Increase the speed of your firing passes. Burn in at velocity 14-18 &
he'll only get 1 long range turn.
Using 5-arc class 3s are costing him weapon mass, so for every one of
his
class 3s you get 4 3-arc class 2s. (I can't believe I'm saying this...)
How about sending in 2 separate waves from opposite sides? Multiarc weapons
can only fire in 1 direction at a time, so 1 wave will get free shots. Another
option is to increase the number of destroyers you field. Mount
them with 5-6 submunition packs each & send them in at velocity 20+. 15
beam die ignoring screens is a lot of re-rolls & damage...
Or try removing all your offensive weapons & load your ships with nothing but
torpedo & attack fighters.
In a 1500 point game, you should be able to get about 10-15 squadrons on
the board, which not even the best point defence can stop them all.
Or the last option is easy: stop playing against him in design-your-own
battles. Only play him with FTFB ships.
The only reason his ships are so powerful, is that he is using mobile space
stations against your mobile force. Drop him into an asteroid field or other
terrain & see what happens. Your mobility will allow you to hide behind
asteroids until you get close & with a more balanced weapon fit, you should be
level in firepower, even with the higher drives.
Neath Southern Skies - http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/
[mkw] Admiral Peter Rollins; Task Force Zulu
[pirates] Prince Rupert Raspberry; Base Commander
> -----Original Message-----
Although
> I had a thought about that yesterday that I should plan for two turns
Take long ranged weapons (eg Beam 3 or 4). Stand back and plink from beyond
his range. Eventually you'll wear him down. It won't be fun, mind you, but
it'll work.
Run scenarios at least moderately related to real life. There's
a reason the navy loves fast ships--they work better than
semi-mobile forts because they can make it to the decisive point
on time.
Get better at maneuvering. No advice on this, I didn't get into FT, really,
until Vector movement.
Roll sixes. Some people do, apparently, have a knack for influencing the dice.
I hesitate to call it psi, but it does exist. I did a test in college with
some of my gaming friends and we calculated that I rolled significantly higher
than
average--something like 4.1 instead of 3.5, IIRC, but that was a
while ago. Unfortunately I can't tell you how to learn to do this.
more rebuttals...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
------------------------
From: "Laserlight" <laserlight@quixnet.net>
Take long ranged weapons (eg Beam 3 or 4). Stand back and plink from beyond
his range. Eventually you'll wear him down. It won't be fun, mind you, but
it'll work.
Run scenarios at least moderately related to real life. There's
a reason the navy loves fast ships--they work better than
semi-mobile forts because they can make it to the decisive point
on time.
Get better at maneuvering. No advice on this, I didn't get into FT, really,
until Vector movement.
Roll sixes. Some people do, apparently, have a knack for influencing the dice.
I hesitate to call it psi, but it does exist. I did a test in college with
some of my gaming friends and we calculated that I rolled significantly higher
than
average--something like 4.1 instead of 3.5, IIRC, but that was a
while ago. Unfortunately I can't tell you how to learn to do this.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
------------------------
I got some side-arcs 3-beam or 4-beam ships (similiar designs, just
a matter of number of beams and the 3-beamer has double screens).
I just see using them as a long and boring "plinking" game. But it may be the
way I have to go against him.
Space ships & real life? They currently don't mix.:) Unless we play in a
campaign and make the FTL speed related to maneuver drives, I can't see
imposing this on anyone. And what would be the point in scenario based
combats? All his ships have the same speed, or would travel at the speed of
the slowest one. So either there's a battle with his entire points or there
would be no battle. I've tried introducing some very simple campaigns but no
one is interested.
Anyone offering Manuevering 101? :)
"Roll sixes". Sounds similiar to "get a bigger gun". I did get different dice
and my rolls have improved, to average. *sigh*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
--------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
--------------------------
From: Beth Fulton <beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au>
G'day Glen,
There will be many, much better at this than I, who will give you great
design/tactical advice, but until in the meantime here's a few thoughts
to get you on your way...
> It's a rare battle that I win against him. The few times was with
Point One: This may just be something you have to get used to, but you be
pleased to note that you are not alone and that there is a support group
for people so accursed. Indy (Mr "I only roll ones for p-torps") and I
("I
only roll ones period") will be more than glad to share our
self-help/'drown-your-sorrows' action plans ;)
(snipped rest)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
Greetings!
