Salvo missile escalation

Is it just us or is anyone else having the problem of every game of fleetbook
FT degenerating into a competition to see who can launch the most
salvo-missiles first?

> Dave Pullen wrote:

Never experienced that problem (salvo missile escalation). But if you're going
to use them, then using as many as possible is the way to go.

Mk

This is a real style of play question so I must ask: How fast are your ships
moving? Are you using Vector or cinematic movement? How maneuverable are your
ships?

Depending on these factors salvo-missiles can be anywhere from usless to
deadly. Andy A

[quoted original message omitted]

> Is it just us or is anyone else having the problem of every game of

Nope. I've thought of at least four different countermeasures that can very
drastically reduce the effectiveness of salvo missiles.

1. Lots of point defense. I've generally found that if you really take the
gloves off, this sort of thing never hurts anyway.

2. Decoys. Take good hard look at the salvo missile rules and you'll
notice that they _have_ to target the ship that lands closest to where
they're placed. There is no statement that says that this ship has to be of
greater than mass 2 or 3.:) Yes, it's probably an abuse of the letter of the
rules... but if you'll abuse missiles, I'll abuse their weaknesses.;)

3.  Low-power plasma bolts.  If you've ever played Star Control II or
III,
think "Kohr-Ah ring of fire" and you've got the rough idea.  It works
best on capital or super ships. The details involve two (preferably four)
Class 1 plasma bolt launchers, that alternate turns in ones or twos covering
the area around the ship in low level plasma in order to incinerate missiles.
It doesn't matter whether you've got two salvoes or eighty; none of them have
any defense against the plasma, so if you fire them into that area, they're
toast. My grapeshot plasma is going to hurt me a lot less than your
missiles will, and meanwhile, I'm shooting back with the _real_
ordnance.

4. Lots and lots of speed. If you're gunning the throttle at better than
20 MU per turn and you can pull 3-point turns or better, your opponent
may as well not bother bringing missiles.

And if you don't mind genre tech, I'll add a fifth...

5. Cloaking devices. Just about anything with a cloaking device will slaughter
anything with missiles. All you have to do is keep someone guessing as to
whether your ship will still be visible when the missile has to target it.
Cloaking takes place in the movement phase of the turn,
while missiles have to target _after_ that.  Thus, a cloak-capable ship
can quite literally decloak, fire away with direct-fire weapons, cloak
again the next turn, and unless your opponent takes a blind shot in the hopes
that you're going to come out of cloak in a given area, the missiles are
useless. And you don't even want to begin to think about what cloaking
_carriers_ are going to do to missile barges.

Full Thrust, if you scratch the surface of the tactics you can use with it, is
a lot more than just a game of nuclear exchanges.

> > Is it just us or is anyone else having the problem of every game of

Don't forget fighters. These DRASTICALLY reduce SML effectiveness.

Stiltman's anti-missile tactics are valid, but one word of caution:

> 3. Low-power plasma bolts. If you've ever played Star Control II or

When you use this tactic, you need fighter superiority as well
(Stiltman usually has fighter superiority, of course!) - particularly
Interceptor superiority. It is *extremely* annoying, not to mention
painful, to have your anti-missile plasma bolts shot down by enemy
fighters before they can take the missiles out <g>

Regards,

Or increase it if used WITH the SML's.

-----
Brian Bell bkb@beol.net
http://www.nbci.com/rlyehable/ft/

> Stiltman's anti-missile tactics are valid, but one word of caution:

> When you use this tactic, you need fighter superiority as well

Heh... my thought process on this particular tactic is largely theoretical,
anyway.  Although it _is_ true that I pretty much always have fighter
superiority if I want it, decoys are my missile defense of choice for
non-cloaking vessels.  I only have one design (the modern DPR) that has
a Kohr-Ah plasma ring on it at all (four PBL-1's), and that's only there
as a last resort in case thirty six hangar bays' worth of fighters and
non-FTL decoys can't hold off missile attacks long enough for the DPR's
main armament of eight PBL-7's (plus assorted beams) to reduce the ships
launching those missiles to their component atoms.:>

> Brian Bell wrote:

> Or increase it if used WITH the SML's.

