Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: September 18, 2009, 02:53:42 PM »I decided to up the number of Islamic Alliance research labs to 3 to take account of Pakistan, which has its own nuclear forces.
Steve
Steve
Posted by: IanD
« on: September 17, 2009, 02:56:22 AM »Quote from: "welchbloke"
The Israelis are the most difficult to judge in my book, they have good R&D (according to friends of mine who've been lucky enough to see some of their facilities) but they also get a significant amount of technology from the US. You'll find a significant proportion of their 'home-grown' tech has US components. Anyway that's my take. I have to say that Steve has done far more extensive research ocross the broad spectrum of this subject than I have been exposed to due to my employment; so a big thumbs up from me
Which is why I tried to separate research from development. While I am aware of some excellent work being done by the Weizmann Institute of Science I really have no feel for the overall level of innovation. On the whole I think Steve has made a good distribution of labs.
Regards
Posted by: welchbloke
« on: September 16, 2009, 05:01:29 PM »Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"
Quote from: "IanD"SteveThat's a good point about South Africa. For some reason I don't think about modern South Africa as the having the same military development capabilities as it did during apartheid. Probably because before majority rule South Africa was often in the news due to the conflicts against the frontline states and because it was forced to develop its own capabilities due to sanctions. I just had a look at the entry on Wiki regarding the SADF (now SANDF)
It looks good, if I have any doubts its giving Israel 4 not 3, but I really don't have a great feel for Israel’s blue skies research as opposed to their development abilities and only giving the African Union 1 if it includes South Africa based purely on their successful nuclear programme (in collaboration with Israel).
"Recently a large-scale programme was launched to re-equip the SANDF with warships and submarines being purchased in Germany and fighter jets being purchased in Sweden and the United Kingdom. This has been controversial due to the great cost and reports of corruption in the awarding of contracts. Issues that face the SANDF include a severe shortage of pilots and naval combat officers, due to the replacement of white officers from the former SADF with appointments from the old liberation forces. The loss of trained personnel and the decommissioning of much needed equipment due to funding issues, high HIV-rates amongst personnel and the fact that SANDF infantry soldiers are some of the oldest in the world, all raise questions regarding the current fighting efficiency of the SANDF. Some of these issues are being addressed with the introduction of the Military Skills Development (MDC) programme, as well as aggressive recruitment and training by the Reserve Force Regiments."
So it appears the SADF is a shadow of its former self. The fact South Africa is trying to buy abroad would suggest that much of it's capability to produce indigneous equipment has also been lost. It sounds like politics with an strong element of anti-white feeling (understandable though that may be) has completely overriden the desire for an efficient military.
Israel on the other hand produces a lot of its own equipment including tanks, fighter aircraft, missiles, FACs, submarines, radar and a nuclear deterrent. Even military lasers in conjunction with the US. Pretty remarkable when you consider its population. Also, Einstein, Oppenheimer and Teller were all Jewish
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: September 16, 2009, 10:53:06 AM »Quote from: "IanD"
SteveThat's a good point about South Africa. For some reason I don't think about modern South Africa as the having the same military development capabilities as it did during apartheid. Probably because before majority rule South Africa was often in the news due to the conflicts against the frontline states and because it was forced to develop its own capabilities due to sanctions. I just had a look at the entry on Wiki regarding the SADF (now SANDF)
It looks good, if I have any doubts its giving Israel 4 not 3, but I really don't have a great feel for Israel’s blue skies research as opposed to their development abilities and only giving the African Union 1 if it includes South Africa based purely on their successful nuclear programme (in collaboration with Israel).
"Recently a large-scale programme was launched to re-equip the SANDF with warships and submarines being purchased in Germany and fighter jets being purchased in Sweden and the United Kingdom. This has been controversial due to the great cost and reports of corruption in the awarding of contracts. Issues that face the SANDF include a severe shortage of pilots and naval combat officers, due to the replacement of white officers from the former SADF with appointments from the old liberation forces. The loss of trained personnel and the decommissioning of much needed equipment due to funding issues, high HIV-rates amongst personnel and the fact that SANDF infantry soldiers are some of the oldest in the world, all raise questions regarding the current fighting efficiency of the SANDF. Some of these issues are being addressed with the introduction of the Military Skills Development (MDC) programme, as well as aggressive recruitment and training by the Reserve Force Regiments."
