Stats Committee
Hi Folks,
As I read through posts, I wonder if it is time for the Anchorage to assemble a stats committee similar to the one on the Aerodrome. Such a committee could provide ship stats for non-issued ships, enabling molders and others to physically or virtually increase their fleets. For those of you who enjoy researching specifications and have the patience to work with others in a committee format, this is something you should consider assembling.
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” ― Plato
I think that would be a great idea.
When I made the stats for HMS Indefatigable I got no feedback on any of my choices even though there were questionable choices. Setting Veer and Burden to a sum over ten was something I didn't feel comfortable with, that no other Ares ship has. I motivated why, but it might have been more in line with the general design to lower burden and add another box instead.
I'm looking at stats for HMS Agamemnon right now. She has a quite light broadside, not much more than the Indefatigable and she was a slow sailer, arriving last in the battle of Santo Domingo 1806. How should I stat her? How much less damage would she take than any other SGN104, due to being a little smaller in size?
That group would help us make those kind of decisions and make me feel more comfortable in using my modifications with any stats.
Jonas, would you like to be part of that crew?
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” ― Plato
I'm not sure I'm qualified.
When looking at stats for the ships I find I have more questions than answers.
Eric,Originally Posted by 7eat51
This is a great idea. As previously stated the largest block to this effort would be understanding how the original stats were determined. There may be some people on the board who might have some insight into this, but possibly can't or won't share what they know. If this is to protect Ares IP that is certainly understandable. I have a feeling the formulas are not all that complicated.
Actually, that would make you a good crew member. In the end, this is about enhancing a game, i.e. a game; humility in such work goes a long way toward making it an enjoyable process for everyone.
If no formula is forthcoming, the main thing for such a stats committee is to develop one and stay consistent until there is a good reason to change. The idea is not to lose the forest for the trees. Given the level of current abstraction in the game, the goal is to increase offerings without changing SoG into a detailed, hyper-realistic simulation. House rules can always override whatever a committee puts forth, but such a committee could serve the masses quite well; it does on the 'Drome.
What we need are a few volunteers and some basic guidelines to get started. With my current work-life balance, the only available time I have needs to be focused on site administration and the solo stuff, both of which I always feel behind in.
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” ― Plato
Then I will report for duty.
I've already been trying and would gladly contribute my own data-mine as a start. Problem is, we have to first reverse-engineer Ares' stat math... it got so bad on that task that David found it easier to just develop a complete new stats-system for some of his games and my campaign concepts.
Yes indeed, I'm sure there is a system. Trouble is we need to send it to Bletchley Park to solve it!
It seems to me that it would be pretty easy to come up with a rough rule-of-thumb guideline for statting classes and ship-types that don't appear yet in the game--based on a few characteristics like tonnage, throw-weight (perhaps broken into guns and carronades) and crew size.
On the other hand, the Ares stats appear quite arbitrary/random to me, so trying to create a formula capable of "back-calculating" to match the existing ships in the game is probably next to impossible.
That would definitely be the way I'd do it, taking a similar ship and arguing whether/why a particular stat should be different.
The system David worked up, Nominal Rate determines hull stats, actual armament and gun/carronade mix determines broadside stats. Still need a mechanic for crew actions/turn and Musketry, but... it's good enough a start to be the foundation an entire book series I'm trying to convince Ares to buy and publish is built on. (High praise, in my overconservative little world.)
That's not as far out an idea as it first sounds having developed a few headaches working with a calculator and a few reference books as I have tried!!
Last edited by John Paul; 03-11-2015 at 23:03.
"War is the greatest game Man can play!" BG George B. McClellan
Eric,
I'd be happy to join in on this! As I discussed with Bob on another thread I've tried to work out some of the numbers, but put it aside more out of a desire to just play the game rather then spend a lot of time figuring out why one ship is assigned any particular number. It seemed just when I had figured out at least some part of the "formula" applying it to another ship of similar type or size went out the window. As I stated in that thread there is some "unknown" quantity being used that would suggest the variety and/or number of maneuver decks that would need to be printed plays some portion in the total calculation. At least that's the thought I came up with! All the same, I'm willing to work on a committee to crunch the numbers to help out my fellow ship Captains!!
"War is the greatest game Man can play!" BG George B. McClellan
I'm not sure that reverse engineering is necessary as long as we extrapolate game values from historical data and given ships.
We would have to find out the limits of the values that can be gathered from the given ships, as the sum of veer and burden that I mentioned above.
I think until super computers can crack it we'll have to use gut feeling and that not so common, common sense...
Crew is probably based on the actual number of crew and stretched out over boxes, where the number was chosen to make a good game. Number of actions are kept high before it drops not only due to more crew than is needed, but out of playability reasons. (That can't be a correct word.)
