Hello, A few of us played a game using the new Fleet Book construction rules.
While I believe that the new construction rules are better, they are not
completely balanced. The real issue comes regarding the mass of the ship you
are attacking. While a horde of destroyers could equal in points and mass the
ship they are attacking, they will lose. The bigger ship just has a lot of
mass to call upon before threshold rolls need to be made. So when pointing out
a
one-of game. Limit the number of ships within what mass categories for
both sides. So while points are one usefull measure, mass factors are another.
Phil P.
Gort, Klaatu barada nikto!
Phillip,
We played several games using ships right out of the new fleet book. We came
to exacly the oposite conclusion. We found that a group of smaller ships can
mob a large one. Smaller ships are marginally more efficient in points per
firepower. Although the large ship will probably kill a number of the little
guys, if they stick to it, they should win.
Tim
> Phillip E. Pournelle wrote:
> Hello,
> Phillip E. Pournelle wrote:
...snip...JTL
> Phil P.
Speaking as one of the abused, I must first give credit where
credit is due, Phil did a very good job of SML/SLM (whatever)
placement. Now to the comments: 1) In a straight (from the Fleet Book (FB))
battle, the SMLs have the effect of being a 'limited use' nova cannon (up to
6D6 of unmodified
damage). IMHO, this seems to be a wee bit over the top! After all,
one isn't likely to miss to often considering the area covered by four SMLs in
a square pattern spaced at 4 inches. (16 in. X 16 in. square). 2) The other
side of the coin. In a 'design your own' FB battle the
SMLs have no value at all! They are easly defeated by using cheap
throw away scout level craft as a damage sponge! 3) In a normal meeting
enguagement, the SMLs will be able to get off two shots each on a closing
force. 4) The SMLs are far to 'smart' a weapon for the cost involved. How
about this for a rotten suggestion: Place a mass 1 SML warhead
on a FT missile and fly it around for three turns? It has a
potential damage of 6D6 vs 2D6 for the normal missile. (A FT MIRV?) 6) I now
understand the change to the six fire arcs, future ships are being shipped
with standard manufactured plastic bases. 7) I am goin to miss the SSDs. They
were a great help in introducing newcomers to the game (visual appeal and ID
value). The line drawings are nice, as are the 'ship service history'
sections. 8) I feel that 'all' ships will wind up at thrust 5 (or 6), and with
this as a fact of life the need for small (escorts/cruisers) ships is
gone.
Standing bye for a verbal barrage,
Bye for now,
Hey John, I agree with most of what you said.
Paul O'Grady and I tried the FSE vs ESU using standard FB designs and between
Heavy Fighters and SMLs my ESU fleet ceased to exist in the first pass! Well,
5 out of 9 destroyed and two of the remainder had no systems left!
Paul argued that it wasn't quite so bad and that after his SMLs had fired off
their salvoes the ships were left with only a couple of 1s or a 2 Class beam
weapon. Yeah, right, i should take consolation from that fact when I didn't
have a viable force left.
We both decided the same as John, a bucket load of small scoutship 'missile
sponges' to absorb the SMLs. But then we are starting to
min/max the fleets, No?
> Hey John, I agree with most of what you said.
A friend of mine also really hates how effective 1 structure point ships can
be. In campaign games that is basically all he builds. He says that until some
mechanic comes into play which reduces their effectiveness, why do any
differently?
The problem isn't just not having enough firecons to hit all the swarmers,
part of the problem is how much wasted damage you will have versus the
swarming ships. If the average damage one does to a swarm ship is 3 points,
that is equivalent to fighting
a fleet of larger ships which only take 1/3 the damage.
In campaigns, swarms dominate until the advent of effective area effect
weaponry. Once you have enough Wave Guns and Nova Cannon to cover the maneuver
envelope of the enemy swarm you can kill them before they close. A fleet of 10
Nova Gun ships spaced 4" apart covers 40" of front at 48", or well out of
range of the swarm. Of course, such a fleet will cost 2500 points or so and is
really only cost effective versus swarms which are substantially bigger than
2500 points...
When you were considering fleets which were limited to beam weapons the larger
ship classes at least had the advantage of having 3 shields, reducing the
damage a ship would take by 75%. Of course, between the added cost of shields,
the mass lost for weapons, and the fact that larger ships maneuvered like
drunk cows reduced this advantage considerably.
