> Yum Yum Yab Yum wrote:
...Snip...JTL
> I haven't figured a way of easily maintaining range beyond 30 mu and
Mk, Thanks for the comments. Now to add a comment that is almost off topic: I
do not know about anyone else, but my gaming is once a month
for about 6 hours. The thought of spending the day trying to maneuver
for a 1 or 2 point shot every 5 or 6 turns just doesn't make my heart
go pitter-patter. (If this was the real world and I had a ship and
lives hanging on my actions, that is a totally different story.)
The current project for the July/August meeting is a 20,000+
point Kra'Vak and NAC shootout, I think this game will be completed in less
than three hours, start to finish.
Comments logically extending the SML techmology: 1) Mount an SML warhead on a
standard FT missile.
2) Arm the rockets of a submunition pack with the SML mini-charges.
Well, if nothing else, the list is talking space combat again!
Bye for now,
I've been watching the latest discussion of the Salvo Missiles with interest.
When we were first playtesting them I thought they were hideously bad and
over-powered. I quickly learned how to deal with them in order to
minimize their damage potential as best as possible. Others have already cited
some of the better tactics for dealing with the FSE ships (maintain range,
speed, plenty of PDS', and screening escorts). And while I'm in agreement with
all these now, I did want to point out something that may be obvious to most,
but what hasn't been mentioned, is the effective range of the SMs. They have a
firing range of 24 mu. But with a burst radius of 6 mu, that gives them an
effective range of 30 mu! If going against a ship with Class-3 batts,
the L3
batt-armed ship has a fairly narrow engagement envelope to work with in
order
to start chopping up the SM-armed ship. 6 mu, at any semi-decent speed,
ain't a lot.
This just gets worse when your SM-armed opponent is using extended-range
SMs. A firing range of 36 mu yields an effective range of *42* mu! Now he
out-ranges
your L3 batts for a bit (if 'only' by 6 mu)
I haven't figured a way of easily maintaining range beyond 30 mu and still
keep my L3s in arc of the target ship(s) before they closed the range down
further for nominal SMs (my opponents have rarely felt the need to resort to
extended-range SMs). This with Cinematic movement. I still feel speed,
plenty of PDS', and an escort screen will work fine, though (have served me
well enough over time, anyway!)
Mk
(Warning, lots of rambling on FT3 fleet and ship designs follow)
With the old missiles I used to fire missiles against an enemy fleet that was
closing and then turn in the same turn to get away. A lot of tactics I have
developed for games where the objective of both players and both fleet
designers is to attack the enemy fleet.
Not every fleet is designed for a space superiority mission. With a rear
mounted SML and a huge magazine you could have a ship designed to deter
pirates and commerce raiders. It
would be a good weapon for a super-stealthed surveillance ship
whose job was to get information and get away. The effective range of Salvo
Missiles versus an opponent who is attempting to
close is _huge_. And any attempt by your pursuers to dodge
just buys you more time to escape. Especially with vector movement.
An interesting scenario might involve a large patrol force coming across a
stationary surveillance ship and having to destroy it before it gets far
enough from the planet to jump out. You might want a GM to rule on how long it
takes to come out of powered down stealth mode, or how close the patrols
scenario determined vector will come to the stealthed ship etc...
I seen and built a lot of fleets with an extremely heavy forward armament and
not much else. The theory was that it would be better to do as much damage as
possible during closing than to waste points and mass spreading railguns or
pulse torpedos through various arcs,
as that flexibility would only help _after_ the initial clash did
about 1/6 my mass in structure points of damage.
I having been having some trouble working out proper strategy for
the new higher level beam weapons. Level-2 beam weapons are quite
efficient, especially with closing velocities in excess of 12".
They do damage equal to Level-3 beam weapons in the 12-24" range
and their 180 arcs offer a lot of versatility in allowing concentration of
power against a few enemy ships. Versus an equal sized fleet in an engagement
in which neither can withdraw
I'd prefer Level-2 beam weapons.
It is very difficult to simultaneously maintain the range _and_ force
an engagement. Suppose I have a fleet with largely Level-3 beam
batteries: In order to force an engagement the majority of my fleet has to
have a higher thrust than my opponent. Lets suppose that we've spent the extra
points and mass to have some flexibility of arc. As
the fleet is designed to close to engage, our 3-arc Bat-3s face
forward. Suppose the enemy we were pursuing suddenly turns to close?
In order to reopen the range we would have to turn away from our opponent,
giving him a free shot. So counting on a long engagement
in the 24-36" is silly.
If you could have an ambush at zero relative speed, then you might have time
to get off a few unanswered shots, but as a fleet superiority
tactics, Bat-3s and Bat-4s don't seem to be a good buy.
Here are the few circumstances where having complete range superiority would
really help: 1) Attacking a star base or other stationary target 2) Blockading
a planet (you get some extra time before your targets can build enough speed
to get through your fire zone) 3) Attacking or defending against smaller
forces with the minimum of casualties. For those times you outweigh your
opponent 6 to 1 and don't want even the paint scratched on your ships. This is
also a psychological thing. The potential to inflict 50% casualties before any
damage can be done in return is a good deterent for swarms of small SML rack
craft.
4) Covering the _rear_ arc. Invest in good sensors to find out if
you have good odds for the fight, and run away otherwise. Of course, it helps
to have fairly high thrust ships for this tactic.
At the range at which high level beam weapons have superiority they also do
very little damage.
Assume that roughly the same amount of mass is spend on Armor and Hull as
weapons, an 8 Mass weapon does 1d6 at its optimum range. Assuming
no shields that is an average of 5/6 of a point (using rerolls of 6's).
