> FWIW KayBee toys, AKA Toy Liquidators has the MPC Battle of Hoth kits
Thanks for the tip!
> Michael Brown
> (Who thinks the list got REAL quiet)
Hellooooooo. Anyone Home?
Well I hope I can get some conversation started with this topic:
I purchaced the Fleet Book about two months back, and I noticed that all the
scoutships are the FT equivalent of the Urbanmech from battletech (a
remarkeably unremarkable mech that has to run to turn around, and dosent carry
enough ammo to last a whole battle) The only scoutship that wasn't half built
was the ESU scout, and that was only a courier boat. Not only that but I have
heard on this list that all the designs look the same and I'm inclined to
agree, for some reason it just seems harder to get what you want from the new
design rules.
I think that the new rules could stand a cost-for-mass tradeoff. Some
way that I can shoehorn in that last 10% (more or less) mass of systems,
engines, ect. by paying more points for it. At it's most obscene it could be
used to design "Defiant" or "White Star" type ships, those that are in limited
production with outrageous power levels for their class. I haven't really
worked on the idea myself, but I'd certanly like to hear some thoughts (It
would be a nice change from the resounding silence on the list).
Wll, it might sound silly, but to get an incredibly overgunned ship of MASS
40, say, try this.
60 pts MASS 60 24 pts Weak hull (12 boxes, 12 MASS) 36 pts Thrust 6 (18 MASS)
12 pts FTL (6 MASS) 6 pts 2 Fire controls (2 MASS)
18 pts 2 6-arc Class-2s (6 MASS)
9 pts 3 PDS (3 MASS)
6 pts 2 6-arc Class-1s (2 MASS)
9 pts Screen (3 MASS)
24 pts 1 5-arc Class-3 (8 MASS)
6 pts Appears to be 2/3 'actual' or 'design' MASS (10% of 'design' MASS
in points, 0 MASS)
Now this MASS 40 ship costs 210 points, considerably more than the 140 points
which is an average value for a MASS 40 ship. It has no more hits than a MASS
40 ship with average hull, and packs 24 MASS in systems instead of the
expected 12 MASS (after hull, thrust, and FTL).
I haven't got a generic points for MASS formula, so I use this technique to
simulate the ship I want.
> I think that the new rules could stand a cost-for-mass tradeoff. Some
I was thinking about Negative Stealth: you make yourself easier to detect and
get, say, 3% cost reduction for the ship. This stems from my assumption that
military ships all have Basic Stealth to start with; if you're not
bothering with radar-absorbing hull coating and diffusing your drive
plume and so forth, you can spend the mass to pack in more systems.
> half built was the ESU scout, and that was only a courier boat. Not
I disagree. Oh, sure, if you want a balanced design, you close your eyes and
pick a NAC ship. So? Design ships that aren't all balanced. No one would
confuse FSE with NSL ships, and they're not especially unbalanced.
Intentionally pick a weakness, and figure out how your tactics can compensate.
> Tom wrote: (for mass 40 ship..... cost: 210 vs hull 40 average of 140)
MASS in
> points, 0 MASS)
Pretty neat idea...... Actually My group has been playing around with this. We
keep trying to come up with a kick butt enterprise in some of our on going
battles. We've been working with the following assumption
2*cost for 1/2* mass
for drives that use up to the full thrust for turns cost*3
Now we further subdivided this as a tech benifit and started to play with the
following tech ideas.
1. Advanced Drives ( 3*cost, up to full thrust for turns)
2. Advanced Beams ( 1/2 original mass (keep fractions) 2*original cost
)
3. Advanced FTL ( same 1/2 2*cost again deal )
4. Advanced Hull ( same 1/2 2*cost again deal )
5. Advanced OTHER ( all weapons/firecontrol/pds/ect........)
we were playing in order with these ideas. Our group feels that:
item 1: The drives are fairly well balanced (The Kravak Web page uses the same
set of assumptions) item 2: The beams seem to be fairly well balanced, but
note: that when
we use this rule, we've been by convention going to larger beam classes
if possible... aka class-3/4/5's
item 3: Doesn't seem to be a big deal..... just buying more space for wpns
item 4: No play testing.... but we like this in conjustion with 5 and the rest
of the advance techs... otherwise your ships go boom way too fast verse a
reasonable opposing fleet
item 5: Just going all the way with the 1/2 mass 2*cost of original
compent.
