As you all may have figured out by now, I've been pondering Strikboats
recently.
So my next little idea to throw into the hornet's nest is the ideal SB mass.
Here are my thoughts:
MASS 6 - to fragile to deliver its payload; can be sniped by long range
beam fire before it reaches its own range envelope. You could add an armor
point, but it would reduce offensive potential below a usefull level.
MASS 8 - far better; enough mass to add at least one point of armor,
improving survivablilty drastically. Offensive potential is good.
MASS 10 - I'm still; trying to decide if I like this better than 8 or
not. You have the option of adding either another point of armor or adding
another SP (for a cost of about 35 points total). This has the advantage of a
mixed group of SBs for more tactical options. On the other hand MASS 10 is
about as large as I'd want to go for a SB.
MASS 12 - From this point on I think we're talking about a whole other
kettle of fish. I don't wan't to go into the battle-rider concept right
now (even though SBs are a subset).
Thoughts?
It seems that the real difficulty in designing a strike boat is that they must
achieve short range to be effective. Granted it would no longer be considered
a strikeboat but what about a class 4 beam weapon on a 30 mass hull?
30 mass thrust 6 fragile hull 4 armor 1 class 4 beam 2 fire control 1 PDS cost
is around 100 points or so.
A squadron of these could hang at extreme range and plink away for quite a
while. The 4 armor protects it from reprisal plinking. And anything fast
enough to catch it is going to have a hard time dealing with the class 4 beam.
I somehow doubt that this is anywhere near efficient points wise but would
throw a wrench into the fray every now and then to spice things up. Good for
getting rid of those pesky Banzai Jammers also. And yes you cold drop a FC and
PDS to squeeze an extra arc for the class 4 and point it out the side to be
really nasty, but then it would be unbalanced. "Above else you must be
symetrical!" I like building fleets with a nice strong theme to them,
efficiency be damned.
> 30 mass
How about fighters?
> It seems that the real difficulty in designing a strike boat is that
One problem here is actually the lack of hull. With 3 hull boxes, the ship
would be forced to make multiple thresholds after the armor was gone.
Also, holding the range open with a Thrust 6 vessel using Cinematic movement
rules makes it very hard to use that Class 4 beam, unless you mount it in the
rear.
> On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, Sutherland wrote:
> It seems that the real difficulty in designing a strike boat is that
That would be a monitor.