From Eric Foley:
> ...Let me throw this at you for size... this is just a quick
Call it 'X'
> Mass 250
> Assume cinematic rules, fixed table.
> This ship says that every design in FB1 is space dust.
Ehhhhhh, no. Truly balanced duels, as opposed to the cakewalks you describe,
would be more interesting to see.
If you scale points to remove the Large vs. Small ship imbalance, X is on the
order of 1254 NPV. I'm pretty sure you disagree with this scaling
from the start, but it's another recognized inherent flaw in the FB1 system,
and the TMF adjustment is one way of adjusting things so equal points of small
ships have a more even chance vs. large ships. See
http://homepage.mac.com/nizenberg/Homebrew.htm for some results of this
particular discussion and a table of adjusted-cost FB1 ships.
I disagree with the artificial restriction of a fixed table, without
specific rationale - which presupposes the 'hard edge(s)' is(are)
factored into the balance equation, which is not the case in a straight ship
duel in space.
Valley Forge is 642 NPV (812 with TMF adjustment and standard fighters).
Balance with X by adding a Victoria (430 adjusted) or 2x Furious (392) to the
NAC side. Looks much more balanced to me, and I'd consider the battle even
with the fixed table. I wouldn't turn down this game on a floating table.
Von Tegetthoff is 867 NPV (adjusted, + std fighters). Even things out
with a Richtofen (355), or a pair of Kronprinz's. This would be trickier
with the slow SDN, but I'd consider it if I could put an ADFC on the Richtofen
and the SDN.
Foch: Adjusted NPV 1204 with three standard fighter groups. It would be
interesting with ER Salvo missiles and Heavy fighters, but X still has
the edge - specialist vs. generalist.
Komarov: Adjusted NPV 1010 with 1 standard group. Add a Bejing/B (177)
and a handful of Ibizas for flanking or late game, or a Voroshilev
(245) for balance. This _is_ cute. The Komarov plinks from 48" until X
comes away from the edge, then the Beijing or Voroshilev parks in the
rear arc at 30-36" and plinks again. Long game.
For other combinations:
- Groups with thrust 4 ships: I'd not come near your engagement envelope
until you moved away from the fixed table edge. Unless you want to sit and
stare at me for a few hours, remove the artificial restriction. Then
its only a matter of time before the thrust 4 ship(s) get in X's rear arc and
carve by pieces.
- A group with primarily Class 2 beams and banzai jammers (which on this
scale could be a handful of scouts to a couple ADFC frigates) might be able to
charge even against X's Missile alpha strike to reach a range where direct
fire weapons are reasonably balanced. Hm. 7 Radestky's would be pretty cute
(21 PDS, 28 Class 2's). 9 Kronprinz's too (27 PDS, 27 Class 2).
-6xFurious or similar would be interesting as well - at 30", 3 class 3
beams and 8 missile salvoes vs. 18 PDS, 6 class 3's and 6 Ptorps.
> Now, maybe some of the ships with more focused ship-to-ship armaments
This is just a further illustration of the Mass/Cost imbalance. There's
no movement I know of to replace FB1 costs with the scaled costs, partly
because FB1 vs. FB1 (and FB2) battles with a mix of ship classes (or even
custom ships with a like mix of classes) tend to even out
baloance-wise (though the tactics become more predictable). However, if
you want to do one-off battles, especially with a few big ships against
a bunch of small ones, the scaling becomes pretty critical to a balanced
game.
> As a few alternate ideas, if you don't like or know how to handle SMs
a
> pair of 2-arc class-4s and 5 pulse torpedoes.
A group of ships with Class 3's on the side arcs (e.g. 4 arc-modified
Markgrafs) could even make an attempt vs. this version ofship X sitting
and spinning in place. It would be a long, tough dance, but Ship X is slow and
weak in the rear.
