Free Orange Republic Ships

4 posts ยท Oct 28 1999 to Oct 29 1999

From: Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@t...>

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 20:15:07 +0100

Subject: Re: Free Orange Republic Ships

Aaron wrote in reply to Nik:

> > The Carriers in question have already

I think the idea is that with 17 fighter squadrons and a bunch of escorts
between you and the enemy, and a thrust rating of 6 to run away
with, you're not supposed to be shot at :-)

> >>My opponents rapidly learned to spread their salvoes even >against

> >are guided in.

Well... I can't easily *outrun* MT missiles in Vector - I have to dodge
in behind them instead, and they can't turn around before they run out of
endurance. In cinematic, well... about the only time I wouldn't be able to
outrun an MT missile is when my ships have already taken engine damage (and
therefore has a thrust rating of 3 or less).

> (In fact, he may be able to outrun the 24"/turn FB fighters, but

Those secondary moves make it tricky, particularly if the opponents use
Fast FB fighters (primary move 36 mu/turn) <g> We have adopted a
"remora move" to remove the "fighters left behind" problem, though  -
same movement rules as for a fighter screen, only the fighters form up around
an enemy ship they attacked last turn.

> Moving at speeds like that changes the game fairly dramatically.

Particularly in Cinematic :-/

> And using cms, you can move pretty fast even in

Even in a head-on clash the fleets tend to be in range of one another
for 2-3 turns... quite often that's enough to decide the battle .-/ Of
course, high thrust ratings also help <G>

Best wishes,

From: Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@t...>

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 21:39:08 +0100

Subject: Re: Free Orange Republic Ships

> Nik wrote:

> Firstly everything I say is not thought out or even thought about.

"Always check brain is connected before mouth is engaged", no? <g>

> Secondly the ships that we are talking about are about two mouths

<G>

> The Carriers in question have already
hull, moved up to thrust 6, and increased their fighter complement by
> close to 100% (17 groups on the CVA)

Including a fairly large Mass increase, too. That TMF 307+ CVA must be
a pretty impressive model <g>

> >and they

So the next turn you either don't run, or don't fire (or, if you're
really lucky, don't have any targets - but don't count on that). OK,
you only wasted on average half of the weapon Mass (or wasted all of it
half of the time) :-/

> >My opponents rapidly learned to spread their salvoes even >against

MT missiles using the MT missile movement rules usually don't hit very well at
the speeds we tend to fly at. See my reply to Aaron for more comments on this.

> >Escorting merchants, yes... maybe. Providing fighter groups for

As long as the battle is context-less (eg, no-one asks "how did that DD
force get close to the thrust-4 convoy while lugging a thrust-2 carrier
around?" :-/ ), certainly :-)

> In

Works, as long as no-one gets too close to the carrier. Such a carrier
would be a primary target for any opponent, and without armour it goes pop
very fast.

> >Assumption? She told me she'd forward my original comments to

> The logics not quite right there but I can't be bothered

The logic is as follows: Beth said that she'd forward my post to you, since
you weren't on the list at the time (according to her, at least). Since I
didn't know that you had since joined this list, I asked her if you had
replied to my comments. No need to "assume that Beth should just happen to
know me because you both live in the same state". All I needed to assume was
that she had in fact done what she had said she would do. What is illogical
with this?

Of course, the statement on your web page that you're a "convert to Full
Thrust thanks to Derek and Beth" is a fairly strong indication that you
actually do know one another <g>

Regards,

From: Laserlight <laserlight@q...>

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 17:51:08 -0400

Subject: Re: Free Orange Republic Ships

> Well... I can't easily *outrun* MT missiles in Vector - I

And how do you work MT missiles in Vector? My take would be
24MU/turn for 2 turns, plus one 6MU "secondary movement" per
fighters.

While we're discussing missiles and movement, what happens if you launch your
salvo missiles and wind up as the closest object to your aiming point? Do your
missiles have IFF? Or do your colleagues chuckle at your memorial service?

From: Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@t...>

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 06:58:55 +0100

Subject: Re: Free Orange Republic Ships

> Laserlight wrote:

> >Well... I can't easily *outrun* MT missiles in Vector - I

So far we've mainly used the MT movement rules rather than giving them
fighter movement - the reason being that "MT missiles doesn't use
fighter movement in MT, so why should they do so in FB" :-/ The main
variant has been to up their speed to 36 without changing their turning
abilities; the only effect of that was to make it easier for them to overshoot
<g>

> While we're discussing missiles and movement, what happens

Quoting FB, p.9, first paragraf: "...if at the END of movement there is an
enemy ship within 6" of the marker (in any direction) then the missiles will
attack it; if there is more than one potential enemy target within 6", then
the salvo will go for the CLOSER of them."

I don't consider my own ships to be "enemy", but the IF might do so at
times ;-)

Later,