At any rate, after brainstorming a bit we came up with some mechanics which
would reduce the dominance of the swarm a bit. 1) All ships now require
maintenance each production turn or so. For Escorts the maintenance is 5
points, Cruisers 10, Capitals
15, etc... Or in FT3, for mass 1-4, um, 3 points, 5-16 6 points,
17-64 9 points etc...
2) All ship classes now have to pay for all their formerly free firecons.
Paying 23 points for a Submunition Scout versus paying 13 may be a steep
enough jump to make them less cost effective. 3) Allow Salvo Missiles and
Fighter groups to spread their shots against all ships in range, allowing the
defending ships to use their point defense of course. 4) Don't use
simultaneous fire. When alternating fire by individual ships the bigger ships
will kill a number of swarmers before the swarmers get a chance to fire.
Alternately, in FT3 have ships fire in the order of the Electronics Suites.
All ships with level 2 Electronics fire before ships with level 1 Electronics
who fire before the cheapskates with level 0 Electronics. Unfortunately, that
system would reveal what level of Electronics particular ships have...:)
> Michael wrote:
[snip]
> A friend of mine also really hates how effective 1 structure point
An interesting suggestion, but this re-introduces artificial
break-points......
> 2) All ship classes now have to pay for all their formerly free
Under the FB rules, all ships now pay for their Firecons anyway (and they take
up Mass).
> 3) Allow Salvo Missiles and Fighter groups to spread their shots
Hmmm... split salvoes - divide missiles equally between all ships within
range? Possibilities here, but also complications.
> 4) Don't use simultaneous fire. When alternating fire by
The electronics idea is useful, but "official" FT (1, 2, 2.5 (FB), 3,
whatever) has ALWAYS used alternating fire only. Anyone who uses simultaneous
is using house rules.
> On 23 Jun 98, at 11:33, Glover, Owen wrote:
Or have I missed something and there is some standard rule as to the priority
SML barrages have to give to targets?
TTFN
Jon
> Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 18:16:21 -0700
> Phillip E. Pournelle wrote:
I take it you are NOT rolling to see how many missiles acquire the target as
specified in the rules? On average only 3 or 4 will
acquire, and the PDS being better, 1/3 of those will go down before
exploding. We followed the rules to the letter and found the missiles to be
very dicey at best.
IMHO, this seems to be a wee bit over the top! After all,
> one isn't likely to miss to often considering the area covered by
We shot those up before launching.
> On 23 Jun 98, at 11:33, Glover, Owen wrote:
> ----------
Well, it states pretty plainly in the rules that the SML missiles have to
target the NEAREST enemy ship. Hence the shield like formation one
can form with your midge/scouts. They take all teh damage from the salvo
missiles leaving your cruisers/capitals healthy. There is a small chance
that the salvo missiles will be closer to the larger ships but not much if you
plot your moves carefully.
On Tuesday, June 23, 1998 2:57 PM, Glover, Owen
[SMTP:oglover@mov.vic.gov.au]
wrote:
> Well, it states pretty plainly in the rules that the SML missiles have
Which is what an escort screen is for, surely. Taking the exocets and harpoons
on the chin. A house rule would be to be able to set a MASS threshold on the
SLM so that it attacked the nearest ship of the given MASS or greater. Modern
naval missiles can be target against specific blips on the radar screen.
Should be easy in the 22nd century.
> John Leary <realjtl@sj.bigger.net> wrote:
[snip]
> 1) In a straight (from the Fleet Book (FB)) battle, the SMLs have the
I disagree. SMLs and SMRs have their own checks and balances, which I'm not
sure you're taking into account. A class 3 battery has better range for the
same mass and cost, and is reusable. A wiley admiral facing SMLs would keep
the range open while taking pot shots, eventually forcing his enemy to come in
on his terms. Like the old MT missile fleets, if they goof the first shot,
they're in big trouble. Take a look at some of the Empress Ariana
match-ups with missile dependent fleets to have this illustrated.
> 2) The other side of the coin. In a 'design your own' FB battle the
This assumes that the SML user is willing to waste his shots at your sponge
instead of waiting for the tastier targets behind them. I'd suck up a couple
of beam shots from a scout in exchange for the "head" of a cruiser. If you're
going to escort every heavy ship with a scout, that's going to be pretty
expensive.