So it appears the SADF is a shadow of its former self. The fact South Africa is trying to buy abroad would suggest that much of it's capability to produce indigneous equipment has also been lost. It sounds like politics with an strong element of anti-white feeling (understandable though that may be) has completely overriden the desire for an efficient military.
Israel on the other hand produces a lot of its own equipment including tanks, fighter aircraft, missiles, FACs, submarines, radar and a nuclear deterrent. Even military lasers in conjunction with the US. Pretty remarkable when you consider its population. Also, Einstein, Oppenheimer and Teller were all Jewish
. On the other hand I can't think of much outside the military sphere where Israel is a world leader but Aurora does tend toward military-related systems.Steve
Posted by: IanD
« on: September 16, 2009, 10:01:13 AM »Steve
It looks good, if I have any doubts its giving Israel 4 not 3, but I really don't have a great feel for Israel’s blue skies research as opposed to their development abilities and only giving the African Union 1 if it includes South Africa based purely on their successful nuclear programme (in collaboration with Israel).
Regards
It looks good, if I have any doubts its giving Israel 4 not 3, but I really don't have a great feel for Israel’s blue skies research as opposed to their development abilities and only giving the African Union 1 if it includes South Africa based purely on their successful nuclear programme (in collaboration with Israel).
Regards
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: September 14, 2009, 06:33:12 PM »Quote from: "welchbloke"
Thanks for everyone's contribution to this discussion. It gave me plenty to think about.Quote from: "sloanjh"*SNIP*I guess my issue is that Russia are using technology that they developed 10plus yrs ago to launch their regular manned flights. It works, it's reasonably safe and it's still in use for the foreseeable future. The difference with the Chinese and Indians is that both of those nations are actively investing in developing their space programmes; look at the number of different types of satellites they are both launching, both have designs on lunar programmes and both are increasing their astronaut(taikonaut) corps. The Russians want to develop a new launcher (Angara) but there is no money for it. In terms of military hardware the Russians have great SAM systems that they continue to develop but their aviation industry is starved of funds and not really producing much in the way of real R&D effort. If you look at exports I suspect that the Chinese are close to the Russians for selling military hardware (a lot of which is actually license (or not) produced russian equipment). The Chinese are very good at copying and reverse engineering tech and, in areas where they can't buy the tech, they seem to have a very good R&D effort. How you actually translate that into labs in Aurora is probably open to a great deal of subjectivity and I would suggest that Steve has a great deal of room for manoeuvre. Anyway, I'm enjoying the discussion that this thread has generated.
This might be a "past glories" attitude, but putting Russia behind India and/or China doesn't feel right to me. I left physics 10 years ago, and haven't paid a lot of attention to military hardware recently, but it still seems to me that in terms of space programs (in a year or two they'll be the only country launching frequent regular manned flights), high-end military aircraft, and (possibly) high-end naval forces they still are a source of technology. One indicator of this might be to look at military aviation, missile, and ship export sales - I suspect Russia would be ahead of both India and China. I guess that puts me with Ian in thinking that China is too high relative to India and Russia.
John
I am going to restart this campaign with the new 'real' star system model so based on everyone's comments I think I am going to assign the following research labs. Further comments welcome.
Coalition (US/UK, etc.) 24
European Union: 18
Japan: 15
China / India/ Russia: 12 each
ASEAN: 10
USAN: 6
Israel: 4
Islamic Alliance: 2
African Union / Arab League: 1
As an aside, my research into Star Names reminded me how much the Arabs/Islam kept science alive while the West was going through the Dark Ages. I am concerned I am being a little prejudiced in my estimate of the likely scientific capabilities of the Arabic/Islamic power blocs so I would especially welcome comments in that area.
