I am new to Full Thrust, if not to Space Gaming. If these comments are
stupid please show some forbearance as I am easily hurt. :-)
I have previously played all incarnations of SFB (since the pocket book),
Starfire, FASA's Star Trek Combat Game, Babylon 5 Wars, Silent Death, etc etc.
Hell I've even designed my own hex based template damage
strategic / Tactical game, (think Interceptor / Leviathan / Starfire /
SFB crossbreed), and Megagamed it in London a few times.
Sunday I played my 3rd game of Full Thrust FB rules, with 2 similarly
inexperienced experienced ;-) players, if you catch my drift! One has a
battleship / batteries Mania,(Chris), the other thinks anything bigger
than an Attack fighter is a waste of time (Fred). Being used to testing
systems to destruction (and stupidly cocky),:-) we designed our own
ships which "just had to be better"?!? This has thrown up a lot of questions
that I hope people may be able to help and comment on. Especially Jon!
For the first two battles we built 1500 point fleets, and doubled up on one of
our fleets. In Battle 1 Fred designed a 1274 point Carrier with 7 Torpedo 3
Heavy and 4 attack fighters on board plus 4 carrier escorts (all Point defence
and Type 1 Batteries), and a second Battledreadnought, 2CL, 3DH fleet.
Chris took a BDN+2CH+2DH fleet (Type 3 Battery heavy) I had a
SupaDreadnought (690 NPV)+2CH+2DH antifighter combo (12 point defence +
Area control on the SDN, I guessed Fred would have fighters) On a smallish
table we charged towards one another, My SDN disappeared under a hail of
Fighter and 5 Salvo missile battery fire on turn 2 without ever having fired
anything but point Defence, I knew 12 point defence wasn't enough against
Fred. At 15 we interpenetrated lead
elements and my 2CH+2DH fragged the Fragile hulled CVH (actually the
Engine plant blew at the beginning of the next turn, but it wouldn't
have survived another turn), While Chris occupied Fred's BDN/CL/DH
combo. Unable to reload his Torp fighters Fred's fleet lost 25% of his
firepower and Chris' Battery ships polished off the remainder. Our conclusion.
Fred wants his CV's to launch 4 table lengths away from combat, a la Pacific
Warfare, and that Attack fighters are better value for money. In addition it
appears that fighters in penny packets are not very effective.
In the Second Battle we had a Heavy ship Force on one side, and light forces
and one of the standard NAC carriers on the other. Massed area point defence
smashed the fighters; the Escorts got killed before they got to effective
range. Again it seemed as if fighters must be massed and that big ships are
king.
On to Sundays engagement. We chose to fight a 500 point per force engagement,
Chris brought 2 TMF140 "Battleships" for 500 points each one thrust 2, one
thrust 4. Fred bought 2 DH's on weak hulls with 2 Attack fighters and 4 EMP
Shipkiller missiles (i.e. not Salvo, the big ones in More Thrust). I had an
Escort cruiser (with one standard fighter flight) and 3 Torpedo armed DD's. We
played on an 8' x 4' table. We charged towards one another, Fighter screen at
the front. The light forces at 8, up to 12, then 16, the 2 BB (BDN's really)
at 4, then 6, and 8. We ended turn 2 with the ships at range 34" (damnit) and
all 8 Shipkiller missiles in the air. The BB's fired their class 3 batteries;
one DD vanished, without even firing. On turn 3 the missiles all 8, and all 5
squadrons hit the heavy BB. Chris fired at the 8 Missiles with all 8 Point
defence and 6 class 1 Batteries. As per More Thrust we hit these big
missiles only on a 6. 2 died. The 6 rolled for EMP, allowing for the -
1 dieroll mod' for screens we got 2 5-6 hits and 1 4-6 hits. {In
hindsight, Knowing that the missiles were EMP's Chris should probably have
killed the fighters, but he did not know that, and thought he was about to
take 16d6 of Nuclear Missile damage. Still he would more likely have survived
that than the fighters for the next few turns.}
Now this is our first problem. Fred read this rule as meaning that Chris had
to roll 3 times on every system, including Core systems, twice
on 5-6 breakdown, once on 4-6 breakdown. This shut down the BB (BDN
really) totally, every system, including all Core systems. A drastic effect
for 16 Mass Factors of equipment!
