Took us a while longer than expected to finish this battle - first my
opponents got double-booked, and then I was abroad this week :-( (Due
to the trip abroad I still haven't finished going through the recent
PDS... discussion, but I haven't forgotten it either :-/ ) Anyway.
The battle featured the Dreadplanet Roberts Mk.1 (ie. with needle beams
- not that it would've mattered much if they had been B1s instead) for
5000 pts against an FB2 KV fleet consisting of 17 Si'Tek escort cruisers and 1
Ko'Tek strike cruiser (5001 pts).
We tried to adhere as closely as possible to Stiltman's house rules as posted
on May 30th and onwards, particularly for the fighters.The playing area was
100*100 mu, with fixed edges, and measured in inches rather than the standard
(for us, that is) cm. We did however decide not to use the "fleet must
withdraw after taking 50% losses" rule, since applying it to the number of
ships would've penalised the KV only and applying it to the hull boxes
would've given the victory to the KV
pretty easily (and besides Stiltman's own reports from his DPR/KV
battle suggested that it should be applied to the number of ships rather than
the hull boxes).
The fleets deployed 15mu from their respective table edges, almost
directly opposing each other - the DPR on the exact middle of the edge,
the KV a few mu offset in a very tight formation. KV starting speed was 10;
the DPR started at speed 3 (again because Stiltman wrote that he'd done so in
his battle). The first six turns saw the DPR launching its full brood of
fighters and slowly crawling further onto the table, while the KV flew in a
slowly expanding circle and built up their speed to 34 (which BTW is the first
time in several years I've seen my opponent fly that fast, and the first time
ever I've seen him do it on such a small and fixed gaming area). The DPR
braked to a standstill
31mu from the "table edge" (unintentional - I had planned to move at
least 40mu from the edge to avoid taking unfair advantage of said edge, but
the KV began their attack run some turns early and I didn't dare moving
further since it'd give them much too much time to move into my weak arcs).
The KV movement on turns 5 and 6 forced me to start lobbing
4 PBs per turn onto their potential attack positions - they could've
struck at either of those turns had they wanted to.
On turn 7 the KV were forced to attack or run off the table due to their own
impatience. Only 3 PBs were able to meet them (they moved into what was my
(AP) arc at the start of the turn, and one of the port PBLs had fired on the
previous turn), but the DPR turned to face the onslaught. The fighters moved
away to avoid being gunned down early on (the scattergun rule suggests that
scatterguns may be able to attack fighters within 6mu whether or not they
actually do attack, but I couldn't remember, nor find my playtest notes to
check, whether or not that was intended). The scatterguns reduced the PBLs to
a single strength point in total, and the DPR's beams narrowly failed to kill
their targets (the B3s reduced one Si'Tek to 1 hull box while the needle beams
inflicted 5 damage points and destroyed 1 FCS on another Si'Tek (rolling 5
sixes on 8 dice against one FCS, then rolling 4 ones and three threes on 7
dice against the other... ARGH!). The rest of the KV ships were only lightly
scratched by the plasma bolt (total damage on all KV ships this turn,
including that from the DPR's beams, was 77
points), and hit back *hard* - 146 damage points, taking the DPR
through the first threshold check and halfway to the second (ouch!).
On the next turn (8), I expected the KV to overfly the DPR - they were
moving at speed 36 by now, so they'd almost be able to get outside the
range of my beams if they went to full thrust - so I turned around to
face where I thought they would end up. To be on the safe side I also
dropped a PB barrage where they would end up if they did a 180-degree
turn. Unfortunately they did neither; instead they made a *150*-degree
turn and ended up in my (AP) arc again... with the nearest ship at range 37mu.
This was a *very* serious mistake on my part, since it allowed the KV to move
an attack position in the middle of my blind
spot on turn 9 - ie., my blind spot at the *start* of turn 9, right
where I couldn't launch a single plasma bolt >:-( I could and did turn
to fire my beams at them, but since they ended up at range 13-18 my
needles were all useless. Again the fighters stayed out of it (the KV
had some 70+ scatterguns left), and the DPR took another 90 points of
damage, pushing it halfway to the third threshold. It did manage to destroy
the two crippled Si'Teks, but the threshold rolls were unkind: the least
useful systems (fighter bays and PDSs) took virtually no damage, but it lost
its engines, six B3 batteries, a PBL, 10 (!) FCSs and its life support.