> In fact, this variant might well be better than the original for some
Only if you can con them into taking you on from the front. Any group that can
outmaneuver you but chooses to go down your throat deserves
what it gets. The only real excuse for sitting near a non-floating edge
is guarding of a fixed point, which means you're no longer in a strict
ship-vs-ship scenario, and balance must be altered accordingly.
> So in the end... no, sorry, I don't accept that argument that I can't
> to
GIve me enough mass and I can do the same thing. Even without Mass/Cost
scaling do you think it is balanced to compare ships 1:1 that differ by as
much as 60 Mass? (your 6xValley Forge vs 5x Ship X example even without
scaling still leaves the NAC force short by one Majestic. With
scaling, its short by 1 Valley Forge + 1 Excalibur and change). Compare
apples with apples.
> "Our" standard of comparison? I'm sorry, I stopped using the FB1
Translation: The FT ship design system taken to the min-max is broken
(exemplified by Mass/Cost imbalance, fighter swarms, missile swarms (to
a much lesser extent, missile swarms), and possibly some mixes of FB2 and FB
tech) and taking advantage of the broken parts can cream designs with genre
restrictions (FB1 'genre' can be described as a mix of
classes from 6-280 Mass, Human Tech, with a roughly pyramidal
distribution of ships by mass (heaviest=fewest in number) without
hyperspeciallization in any one class or weapon system, justified by the
Tuffleyverse's PSB and PFHB (Pseudo-Future-Historical-B...) ). You have
decided to forego the FB Genre and prefer custom designs that exploit the
broken parts of the rules.
> Yes, fighters kill them. So does the thing I describe above. So do
But I'll wager dollars to doughnuts all _do_ involve the most broken
parts of the design system. (Or things outside the FB1 design system
altogether, such as cloaks)
> That's because the FB1 ships SUCK.
It seems that "Does not exploit broken rules" = "Sucks" in your lexicon.
Tell us what you _really_ think. :-\
While this is rather overstated all it's really just a twisted restatement of
the translation above. A truly balanced overall design system would be harder
to break in the ways you have shown. That's not to say impossible. It is clear
to me that any system that can be broken so badly either has to be revised, or
have the weaknesses exposed and genres clearly defined. I prefer the former
for FT, since it will give more people higher overall variety and playability.
I'll shed no tears over the emasculation of fleets that exploit the flaws in
the system.
[quoted original message omitted]
> On 6-May-02 at 22:54, Eric Foley (stiltman@teleport.com) wrote:
> The design I gave earlier does not make these mistakes, which is why
> So which is it? Is every weapon in the game that serves those three
Bad news, but in my NSHO the ship that you threw together really sucks. It has
a glaring weakness, it is far too slow. It allows your opponents to chose
range and direction of attacks. I would almost say it was designed for the
tactless (tacticless?) move right in and slug it out.
Do any of your opponents actually maneuver? A thrust 2 ship is meat for an SM
armed opponent. If you can't dodge a few of those missiles you can't put
enough PDSs on a ship to live through SMs and still give an effective
offensive loadout. If playing FSE I would far rather face a fleet designed
around this doctrine than a base FB NAC fleet.
> On Monday, May 6, 2002, at 09:53 PM, Eric Foley wrote:
> What I _really_ think is that the FB1 ships have three simple, glaring
Just as other design "genres" have differing criteria for their ships the FB
ships have theirs. As already noted they are not optimized for a
single attack role, being made to resembled a space opera like setting, one
which has variety in mind. Of course this is my take. Thus for their approach
they work against one another. Against one another their
point defense while maybe not stopping things dead, doesn't look too inferior
as there are few ships that concentrate on a single role as well (ie. missile
platforms, soap bubble carriers, etc.) In fact too
many PDS would be a liability against some situations - taking up some
valuable space that can be otherwise used for other things. The key is having
the right amount of systems for the needed chore at hand.
Another issue is there are a variety of playing fields to consider. The
2 big ones - cinematic vs. vector and open vs. closed playing fields.