On the same turn the light BB totalled the last two DD's and damaged one of
the carrier DH's, in exchange for losing his Armour and not much else. On the
third turn Chris repaired the Engine (so no explosion) and nothing else on the
heavy BB. All the fighters attacked (5 Flights) the stricken BB. The Escort
Cruiser and 2 DH carriers accelerated through out of range for two turns while
the fighters killed the heavy BB, and the other turned round and pursued. By
turn 6 the heavy BB had been fragged by Fighter fire and the remaining BB was
pinning the CE and DH carriers at the bottom of the table. At long range he
had scoured the Armour and first quarter off the CE. At this point he had been
ignoring the now unarmed DH's. At this point 4 out of 5 flights had used 5
CEF's and were having trouble closing on the lighter (speed 4) BB. Over the
next 3 turn's one flight at a time hit the light BB supported by the rapidly
dying CE. The light BB was forced to swap some fire to the unarmed DH's
totalling one in order to prevent refuelled fighters rejoining the affray.
This enabled the CE to survive, with 80% hull damage, to turn 9 when the CE's
last weapon, a pulse torpedo finished off the BB. One Crippled CE and one
Crippled DH carrier survived the fight. But it was won by the EMP missiles.
Our main problem revolves around their use. As it stands they appear to be
game winning system. For 238 points on a fragile hulled DH 15 of them can be
launched into a fleet engagement and probably shutdown two capital ships. We
would all want to take them in large quantities. Given our (limited)
experience I hoped other people might comment on how typical or atypical this
seems. Is there a modification to account for these? At the moment I am
leaning towards No core systems being affected. Same logic as no core systems
affected by needle beams, buried too deep.
In addition I think only one roll should have been made against the EMP,
against the worst position, i.e. a 4-6 roll. This would shutdown half
of a ship but not guarantee its death. Other suggestions are Point defence as
normal, Chris's position, i.e. a 4,5,6 kills a missile. And of course, no
speed 2 ships would make targeting within 3" more difficult. What have you
done with this? Has Jon commented before? Maybe this is an unresolved problem
for Fleetbook 2 or FT version 3 rules?
On a more general question, Why would you build ships faster than Thrust 2?
The extra 10% hull space dropping from Thrust 4 can be a lot of weapon
systems, and with the ability to swing ship direction under a vector movement
system even a Thrust 1 ship can almost always face towards an enemy.
We incline towards a strategic reason for higher thrust ratings; perhaps
thrusters are used in FTL travel, the FTL drive giving the ability to enter
FTL mode, but thrusters determining how fast one travels. We are looking at
this as there seems to be no tactical reason to be faster than Thrust 2. I
know you can refuse to fight superior forces if faster, but Thrust 2 seems
find for an aggressor attacking somewhere. Have a Thrust 8 ship to check out
the local defences, call in the big boys, and "Bobs yer uncle."
What are your thoughts? How do you restrict, if you do, the chosen Thrust
ratings? Does anyone else go Fred's route with fragile hulled carriers and 14
squadrons?
I await enlightenment ;->
----------
> From: Jef Addley <Jef@jama.demon.co.uk>
snip snip snip
> Now this is our first problem. Fred read this rule as meaning that
chop chop chop
> > One Crippled CE and one Crippled DH carrier survived the fight. But
cut cut cut
> On a more general question, Why would you build ships faster than
I would say you answered your own question. If your opponent is going to take
slow 'thrust 2' ships load up on the missiles (salvo and mt) with a nice chunk
of fighters to back them up (or maybe just a huge amount of one, it is up to
you). If you move slow in a game of FT against a fleet armed with those kind
of weapons it won't be very gentle for you. High speed is your best defense
(IMHO) against those kinds of weapons and you can only really move at high
speed (because of turning) if you have a high thrust ship.