> 3) In a normal meeting enguagement, the SMLs will be able to get off
Once again, this assumes a standard closure, which I'd be loathe to do when
faced with SMLs. As I see it, an admiral has two choices to limit his
exposure, and ideally can use a combination of both. First, keep the range
open and snipe. When the bull has been pricked enough, he'll charge you to
close the range. Return the favor by charging yourself, this will make your
beams much more effective, and possibly limit him to only one good salvo
before the general furball.
If faced with fighters, which might hamper your defences, counter with
interceptors to keep your PDSs free for missile defence.
[snip]
> 7) I am goin to miss the SSDs. They were a great help in introducing
There's nothing to prevent you from making your own "more visually appealing"
SSDs. I'm at work doing the NSL and FSE, which are my favorites. I also like
the visual appeal. When I've got something worth posting, I'll let everyone
know.
> 8) I feel that 'all' ships will wind up at thrust 5 (or 6), and with
Not at all. It's still cheaper and more cost effective to make lighter ships
faster. Slower ships can also pack MUCH more of a punch for the cost. Compare
the two ends of the spectrum, the NSL Maximillian Class Battlecruiser and the
FSE Ypres Class Battlecruiser. Weighing in at about the same point cost, they
have a big difference in toe to toe firepower.
> John L wrote:
I don't think its that over the top, sure it has the *potential* for 6d6 of
damage but first you have to get the target ship within range,
then you roll d6 to see how many sub-missiles hit (average of 3.5)
then the target ship gets to fire its PDS at the missiles reducing the final
number of dice for damage even more. If you can afford to fire 4 SMLs a turn
great, but some will be wasted with that type of coverage and real soon you
will be out of reloads and then what?
> 2) The other side of the coin. In a 'design your own' FB battle
Only if the scout is the closest ship (pick an aim point for the back of the
formation in order to bypass the escorts and hit the capitals behind)
> 8) I feel that 'all' ships will wind up at thrust 5 (or 6), and with
Lets take a look at percentages. With 30% of mass used for the average hull,
and 10% for FTL, the remaining 60% can be used for weapons, firecons, screens,
armor, etc, and the thrust engines. At 5% per thrust point, a
thrust of 2 is 10%, 6 is 30%. Thus on a T6 ship 30% of mass can be used for
offensive and defensive systems. Bring the thrust down to 2 and that number is
50%, a relative increase of 67%! (or the other way around, a T6 ship has 60%
of the systems space that a T2 ship does) In real terms of a mass 200 SDN, T6
gives you 60 mass for offensive and defensive systems, buy when if the same
ship is T2, it now can use 100 mass for these systems.
So you have a choice, more thrust or more weapons (though the weapons do cost
more per mass). For smaller ships the actual mass difference will not be much
so they will have higher thrust, but on the larger ships we will
see...
(the 6+ extra 3-arc L3 batts I can fit on the example SDN if T2 are
very tempting)
> Well, it states pretty plainly in the rules that the SML missiles
Then you have to address the whole issue about ECM, ECCM, and abilities of
ships to be able to 'mask' themselves by parading around 'electonically' as
a different ship size/mass. Then you'll have to have systems or means
for which destroyers can pretend to be more massive than they really are, or
battleships being far less massive than they really are. With these added
layers of complications, I'm all for just leaving it 'nearest target'. It's
simpler, easier. :-)
M 'I like easy' k
> Jonathan White wrote:
Jon, You will more than likely get more than one reply, but thats the way
things go.
In dealing with the SML heavy fleets, and if in a free design
game/campaign, you need to design a VERY small FTL ship.
A mass one hull w/FTL drive (If not an SDB), thrust equal to
or better than the capital/cruiser it is to protect.
I do not know the design point system, I suspect that the cheapest hull with a
SLD(sub light drive) equal to 8, will cost less than 15 points. These drones
are launched and stationed off the port and starboard of the protected ship.
(Another off the stern if you desire) As the SML rules were explained to me
the SML will target the nearest ENEMY ship with ALL of the attacks from that
SML.
(One can now start the argument of what constitutes a 'ship'.)
Bye for now,
> Ground Zero Games wrote:
> No, I can't see this either, unless you are "lucky" enough (not so
Jon,
The throw away ships are cheap! Just an engine and hull, nothing
else is required for the mission, including the crew, this is a target drone
and nothing else.