All four "basic" settings have to be used when talking about balance and
whether something wins regularly since these are all regular types of playing
fields for use by the rules. Any point system is going to have its issues with
some of these game situations. For instance, low speed on a closed map using
vector is not nearly the disadvantage as in
cinematic on an open field. Nor is allowing the slower vessel to
always declare that it's sitting and spinning in place when discussing balance
issues. Differing scenario situations are going to make this an
automatically losing tactic. It has to be considered but not at the expense of
other situations or requirements.
> (2) They devote too much of their total mass to things other than
I disagree - under differing situations and battlefield requirements as
alluded to above these.
I condensed what Eric Foley wrote about FB1 ships:
> 1) their point defense is toothless.
Defenses (including point defenses, thrust, screens etc) are "things other
than weapons", you know. And points put into other areas can be
useful--eg one of my Alacrity battlecruisers (thrust 8, a couple of B4)
would saunter into your rear arc and chip apart your SDN while not taking a
scratch in return. It would take a long time and be a truly boring game, but
the SDN would be just as dead at the end. (Or I could bring a 250 mass soap
bubble (25 hull, MD2, FTL, 20PDS, 1 ADFC, no FCS or weapons, 17 squadrons,
about 1230 points. That would be
over pretty quickly--ie on the first turn of combat).
I do agree that FB ships could have been designed better--eg a ptorp
wants to be in your face, while a B3 prefers to hang back at 30" and snipe, so
why put them both on the same ship?
But the point is that the value of direct fire weapons is linear--that
Ptorp is worth about the same whether it's the first or the tenth. The
value of fighters (and missiles) is non-linear.
From Eric Foley:
> Okay. I had a nice long rambling post that cut into all of these
Then we could have dispensed with the Ship X strawman from the start.
> > That's because the FB1 ships SUCK.
> It seems that "Does not exploit broken rules" = "Sucks" in your
> What I _really_ think is that the FB1 ships have three simple, glaring
Certainly more addressable
> (1)Â They have no coherent plan for dealing with a concentrated
You say this is a weakness of FB1 design. I, others, and the math
maintain is is a flaw in the Fighter and/or PDS rules. Total fighter -
and to a lesser extent missile - power scales nonlinearly with number of
groups, whereas almost all other weapon and defense systems (most importantly
PDS) scale linearly. My favorite answer to this is adjusting
PDS to scale with fighters rather than changing fighter rules or costs.
> (2)Â They devote too much of their total mass to things other than
its
> mass is taken up in drives, hull, and screens. But it's only the
IMO you seriously undervalue speed and agility, which reduces real difference
in offensive capability. Your favored duel setup with a fixed
edge exacerbates this mindset.
> What I really
While there is no doubt a point of diminishing returns for most systems,
precisely where the optimum balance of offense/defense/maneuver lies is
a) a matter of opinion and experience, and b) dependent on the way you play.
It is exactly the thing that can be (and is constantly being) determined on
the gaming table. I think the experience of others does not often match yours,
but then your specific house rules restrict valid
comparisons.
> (3)Â The capital ships try to do too many things without bringing
As has been said multiple times, the FB1 ships are neither optimized nor
min-maxed. The fact that the "good" ships are "too small" to last speaks
directly to the Mass/cost imbalance of large vs. small ships.
> (1) and (2) are the most important errors, but (3) just compounds the
(1) and (3) speak to flaws in the design system, not FB1 ships. They are
errors, but not the errors you claim. (2) speaks only to your own prejudices
and values in gameplay, setup and tactics.
> The design I gave earlier does not make these mistakes, which is why
It took only a few minutes to come up with several.
> (if not, in fact, resorting to legal fictions that propose
Extra points for parenthetical dismissiveness and incorrectness. Calling the
correction of a flaw in the costing system a legal fiction neither heals the
flaw nor invalidates the correction. The numbers speak
pretty clearly on this. You want legal fiction, talk about a fixed table
in an open space starship duel.
