I've personally come to the conclusion that SML's are either..... pack the
fleet to the gills with them and wipe out the enemy fast or flee trying. My
mixed fleets usually didn't have the sml fire power to over come the enemy's
defenses enough to compensate for the loss of sustainable fire power.
Unfortunately if I raise the sml weapon mixture
beyond about 30-40% of the fleet firepower mix... I start to manage to
seriously disrupt my opponents formation, but don't seem to quite have
enough beam/torp firepower to eliminate the cutoff elements to make up
for the serious loss in sustainable firepower. In fact I seem to do a lot
worse then my all sml fleet when I break the enemy's formation. Anyone, have
similar experiences with sml's? Anyone have any really good
tactics then pick on the slow movers/big targets who's enemy commanders
don't create ships with 12 pds on them?
Dear All
Been lurking for a while, but as my major opponent uses buckets of SMLs
I though I'd comment - perhaps I'll pick up some good ideas to use
against him!
OK back ground - we use the FB rules with vector movement and have a
FLOATING TABLE ie when ships look likely to move off the edge we move
everything on the board a set distance back towrds the middle.
John - my opponent likes the SMLs, however the ships in the FB just
didn't do them justice - I wopped his ass every time. So he re-designed
the ships, dropped the the speeds so they were all 4. The SML armerment stayed
the same, but all the beams became type 3s. Suddenly thigs were a lot more
even. Players can not afford to prat around and evade at the 24" mark (no fake
"end runs") as they will get hammered by the Type 3 beams, there is no option
but to charge through. (OK you could design a fleet with no SMLs and just type
3's to counter it but it would be at a disadvantage against other fleet types)
To enhance this tactic John has some "Auxilery Carriers" with one or two
fighter squadrons on and one or two type 3 beams so they can snipe. They have
thrust 2 and hulls made of tin foil so they need to hide behind his main
force. The combination of fighters with SMLs is very unpleasant further
diluting the defenders point defences. Moreover the fighters can strike beyond
the 24" range of the SMLs putting further pressure on an opponent to get close
(thus pass in to SML range)
____
My response embodied in my Peoples Republic of Mars fleet was to build Thrust
6 ships so as to be at the mercy of his long range fire power for
the shortest time. The big ships all have 6+ PDS with an area fire
control so they can cover each other, and there only beams are type 1. They
have a big battery of Torps for crunching the enemy ships.A type 1 screen
mitigates his type 3 beams
Using a judicious side thrust of 3 you can usually avoid some of the SMLs.
Make sure all your ships are within 6" of each other so they can cover each
other.
Tactially you want a high speed approach, use the highest starting speed ypur
opponent will let you have. Get within 12" the torps and Class 1 give you a
massive fire power superiority. Try to slow down as you get close. Pass
through the enemy fleet. This is a delicate manouver and you may find your
torps don't bare but probably neither will his type 3 or SML and you have the
class 1 batteries. On the other side you will need to slow down which means
you are still thrusting towards the enemy so your torps face him. However as
the SMLs are placed before movement, the turn after the pass through the
enemies SML are facing the opposite direction to you ships so can't fire!
Has anyone had any luck with designing dedicated AEGIS ships? I have yet to
play a game with the Fleet Book rules (and probably won't make it
to the Lancaster GZGcon, despite being less than an hour away--not that
I'm bitter or anything), but it's an idea that I have been toying with.
Take a Heavy Cruiser, give it Level 2 Screens, a heavy hull, some armor,
and a whole bunch of PDS with an AD firecon. Maybe throw on a few missile
packs (the short range, one shot thingies that I cannot remember
the name of at the moment) as an added bonus. It wouldn't be worth much
on its own, but a few of them might provide a nice umbrella for a fleet.
> Bob Mackenzie wrote:
> I've personally come to the conclusion that SML's are either..... pack
I use either mostly SMLs or None At All. You'll notice if you hop over to my
FTFB design page (Gratuitous Home Page Ad:
http://www.angelfire.com/va/basileus/Rhomaioi.html and click on the Navy
link. Hopefully to be updated later this evening/later tonight) that I
have two 'styles' of fleet set up. You've got the sector, or 'frontier' fleets
designed for independant operations, with no SMLs. And you got the High Space
Fleet, which is packed to the gills with SMLs. I played a battle recently
where it was 6K vs 6K, and I provided one half of one side. I had 14(?) SMLs
in my half of the fleet, and my younger brother brought another 3. Plus we had
a total of 12 fighter groups out there, 10 of them in my brother's alotment of
points. Sick, ain't it? Anyway, one of our two opponents had a Mass 300 Thrust
2 ship with a strong hull and lots of armor. Two turns to sink that puppy, and
the beams finished off two of his other ships. Of course, this was also
because the other opponents jacked up his speed waaaaay too much and was
rapidly floating
off-board at this point...
Also note that we generally call scenarios on time or when one side is
rapidly moving off-board (we do use floating boards, but there are
limits) and declares he is breaking off. We then judge victory based on number
and size of ships killed, number of ships requiring time in a
fleet yard (2+ system checks) and ships 'damaged' (1 system check).
Holding the field is not generally important in space, and we never
fight to the death--it looks a lot better to loose a few ships, get your
capital beat up, and break off rather than get your entire fleet wiped out.
> come the enemy's defenses enough to compensate for the loss of
Don't piss on him. If you use SMLs, every ship should have 1 SML, and the
larger ones should have 2 SMLs.
