Wilhelm has a post up today about his love of battleships and a coming game called World of Battleships. I started making a comment but it grew to long so I decided to make a post instead. It’s not really a direct reply, but more ‘inspired by’.

Battleships are a thing of beauty. Big, powerful, deadly. They were the ultimate power on the sea but they fell victim to the same technical advancement that brought them to life. Over a stretch of less than 80 years, naval forces transformed from wooden hulled ships, powered by sail, with decks of side mounted cannons, to a world dominated by air craft launched from an oil powered floating landing strip. And while the naval warship still exists, it is nothing like those early battleships or the wooden ancestors.

The Age of Sail saw combat taking place close, but for the first time in naval history, no very close. Until the cannon, ship to ship combat was dominated by boarding parties and rams. Ores were the primary means of propulsion during combat and the goal was to either pull alongside, or to ram and sink. Often both were accomplished at the same time. In time, ships evolved into floating castles, where archers would fight from high battlements in the bow and stern of ships.

By the time the cannon appeared on the scene, the mechanics of sailing had come into their own. Combat became about out maneuvering your enemy and gaining the ‘weather gauge’. That would allow you to control the engagement. Speeds were slow, and range was limited. Despite the cannons, many engagements were decided by a boarding action. Cannons disabled the sailing ability and decimated the crew, before the two combatants would come together to fight on the decks. Horatio Nelson was not famous for grand tactics, but his tenacity in boarding the enemy. “Never mind maneuvers, go straight at them” was his philosophy.

The Crimean War and the US Civil War saw this form of warfare change. Brought on by the introduction of explosive shells, which tended to make wood not blown up catch fire, iron armor plating began to be introduced. The French sparked the new battleship race with La Gloire, a wooden hulled ship that was “iron clad” for protection. The British responded with the first iron-hulled warships, Warrior. Powered by steam, which was uncommon but not unique., Warrior is regarded as the first true battleship. Multiple innovations of the time came together with the US’s Monitor. Designed by Swedish inventor John Ericcson, the Monitor was an iron hulled ship, with a steam driven propeller propulsion, and a rotating gun turret. She was built in response to the Confederates Merrimac/Virginia which had been covered with armor plating, and with explosive shells could decimate the Union fleet.

From there, the race was on to build bigger and more powerful ships. This culminated in 1906 with Dreadnought, a Royal Naval vessel that again revolutionized the battleship. Using steam turbines that allowed for incredible speeds, full complement of big guns with ranges exceeding 17,000 yards, and an innovative electronic fire control system, Dreadnought outclassed every other ship in existence. Her name has become synonymous with a revolutionary warship.

Unfortunately, Dreadnought came into existence just as the aircraft carrier was being developed. Battleships had their last day in World War I, but were eclipsed by the next war. Even though their design continued to evolve, culminating for the US in the Iowa-class, and the naval treaties of the 1920′s revolved around limiting the power of battleships, the carrier would surpass her. Now, carriers are on the way out with the advent of guided missiles and aerial drones.

The next evolutionary battleship might be the DDG-1000, Zumwalt. Designed as a multi-role ship she will lack the massiveness and tremendous firepower of historical battleships. Designed for a smaller crew with a reduced radar signature, drone launch capabilities, sea to shore gun capabilities, integrated power systems, advanced fire control systems, and eventually a possible laser or railgun battery, Zumwalt will carry Dreadnoughts tradition of evolutionary design.

(This one actually taken by me)

Despite the evolution of the carrier, I’ve always had a strong interest in the Age of Sail and age of battleships. My senior year, my high school band got to go to Hawaii to play for a reenlistment ceremony onboard USS Missouri. It was a wonderful experience to see such a grand ship. I would love to one day see Constution, though not a battleship, and HMS Victory over in London. Every time I drive to Florida along I-10, I enjoy seeing Alabama docked in Mobile Bay. Ironically, Texas is located here in Houston and despite being here for five years I’ve yet to get out to see her.

Suggested Reading

Reign of Iron- James Nelson- Story of John Ericcson, the design of the USS Monitor and the clash between her and Virginia

Cochrane: The Real Master and Commander- David Cordingly- Story of Thomas Cochrane, the British captain that Patrick O’brian based his character of Jack Aubrey on.

Six Frigates- Ian Toll- The early days of the US Navy and the six frigates that were the foundation.

Castles of Steel- Robert K. Massie- Account of the last great Naval struggle during WWI culminating in Jutland.

Dreadnought- Robert K. Massie- The impact and development of HMS Dreadnought

The War for All the Oceans- Roy and Lesley Adkins- the war on the ocean during the Napoleonic era. Great account of the exploits of Nelson.

