Group 1 (Hammer squadron): SDN, 2 x CH, CE, 2 x DD, 6 x CT Group 2 (Carrier
squadron): CV, CE, 2 x CL, 2 x DD, 2 x FF Group 3 (Fast attack squadron): BB,
BC, 2 x CL, 2 x DD, 2 x FF, 3 x SC
Brendan 'Neath Southern Skies
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***
Group 1 (Hammer squadron): SDN, 2 x CH, CE, 2 x DD, 6 x CT Group 2 (Carrier
squadron): CV, CE, 2 x CL, 2 x DD, 2 x FF Group 3 (Fast attack squadron): BB,
BC, 2 x CL, 2 x DD, 2 x FF, 3 x SC
***
I think I've seen this before, but as a generic set of fleet options. Is there
consensus that these are appropriate for every nation?
Also, do people use ships smaller than frigates? Except for some
'giant-stomping-fleas' set ups, I've never had a use for 'em, and tend
not to have FF's.
The_Beast
Doug said:
> Also, do people use ships smaller than frigates? Except for some
Aside from "a flock of strike boats against an enemy capital", I usually
try to have a fairly limited range of classes in the battle -- BBs and
CH, for instance, or CH and CL.
If there's a non-combat use for frigates--recovering fighter pilots, for
instance, or scounts--then you might have a reason to add them to your
force.
In Napoleonic fleet actions, the convention was that a ship of the line
wouldn't fire at a frigate unless the friagte fired first. As I recall, a Brit
frigate was in the middle of Trafalgar, and never fired or received a shot. On
the other hand, if the frigate *did* shoot, it was fair
game--a
French frigate (Serieuse?) at the Nile found this out.
> On Monday 20 June 2005 20:00, Doug Evans wrote:
I've got a swarm of 20 scouts that sometimes gets used - at times
they've been fitted with Needle beams, though current design sticks class 2
beams on them. Big ships tend to waste a lot of damage against them, and
there's a lot to take out.
Surely it depends on your background and whether large ships are plentiful?
If the introduction to Full Thrust (2nd Ed) is to be believed then a colony
system garrison consists of a CE, a DD a couple of Corvettes and a Lancer,
while an invasion fleet is 2 Capital units, 7 other warships plus transports.
Thus smaller units may make up the bulk of naval forces, with the "Grand
Fleet" kept to secure the home system(s). Other backgrounds or interpretations
will provide a different mix of forces,
as may the difference between pick-up games and campaigns.
Whether you can find a combat role for a particular class however is up to
your inventiveness (eg banzai jammers).
Regards Ian
> "laserlight@quixnet.net" <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
Doug said:
> Also, do people use ships smaller than frigates? Except for some
Aside from "a flock of strike boats against an enemy capital", I usually
try to have a fairly limited range of classes in the battle -- BBs and
CH, for instance, or CH and CL.
If there's a non-combat use for frigates--recovering fighter pilots, for
instance, or scounts--then you might have a reason to add them to your
force.
<SNIP>
In a message dated 6/20/2005 5:10:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> devans@nebraska.edu writes:
I think I've seen this before, but as a generic set of fleet options. Is there
consensus that these are appropriate for every nation?
Also, do people use ships smaller than frigates? Except for some
'giant-stomping-fleas' set ups, I've never had a use for 'em, and tend
not to have FF's.
The_Beast
yeah, I run small ships games. they are very iteresting when the largest
ship in the board is a FF LOL
This sounds like sending out a skirmish line:) Are the scout crews then
aware that they are being sacrified for a better good?
I suspect we will not use ships to deliberately send to their death to soak op
fire, but then our approach is a bit more rpg style (at least with some of the
players:))
> Samuel Penn wrote:
> On Tuesday 21 June 2005 08:18, Claus Paludan wrote:
No reason they have to be crewed.
> I suspect we will not use ships to deliberately send to their death to
Survival rate of scouts was generally higher than that of fighters! But then,
I also assume that fighters are drones rather than crewed.
General tactics in our groups tends to have been directing most fire at the
big ships first, so small ships got off lightly unless they were the only
things in range.
Does time for writing orders affect whether people use small ships?
Does anyone write orders for one ship of a squadron, and just keep the rest
within some distance?
Just curious.
> Does anyone write orders for one ship of a squadron, and just keep the
That's what I normally do, even when the "squadron" is just a pair of cruisers
On 6/21/05, The GZG Digest <owner-gzg-digest@lists.csua.berkeley.edu>
wrote:
> Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 01:58:09 EDT
> yeah, I run small ships games. they are very iteresting when the
Exactly. I've had a lot of fun playing games with a dozen or more ships per
side, none larger than a light cruiser.