> The exact
There's no argument that Ship X has formidable offensive power and good
defenses. It also has weaknesses exploitable by FT1 ships in several ways,
some of them obvious.
> So which is it? Is every weapon in the game that serves those three
(1) is solved simply by a PDS fix (that does not involve any changes to
FB1 designs, which remain non-optimized, yet balanced vs. each other) or
by a more complex modification of the fighter rules or costs. I prefer the
former. Its a 1 system fix either way.
(2) is solved by a player choosing not to follow the low-thrust script
you've written. No fixes needed other than the ability and will to maneuver.
(3) is solved by recognizing and resolving the Mass/Cost imbalance,
either through a point revision or a campaign game where economics and
construction/repair costs and time affect distribution of fleets and
restrict ship availability for any given scenario. The latter is easy
to implement for one-off games and involves no change to systems or
weapons. The former has been a grand quest since FT came out.
So, To answer the last question succinctly, Only one weapon (actually
one defense) is broken, and the point system is faulty (for one-offs) or
incomplete (lacking an economic/campaign context). FB1 ships are not
optimized or min-maxed, but that does not mean they suck.
The fleet book designs also operate in a "real" world where they do other
things than engage in stand up fightsm such as patrol, show the flag, train,
get paid for by poor benighted tax payers.... this means that theu should also
be viewed as part of an ongoing "campaign".
There has been an ongoing discussion about Dirtside points costs but this also
sound like the same kind of arguments i.e. on off battle cost vs. campaign
economic cost
> At 2:33 PM +0100 5/7/02, Christopher Downes-Ward wrote:
And also the difference of a 3 turn battle where both sides dive for each
others throats regardless of cost. No dancing, no feints, no refusing battle
for a time to test the opponent's resolve. Rush up
[quoted original message omitted]
[quoted original message omitted]
From me:
> Total fighter -
> of
From Eric Foley:
> No, it doesn't. 30 fighters is a catastrophic threat to a fleet with
Comparing 20 PDS to 100 scatterguns? You're kidding, right? Not to mention
missing the point entirely. The fighter imbalance has been stated clearly
enough, and enough times, its not worth reiterating it if
you're not interested in the facts.
> IMO you seriously undervalue speed and agility, which reduces real
> It has nothing to do with speed or agility.... The example I used just
> _happened_ to have thrust-2.
Then it was a poor example. No one can do comparisons against ships you
_could_ have proposed.
> The design I gave earlier does not make these mistakes, which is why
> one has
> a prayer against it
> It took only a few minutes to come up with several.
> Yeah... several that brought half again as much hardware. This is an
No, it compensates for the known problem in costing large vs. small
ships for one-off duels.
> Calling the correction of a flaw in the costing system a legal
> Uh huh. And everyone knows those poor mass 12 soap bubble carriers
So you want to exploit both major errors in the design system in one scenario
by taking minimal carriers against an uber ship. In the five second analysis,
all this does is indicate that the fighter imbalance is
greater in magnitude than the Mass/Cost imbalance, since your soap
bubble swarm will crush a Mass 400 DN that's not loaded almost entirely with
PDS, and a 400 Mass Ubership will lay waste to an equivalent (unmodified) cost
of any other Mass 12 ships hands down.
> I mean, when you might bring fleets of mass
...
Snip a halfway decent simultaneous illustration of both broken points in
the design system.
> I _fully_ see that this is a _much_ better idea than my silly
1) You can choose to ignore both the fighter and Mass/Cost imbalances if
you wish. That doesn't make them any less real. If you want to play with
fleets that exploit those loopholes, you're welcome to (even if they get
closed in a rules revision). I am unlikely to be playing you, so neither
of us can do more than catcall each other.
2) Restricting combat area in an open space duel is not heretical - it
is arbitrary and ridiculous for the genre, and plays into the hands of wall
crawlers,and ships that protect their rear arcs by sitting on an edge or
corner.