We kept and carried fractions of.5... this probably represents more of what
tom has, because otherwise the little advanced ships don't get much of a
benifit because of rounding.
We're kicking around with some of these designs right now:
(techs all: What the Enterprise should be:) FedKazin Enterp CA
------------
hull: 80 strong, armor 10
()()()()()()()()()()
[][][][][][][][][]*
[][][][][][][][][]*
[][][][][][][][][]*
[][][][][][][][][]*
Thrust - 8
FTL
Weapons(40): 3*firecon 1*pds
screen-2
4*p-torp (f,
f, f, f)
6*class-3 beams (f fs fp,
f fs fp, f fs as, f fs as, f fp ap, f fp ap)
tmf: 80 cost: 512
------------
FedKazin Defiant DD
--------------------
hull: 30 average, armor 6
()()()()()()
[][][]
[]*
[][]
[]*
Thrust - 8
FTL
Weapons(14): 2*firecon 2*pds
screen-2
2*p-torp(f)
2*class-3 beams (f fp ap,
f fs as)
tmf: 30 cost: 214
-------------------
(tech adva drives,low mass on beams,pds,screen,firecontrol)
SwordFish CA
------------
hull: 80 average
[][][][][]*
[][][][][]*
[][][][][]*
[][][][][]*
Thrust - 6
FTL
Weapons(24): 2*firecon 4*pds
screen-2
2*class-4 beams (f,
f)
4*class-3 beams (f,
f, f, f)
2*class-1 beams (360,
360)
tmf: 80 cost: 364
---------
CrawDaddy CL
---------
hull: 44 average
[][][]*
[][][][]
* [][]
[][]*
Thrust - 6
FTL
Weapons(14): 2*firecon 4*pds 1*adfc
screen-2 8l
2 * class-3 beams (f,
f)
3 * class-2 beams (f fs fp,
f fs as, f fp ap)
2 * class-1 beams (360,
360)
tmf: 44 cost: 209
-------------
SiegeGun CL
------------
hull: 44 average
[][][]*
[][][][]
* [][]
[][]*
Thrust - 4
FTL
Weapons(18): 1*firecon 3*pds
screen-2
1 * class - 5 beam (f)
1 * class - 4 beam (f)
1 * class - 3 beam (f)
tmf: 44 cost: 215
-----------------
CrayFish DD
------------
hull: 30 average
[][][]
[]*
[][]
[]*
Thrust - 6
FTL
Weapons(9): 1*firecon 2*pds
screen-2
2*class-3 beam(f,
f)
1*class-2 beam(f fs fp)
2*class-1 beam(360,
360)
tmf:30 cost: 137
--------------
Other notes of interest..........Our group has been in serious delima over
beam weapons..... there are a few of us who are really dissapointed
with the squared mass requirements of the larger beam weapons..... we'd really
like to see more honking beam weapons that can be setup either as
doing more damage, but keeping a short range like 12"/24" maybe 36" or
so, but say 3d at 36",4d at 24", 5d at 12" or something like that..... or
perhaps get the 1d at 72" and less? Because of the way that beams grow
expenentially we kinda feel that by doing the cost*2 div mass/2
route..... that you'll still end up with a lot o'ships wanting to put
just 2*'s as many class-2's on them and buzzing around... especially if
you go with adv manuver and light weight thrusters/hull... But if you
stick to a convention of trying to cram class-3+'s in there its a fairly
good situation.