I'm not saying that you did or did not use the emp missiles correctly,
somebody else well answer that question better than I, - but missiles
are VERY effective weapons against large ships with slow thrust (unless they
have HUGE amounts of point defense and then you lost the mass advantage you
were looking for anyhow).
If your opponent is going to take slow ships and you can design your own
before play I would suggest putting one of those external salvo racks on each
ship just to teach him a lesson.
just a few thoughts
Chad
Jef spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> On a more general question, Why would you build ships faster than
Sure, you may be able to face me, and if you are a big enough ship, hold me
outside of weapons range fearing your batteries, missiles, etc. But if we're
playing a scenario where you have to stop me doing something, my better thrust
may let me pull you out of position and take advantage of that. Otherwise, I
just run rings about you and settle for a stalemate since you can't catch me
if I don't want you to.
There are good reasons why some decently offensive bits of your fleet should
be fast moving. It opens up a whole range of capability. Now, OTOH, clustering
ships for overlapping fire is quite devastating and usually good defensively
too. But if you don't have the speed, and your opponent does, he'll either
decide he's outnumbered, take his toys and go home, or he'll run around you
and make you look foolish by attacking the objective or whatever.
> We incline towards a strategic reason for higher thrust ratings;
perhaps
> thrusters are used in FTL travel, the FTL drive giving the ability to
This presumes of course you know in advance exactly where he'll be attacking.
And what if he engages with part of his force and draws you off in pursuit,
then moves in the other part of his force. If you can't get back fast enough,
bad news. Further, lets say you were divided into two fleets and he was too.
His two fleets separate, and you pursue to get equal odds battles. He lets you
get just far enough apart, then zooms one set in to join the other for a
battle where he has superiority for a period of time (long enough to do you
some big damage) before your clunkers can catch up.
> Have a Thrust 8 ship to check out the local defences, call in the big
Thrust is a tool of people who use manoevre agressively. It favours fast
attack ship tactics (PT boat, destoryer, etc tactics). Now, mind you, such
ships had better run from the thrust 2 weapons platforms unless they have
numerical advantage to compensate, but they have a real tactical niche.
Imagine you need to respond quickly to an outer system planet being attacked
(a small outpost) by a fleet. If you aren't fast yourself, you'll never get
there in time. If you aren't fast enough, and do get most of the way there,
and he sweeps around you to hit the main planet from an unexpected direction,
you can't get back.
Lumbering behemoths have their place, but so too do faster vessels with a tad
lighter armour or weapons. A good fleet has a good mix, and a good admiral
knows how to use that mix effectively. Good
scenario design takes this into account - trying to force a fast
light fleet to slug it out with a line-of-battle fleet made of speed
2 tanks is basically putting it at a disadvantage from the start. Proper
thought in how the scenario would come about will influence what is played,
and if the scenario is fixed, should influence the fleet elements chosen to
execute the mission.
/************************************************
> On a more general question, Why would you build ships faster than
A lot depends on the victory conditions of the scenario.
For example: in a 1500 point engagement, 'holding the field' will be worth a
certain amount of points, say 200 points. If I build a thrust 8 fleet with
Long Range Missile Salvo Racks, I'll fire my entire load and bugger off.
I'll take one or two rounds of beam fire, mostly at long range, pay the
construction cost of the missile racks, and concede the victory points for the
system. I can almost certainly inflict more damage than I receive in that sort
of engagement, the question is whether
I will inflict _enough_ damage when my fleet has no staying power.
But when the victory points for the system is high enough, I'd go with thrust
2 ships as well, for the extra firepower and armor.
However, I might have 1/3 my points in a wave of thrust 8 Salvo
Rack twits whose purpose is to either force the enemy to use up his missiles
early or risk his heavies taking major damage before they can fire back.
Depending on what I knew of my foe's fleet composition I would either send
them in ahead of the Wall, (my name for the thrust 2 heavily armored ships of
the fleet), or at the same time as the Wall. If my opponent has enough
firepower to destroy my SLRs twits several times over in beam weapons, I'll
send the twits in first. They will get off all their fire and my opponent will
not be able to hurt my main fleet.
