Looks like the confusion isn't about to die down. Since I feel I didn't
express myself clearly enough, I'll try to correct that.
> Ãrjan writes:
> So because you find it a hassle, you frown on anyone drawing the
and
> 2) playing on too small a table or at least setting the fleets up too
I'm sorry I don't understand. You had, falsely, come to the conclusion that I
used hard edges, which I simply corrected with my reasoning for the choice.
Given a choice between something that I find patently absurd and something
that I find a hassle, I go for the hassle even though I don't like it.
And excuse me for being a lazy git, but YES, I do find moving *scores* of
miniatures, keeping their relative alignments and positions intact, a bloody
hassle. I find it inconvenient even with a hex map, let alone a nondiscrete
table.
And this is assuming no one starts thinking about pincer maneuvers...
> If any weapon (except SV stingers <g>) can shoot almost from the edge
Ahem, I don't follow you quite here. I seem to recall the old (albeit
optional) sensor rules had detection range of 54MU. Perhaps I'm just dead
wrong assuming setting up about 60MU apart is just fine.
> If they launched too early believing that you'd
Well, I guess we'll just have to disagree on this, but I consider a
"nil - nil" score a DRAW if neither side had a special objective to
attack/defend.
(And for the record, the missile fleet does work better (i.e. faster
results) combined with regular units which force the enemy to engage --
but using it all-out is not such a bad choice for a raiding force)
Analogies? Let's try strategic bombing. You want to take Bagdad NOW, you send
in the troops. If you can afford the wait to wear it down, your bombers go in
night after night after night. You don't expect to destroy it any one night,
but you can drop bombs faster than he can rebuild.
Subs. Launch torps, get the hell outta Dodge. Heck, even artillery is meant to
hurt the other guy from where he can't hurt you. There are
numerous real-world examples where being able to hit from out of harm's
way has taken precedence over per-shot effectiveness.
However, *gaming* such things I do find boring.
> years. Unfortunately you didn't give any entry parameters in your
I'm sorry, I should have been more specific. By "normal way" I meant something
like what is to be found in the example scenarios in the rulebook. Which have
initial velocity around 10 or so. I, perhaps wrongly, assumed that is close
enough to what most people are using.
> As Roger pointed out, your resupply rules seem to have been extremely
Not really. First of all, it was a commerce raiding campaign (i.e. attacking
main bases was not really an option). Second, there was only about 2 or 3
reloads needed.
One side deliberately chose to leave his shipping unguarded, keeping his fleet
in big lumps in hope of the one decisive battle.
(And before anyone cries out how unrealistic that is, it's pretty much the
early WWII strategy the Japanese navy used).
Yes, this did cost him the campaign in the end -- but that didn't make
the games we actually played any more fun.
That's the funny thing about campaigns (and design-heavy games like Car
Wars) -- for the total gaming experience to be enjoyable, the
"preliminary" stage must provide some edge, but not too much. If a really
super-duper general/designer wins the game on the drawing board, the
"actual event" ends up being boring.
For the record: We also played out the sample campaign, "The Lafayette
Incident" with FB1. Unfortunately, I must say that sucked much, much worse
than our homebrew. (To be fair, I realize it was balanced for the old rules).
> First you say that massed missiles are boring. Then you say that
Entirely two different things! Yes, I found the old MTM not to my taste.
That's ONE weapon system, which needed balancing in one-offs AND
campaigns.
This sentence, OTOH, was a general observation on *all* ammo-using
weapons. E.g. I have no problem at all with submunition packs or SRMs. Or even
MTMs under current rules.
Let's consider a real-life analogy: A sub captain has to carefully
manage his torpedo supply while on patrol. But when he gets back to base,
there's no question about not affording a full reload (unless things are
*really* bad for his side).
Another analogy for realism: Let's say you went to Pentagon and said you
have a weapon technology that's slightly less powerful, pound-for-pound,
than what they currently have, but it never needs to be reloaded. Would they
go for it, or would they go for it? Hmmm... what was the reason they
went for M-16? Did it just happen to have something to do with
logistics?
The availability of infinite-shot weapons tech would kill off ammo-using
weapons except in some niche areas where the infinite-shot tech just
can't do the job.
Ammo-using weapons, as they are, are (presumably) balanced for a one-off
where everyone starts with a full load. Right?
In a campaign the ammo-users are already disadvantaged by the need to
make reload trips (as there are no rules for other aspects of warship
endurance) and the possibility of being caught when ammo is low or gone. If
you slap a point cost for reloads on top of that, there just isn't enough
incentive to use the bloody things.
