I was looking through the Treaty/BBS rules for rudder areas last night but came up short. Both rule sets reference a "Rudder Area Chart". Unfortunately, I couldn't find said chart anywhere. Heh. What size rudder does a 5 unit ship have?
For the most part, our rudder rules are inline with the IRCWCC and MWC. A class 5 ship in treaty has the same sized rudder as one in the MWC and IRCWCC. The major difference is with cruiser rudders. In the IRCWCC cruisers greater then 599 ft get 50% bonus rudder area. IIRC in the MWC, cruisers of over 700 ft get 50% bonus rudder area. Treaty went with something like 630 ft for the limit on bonus rudder area. The idea is to help the longer cruisers which NEED the help (such as the Baltimore) without giving bonus to shorter ships that don't need it (Cleveland). That being said, at some point in time, I hope we scrap the existing rudder system, because using units (determined by displacement) rather then length of ship to determine rudder area makes NO sense at all. I also hope to scrap the whole 50% bonus thing. Ships with two rudders already have physics on their side, they don't need any bonus rudder area too.
Won't that make it harder for people in the other groups and your group to battle with each other? The farther any from the rules of the other groups you get the less likely people are to flip between the rule sets. You'll cut down on how many people show up to an event. Why we have 3 fast gun rule sets for about 250 total people in the hobby just has never made sense to me. We should all be in one larger club. If there were 2500 people then I can see more groups.
It would make it a little bit harder for guys in other groups to play with us. That's why I don't foresee it being changed. I'm just saying the way it currently is, happens to be stupid (imho of course). I'd be happy to be in one club that used OUR rules. I left the IRCWCC though, because I didn't like THEIR rules. I didn't join the MWC because it's rules package is not significantly different from the IRCWCC. Neither of those groups are going to change their rules; in the IRCWCC I heard "This has been working for 25 years" entirely too many times to think there was a legitimate chance to get things changed. They like their rules, and that's fine with me. I just found something I enjoy more. The reason there are 3 different rule sets because one set of rules will never make EVERYONE happy. Different people are going to always have different desires and ideas on how things should work. As a side note in the history of Treaty, if I understand it correctly, the founders originally wanted to be a "B" fleet within the IRCWCC, and battle between sorties of the "A" fleet. When they approached other members in the IRCWCC, they were pretty much told "No, it's our way or the highway." The founders chose the highway, and now we have three clubs rather then only 2.
I don't see the rudder rule changing any time soon. Like Bob said, "Won't that make it harder for people in the other groups and your group to battle with each other?"
Finally got to check the Bearn's rudder area on the plans last night. Interestingly enough, the Bearn's scale sized rudders have .375 total square inches more area than MWC/IRC rules allow for a class 2 ship. Since both clubs allow larger rudders if you can prove their scale size and shape (which is easy because I'm using the original ship's plans off the French web site), I'll make up a couple of scale rudders. For Treaty on the other hand, the Bearn is a class 5 and allowed a little more rudder area...3 sq inches plus 50% for twin rudders = 4.5 sq inches. The scale rudders total 3 sq inches, so I'll have to make a set of slightly larger rudders for Treaty.
Originally there was only one club, due to fighting over the rules and other such silly arguements, they split apart to form the (IRC & MWC), which as far as I can tell really did not solve any issues. Then others who still did not care for the existing rules left to do what they wanted. Treaty. If I did not live in Florida, or those treaty guys will hurry up and retire and move down, I will join the Treaty group myself, the rules just make more sence to me. But I'm a newcomer so what do I know.
Why thank you Djranier. We try. Florida does not look like a bad deal. My brothers and I sell our oil stock that may happen for me.