If my opponent has a Salvo Missile fleet, again, I'll send in the twits first,
widely dispersed. With a thrust 8 it will be hard for my opponent to
efficiently target my twits with missiles, and besides, they will already have
fired. My SLR twits will probably only mass about 10 or so, so my opponents
salvos, if they hit, will only be kill 30 point ships. When my salvos go home
they will do up to 3.5*3.5 or about 12 points of damage.
It is really only if my opponent has a lot of fighter groups that I would make
sure to send in everything at once.
> We incline towards a strategic reason for higher thrust ratings;
perhaps
> thrusters are used in FTL travel, the FTL drive giving the ability to
I'm a fan of the super carrier as well, but I waffle between a fragile hull
with lots of fighters and a thrust 2 carrier with over 50% of its mass in hull
and armor. When using boosters on one's fighters, (using combat endurance to
get the extra 12" movement), it is often necessary to refuel one's fighters. A
heavily armored carrier is more likely to survive to retrieve fighters.
When operating with fragile carriers, you _need_ to be able to
launch 4 table tops away, which means you need a large scouting and screening
force. It doesn't do you much good to launch 10 fighter groups against what
appears to be the enemy fleet 4 table tops away if those ships are actually
decoy ECM ships or if they have sufficient thrust to bypass your fighters.
Your fighters will be three turns movement away from your carrier when your
carrier dissolves under a swarm of DDs with Salvo Missile Racks.
When playing with fragile carriers, you need to have a GM
or moderator to keep track of secret off-board movement and
what units are within scanner range of what units.
> I'm a fan of the super carrier as well, but I waffle between a
This leads to something I've wondered about for a while - how long does
it take to refuel fighters? Has there ever been a consensus reached?
> Derek Smyk wrote:
> >I'm a fan of the super carrier as well, but I waffle between a
It's up to a house rule to provide this answer, and the answers are many.
Ideally, this is an issue that needs to be clarified in the FT3 rule book.
I use 1d6 FIGHTERS rearmed per turn - adds a little tension to the game.
Noah
[quoted original message omitted]
1D6 fighters is also the rule I'm using for the Empress Arianna tournament. It
has been and will be a critical factor in determining the victor of some of
the tournament results.
> Jef Addley wrote:
First of all, remember that the FB is a later product than MT, so if there is
any conflict between the two FB supercedes MT.
> Fred wants his CV's to launch 4 table lengths away from combat,
<g> Sure. Which of my fleets are you going to attack - the decoy ones
consisting of weasel boats and a couple of CEs, or the one consisting of
high-thrust cruisers...? <g> I've done this (and have it done to me)
enough times to stop using fragile-hulled carriers. There's a very good
reason why the FB carriers are the best protected ships in the book...
> In addition it appears that fighters in penny packets are
Correct. Exactly as it should be, IMO. Indeed, I can't think of any other
space combat game (or naval game, either - but I've only played a couple
of those) where penny-packet fighter/bomber attacks are effective.
> In the Second Battle we had a Heavy ship Force on one side, and light
Too few missiles, it seems... and too few needle beams and pulse torpedo
launchers, as well <g>
> On to Sundays engagement.
[snip]
> Chris fired at the 8 Missiles with all 8 Point
The PDS section in FB supercedes the missile interception rules in MT, so
a PDS has a 4-6 chance to kill an MT missile. The rule doesn't specify
salvo or MT missiles - it just says "scores of ... 4 and 5 kill ONE
missile or fighter, while a 6 kills two...", and the term "missile" includes
both Salvo Missiles and MT missiles. However, each MT missile is a separate
target so a single PDS can't kill more than one of them in a turn.
> Now this is our first problem. Fred read this rule as meaning that
This isn't quite correct. You roll thrice per system, including Core
systems, but the Core system rolls are +1 to the treshold number as
usual
(ie, you get two rolls of 6 and one on 5-6 against them). 'Course, the
Core System rules are even more optional than all the rest <g>
It seems that his ship only had level-1 screens (at most). That does
hurt a lot against EMP missiles, that's true.