As Phil was playing the SMLs, his process for placement was: 1) determine
speed of the target ship. (defines basic range) 2) determine the thrust of the
target ship. (defines turn and speed change ability.) 3) Place the salvo of 4
SMLs in a box centered on the basic range. (This area is 16 inches by 16
inches) The other two shots were extended the line formed by the 'nearest
enemy' line of SMLs. (The nearest enemy line is now 24 inches across and 12
deep.) 4) Playing with standard NAC battleships with a thrust of 4 this means
that we were never able to evade the pattern. (I strongly
suspect that thrust 5 ships or better, operating in the 20+ speed
range is the only way out of this situation.)
Additional depressing details are available.
change of subject: The target drone can be deployed less than an inch away
from the protected ship. While it is possible to hit within an inch of a ship
it is still required to be closer to the target than the drone. This means
that the SML marker must be dropped on the location the target ship base will
occupy at the end of movement, a hard task
indeed. (If someone is able to do this, they deserve to do the
damage the SML hands out!)
Bye for now,
Glover, spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> Well, it states pretty plainly in the rules that the SML missiles have
Of course, my sense of humanity is offended by the lack of morale in this
situation. Something tells me when the big wave of SMLs appeared, many of your
light ship captains would beat feet (or
thrusters) to avoid certain death - if they didn't refuse this
suicidal order in the firstplace. But then I just love morale rules!
Tom.
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> A mass one hull w/FTL drive (If not an SDB), thrust equal
Mass 3, 1 for hull, 1 for FTL, 1 for Thrust 8 drives. Total cost, 9 points
> These drones are launched and stationed off the port and
OK, I will use the Class 3 Beam Batteries (A Batteries) (36" range) to fire on
these drones the turn before the SML is in range for the normal load
(24"
range). Since the drones have only 1 damage point I should be able to take
them out easily. The escorts would also be taking out drones with long range
fire so the SML fire may not be delayed at all or at the most a turn or two.
[Using Drones to Soak Up SMLs munched]
A house rule we used at FTGZG-ECC (and in other FT3 games using SMLs),
was that you could 'set' your SMLs to attack a certain mass range, avoiding
the drone problem.
I think it's a rather simple and logical rule to put into place, as previously
discussed on the list.
Back to work! (8-)
J.
> dean.gundberg@bcbsnd.com wrote:
...Snip... JTL
> If you can afford to fire 4 SMLs a turn great, but some will be wasted
XXX Well, I would take my nearly undamaged ship, pull up next to your
ship which is well on the way to the second threshold check, and shoot
it out. JTL
> Only if the scout is the closest ship (pick an aim point for the back
xxxx I covered this in a prior message to Jon. JTL
> Lets take a look at percentages. With 30% of mass used for the
XXX As yet I cannot comment on the build rules/ship construction,
I do not have the FB yet. JTL
> (the 6+ extra 3-arc L3 batts I can fit on the example SDN if T2 are
XXX It would be interesting to build the same ship at thrust 3, and
replace all the '6+ extra 3-arc L3 batts' with 6 arc L1 battery.
(the following is an opinion not based in knowledge of the FB) I suspect the
change I have suggested will defeat your ship
more than half the time. (All else being equal)
Reasons: 1) I can outturn your ship. 2) I can close with your ship. 3) I can
outshoot your ship at close range. (This winds up being critical, I will be
throwing more dice and
therefore getting more sixes/rerolls than you can generate with
your more limited arcs and numbers of die.) JTL
> Dean
This is being sent as a 'something to think about' message and is not intended
as critical. (I am fully aware that sometimes I can be rather direct.)
In two to four weeks I may have more to say, by then I should have a FB. (And
at that point I'll have to consider if anyone really wants to hear any of it.)
Bye for now,
> Thomas Barclay wrote:
Tom, Think expendable, 'target drone'.
Bye for now,
> Jerry Han wrote:
> Back to work! (8-)
Going back to work is not the answer!
I guess one of the problems I have with SMLs is: they are just to 'smart' when
you consider how 'stupid' the FT missile is.
Bye for now,
> John L wrote:
(snipped and moved around a bit)
> This is being sent as a 'something to think about' message and is not
> intended as critical
I'm not taking it that way, just a discussion of tactics.