My experience tends to be that missiles and fighters dilute one another's
effectiveness rather than increase it. SMLs and fighter bays both take up
about the same amount of mass, so if you've got a lot of one, you can't have a
lot of the other. Fighters and missiles both work best in overwhelming
numbers; if you don't have enough of them to swamp your enemy, you may as well
not bother carrying them at all. Neither of them offers anything that covers
for the weaknesses of the other, and diluting the fighter numbers to make room
for missiles is just begging the other guy to kill the fighters first, pretty
much regardless of how they're counteracting it all. If they're playing with
carriers, you've given them fighter superiority for free. If they're playing
with battleships, their PDS phalanx can just erase the fighters in the first
round and shrug off the missiles because you don't have enough throw weight to
make them care about them with only one shot, then they turn their PDS at the
missiles and eliminate them as a factor in turn, all the while they've been
shooting you to ribbons with whatever they've got in return.

Fighters and plasma work pretty well together because the plasma offers an
area effect weapon that deters battleships from packing together and the
slight fighter disadvantage can take out the enemy carriers' striking power
enough that the plasma will hold the field. Fighters and missiles don't really
offer anything in tandem that one or the other of them wouldn't do better with
alone.

[quoted original message omitted]

> For the next game I'm going to suggest a 5 or 6 thousand point game,

Nova cannons, as they're originally described, actually aren't very good in
FB. We've started allowing for scaling them up similar to plasma bolts so that
large ships have a reason to carry them again.

Cloaking devices are a mixed bag; if you know how to handle them they can be
very, very nasty, and if you don't your opponent can make you pay for them
dearly.

> Hell, they even banned my 300 mass, thrust 2 ship with a whole load of

I actually hold the opposite opinion. For most purposes, large ships usually
will beat small ones. Simple reason: a small ship can be splattered with
minimal effort, whereas you have to pound on a large one that follows a
similar design philosophy for a while before you can meaningfully reduce its
capabilities. Second simple reason: any sort of mass destruction weapon (nova
cannons, plasma bolts, whatever) will have its damage multiplied by the number
of ships it's hitting. If you hit two ships at once with it, you just did
twice the damage as if you only hit one of them.

That said, a mass 300, thrust 2 ship with lots of B1s is nothing that I'd even
remotely consider banning. This is the guy who flies the Dreadplanet Roberts
you're talking to....;)

> And thanks to Stiltman for reminding us about the benefits of silly

My experience is that having about 20-30 PDS per thousand points is a
good idea if the gloves are off. Get much less than that and you're asking to
get swamped by missiles or fighters, and getting much more than that and
you're asking to get swamped by ships armed with beams and pulse torps.

> Schoon wrote:

Yep. Sean really reminded me how effective fighters were with intercepting
missiles in the tournament! Missiles are only effective with large
bombardments unless your opponent has little defense against them.

> on 9/14/00 12:55, stiltman@teleport.com at stiltman@teleport.com wrote:

> My experience tends to be that missiles and fighters dilute one

Interesting. My experience differs, possibly due to the different nature of
the scenarios/rules we use.  I've found fighters to enhance SMLs a lot.
Even if you don't have overwhelming numbers (the amount differing on the size
of the scenario) I've found small numbers of either to be helpful in picking
on stragglers or wound vessels or for keeping the other player honest (tactics
wise) about keeping all his vessels together inside the ADFC envelope.

> Neither of them offers anything that covers for the weaknesses of the

Assuming you give him/her the chance to engage only the fighters or
missiles separately. When having to decide upon whether to engage the fighters
of missiles with PDS type systems I've found that most people dedicate a
little more defense against the missiles leaving the fighters less punished.
Splitting the fire out has a tendency to limit the damage of multiple sixes
rolled in defense.

A nice thing about fighters with missiles is if you miss target the missiles
you don't have to allocate the fighters to attacking without them.

