> From: "Oerjan Ohlson" <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com>
> Glen Bailey wrote:
In THEORY (said in a Homer Simpson-style sarcastic voice) this seems
plausible, but in practice it never worked that way. Unless you want to play
with MD2 ships you will never double up on the amount of weapons the enemy has
since you'll need more space for drives. It also doesn't help that Steve rolls
like a demon, especially when firing on my ships or even my designed ships
that someone else is running. Hmm, maybe that's why no one bothers looking at
my designs to play any more?
> I'm not a missile man, and I have this knack for hitting BJs when I do
Steve's BJs are not really BJs, most are mass 34 missile destroyers with about
5 armor and 10 hull. A salvo taking one out is a good
thing, but not when 6-8 salvoes hit it.
I may to try a wave approach the next time I want to use missiles. The first
wave is the heavies to target the BJs and then the missile ships follow with
salvoes on the next turn. They have to be a bit back or they'll be the first
ships the enemy targets.
Re: wet navy style BBs
> The ones on your page had only 6-8 PDS, which isn't that much. As I
But two together is 12-16 PDS, plus 5-7 class-1 beams for the
missile-targeted ship.
> BTW, are the "multi-system" turrets destroyed by a single needle hit?
No, that would give needle beams too much of an advantage.
> He was happy to get to speed 10 whereupon the crew would break out
The table is 6' x 8' (183cm x 244cm) and we do play with a floating map.
Lately he hasn't gotten up to speed 20 but
staying in the 12-16 speed range or otherwise his turning
arc is too large.
All this will be moot in two weeks as Steve is leaving for Jacksonville,
Florida, about an 8 hour drive from Miami. And in one of the last FT sessions
we'll have while he's here I'll be at Origins. We also lost another player
this week (moving away), another is ill and not getting better so he hasn't
been around much, and another has a varying work schedule. Good thing Matt and
Andy are still here. (hi guys!)
Glen PS. I give up, I can't figure out what PSB stands for. But I'll take a
stab at it: Point System Balance?
Snip
> I'm not a missile man, and I have this knack for hitting BJs when I
> Steve's BJs are not really BJs, most are mass 34 missile destroyers
I use a combo attack of fighters MT missiles and salvo missles. It works
against steve most of the time, accept when your ships are flying with him.
> The ones on your page had only 6-8 PDS, which isn't that much. As I
> But two together is 12-16 PDS, plus 5-7 class-1 beams for the
> BTW, are the "multi-system" turrets destroyed by a single needle hit?
> No, that would give needle beams too much of an advantage.
> He was happy to get to speed 10 whereupon the crew would break out
> The table is 6' x 8' (183cm x 244cm) and we do play with a
All this will be moot in two weeks as Steve is leaving for Jacksonville,
Florida, about an 8 hour drive from Miami. And in one of the last FT sessions
we'll have while he's here I'll be at Origins. We also lost another player
this week (moving away), another is ill and not getting better so he hasn't
been around much, and another has a varying work schedule. Good thing Matt and
Andy are still here. (hi guys!) Hi Andy A
> Glen Bailey wrote:
> When you play against someone using "FX" & "RX" weapons so that
I don't doubt that it has worked this way for you, but my own experience has
been the direct opposite. You don't need to "double up
on the amount of weapons"; you only need to fire 30-50% in *beam dice*
than he can return in order to "outgun him impressively" - and when he
uses 5-arc Class-3s (B3-5s, using my shorthand), that's not terribly
hard to do even if your total weapon *Mass* is considerably smaller than his.
When facing a thrust-1 ship armed with B3-5s, you can have a thrust-*6*
ship and still at least match him die for die in the 0-12 range band by
using B2-3s (and with that thrust advantage, you should be able to
avoid the other range bands where you're likely to be outgunned as well
as keep him in your fire arcs). If you go to thrust-4, you should match
him in the 12-24 band and outgun him by some 50% in beam dice in the
0-12 band, and you still have enough maneuverability to keep him in
your fire arcs and mostly avoid the 24-36 band. Even if he reverts to
B2-6s or -5s instead of B3-5s (as on the thrust-2 BB you uploaded), a
thrust-4 ship with B2-3s can at least match him die-for die, and
probably outgun him.
This is why I find the large number of large, many-arc beam weapons
interesting :-)
> It also doesn't help that Steve rolls like a demon, especially when
<g> Could be... like the jinx which makes the NAC shunned by everyone here <g>
> I'm not a missile man, and I have this knack for hitting BJs when I
Better still; then you won't have as big qualms targetting them as
other players seem to have when faced by "true", ie. TMF3-6, BJs (I've
heard several players scorn shooting at them because it means "wasting
shots"... as if the missiles wouldn't be wasted if the BJs are still
there to dilute the alpha launch :-/ )
In this case I might even go for an "open sheaf" with the early missile
launch, deliberately trying to hit as many of his escorts as possible with the
first missile salvo instead of killing them with beams only.
> I may to try a wave approach the next time I want to use missiles.
Either keep them behind the first wave, or make them sturdy enough to survive
one turn of enemy attention. A variant of the latter is to use
FSE-style ships with both missiles and beams on most or all of your
ships; that way you're not as vulnerable to losing a "key" ship early
on but you lose some "instant kill" power in the direct-fire phase.
> Re: wet navy style BBs
12-16 PDS plus half a dozen or so B1s are IME enough to comfortably
stop 4 SM salvoes, but starts getting stretched against 6 (unless of course
Steve rolls as many sixes for his PDS as he does against your
ships!). I'd expect around 8-10 salvoes per turn from a 2000-point
SML-armed fleet, which is more than I'd be willing to face with the
above PD cover. With SMRs, the alpha strike is probably even heavier (IIRC
your fleets are around 2000 points per player, thus the
2000-point reference :-/ ). Against a ship with only 1 thrust point
available for turning all missile salvoes should end up within 6mu, so there
won't be many wasted salvoes either.
> BTW, are the "multi-system" turrets destroyed by a single needle hit?
Thought so. OTOH, you wrote that the turrets are treated as a single system
for threshold checks and repair rolls, so treating them as a single system vs
needles as well looked plausible as well.
> He was happy to get to speed 10 whereupon the crew would break
I don't remember if you measure in inches or cm - 183 x 244 mu is a
*lot* more than 72 x 96 mu - but with floating edges the physical table
size doesn't matter very much. It seems to have a psychological hold on
some players, but that's it <g> 12-16 sounds pretty normal for thrust-2
ships (ie., that's how fast I fly them too <G>)
> All this will be moot in two weeks as Steve is leaving for
We also lost >another player this week (moving away), another is ill and not
getting >better so he hasn't been around much, and another has a varying
> work schedule. Good thing Matt and Andy are still here. (hi guys!)
I moved to another city (in the British sense of the word) a year and a half
back, but fortunately it only extended the travel time to my old
gaming opponents by half an hour or so :-/
> PS. I give up, I can't figure out what PSB stands for.
Pseudo-Scientific Bullshit (MT p.33) :-)
Later,