There's a tendency for players to go for the big, sexy ships. In order to play
FT in a reasonable amount of time you have to limit the size of the fleet if
you have large ships. The larger ships tend to have larger weapons, which
means the engagement envelope is larger.
One of the first FT convention games I played in was an action with
lots of small ships. I find this more fun than uber-ship versus
uber-ship; the game is much more dynamic.
> General tactics in our groups tends to have been directing most fire
I'd think that firing at small ships would be preferable--you can take
out its weapons with just a few dice in the first turn or so of firing, which
means you've made an immediate reduction in the amount of fire you'll take.
<<I think I've seen this before, but as a generic set of fleet options. Is
there consensus that these are appropriate for every nation?
Also, do people use ships smaller than frigates? Except for some
'giant-stomping-fleas' set ups, I've never had a use for 'em, and tend
not to have FF's.
The_Beast>>
U asked if anyone used ships FF and smaller..
I use the FF in Convoy Escorts, small Patrol groups, and Strike Raiders.
What they loose in overall Firepower and Hull, they make up in Speed and
Maneuver.
Also From FF make for nice "Coast Guard/Custom Boats"
I wonder if the game could use a house rule involving ship size as a modifier
to hit. Categorize the ships by mass. Let's say three sizes, small, medium,
and large. When you fire, roll 1D6 for each fire control. For large ships, you
automatically lock
on and fire as usual. For medium, you must roll 3-6 and for
medium, you roll 5-6 for a lock-on. If you lock on, then you roll
your attack as usual.
If you that's too harsh, you can make the lock-on rolls easier.
This might make the small ships a bit more valuable.
--Greg
> On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 09:07:06AM -0700, Gregory Wong wrote:
The usual objection to this sort of scheme is that you need to make lots
of lock-on rolls, which slows the game down.
A physics objection is that, over the sort of distance you're usually talking
about in space warfare, needing a tiny fraction of a degree more precision
won't make all that much difference anyway.
Personally I'd like to give defensive bonuses to ships with lots of thrust
left unused at the end of the movement phase...
R
I can see your physics objection, but then again, if you're playing space
opera with cinematic movement, what difference does it make?
Regarding extra die rolls, maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see that
as a problem. When you attack, throw in an extra D6 of a
different color as your lock-on die. If it fails to lock-on, ignore
the rest of the bucket of dice you just rolled.
Your excess movement idea sounds good. Could you flesh that out a bit more?
> On Tue, 21 Jun 2005, Roger Burton West wrote:
> The usual objection to this sort of scheme is that you need to make
Ok, just to remind all of the context:
****
***
Group 1 (Hammer squadron): SDN, 2 x CH, CE, 2 x DD, 6 x CT Group 2 (Carrier
squadron): CV, CE, 2 x CL, 2 x DD, 2 x FF Group 3 (Fast attack squadron): BB,
BC, 2 x CL, 2 x DD, 2 x FF, 3 x SC
***
I think I've seen this before, but as a generic set of fleet options. Is there
consensus that these are appropriate for every nation?
Also, do people use ships smaller than frigates? Except for some
'giant-stomping-fleas' set ups, I've never had a use for 'em, and tend
not to have FF's.
****
First, this was a two-part question: 1) Do not the slow bricks of the
NSL and the dancing paper tigers of the FSE require a different make up from
the well-rounded ESU?
2) Most have given examples are of either specialized sub-frigates, use
in
battles where larger-than-frigates are absent, and/or use of great
clouds of small boats. The squadrons above suggest standardized ships, force
mixes
including smallest and largest, and six CT's does not a cloud make. ;->=
Now, what I refer to as 'giant stomping fleas' is exactly large ships
targeting hordes of small ships. Up close, a class three beam against a couple
of hull boxes may be such overkill as to waste firepower. A vast number of
class one's CAN lay the mighty low. Just, not some things I'd care to rely on.
However, I was asking other's opinions.
And, even answers that weren't taking all of the above into account are
greatly appreciated. Thanks to all! I finally started some real conversation!
The_Beast
> I wonder if the game could use a house rule involving ship size
If you're at point blank range, though, you ought to be able to count on
locking onto anything, no matter what size.
You could use something like 1d6 + (mass/50) - (range/6), must roll a
modified 2 or higher to lock on.
Or you could say that small fry have Stealth-2, medium ships have
Stealth-1. Possibly SDNs have Stealth+1 or +2 (so they can be hit from
farther away), and so forth.
For those of you who have just tuned in, Noam's Stealth Proposal means that
you adjust the effective range. Stealth -1 means you treat every 5mu on
the table as if it was 6mu for firing range, so a Stealth 1 target at 21mu
is just outside Beam2 range. Stealth -2 means you treat 4mu as 6mu, so
firing a PTorp at a Stealth-2 target, you'd hit on 2+ to 4mu, 3+ to 8mu,
etc.