Therefore, I have a two-pronged suggestion:
- Assume that *all* ships have consumables (food, fuel, reaction mass,
ammo, laser capacitors, spare parts etc.) Although these are not counted
individually, they effectively give the ship a cruising endurance and a combat
endurance (which is not effectively unlimited).
- Assume that resupplying is a fixed, mass-based cost, inclusive of
*all* consumables (even the ones that are separately counted, i.e. ammo)
(this cost could even be zero -- just the need to resupply every once in
a while is a penalty).
A word on building ships during campaigns.
I guess my view differs from the norm here. What most people seem to regard as
campaigning, I view as fighting out the whole war.
In my view, a campaign is a series of battles fought with a limited, fixed
set of resources that needs to be spread and/or carried over the
separate battles. Generating new resources is not really a part of a single
campaign, it belongs in a larger scope.
E.g. the fight for the Solomons was a campaign. How many ships did either side
start to build, launch and deploy to the area within the timeframe? Zilch.
None. Nada. Zip.
They did get reinforcements, but not to order, and specifically not built to
their specs.
What I find most interesting in campaigning is playing the admiral of a task
force. You get assigned a task force to do a job. You may beg for more, but
what you get depends on your success rate, luck and how things are going on
the other fronts. I.e. the acquisition process is not under your total
control, you can not suddenly put on a presidential or ship designer hat and
pour all resources into your pet project. In addition, the fortunes of war
might even call some of your forces off to another front.
This makes for a great balancing tool: If you're doing too well, the
higher-ups start thinking maybe you could make do with less...
This also means you don't have to model the entire war time economy, reducing
the hassle factor.
> Mikko Kurki-Suonio wrote:
> So because you find it a hassle, you frown on anyone drawing the
That conclusion came from your habit of expressing rather emphatic dislike of
floating edges, without saying that you actually use them
occasionally :-/
> And excuse me for being a lazy git, but YES, I do find moving *scores*
YMMV. It seems that your battles are about the same as mine; I don't find the
floating edges a hassle. Could be because of my slightly bigger table, though
(effectively bigger; physically it is of course much smaller); I have some
extra mu in each direction before I need to float the table.
> And this is assuming no one starts thinking about pincer maneuvers...
At least very wide pincers, yes. Again the few extra mu width of my
table may be significant; I've quite often used on-table pincer attacks
to good effect.
> If any weapon (except SV stingers <g>) can shoot almost from the
According to FT2 p.21, 54mu is the range at which you can do *active* sensor
scans. Beyond that range you only detect the enemy ships as bogies, but you
are perfectly able to determine their location, speed, course and general size
(though the last can be modified if the enemy
uses decoy drones and/or weasel boats).
I don't know about you, but if I saw a huge number of escort-sized
bogeys approaching at relatively high speeds I'd make damn certain not
to barge straight in when I hit active sensor range :-/
> If they launched too early believing that you'd
In a campaign where replacement missiles aren't completely free, a
"nil-nil" score where missiles were expended are a loss (or at best a
losing draw) for the missile player.
In one-off battles, at least my opponents rapidly tired of bringing
missile boat fleets which they knew were unable to hurt me, and started
using mixed fleets instead - problem solved :-)
> (And for the record, the missile fleet does work better (i.e. faster
Of course. MTMs in fleet battles are IMO best used to herd the enemy into the
best fire arcs of your combat units; but if your enemy has enough regular
units to threaten your fleet after his MTMs have missed
> - but using it all-out is not such a bad choice for a raiding force)
As long as the target is reasonably immobile, yes.
> Analogies? Let's try strategic bombing. You want to take Bagdad NOW,
The Germans tried this during the Battle of Britain, with very little success.
The Allies tried this during all of WW2, with very little success. Massive
civilian casualties of course, but very little effect on the German war
effort.
The US tried this in Vietnam, again with very little success.
The Allies tried this during Desert Storm, with marginal success - the
tactical bombings worked reasonably OK, but the strategic attacks (the hunt
for the Scud ramps, bomb raids against government buildings etc) didn't. Ten
years later Saddam is still top dog in Bagdad.