Fortunately the KV didn't press the attack but
broke off again, this time to circle around my starboard side - they
didn't know that I'd just lost my engines, and neither of us could know how
long it'd take me to get the!"#¤#" things back into operation!
It took the Kra'Vak three turns to reach an attack position of their liking
(sort of, at least). The DPR *still* hadn't managed to repair its engines
(though most other systems were back up), but the Kra'Vak were met by 3 PBs
(though unfortunately only 1 was on target, the other
two - from the FP/F/FS-arc PBLs - both missed narrowly) and all the
fighters. Yes, I fully well knew that the KV still had some 70+
scatterguns, but I simply didn't dare to wait for the KV to expend them on my
plasma bolts. If I had waited for that, I would've ran out of DPR
long before the KV ran out of scatterguns :-( Only 10 of the KV ships
could fire their main guns at me, and the fighters attacked the four closest
ones (the only ones within 12mu). Scatterguns tore down the PBL and together
with some K1s killed 195 fighters (OUCH!), but the surviving fighters
destroyed one Si'Tek outright and crippled another
two badly (and scratched the back of the fourth - but with only 3
fighters surviving to attack it, it was a very shallow scratch indeed). The
DPR only had 2 beam batteries to follow up the fighter strike with, but
polished off one of the two cripples. KV return fire pushed the DPR past its
third threshold, but their scatterguns were badly depleted and I was
profoundly grateful for those 12 K3s which were out of arc! If the KV could
get just one more successful attack run the DPR would most likely be dead, but
with only 11 scatterguns left against my PBLs and (few) remaining fighters
it'd be touch and go... particularly since the DPR finally managed to repair
its sublight engines.
The KV once again turned away, as usual followed by plasma barrages on their
potential attack positions. This time however they split up into two groups,
so when the attack finally hit home (on turn 16) they had *three* possible
attack positions. This spread my PBs rather thin; one KV group (which ended
its attack run between 0.5 and 3mu away from the DPR, directly in front of it)
was hit by two PBs while the other (~12mu away) was hit by one PB and the
remaining fighters. The last scatterguns fired along with some of the K1s,
reducing each plasma barrage to 2 points (the group closest to the DPR managed
to tear down 6 points of plasma with 5 scatterguns, which annoyed me quite a
bit) and killed another 25 fighters. Of the "close group" the Ko'Tek lost its
bridge to the plasma bolt and the other ships were more or less badly crippled
as well, while the "far group" lost one ship to the fighters and had the rest
take at least one threshold each. The DPR had won the initiative and fired
first, and since I didn't know how that the Ko'Tek had just lost its bridge
and I wanted to get rid of as many K3s as possible I killed it and reduced one
of the near Si'Teks to 3
hull boxes. The few remaining needle beams (5 left by this time - they
had had rather low priority for the DCPs) targetted FCSs, but didn't manage to
blind any of their target ships.
Time for the KV return fire. The DPR had only 72 hull boxes left, but the KV
had lost quite a few weapons in threshold checks... and they only inflicted 73
points of damage. The DPR was dead. The KV were
flying at speed 36-37, so accellerated as hard as possible to outrun
the fighters and escape - without their carrier the remaining fighters
would soon be dead anyway.
Kra'Vak losses were 5 Si'Teks and 1 Ko'Tek destroyed, with 5 Si'Teks having
taken 2 thresholds and the remaining 7 suffering 1 threshold check each. Had
they been forced to make a fifth attack run, they would've suffered badly from
PBs; they would have been unable to make a sixth attack on the DPR.
Comments:
* The KV flew at speed 30-40 throughout most of the battle (except for
the first six turns when they were accellerating!), and had no problems
staying on the fairly small, fixed playing area or indeed to end up almost
exactly where they wanted. While they were close to the edges at
the mid-points of their moves on several occasions, they never *ended*
any of their moves less than 10mu away from the edges. (I must admit being
impressed by this; while I often fly this fast myself my
opponents very rarely do so even on larger and/or floating tables.
Perhaps they're finally beginning to see the joy of being a Speed
Freak... no, no, don't worry - so far I don't have any bright red ships
<G>).