> From Eric Foley:
FB ships can defeat custom designs in a duel; it's been proven.
http://home.pacific.net.au/~southernskies/webgames/guns1/index.htm
Turn 9 is still broken, as I haven't gotten around to fix it yet.
--- "Robertson, Brendan"
> <Brendan.Robertson@dva.gov.au> wrote:
> FB ships can defeat custom designs in a duel; it's
Long range weapons(2C4s,4xC3, one arc), thrust 4, 2 screens, and you have the
honor of persuing, still think you can win? (and this is only one method of
defeating the strange custom design.)
[quoted original message omitted]
[quoted original message omitted]
From: "Eric Foley" <stiltman@teleport.com>
> What fact is in dispute here? If you've got 30 fighter groups and
If you've got net 100 mass of weapons (as 100 scatterguns implies) with
20 PDS you've got 80 mass of other weapons to balance non-fighter
opponents. If you've got 100 scatterguns you've got little else. Apples and
Oranges. Generalized vs. specialized.
> In stating my general principle of what's wrong with FB1 ships, I made
> no
You did eventually say this, though not as plainly as just now. I have no
problem with this opinion, even if I don't agree with it. In your percentage,
you give drives short shrift for their combat benefits. They
are not offensive systems, but they significantly effect combat
capabilities. Others will opine that Hull/Armor/Screens are less a
detractor than you hold.
> You just
I did not make that assumption. I saw that the thrust 2 of Ship X gave it a
weakness exploitable by FB1 ships you claimed it superior to.
> I merely gave the one example and you assumed from that, that I was
I may have made that assumption, with Ship X as you presented it. I stand
corrected.
> [The mass/cost adjustment] compensates for the known problem in
Feh.
The Mass/Cost imbalance applies everywhere. Even _within_ FB1 taking
SDNs vs. equivalent points of Frigates. It is a problemm with the entire
costing system: Between FB1 vs. custom, between custom vs. custom, and FB1 vs.
FB1. It's broken everywhere you take large ships vs. small
ships in the one-off duel setting.
> After all, a carrier platform isn't really intended to
Tha is a universal maxim? I don't think so.
> In
Only if the correction goes too far, in which case it's broken the other
way. From what I've heard regarding tests of this fix, this has not been
the case.
> And I _really_ disagree with your assessment that there's no mass-12
[Snip next strawman]
My 5 second analysis may have been wrong, granted. 'Course a 400 mass behemoth
with a bunch of Long range Pulsers & plasma bolts would be
interesting to take against the swarm. The Mass/Cost fix does make
Uberdreadnoughts increasingly inefficient (since the unity cost adjustment is
100 mass). I don't consider that a bad thing, but if someone wanted a
different unity point (say 200 or 400 mass) for their
game setting, that'd be fine. THey would probably have very few 20-40 or
so mass ships in their setting. Given the scale of the FB1 game, where the
biggest ship is less than 300 Mass, and it's a carrier, the
as-written Mass/Cost fix gives a reason to take a fleet of FFs and DDs
against a Battlecruiser group.
> After all, in a real war
This is why the fix may not be needed in a campaign setting. I was not talking
about a campaign setting.
As for the fixed table, maybe your group has trained itself to fly and fight
constrained in a box. Good for you all. Maybe you can try a
space-sim next. ;-)
> --- Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:
> > FB ships can defeat custom designs in a duel; it's
http://home.pacific.net.au/~southernskies/webgames/guns1/index.htm
> Er... not to put too fine a point on it, I wouldn't
------
Then you should put the battle in perspective, the 'Trial by Combat' is a
commerce raider vs a ESU SDN with an additional type 4 beam in place of
the hanger bay/fighters. If the TbC was used in its
proper operational venue, it would play merry he** with the defender!
