How far along are the rules?

[Guinness]

As far as I can read, the latest avenue of this discussion is only about provisions for allocating pre-startup money. The idea here is that nations would start with some sort of navy (and army) built before our start date. A starter fleet, as it is. To keep everyone's starter fleet from being designs laid down in (say) 1875, we forsee making newer ships going in a nation's starter fleet count more toward their pre-startup allocation, and older ships cost less. Any rule related to startup fleet creation is unlikely to carry over to ships laid down when we get started.

I hope that makes some sense.

[Darman]

I am sure you will have more then $100 to spend but you will need to purchase other things as well like Military Ports, Ships Building Infrastructure, and well Armys, Forts stuff like that.  So once we get the math balanced Im thinking if you planned your fleet around $100 there wont be to many changes you need to make.

I agree with this, and it is in-line with what I've been thinking, that each player gets a lump sum of cash to buy whatever he wants (I like the "if its more modern its more expensive" approach too btw) whether it be a navy, army, ports, canals, railroads, etc.  On one extreme a player could invest all his money in infrastructure and be wide open to attacks, and on the other hand he could spend all his money on the military and be strong initially but gradually get weaker without the economic base to support sufficient build-up of future forces. 

[Carthaginian]

BIG suggestion, gents- we need a set weight for sailing rigs.
It doesn't have to be factual... just something that can show that the ship has sail rigging- something like 1% or 2% for 'supplementary sails' and 2% or 4% for 'full sailing rig.' As we are starting early, we are going to be dealing with a lot of ships that still rely on sails for a good deal oftheir cruising range.

[TexanCowboy]

Another thing I'd like to throw out there.

The current Class 0/1/2/3/4/5 slip and drydock accounting system has lead to ships that have consistantly the same length; too often that's lead to ships that are almost exactly the same as each other. I'd like to modify that so that you pay a sum, perhaps $.5 for 100 feet/30ish meters worth of drydock; allowing for customization of drydock sizes to a player's content; while not adding too much more complexity then the current system.

[Tanthalas]

Another thing I'd like to throw out there.

The current Class 0/1/2/3/4/5 slip and drydock accounting system has lead to ships that have consistantly the same length; too often that's lead to ships that are almost exactly the same as each other. I'd like to modify that so that you pay a sum, perhaps $.5 for 100 feet/30ish meters worth of drydock; allowing for customization of drydock sizes to a player's content; while not adding too much more complexity then the current system.

the problem wasnt so much the slip/drydock system as it was everyone building to the max size you could build in a DD/Slip, which OTL was not always the case.

[TexanCowboy]

Which I think could be solved by going to a customize your own drydock system.

[Tanthalas]

IDK if it would fix it in and of itself or not, im more afraid it would create a problem of oversized ships than the previous arbitary system did.

[TexanCowboy]

Not sure how so; it ends up as about the same cost as the previous system if you quadruple the price per foot...$2 per 100 feet, but that just seems expensive.

[Desertfox]

I really like that idea, but we would have to have some sort of fixed sizing for widths. You can build say a small 50' wide slip or a big 100' wide one.

[TexanCowboy]

See, even the king of meglomania likes the customization idea, which is slightly more complicated!

I'd agree....maybe a 7'-1' ratio on small and a 5'-1' on large, and for those crazy enough to buil circular ships, costs 7x as much as a small?

[Carthaginian]

I really like that idea, but we would have to have some sort of fixed sizing for widths. You can build say a small 50' wide slip or a big 100' wide one.

Meh- it's an easy fix:

Just pin the slip width to a 5:1 ratio- in line with the max L:B ratio we allow.

[Desertfox]

Doesn't work if you want to expand an existing slip. Because expansions tend to be lengthwise only.

Me megalomania? I am a fan of the small ships! But I do prefer simplicity.

[Carthaginian]

Doesn't work if you want to expand an existing slip. Because expansions tend to be lengthwise only.

Me megalomania? I am a fan of the small ships! But I do prefer simplicity.

Well, there ARE some times that realism must give way to simplicity, DF.
This just seems like on of the occasions where it seems better to take a simple answer rather than impose an entirely new ruleset to cover something that isn't a big deal, really.

[Nobody]

I'm strongly against any rule which is based on Imperial numbers. So make it 10 m maybe? Anyway wasn't there a half official proposal stating that the limit would not be the ship length but its displacement?

And I would like to see draft limits as well. Maybe for the harbor types (e.g. draft increasing by 1 m per level), but also for certain areas. For example that ships with more than 10 m draft would be limited to the main shipping lanes in the North Sea, not able to maneuverer freely.

Especially small ships tend to be rather wide. Tugs for example usually have a L:B ratio between 2.5 and 4.5 - of course we are not usually building tugs.

[TexanCowboy]

10 m is barely 30 feet.

On similar grounds as Nobody, I'm against measurements in metrics. 100 feet/33 meters is pretty close to a compromise in that regard.