From: Beth Fulton <beth.fulton@m...>
Date: Tue, 06 Jul 1999 10:01:14 +1000
Subject: [FT] Fragile Carriers (was Re: Fw: Carriers and other updates)
G'day guys, First up Keith said: > The fighters are obviously the main punch, If you roll like me it does;) However if you roll as the law of large numbers would have it then SMs do seem to just edge out fighter damage if done sensibly and you've got a good eye (i.e. you get a heap in the right spot and the roll reasonably for the number going in). The killer combination though, is if you use them together so they overwhelm the enemy PDS, when I play FSE this has become close to my sole tactic in many games as I've really only got two or three mass salvos (i.e. every ship that can launches simultaneously) before I leave the board so I have to make them REALLY count. > Beth's philosophy (correct me if I'm wrong Beth!) is that if That was pretty much my attitude, though they can take a (little) bit of damage simply because they've got a reasonably large total mass in the first place. If the opposition gets to my carrier then the rest of my fleet must be cactus already [or will be when command gets hold of them;)]. Though keep in mind this comes from someone who really only plays vector movement, thinking about it last night I did realise that the use of fragile carriers would be less 'safe' under cinematic were you can just whip around the board at high speed without the fear of having to spend 8 turns plotting moves around the kitchen (room beside gaming room) before you can claw your way back onto the board. > I have to say though, the sight of 100-plus fighters There's a guy here who plays an 'anime' fleet, all wave guns and mech fighters (more expensive than standard fighter and three of them count as an offensive factor for boarding action purposes), so anti-fighter tactics (especially having enough fighters to match him, the screen that Keith mentioned) have become essential - otherwise you get you butt VERY painfully kicked. Though I haven't tried mines yet, do they effect fighters too? I'll have to check. Another thought, while I'm processing my neurons' spasms out loud, has any one tried a game where they played out a long range (off board) carrier strike, where x pts of fighters flew on the board vs x pts of ships? Then Michael asked: > This might not work in a campaign setting. I haven't played a campaign with my fragile carrier fleet yet, but I have starting playing one using the FSE (vs Derek's NSL) and straight up the impact of the FSE design was evident as I had to have at least two or three times as many Fleet Auxilaries as Derek just to keep me topped up (which meant we had to bump up the fleet sizes a bit so I still had a halfway decent fighting force). We haven't got so far into the campaign yet that my demand has out-striped supply, but I guess it could be on the cards - especially if Derek finds a way of blockading me in so I can't get to the FTL boundary if extras brought in by reinforcements end up being my only option. Cheers Beth