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Jon Stewart has done it again. He has taken the anti-tax, anti-poor, Ayn Randesq statements that many conservative politicians and media pundits and distilled it down to the utter absurdity that it is. The fact that there are so many people that think that a poor family owning a refrigerator makes them not poor is very sad.

Links since you can’t embed Daily Show videos:

World of Class Warfare Part 1: Warren Buffet

World of Class Warfare Part 2: The Poor’s Free Ride is Over

It reminded me of an article in Forbes I saw yesterday that talked about the “coming class war”.

Many conservatives here, as well as abroad, reject the huge role of class.  To them, wealth and poverty still reflect levels of virtue — and societal barriers to upward mobility, just a mild inhibitor. But modern society cannot run according to the individualist credo of Ayn Rand; economic systems, to be credible and socially sustainable, must deliver results to the vast majority of citizens. If capitalism cannot do that expect more outbreaks of violence and greater levels of political alienation — not only in Britain but across most of the world’s leading countries, including the U.S.

The basic ideas was that the opportunities and earning potential for the lower and middle class is declining. The conservative rights approach to ignore it, or pretend those who point it out are engaging in class warfare, won’t fix anything, and will in fact, actually cause a class war in time. The article sees the London riots as the first sign of things to come. It calls out that the solution isn’t a harsh crack down as the right calls for, nor a beefed up welfare state as the left calls for.

In order to fix the problem, everyone has to benefit. You can’t just “rob from the rich and give to the poor”. Nor can ignore the poor, claim their fine or say it’s their own fault for being poor. Capitalism, as currently practiced, doesn’t work. It is as broken as communism was. There needs to be some kind of “social-capitalism”. Society doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game; being successful should not depend on having cheap labor to exploit. Nor can everything be handed to everyone, regardless of the work they do.

Everyone who works should be able to afford a home that is not a decaying cesspit, be able to go to the doctor when they are sick, and be able to buy healthy food for themselves and their kids. A hard worker, with either great effort, determination, skill or perseverance, should be able to succeed and live a better life than the norm. You need the upward mobility and the motivation that capitalism provides. But you also need the fundamental security of everyone’s basic needs being taken care of that communism promises.

Feudalism and slavery failed and were replaced by capitalism and communism, but there was a lot of bloodshed along the way. Communism failed and now capitalism is failing. Let’s try and find that next big idea for society without the bloodshed this time.

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Sad but true.

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I’m sitting at the car dealership for the second time this week. Monday I took my car in for 75,000 mile maintenance and for the annual Texas mandated inspection. I change my own oil most of the time but since the inspection was due I went ahead and brought it in. Doesn’t hurt and it turned out I needed a new time anyways. I was here for 2hrs and then am told the machine they need to do the inspection, broke. So the primary reason I came in, couldn’t get done.

Instead of being here today to finally get the inspection done, I am here because my wife’s car got a recall notice. So I get to spend another 2-3hrs here while they replace some part. And I still have to go somewhere to get the inspection on my car before the end of the month.

At leas the wi-fi is working for once. It’s historically been spotty here.

In other news, I decided to use the money I made selling my SFC account and buy a Kindle. Been thinking about it for awhile. Since I am probably going to go the self-publishing e-book route, I decided I should get an idea of what the competition is like. And what reading ebooks is like in general.

I’ve been fascinated with the idea of ebook readers like the Kindle. No annoying backlight like a computer or iPad has, but a whole world of books available at your fingertips. But I’m also a big fan of a physical book. Especially hardbacks. I just like the weight and feel of reading them.

But since my books won’t be in hardback form, not unless I’m amazingly successful and can afford to do a physical book run, I should get use to the idea of an e-reader. Everyone who has gotten a Kindle has loved it.

We’ll find out Thursday.

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It seems the Rebels have surrounded Tripoli. And they appear to have brought a flag.

I believe Eddie Izzard can summarize it best.

Underling: “Oh, I’m – oh, oh…”

Gaddafi: “What is it, Lieutenant Sebastian?”

Underling: “It’s just the Rebels, sir. They’re here.”

Gaddafi: “My God, man! Do they want tea?”

Underling: “No, I think they’re after something more than that, sir. I don’t know what it is, but they’ve brought a flag.

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It has been a week since my last genuine comment. I made a comment today on one of John Scalzi’s blog posts. In the time it took me to write the comment, the total comments went from 4 to 28. It now stands at 221. I could never follow that many comments in a single day, every day. Way to much to keep up with and get work done.