I too have played a player who used a capital-heavy fleet that barely
moved and used edge-of-the-world tactics.
I was able to use wave guns to great advantage. I lined up the wave cruisers
in a wall and was able to blast him. It was cheesy, but so is using
edge-of-the-world.
Another option is to draw him into a small campaign. Set up a 10x10 grid.
Allow each player to place 5 systems on the map as their empire (choose your
own government). Then place 20 additional system randomly on the grid in the
unused locations. Rule that as the hyperspace engines draw power from the MD
engines, MD indicates how far a ship can jump also. Movement on the grid is
only vertical or horizontal (no diagonal movement). Start each player with a
total fleet of 5000 points. Every other turn each planet controlled generates
50 resource points. It costs 10 pts per jump to move resource points from one
system to another, but takes no time. Ships may be built on any planet a
player controls. Each system can build upto 100 points worth of ship(s) in a
turn (if it has the resource points to do so). If the system is lost before
the ship is completed, it is lost. Resource points in a system are lost if the
system is occupied by the opposing player at the end of a turn. Each turn a
player writes down where his Task Force(s) will move. They may move a number
of grid points equal to the SLOWEST ship in the Task Force. All movement is
simeoutaneous. If Task Forces of opposing players cross the same grid point, a
battle occurs (and the rest of the movement is lost). Each player rolls a die.
The player who rolled higher chooses what clock face he will be attacking the
other player from. Battle is done using
FT/MT/FB rules. If a player withdraws, that player must move the fleet
to the nearest friendly system before it can take other orders. Ship repair
can only be done in friendly systems. Repair costs: Divide the cost of the
ship by the number of original damage boxes. Repair cost for the first row is
1/2
this number per damage box. This number in cost per damage box for the 2nd
row. 2x this cost for damage boxes in the 3rd row. and 5x this cost for damage
boxes in the 5th row. The winner of the campaign is the player who first
controls 20 systems. To control a system, you must be the only player with a
ship in that system. With faster ships you should be able to grab systems
quicker and attack his rear, undefended systems.
-----
Brian Bell
brian_bell@dscc.dla.mil
Universal Systems Inc for DSCC 614.692.4794 Voice 614.693.1503 Fax
850-4794 DSN
-----
> -----Original Message-----
... any suggestions
> for tactics? Any ideas for improving tactical maneuverability?
Although
> I had a thought about that yesterday that I should plan for two turns
...
> Glen
> [quoted text omitted]
Snipped alot..
> ---------------------------
:)
> I guess "singles" night has a different meaning to those of us
I'm not exactly a tactical genious but here goes..
If he is the one using very slow ships with banzai jammers, it is very easy to
counter that. Try making a real fast high speed pass taking out his banzai
jammers (which in non FTFB battles usually are rather small) with your own
beams or torps or secondary submunition packs or a small barrage of missiles
with good spread... Then do a large circle and come at him again, this time
dumping missile in nice large stacks now that his jammers are gone... If he
has small ships with ADAF try concentrating missiles on them so they can't use
their PDS on anything but themselves (or risk losing them to protect the
larger ship). If he uses ADAF on the large ships themselves, the idea is to
spread the missiles a bit around so he have to either put everything on one
ship and save that or lessen the blow on all ships... Fighters are excellent
for this kind of damage spreading (i.e. they work as FB missiles with better
aiming:)
Or a pretty devious way...if you know he has relatively many points tied up in
PDS and ADAF..make real heavy beam ships, with low speed, low arc and shields
and just slug him out of it...if you drop the PDS and the arcs you get more
beams per ship and thus should win...
> On 20-Jan-00 at 12:02, Sindre Cools Berg (cobos@saers.com) wrote:
You should ALWAYS use multiple shot missile barrages. Count on it taking 4
PDS's to take out one SM. If you drop 8 SM's on him that is 32 PDS's, he isn't
going to have that.
As for the bonzai jammers, if he has a thrust 1 ship you should be able to put
most your missiles UNDER his base.
If he starts at speed 4 (and that is what it sounds like he is doing) his
possible positions are all within a 1" area. He can fluctuate 1" forward and
back or 0.5" side to side. At
speed 8 his side-side fluctiations are still 1". This is a
trivial attack for SM's. You just need to overwhelm his defences.
If you think that is a problem go the MT missile route. Banzai Jammers don't
work against those and he still needs 2 PDS's for each missile for a sure
kill.
