Status: RO
Hi All, (Please note I did not say, Y'all.(But, I thought about it.)) A couple
days ago someone mentioned House Rules, so here goes:
Movement Sequence: 1) Full Thrust missiles. 2) Thrust 1 and 2 ships. 3) Thrust
3 and 4 ships. 4) Thrust 5 and 6 ships. 5) Thrust 7 and 8 ships. 6) Guided
missles. 7) Fighters.
8) Anti-fighter and Anti-missile guided missiles.
Combat occures in reverse order.
EXPLAIN!
(Oh, yes.) This change will help (I trust) the small and
medium size ships last a turn or two longer. The guided missles are a creation
of an alien race and have
the following performance profile. Mass 1, Speed 20, 2-30 degree
turns (turn like a ship). Damage, as a half size "FT" missile. Fighters must
be in base to base contact for combat.
I have knowingly left out the alien races that generated this
revision of the movement sequence. One more item of interest,
E-Sensors and S-sensors provide the ship with a plus one against
missiles. By for now, or TTFN, JTL
Status: RO
Ref house rules. Someone commented on the limited survivability of small
ships. We have the HR that ships with a thrust > 6 (ie 7 or 8) can only be
engaged with C beams, needle beams, submunitions and missiles. This has two
effects, it forces the bigger ships to spend some mass on the lighter weapons,
and it allows the smaller craft an opportunity to close with the enemy and get
a few shots off before they are vapourised.
> On Wed, 15 Oct 1997, Todd Mason wrote:
Status: RO
> Ref house rules. Someone commented on the limited survivability of
This sounds like a good rule, and it has a certain amount of historical
precedent. Big wet-navy battleships can't aim their huge 15"/18"/etc
guns
at small, fast vessels - so pre-ww1, ships had quick-firing guns along
the sides to deal with the little torpedo boats and stuff that were popular
then.
It also makes the much-neglected C Beam more useful, especially if you
also allow C Batts to be used as PDAFs as well, as per the More Thrust
rules...
Excerpts from FT: 15-Oct-97 Re: house rules/offline by Brian
Status: RO
Burger@camosun.bc. > > Ref house rules. Someone commented on the limited
survivability of small
> > ships. We have the HR that ships with a thrust > 6 (ie 7 or 8) can
You know, I'd allow B-batts to aim at such ships as well. C-batts
already have anti-fighter/anti-missile capability, but the B-batt is
still stuck in the middle with nothing much to recommend it. (C'mon, 6
mass gets you fewer shots at range with 3 B-batts than it does with 2
A-batts....) You might consider kicking in a mass limitation too,
otherwise really fast battleships could become quite overpowering. (Expensive,
yes, but I imagine they could do a *lot* of damage.)
> Todd Mason wrote:
Status: RO
> Ref house rules. Someone commented on the limited survivability of
Does this apply to escorts or simply to all ships with Thrust of 7 and
8?
If you allow these ships to mount B and A batteries, they will be able to
engage enemy targets with impunity. If you restricted escorts to B batteries
and also allowed B batteries to engage these ships, it would raise the value
of the underrated B battery.
Status: RO
> Ref house rules. Someone commented on the limited...
[...]
> It also makes the much-neglected C Beam more useful, especially if
Wasn't the 'fix' to the A/B-batt thing here to make the A-batts 4 Mass
instead of 3...?
Mk
Status: RO
I like the idea, and it is realistic but I don't think that because the ship
is fast and the bigs are big that they should be totaly uneffective. I believe
that greatly lowering the chance of a successful hit is a better than making
the larger gun worthless.
It would be a sad day when a capital fleet gets torn-up by a fleet with
nothing but crusiers and scout ships...
my $0.02
CMC
> On Wed, 15 Oct 1997, Todd Mason wrote:
Status: RO
I agree with this. With wet-navy ships big guns allowed you to hit
targets at a distance and penetrate heavy armour. If a small fast ship got
within range they would use smaller quick fire guns that were easier to target
with. Perhaps with A batteries they would be normal against
T-7 (thrust 7) ships at long range,penalty of 1 off your die roll at
medium range and 2 off at short range (or some variation on this).