(snip)

> If they're playing with battleships, their PDS phalanx can just erase

AFDC coverage has a limitation of range. I like my opponents to run big
blocks of ships that have to stay close to one another - it limits their
movement options and flexibility. Of course if the opponent tends to run one
or two large ships instead of a mix it's easier to keep within a PDS phalanx.

Besides, if my opponent wants to max out his/her PDS fire against my
fighters first I'm more than happy to have my SMLs hit them instead. A full
fighter group will average 4.8 damage against an unshielded target (down to 4
versus level 1 shields and 3 against level 2 shields) {all the averages I'm
mentioning a quick approximations}. SMLs don't care if the target is shielded,
averaging 3.5 damage per missile in the SML group that hits, resulting in an
average of a little over 10 points per SML on target that
isn't defended against (mine of course average 4-5 damage per target
locked on to though). Each hit by a PDS on a fighter group stops about.5 to
.8
damage while each hit on an SML stops 3.5 and less are needed on average to
stop the effects of an SML compared to a fighter group.

> Fighters and plasma work pretty well together because the plasma

Fighters and plasma can work together. But IMHO there are more problems
with joint PBs/fighters attacks than fighter/missiles attacks.

A player might be forced to burn up additional CEF to get around PBs area of
effect. It can be problematic to have fighters attacking targets in PB area of
effects. Putting fighters in harms way of the PBs encourages the opponent to
leave a portion of the PB alone or reduce their effects to hopefully 1 pip in
level. Shielded greatly reduce the average damage they take from PBs. The area
effect nature of the PBs tend to permit more ships to fire PDS in defense in
comparison to SMLs.

All in all the best combinations are very dependant on the size/nature
of playing area, type of ships (standard vs. minor mods vs. totally custom),
the tactics preferred by the player (and opponent) and the house
rules/interpretations used.

Yes, but I will take three thousand points of small ships and beat your three
thousand point ship any day. Numbers, as with SML's and fighters are big.

G'day guys,

> Fighters and missiles don't

Actually I really disagree. I get the most effective use out of SMs when I
combine them with fighter attacks. Time the launching of the SMs to coincide
with the fighter attack and it works really well. I usually send all my SMs
the way of the large things and my fighters after the ADFC ships. If they
chose to put the ADFC onto the SMs anyway then they won't

have any ADFC for next time and if they don't the SMs have a fairly clear run
(assuming I don't roll more 1s than usual).

Cheers

Beth

> Stiltman wrote:

> My experience is that having about 20-30 PDS per thousand points is a

That's 100-150 PDSs in a 5000-point battle... last time we discussed
this you seemed to be quite emphatic that 60-80 PDSs in a battle this
size was the norm in your group - or was it your personal fleets only,
in which case you didn't say anything about your opponents' normal PD
strengths?

Since this was one of the points I found inconsistent in your
descriptions in May-June - 60 PDSs simply won't save a 5000pt fleet
against 40+ fighter squadrons unless you also have level-2 screens and
Super hulls (or armour giving a similar amount of damage boxes), but if you
have that you won't have any offensive weapons to speak of, and 80 PDSs is
unlikely to if you're forced to break off after taking 50%
losses - I find the your comment above quite interesting. Quite true as
well, of course.

I know I promised to go through our May-June discussions, to specify
what I found inconsistent. I'm still only halfway through; sorry 'bout that
:-(

Regards,

> Stiltman wrote:

> That's 100-150 PDSs in a 5000-point battle... last time we discussed

That was for my own fleets -- and, I might add, that was for my own
fleets with cloaking devices, level 2 screens, and (to be fair) not a whole
lot of expectation that I'd run into too many fighters, because my opponents
just plain don't bother flying them on me too often. On the rare occasions
that they've tried beating me at my own fighter superiority game it generally
hasn't worked too well so they feel more comfortable flying with
ship-to-ship
weaponry and working from that. OTOH, I know that, so I wasn't (at the time)
flying as many PDS on my non-carrier fleets as I probably should have.

Shortly after that conversation, my opponents started pretty regularly flying
with closer to 100-150 PDS in our 5000-point battles.  I've come to the
conclusion that that's probably about the optimal range for such a task force
that wants to have a balanced defense against all comers without using
fighters. If you're using fighters, you can get away with a lot less; if
you're not, that's probably about how many you want.

