Both actions featured John's NRE fleet (which, for those of your not familiar,
is the New Roman Empire, ie
Byzantines-In-Spaaaaace!). URL is
www.angelfire.com/va/basileus/Janes.html , CruRon5.
First action, vs Islamic Federation. 2 Mameluke DDH, 1 Saber CL, 2 Qaws
missile cruisers, 2 Ifrit CH (1500 points or so after adding 10% to account
for no FTL).
NRE ships came on from clockface 9, IF ships came on from clockface 5, inital
speeds about 6, range about 65. After a turn closing, the Qaws split off
thrusting direction 8. The NRE and remaining IF ships came head on, exchanging
heavy beam fire. First blood went to NRE, the Saber expired without firing a
shot (validating John's pregame remark "little yellow dice of
death"--one six led to three re-rolls...). Next round, more
beam fire, both sides lightly scorched. Third round, the fleets passed through
each other and both reversed. 10 SMRs arrived, of which 6 on target among 4
ships. PDS and ADFC did their job on two of those, but one Symeon CA and one
Thessaloniki CL were damaged or destroyed (John says "My main opponents all
use missiles, guess I should buy more PDS and
armor instead of shields--look for a redesigned CruRon5 when I
get a chance to post it.") Heavy beam fire at close range destroyed ships on
both sides. Next round, the cumulative
vectors carried opposing forces away from each other; beam-3
fire at max range was ineffective. Both sides decided that pressing the issue
was too risky; the IF broke off and the NRE elected not to try to pursue
(particularly since several ships had engine damage). Score: IF retained a
Mameluke and an Ifrit, both heavily damaged (any damage on an IF ship
qualifies as "heavy"), plus an untouched Ifrit and the Qaws who had shot their
bolt and broken off (not "fled", John, thank you very much). NRE kept a
damaged St Symeon, slightly damaged Connie I escort ship, the hulk of a
Thessaloniki, a healthy Thessaloniki, plus the DD's and FF's, unscratched. All
in all, a draw.
Second round, Kra'Vak vs NRE. We placed an asteroid with a
damaged KV ship in the middle as the goal--both sides trying to
salvage it--but it didn't really have an effect on the battle.
KV ships were 3 Ka'Tak strike corvettes, 2 Vo'Bok light cruisers, 2 Ti'Dak
battle cruisers. Again NRE came on at 9 and KV came on at 5, both speeds about
6, initial range about 65mu. But this one turned out a lot differently. We
closed for two rounds, just getting within Beam 3 range (no real effect). Next
turn we closed and the KV strikers shot out ahead. Striker MKPs destroyed a
frigate and a destroyer, K5 fire damaged a NRE CH. Concentrated beam fire
polished off one Vo'Bok. Next round, the KV side slipped and the NRE line
decelerated and reversed facing. Both sides intended to pass through and turn
to face, but it didn't quite work out that way, as the
lines were intermingled--everyone except the two surviving KV
corvettes was in 6MU of everyone else. K5's took a CH through 3 thresholds and
took about half the hull of the other one, both CL's were crippled, and the
CME was obliterated. The KV fired off all their Scatterguns at this point. The
NRE took one Ti'Dak through two thresholds, almost through 3, and bounced a
torpedo off a corvette. The NRE wasn't very happy with the situation. Four
ships
survived, but 3 of those were within 2 hull of nebula-hood, and
the other had damaged engines and couldn't avoid being in someone's F arc. The
KV had an untouched battlecruiser and light cruiser, plus a BC whose weapons
were off line and two corvettes which could plink away with K1's. The KV had a
convincing win on this one.
Lesson 1: "You'll lose if you are in the F arc of a KraVak ship." Lesson 2:
"You can't avoid being in the F arc of a Kra'Vak ship."
Oerjan mentioned that these were balanced for Cinematic; we were
(as all right-thinking, decent and upright people do) playing
Vector. You can kinda tell that the KV weren't especially balanced for
vector....the limitation of "F arc only" isn't much of a limitation.
