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  1. #11
    Senior Member Osprey's Avatar
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    I always assumed garrisoned ships had ready crews in garrison (and marines when appropriate), and supplies necessary for defense already loaded (like arrows, ballista bolts, some food and fresh water, etc.). But garrisoned troops and crews would get paid less, and wear and tear on the ships would also be less if they stay in harbor.

    Combine this with some reasonably common early warning systems, like coastal beacon watch towers and scout ships, and it doesn't seem at all unlikely that garrisoned ships could be ready for action to defend a harbor from naval attack.

  2. #12
    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
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    How do we solve this?

    For one the cost to build a ship needs to be reduced. As I have pointed out the comparison to how the craft skills operate (a game mechanic that didn't exist in 2nd ed). So material costs for building a ship would be 50% of the market value. The amount of time needed would be based on the market value (just like craft skills). The number of ships a shipyard could build would likewise be based on the market value.

    The shipyards are now a valuable asset. They can produce ships that can be sold for hefty profit (hence off setting the costs of building/maintaining a shipyard). Works logically and with 3.5 mechanics quite well.

    Maintence costs of ships should remain high (when not in port which should be lower than a garrisoned army unit) and based on the market price of the ship {although I do like Ian's concept of tying it into class of ship}. Shipyards can perform maintenence on a number of ships equal to 2X the shipyard level (that is measured in GB of vessel). A ship is required to be inactive and in port for at least a month following its deplyment. Its deployment time can be extended and it is not paying maintence costs while deployed - instead these costs are added up and must be paid when the ship goes back into port. A ship is assumed to be in port for 1 month of a season (normally) when used that season. This time in port counts the transport time that the ship needs to do to go from the port of delivery to the shipyard (not alwasys the same place). For every season (3 months) that a ship delays its maintenence the cumulative costs go up by 50% to refelct the extra wear the vessel takes.

    The maintence cost of ships is mostly due to labor/materials to repair them. The crew's salary (which includes sufficient troops to give it its base attack/defense value) is much less than an equivalent army unit. So while in port the material costs are real small for maintaining a ship while an army unit stil has a salary factor to maintain.

    The point I was making about army units being able to forage was indeed refering to when they were deployed and not in garrison and still applies - a ship cannot effectively forage for itself when deployed. Raids and pirating would be part of a domain level action and not part of the vessel/army's basic operations.
    Duane Eggert

  3. #13
    Birthright Developer Raesene Andu's Avatar
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    Adding Marines to a ship does automatically increase the maintenance quite a lot, because they are now active unit, no matter if they are involved in combat or not. So that adds another 2 GB to the maintenance costs of each ship that carries a marine unit.

    If you want a nice easy system that ends up with a lower maintenace cost for ships, then the first table I posted above that is based on the ship's class rather than its cost works fairly well.

    Using the example of Bannier Andien again, and this time assuming that 75% of his fleet is active, then you end up with a maintenace cost of 6 GB (3+1/2+2+1/2), which is the same as using the BRCS system and the original navy rules. If only 1/2 of his ships were active then that cost falls to 5.25 GB, and even if all his ships are in the water at once, the cost is only 7 GB, which is less than Athos' suggestion of 1/10 & 1/20 where only 50% of his ships are active.

    As for building costs, then perhaps just something like a 25% discount to building cost for regent's building their own vessels. So a galleon would be 11.25 GB, and could then be sold for a nice profit of 3.75 GB. Of course, the regent controlling the shipyard could increase the price of his ships and make more profit and with so few shipyards large enough to build galleons, then some buyers may have no choice but to pay up. For the Atlas, I'm only including level 6+ ships yards in 2 places (Imperial City, and Ilien). Other provinces may have smaller shipyards, but those are the two big ones, coincidently, also located in the two largest Anuirean cities.
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