In related news, in the last week I have gotten 13 spam comments. 36% of all comments on this blog are spam. That’s much lower than I was anticipating. Based on the ratio of spam user registration to actual users on the forums, I was expecting 5 spam comments for any one genuine comment.

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In talking about an Op-Ed by Warren Buffet that called for taxes to be raised on the super-wealthy, John Scalzi made a point that got me thinking. Bolding mine.

The worries for the tender sensibilities of the rich has been a hallmark of conservative American politics since time immemorial, but the current gag-inducingly lickspittle levels of it are a bit much. Among other culpable parties, I lay some blame for this at the altar of Ayn Rand, who imagined a world in which the titan of industries “go Galt” in the face of creeping socialism. Over time the rather silly book this scenario plays out in has been confused by the greedy and clueless (and cynically touted by the greedy but somewhat more crafty) as a reasonable simulacrum of the real world, to the extent that I think there’s a genuine fear by the credulous — which unfortunately correlates to the most vocal elements of both Republican primary voters and politicians today — that if the state moves to raise taxes on the wealthy, the lot of them will flounce in a huff, taking their money with them and retiring to a crevasse where they will await the end of the world. This sort of madness is gussied up and made slightly more respectable by rhetorical feints, like calling the very rich “job creators,” as if the investment bankers profiting by passing off crappy mortgages as AAA investments ever created a job, or the folks who increase shareholder value by laying off ten of thousands of workers are job creators.

Leaving aside the fact that raising taxes on the capital gains that people accrue by pushing around electrons in a financial system that ultimately is not tied into any tangible measure of value is not the same thing as nationalizing real-world industries, in the same way that being tickled by a feather duster is not the same thing as being attacked by a large flock of angry geese, this misapprehends the psychology of those who desire to become very very rich, or who are already very rich and wish to be more so. The sort of person who is very rich does not become so by flouncing when the rules of the game change, to sulk in a gully. The sort of person who is very rich becomes so by understanding the rules of the game and leveraging them to their maximum benefit. This is why there have always been the ridiculously rich, even in times when the top marginal tax rate in the United States was 92%. They very rich don’t flounce, they fiddle. They always have. They always will. The fantasy of the enraged rich packing up and going is just that, a fantasy.

The idea that the rich will stop trying to make money because taxes go up is just ridiculous. Like Scalzi, I place a lot of blame on Ayn Rand. The first political discussion I ever had where I was actually left speechless with my mouth hanging open due to the sheer stupidity and cruelty of the position being argued, was with my former boss, and it was based on Ayn Rand’s philosophy. But I don’t want to talk about her because I would just get mean.

What this post inspired was a rather silly way of looking at things that I think explains the fallacy of the idea that the rich will stop working if we raise their taxes. Think of it like a video game. The people with the skill and mentality that would allow them get rich in the real world, can be seen as the Achievers and Hardcore players.

When a game has a Hard mode, they usually play that mode first. If a game has a Impossible mode that unlocks when you beat Hard mode, they’ll play the game again. If a game has Achievements, they’ll have to get all of them. If you add one that seems impossible and requires thousands of hours of play, they’ll work until they get it.

In the real world, these people make money. If you raise taxes, that is not going to make them want to stop making money. They are just going to have to work harder. They’ll do it. It would be like putting a ultra-hardcore raid at the end of the game. Many people won’t play it, but it will be a challenge for some that they have to defeat.

Raising taxes won’t stop people from trying to make money. It won’t make the rich and powerful quit the game. It will just give them another challenge to overcome. Deregulation and lower taxes are like cheat codes, they just make the game to easy and therefore no fun to play.

This is an unorthodox and highly suspect analogy. It doesn’t address the debt issue which needs to be fixed by raising taxes (hardcore mode) and cutting spending (removing welfare epics). But it amused me.

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Saw a post from Keen and Graev recently that alerted me to the new Gamefly digital client.  It sounds a lot like Netflix streaming but for video games. Kind of like Gamefly itself is just a copy of Netflix DVD delivery.

On one hand, paying $30 every month in order to play your games sounds high, but if you put it into perspective, that is only two MMO subscriptions. If the selection of games is diverse enough, you basically have access to every game whenever you want. You don’t get to keep any of the games, but since games are technically just a license to play the game on one computer, that doesn’t really matter to much. Many games, especially ones bought through digital delivery systems like Steam or Direct2Drive require you to be online to play them anyways.

$30 is a big price tag though. I typically buy 2-10 games a year.  The higher number only occurs when I buy cheap $5-15 games. Big new $50-60 are pretty rare. So I maybe spend $200 a year in a really good year. That’s less than 7 months worth of subscription. And if you stop paying it, you lose access to everything.