John suggests the quick and easy modification would be to delete the provision
for KV weapons doing double damage. I suspect that the right fleet and the
right tactics can still pull it off, but I suspect it may take a while to
develop that. Certainly as fleet that relies on shields (as the late CruRon5
did) isn't going to cut it. Perhaps a "fake KV" fleet--just
take KV designs and replace the Kguns with Beam 3's or 2's. But
no existing fleet was designed that way. It'll be interesting
to see what develops.
G'day,
> Lesson 2: "You can't avoid being in the F arc of a Kra'Vak
Takes practice but is possible - try flanking moves (another thing that
takes prcatice but works very well against the KV).
> Oerjan mentioned that these were balanced for Cinematic; we were
Actually it is, you've just got to learn to exploit it - and the methods
whereby you do that are going to be different in vector.
> John suggests the quick and easy modification would be to delete
Actually I don't think that's necessary, just out of interest were you using
the new mechanic or the old for dealing double damage?
> off, but I suspect it may take a while to develop that.
Seeings as it rips thru' armour too your best defenses would be longer range
beams or high manuverability. Keep the sods at range, hit them from both sides
and make them use up their scatterpacks needlessly would be my advice.
> It'll be interesting to see what develops.
Yep the xeno war's going to be a wild ride;)
Beth
> Lesson 2: "You can't avoid being in the F arc of a Kra'Vak
He kept his squadron all in one clump, thus I was pretty much guaranteed to
have something in arc; in fact the only time I couldn't pretty much pick
whatever target I wanted was when two of them ended up behind me (about 2MU
range and facing the wrong
way).
> John suggests the quick and easy modification would be to
New. I'll also point out that I was using battlecruisers with K5's; had it
been a greater number of K3's, for example, it wouldn't have been as painful.
> Seeings as it rips thru' armour too your best defenses would be
Scatterpacks weren't really that dangerous. The MKPs were certainly useful,
though; IIRC, I got five "hits" from six MKP's, so YMMV.
> Laserlight wrote:
...Snip...JTL
> New. I'll also point out that I was using battlecruisers with
XXX
It really does not make any difference. Two 5s mass 22,
four 3s mass 20 and add two 1s for two more. if you get 50% hits
and 50% double the damage is the same. yes, I know, one 10 hurts
much more than a 6, a 3, and a 1. JTL
XXX
> >Seeings as it rips thru' armour too your best defenses would be
XXX The strategy is inconsistent, high thrust and long range do not force the
'K' to use up thier short range defensive weapons. If the thoughts are
fighters and missiles, what will you be using
to defeat the 'K' after the fighters and missiles are gone? JTL
> Laserlight wrote:
> Both actions featured John's NRE fleet (which, for those of your
You sure it wasn't CruRon4? According to this page CruRon5 only has 1 CH and
no frigates, whereas CruRon4 has 2 CHs and 2 FHs.
A note on the designs used, for those who haven't already checked John's NRE
page:
NRE designs are heavily based on the FB1 NAC. In the NRE-KV battle the
NRE CHs were Vandenburg-Ts (design-wise at least, don't know what
models he used), the CME was most likely a Furious and the FHs were Tacomas.
Of course John has renamed them, but these designs are identical... The other
designs differ more; eg the NRE Thessalonika CLs are Hurons with 1 extra hull
and 2 armour boxes, and the DDs are variants of the FSE San Miguel rather than
the NAC Ticonderoga. (A bit surprising, given John's opinions about French
<g>)
> First action, vs Islamic Federation. 2 Mameluke DDH, 1 Saber
...
> Third round, the fleets passed through each other and both
Sounds like a good idea, yes :-/ The Furious-class isn't exactly the
best
ship to have as your main anti-missile support, and renaming it to
"Constantine Isoapostolis" doesn't change this.
'Course, if he runs into a Phalon force he'll want both shields *and* more
point defence <g>
> Score: IF retained a Mameluke and an Ifrit, both heavily
I hope you mean "any HULL damage on an IF ship...", since they tend to be
rather heavily armoured?