One other thing, if he has 1500 points and you have two fleets of 750 points
under two commanders he is starting out at a significant advantage.
From: Roger Books <books@mail.state.fl.us>
> Glen
You should ALWAYS use multiple shot missile barrages. Count on it taking 4
PDS's to take out one SM. If you drop 8 SM's on him that is 32 PDS's, he isn't
going to have that.
As for the bonzai jammers, if he has a thrust 1 ship you should be able to put
most your missiles UNDER his base.
If he starts at speed 4 (and that is what it sounds like he is doing) his
possible positions are all within a 1" area. He can fluctuate 1" forward and
back or 0.5" side to side. At
speed 8 his side-side fluctiations are still 1". This is a
trivial attack for SM's. You just need to overwhelm his defences.
> On 20-Jan-00 at 14:48, GBailey@aol.com (GBailey@aol.com) wrote:
> We roll 2D6 for starting speeds. We start about 7' apart
The trick is to realize he can't be just anywhere. With a thrust 1 ship there
are 5 possible places he can occupy on the board. No thrust, Accel 1", Decel
1", turn port and turn starboard. Once you know where on the board these
places reside it should be pretty easy to ensure SM hits.
> btw, Steve is pretty cool and not a "munchkin". He's a math
Oh, we would _never_ do that here...
Replying to both Glen's posts here:
> I've been playing FT for months with and against this guy. It's a
<chuckle> Funny, that - the more I play with the FB designs (which has
been quite a bit lately, for various reasons), the more I like them
(except the NAC, of course <g>). Yes, one-trick gimmick fleets are
easier to use, but in my experience they're also easier to counter once you
know which gimmick it is. The FB fleets are flexible enough to allow more than
one tactic per nation <g>
> His designs are
5-arc C3 batteries are about as bad you can get, damage-per-Mass wise.
(OK, really big beam batteries - multi-arc C4s, C5s etc - are worse
still.)
If you use 3-arc C2 batteries, you can match him die for die once you
get within 24mu, even if you have thrust 6... and with his lousy acceleration
rates, there's no reason why you should remain in range band 3 (ie, unable to
fire with C2 batteries) for more than one turn.
> point defenses and each "BB" has a an area defense,
With thrust-1 he needs heavy point defences and ADFC on all ships,
since it is virtually impossible to miss his ships with SMs. However,
you can use that against him as well - if you don't use missiles or
fighters (except for a few Interceptor squadrons to chew up *his*
fighters and missiles), his heavy point defences are wasted :-)
Brian mentioned "edge-of-the-world". I always play with floating edges
unless one edge represents some vital terrain (ie, a planet). Deep
space has no edges :-)
> weak hulls with lots of armor (he saw
Both are good choices. Weak with heavy armour is very good as long as the
enemy doesn't use pulse torps (unless he's Indy, in which case any
hull type is effective against pulse torps ;-) ), or the enemy is
Aaron Teske and uses any weapon which inflicts re-rolls <g> Average
with moderate armour isn't as effective against beams, but is less
vulnerable against armour-skipping weapons or Teske fields.
> Since I have a
Sounds a bit slow to me. I prefer thrust 6-8 designs :-)
> I don't know why I keep trying, though, I can't seem to get a handle
Took me a while to figure it out as well, way back when.
> Anyone offering Manuevering 101? :)
Manuevering 101 for Cinematic (I *know*, the table will be mangled by
everybody's email programs, but I'll try anyway):
If you make an...: you'll end up: at an angle of: facing:
1-point turn V*0.97mu 15 degrees 30 degrees
2 " " V*0.97mu 45 degrees 60 degrees
3 " " V*0.87mu 60 degrees 90 degrees
4 " " V*0.87mu 90 degrees 120 degrees
from your initial position.
V is the speed you have after this turn's accelerating/decelerating
"angle" is the angle you deviate from straight ahead "facing" is how much the
ship model has turned.
I could list the values for higher-point turns as well, but unless you
play Kra'Vak I doubt if you need that :-/
45 degrees and 90 degrees are easy to figure out. 60 degrees is somewhere
inbetween, 30 degrees is close to but somewhat less than 45 and 15 degrees
fairly clsoe to straight ahead <g>
> Forget me
Predictable maneuvers, it seems. Hurts, it does, particularly on small tables.
> Oh, and this guy has this thing about rolling lots of 6s against me.