On the other hand, there are lots of games I would have liked to try, but don’t want to pay the price for them.  It’s like Netflix, there are lots of movies I’ll watch simply because I now have easy access too, that I never would have bought the DVD or gone to the theater for.

It makes me wonder, how much do game companies and movie producers make from services like Netflix and Gamefly? Cable costs average of $50/month and brings you dozens to hundreds of crappy channels. Netflix costs $10-25 and brings you hundreds of movies and TV shows. Do the makers of the shows get a bigger cut of that income than they do from cable? If so, how soon before everything is delivered via instant streaming? If not, why do they do it?

Games don’t work like tv/movies though. Games you have to buy individually, you don’t have a cable bundle already mainstream. How much can the game companies get from something like this as compared to individual purchases? Does the added revenue of people who would never buy it, but don’t want to steal it, playing via this service offset all the people who would buy it but don’t because of it?

The real deciding factor in this service is going to be how many ISP start charging for total amount downloaded. More and more of them are charging huge fees for downloading over a few gigs. The more people switch to things like Gamefly and Netflix, the more data is going to be transferred. So just as people are stepping up their data usage, ISP’s are putting a bigger price on the gate.

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I started playing Starfleet Commander by Blue Frog Games more than 2 years ago. I found it on Facebook and started it as something to do while at work. At first I played it very casually, I was at work after all and only wanted something to do for a few minutes at a time every so often. When the second universe came out I devoted more attention to it and have been one of the top ranked players.

The game is designed as a space empire building and war game. Every player has 9 planets that they can build up with mines and factories. With the resources the mines produce, or that they steal from others, you can develop new technologies, build more infrastructure, or build ships. It touched a number of things that appeal to me. It had the building aspect of Civ and RTS style games, and it had combat that didn’t require button mashing. Your worlds persisted in the universe whether you were online or not, and continued to produce resources. Your ships also persisted. To protect your ships and resources when you logged out, you did what was called ‘fleet-resource saving’. That involved sending your ships on a mission that would take as long as you planned to be away from the computer. They were safe while traveling.

Alternatively, the original game had what is called ‘Diplomatic Mode’ where you would be safe from attack in exchange for your mines producing at only 25% of their usual production. There was also ‘Vacation Mode’ which gave you protection in exchange for nothing producing or building while you were away. Dip Mode took 24hrs to go into effect, Vacation was instant but had to last for at least 48hrs.

Combat was all about catching an opponent unaware. This could be accomplished several ways, the most common was when someone went ‘inactive’, ie hadn’t logged into their account for a week. They were marked as easy prey by the game. Or if they got careless and left their ships out for to long and weren’t paying attention. You could also, with careful timing, catch someone with a ‘ninja-defense’, which involved timing a group of ships to arrive to defend a planet a split second before an enemies attack landed. Alternatively, you could do an ‘oracle-lock’, this involved sending an attack at an enemy while they had ships on a return trip. Ships returning couldn’t be stopped or slowed down so that if you timed it right, you would arrive just after the ships and blow them up.

Building up colonies and working with some of the Alliances I joined was a lot of fun. Catching a big fleet in an attack or being sneaky and pulling off a defend were quite a thrill. If you were careful, you really didn’t have to devote that much time to the game. Just send your ships away for 24hrs and check once a day.

It was a strangely addicting game which was why I played it for so long. Building up colonies, researching techs, building fleets, sending raids. All fun elements.  The game company launched a new game called Stardrift Empires, which is basically the same game with a new skin. The new graphics are much nicer and they’ve added a nice tutorial and several elements like achievements and quests.

But the games are hopelessly flawed. It is entirely based on catching people not paying attention. While, that might sound like good warfare, it makes for a horrible game. Get busy or distracted with real life, and months of work can be wiped out. The only targets are people not paying attention or people who have quit out of frustration. Combat is entirely a numbers game. Who ever has more ships wins. And the longer the game goes on, the more the older players have and they become untouchable by others.

The new Stardrift Empires game removes the ‘diplomatic mode’ feature, which on one hand is good. Half the game would be filled with people in dip mode, which made finding targets very hard sometimes. But it also means that if you can’t play for awhile, you have to use vacation mode. Vacation mode requires that you cancel anything you were building. And in the late game, things can take weeks to build. This makes the game even less friendly to casual play.

I’d like a strategy building game that you play slowly over time. Something where you can attack and interact with others. But one that doesn’t penalize you for having a life away from the computer. So I’ve decided to break the addiction and quit SFC. I might play the new game for a short time, just because the first few weeks of the game are the most fun, but probably should cut it off as well.