> tactics then pick on the slow movers/big targets who's enemy
The obvious force multiplier here is Fighters. Fighters and SMLs are a major
complement to eachother. Send in interceptors to clear out his fighters, and
then smacking the same ship with, for instance, 2 Attack fighter groups, a
torpedo group, and 15 Missle salvos tends to ruin it's
day. Mass your attacks--1 Salvo will just annoy most ships larger than
corvettes. Especially with thrust 2 ships--you WILL hit them every
time. Drop those SMLs en masse.
> John - my opponent likes the SMLs, however the ships in the FB just
Bad idea, at least from a campaign point of view (the only POV, IMHO. I always
think one level bigger than the tabletop shows). The beauty of SMLs is that
you resolve your combat in 2 rounds, and then either mop up, or GET THE HELL
OUT OF DODGE! You loose your speed, and you can't break off. That gets real
embarassing if you engage inside the FTL
limit (which most of my scenarios are--I assume the FTL limit is pretty
far out of the system).
> stayed the same, but all the beams became type 3s. Suddenly thigs were
Eh? Type 3s are a perfectly good 'main guns'. For me, I think of PDSs and Type
1s as essentially 'defensive weapons', class 2s as 'secondary
weapons' and 'main guns' are Type 3s, Pulse Torps, or SML/SMRs. I've
had very good results with fleets primarily armed with beams and
pulses. Of course, against an SML-heavy fleet, you want to have at
least 4 thrust (reason I can't play NSL designs) so that you can at least try
to evade missle salvos (assuming you play with 3" radius). I also have several
escort ships sticking close to the big guns.
> My response embodied in my Peoples Republic of Mars fleet was to build
Don't like having a fleet you can only use at knife-fighting range. A
lot depends on the size of battles you're fighting. In a 6K battle, I've got
enough firepower on the board with my fighters, class 3s, and either Torps or
SMLs to slag a ship or two (and not necessarily a little
one--first turn after we got to weapon range in battle above, I slagged
a book-standard Richtofen and a DD) at each range band.
> close. Pass through the enemy fleet. This is a delicate manouver and
Eh? I generally just rotate 180 degrees as I dive straight through his
gunline. He looks real damn stupid if he's pointed in the wrong direction. I
have never, ever, ever had difficulty keeping my
forward-facing armament facing the enemy.
> to slow down which means you are still thrusting towards the enemy so
He must be blind. And idiot should be able to tell you're about to dive
through his gunline. If he's not sure, he can just accelerate a little bit to
make sure.
One of the most interesting ideas that I have played with is a CVA (it had 10
Heavy Int groups) with a massive gun ship, that ship had three class-16
beam batts, the massive fighter force keeped the fighters off of the gun ship
while it destroyed just about everything on the board, I'll post the stats if
anyone is interested. Bye Stephen
> At 11:01 PM 1/9/99 EST, you wrote:
Sheesh - and here I thought that the 1000pt K'rathri SDN I used in our
last FFA game was extra cheezy...
[it *was* fun to play, however <eg>]
Stephen scribed:
> One of the most interesting ideas that I have played with is a CVA (it
You didn't * really * mean class SIXTEEN batteries--did you?
> Stephens writes:
Three class-WHATS?!??!??
That hurts my brain just thinking about it...
(guess it would be appropo for this mail session's.sig file, though:)
Mk
> At 11:01 PM 1/9/99 EST, you wrote:
Yes, please post the stats. Although, I don't think you meant class 16's since
each would mass 32768 (for single arcs). Now three class 6's, that seems
reasonable....
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Eric wrote in reply to Stephen:
> >Heavy Int groups) with a massive gun ship, that ship had three
> Yes, please post the stats. Although, I don't think you meant class
...and it'd pay another 8172 Mass per extra arc. For *each* battery. The
cost of one of these weapons, single-arc mount, rivals the cost of all
my
fleets combined (ie, those I have models for - not theoretical OOBs)
<shudder>
One problem with the really big weapons is that their maximum range tends
to be quite a bit longer than the maximum sensor range - a Class-6 has a
theoretical max range of 72 mu, a Class-16 192 mu - but the standard
sensor rules from FT limits the actual firing ranges to 54 mu IIRC. 'Course,
the entire sensor section of the rules needs to be looked over for FT3 (or
FB2, or something).
Later,
I use Aegis cruisers to great effect. Personally, the most I give it is
screen-1 & 4-5 points of armour. The most important thing is to have at
least 2 ADFC, preferably 3. This maximises coverage when SMLs & fighters
spread themselves across the fleet. There isn't any need to maximise the
defences, as it won't be targetted until after the first attack wave, & even
then, most players will ignore it to take out ships capable of inflicting
damage on them.
The other thing is to mount at least 1 class-2 beam. Several times I
haven't done this & towards the end of the game, you run out of ships able to
do that last point of damage to a ship, & my Aegis cruisers have always
reached the end of the game.
'Neath Southern Skies
http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/
*****
They seek him here, they seek him there; Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven or is he in hell? That damned elusive, Pimpernel.
- 'The Scarlet Pimpernel', Baroness Emma Orkzy
[quoted original message omitted]
In a message dated 99-01-09 23:36:19 EST, you write:
<< You didn't * really * mean class SIXTEEN batteries--did you?
