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Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lI'm an avid
fleet designer myself, and even though I prefer to design to a story
or theme rather than min-maxing things to death, I totally understand
the impulse to do so.
However, even in a story-driven design intent, it's important to me that
things
be balanced points-wise, so that pitting X points of Design-Theory-A
against
Design-Theory-B makes for a good scrap.
Likewise, all other things being equal, X points of A versus <X points of B
should typically result in a victory for A.
I know that sound sort of sterile, but when you attach names like NAC, FSE and
ScanFed to them it get's much more interesting!
Regards, Schoon
> However, even in a story-driven design intent, it's
I'd agree with one extra note: Design Theory A must be accompanied by
Strategy/Tactics A, and similarly for B. If you design for A, but don't
command your fleet to take advantage of it, A shouldn't be worth its points.
This just means that the points for a design approach should assume optimal
usage of that approach in the battle.
So now there is the necessity of not allowing the design approaches to negate
each other just by choosing them before the battle, while still allowing
tactical decisions to change the relative worth of the
approaches. That's the point of decision-making in the game, I think.
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lThe trouble is
that if the new Battle Star Galactica cylon fleet showed up in the GZG
universe their base stars would clean the clocks with all the fleet book
ships.
While the idea of forcing ordnance based ships to buy tenders is interesting,Â
as these models might not be represented on the table (why take your cargo
ships into battle)Â all you have done is to increase the points cost of
ordnance ships.
In a campaign I can see missile armed ships being used as strikers that jump
in blow everything up and jump out you then have ships that are beam armed
that can stay the course longer.
In our games, we let people design their own fleets, often inspired by a scifi
universe, but that lead to people designing fleets based in say the star trek
universe and then someone else brings a fleet based on a Honor Harrington
universe.
While the FT rules pay homage to WW2 or 1980s navies and use a different set
of rules for engaging ships and ordnance all fleet design is based around the
gamble you take in regard to how much point defence you take. If you take 90%
of you weapon load out as pds and the enemy take ordnance then you probably
win if then enemy takes all beams as their armament then you lose. So much of
the fate of the game is determined by the fleet design.
While the mechanisms for shooting down missiles are Ok, the other compounding
factor is the rate of fire for missile ships. being able to design a ship that
can salvo 40 MT missiles as soon as the target gets to within 48 inches and
then turn tail and run for it a mass 200 ship might mount a couple of beam 4.
We used our campaign framework to create the games and provide enough
background to the missions. I'm not really sure how many different missions
there are, the game is about defeating the enemy afterall.
I still think that addressing the root cause and bringing the missiles and
other ordnance into line with direct fire weapons will fix all the problems.
Other posters have identified that its unlikely that different technolgies
would be about in ships at the same time. I think that's evident from the
rules and that for some reason all the fleets have got together and decided to
not use massed missiles and fighters.
> From: John Tailby
> The trouble is that if the new Battle Star Galactica cylon fleet showed
Well, it wouldn't take a whole lot of modification for Kra'Vak to beat them.
Escort cruisers straight out of the book would mess them up, and if you simply
built a larger version of them they'd be pretty solid
against most anything you could design. Cylon long-range missiles just
flat out would never land on them, the raiders would get shredded by the
scatterguns, and they'd be on the base stars in just a couple turns before
they could much think about escaping.
> While the idea of forcing ordnance based ships to buy tenders is
I would actually like to see a dedicated system in the game that had no
immediate combat value and whose sole purpose was to allow remote
replenishment of fighters and other expendible munitions. It would be a basic
feature of a tender, and a
dreadnought/carrier
or missile ship might well consider one of them as a necessary element for
long range deployments. (e.g. the Yamato in the anime of the same name and the
Pegasus in BSG
both were conspicuously described/shown to have such facilities on
board, setting them apart from other ships that didn't, such as the title
vessel in BSG and the rebel basestar that accompanied her through the last
season.) While it might not be necessary for carrier
operation in the short term, for any long range and/or extended
deployments it should be considered something of a necessity for most cases.
There may, of course, be exceptions. For instance, a single-system
power that's at war with an immediate neighbor might not want to bother with
self-replenishing carriers -- although
as carriers without fighters are useless against an enemy right close at hand
they probably might not bother with starship tactics that were heavily
dependent on fighters in the first place. A despotic ruler might have a
greater paranoia about his own admirals overthrowing him than he does about
alien invasion, and as such he would be more concerned about denying them
these facilities to prevent a potential coup than he would about whether
they're in any kind of useful readiness state if those invaders ever actually
showed up. Either way, depending on the scenario, yeah, fleets that have
carriers without their own way of resupply should indeed see a real effect on
their ability to fight at full strength.
E