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There was a new Ask Cryptic posted yesterday. One of the things I really like about the STO team is their communication. Daniel Stahl, the leader producer, has made every effort to be up front and transparent with STO’s development. This means they share current development plans and you can get a good idea of what is being worked on in the game. The downside, is they talk about a lot of stuff that never happens or is continually pushed back. But at least they are upfront about it, unlike the infamous capital ships from SWG that never happened.

There are a lot of cool things on the horizon for STO, unfortunately most of them are very far on the horizon. The Duty Officer system has been talked about for months and was supposed to be a major feature of season 4 (which has been out for over a month) but will likely not come until late Oct. They have talked about improving ship interiors and adding players starbases from the beginning. The best odds for that are Season 5, which probably means next year. This is where having the lifetime sub comes in handy.

In the Ask Cryptic there were a lot of interesting things of note.

Q: ScottishTimelord Are we ever going to see the level cap increased anytime soon. How about letting us reach the rank of Fleet Admiral and have our own fleet to command (all the other class ships that we own). It would make for some epic battles!

A: The level cap increase to Fleet Admiral will not happen until we feel there is enough content ready to make it worthwhile. We have discussed allowing you to command several other ships similar to having an away team in space. Details on that are all TBD.

This would be an interesting feature. It would clearly be something that should on an expansion level release though. I don’t expect to see anything like this for 1yr+.

Q: Captain_Samson Are there any plans to release more canon ship interiors (Galaxy, Defiant, Intrepid, Sovereign ext.)?

A: Yes. There is a new replica interior being released with the DS9 Feature Episode Series.

Q: alexisnomad Are there plans for dual torpedo launchers, like the ones the Defiant has in DS9?

A: While I don’t know if the dual torps are coming yet, I can say that the Defiant is getting a major IP overhaul for the next feature episode series and that includes the proper rapid fire cannons you remember from the show.

This makes me excited for the next featured episode series (not due until late Oct). Those are always good, plus this hopefully means a Defiant interior and a DS9 interior upgrade. Both of which really suck as they are.  The addition of proper looking phaser cannons will be cool (especially if they add the proper sounds).

Q: metaQ What about animated antennae for Andorians?

A: On the schedule for later on in Season 4.

Small detail, but would be cool. Enterprise made the Andorians cool with their constantly moving antennae.

Q: Keppoch Now that the KDF has access to all sector blocks except the Sirius Sector Block, will the KDF be getting a transwarp ship like the Fed’s Excelsior? A tier 5 K’tinga might be a good fit for such a power.

A: We’ve discussed this as a power for one of the upcoming KDF ships. We’ve also discussed updating the transwarp power on the Excelsior and in the event we remove all of the sector walls (a definite possibility). If we remove the sector walls then transwarp will need to have a different function and we will consider the KDF when we evaluate updates to this power.

Q: Timelord_Victorious What was the reason for making the Rhode Island that is clearly more powerful than any other ship at that level? Isn’t this making the old Nova obsolete for people who are willing to pay to be more powerful and turning everyone else into second class captains? This sounds harsh, but I honestly want to know the reason for it. Maybe there is something you have not told us yet, an important piece of the puzzle?

A: The plans are to add ship variants that have cool and versatile powers at all tiers. “More powerful” is debatable and if the forums are any indication there is not a consensus. We want to add new ships with new abilities across the board and simply making “skins” of ships that only look different, but don’t act different is not a goal. We want new ships to feel like new ships with new abilities. There were similar outcries about the Galaxy Dreadnaught when it first came out, but now that there are plenty more ships, the concerns over that ship are not what they used to be.

That said, we are still evaluating the Rhode Island and have delayed the release for at least a week to discuss the ship and ensure it is balanced for what it is intended to be. Also keep in mind that we intend for all ships to be earnable in game via emblems, so arguments that this is only for people who “pay for it” are unfounded.

If they can get rid of the sector walls and make it one big galaxy, that will go a long way to improving the general feel of the game. The graphical change they made a few months back was great but the zones are still small. It doesn’t feel like a living universe.

It would be great if they took the “special” abilities of all of the unique ships and made them into consoles like they are doing with the new ships. Then you could mix and match. The Defiant-R cloak, the Excelsiors transwarp ability, etc. Granted, some ships abilities need to be inherent to them (Galaxy-X spinal phaser lance, Intrepid’s ablative armor (due to the graphics)).

So there are a lot of cool things on the horizon for STO. Unfortunately, nothing I want to do in the game right now.

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