Steve
Posted by: welchbloke
« on: August 29, 2009, 03:19:55 PM »Quote from: "sloanjh"
Very interesting. I wonder how the ship will be fitted out? I would be very surprised if at least some of the C2 systems and comms gear aren't covered by some sort of ITAR limitation.Quote from: "sloanjh"This might be a "past glories" attitude, but putting Russia behind India and/or China doesn't feel right to me. I left physics 10 years ago, and haven't paid a lot of attention to military hardware recently, but it still seems to me that in terms of space programs (in a year or two they'll be the only country launching frequent regular manned flights), high-end military aircraft, and (possibly) high-end naval forces they still are a source of technology. One indicator of this might be to look at military aviation, missile, and ship export sales - I suspect Russia would be ahead of both India and China. I guess that puts me with Ian in thinking that China is too high relative to India and Russia.
Ok, so it seems Russia has fallen further than I thought http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090826/ts_afp/russiafrancedefencemilitary_20090826193440 - looks like they want to buy a helicopter carrier from France.
John
Posted by: sloanjh
« on: August 29, 2009, 09:37:53 AM »Quote from: "sloanjh"
This might be a "past glories" attitude, but putting Russia behind India and/or China doesn't feel right to me. I left physics 10 years ago, and haven't paid a lot of attention to military hardware recently, but it still seems to me that in terms of space programs (in a year or two they'll be the only country launching frequent regular manned flights), high-end military aircraft, and (possibly) high-end naval forces they still are a source of technology. One indicator of this might be to look at military aviation, missile, and ship export sales - I suspect Russia would be ahead of both India and China. I guess that puts me with Ian in thinking that China is too high relative to India and Russia.
Ok, so it seems Russia has fallen further than I thought http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090826/ts_afp/russiafrancedefencemilitary_20090826193440 - looks like they want to buy a helicopter carrier from France.
John
Posted by: IanD
« on: August 27, 2009, 06:34:05 AM »Quote from: "Erik Luken"
I like this idea combined with Laurence's suggestion. The Research/Mining/et al skills are "civilian", the Commo/Survey/et al are "naval", and Ground Combat would be "army/marine". There might be some overlap. Diplomacy could be all three (and probably should), Initiative I'd see as both naval and army.
I also like this idea, but am less concerned with having "Naval" officers commanding Troops, read too many books in which the captain of marines is subordinate to captain of the ship.
Another reason for a civilian "corp" would be a risk that if you posted a governor with a low political reliability score to a colony then he just might foment rebellion. This could also be influenced by your Government type. Shame I will probably have to wait until v8.1 to see this
Regards
Posted by: IanD
« on: August 27, 2009, 06:25:11 AM »Quote from: "Laurence"
To avoid having "naval" guys commanding ground divisions.
Regards
Posted by: IanD
« on: August 27, 2009, 06:18:20 AM »Quote from: "Erik Luken"
I created a Scenarios group and subforums, and moved Ian's post there. Ian - You might want to edit it and give it a better subject as the current is "Ian's Scenario"
Many Thanks Eric
Regards
Posted by: Paul M
« on: August 27, 2009, 04:15:48 AM »Well that was fairly common in the British Empire Colonies. Quite often the colonial govenor was a retired military officer and in many cases not so retired. It was equally true that in many cases they were not. One thing you might want to do is impose fairly strict promotion restrictions. Then you can give someone the the title "Ret." if you would like to keep them around and use them as govenors. That way they are useful as govenors without being able to command ships.
I use R1&R2 Retire if (fitness<good) or (age>40), R3 Retire if (fitness<good) or (age>45), R4 Retire if (fitness<fair) or (age>50), R5 Retire if (fitness<fair) or (age>55), R6+ Retire if only if a combination of health, fitness and performance is not acceptable. I have a lot of "Granted time in service discharge." or "Due to poor fitness reviews granted a discharge." or "Due to poor health granted a medical discharge." in my retired officer pool. The time in service people would then give you a pool of civillians you could place in civillian leadership roles by granting them the title Ret. rather than Retiring them. You could also make the top 3 ranks somewhat political rather than military. Basically the Hamish Alexander position from the Herringswine books. So they aren't still serving on the front line officers.
I use R1&R2 Retire if (fitness<good) or (age>40), R3 Retire if (fitness<good) or (age>45), R4 Retire if (fitness<fair) or (age>50), R5 Retire if (fitness<fair) or (age>55), R6+ Retire if only if a combination of health, fitness and performance is not acceptable. I have a lot of "Granted time in service discharge." or "Due to poor fitness reviews granted a discharge." or "Due to poor health granted a medical discharge." in my retired officer pool. The time in service people would then give you a pool of civillians you could place in civillian leadership roles by granting them the title Ret. rather than Retiring them. You could also make the top 3 ranks somewhat political rather than military. Basically the Hamish Alexander position from the Herringswine books. So they aren't still serving on the front line officers.