> [quoted text omitted]
No I ment 26:) Yes, a one fallowed by a six. it has a range of 192", 4 times
the range of any "normal" beam batt. Stephen
> << You didn't * really * mean class SIXTEEN batteries--did you?
How big was the ship carrying these things again??? 'Cause the calculations
yield that a single-arch Class-16 battery weighs in at 32768 Mass....
Mk
245,875 mass, Average Hull, FTL, Thrust 4, 32 PDA, 4 ADFC, 6 Fire Con.12294
Crew Units. The Carrier is more resonable:225 mass, Average Hull, FTL, Thrust
4, nothing else then the 10 Fighter bays. Hope you like them:)
-Stephen
> 245,875 mass, Average Hull, FTL, Thrust 4, 32 PDA, 4 ADFC, 6 Fire
Kay-ryst, it's a freaking planetoid!!
I guess this is what needle beam destroyer fleets were made for. ;-)
Mk
WHY would you want to field class-16 batteries? A ship that size would
be bigger than the Death Star, requiring the resources of entire sectors to
assemble. Meanwhile, I assemble 1000 destroyers, cruisers & escort carriers
for 20% of the cost & attack from 6 different directions, losing only about
300-400 mass of ships before destroying you at point blank range.
Military sensor range = 54" (normal table size ~60-70") - anything
beyond is just a bogey. Could be a ship, could be a mass-1 ECM drone.
Class-6 = range 60" vs Class-16 = range 192"
32 mass each vs 32768 mass each
3072 class-6 vs 3 class-16
At maximum sensor range (54"):
The class-6s will average 2457.4 points of damage
The class-16s will average 23.7 points of damage.
Unless you've got realtime sensor data from sensor bouys on the systems rim,
you won't hit anything anyway. The Law of Diminishing Returns
makes beams completely ineffective beyond class-5/class-6.
'Neath Southern Skies
http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/
*****
They seek him here, they seek him there; Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven or is he in hell? That damned elusive, Pimpernel.
- 'The Scarlet Pimpernel', Baroness Emma Orkzy
[quoted original message omitted]
> DracSpy@aol.com wrote:
> 245,875 mass, Average Hull, FTL, Thrust 4, 32 PDA, 4 ADFC, 6 Fire
Why are we discussing a million-point starship? What the F*** genre are
you playing? Dave Webber's Mutineer's Moon/Armageddon Inheritance
series? In which case, what you do is turn on your FTL drives in a gravity
well, cause a supernova, and blow up his entire fleet, IIRC.
> At 10:21 PM 1/10/99 -0500, you wrote:
Why are we discussing a million point starship? Because someone gamed with it.
That is what we do on this list, right? Discuss games? If you asking why one
would play with such a ship, all I can ask in response is: Why not? It's no
more absurd than the Death Star, is it? Just think of it as an Ogre in space.
As to the how such a ship could exist, how about this?
It IS a world...the end result of millennia of planetary engineering, it
wanders through space with the remnants of a once-great civilzation, in
search of a new system to call home.
Maybe it's a Beserker, designed to annihilate entire worlds.
It could have been created by a planetary mind, like Solaris, an entity
literally incapable of conceiving of a million smaller ships.
Maybe some teenage Vorlons are taking their custom hotrod out for a joyride!
Crazy kids....
Want another dozen ideas? Just ask.
Yes, it is big, but using the Vector Movement Rules you can keep the range
open for long enuff you can attack with out any return fire, in the game that
I played, I was fighting SDNs, all of his ships were SDNs, I ask able to keep
the range open to that I could destroy ~40% of his SDNs, by that time I had
made it to the FTL limit and just as the eney ships made it to 48" I pushed
the butten and left the area with exsteam hast:)
-Adm. Sir Stephen F. Kaylee
In a message dated 99-01-10 22:49:51 EST, you write:
<< Why are we discussing a million point starship? Because someone gamed with
it. That is what we do on this list, right? Discuss games? If you asking why
one would play with such a ship, all I can ask in response is: Why not? It's
no more absurd than the Death Star, is it? Just think of it as an Ogre in
space.
As to the how such a ship could exist, how about this?
It IS a world...the end result of millennia of planetary engineering, it
wanders through space with the remnants of a once-great civilzation, in
search of a new system to call home.
Maybe it's a Beserker, designed to annihilate entire worlds.
It could have been created by a planetary mind, like Solaris, an entity
literally incapable of conceiving of a million smaller ships.
Maybe some teenage Vorlons are taking their custom hotrod out for a joyride!
Crazy kids....
Want another dozen ideas? Just ask.
As for the genre.... It's Science FICTION, John. Infinite possibilities.
That's why I like it so much. Broaden your mind, man! Expand your horizons!
You'll have much more fun that way. >> It is a NAC warship, not yet built, it
is designed to destroy Kra'Vak ships, without getting hit by there rail guns,
the reson for the super long range weapons is to counter the Kra'Vaks
manevuerablity, the reson that it was fighting ESU and FSE forces is that is a
computer simulation, not a real battle, thats the story, it was to see how the
ship would fight agenst the NACs Terran alliances, for the day when the
Kra'Vak are a bad memory and there is another human cival war.. For those how
want a reson for the ship.
-Adm. Sir Stephen F. Kaylee
> John Crimmins wrote:
> Why are we discussing a million point starship? Because someone gamed
In order: That's what I asked. Not someone who's quite right in the head Well,
yes. Yes.