Against an equal sized fleet you'd destroy 10.4% per round. Now, for various
reasons the mass on Armor and Hull will probably exceed actual weapons mass,
for one thing, armor is cheaper per mass than most weapons, especially for
Carriers. This also neglects the cost of spending per for reasonable arcs.
% of mass on Engines, Cost per Damage Point Cost per Mass of systems 0 (Space
Station) 3 4 or 5 10 (SDS weapons platform) 3.33 4.33 or 5.33 20 (FTL Capable
weapons platform) 3.75 4.75 or 5.75 30 4.29 5.29 or 6.29 40 5 6 or 7 50 (FTL
Capable Thrust 8) 6 7 or 8
In order to add 5 structure points to a 50% engine ship you spend 5 points
hull, 10 points for the armor, 5 point for the hull for the extra engines and
10 points for the extra engines. System mass is typically 3 or 4 points per
mass of system, except for Carrier which pay 3 points per mass of bays and
then have to pay even more for the fighters.
Structure points are cheaper for low engine mass ships, but the ratio evens
out for higher engine percentage ships. I would therefore expect that the
lower the engine percentage, the greater the remaining percentage will be
structure and armor. If a fleet designer decides that 60% Armor and Structure
is appropriate to a Space Station then Thrust 8 FTL capable ships in that
fleet are likely to be between 20 and 25% Structure and Armor by mass.
This is meant only as a comparison of ships or space stations with
similar armament mixes. A fighter-group based Space Station will
be likely to have a higher percentage of Structure and Armor than
a fast FTL-Carrier in the same nation's fleet.
How much Point Defense Systems should I buy? In my opinion, buying point
defenses only make sense if it will save the ship. A ship with less than 3
structure points has no business buying point defenses before armor. Versus a
fighter group, which is more likely to save the ship, a point defense system
or a point of armor?
My theory of point defense: Buy enough to matter or don't buy any. Buy enough
to justify an Area Defense Firecontrol, ie, >6 The best point defense is to
kill the enemy first, Mass spent
on point defense for a fleet should be less than 1/4 the
amount spent on Structure or on Weapons, (not systems, Weapons).
When in doubt, go for flexibility and buy Bat-1s.
Do a comparison of the effectiveness of an Interceptor group flying screen
versus 6 PDS and an Area Defense Firecontrol.
Interceptor Group Can be used at a greater range Can be used offensively
against enemy screen Harder to target by enemy ships 50% more effective
ADAF+ 6 PDS
Can be assigned during fighter/SML phase
Cheaper Doesn't run out or have to be retrieved Time to readiness in an
ambush, immediate, versus time to launch and then position screen.
I'll have to re-read the section on screening to see who chooses
which attacking squadron engages the screen. This could be an
advantage for the PDS/ADAF system.
> mehawk@internetcds.com (Michael Sandy) wrote:
[mass snippage]
> In order to reopen the range we would have to turn away from our
The key to a long range engagement is to never directly close with your
opponent. That way when he makes a concentrated effort to close the range (and
you're not ready to let him do that yet), you can open the range obliquely,
allowing you to use weapons.
If using the vector system, however, it only takes a Thrust 4 ship to be able
to rotate in one direction and shoot in another.
[more snipping]
> How much Point Defense Systems should I buy?
Given the ongoing discussion regarding SMLs, lots.
[snipped remainer of good analysis]
> You wrote:
> I seen and built a lot of fleets with an extremely heavy forward
And with vector movement it's even worse. I just played a set of three games
with my younger brother. He's a bit conservative, I'll admit,
but in all of them I was using a medium cruiser with a 1-arc (FB arc,
60 deg) forward class 3 beam. I never failed to have it pointing in the wrong
way. Since I can fly in one direction with the convoy while
pointing any way I want (at one point in one game I was rear-burning
while flying at a velocity of 14 in the opposite direction I was pointing.
Keeping up with freighters moving flatout forwards with thrust 4 and 6 ships
is piece of cake).
> How much Point Defense Systems should I buy?
> group, which is more likely to save the ship, a point defense
Neither. But a point defense will likely wear away one or two fighters which
are being fairly stupid if attacking corvettes anyway. I target only ships
with ADFCs with fighters, on the premise that they'll be shooting at me
anyway...:)
> Buy enough to justify an Area Defense Firecontrol, ie, >6
More than 6? That's enough to cripple the ship for any mission but
anti-fighter. What happens if you bring your uberantifighter in and
you opponent decides he doesn't wanna shell out for fighters?
> Interceptor Group
You left out "Requires buying a carrier or something".
> ADAF+ 6 PDS
Can be included in a destroyer squadron, which sees much more combat than
fleet carriers.
Of course, let's check my perspective. I've got a solid background for
my fleet--to the point of putting together a chapter of "Jane's All the
Galaxy's Starships" for the Nea Rhomaioi (I really gotta get a web page
together--anyone wanna help me get a free one and teach me how to set
it up?) and my brother (who accounts for at least 2/3 of my FT
games--he doesn't require scheduling a week in advance, is out of
school during summer unlike all my gaming buddies who work days instead of
evenings like me, and doesn't close the shop up at ten) is doing the
same for his colony. We do small-scale fights as often as grandiose
fleet battles. We both like escorts and cruisers, and balanced
multi-purpose ship designs. Besides, I can whack him if he gets
munchy, so that's not a concern. So 6+ PDSs on a cruiser would look a
bit odd besides being out of character for us both.
(I really gotta get a web page
> together--anyone wanna help me get a free one and teach me how to set
Sure. I set up my page at Angelfire.com a while back- it's not bad, you
get 5mb of free space, and you can actually turn off the little annoying
pop-up
ads.
<smack smack smack>
Uh...sorry folks. I meant to send to John, and I sent it to the list instead.
-Buji
crawling off in shame...
[quoted original message omitted]