From: Izenberg, Noam <Noam.Izenberg@j...>
Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 08:14:54 -0400
Subject: NIFT Stealth II Trial AAR (Long)
Found it!
This is for Laserlight, the Beast, and whoever else might be interested.
NIFT Stealth II Trial AAR
This was a PBeM battle started just about 1 year ago, as part of what I had
hoped (and still hope) to be a series of playtests of rules and systems I
wanted to balance. So far only two such games have been played, but I hope to
eventually do more. This game was to test New Israeli Stealth hull, a system
that reduces the effective range of opposing weapons.
I still have hopes of getting the various maps and individual turn reports up
on the NIFT web site, but that's more time than I have right now.
Here's the setup and action:
John T Leary's Privateer fleet:
P1- Repulsive DN
Mass 200, NPV 662 Armor: 11 Hull: 60 Thrust: 5 FTL Screen: 2 FireCon: 3
P-Torp (FH): 2
Class 2 (360): 6 Class 1: 4 PDS: 2
P2- Raider BC
Mass 100, NPV 335 Armor: 3 Hull: 30 Thrust: 5 FTL Screen: 2 FireCon: 3
P-Torp (FH): 1
Class 2 (FH): 4 Class 1: 4 PDS: 1
P3, 4- Reaver, Ravager DH
Mass 40, NPV 136 Armor: 4 Hull: 8 Thrust: 5 FTL FireCon: 2
P-Torp (FH): 1
Class 2 (FH): 2 Class 1: 2
P5- Runner DD
Mass 30, NPV 98 Armor: 2 Hull: 9 Thrust: 6 FTL FireCon: 1 Class 2 (FH): 2
Class 1: 2
Laserlight's New Israel Fleet:
NI1-3 Read Noise, Random Effect, Kos Eliyahu
Yerushalayim stealth cruiser Mass 87, Cost 305 Armor: 5 Hull: 14 Thrust: 4 FTL
Stealth: 2 (Opponent's range bands reduced by 1/3)
Firecon: 2
Class 3 (F/FP/AP): 3
Class 1: 1 PDS: 4
NI4, 5 Full Width Half Maximum, Undocumented Feature Maccabee Stealth Cruiser
Mass 67, Cost 231 Armor: 2 Hull: 10 Thrust: 6 FTL
Stealth: 2 (Opponent's range bands reduced by 1/3)
Firecon: 2
Class 3 (F/FP/AP): 2
PDS: 1
Modified Turn Sequence: 1.Write Orders. 2. Damage Control 3.PDS Fire.
4.Fighter Fire. 5.Missile Fire (not launches). 6.Ship to Ship Attacks.
7.Fighter/Missile Launches.
8.Movement of Units (Ships, Fighters, Missiles,
etc.)
9.Scanning.
Setup (Cinematic movement): Privateerswere grouped pm the right heading 9
oclock at speed 15 New Israel on the left and a little higher, heading 1
oclock at 12
NI and the Privaters close for through Turn 2.
Turn 3: First Blood. Ravager is ravaged by 12 long range beam dice, leaving it
well shot up, but still able to execute its full maneuver. Privateer weapons
open up, firing pulse torps at Read Noise and Kos Eliyahu, but the torps are
unable to track the stealthy targets and remain out of effective range (only
by the slimmest of margins). Fortunately for the privateers, they are now
almost all in New Israel's aft arc.
Turn 4: Read Noise and FWHM target Repulsive, barely in range/arc, with
5 beams. One good shot carves a decent gouge in Repulsive's hull. Maneuver
this turn puts the Privateers solidly behind New Israel, with Runner just
barely out of range of the Stealth fleet, close enough to feel her breathing
down their necks.
Turn 5: The Privateer's Runner fires a shot off at Read Noise, but is just out
of effective range. New Israel tries to shake the Privateers out of their aft
arc without success.
Turn 6,7: New Israel bobs, the Privateers weave. Maneuvering hard, elements of
both New Israel and Privateers enter extreme ranges.
Turn 8: FWHM and Undocumented Feature fire long range at Reaver, the NI
heavies still rolled the wrong direction to fire. NI's long range fire is
sufficient to threshold Reaver, however. Maneuver this turn finally brings
some NI ships into Privateer weapon range. The Yerushalayims roll attempting
to bring their heavy weapons to bear on the T-boning Privateers.