The EMP missiles were written for the old design rules where level-3
screens were allowed (and *very* common). Since the FB limited the maximum
screen level to 2, you may want to change the EMP missile damage table to
"1-3: No effect
4-5: Treshold check on 5-6
6: Treshold check on 4-6;
Reduce the die roll with 1 for each level of screens used."
> One Crippled CE and one Crippled DH carrier survived the fight. But
> Our main problem revolves around their use. As it stands they appear
*If* they manage to hit them, yes. Using higher thrust ratings and the FB PDS
and fighter screen rules, this isn't quite as easy as it was in your game. It
was a problem in MT (or, rather, their cousins the standard
ship-killer missiles were).
> At the moment I am leaning towards No core systems being affected.
Same
> logic as no core systems affected by needle beams, buried too deep.
Sounds OK. The entire Core Systems rule is completely optional, and I prefer
not to use it at all <shrug>
> Other suggestions [against MT missiles] are Point defence as normal,
It already does under the FB rules :-)
> And of course, no speed 2 ships would make
Yes.
> What have you done with this? Has Jon commented before? Maybe this is
No. It is an at least partly resolved problem in the Fleet Book <g> All of the
MT weapons (except possibly the fighter variants) need more work before FTIII
is published, but the MT missiles have already been toned down a huge lot in
the FB.
> On a more general question, Why would you build ships faster than
You had missiles used to (very) good effect against you - you've already
noted that higher thrust ratings make missile targetting more difficult
-
and *still* ask this question?!?
A thrust-2 ship has *no* possibility of dodging an SM salvo, so it has
to rely on point defences. It can dodge MT missiles if they launch far enough
away and the missile player makes a mistake early on, but even that is
difficult. High thrust = ability to dodge missiles, forcing the
missile user to spread his salvoes to be sure of a hit - and this of
course dilutes the salvoes, making them easier for point defences and fighter
screens to stop. High thrust also helps quite a lot if you want
to disengage, or stop your enemy from disengaging - which may or may not
be important, depending on the victory conditions.
> What are your thoughts? How do you restrict, if you do, the chosen
I don't. Indeed, with the FB design system I've stopped limiting the maximum
thrust to 8 as well. The Mass cost is quite sufficient IMO.
> Does anyone else go Fred's route with fragile hulled
Only once, and with the same result as he got. There's a reason why the US
carriers in WWII were so heavily armoured... and it applies in FT as
well :-/ Even more so in FT, I think.
Regards,
> On Thu, 17 Sep 1998, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> A thrust-2 ship has *no* possibility of dodging an SM salvo, so it has
...under vector movement. In cinematic the deciding factor is raw initial
speed.
> Only once, and with the same result as he got. There's a reason why
Some British carriers were known for their heavy armoured flight decks, even
to the point that they had to lie about their aircraft complement or people
would have guessed where all that tonnage went, but US carriers? Where did you
get that?
I can't see anything especially heavy in their 1"-2" decks or 4"-6"
belts compared to, say, contemporary Japanese carriers. (Info based on Jane's
> Mikko wrote:
> > A thrust-2 ship has *no* possibility of dodging an SM salvo, so it
Whish they used, according to the battle report. But your point is correct:
> In cinematic the deciding factor is raw initial speed.
Yes. A Thrust-2 ship needs to start with a speed of 19 or higher (IIRC -
give or take 1) to be able to dodge a missile salvo placed straight ahead...
but even though I'm known for flying at high speeds, even I
don't usually go that fast in thrust-2 ships. 'Course, I rarely ever use
Thrust-2 ships at all <g>
> > Only once, and with the same result as he got. There's a reason why
Recent thread on the Starfire mailing list :-/ They quoted Jane's as
well (or claimed to), but the figures were a wee bit higher than 6". Can't
vouch for their validity since I don't have either Jane's or Conway's,
unfortunately :-(
Regards,