> > If you can afford to fire 4 SMLs a turn great, but some will be
Your ships would not be nearly undamaged though, a few turns within the 24"
range of the SMLs keeps you within range of most weapons so you would have
some damage too, the SML ships just launched a bunch of their weapons mass
which the non-SML armed ships still can use. Then I might not want to
close
since the non-SML ship probably has longer ranged weapons.
> > (the 6+ extra 3-arc L3 batts I can fit on the example SDN if T2
> replace all the '6+ extra 3-arc L3 batts' with 6 arc L1 battery.
Actually no. The FB clarifies odd thrusts stating that the amount of thrust
usable for turning is half the total rounded *down*. So the T2 and T3 ships
can both only turn 1 point per turn.
> 2) I can close with your ship.
With the clarification of odd thrusts, I don't think that the 1 point of extra
thrust will give you that much of an advantage, but it depends on the initial
set up. If both ships have similar speeds the extra thust will close the gap
but in the mean time the longer range beams will take a toll.
> 3) I can outshoot your ship at close range.
Again all depending on how much of an advantage the extra point of thrust is
and how long it takes to close. (it also gets into the new design rules, is a
single 3-arc class 3 battery really equal to 6 all arc class 1
batteries?)
Keep the thought coming, as soon as more players have the FB, this will all be
played out.
> John Leary wrote:
> > Back to work! (8-)
It is when you need money to buy all those minatures you keep
looking at. (8-)
> I guess one of the problems I have with SMLs is: they are just to
Well, in the end, it's what you feel comfortable with. If you don't like SMLs,
don't use them. I don't use MT missiles for that reason.
Later,
J.
> ----------
Well, it states pretty plainly in the rules that Owen Gthe SML missiles have
to target the NEAREST enemy ship. Hence the shield like formation one
can form with your midge/scouts. They take all teh damage from the salvo
missiles leaving your cruisers/capitals healthy. There is a small chance
that the salvo missiles will be closer to the larger ships but not much if you
plot your moves carefully.
wouldn't it be wiser though to screen your capitals with point defense
heavy frigate hulls that would have a much better chance of surviving
the missile attack. granted I haven't gotten a copy of the fleet book yet, but
you should still be able to stuff at least 4 PDafs in a frigate hull, making
it much more likely to be available to help defend you from further attacks.
That reminds me of an idea I had for Honor Harrington, take a smaller hull,
destroyer or light cruiser, and strip out its offensive weapons and stuff it
full of ECM, counter measures, point defense, etc...etc... Shove several of
these ships in with your wall of battle...
later
> Geo-Hex wrote:
> I take it you are NOT rolling to see how many missiles acquire the
xxx Actually, we did roll. I was forced to sacrafice a heavy cruiser to
protect my BB. JTL
...SNIP... (reguarding expendables) JTL
> We shot those up before launching.
xxx I can only presume that the rate of closure is increadbly slow
or you are using custom ships with lots of 3/A batteries on them.
(Or possibly you are using the SMLs after the beam fire.)
The limited number of FSE ships that I have seen did not have L3/A
batteries at all, and these were BBs. JTL
> KR, Geo-Hex
Bye for now,
Dean, I just has a bad thought, a thrust one ship cannot turn at all in the
FB. Is this true?
Bye for now,
> You wrote:
<snip a bunch o' stuff 'bout balancing SLM ships>
Ahh... Using vector movement system, no? Try using the suggested 3"
kill radius for the SLMs. My try-the-damn-thing-out game was with my
little brother using a pair of FSE heavy cruisers. We found it damn near
impossible to hit anyone with a 3" movement. If you fly in a straight line,
you WILL get slammed. If you jink like a madman (which both of us do, since I
use a floating game table) you can evade a 3" radius most of the time. Of
course, if you have a thrust of 2, you're still ewedsrcay. But if you rotate
whatever direction you like and then use your main burn, you could end up
ANYWHERE.
> I just has a bad thought, a thrust one ship cannot turn at
No. As stated in the FB rules, even if a ship only has a thrust rating of 1,
it can still use that single point to turn, it just means it can't
accel/decel in the same turn.
> Dean,
No, it is stated (as a specific exception to the rounding down) that any
ship with thrust 1 CAN still turn 1 point instead of accel/decel. This
covers ships with design thrust of 1 and those with damaged thrust-2
drives. Although is ISN'T something we stated in the book, to save
disagreements I
think that a thrust-1 drive should be considered destroyed after 1
threshold hit rather than damaged, to avoid problems of "thrust 0.5"
drives....