Turn 9: The Yerushalayims open up with Class 3 beams on the charging Raider.
Raider's screens flare, absorbing or deflecting over one-third of the
fire directed at it, though the energy that makes it through scars her forward
hull severely. Return fire from the Privateers burns the armor off Read Noise.
Though all four torps go wide, the crew can virtually feel grav wake of the
closest miss. The fleets have reached Oerjan Speeds.
Turn 10: Withering beam fire from the Yerushalayims vaporizes Runner. Return
fire from Runner scores armor and hull damage on Read Noise. Though Repulsive
remains out of arc, Ravager's Pulse Torpedo finds and slams Kos Eliyahu. As
the smaller units peel off, the heavies of both sides converge for a frank
exchange of views.
Turn 11: New Israel and the Privateers trade fire and thresholds. Both Raider
and Kos Eliyahu take significant hits. Kos takes less damage, but drive
signature spikes and decreases. Repulsive slams on the
grav-breaks,
putting it in excellent position behind the Yerushalayim group. The smaller
privateer escorts continue arcing back toward the melee.
Turn 12: A punishing turn. Though Kos Eylihyahu manages to repair her drive
and take only minor damage, Repulsive's massed beams and torpedoes virtually
gut Read Noise. Since Repulsive is safely in New Israel's Aft arc at this
point, NI's only target is the peeling-off Raider. However, in a good
break for the Israelis, Read Noise's and Random Effect's combined long range
beams give almost as good as Read Noise got. Maneuvering this turn has
Repulsive turning outside the Yerushalayims, trying to keep them in arc. The
smaller privateers are coming back into the battle, and the Maccabees are
screaming back to join the fray.
Turn 13: Back at long range, P1's torps go wide against Kos Eliyahu.
Conversely, The two full strength Yerushalayims blast at Repulsive, whose
screens work overtime to save her from a threshhold. Maneuver puts Read Noise
in extreme jeopardy, but otherwise gives NI some breathing room. The Maccabees
turn to hunt down P2.
Turn 14: Both sides get blacker and bluer this turn. Heavy fire is exchanged
between the New Israel cruisers and the main Privateer group. Read Noise is
scuttled and abandoned before finally being put out of its misery by the
combined fire of three opponents. The privateers shift focus to Kos Eliyahu,
taking her through two more thresholds and blowing out half her drive, among
other things. New Israel doesn't take any of this lying down, however. Random
Effect snipes Reaver through threshold 3, forcing her to curtail maneuvering,
then adds to Kos concentrating on Ravager, ripping her hull open in several
places. Meanwhile, almost in another sector of space, FWHM and Undocumented
Feature
are in hot pursuit of the limping Raider - and gaining.
Conclusion: By agreement of the players the Stealth II trial is called at this
point. NI2 will jump out, NI3 is conceded lost. P2 is conceded lost, and it's
a tossup as to whether P3 or P4 could be taken out before NI3 goes up. The
privateers get at least a tactical victory for holding the space.
Feedback: The NI needed higher maneuver to keep the Pirates out from behind
them. Maintaining speed and distance is crucial to stealth's advantage. The
smaller ships took quite a while to swing back into action. Assymetrical arcs
have advantages that are offset by close combat and a more maneuverable
opponent.
Analysis:
One proposal was made post-game to have stealth degrade with damage,
which makes sense to me since a ship who's hull is getting ripped up by fire
is
going to lose hull-dependent masking capabilities ( or, if its an ECM
system, the system might be damageable like any other).
I've begun to think of stealth as being a threshold-able "system" itself
now, which would give the freedom of PSB to make it a hull configuration (my
preference) or an electronics package. This is not a new idea, but it's taken
the playtests and some thought to make me begin to favor it.
Making it thresholdable should make it cheaper and/or less massive.
Right now Stealth 1 and 2 mass like partial and full streamlining (10% and 20%
of
Mass), and costs 3/mass. Making it thresholdable (and repairable) should
reduce the mass requirements a couple percent, but I don't know how much. I'd
probably start with 7% Mass per level, cost 5*Mass, which would have made the
system cost about the same, and given the Yerushalayims 5 more mass
for Armor/Hull or another thrust point, for example. This revision makes
stealth a bit more expensive for heavier ships and a bit cheaper for smaller
ships, which is also logical.