* The DPR took unintentional but still advantage of the table edge by
stopping where it did (cutting off a 60-degree arc). This limited the
KV's maneuver choices quite a bit, and made my job of pointing the DPR
in the right direction a lot easier - which didn't prevent that...
* The DPR made a serious mistake with its 180-degree turn on game turn
8, effectively giving the KV one "free" attack run with no PBLs to
worry about :-( OTOH it would have been just as disastrous if I had
expected them to turn as they did and they had instead overflown me... I had a
50% chance to get it right, and I didn't. If the DPR had been sitting in the
middle of the "table" (as I had originally planned) instead of within its
weapon range of one edge I would've faced this type of choice rather more
often than I actually did. Of course, this mistake wasn't that much worse than
when...
* The KV slightly misjudged their attack run on turn 12, and had 6 ships point
a total of 12 K3s a fraction of an mu to the side of the
DPR. Had they been flying 1 mu/turn slower (ie., speed 35 rather than
36), the DPR would've taken an additional 40-45 points of damage during
the 3rd KV attack <shudder>
* The DPR's inability to repair its engines on turns 9-11 was
irritating, but the KV didn't really take advantage of it. Losing the life
support was a lot scarier (but was repaired much sooner), and I was *very*
glad that it wasn't the power core or bridge that got hit!
* The fighters attacked too late due to my attempt to wear the KV's
scatterguns down with PBs first. As it was they took horrible losses from
scattergun fire when they finally did attack, but they would've been no worse
mauled had they attacked during the second KV attack run instead of the
third... and they would probably have reduced the early
damage to the DPR by some 20-30 points. Ah well.
All in all it turned out to be a very close fight, and one which could fairly
easily have gone the other way (or at least cost the KV
considerably more). I'd expect custom-designed anti-DPR Kra'Vak ships
(considerably fewer but much sturdier (reducing the PB hazard), and with
somewhat more scatterguns) to do a bit better than the
published/"official" designs, though :-/
Later,
> The battle featured the Dreadplanet Roberts Mk.1 (ie. with needle
> * The KV flew at speed 30-40 throughout most of the battle (except for
Yeah, my test with my wife involved ships with only thrust 3 rather than
thrust 6, albeit with far more scatterguns than usual and class 5 K's rather
than class 3's.
> * The fighters attacked too late due to my attempt to wear the KV's
My own tactic probably would've been to put the PBs in greater concentration
and take the gamble. Yes, it probably would've meant that I would've cleanly
missed a fair amount but it also would've meant that one good hit would've
decided the battle (by reducing scattergun count to ineffectually low levels).
> All in all it turned out to be a very close fight, and one which could
Most likely...
> stiltman@teleport.com wrote:
> The battle featured the Dreadplanet Roberts Mk.1 (ie. with needle
Thrust-3A explains why she didn't attempt to maneuver. My main problem
was that I constantly had to choose between aiming my beams where the KV would
be if they decided to attack *this* turn, or pointing my PBLs
where the KV would be if they decided to attack on the *next* turn -
and thrust-3A ships wouldn't have given me this particular headache.
OTOH
You earlier wrote that your wife was going to have 90-100 scatterguns
(IIRC 96; can go back and check if you like). My opponent had 87 with
published ships - selected ships to be sure, but selected primarily for
their thrust-6 engines and K3 armament. OK, he *could* have taken more
Ko'Teks, but they're the the FB2 design which would've given him the
*lowest* number of scatterguns possible (37 in a 4994-point fleet, the
last one carried on a Lu'Dak scout) which made the Ko'Teks look like a
generally bad idea :-/
Why did she use K5s, BTW (ie., why did you give her K5s, since IIRC you
designed her ships)? K5s have several advantages over K3s: being easier to
repair due to being only about half as many for a given mass (and thus a given
number of DCPs), being better able to hurt ships with
heavy or multiple-layer armour, and the psychological impact of ripping
an entire hull row off a cruiser or light capital with a single hit.