Personally I think Ares used Musketry to balance out ships. If it was a little worse in gunnery than the ship it was supposed to meet one-on-one, it got a little compensation in Musketry. I must admit I haven't searched very extensible for facts about marine detachments and so on, but just on crew numbers they sometimes seems a little arbitrary.
Well there are some standard conversion mechanics in play here. For instance all ships of a certain rating have the same number of damage boxes. For instance:
All 1st Rates have 11 damage boxes, 12 Crew Boxes.
All 3rd Rates have 9 damage boxes, 10 Crew Boxes
All 5th Rates have 8 damage boxes, 9 Crew boxes
Sloops Have 6 Damage Boxes, 7 Crew Boxes (depending on the source material these are either unrated or 6th rates. I would assume Ares considers them unrated.
I would assume that 2nd Rates will have 10 Damage Boxes and Heavy 5th and 4th rates will 8 or 9 damage boxes with the Burden adjusted. The 6th rates will have 7 Damage boxes and 8 crew boxes. The backward engineering comes into adjusting the burden with the number of damage boxes. I created a stats sheet that included BM (Weight Burthen Tonnes), Broadside Weight, but have only included a good sampling of British ships (but this includes captures). Also did some unit comparison to WS&IM.
Coming back to my Amazon call versus Concorde/Charmante Class comparison there is only a on hull point difference between the two. I believe the Amazons were statted incorrectly and should had a burden of three. History dictates due to both hull/weapon/crew that the Amazons were better units than whats portrayed in the game. If the Amazons were burden 3, then some of this would start to make sense. The Amazon's were almost 200 BM heavier that the Charmantes/Concordes, and only 10 feet shorter. This one discrepancy makes me believe backward engineering is impossible, even with Bletchley park or the NSA's involvement. Cray super computer anyone?
Except for Swan (Fairy, etc.) and Océan-class, all ships have a veer + burden of 10. Those two have 9.
If you raise their burden you probably should lower their veer. Then you'd have to balance the effect of having maneuver cards that are harder to use.
This is one of the things I was uncomfortable with with the stats I made for the Indie.
Edit: Worth noting is that both of these are at the end of the scale. Less optimal designs in the extremes but on the other hand the difference between having veer 8 and 9 is near negligible.
Last edited by TexaS; 03-12-2015 at 07:51.
Jonas, that was a great observation. I never compared the burden to the veer. Looks like unrated due to their low burden and and the 1st rates due to their high burden and clunky movement are outliers to the 10 formula.
To be clear, if you desire to be part of the Unofficial Stats Committee, simply state, "I'm in" in a post, with no other comments. Reason being, I will set up a forum for those members of the committee. Please only state you're in if you will commit to being in. The committee cannot be too big or no decisions will be made (4 or 5 members at most). Members should be willing to do research and discuss in a friendly manner.
I concur with not trying to reverse engineer, but to develop a schema for going forward, and to remain consistent within that schema, only making changes when clearly evident to all members of the committee. The last we want is continual updates to previous work. This means, of course, that nothing should go public before several ships have been completed as a means to test the schema.
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” ― Plato
I'm in
I'm in too.
I'm in!
"War is the greatest game Man can play!" BG George B. McClellan
Wow!I didn't see that one either! Guess I need to step back from the rail a bit and look at the horizon!
"War is the greatest game Man can play!" BG George B. McClellan
I have a knack for recognizing patterns, not that it's very helpful in reverse engineering the stats of the ships, more than the obvious...
With these members I would feel confident as a member of this committee.
I'm in
Jonas,
It may not be a need to reverse engineer if, as you noted previously, we can take a step back, look at the various numbers, then see where THEY lead us to compared to the real life data so many of us have on hand!
Sort of like being able to see the forest despite all of the trees! It may just jump out at us when we're not even looking for it!
"War is the greatest game Man can play!" BG George B. McClellan
I'm In...
...if wanted - happy to step aside if someone more qualified is keen?
My main claim to fame is I enjoy analysing numbers (and calculating game ratings and such) and a little like Jonas can sometimes pick up on counter-intuitive data patterns... And I have had experience publishing a commercial set of wargaming rules (as 1 or 2 people here probably know) - but not of course to the degree of David and co... But I'm not what you'd call an 'expert' on the technical specs of AoS vessels.
I think a 5- or 7-member committee might be best--odd numbers prevent deadlocks, and groups of three tend to have Shifting Alliances problems and not be very stable. So maybe the five of us, Eric as a "facilitator" and one more open slot for now?
John, sounds like we balance then--I'm a data-miner who's a little shaky about in-game number conversions. Basically, I'm limited to things like "if one ship had stats near identical to an existing game unit but was found better handling in calm seas but worse in heavy seas, use the existing stats but give draws for a +1 Veer bonus in calm and -1 penalty in heavy weather" or "if a ship had a reputation of being an easier steer one way than the other, draw for a -1 Veer penalty on the off side". Ship had a rep of being hard to maintain steady course? Draw a chit to find out if you can play that five, or have to replace it with a 3 or 4 instead...