> plus an untouched Ifrit and the Qaws who had shot their bolt and
"Fled"? Why on earth should an unloaded Qaws stay in the battle, when
it only has a single Class-1 battery to fight with...?
> Second round, Kra'Vak vs NRE.
...
> KV ships were 3 Ka'Tak strike corvettes, 2 Vo'Bok light
Not too surprising with only 2 beam dice fired <g>
> Next turn we closed and the KV strikers shot
Did you roll extremely poorly for the other ships this turn and extremely well
the next, or was there some damage from the bigger ships to the other DD and
FH in the NRE force? If they bought it on the next
turn instead, you inflicted about 50% more damage than average - and
since the next turn's firing was done at range <6 where the KV hit rates are
very high, I'm not entirely sure it is possible roll that
well unless you used eight-sided dice :-/
> Concentrated beam fire polished off one Vo'Bok.
No Pulse Torp fire, or just Kochte-cursed die rolls?
> Next round, the KV side slipped and the NRE line decelerated
6mu in front of a KV ship is generally a very bad place to be. Even
Indy occasionally manages to hit at this range ;-) 6mu to its side is
*much* better :-)
Was the missing Ka'Tak killed before it fired (in the previous turn), or
after?
> K5's took a CH through 3
> Lesson 1: "You'll lose if you are in the F arc of a KraVak
Not if Indy or Beth are flying the KV ;-) Actually, not particularly
true
even if Indy or Beth aren't flying the KV - see below.
> Lesson 2: "You can't avoid being in the F arc of a Kra'Vak
This is very true in Vector. Of course, this applies to engine types
and strenghts in Vector, including thrust-3 or weaker human-style
drives.
> John suggests the quick and easy modification would be to delete
In that case, John would probably suggest that all P-torp damage rolls
be reduced by 2 points if he ever ran into Nik Linnell's Free Orange
Republic fleet. They're more dangerous to an "official FB1"-style fleet
than any screen-less Kra'Vak force can be... it did take the Tasmanian
gang a while to figure out how to beat the FOR, but they managed in the end
<g>
The K guns with the highest damage:mass ratio are marginally better
than a single-arc Pulse Torp (average damage per Mass per hit for the
K2-1 is 0.89, for the K3-1 0.9, and for the PT-1 it is 0.875 - ie, less
than 3% difference). All other K guns inflict less raw damage per Mass
than a PT-1. The NRE ships in this battle weren't heavily enough
armoured for the superior K armour penetration to have any serious impact, so
for the same cost the Ks were probably somewhat overpriced
compared to the (quite numerous) NRE P-torps.
When you look at the average amounts of damage each side in this battle could
dish out to the other at the various ranges, you find that the KV beat the NRE
by just under 25% at range 6mu or less, while the NRE beat
the KV by about 25% in the 6-12 and 18-24 bands. They're virtually
equal between 12 and 18 mu (just over 1 beam dice of difference, out of
almost 40), the KV clearly better at 24-30 (where all the Ks can fire
but the NRE only have 2 beam dice) and the NRE a little better at range
30-36 (where no KV weapons can fire but the NRE still have their 2 beam
dice). All in all, the two sides seem to have been pretty evenly matched in
firepower.
The NRE had more hull boxes (including some of their armour), but they were
spread out over more units (9 instead of 7). Again the two sides seem to have
been very closely matched.
So, what could the NRE have done to win?
Well, first of all try to stay outside 6mu range to avoid the scatterguns and
give the K guns at least some chance to miss. OK, each individual scattergun
isn't very scary unless you're a fighter or missile, but being
hit by 14 of them at once tends to hurt even starships :-/
The KV force in this battle could on average (ie, barring very hot
dice) inflict just over half as much damage in the 6-12mu range band as
it could (including scatterguns) in the 0-6mu band. The NRE squadron
OTOH would only lose about 10% of its firepower with the same increase in
range, effectively reversing the firepower ratios from one band to the next.