> "Trial By Combat" makes
[quoted original message omitted]
[quoted original message omitted]
From: "Eric Foley" <stiltman@teleport.com>
> > > In stating my general principle of what's wrong with FB1 ships, I
They
> > are not offensive systems, but they significantly effect combat
From: "Eric Foley" <stiltman@teleport.com>
> Okay. So let me see if I'm understanding your interpretation of what
I frankly didn't know what to assume, since you compared 20 PDS to 100
scatterguns vs. 20 fighter groups free of any other context. I can't
read your mind, so I really don't know whether you're pulling things out
of the air or have specific (or even general) ship models in mind.
> This, from the guy who hasn't yet let a specific example I've given in
> this
I've labeled 2 examples IIRC as strawmen, because that's what they were.
When you generalized Ship X into the "50%+ weapon mass" ship doctrine
and criticised the 25-35% of FB1 fleets, I said: " I have no problem
with this opinion, even if I don't agree with it."
> No offense, but this comment is drivel.
Though that comment is offensive, I take none.
> Hull, armor, and screens are useful to a point. But let me illustrate
> what
> Take the ship that was present in the example Brendan gave me.... it
> off
Are you talking about "Trial by Combat"? You can certainly choose to sacrifice
hull or drive or screens for more firepower, but then you'd have to change
your tactics as well. If you give up screens you give take 16.7% more damage
from opponent's beams for each level you give up,
so you have to judge whether the 11 mass will get you that back. Drive and
hull tradeoffs are less quantifiable and depend much more on how you
fly. Some players work better at high thrust.
> Total firepower isn't everything, but it's a factor you can't ignore.
> It
Are class 2 beams "short range"? Is 1xclass 3-360 beam (at 9 Mass)
superior to 4.5xclass 2-180's? or even 3xClass 2-360 or 9xClass 1's if
the "fast" ship can close to their optimum range quickly? How much firepower
is the fast ship willing to sacrifice to get to a superior range safely? I
think these are all legitimate tradeoffs, and that the balance point is in a
different place than you think it is. Our experiences are obviously different.
> Feh.
small
> ships in the one-off duel setting.
> Everywhere... except for against mass 12 soap bubble carriers, ...
Which exploits the fighter imbalance, which is bigger for massed
fighters than the Mass/Cost imbalance.
> and submunition bombs as two clearly demonstrated examples...
I'm still not sure about that. It's certainly not "clearly demosntrated",
You've not convinced me, for example that a heavy PBL ship (Say 14 Class 2's,
with a double handful of 360 pulsers couldn't do
some heavy chewing. This is also specialist vs. specialist.
> and, I'm sure, against many
SImply calling it "cheating" is proof by assertion. The numbers
disagree. As already said, since the "unity" point with the Mass/Cost
fix is 100 mass, the larger the ship gets, the more the small ships benefit.
And, as already implied, I probably wouldn't argue for the "100
mass unity" fix if your median ship mass is much over 100. It so happens
that FB1 ships look best served with tis fix. A universe that had Mass
400 uberdreadnoughts vs. Submunition bombs or soap-bubble carriers would
probably need a different balance point.
> After all, a carrier platform isn't really intended to face a
Qualified that way, OK. Are all carriers un- or lightly armed?
> In fact, just about any ship whose tactical role doesn't involve a
I suppose that if all that matters to "win" is to have one ship with one
hull box left while your opponent has none, this is reasonable.
> Only if the correction goes too far, in which case it's broken the
> So even though I've given you two unambiguous examples where
Given that 1) your examples are not unambiguous, and 2) Where the cost goes
far afield from the unity factor of the correction it is unbalenced
in the other direction, no. I will happily accede that Mass 400 vs Mass 12
ships may be ill served by a unity factor of 100 mass. If these are the
dominant classes in the universe, a unity factor of ~200 or so Mass is
probably better, but I haven't played vs. Uberships enough to have a truly
qualified opinion.