Because no opponent in his right mind would agree to a multi-million
point game, because no one with a normal income has enough miniatures to put
out a million points of normal ships, because the time spent marking off
damage would a significant fraction of my lifetime, because it would take a
week to plot the movement of a million points worth of normal ships, and
because you'd need a gymnasium to game in. I don't use the damn Death Star
either.
And Ogres are pretty silly too--and die nicely in DSII.
> Maybe some teenage Vorlons are taking their custom hotrod out for a
Actually, this was my favorite explanation. It made sense. It was also funny,
dammit. This indicates a sense of style.
> DracSpy@aol.com wrote:
That, that is sick. There is no way the NAC could build a ship which costs
more money than every one of their ships listed in the Fleet Book.
Stephen pronounced:
> 245,875 mass, Average Hull, FTL, Thrust 4, 32 PDA, 4 ADFC, 6 Fire
Indy choked:
Kay-ryst, it's a freaking planetoid!!
I guess this is what needle beam destroyer fleets were made for. ;-)
To which I add: And the infamous High Speed Pass attacks. Back waaaaay up, use
your Thrust 12 for a few turns, and get in your one shot each with about fifty
little needle corvettes.
In a message dated 99-01-10 23:16:04 EST, you write:
<< In order: That's what I asked. Not someone who's quite right in the head
Well, yes. Yes.
Because no opponent in his right mind would agree to a multi-million
point game, because no one with a normal income has enough miniatures to put
out a million points of normal ships, because the time spent marking off
damage would a significant fraction of my lifetime, because it would take a
week to plot the movement of a million points worth of normal ships, and
because you'd need a gymnasium to game in. I don't use the damn Death Star
either.
And Ogres are pretty silly too--and die nicely in DSII. >>
Well, it took a long time to do, but it was worth it to see the look on my
enemys face when I fired at almost 200" and he was stile 72 turns from weapons
range:) altho the game was only played for a few turns, then it was based on
what would happen if it contued.
-Adm. Sir Stephen F. Kaylee
In a message dated 99-01-10 23:29:55 EST, you write:
<< To which I add: And the infamous High Speed Pass attacks. Back waaaaay up,
use your Thrust 12 for a few turns, and get in your one shot each with about
fifty little needle corvettes. >>
That would work, to bad the FSE/ESU did not have any fast ships only
SDNs, a mistay he will not make agian.
-Adm. Sir Stephen F. Kaylee
> DracSpy@aol.com wrote:
And in the ever growing trend of ever growing ships I now present
'THE DUMPSTAR'
MASS Number
Mass 80000
hull strong 32000
drives
main 28000 Thrust = 7
FTL 8000
FCS 10 ADFC 12
Screen 8000 Level 2
Armor 500 500 Ea.
Weapons
Type 2 1200 400 Ea. (6 arc)
Type 1 200 200 Ea. (6 arc)
PADF 100 100 Ea.
Needle 72 72 Ea. (24 Ea. in FS, F, FP)
PTs 1200 200 Ea. (180 Degree Forward arc)
Hanger 450 50 Ea. (10 Sq. Ea. of
Interceptor, L-range, Attack, Torp, Heavy)
storage 54 Unknown number of boarding parties in 54 mass.
total 80000
I suspect this ship alone is sufficient to deal with the monster you provided.
As a point of interest, you would have to face three of these.
The 'Big Guns' on your ship may not be up to the task!
:-)
Bye for now,
> John M. Atkinson wrote:
> DracSpy@aol.com wrote:
> Well, it took a long time to do, but it was worth it to see the look
Why was he moving that slowly? And why was he worried about 1 lousy dice?
> -Adm. Sir Stephen F. Kaylee
Only Kra'Vak sign themselves in character on mailing lists.:)
In a message dated 99-01-11 00:07:29 EST, you write:
<< Why was he moving that slowly? And why was he worried about 1 lousy dice?
>> It adds up quicky, what realy pised him off was when I rolled a lot of sixs
(even on the rerolls) and then on the surender roll (it had *just* made the
threshold point) he rolled a six, one down, a lot to go. Then he got realy
nervus about those three dice hitting his ships:) Stephen
> John Leary wrote:
> While I didn't calculate the actual value of the 'monster', I would
Uhhh... Actually.
245,875 Mass 245,875 73,763 Hull 147,526 24588 FTL 49,176 49,175 Thrust 98,350
32 PDS 96 4xADFC 32 6xFiCon 24 32,768 mass gun 98,304
So we have 639,383 points.
Calculated from memory, added on a TI-82. Anyone wanna double-check?
> DracSpy@aol.com wrote:
In such a case I wouldn't be using surrender rolls. But your call.
But who gives a damn? He should (points-wise) outnumber you 796 to one
(assuming, of course, that he's evenly split FSE/ESU and he only buys 10
groups of fighters). Or he can have 762 superdreadnoughts AND 1,524 fighter
squadrons (who needs specialized fighters when you have 9,144 of the damn
things).
In a message dated 99-01-11 00:20:18 EST, you write:
<< So we have 639,383 points. >> that sounds about right, he had (I think) 851
SNDs (Foch and Komarove, split equaly) and a Jone D' Arc, class CVA. for those
who wonder
-Stephen
> At 11:12 PM 1/10/99 -0500, you wrote:
Why not?
> It's no more absurd than the Death Star, is it? Just think of it as
There's certainly no need to be insulting, is there? If you don't like the way
he games, fine. Why be rude about it?