However, none of these apply against the DPR - the two last ones
because the isn't heavily armoured and have 90 boxes in each hull row, and the
first is mostly negated since the KV can take any amount of time they like for
repairs between their attack runs... all that remains is the *K3*'s advantage
of a higher damage:Mass ratio <shrug>
> * The fighters attacked too late due to my attempt to wear the KV's
This has been tried but found wanting. In our group the standard KV response
to such a gamble is to wait until the PBLs fire a heavy barrage, then attack
on the next turn when they know that most of the PBLs are recharging... that
way they don't have to burn very many
scatterguns :-/ This KV tactic is reasonably effective against moving
PBL ships; against a stationary target it is trivial if the KV engines
are thrust-4A or better. I haven't tried it with thrust-3A or weaker
engines, but I suspect such slow will have problems.
The fact that I took advantage of the fixed table edge (stopping 31mu
away from it instead of 40-50 mu away as I had planned) would've
hampered this potential KV tactic, but, well... I didn't actually intend to
hug the table edge, and my opponents *could* have invoked
your suggested "fuzzy edge" ruling where ships accused of edge-hugging
can be declared "off-table" and thus removed :-/
Regards,
> stiltman@teleport.com wrote:
> >> * The KV flew at speed 30-40 throughout most of the battle (except
> >Yeah, my test with my wife involved ships with only thrust 3 rather
> Thrust-3A explains why she didn't attempt to maneuver. My main problem
Would it really make that much difference? From the way you're describing the
tactics involved, this basically means that they threw a high speed
wide-range flanking move and cut in to strike from time to time. I'm
not sure whether Thrust 6A and Thrust 3A would really make that much
difference unless they were circling past you and doubling back a lot.
> You earlier wrote that your wife was going to have 90-100 scatterguns
She had 95. Close enough not to bother quibbling.:)
> Why did she use K5s, BTW (ie., why did you give her K5s, since IIRC
The reason I picked the K5 was pretty simple (and, possibly, hasty): it's the
best damage:mass ratio gun that needs anything but a 6 to inflict double
damage. Perhaps I didn't look at all the math quite right and the K3 actually
winds up doing more damage:mass ratio overall than the K5.
Let me see... K3's are mass 5, right? So it's 11 K3's to 5 K5's... K5's are
going to do 45.8333 damage (40.8333 on hull) if they all were to hit on
average, the K3's would do 49.5 (38.5 on hull). So if you had an unarmored
ship, the K3 would probably do a bit more damage, whereas if the enemy was
armored, the K5 would be better.
I'd be more inclined to go with the K5 overall. There's a lot of different
equations one can draw up here for mass to damage ratios depending on whether
the target's armored, not armored, screened, not screened, etc...
K5 K3 Pulse torps (1 arc)
Mass 11 5 4
Avg. Dmg/Hit 9.1666 4.5 3.5
(per mass) 0.8333 0.9 0.875 (per cost) 0.2083 0.225 0.2916
Avg. Dmg/Hit (Hull) 8.1666 3.5 1.5
(per mass) 0.7424 0.7 0.375 (per cost) 0.1856 0.175 0.125
SML (3 mag) SMR PBL-1
Mass 9 4 5
Avg. Dmg/Hit 10.5 10.5 3.5
(per mass) 1.1666 2.625 0.7 (x #targets) (per cost) 0.3888 0.875 0.2333 (x
#targets)
Avg. Dmg/Hit (Hull) 4.5 4.5 ???
(per mass) 0.5 1.125??? (per cost) 0.1666 0.375???
All of this math is just for the stuff that actually pierces screens... if you
want to assume that we _don't_ have to worry about screens B2's start
looking halfway good at most ranges that the above weapons cover, too.
(Apologies if your mail reader handles tabs in a way more ugly than mine)
> >My own tactic probably would've been to put the PBs in greater
> This has been tried but found wanting. In our group the standard KV
I've thought of that. Either all-at-once or half-and-half-continuous,
either way keeping a fair amount of concentration. Most likely the latter if
they
had a _lot_ of maneuverability (as in this case). It wouldn't be a
situation
where you'd necessarily decide the battle on _one_ hit (though 16 dice
of plasma can still reduce a lot of scatterguns) but you could keep the heat
up enough that they'd have to dance a lot and, after two hits, you could
probably attack pretty much at will with your fighters.
