Work with me here...

[The Rock Doctor]

Tonight's idle thoughts:

I'd like to use normal-load displacement as the benchmark for determining ship cost.  This would reflect the reality that two ships of the same light displacement, but with differing bunkerage, will have different overall dimensions.  It will also put a bit of a check on anybody tempted to give their ships huge bunkers for SS-related advantages.

I think chemical weapons, delivered by container or artillery, will be available as researchable tech; PCs have probably used similar stuff as pesticides in their terrain-clearance work.  However, I also expect that its use against cities would be rather unpopular with NPCs.

Comms would be by radio or buried undersea cable.  Seabed cables are possible but vulnerable to critter damage.  Satellites do not exist - those orbited during settlement have long-since degraded, and nobody currently has a space program.

[Carthaginian]

I agree on all three counts, they are all logical points.

Normal load makes sense as it is the easiest to control using Springsharp, and super-long range ships were a problem under the old sim.

Chemical weapons- definitely any NPCs (and most PCs) will probably bring down the righteous thunder on the user.

I would allow satellites as a researchable tech... but I would allow anti-satellite weapons as well. ;)

[Darman]

Silly question: SS2 or SS3?  I know my preference. 

[Carthaginian]

Silly question: SS2 or SS3?  I know my preference. 

Actually hasn't been discussed- I'd prefer SS3... but SS2 is very doable.

[snip]

My vote goes for SS3

[The Rock Doctor]

I could go with either, but is SS3 bug-free?  I'm sure I've had issues with it not accounting for DC/torpedo/mine weight.

[Nobody]

I could go with either, but is SS3 bug-free?  I'm sure I've had issues with it not accounting for DC/torpedo/mine weight.

I don't know, that would be a serious problem. On the other hand, I would really like its enhanced abilities for individual gun and weight placement.

[The Rock Doctor]

I have to admit, I did kind of like the idea of a 1,500 minelayer that carried 2,000 t of mines.

[Carthaginian]

SS3 isn't bug free, but it is much more reliable on everything BUT mines and depth charges.
It's easy enough to enter Misc. Weight for those items though.

[The Rock Doctor]

This is true, and then you get uniform display of the mines/DC along with the other weapons.

[Darman]

If everyone wants to work with SS3 that is fine with me.  I'm getting my new laptop in about a week so then I can begin playing around with it once more. 

[Delta Force]

You could just have the technology that runs the habitats be relatively advanced but beyond duplication with the current industrial base. Even worse you may lose the knowledge of how or why something works, so even if you can make it you are unable to modify the design without ruining it, making the design dogmatic. If you gave someone in the early 1900s the design for something as easy to build as a pulsejet engine but did not explain the theory of how it works, they might be able to produce an excellent copy of that specific blueprint, but until they know how it actually works they cannot improve the design or make it larger or smaller.

At the other extreme, you could have a 100% reliable and automated fusion plant that extracts deuterium from water and fuels itself, and has documentation on how to run it and a physics book on how it works and its blueprints. You could even have the designer present. But if you do not have extremely precise CAD equipment and metallurgy, all the knowledge in the world will not make building another reactor possible.

You have the choice between having the knowledge to build but not the capability, the capability but not the knowledge, both capability and knowledge (likely in a limited capacity or there would not be steamships), or the total loss of knowledge and ability to build advanced things (by advanced I mean things like spaceships and nuclear power).

[The Rock Doctor]

Mike, can you send me a link or a copy of that Starfire doc?  It had some good stuff on international relations and espionage that I'd like to look at and perhaps borrow from.

[The Rock Doctor]

So - I've been plunking on rules this weekend, when not out poking about the farm.

-Wrote down rules regarding international relations:  How to set up trade agreements, gradually annex consensual NPCs, etc.  Still need a part about pacifying and annexing non-consenting NPCs.

-Wrote down a blurb on terraforming land.

-Have an idea about "resources" to throw out at y'all.  We talked about commodities, and it seemed like our cities actually have many of the essentials covered:  Food, fuel, etc.  So how could we assign a little flavor/niche value to specific cities?  Each gets a special industrial unit that produces stuff in addition to those aforementioned essentials, such as:

-->Steelworks:  Would produce X amount of steel for shipbuilding.  Lose your steelworks(s) and you can't build.
-->Boutiques:  Produces niche consumer goods - nice clothes, books, jewellery - that are the basis for international trade.
-->Dirt Farm:  Produces a terrestrial-friendly soil that is used to help terraform land.
-->Construction Centre:  Specializes in building stand-alone shipyards, ports, cities, and such away from existing cities. 

I figure a half-dozen or so options would let a player inject a bit of flavor into their economy, while quantifying things like one's ability to colonize distant locations, etc.  Whatcha think?

[The Rock Doctor]

Oh, and the other thought:  How would you (...or could you...) design an oil rig or semi-submersible platform in SS?  If, say, one wished to park a rig in the middle of deep ocean as a waypoint or something.