In any case, over the top games can be a hell of a lot of fun. Long ago, we
did a game that pitted 15mm Laserburn Space Marines against a tablefull
of "Zoids"--giant, mechanical animals. Wind-up Japanese toys, to be
exact, and really neat looking things they were. It was a damned silly game,
but highly enjoyable nevertheless. A steady diet of such games in another
story, of course, but when played occasionally they can add a nice bit of
spice to your games.
[Snip, Snap, Snur! And who can identify that phrase?]
> And Ogres are pretty silly too--and die nicely in DSII.
DSII is one possible future. "Ogre" is another. Ogres do just fine in Ogre
Miniatures, where they have BPC armor, and mine actually do pretty darned well
in DSII. The Dinochrome brigade only fought in one game, but it was damned
spectacular game.
> As for the genre.... It's Science FICTION, John. Infinite
To me, the fiction's the only thing that really matters. Internal logic and
consistancy are next. Science is waaay back there at the end of the line. As
I've said, give me Resnik over Drake, any day of the week.
In a message dated 99-01-11 01:00:17 EST, you write:
<< >> Why are we discussing a million point starship? Because someone gamed
with
> it. That is what we do on this list, right? Discuss games? If you
Why not?
> It's no more absurd than the Death Star, is it? Just think of it
Most of the games that I play are small games (maybe 18 ships or so per side)
but every now and then I want to (and can find someone) try out something BIG
(like the mega gun carrying ship, or a super carrier) and game that, these
games give the players and the other members ideas one how to fight there
ships better than they did before, altho I think that this one was just for
fun:)
Just defending a fun game, the most fun was the look on his face when I opened
fire the first time.
-Stephen
P.S. Im just fine in my head, I just take some tac ideas way to fare,
sometimes they even work:)
> At 01:30 AM 1/11/99 EST, DracSpy@aol.com wrote:
[snip]
> Most of the games that I play are small games (maybe 18 ships or so per
Uhm, sorry - 18 ships a side is NOT a "small game". A Cruiser and a Tin
Can per side is a small game. 1000 pts & 5 ships (BC,CH,CC,DD,DD) per side
qualifies - barely - as a small game. No way in Hades does 18 ships per
side qualify for that category.:)
Be that as it may, the whole point of FT is to have fun. I'm glad that you and
your gaming partners can find fun in playing Death Star scenarios. Just don't
expect most of the rest of us to buy into it <g>...
In a message dated 99-01-11 01:59:10 EST, you write:
<< [snip]
> Most of the games that I play are small games (maybe 18 ships or so
Uhm, sorry - 18 ships a side is NOT a "small game". A Cruiser and a
Tin Can per side is a small game. 1000 pts & 5 ships (BC,CH,CC,DD,DD) per side
qualifies - barely - as a small game. No way in Hades does 18 ships
per side qualify for that category.:)
Be that as it may, the whole point of FT is to have fun. I'm glad that you and
your gaming partners can find fun in playing Death Star scenarios. Just don't
expect most of the rest of us to buy into it <g>... >>
Well that game (the one with 18 ships) should have be clasifed as a medium
game. There was also a super small game that I played as a small DD/CV
vs a SDN from Full Thrust, that game was neet. The small ship(me), it has two
pulse torps, an A-batt, 2 B-batts, 4 PDAF, and 2 fighter groups, but
that is another story...
-Stephen
> Most of the games that I play are small games (maybe 18 ships or so
> John M. Atkinson wrote:
> I use either mostly SMLs or None At All.
> And you got
Obviously your definition of "loaded to the gills" is different from mine. I
recently had a game, 2750 pts a side, basically a tactical exercise for two
players for Cancon 99
( see http://www2.dynamite.com.au/budda/fulthrst.html for details )
Anyway... in order to test out my opponent's NSL fleet, I took a fleet
of 1 Jeanne D'Arc, 1 Suffren, 1 Jerez, 6 Triestes, and 9 Mistral-SMRs.
> Eric Fialkowski wrote:
> Yes, please post the stats. Although, I don't think you meant class
Dead Meat vs the 6 thrust equivalent with 4000 or so Type 1s. But rolling 4000
dice would be tedious at best:)
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Well, definately a lot of neat ideas/opinions. Although I guess I'm the
extreamist in the group. I agree that sml's need to overwhelm your opponents
to be effective. However I've been playing with the cinematic
movement rules. They don't allow you to pass your opponent and just rotate to
face... instead you've got to turn. Usually plays havoc with
your weaponry. I usually find that class-1 beams usually end up acting
as second rate pds systems in most of my battles. Typically you need
class-3 beams to really effectively hit your opponent most of the time.
However reading bob's post about his opponent John, I found it
interesting that you stuck with the rather lame amount of sml's / ship
that the FB uses, and instead made up by using class-3 beams. I
typically found that my opponent, who after getting throughly trashed a
couple o'times by my sml fleets, started getting his speed/pds/adfc
systems a higher priority. Typically my missle ships are packed to the
gills with sml's. Small ships have 2 sml's and larger ships have 4-5
sml's /each. I tyipcally though stick with only 2 rounds of sml fire.
Sometimes I sub in ER sml rounds in some of my larger ships which have at most
3 rounds of normal sml fire. I work on the strike hard and fast in
an overwhelming manner and then flee if they're not dead yet.