> The fact that I took advantage of the fixed table edge (stopping 31mu
It depends on how much you're hugging it. If you're a solid 30" away from the
edge we wouldn't eject you.:)
> stiltman@teleport.com wrote:
> Yeah, my test with my wife involved ships with only thrust 3
Yes. Using PBs or SMs is all about predicting which movement option the enemy
will choose on both this turn and the turn after that (since you need to turn
your ship in the right direction this turn to hit him where he'll be after the
next turn's movement).
With thrust-3A the KV only have at best one movement option if they
want to go from circling to attacking, and they need to be rather careful in
how they do their circling in order to have even that. Even if you (as the PB
or SM player) fail to predict their single possible attack option correctly,
they're usually too clumsy to take advantage of it by moving to an attack
position in the arc where you can't launch plasma or missiles.
With thrust-6A they have several different options to set up their
attacks, and if you guess the wrong one they're nimble enough to take
advantage of it before you can recover. The downside is of course that
they carry less weapons than the thrust-3A ships, but they're much
better able to avoid your heavy plasma or missile barrages.
> Why did she use K5s, BTW (ie., why did you give her K5s,
It's a gradual changeover, though - the higher the target's armour:hull
ratio, the better the K5 is. The changeover armour:hull ratio, where
the K5 becomes better than the K3, is somewhere in the 1/6 - 1/5 range.
With less armour than that the higher raw damage of the K3 is more important;
with more armour the K5 wins. The armour:hull ratio of the
DPR is roughly 1/33, so in this case the K3 is definitely more
effective :-/
'Course, if the target has Phalon-style multiple-layer armour, the K5
immediately gets better!
> I'd be more inclined to go with the K5 overall. There's a lot of
Indeed. That's the main reason I collect FBx designs - to use them for
weapon evaluation (aka "target practise" <G>). FWIW, of the designs currently
in the archive, about 40% are more vulnerable to the K5 and the other 60% more
vulnerable to the K3.
Comments on the maths more than on the actual numbers:
> K5 K3 PT-1
When you compare systems with different Cost:Mass ratios (eg. K-guns
and p-torps, or beams and Pulsers) the "per cost" comparision also
needs to include the cost of the weapon's proportion of the ship's engines and
the cost of the basic hull structure holding the weapon and
"its" engines. This means that the damage/mass and damage/cost ratios
will depend on what engines you use, and sometimes means that a weapon which
looks superior with one engine configuration is *in*ferior using another.
The "hull" damage values assume single-layer armour. A reasonable
assumption as long as you don't fight Phalons or start using
multi-layer armour in mixed-tech designs, but the numbers change
rapidly when you add armour layers.
> SML (3 mag) SMR PBL-1
SM armour penetration is half (round down) of the *total* damage from
each salvo, not half (round down) for each die, so the Avg.Dmg/Hit
(Hull) is a flat 5. (FB1 p. 9) Not a very significant difference, but it is
there.
Against 2-layer or thicker armour the SMs (and the P-torp above) would
have to destroy all the armour before reaching the hull.
PBLs don't penetrate armour at all; they always have do destroy all armour
boxes before they can damage the hull.
Comparing a single-shot weapon (the SMR) with a multi-shot one is
rather iffy. If you look at the example SML's Mass *per shot*, it is
only 3, not 9 - but this takes neither the SMR's higher chances of
overloading enemy point defences nor its lower vulnerability to threshold
checks into account.
The number of bolts a PBL gets to fire during a battle is undefined,
but is IME 3-4 in normal-length battles. Very long, drawn-out fights
like the DPR/KV one can stretch this to ~5 shots per PBL, but in these
cases the PB hit rate is invariably very low (or else the battles
wouldn't *be* drawn-out! <g>).
> All of this math is just for the stuff that actually pierces
PBLs don't ignore screens; in fact they're even worse at punching through
screens than beams are.
> if you want to assume that we _don't_ have to worry about screens
The B2 looks quite OK compared to P-torps against level-1 screens,
particularly when you take its wider arc of fire into account. The main effect
of the wider arc of fire is to allow the weapon to fire a bit
more often. I'd (hopefully conservatively) estimate this to +20% shots
on average, but it can go from 0 (eg. in hit-and-run attacks like the
KV did in the present battle, where the target either is completely out
of range or else is in the arc of both the single-arc and the 3-arc
weapon) to over +100% extra shots if the targets dance a lot.