No tactics help against *that*, I'm afraid. Steal his dice?
> So I'm tired of being the wimp that bully Steve picks on so any
If his ships are only thrust-1, you know fairly well where they'll be
in two turns. The problem is knowing where *your* ships are in two
turns, particularly if you're flying fast with high-thrust ships <g>
Been there, done that... and believe me, there are very few things in
Full Thrust as annoying as having your sub-pack strike boats moving in
at speed 40 only to overshoot their targets by 2mu :-/
> This brings up another point. I think increased arc costs are too
maneuvering?
Probably your maneuvering, I'm afraid :-/ 'Course, since I was involved
in determining the increased arc masses and my input was based on my
maneuvering in FT2, I might be a bit biased on this issue ;-)
If you play Vector, you'll probably find that the increased arc costs are too
*high* instead. The difference between Cinematic and Vector is quite
considerable.
> ------------------------
It is one way. Difficult on a fixed table, though - you'll run out of
table sooner or later.
> Space ships & real life? They currently don't mix. :)
Space ships and realistic military situations do mix, though.
> Unless we play in a campaign and make the FTL speed related to
More tactical challenge for both sides. (...which translates as "more
fun" <g>)
> All his ships have the same speed, or would travel at the speed of
"Here's a vital convoy. If you don't intercept it (capture and/or
destroy), you lose. Badly."
You play the convoy, he plays the raiders :-)
> On missile boats, tried it. I have this knack for hitting "bonzai
Should be "Banzai jammers" - I suspect that the missiles will ignore
small potted trees <g> (I've eaten ginger jam though, so it might be
possible to get bonzai jam as well ;-)
On a more serious note:
If he has thrust 2 or less, he can't dodge SMs at all. Unless he pulls an Alan
and mounts the BJs on the base of his capital ship, you should be able to hit
the exact target you aimed for. I have hit the exact target I aimed for even
when the BJs *were* mounted on the big ship's base, but I probably have more
practice.. and as we all know, practicing beforehand ruins the fun <g>
(<chorus> The English, the English, the English are... </chorus>
Dang, I was born in the wrong country ;-) )
> Maybe I should try multiple shot missile barrages.
SMs should *always* be fired in multiple shot barrages. *Always*. It takes two
salvoes on the same turn to overwhelm the point defences of a standard FB1 DD,
and capitals are a *lot* tougher than DDs.
> But his newest designs have many PDS and all big ships have ADFC.
You can hit him with lots, too.
> Someone else commented about More Thrust missiles. He actually tried
He can't outmaneuver them unless he starts at very high speeds and you
overshoot on the first turn the missiles are flying. They get to choose their
target from all enemy ships within 6mu, so won't hit his BJs unless you want
them to.
> They are still only hit on a 6 from a PDS using FB?
No, PDS hits MT missiles at 4-6 (but each counts as one salvo/squadron,
so you never kill more than 1 MT missile per PDS).
> What about class-1 beams?
Kills 1 MT missile on rolls of 5 or 6, with no re-rolls.
Regards,
Another option which several players found out is even nastier in vector
movement (sorry Dom, StrayCat) is to mount some cruisers with nova cannon. Aim
where you think they're moving towards & start firing at 36 MU; every turn. If
you arrange your heading right, you don't need to manoeuvre & will
hit with 2-3 multiturn nova shots before you lose a ship. Especially if
you play that they block LOS between ships.
It's not nice, but it will force manouevring.
Neath Southern Skies - http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/
[mkw] Admiral Peter Rollins; Task Force Zulu
[pirates] Prince Rupert Raspberry; Base Commander
> -----Original Message-----
In a message dated 01/20/2000 5:25:05 PM Central Standard Time,
> Brendan.Robertson@dva.gov.au writes:
> Another option which several players found out is even nastier in
every
> turn. If you arrange your heading right, you don't need to manoeuvre
Hehehe, I was not quite there yet for those novas, but they sure got my
attention! I think it was Aron and Dom who got a taste of those! It was
Noam's sniper-artillery that was crunching me. Man what a wallop!
BTW I had a lot of fun in my first vector match. It is radically different
from anything I have ever done before. Many thanks to Brian for letting a
greenie in on the action. He deserves a round of applause as well for all the
work he has put into it. The Cygnus Proving Grounds PBeM was a blast for me!
Bill "Stray Cat" Shatswell