> On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 09:26:33AM -0700, Gregory Wong wrote:
> Regarding extra die rolls, maybe I'm missing something, but I don't
I can see this more or less working, but I suspect it would still slow things
down a bit much. Might well be worth looking into.
> Your excess movement idea sounds good. Could you flesh that out a
Just that - each available point of thrust you don't use in movement is
"evasive thrust" which gives you some sort of defensive effect (negative
modifiers to attack dice, most likely, maybe one per two or three points).
Noam has a somewhat different version of this.
R
**
I wonder if the game could use a house rule involving ship size as a modifier
to hit.
**
I've toyed with the idea of speed/thrust modifier. Either actual speed,
maneuvers, or 'wasted', as in unused, thrust points would give benefits. As a
thrust 6 flea can easily keep up with a thrust 2 elephant and have points to
spare, 'erratic' maneuvers would be no problem.
In the end, nice chrome, too much complexity.
The_Beast
Mr.Burton West stated: Personally I'd like to give defensive bonuses to ships
with lots of thrust left unused at the end of the movement phase...
...two great minds...
The_Beast
From: Doug Evans
Ok, just to remind all of the context:
***
Group 1 (Hammer squadron): SDN, 2 x CH, CE, 2 x DD, 6 x CT Group 2 (Carrier
squadron): CV, CE, 2 x CL, 2 x DD, 2 x FF Group 3 (Fast attack squadron): BB,
BC, 2 x CL, 2 x DD, 2 x FF, 3 x SC
***
> Now, what I refer to as 'giant stomping fleas' is exactly large ships
Okay, taking that into account... I'd have
Group 1 (Hammer): SDN, BB, BC Group 2 (Suicide scouts): 6 x DD, 4 x FF, 6 x
CT, 3 x SC Group 3 (Cruisers): 2 x CH, 2x CE, 4x CL Attach the CV where ever
you like.
To some extent, it also depends on how fast the ships are. No point in putting
Thrust 6 CLs in with Thrust 2 CH, for instance.
I've not played that much, and haven't been around (this time) very long, but
I like conversations like this.:)
Is the point to implement a defensive bonus for smaller ships because you want
it, or to balance them out?
If the latter, how far does the combat point value (the one with
mass^2/100) go
towards encouraging small ships?
I don't want any more in-play rules, but the CPV idea looks good.
> laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:
Well I am interested in all sorts of squadron types. As we start out we will
probably stick with the FT ship designs. Any new ships we(I) might come up
with will probably be as close to the original idea as I can
get..
I kinda like the idea of a defence bonus for unused thrust as mass as such
wouldn't be a problem as computer controlled firesystems wouldn't care much
for that, but recalulating target positions would pose a bigger challenge (not
much probably, but perhaps enough to warrant the modifiers). But before
changing any rules in order to proper use my light ships I will try a few
games first. We intend to start with corvettes, frigates and light cruisers
anyway before bringing in the heavy equipment!
Thanks everyone for your input.. don't stop discussing though, it's always
nice to see what your intelligent minds come up with on this list
:)
Andy said:
> Is the point to implement a defensive bonus for smaller ships
Two reasons. First is that CPV gives you more small ships for a given point
value, but each individual small ship dies just as fast. That makes it hard to
explain why a frigate would show up in a capital ship battle in the first
place. My solution, usually, is that frigates *don't* participate, but YMMV.
Second reason is that, logically, it ought to be easier to hit a SDN than a
DD. Let's say the DD is mass 25, the SDN is mass 200, and they have similar
configurations (same ratio of length to width to height). If I've done this
right (without benefit of caffeine), the SDN is presenting four times the
cross section area as the DD; aiming errors which would miss the DD entirely
merely mean that you hit the SDN somewhere other than where you planned. But
FT doesn't (officially) have any way to account for that.
> On 6/22/05, Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
> Second reason is that, logically, it ought to be easier to hit a SDN
If you have the precision to hit _anything_ at ranges of thousands of
km, you have the precision to hit a beer can.
No, the only way to make that kind of fire control miss targets regularly is
to put out enough deceptive jamming to overload the fire control.
Which is easier with the extra power and square footage of antenna carried by
capital warships. So capital warships should be harder to hit.