Last edited by Diamondback; 03-14-2015 at 12:13.
I do think you are right about size.
Optional rules for ship quirks is kind of funny. It would differentiate the ships and make them a little more individual to please those who are not entirely used to the historical gaming side. (I'm thinking of comments about how the game may draw more people in another thread...)
Now, I'm thinking more general quirks that could be added in with Captain abilities and Crew Abilities. Ship recently cleaned hull. Twice in the game before movement the ship may move an extra rulers width.
But I'm guessing that our main job will be to make stats for primarily ships like Tonnant-class and Duke?
I have some personal favourites for stats right now. Indefatigable and Agamemnon.
I would suggest that the number of boxes probably doesn't change much between a 98 and a 100-110, the main difference would be slower stat drop on the heavier ships since guns were seldom fired all-at-once anyway. (Think a "ripple" of fire running down the ship's side as it took time for the fire order to be relayed.)
Similarly, while it means a wait... my first suggestion would be to wait until Wave3 comes out which will fill in some blanks on 64's and 50's. Gunnery stats are problematic because armaments could vary wildly, and it's hard to account for some of those on pure number of bores alone. (A Large 74 mounts a 24# secondary battery, a Middling or Common only 18#--but they're treated basically the same in-game. Similarly, we have an issue where the American 44's were truly only 44's on paper--Chesapeake was closer to a 36 in both size and armament, and President was rated as a 50-58 by the RN--a typical combat load for a War of 1812 Humphreys was around 60 weapons between guns and carronades.)
I can only hope that my caution about needing to stat the Humphreys heavier than they would a normal 44, something like frigate maneuverability with a two-decker/small-SOL (around 60-64) durability, was taken heed of. In a nutshell, able to beat the unholy crap out of a Hebe or smaller and take its prize-money, take a pounding from a Portland or maybe up to an Artesien and give it right back, but Run Like Hell from a Bellona or anything bigger. David, please check me on this?
Last edited by Diamondback; 03-14-2015 at 16:11.
Cool all sounds good!
Ya don't say...?I have some personal favourites for stats right now. Indefatigable and Agamemnon.
Have you counted how many threads you've managed to work them into...
But you are right - cool ships from a history perspective... I've always had a little soft spot for both Mars and Colossus... And some of the older 64's ex-East India Company (like Agincourt, etc, as I was into Camperdown and the related Dutch v. RN battles and had the entire home waters Dutch Navy in 1/2400th plus the opposing RN fleets). On a different note Seagull would be a cool little Brig or Sloop to model too...
All of them, or have I missed some?Have you counted how many threads you've managed to work them into...
While waiting for the models from Ares, we could definitely use some stats for merchants and east indiamen.
Indeed! :-) And maybe generic Brig and Schooner stats to go alongside the existing Ship-Sloops for the smaller games... The Brig might be a doable conversion of the Sloop model perhaps - as the biggest change would be reducing to only 2 masts right?
Also something like a Langton Large Merchantman in 1/1200th might just pass off for a small Merchantman at 1/1000th scale for SGN...
Brig you'd have to reposition the masts also, maybe lose some speed and maneuverability too. There were several hull design built in both ship-rig and brig-rig configs... Snake was the ship-rig counterpart to Cruizer IIRC, for example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloop-of-war
Yeah figured that would likely be the case... Maybe remove mizzen and fore mast and just put one back somewhere between the original positions of the 2 and not need to touch aft mast at all?
Think you'd really need to remove all three, reposition Mizzen a bit forward of it's former position and Main a little aft of the former Fore position. Check drawings with Greenwich's website, but I'd suggest for a rule of thumb Mizzen around 1/3 to 1/2 of the distance from former position to Main, with Main relocated to 1/2 to 2/3 of the distance from its former position to the former Fore position. Just a WAG, but if you're going for representational rather than perfect accuracy...
Something like this, where | =mast position
Ship rig: |____|____|
Brig rig: __|____|__
Now i'll have to pick up an extra Sloop to have a stab...
And one probably should move the red/orange/green areas with the main mast.
Gentlemen, I am setting up the stats committee. We'll start with you volunteers. You will have a dedicated forum for your discussions, and a separate thread for whenever you want to make something public.
Thank you for your willingness to serve.
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” ― Plato
Fully realizing that if he refused the commission, which he was perfectly in his right to do, chances for another would be negligible, he answered "Yes, sir. I'd be delighted, sir."
Yes, sir. I'd be delighted, sir.
Already had you down.Fully realizing that if he refused the commission, which he was perfectly in his right to do, chances for another would be negligible, he answered "Yes, sir. I'd be delighted, sir."
Yes, sir. I'd be delighted, sir.
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” ― Plato
G'd Damnit Sir! As if I don't have enough to do already!
Good. You fix that and make sure to show us here the result so I can just use yours.
I'll order the sloops now...
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