Addressing John C, regarding Agesis ships... my opponent ( mark) has
really gotten into this. His tactics, are tyipcally 4 pds/large ship.
2+ on his smaller ships. However he usually has 2 class-1's or so/ship
that act as additional pds. Many of his cruiser+ ships have adfc to
help others that are under attack. He does have one stand out ship agesis
ship.... I'm not sure what the specs are... but its:
light cruiser ( fairly cheap)
thrust - 6
screen-1 or about 3 pts of armor.... ( he keeps going back and forth on
this) adfc, 12 pds,
I think its about hull 44 or 48 and its around 160 pts or so. Its really
effective in the center of a fleet. And let me tell you 12 pds at range 3" can
scrap a destroyer...
Typically though mark has switched tactics in light of my rapidly
changing fleet compositions. He's gone to a lot of thrust-2/4 large
ships with some small screening frigates/destroyers. He keeps them all
closely grouped within 6" or so under each others adfc coverage. He
loads each large ship with 4 pds, 2 class-1 beams or so. Most of the
small ships have 2+pds. He usually has 1 agesis light cruiser somewhere
in the mix. All of his large ships use adfc. The result has been quite
impressive. Typically you're sml's go for the little ships that are out
front in a screening role. The massed afdc pds/class-1 fire power of
the tightly packed formation means that a lot of sml's vaporise before they
hit the small ships. Mark typically allocates about 3 pds + 1 class-1 /
ship for defensive fire/sml salvo. Tyipcally this stops the salvo.
Usually I lose a good 1/3 of my sml fire of a combined fleet. A mixed
sml fleet wouldn't get through this probably... I wouldn't have enough sml's
to do the job.
Oh...... Bob, getting back to your Rhomaioi missle ships. It seems to me that
you don't pack the ship with launchers but more missle carrying capacity and
beams. Kinda the way that the fleet book works. Have you experimented with
serious massed sml fire power? I think I posted some
of my free cal-tex designs previously. I have a kenedy class missle
cruiser ( a mass 90 ca) with 4 smls ( I had a math error previously and
had 5 sml's in it... whoops.). Its very effective. I also have a light cruiser
that's got 4 sml's but nada for defenses or beam armement. I guess I swing to
1 extreame or the other. I agree with the fighters being a good complement to
sml's... they're quite effective for overwhelming the defenses. Do you find
that your beams are used a lot in your sml fleets?
Chuck
> Has anyone had any luck with designing dedicated AEGIS ships?
Quite an interesting idea, but only really effective against an opponent with
lots of SMLs or fighters. Alll in all, I'd say a good auxilliary design.
The trick is keeping the AEGIS ship where it needs to be to soak up all the
missiles. With fighteres, it simply needs to be within 6" of the ships it
defends.
> -MWS- wrote:
> Uhm, sorry - 18 ships a side is NOT a "small game". A Cruiser and a
It can be a small game with 18 ships. 18 Corvettes is what, less than
900 points? Or 18 Night-blooming Cerebus class SDBs
<http://wwww.angelfire.com/va/basileus/SDB.html>,
if want to do a system assault.
> Charles Choukalos wrote:
> Typically though mark has switched tactics in light of my rapidly
> Typically you're sml's go for the little ships that are out
In the Tactical Exercises vs FSE fleets we've been conducting, the result is
exactly that. Please bear in mind one of the starting conditions is only
designs in Fleet Book 1 are allowed, and the whole
fleet must be of one of the 4 major nations - NSL, FSE, NAC or ESU. No
mixing, not even of allies.
Such fleets look something like:
(NB This is one we've looked at and discarded..)
2 Valley Forge Superdreadnaughts
2 Vandenburg-T Heavy Cruisers
2 Furious Light Cruisers
4 Minerva-A Escorts
This is an impressive 21 ADAF-PDS, plus 4 fighter groups. 10 Torpedos,
and all bar the Minervas are shielded. The Furious class on its own is a
tough, well-rounded opponent, a very superior light cruiser indeed.
Similar fleets might be 3 Maria Von Bergund Battleships (Note: Speed 2....)
6 Kronprinz Wilhelm - A Light Escort Cruisers
1 Radeztky Escort Cruiser
12 Falke-Strike Class Scoutships (ie disposable SML attractors)
Which has a useful 33 ADAF-PDS. Neccessary as insurance, because
although the close (as in 1 cm distance) escorting Falkes SHOULD attract all
the
SMLs, well, sometimes you miscalculate. The additional ADAF-PDSs only
cut down the firepower by 6 Class 3's, and virtually guarentees immunity
from the combined and co-ordinated Fighter-SML attack. The MVB
Battleships have a thrust of 2 - not enough to avoid an SML launch under
almost any conceivable circumstance, if the ESU player knows what he's
doing. However, by jinking left-right, accelerating or decelerating,
enough uncertainty of position is generated so that many of the missiles
will miss by 6 mm (1/4 inch) or more - in which case the first lot of
Falkes soak them up. The second lot then accelerates from a safe distance back
to take the place of the Dear Departed, just in time for
Salvo 2 - which should be considerably weakened due to both Missile
Racks being depleted, and casualties from the Massive firepower at 24" of 40
or so dice.... even at 30", there's 15 dice and 3 Torpedos.
Those SMLs that don't get decoyed get some PDS's on them, while the
remainder of the ADAF-PDS is allocated about 4 to every fighter group,
so they only get at most one attack at half effect.