Oh, by the way........ the FedKazin Enterp CA can really kick some serious
butt...... we pitted her against an NSL BDN........ it was amazing just how
much hurting the Enterp did on the poor NSL ship.... It
was pretty nasty.. The first salvo + ftrs from the NSL managed to drop
the armor and inflict some rather nasty damage on the NSL, but the next round
saw the Enterp right on the NSL's rear arc and there for the rest of the
battle...... I think just another 2 rounds and the NSL ship was toast.... The
manuverability advantage coupled with the hull and firepower....... almost
makes it worth a lot more on top of the calculated cost of 512..... obviously
some more play testing needs to be
done....... but it still seems rather a rough bet. Tom's suggestion
looks like a similar setup....... but almost more of a + 1/2 more space
for + 1/3 more cost of the ship? Looks good for a mass 40 ship, but
what about a mass 80 ship? does it fall apart...... how does a mass 20 ship
look?
Anyway, just some thoughts on this subject, I'm interested to hear what others
have come up with.
Chuck
> djwj wrote:
Hmmm. Something like this might be useful for flavour, but you have to be
careful not to unbalance the game too much, since MASS is usually the defining
factor in ships, and not points.
If we abuse the 80/20 rule (20% of performance represents 80% of the
cost,
very, very roughly (8-) ) then maybe something like every 10% MASS
reduction costs adds 50% to the cost of the system. To be even better, you
probably want to make it a geometric or exponential progression over the MASS
reductions.
J.
> Charles N. Choukalos wrote:
> 2*cost for 1/2* mass
Is this 2*cost per Mass (ie, each item costs the same as normal but since you
can use twice as many you pay twice as much) or 2*cost per item (ie, 4*cost
per Mass)?
> for drives that use up to the full thrust for turns cost*3
> Now we further subdivided this as a tech benifit and started to play
Cumulative with the 2* for half size, or is it 2* for half size and 1.5* for
advanced maneuvering?
> 2. Advanced Beams ( 1/2 original mass (keep fractions) 2*original
Same question as above. If it is 2*original cost per item it sounds too
expensive (how much depends on the hull/engine configuration of the
ship), but 2*original cost per mass is a bit too cheap instead.
> 3. Advanced FTL ( same 1/2 2*cost again deal )
Should be OK if it is 2*original cost per item, ie 4*cost per Mass - in
this case a cost of 8*Mass for the miniature FTL drive.
> 4. Advanced Hull ( same 1/2 2*cost again deal )
2 hull boxes per Mass is worth roughly 6*Mass (ie ~3 points per hull box) IME,
but better err on the side of caution. With advanced weapons the cost should
probably go up, too
> we were playing in order with these ideas. Our group feels that:
Good.
> item 2: The beams seem to be fairly well balanced, but note: that
Depends on which sensor rules you use... if you can't target ships
beyond 54-60 mu or so, weapons larger than Class-5 *really* suck :-/
> item 3: Doesn't seem to be a big deal..... just buying more space
It is a fairly big deal when you start analysing it :-/
5 more free % of the total ship Mass usually means 10-20% more weapons
which in turn means 5-10% better combat power and thus *should* mean
5-10% higher cost. Unfortunately simply filling the extra space up with
weapons usually doens't increase the cost enough, but at 8xMass (ie,
2*original item cost) your half-sized FTL should be OK for most ship
configurations.
Later,
> Laserlight wrote:
> I was thinking about Negative Stealth: you make yourself easier to
L.
Not a viable concept, you are trying to trade a (Quasi) stratigic non
point/mass value non-item for a mass/point tacitical advantage.
(I realize my 'point of view' is much different than yours. Put simply, the
trade of 10% greated detection range for 10% more weapons is not even worth
consideration if I was the GM)
Bye for now,
> I was thinking about Negative Stealth: you make yourself easier to
Stealth would be be tactical/operational.
> (I realize my 'point of view' is much different than yours.
If there is no downside to it under the rules in force, then no, of course
not. However, even if you're not using Sensor/ECM rules, you might
allow it
by giving other disadvantages. SLM's get +1 on their "to hit" die, for
instance, or SLM's home if within 3.5" instead of 3".