy remains at least as effective with less enemy knowledge. In particular attacking under-defended infrastructure until the enemy gives you an opportunity to force them into a decisive battle can only be (systematically) less effective than it would be if the enemy had precisely enough knowledge to be "forced" according to your definition (but not enough to gain an advantage in maneuvering) if they actually have more knowledge than that. (Real war is not always a purely adversarial game and has some components that are prisoners dilemma with cooperation enforced by tit for a tat, but you'd have to explain what exactly the prisoners dilemma is in this case if you want to argue something along those lines).

I see no evidence your presumptions about the checks are accurate. It seems to me that there is an S-check for detection and a D-check for interception; Wolf Pack has techs that mention both of these, and the T'Mir wargame demonstrated them both too. My view is that +2 to defending colonies/installations and -2 to enemy interception would stack in the scenario being discussed, but even if it doesn't, you can see clearly that Decisive Battle gives no real advantage to interception against either a Base Strike or a Wolf Pack opponent. At best you're down to pure chance, at worst (vs WP) you're down as much as -5.

It's the D score I'm contesting design-wise, not the S score. Detection is one thing, but interception is D-based according to the evidence we have. We can't presume that enemy ships will be worse than ours in all areas, that's hubris of the highest order.
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Yes, clearly there are defense based interception rolls, I stated as much. My point was that the roll for initiating a battle is not an interception roll, and that an interception roll is a roll for defensively intercepting intruders, particularly in border zones. The fact that the T'Mir wargame used interception rolls is an argument for my position not against. I also don't think the science roll for initiating a battle is the same as the science roll to detect wolf packs and used in the T'Mir wargame, because those were rolled for each ship, and while that's workable for wolf packs and and a handful of border zone ships trying to intercept them it would be a huge mess for two large fleets (unless a tool was written for it like for the battle system, but I don't think Oneiros would bother, rolls preceding battles have followed the general scheme of event rolls so far and are as such rather abstracted). An opposed science check using one ship from each side would be workable and perfectly match what the descriptions state. A representative ship from each side taking reaction tests would also be workable but not make any sense due to what the stat actually represents.

Wolf Pack actually has separate and differently worded bonuses for all three: Avoiding interception, declining battle and opposed science checks to detect them. This reinforces the point that these are three separate things. Yes, that means that forcing a fleet with Wolf Pack into a decisive battle is much harder than usual, but we are discussing a choice between Base Strike and Decisive Battle here, and while Decisive Battle might be a bit worse on the offense against a Wolf Pack fleet (but only to the degree of mostly acting like a Base Strike fleet with marginally worse bonuses) it would be sufficiently better on the defense to make up for it. There is nothing in Base Strike that would help defend shipping.
 
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While we are discussing the benefits of the Offensive Doctrines, I have a question:

Quite a few of the techs in Decisive battle refer to weight:
OneirosTheWriter said:
Auxiliary Bridge Links (Gain +0.25% fleet weight for every ship in the fleet up to 5% )
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OneirosTheWriter said:
Heavy Vanguard (Increase weighting for cruisers in the vanguard)
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I have to admit that I don't really understand what that term means. Can someone enlighten me?
 
Gingganz said:
While we are discussing the benefits of the Offensive Doctrines, I have a question:

Quite a few of the techs in Decisive battle refer to weight:


I have to admit that I don't really understand what that term means. Can someone enlighten me?
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The fleet weight * fleet positioning value for both sides determines the probabilities of each side firing in a particular round (the side with twice as high a value is twice as likely to fire). I think the cruiser weighting in the other quote refers to something else though: The probability of one of your cruisers firing after it has been determined that your side fires.

(This hasn't been explicitly stated anywhere yet and is partially conjecture, but I'm relatively confident that it's correct)
 
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[X] [DOCTRINE] Games & Theory Division : Base Strike Doctrine

I suppose what it comes down to in the end for me is that Base Strike seems to synergize best with Forward Defense and Lone Ranger.
Though I'm curious if in the event of an all-in war we could divide Starfleet and member fleets into different doctrinal task forces. Apiata and Caitians off Wolfpacking, a Decisive Battle-group containing the non-Vulcan original three and the Amarki to lend extra weight where needed, and a spread-out Base Strike group that generally holds down the bulk of the frontline. @OneirosTheWriter?
 
Gnarker said:
Though I'm curious if in the event of an all-in war we could divide Starfleet and member fleets into different doctrinal task forces. Apiata and Caitians off Wolfpacking, a Decisive Battle-group containing the non-Vulcan original three and the Amarki to lend extra weight where needed, and a spread-out Base Strike group that generally holds down the bulk of the frontline. @OneirosTheWriter?
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Seems like something the Klingons could do, with their "lol, we can use ALL Offensive Doctrines". If that's one of their special skills, it seems a bit gamey if we can do the same despite not having a martial tradition as long and great as theirs.
 
I look at the Licori campaign and think we need base strike because we arguably had the hardest time with fixed defenses. Meanwhile, absent Decisive Battle, we're pretty good and finding enemy fleets and quashing them. I feel Base Strike opens up new flexibility in our tactics and actions while Decisive Battle just adds more to stuff we're already pretty good at.

This ignores the fact that Base Strike still gives us good options for open fleet battle, as shown in the comparison. I feel if we go Decisive Battle we're just closing the doors on a lot of opportunity that we need if we encounter systems as defended as the Licori ones were.
 
Iron Wolf said:
I look at the Licori campaign and think we need base strike because we arguably had the hardest time with fixed defenses. Meanwhile, absent Decisive Battle, we're pretty good and finding enemy fleets and quashing them. I feel Base Strike opens up new flexibility in our tactics and actions while Decisive Battle just adds more to stuff we're already pretty good at.

This ignores the fact that Base Strike still gives us good options for open fleet battle, as shown in the comparison. I feel if we go Decisive Battle we're just closing the doors on a lot of opportunity that we need if we encounter systems as defended as the Licori ones were.
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There is something to be said for doubling down on what you're good at.

Decisive battle does offer a bigger fleet overall. (More guaranteed ships from members and affiliates, build ships faster.) I wonder how far the Cardassians are down their DB tree. Have they gotten to the build time reducer yet?
 
Iron Wolf said:
I look at the Licori campaign and think we need base strike because we arguably had the hardest time with fixed defenses. Meanwhile, absent Decisive Battle, we're pretty good and finding enemy fleets and quashing them. I feel Base Strike opens up new flexibility in our tactics and actions while Decisive Battle just adds more to stuff we're already pretty good at.

This ignores the fact that Base Strike still gives us good options for open fleet battle, as shown in the comparison. I feel if we go Decisive Battle we're just closing the doors on a lot of opportunity that we need if we encounter systems as defended as the Licori ones were.
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The Licori are a bad example because minefields were nerfed half-way through the campaign, they had super science defenses no one else is going to have, were severely outnumbered overall (which made beating their fleet less of an issue) and use Fleet in Being. Most major powers have Forward Defense. The war game we just conducted shows that fixed defenses are normally not too much of an issue if you bring a strong enough force. And the Cardassians in particular have the Decisive Battle and Forward Defense combination, so a war with them is very likely to involve a decisive battle anyway.
 
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