Posted by: Kurt
« on: August 26, 2009, 05:21:25 PM »Quote from: "Erik Luken"
Quote from: "Father Tim"Quote from: "welchbloke"Whilst I agree with the reasoning and I would love to see something like this in Aurora I think that we are opening a huge can of worms. Not everyone will want to run their player races as democracies so that means you have 2 pools that would have be available for use as governors (mil and civ). I suspect the complexity of the code to support this idea would be pretty high and Steve probably has other things he'd like to work on first.
I think what you call your officers and how you pick "leaders" is entirely a role-playing decision and should be beyond the scope of the software. What I would very much like to see is a division of personnel like that in MoO2 - Ships' Officers and Colony Leaders. I think the training that makes a good (space) navy officer is very different from that which makes a good planetary governor, and therefore there should be two pools: The Research/Mining/Factory Prod folks should be separate from the Initiative/Communications/Ground Combat folks, with very little (if any) overlap between the two skill sets.
I like this idea combined with Laurence's suggestion. The Research/Mining/et al skills are "civilian", the Commo/Survey/et al are "naval", and Ground Combat would be "army/marine". There might be some overlap. Diplomacy could be all three (and probably should), Initiative I'd see as both naval and army.
That brings up an idea of having ranks be allocated to each pool. R1 Lieutenant Commander (Navy), R1 Captain (Army), R1 Administrator (Civilian). You might also want something that says Civilian takes precedence over military ranks and vice versa. Or Naval ranks take precedence over Army.
Of course, this might (will be) a bitch and a half to code.
I like the idea of having 3-5 user definable "Officer Corps". The player could name them Navy, Marine, Political, and so on. All new officers could go into a pool until assigned to one area, and officers could jump between Corps, in certain circumstances. I have mentioned this to Steve, but IIRC, he thought that it added too much complexity, or was too hard to code, for the added value.
I still struggle to justify (or explain) why the "governor" of my civilian/democratic planet is a serving admiral.
Kurt
Posted by: Erik L
« on: August 26, 2009, 04:41:43 PM »Quote from: "Father Tim"
Quote from: "welchbloke"Whilst I agree with the reasoning and I would love to see something like this in Aurora I think that we are opening a huge can of worms. Not everyone will want to run their player races as democracies so that means you have 2 pools that would have be available for use as governors (mil and civ). I suspect the complexity of the code to support this idea would be pretty high and Steve probably has other things he'd like to work on first.
I think what you call your officers and how you pick "leaders" is entirely a role-playing decision and should be beyond the scope of the software. What I would very much like to see is a division of personnel like that in MoO2 - Ships' Officers and Colony Leaders. I think the training that makes a good (space) navy officer is very different from that which makes a good planetary governor, and therefore there should be two pools: The Research/Mining/Factory Prod folks should be separate from the Initiative/Communications/Ground Combat folks, with very little (if any) overlap between the two skill sets.
I like this idea combined with Laurence's suggestion. The Research/Mining/et al skills are "civilian", the Commo/Survey/et al are "naval", and Ground Combat would be "army/marine". There might be some overlap. Diplomacy could be all three (and probably should), Initiative I'd see as both naval and army.
That brings up an idea of having ranks be allocated to each pool. R1 Lieutenant Commander (Navy), R1 Captain (Army), R1 Administrator (Civilian). You might also want something that says Civilian takes precedence over military ranks and vice versa. Or Naval ranks take precedence over Army.
Of course, this might (will be) a bitch and a half to code.
Posted by: Erik L
« on: August 26, 2009, 04:35:49 PM »Quote from: "IanD"
QuoteSteve wrote
I would be interested. As to where to post it, that is a good question
I have posted the pre-TN campaign start in Fiction/Stories forum, not real the right place for it but at least you can see it
Regards
I created a Scenarios group and subforums, and moved Ian's post there. Ian - You might want to edit it and give it a better subject as the current is "Ian's Scenario"