David Best
> ----------
> On Wed, 15 Oct 1997, Chris McCurry wrote:
Status: RO
> I like the idea, and it is realistic but I don't think that because the
How about this: A-batts fire as B-batts against ships with thrust 7 or
8. So if you expect to be engaging escorts, the B is a better deal...
> It would be a sad day when a capital fleet gets torn-up by a fleet with
Granted...
On Friday, October 17, 1997 2:12 PM, Roger Burton West
> [SMTP:roger@firedrake.demon.co.uk] wrote:
Status: RO
> >I like the idea, and it is realistic but I don't think that because
If you look at wet navy history a ship like Bismark was deadly to escorts and
destroyers as well as to Hood.
In one destoyer attack a salvo from Bismark totalled a destoyer and the others
were very wary. In the future fire control is likely to be better even for the
bif stuff.
sincerely
> On Fri, 17 Oct 1997, Tim Jones wrote:
> On Friday, October 17, 1997 2:12 PM, Roger Burton West
I agree that targeting systems will only get better. In WWII you had to fire
thousands of rounds from many many guns to bring down an airplane. Nowadays
you can bring down missiles skimming the sea surface at Mach 2 with a single
point defense emplacement. One reason standoff missiles are so popular today
is that it's lethal to get too close.
Another example would be modern armor battles. They now can occur at huge
ranges, 1-2 km that would have been impossible in WWII. Tanks can now
move and shoot with nearly the same accuracy as when standing still and have
great penetration at much longer ranges.
If there is FTL travel in FT, why couldn't sensor systems use a similar
technique for ranging? Sending out an FTL "pulse" and then checking for the
return pulse or at least the gravitic disturbance generated by objects in the
path of the pulse (this would only be half as effective since the return
signal would be limited by the speed of gravitic waves) Most of the arguments
for tracking systems being terible at astronomical distances revolove around
current technology where we are limited by the speed of light. If we can make
the intellectual leap to FTL travel, there
shouldn't be a huge leap to make FTL sensors (i.e. Star Trek's Sub-space
sensors/communication etc) available in FT. With accurate tracking
information it's not a huge leap to have massive computers that will calculate
predicted positions for thousands of milliseconds in the future and be able to
present it in a timely manner.
Part of the problem of small ship massacres is not that they're too easy to
hit, but often they're the only target available. I'm sure that if people
placed their cap ships up front the escorts would survive a lot
longer... :)
--Binhan
Status: RO
> > Ref house rules. Someone commented on the limited survivability of
No we do not restrict big guns to big ships, if someone wants to use a small
attack craft with a single A gun, then thats ok and yes in a one on one battle
with something much bigger and less manoeuvrable, the small ship will be
virtually unkillable. That is why a balanced fleet of big battle
ships and small escorts are necessary - consider how much damage could
be done to a battleship by a single biplane armed with a torpedo, even with
the large number of A/A guns available it was quite hard to hit a small
plane.
No battleship would travel in space without a few escorts armed with 3 (or 6
or 10) C guns to go chasing after the other little guys with the A guns.
Alternatively, arm the battleship with some sub-packs which will force
little ships to stay out of range and thus reducing the effectiveness of their
big gun, or some missiles which can be used to restrict the movement of fast
ships so that slower ones can catch them.
If it comes down to a lone battleship without any means of hitting a (some)
fast attack boat, then it can always ftl out of there.
> At 04:47 PM 10/15/97 -0500, you wrote:
Status: RO
> I like the idea, and it is realistic but I don't think that because the
I think it's a great idea and the above is the way to go.
Hello All
The best way to solve the small ship problem is to increase the playing area.
If you use small models and cm's on a 6'x4' table, the game is transformed!
Small ships dart along the flanks, out of range of the big ships, and fight
the enenmy small ships, or loop around and hurtle up behind the big ships at
speeds of 36+, fire their weapons then accelearte out of range. Try it,
it works and is a better soloution than fiddling with the rules.
Cheers