Making a meaningful comparison between template weapons like SMs or PBs
and direct-fire weapons is *very* difficult, since there's no good way
to determine the hit probability of the template weapons while those of
the direct-fire weapons are very straight-forward :-(
> (Apologies if your mail reader handles tabs in a way more ugly
The mere fact that it handles them *differently* form yours scrambles
any ASCII table. I'm used to it :-/
> My own tactic probably would've been to put the PBs in
I did the latter, or at least I tried to. The problem was that most of the KV
attacks went into what was my (AS) or (AP) arcs in the PBL
launch phase - the exceptions were the 2nd attack which went into my
(A) arc, and the final attack where the KV had split up and half of them were
almost exactly on the border between my (AS) and (FS) arcs.
With the PBL layout used (2xAP/FP/F, 4xFP/F/FS, 2xF/FS/AS), I simply
couldn't concentrate the barrages the way I wanted because I only had one
launcher which covered the arc the KV would arrive in... on two occasions,
bolts launched at the very edge of their launchers' fire
arcs missed the outer edge of the KV formation by less than an mu :-(
If I had spun "ahead" of the KV to be better able to concentrate the PB
barrages, I'd not only have forfeited my chances of using the needles and far
broadside beams against a KV attack but also given the KV an
free attack run into my "plasma-free" arc. Didn't seem like a very good
idea.
Changing the PBL layout to half AP/FP/F, half F/FS/AS might have worked
better, but that variant gives up all hopes of hitting the KV with more than 2
PBs at a time. Putting all the PBLs in the same arc would create
such a wide "plasma-free" arc that it would've been trivial for the KV
to attack into it :-/
> Most likely the latter if they had a _lot_ of maneuverability (as in
A good KV player with thrust-6A ships can reduce your 16 dice of plasma
per hit to 12 or less, which means that you need at least three plasma hits to
burn enough scatterguns to send the fighters in with a reasonable chance of
success (and that's with the fleet I faced; a few big ships can be a lot more
careless with the PBs than many small ones since they don't take as much
damage in total and can afford to take a
lot more damage individually!). Since the thrust-6A KV only need four
attack runs to destroy the DPR (unless they take heavy damage early on),
holding the fighters back to the fourth attack run is betting on long odds
indeed.
Sending the fighters in *early*, OTOH, means that they'll be chewed up
real bad - but if the KV use enough scatterguns on them to prevent them
from inflicting significant damage on the KV ships, the KV won't have
enough scatterguns left to see them through 3-4 plasma-opposed attack
runs on the DPR; if they hold enough scatterguns back to fend off the PBs, the
fighters will inflict serious damage and reduces the amount of damage each KV
attack inflicts on the DPR (thus increasing the number of attack runs
necessary to kill it). This is of course with your
fighter rules - if the fighter morale rules are in use, the fighters
get chewed up and then most of them are too scared to attack :-/
> The fact that I took advantage of the fixed table edge (stopping
Sorry for the typo. Should be "opponent", not "opponents" :-/
> *could* have invoked your suggested "fuzzy edge" ruling
Sitting 31mu away from the edge cut off a full 60-degree sector where
the KV couldn't circle the DPR without coming into its PBL range and from
which they couldn't attack. This drastically cut down their
ability to dance - not drastically enough to let me win the battle, but
it came close. In my gaming group, using the table edge to cut down enemy
maneuverability in this way is considered abusive, intentional or
not. That's why our own house rules specify floating edges :-/
Regards,
> stiltman@teleport.com wrote:
> >>Thrust-3A explains why she didn't attempt to maneuver. My
> >Would it really make that much difference?
> Yes.
[Analysis granted and snipped... hadn't thought of the delay]
> With thrust-6A they have several different options to set up their
Yeah. So in some ways, we sort of have the dilemma: if you don't know
whether I'm throwing a DPR or a fleet of direct-fire battleships at you,
is a fleet of Kra'Vak escort cruisers really what you're going to want to
throw back at me all the time?
> >>Why did she use K5s, BTW (ie., why did you give her K5s,
> >The reason I picked the K5 was pretty simple (and, possibly,
> >Let me see... K3's are mass 5, right? So it's 11 K3's to 5 K5's...
