> Mikko Kurki-Suonio writes:
@:) In FT A's and B's are NOT the weapons to use against cap ships,
@:) since they generally suck against well-screened targets. If you
@:) make them unusable against smaller ships, they become unusable,
@:) period.
So I've heard various arguments one way and the other about A vs Torp vs Big
Ships and I decided to take a quick look at the numbers. They came out more
favorably (for the torpedo) than I would have expected.
Weapon Screen 0-6 6-12 12-18 18-24 24-36 Total d/in
A 3.5.5.33.33.17 1.83.05 A 2 1 1.67.67.33 4.00.11 A 1 1.5 1.5 1 1.5 5.50.15 A
0 2 2 1.33 1.33.67 11.33.31 PT ANY 2.33 1.75 1.17.58 0 5.83.24
This is interesting to me - in my group we've only had one
successful experience with torpedoes and that involved building a
non-FTL cruiser class that carried six torps and getting to within six
and demolishing a dreadnought. Other than that we all kinda thought they were
pretty useless. This chart makes them look better.
On second thought, be aware that this chart makes them look better
than they actually are. The damage/inch line is total damage/24 for
the torp which makes it somewhat bigger than the A lines - but of
course the A's are still doing damage out there at 36" and that can mean a few
important points of sniper damage before the battle is joined.
The second thing not to forget, that isn't covered here at all, is
the firing arc situation. Fact is, while I might _like_ to be able to
expect 2.33 points per weapon against a screen-3 target, I might
actually _buy_ the .5 point-per-weapon weapon which, because it has a
270 degree firing arc, will actually be able to hit the target. It might be
interesting to experiment with arcs similar to SFB's right and left plasma
arcs (45 degrees left and right) and see whether they make PTs more flexible.
Certainly that would allow an attack to pass on an oblique course behind the
target and fire all the torps. Might make them more useful.
Well this is all sort of out of the blue but if anyone has any comments, fire
away!
> Mikko Kurki-Suonio writes:
@:) Very interesting analysis, but I was mainly concerned about @:) missiles,
which have a max terminal range of 3x18" == 54".
Missiles indeed do terminate operations after 54". The question is whether
they actually hit their target in the mean time. I've heard a lot of talk
about missile boats and the like but given that typical fleet speeds in our
games are 15", it's not at all uncommon to see the ships moving faster than
the missiles. This makes it extremely difficult for them to hit.
They do make an attractive crunching sound on those rare occaisions when they
do hit. Oh, also we generally restrict FTL disengagement enough to prevent
ships from dropping out of FTL, launching and then immediately retreating into
FTL. There was always at least a
three-turn waiting period between FTL uses for any given ship. Later
we switched to the "FTL = go real fast" system which required ships to
decellerate to a certain speed before they could fire. Then they would have to
accelerate again to get away.
With the system as it is, a group of missile boats could indeed
appear and fire without being fired upon. Zero risk is nice - but
note that in a campaign situation you'll have to pay (big) money for those
missiles and when they don't hit anything you've wasted their
real value - they allow you to force your opponent to manouver. This
only matters if you are within weapons range of said opponent whilst said
manouvers are occurring.
> On Wed, 26 Mar 1997, Joachim Heck - SunSoft wrote:
> So I've heard various arguments one way and the other about A vs
Very interesting analysis, but I was mainly concerned about missiles, which
have a max terminal range of 3x18" == 54". The long range means firing arcs
are largely irrelevant and at least on my table, you can come in on one edge,
fire against targets on the other and get the hell outta
Dodge before anyone can do anything about it.
Which seems a lot like modern sub-to-sub battle...
In message <199703261407.JAA13212@sparczilla.East.Sun.COM> Joachim Heck
> - SunSoft writes:
> So I've heard various arguments one way and the other about A vs
It looks like you forgot to factor in their relative mass.
Multiply the A battery results by 5, the PTT by 3 to give 15 mass of weapons.
Weapon...............0-6...6-12..12-18..18-24
5x A vs 3 shields....2.5....2.5....1.6....1.6 etc.
5x A vs 0 shields.....10.....10....6.6....6.6 etc.
3x PTT.................7....5.3....3.5....1.8
(15x SMP..............30.....20.....10)
So, at a range of 0-18 a PTT does 2-to-3-times as much damage as
an A-batt against a triply-shielded ship.