Since these are "Competition Fleets", which are going to face a lot of NSL and
FSE fleets (because the minis for those two ranges look so
good), they must be able to hold their own vs both an all-SML and and
all-Beam fleet. The Falke-Strikes are particularly good for this, as
they have a 1-shot punch of 3 dice at short range, and a useful "blow
through and get on his 6" capability vs a beam fleet.
Now a similar NSL fleet which has those additional 3 Class 3 beams will have a
slight advantage. But if it ever faces an FSE fleet, they'd have problems from
fighter attacks. 7 squadrons unphased by ADAF will just sweep up the Corvettes
before combat is joined, and then the NSL is History.
> Alan E & Carmel J Brain wrote:
> > side. I had 14(?) SMLs in my half of the fleet, and my younger
> Anyway... in order to test out my opponent's NSL fleet, I took a fleet
The breakdown was... I still have the SSD sheets...
1xVirgin Mary class DNL, 1xSt. Demetrius class DN, 2xSt. Symeon class CGs, 1x
Constantine Isoapostolis class Medium Cruiser, 1xThessalonika class CLG,
1xMilvan Bridge class Destroyer Leader, 4xCimbalongus class Destroyers, of
which 1 was escort and 3 were missle.
My mistake. 11/11/1. More SMLs, but no one-shot ships. Imperial
doctrine frowns on SMRs except for system defense craft and stealthed ships.
The latter can cloak and run away, the former don't live to get a second shot,
and need all the initial impact they can get. Plus they never get far away
from their bases.
> No SMLs failed to be within range of 6" of an enemy (11 launchers
We play with a 3" kill radius as per optional rule. Otherwise it's too damn
easy to hit.
> Anyway.... Sick is a 6K pt fleet of 120 or so Mistral-SMRs.
Play with 3" kill radius and give me a gymnasium (or a simple floating board)
to maneuver in and I'll beat it. Stay out of range and... WAIT A MINUTE!
Assuming you mean Mistral as in Mistral class Scoutship from the Full Thrust
Fleet Book, then there is no such thing. 8 mass, right?
2 points hull 2 mass Thrust 1 mass FTL 2 mass 2xType 1 1 mass Firecontrol
Where do you PUT the SMR? The only option I see is to yank the FTL, beams, and
half the thrust...
Excuse me--found what you meant. Athena-SMRs. That makes more sense.
Well anyway, as I said, stay out of range and send in the fighters.
> Charles Choukalos wrote:
You're mangling the attributions here!
> However reading bob's post about his opponent John, I found it
That's not me.
> Oh...... Bob, getting back to your Rhomaioi missle ships. It seems to
That's not any "Bob" that's Me!
> that you don't pack the ship with launchers but more missle carrying
This has been sufficient to deal with enemy fleets I've run into so far. It...
amuses me to stick with the same designs until I find them being defeated on a
regular basis. The designs I've got are varied enough that none of my
opponents can specialize to defeat any particular configuration. But as to my
reasoning? I don't like being completely dependant on expendable munitions.
I'm thinking logistical burden here.
> overwhelming the defenses. Do you find that your beams are used a lot
Yes. Before the SMLs are fired, the Class 3s weaken the escorts, perhaps
taking out one or two. Cuts down on the number of ADFCs in the neighborhood.
Then after the SMLs are fired the first time, I'm in beam range, and I either
finish off what a SML crippled, or work over the escorts. After the second
salvo, usually the enemy's largest ship or ships (depending on size of game)
are expanding gas clouds, and I start seriously finishing off the escorts with
beams.
They also complement each other--a Salvo-only fleet means the enemy
doesn't need to waste mass on shields. A strong minor in beam weapons means
he's got a dillema. All good tactics are based on leaving the enemy with
dillemas where he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.
> On Mon, 11 Jan 1999, John M. Atkinson wrote:
per side
> > qualifies - barely - as a small game. No way in Hades does 18 ships
18 Corvettes a side would be.... interesting. Talk about trying to simulate an
ant hive...
Charles Choukalos
[On using cinematic movement]
> Typically you need
Hm. Then I'd say you either fly too fast (and I *like* fast - 40 or
higher with those Thrust-8 ships) or don't have high enough thrust. Oh,
sure - if you want to fire at the enemy every turn, you need Class-3s or
bigger... but by going that fast, you can pretty much guarantee that if *you*
can't hit *his* ships, *he* can't hit *you* either (except by using
Class-4+ guns, in which case you've probably got him seriously outgunned
at close range anyway).
And if neither side can hit each other, that turn has no impact at all
from an effectiveness point of view... Class-3s have the range, but not
the punch. Class-2s have considerably higher punch within its range, and
in a Class-2 vs Class-3 battle it is quite possible to either stay
within
the Class-2 range or outside the Class-3 range... provided that the
Class-2 fleet has very high thrust ratings - at least 6 for most ships,
and it needs to be higher than that of the Class-3 ships <g>
Staying within Class-1 range (or outside Class-2/3) in cinematic
movement, now... that's another matter entirely! :-)
> Addressing John C, regarding Agesis ships... my opponent ( mark ) has
> 2+ on his smaller ships. However he usually has 2 class-1's or
> that act as additional pds. Many of his cruiser+ ships have adfc to
> this )
I hope you're aware that 1 ADFC allows this ship to cover one single
other ship. If the nasty enemy (ie, you ;-) spreads his attacks over
several targets, the AEGIS cruiser can only protect one.