AFAIK, the Kosovo War last year was the first time strategic bombing against
civilian infrastructure actually won the war... but ironically enough these
bombings weren't really supposed to occur since the Allies didn't want any
"collateral" (ie., civilian) casualties. Most of the air effort in Kosovo went
into tactical bombing, which was quite
spectacularly unsuccessful :-/
> Subs. Launch torps, get the hell outta Dodge. Heck, even artillery is
IMO the important word here is *hit*. If you - like the unsupported MTM
boats against a mobile target, the artillery during much of WW1, or the
Allied bombers during much of WW2 or the recent Kosovo war - *don't*
hit your targets, you're simply wasting (usually huge amounts of) money... not
that your generals and politicians are very likely to admit that, of course,
but they tend to have serious problems afterwards when the public finds out
just how much the inefficient fireworks actually cost.
> years. Unfortunately you didn't give any entry parameters in your
8 :-)
> I, perhaps wrongly, assumed that is close enough to what most people
The difference between the initial speed (8) of the "very simple, quick
scenario designed to allow players to familiarise themselves with the
basic mechanics..." and the maximum speed you stated later (10+max
thrust) isn't very large, but in this scenario it can be quite important. It
would be the difference between my having to float the table and not having to
float the table, for example.
> As Roger pointed out, your resupply rules seem to have been
So? For a pure missile force, that's still a quite significant value.
> Let's consider a real-life analogy: A sub captain has to carefully
Which they may well be, if the systems were considered "too expensive" prior
to the campaign so you don't have large enough stockpiles. Again I wish to
point to the Kosovo War, where the US and their allies basically ran out of
cruise missiles and smart bombs and were forced to resort to rather more
primitive weapons as a result.
I don't know any examples where subs were unable to refill their torpedo
magazines completely due to low stocks at their bases, but there are quite a
few examples where carriers were unable to replenish their "magazines" (ie.,
their flight groups) with "ammunition" (aircraft) when they needed to simply
because there weren't any replacements available at their home base at the
time.
> Another analogy for realism: Let's say you went to Pentagon and said
what was the >reason they went for M-16? Did it just happen to have
something to do >with logistics?
IIRC it was - though given the early problems with the M-16, the AK-47
(with *very* easy logistics, but lower prestanda) must've seemed quite
attractive <g>
But that's exactly my point. The Pentagon in this case is equivalent to
whoever set the campaign up and determined the resources available to the
players. If missile reloads are free there won't be any shortage of them; if
they cost something they will eat into the resources available, reducing the
number of ships available etc.
> The availability of infinite-shot weapons tech would kill off
There are rules for freighters. What is to stop you from using reasonably fast
fleet colliers which can resupply your missile boats almost immediately (ie,
without a round trip to the nearest supply base somewhere in your own
territory)? Suddenly this "disadvantage" has almost evaporated. There is a
small possibility that the enemy finds you while you're reloading in which
case you have to run away, but that's it.
Starfire campaigns uses maintenance just like you suggest. However, missile
reloads still cost extra, simply because missiles allow you to
stand off and pound a shorter-ranged foe to dust without risking any
damage. Originally missile reloads were free, and for some strange
reason missile-armed ships were more dominant in campaigns than they
were in one-off battles. They dominated the one-off battles as well,
but not to the same extent as they did in campaigns - in spite of the
fact that there are more WP assaults in Starfire campaigns than there
are in one-off battles, and that the ammo-less weapons are considerably
better in WP battles than anywhere else.
In FT you run out of missiles sooner than you do in Starfire, but the
fundamental relationship between long-range expendables and
shorter-ranged ammo-less weapons is still the same. I really don't
think you can balance missiles in a campaign, be it operational or grand
strategic, if you allow them to get their reloads for free.
> A word on building ships during campaigns.
Most people are crippled by too much MOO/Space Empires/Starfire etc <g>
> What I find most interesting in campaigning is playing the admiral of
Field modifications, replacements of modules... the way wet-navy
warships are designed today, it'll be possible to reconfigure them from one
role to another in a matter of days as long as you have a large enough crane
and the appropriate payload modules available.
> This makes for a great balancing tool: If you're doing too well, the
Sure. For example, "Commodore, it seems that your expected shipment of missile
reloads has been intercepted and destroyed by enemy raiders. It'll take us
another two months to send you new ones." <G>
Regards,
> According to FT2 p.21, 54mu is the range at which you can do
OK , I give up - What book is FT2 :). I have MT, FB1 and FB2
in front of me and none of these seem to have this little snippet
;D)
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> Denny Graver-Elstree wrote:
> According to FT2 p.21, 54mu is the range at which you can do
Full Thrust 2nd Edition. A4-sized book, cover with a photo of an ESU
Rostov-class BDN passing by an asteroid, and a nebula in the
background.
Regards,