Realistically, look at the granularity. You've only got a range of
1-6 to work with. Each + or - 1 on the dice represents the loss of
33% of your hits, on an average (hit on a 5 rather than a 4). Does the minor
difference in cross section cause that much inaccuracy? I don't think so. Then
let's worry about target aspect, since a
cylindrincal battleship head-on would be harder to hit than a
cylindrical destroyer caught looking at the long axis. Wouldn't that add so
much to the game? I mean, you could spend HOURS arguing over
the precise cross section presented. An FSE SDN head-on vs. an FSE
destroyer caught at an angle, look at the minis. A few degrees deflection make
a huge difference.
On 6/22/05, The GZG Digest <owner-gzg-digest@lists.csua.berkeley.edu>
wrote:
> Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 09:07:06 -0700 (PDT)
I don't care for it myself.
If you add a modifier based on ship's mass, you end up with break points. Say
the modifiers to hit changed every 75 mass points. A ship of 75 mass points is
preferable to a ship of 76 mass points since it will be harder to hit. This
kind of "break point advantage" existed in FT2 but was eliminated in FT2.5.
I'd hate to see it reinstituted.
Also, John Atkinson explained rather well why it doesn't make sense
realistically, unless you want to add a _lot_ of complexity to the
game, and even then you run into granularity issues.
> This kind of "break point advantage" existed in
I have to admit the idea of 'adding to range bands' has some appeal,
especially if you do it in increments or fractions rather than simply
doubling, therefore smoothing breakpoints. Adding an MU or so wouldn't have an
effect most of the time, but would push a target just out of range, or lose a
hit die, just often enough to be interesting. And really
small(?),
stealthy, or jinky targets could sneak up on top of you before you could
shoot.
By the way, I mention fractions in case you want to increase by, say, a
quarter, a third, whathaveyou, so that weapons with different range bands
might have the same effect, proportionally.
I can't help but feel that it would get complicated enough to put folks off.
I've a friend that loves Evil Empire(tm) for the dice mechanic I hate
everytime I shoot: roll to hit, roll to wound, roll to save, each WITH
modifiers and special automatics (auto hit or auto wound or no save). 'You
don't have to do table look ups.'
I don't point out just how much he DOES have memorized...
The_Beast
> --- Doug Evans <devans@nebraska.edu> wrote:
> Mr. Burton West stated:
The logic of having a ship that is not making any course change, but has a
high (unused) thrust, being more difficult to hit than a target that is
larger, but changing course, is somewhat difficult to accept.
Suggestion:
Small ships, -1 to the die roll
Mediun ships, no modifier
Large ships, +1 to the die roll (but only a
natural 6 counts for special effects.)
Bye for now,
I don't see the relationship between size and thrust. Why does your thrust 4
tiny ship get a better mod than my thrust 6 FSE BDN?
Roger Books
> On 6/22/05, John Leary <john_t_leary@yahoo.com> wrote:
***
The logic of having a ship that is not making any course change, but has a
high (unused) thrust, being more difficult to hit than a target that is
larger, but changing course, is somewhat difficult to accept.
***
I can understand, but we're of the 'if it's a course change, it's
predictable, if it's a jink, it's not' simple mindedness. ;->=
However, I think I STILL prefer changing the range bands to any die
modification.
The_Beast
***
I don't see the relationship between size and thrust. Why does your thrust 4
tiny ship get a better mod than my thrust 6 FSE BDN?
***
Well, my suggestion was for unused thrust, assuming that thrust was employed
for evasion.
There does seem to be a disagreement as to which would be more important, size
OR thrust, and I claim neither side is obviously right. History has plenty of
examples where reality was stranger than suppositions, even the
scientifically based ones. Occasionally, the popular/populist view even
can
be correct. ;->=
However, I'd still like to suggest that the optional system could explain
and cover either, or both, and use extra dice rolls and/or modifiers.
In the end, though, I agree the FT granularity has the to-hit include
lock-on. The optional system for those more likely right than I.
The_Beast
Roger, My suggested modifiers deal only with size (Paragraph 2, small ships
are smaller and thus harder to hit. This does bring up the personal viewpoint
of the sender about how a 'beam' functions, I.E. is a beam a broad
'flashlight' or a spot 'lazer pointer'.), thrust rating was not considered.
The comments in paragraph one refer to the
'unused thrust' as a shooting/lock on modifier
during combat.
Bye for now, John L.
> --- Roger Books <roger.books@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't see the relationship between size and
> On 6/27/05, John Leary <john_t_leary@yahoo.com> wrote:
Compared to the distances involved, its a laser pointer.
I'm sure OA can demonstrate the math, but microspcopic adjustments in angle
end up, tens of thousands of kilometers later, as being tens of meters off. Or
more. And a miss is as good as a mile.
JohnA said:
> I'm sure OA can demonstrate the math, but microspcopic adjustments in
If you're shooting at a big target, a miss by ten meters may still be a hit,
just not quite where you'd intended.