> It's a gradual changeover, though - the higher the target's
> 'Course, if the target has Phalon-style multiple-layer armour, the K5
Yeah. I hadn't considered the damage:mass ratio of the K3 as opposed to the
K5; my main comparisons were between the K5 and the K6+. Those
comparisons,
it wins. Against both the K3 and the one-arc pulse torp, it loses the
comparison on raw damage:mass and damage:cost ratios, but wins on armor
penetration. The margin of loss in raw damage:mass and what not is small
enough that I'm willing to live with it. I already knew that the tradeoff
existed for pulse torps, though I hadn't realized it was also there with the
K3.
> >I'd be more inclined to go with the K5 overall. There's a lot of
> Indeed. That's the main reason I collect FBx designs - to use them for
If this isn't the same archive as the Registry, is there a URL where I might
get hold of it?:)
[ASCII tables slashed for space]
> When you compare systems with different Cost:Mass ratios (eg. K-guns
To some degree. However, in custom configurations (which is about all that a
number crunching like this is pertinent to) that applies equally to just about
anything.
> The "hull" damage values assume single-layer armour. A reasonable
True... though the advantage to the K5 gets more pronounced in this case, as
you say.
> Making a meaningful comparison between template weapons like SMs or
Agreed. But it's a consideration.
> >>*could* have invoked your suggested "fuzzy edge" ruling
> >It depends on how much you're hugging it. If you're a solid
> Sitting 31mu away from the edge cut off a full 60-degree sector where
*shrug* I guess our circles just don't abuse it, so it's never become a
serious issue. Basically every sort of circling maneuver that ever gets
employed in our games is done by skirmishers armed with needle beams that are
attached to a larger group of capital ships that are not following the same
course. In all but two instances of those tactics being used, the skirmishers
in question have done their maneuverings under cloak, so
in _that_ case, table edges don't become much of a factor: either the
cloaked needlers come out within range or they don't. (We do allow quick
pre-measures of initial ranges for writing out cloaked ships' movement
orders in advance, so going off the table while you're cloaked isn't NORMALLY
an issue.) Moreover, in our games it's often a mild surprise
that you even _have_ the skirmishers until they pop up and say hi.
And in the two instances where those tactics _were_ used without a
cloaking device, it was me throwing a heavy cruiser or battle cruiser at
someone,
flying wide of them at high speed, then cutting a high-G turn to make an
attack run all in one turn. In both cases, the other force was simply well out
into the middle of the board before I made my run, not that it would have
mattered that much, because I wasn't far past them when I'd take my cut in
either time.
The only cases where any of our ships are usually sitting anywhere near an
edge usually have the ships in question armed lightly with only class 1 beams.
(e.g. carriers hanging back from the line of battle.) The edge
isn't a real factor there; if you get any ship-to-ship weapons anywhere
near them, they're in bad shape no matter _which_ direction you come
from.
> Stiltman wrote:
> With thrust-6A they have several different options to set up their
I'd get rather bored flying the same fleet *all* the time <g>
More seriously though: if I'm forced to stick to one single fleet all the
time, and particularly if I have to stick exclusively to the published
designs, the KV cruiser fleet is a quite strong contender for that one fleet.
Its main nemesis is a fleet of highly maneuverable
ships with no screens or armour but lots of B2s or Pulsers (in M/L
configurations), but it is able to put up a very stiff fight against most
other foes.
> [snip] So if you had an unarmored ship, the K3 would probably do a
There is one situation where the K6 actually beats the K5 (by a very slim
margin, but still), namely when the target has 3 or more armour
layers - ie., when you're fighting Phalon capital ships. The
Yu'Kas-class SDN in FB2 was specifically designed for that role (during
the "several low-intensity border wars" between the Dominion and the
Conglomerate mentioned in the Phalon background blurb), but since the
Tuffleyverse human powers don't know this the Yu'Kas text doesn't mention it
<g>
The provision for K7s and bigger is basically there as an explanation why the
Kra'Vak don't use such weapons, though <g> Same as the
provision for 5+ armour layers - at 10+ points per armour box it isn't
very attractive, but it *is* possible if you really want it.