> And I _really_ disagree with your assessment that there's no mass-12
I'd give good odds on a PBL/Pulser combo with Thrust 6. If I can keep
the range to the bulk of the force between 12 and 36" for 4-5 turns, the
Submunition swarm is toast. Same might even be true for a Mass 200 ship
with a similar mix, by the way, for 10-12 turns.
> [Snip next strawman]
> These two lines are mutually exclusive.
No, they are merely out of order. My possibly erroneous analysis claimed
"all this [Soap bubbles vs. uberDN] does is indicate that the fighter
imbalance is greater in magnitude than the Mass/Cost imbalance...and a
400 Mass Ubership will lay waste to an equivalent (unmodified) cost of any
other Mass 12 ships hands down."
I stand by the first part (fighter imbalance of large swarms is more
significant than Mass/Cost imbalance).
THe second part (400 mass ubership vs. 12 mass small ship swarm without
Mass/Cost modification) _may_ be wrong, but I don't know. My strawman of
the Pulser/PBL/Thrust 6 UberDN vs. 29 MKP bombs looks favorable for the
Phalon to me.
I skipped your next strawman because it also failed to illustrate your point.
> Doesn't say much for your powers of logic.
Well, my editing skills, perhaps.
> Neither does your attitude that every specific example that blows an
If your specific examples actually did this, I might be inclined to agree.
Since they do not, I do not.
> 'Course a 400 mass
> Plasma bolts are not a serious option for a mass 400 ship against the
> total
> to
This strawman (yes, it is) assumes I would rather sit still and have you
come to me with your concentrated firepower. Pretty 1-D. With my
strawman (freely admitted) - Thrust 6 UberDN, - I can keep the range
open and pock you with long range pulser fire, forcing you to expend
Scatterguns every turn while I alternate PBLs My success will be determined by
how well I can dance with the swarm.
> The longer range pulser option is possibly workable, but installing 60
Nope. GIve me 12 pulsers (and 12 firecons). If I can keep the range "open"
(i.e. greater than 12 but less than 36", which is a pretty big envelope) for
~5 turns (maybe less) I'll be just fine.
> As for the fixed table, maybe your group has trained itself to fly
> I'm sorry, but I simply do not subscribe to the reasoning that only an
> open
It does seem to explain, however, why you didn't think of two Thrust 6
fleets engaging in a multi-turn battle with potentially high speed and
intense maneuver.
> I play as an extension of my imagination
Then your play begs for a series of Genre-specific rules depending on
the cinematic/TV feel you are trying to recreate. I would opine that
even so none of them require a wall in space.
> An open table is not necessary to that end, and the only major tactic
> a common theme in any form of science fiction that I enjoy nor is
If "endless runaway" were indeed the only new tactic introduced by a floating
table, you might be right. It is not.
> For that matter, I don't accept that this would be a particularly
> on
This "example" attempts to change the fundamental nature of the
discussion from a one-off ship duel in open space to an objective-based
campaign setting. As applies to the former case and its examination of balance
of the system, it is hot air.
> --- Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:
> Okay, I can begin to see that rationale for it. The
It is the classic battlecruiser concept, able to outrun anything that can hurt
it and able to destroy anything that can catch it.
I can agree that in a 'one of' game this design is
not the best, but in a planned series/campaign
based stratigic game, it would be a royal pain by absorbing an astounding
amount of time and ships to hunt it down and kill it.
Bye for now,
[quoted original message omitted]
> ----- Original Message -----
In my eyes, if the ships had been used as designed then they'd not have met
such a dreadful end. They weren't supposed to engage big heavy ships. They
were supposed to run from them. They were meant to
act as anti-cruiser vessels. Its not unlike throwing cruisers into
the battle line and wondering why they don't work or using an armored car
regiment to act as a main line of resistance in a land battle. Certain weapons
must be used for their main function.
> Now, it _is_ true that I have been accused (probably deservedly) of
> --- Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:
... Both instances were quite catastrophic
> for the battlecruisers in question.
-----
Agreed, but more was involved than just speed.
> Now, it _is_ true that I have been accused (probably