> I think its about hull 44 or 48 and its around 160 pts or so.
> pds at range 3" can scrap a destroyer...
Yes, PDS are nice little weapons. Especially since they don't need FCs -
whoever it was who gives his cruisers 4 FCs since they die in the first
treshold check, this might be a solution ;-)
Best wishes,
Baking two replies into one:
DracSpy's design was:
> 245,875 mass, Average Hull, FTL, Thrust 4, 32 PDA, 4 ADFC, 6 Fire
Hm. OK, 3 single-arc Class-16 batteries or something like that.
However, for the cost of this ship - 835989 points - I can get about
8000
Thrust-8 ships: half armed with needle beams; the rest with "real"
weapons. Oh, and give them some PDS as well to whittle the fighters down
<g>
OK, it'll take me some turns to get into needle range, but the huge ship can't
kill more than three of my units per turn, and you'll run out of
fighters eventually as well - they won't get more than a few hundred of
my Swarm craft before the carrier dies, and after that they can't
re-arm... and after *that*, it is just a matter of time. Damage control
parties can't repair Needle damage...
Somehow it seems that this mega-ship isn't quite as dangerous as it
looks
<g>
> John Atkinson wrote:
> Uhhh. . . Actually.
check?
You've got 65536 Mass unused here, though - room for another two monster
guns if you want to caugh up those extra 196605 points :-)
Best wishes,
In a message dated 99-01-11 09:01:12 EST, you write:
<< Dead Meat vs the 6 thrust equivalent with 4000 or so Type 1s. But rolling
4000 dice would be tedious at best:) >> use Qbasic: randomize timer for a= 1
to 4000
b=int(rnd*6)+1
if b=4 or b=5 then c=c+1
if b=6 then c=c+2
next a print c
use that program, all 4k dice are rolled.
-Stephen
In a message dated 99-01-11 12:17:38 EST, you write:
<< It can be a small game with 18 ships. 18 Corvettes is what, less than
900 points? Or 18 Night-blooming Cerebus class SDBs
<http://wwww.angelfire.com/va/basileus/SDB.html>,
if want to do a system assault.
> [quoted text omitted]
It was 2 Light Carrier, 4 Heavy Cruisers, 4 Battlecruiser, 2 Dreadnought, 6
Destroyers vs 2 Super DNs and 2 Battleships and 2 Battleships with 2 fighter
groups. I said that this is a small game, it was not, it was a medium game, a
small game would be (for my group anyway) 1 Light Carrier, 2 Heavy Cruiser, a
Battlecruiser and 4 Destroyers.
-Stephen
> Stephen wrote:
You forgot the rerolls if "6" is rolled on the dice!
In Java/JavaScript pseudocode:
int iDie = 0; int iDamage = 0; int iD6 = 0; int iDice = 4000; while (iDie <
iDice) {
iD6 = Math.floor (Math.random () * 6) + 1;
switch (iD6) {
4,5:
iDamage +=1;
break; 6:
iDamage += 2;
iDice++; // Allow for reroll.
break;
}
iDie++; // Next dice.
}
Alternatively, you can just assume that 2,000 rolls have no effect, 1,333.3
rolls give a damage value of 1,333.3, and that 666.6 rolls give a damage value
of 1,333.3. That gives a total damage of 2,666.6 before rerolls. If the target
survives!!, there's the 666.6 rerolls, giving an extra 444 damage
and 111 rerolls. That should be enough damage! :-)
In a message dated 99-01-11 18:22:33 EST, you write:
<< >>Dead Meat vs the 6 thrust equivalent with 4000 or so Type 1s. But
> rolling 4000 dice would be tedious at best :)
You forgot the rerolls if "6" is rolled on the dice! >> good point, here is
the revision randomize timer for a = 1 to 4000 Reroll:
b=int(rnd*6)+1
if b=4 or b=5 then c=c+1
if b=6 then c=c+2: goto Reroll
next a print C
there you go.
-Stephen
> << >>Dead Meat vs the 6 thrust equivalent with 4000 or so Type 1s. But
(snip die rolling programs)
Why bother? With 4k dice, just figure up what the average damage is
(0.8
per die, including rerolling sixes, if I recall rightly), multiply to yield
3200 damage, apply, and you're done.
Shall we kill this thread?
> John M. Atkinson wrote:
> We play with a 3" kill radius as per optional rule. Otherwise it's
Interesting. I would have thought that cinematic movement requires 6". My own
exercises show that against an opponent who does random manoeuvres at SML
time, it's very difficult to hit a compact formation
with more than 30-40% of your SMLs.
By Random, I mean what I do: Roll 1 D6 White 1-2 Left, 3-4 Straight 5-6
Right. With speed of 12+.
> WAIT A MINUTE! Assuming you mean Mistral as in Mistral class
> Excuse me--found what you meant. Athena-SMRs. That makes more sense.
As they say in the Classics, DOH! Yes, you're right, I meant Athenas. Thanks
for the correction!
> Alan E & Carmel J Brain wrote:
People are doing things to the attributions! I DON'T play Cinematic! I play
vector. Against opponents who don't like to "waste" mass on getting a decent
thrust. Me, I fly in a straight line at high velocity until I get to SML
range, and then jink like crazy.
Heh.
-=Kr'rt
> ----------
> John M. Atkinson wrote:
I
> play vector.