Don't worry about going over our May-June conversations... water under
the bridge to me.:)

> Stiltman wrote:

> My experience is that having about 20-30 PDS per thousand points

It didn't sound like you were referring to your own fleets exclusively, though
you only gave explicit details on your own ships. Quoting two of your posts
from that conversation:

"We've hit about a "balance point" where our warships that don't expect to
have fighter support typically are able to throw a mix of PDS and
Class 1's to the tune of about 60-120 total of both."

"The happy medium we've generally settled into tends to sport PDS in
about the 60-100 range. 100 is usually overdoing it a little ..."

Together with the repeated references to the Warbirds (3 ships, each
with 20 PDS and 17 B1-6) this gave a distinct impression that the norm
for both you *and* your opponents (unless you used "we" in the royal
sense?) normally had around 60-80 PDS and up to 40-60 B1s.

FWIW, one of your 40+ squadron carrier fleets would make mincemeat out
of your Warbird squadron - it isn't *that* hard to figure out where the
Warbirds need to decloak if they want to shoot at something :-7

> Shortly after that conversation, my opponents started pretty regularly

That explains it. They've finally come to their senses :-)

> Don't worry about going over our May-June conversations... water

It's quite interesting, actually... several misunderstandings on both sides,
and consequently lots of questions that got rather irrelevant answers.

Regards,

> Dave Pullen wrote:

> This is a real style of play question so I must ask:

Move a little faster (so you force the enemy to choose between three different
locations for their missiles if they want to hit, rather than just two), and
maneuver more. If you move on a predictable course straight towards the enemy
all of their missiles will be on target.

> Hell, they even banned my 300 mass, thrust 2 ship with a whole load of

You play on a very small table? Otherwise why didn't they just stand off and
pound the thing to pieces...?

FWIW, some time ago I posted the stats for the Voth - thrust-2, 66 B1s
and 12 SMR-ER; IIRC it was TMF 280 - asking if anyone on the list
thought it would be effective. *No one* said yes... could've been the
SMR-ERs, of course <g>

> Saying that though I have since learned that lots of little ships

Depends on what weapons you face. Low numbers of big ships makes you more
vulnerable to missiles (escorting them with a bunch of small units can draw
salvo missiles off, but not MTMs); small ships are more
vulnerable to just about everything else :-/

Regards,

> Oerjan wrote:

I agree. The Warbirds probably shouldn't be considered a serious threat to my
own carrier tactics. Their main role in my playing is to throw a curve ball at
people who overstock on PDS. They're designed to beat other people, not my own
fightermania.:)

That said, I probably am going to redesign them some time between now and the
next time I play them, not so much to deal with fighters but to deal
with missiles and plasma, which my opponents _have_ been playing with to
a greater degree.  My wife has been using missiles, my brother-in-law
generally likes pulse torpedoes but has been known to throw a combination of
that and plasma when he's got access to my copy of FB2.

> Corey Burger wrote:

In my experience, that's pretty much completely wrong. SMLs are a bit less
effective against numbers of smaller ships (if only because you can easily put
in way too many missiles on just a few of them and not touch the rest), but
just about every other weapon in the game works better against smaller ships
than large ones. That's because smaller ships are going to have their
firepower degraded far faster than the larger one, because the damage it takes
to kill a puny escort is a fraction of what it takes just to get a threshold
roll on a giant supership. That's completely setting aside the fact that a
plasma hit is going to have its damage multiplied by the number of ships it
hits; if it's hitting lots of smaller ships, it could eradicate the whole lot,
whereas a larger ship only has to take that damage once.

All other things being equal, there are very few situations where I'd prefer
to have lots of smaller ships carrying the same weapons load as a larger ship
carrying that same payload in one package. For a battleship it's often a good
idea not to take it to the full extreme of just one huge ship (i.e. a couple
or three slightly less huge ships is usually better than a single really huge
one because they can cover one another's back arcs), but even then a few big
ships will still usually squish lots of small ones if all other things are
equal.