My impression so far is that small ships are not worth it.
I designed a thrust-8 class-4 beam-armed (FS,AS) ship at mass
50, points 162 and flew three of them with another ship vs
2 BC-BB sized ships. The enemy had level-2 screens which made
the class-4 fairly impotent. They concentrated on the larger
ship (they didn't like the 8 pulse torpedoes) because the trio weren't that
effective. I had designed a mass 100 ship with
2 class-4s and it had a couple of defense systems also (class-1s
or PDS). I think I like the larger ship over 2 smaller ones, or in the example
a mass 150 ship instead of the three.
Small ships are very effective when used in their primary roles. It's true
that they normally don't have the staying power of the larger ships
on a point-for-point basis, but are not meant to take on larger ships in
that manner anyway. When going up against larger enemy ships, they should
ideally be used as escorts for their own larger ships, or as a force used to
flank the enemy while he concentrates on their big boys. One thing that's fun
to do sometimes is to limit the size of the ships that can participate in a
game. I played a game yesterday in which both my opponent and I had one heavy
cruiser each as a flagship, with a variety of CLs, DDs, and FFs in support. I
had more fun yesterday than I have in a long time, due in no small part to the
fact that I knew it was going to be difficult for even one of my DDs to be
vaporized on the first shot as they are when they get in range in a longer
battle.
Mark
> Glen Bailey wrote:
> My impression so far is that small ships are not worth it.
> Subject: Re: Salvo missile escalation
This doesn't work. I've tried it. The small ship force is losing weapons
every turn, the large one only after several turns and only 1/6th of
them, many fixed for the next turn. The small ships can't fix weapons because
they're destroyed.
Glen
> > Subject: Re: Salvo missile escalation
This can work, if you have _lots_ more ships than your opponent
has firecons. Let's say he has one 3000 ship with five FCS. If you bring, say,
60 ships at 50 points each, then you can only lose 5 per turn, and perhaps you
can whittle him down faster than he can kill your ships.
Of course, the next time you play, he's likely to put 20-30 FCS
on his Dreadplanet.
I have found that only SML's and Needle beams are more effective against large
ships. You can overwhelm a ships fire controls with numbers in some cases but
coordinating a massive number of ships often allows defeat in detail.
Andy A
[quoted original message omitted]
> Laserlight wrote:
And if your opponent doesn't have any mass destruction weapons. Plasma bolts
are murder on swarms of pipsqueaks.
> Laserlight wrote:
Plasma bolts
> are murder on swarms of pipsqueaks.
I'm assuming that humans aren't using Phalon tech or genre
weapons--which is, I gather, the standard assumption, but not one
which applies to your group.
> Laserlight wrote:
> > > This can work, if you have _lots_ more ships than your opponent
> I wrote:
> Laserlight wrote:
I wasn't making any particular assumptions at all... the point stands
regardless of what house rules you allow. It could as easily refer to Phalon
superdreadnoughts mowing down small ships with plasma bolts as it does to any
house rule concoctions.
> Andrew Apter wrote:
> I have found that only SML's and Needle beams are more effective
If you do this, go to extremes. Don't mix high damage weapons and needls
beams. Go with only needle beams or only SML's (I prefer pulse torpedoes).
Why? You need to hit him with either massive damage or shoot out his fire
controls and FTL and main drives. Combining weapons in you fleet of small
craft means you won't have enough to do either. I know. I tried it and failed
miserable...