Easy - a SML attack engages the nearest target to the point of aim - any
ship will draw fire if it is closer to the point of aim than another -
scout ships find a new role in battles (particularly against the FSE) by
flying
close to SDNs and FCVs - they may take as many as four salvos or more in
one turn if you're lucky...
Brendan Pratt - Complete Bastard - bastard@oalink.com.au
"I always said you could get more with a kind word and a 2x4
that you could get with just a kind word!" - Marcus Cole
[quoted original message omitted]
With clever placement of missiles, one *can* certainly get within the
defensive cordon of scouts near a primary target, but I think you will find it
only happens consistently against opponents that fly in straight lines
all the time at the same speed - we've been experimenting here for a few
weeks and do affect the use of SMLs significantly - a missile armed
opponent
needs to be more careful with targeting and/or hold their fire until the
smaller ships are destroyed - a tactic which can cost a missile player
dearly if his opponent concentrates fire on SML ships themselves...
Brendan Pratt - Complete Bastard - bastard@oalink.com.au
"I always said you could get more with a kind word and a 2x4
that you could get with just a kind word!" - Marcus Cole
[quoted original message omitted]
> On Tue, 23 Jun 1998, Ground Zero Games wrote:
> Michael wrote:
As a possible alternative, a friend of mine suggested doing this
> At 01:50 PM 6/23/1998 -0500, Thomas Barclay wrote:
Frigates today already have the order to take the torpedo hit for a capital
ship... Of course the best solution is to shoot the archer and not the
arrows...
Gort, Klaatu barada nikto!
> At 11:12 AM 6/23/1998 +0000, KR, Geo-Hex wrote:
We followed the rules and rolled for the number of lock ons to the nearest
enemy target, assigned point defense systems and C-batteries and then
resolved the attack accordingly.
Gort, Klaatu barada nikto!
> Phillip E. Pournelle wrote:
Of course, but this is expected to be a last ditch effort after everything has
failed, not a matter of first course. The only thing that makes 'light ship
soaking off' a viable combat tactic in FT is
when you fight battles as one-off, who cares what happens afterwards
type affairs.
As a combat commander, if I saw a fleet with that type of 'soak-off'
thing coming at me, I would fire every last SML I had, and then retreat, rearm
from my tenders, and then go at them again. Small ships are cheap compared to
large ships, but SML reloads are the cheapest of them all.
Another house rule way that might be interesting; SMLs will attack EVERY ship
within the detonation radius. Roll to see the number of missiles that actually
find targets, and then 'allocate' the missiles to targets in the area, either
randomly, equally, by size, or by however you feel like doing it.
Random thoughts.
J.
> Phillip E. Pournelle wrote:
<SNIP>
> Another house rule way that might be interesting; SMLs will attack
Hey - I LIKE this idea. While I haven't got the FB yet, I have followed
this discussion (and other SML discussions) with interest. While it does not
increase the maximum damage that a single ship could take from a SML,
it does help make the swarm of useless target-only ships a little less
appealing to the ultra-silly types. My personal take on this is that I
would prefer an allocation scheme - Roll to see how many successfully
acquired targets (normal FB number of hits), start with the largest target
within range, then move down the line in terms of decreasing size,
round-robin fashion until all are allocated. Any applicable defense
measures are then applied to the incoming attacks vs each ship in order. Of
course, there are those who want all fire directed against a single
target - that makes sense, but then I will set my SML to only target
ships of a given size range. (besides, I've always thought that scatter
missile packs were a cool way attack squadrons or clouds of fighters.)
> At 01:02 PM 6/24/98 -0900, you wrote:
Actually, I'd think it would make it even *more* appealing, though only if you
upgrade the little ships so they carry a bit of weaponry. Slap a
3-arc
B-batt -- er, class 2 battery on there, plus 2 PDAFs, fly around in
clusters of four, and very rarely worry about salvo missiles again....
> >Another house rule way that might be interesting; SMLs will attack
> Hey - I LIKE this idea. [...] My personal take on this is that I
Why not just give them the same sort of AI as MT missiles?
i.e. let them hit whichever target the firing player wants them to.
You could even allow a player to split the missiles between ships, but I'd be
against this because it'd slow the game down.