> Against both the K3 and the one-arc pulse torp, it loses the
8% loss vs the K3, 5% vs the P-torp... if your brother-in-law likes
heavy armour, the K5s are definitely better against him. Against most
of your designs described on the list so far the K3 would be better -
the Armour Shrike being the only exception, though no doubt you have other
heavily armoured ships as well that you haven't mentioned yet <g>
> I already knew that the tradeoff existed for pulse torps, though I
It isn't very easy to detect... Pity about the K4 though - it can't do
anything that either the K3 or the K5 can't do better... it should've
been Mass 7.7 rather than 8, but fractional mass values are a no-no in
FT :-/
> I'd be more inclined to go with the K5 overall. There's a lot of
There's no single URL for the entire archive. I spend far too much in front of
the computer anyway, so I've refused to spend even more time
creating and updating a web page :-/ I can't publish all of it anyway,
because it includes a bunch of designs that I've been asked to control for
competitions and similar. Many of the others are available on the
web though; IIRC about 2/3 of the designs come from the following
sites:
http://www.hicom.net/~teske/sfleet/ftfb.html
http://members.xoom.com/gzg_l/ias/ias-ships.txt
http://members.toast.net/chanfaunce/page3.html
http://www.dirtside.freeserve.co.uk/hegaf/shipsrhn.htm
http://www.iac.net/~crawford/hobbies/miniatures/full_thrust/index.html
http://www.homestead.com/star_ranger/starranger.html
(though many of these are conversions from other backgrounds)
http://www.bcpl.net/~indy/full-thrust/full-thrust.html
(BTW, Indy, I'm *still* waiting for those updates to the FSE and UNSC
fleet rosters ;-) )
http://www.angelfire.com/va/basileus/Janes.html
http://www.voicenet.com/~johncrim/Fleet.html
http://home.att.net/~ckseale/ft/ft_index.html
http://www.angelfire.com/va/laserlight/fullthrust.html
http://home.nycap.rr.com/davisje/ft/mano/index.html
http://www.sfcmd.com/fullthrust/fleet.htm
http://www.geocities.com/nathan_rolfe/Shipdesigns.html
http://senate.republic.org/~neal/tba/navy.html#ship_head
http://geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/1582/fleet.html
http://members.xoom.com/gzg_l/ni/NIhome.htm
http://www.innotts.co.uk/~paulradford/ft/ft.html
(under "Campaigns - Narrative - Power Projection")
http://www.geocities.com/jigsaw_man_2000/index.html
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~univ0938/gzg/nl/
http://www.tonyfrancis.free-online.co.uk/brigadeframes.htm
(under Gaming Pages - Full Thrust)
http://rwhofrichter.webprovider.com/index.htm
and some of the more recent additions from
http://hometown.aol.com/gbailey/GBMain.html <g>
and some from Brian Bell's various pages, both the PBeMs and the Registry
itself. Many of the above ships are included in the Registry too, BTW.
> When you compare systems with different Cost:Mass ratios (eg.
K->>guns and p-torps, or beams and Pulsers) the "per cost" comparision
> also needs to include the cost of the weapon's proportion of the
As long as you're aware that the "best weapon" can depend on your own chosen
engines as well as your target, even when the weapons you choose between have
the same range and fire arc <g>
> The "hull" damage values assume single-layer armour. A reasonable
Yep. Though it doesn't stop with the K5s: against 3-4 layers the K6 is
best, if the target has (IIRC) 5 layers the K7 overtakes the K6, etc...
4+ armour layers are extremely expensive, of course, so you won't see
them very often <g>
[On table-hugging]
> It depends on how much you're hugging it. If you're a solid
It's more likely that your circles haven't used PBLs much yet; the
"wait-wait-wait-pounce" is very much an anti-PBL tactic. No ship can
maintain a continous missile barrage for more than a few turns, and
waveguns and direct-fire weapons all fire after movement so a ship
which spins in place can always point them in roughly the right direction, but
when fighting PBLs the KV need to attack from positions
the (majority of) the enemy PBLs can't launch at - and they often need
to wait for a considerable time before they get the opportunity to reach such
a position.
My sitting too close to the wall meant that they *couldn't* wait; the
"safe path" around the DPR was shaped like a horse-shoe instead of a
circle, and whenever the circling KV reached the end of the horse-shoe
they had to either attack at a time not of their choosing, run off the table,
or run into a plasma barrage without being able to shoot back. If the DPR
hadn't been armed with PBLs, the "blocked" sector wouldn't have been a
problem.
Regards,