Second, watch the targetting priorities. When enemy strike boats (from any
race or fleet, not just the KV) begin their attack run it is usually a good
idea to hit them hard before they can fire. It doesn't matter if they're
armed with SubMunition Packs, MKPs or Pulser-Cs; if they get to fire
you'll get hurt. Since a St.Symeon or Constantine Isoapostolis has more than
enough firepower to swat a Ka'Tak, at least one and maybe two of those small
ships shouldn't have lived to fire (depening on who won the initiative that
turn, and of course barring extremely low die rolls).
Third, it was just as important for John to keep your ships in his (F)
arcs as it was for you to keep his in yours - about 1/3 of his weapon
mass were (F)-arc only weapons, and all the rest covered the (F) arc as
well (with many cross-broadside mounts, making the (F) arc by far his
most powerful one). Since you played Vector it shouldn't have been any harder
for him to do this than it was for you, but judging from the
damage inflicted on the last turn (the report describes some 25-30 DP
inflicted on the KV, in return for 80-100 points on the NRE ships -
which means quite impressively above-average die rolls for the KV, as I
noted above) he either had the KV ships in his broadside arcs, or lost
over half of his remaining weapons before they got to fire, or - again
- atrociously bad luck with his dice.
Either of poor maneuvering or sub-optimal targetting priorities can do
in any fleet regardless of what enemy they were fighting. Combined, they are
disastrous. Not knowing what good tactics or targetting is explains why the
maneuvering and targetting wasn't very good, but doesn't make them any better.
Bad dice are harder to do anything about, of course - at least if you
don't want to cheat and aren't too superstitious <g>
> ...I suspect it may take a while to develop that. I suspect that the
I suspect that you badly underestimate the FT players.
There are three simple design guidelines for KV-beating (and I mean
"beating", not just "having a chance of maybe winning if they're really
lucky") vector ships:
* Don't use screens. They don't work against any KV weapon, so they're simply
a dead weight.
* Don't use too much armour; big Ks will bypass virtually all of it. A little
armour is OK for keeping K1s and KV fighters from supporting the bigger Ks,
though; the NRE ships in this battle are roughly on the upper limit of how
much you can use before you start losing performance.
* Don't rely too heavily on missiles. Scatterguns are extremely effective at
decimating SM salvoes, and the KV have rather many of them.
(Yes, I know Mike and his friends consider SMs to be the only way to
beat KV, but I honestly don't see how - you need to hit a KV ship with
roughly 1 salvo per 10-12 Mass to have a better than even chance of
killing it. The only way to have that many SMs in a roughly equal-point
battle is to build your entire fleet of Qaws-style ships... and even
they need to hit with every single SM salvo they have, without overkilling any
target. Given the KV maneuverability, I'd be very
impressed if someone manages to do that with 3mu- or even 4mu-radius
SMs.
Mike, I'm still very interested in your battle reports to see how you pulled
this off... <hint, hint>)
Although none of the "official four" fleets from FB1 fits these guidelines
very well, there are quite a few player-designed fleets that fit very
well - eg most New Israeli ships, most Trans-Belt Alliance designs
(some are a little over-armoured, though) and Schoon's FSE "border
patrol refits" (listed in the Ship Registry) to name but a few.
Designs like the newer ESU capitals (strong hulls and no armour) or the
NAC (lots of single-arc weapons (mainly P-torps), and not too much
armour on most units) are able to give almost as good as they get in Vector.
The FSE are in trouble since their main armament isn't terribly effective, and
the NSL cruisers and BB have far too much armour and too fragile hulls but
their other ships work reasonably well in Vector. Not perfect, but they're
certainly no roadkills unless their admirals screw up.
The fleets that are really in trouble are those that use heavy armour
on Weak hulls - the Free Orange, IF and similar... interestingly
enough, the very designs that are most effective against *human* weapons <EG>
> In your reply to Beth, you wrote:
> just out of interest were you
On the contrary. K3s and K2s inflict somewhat more damage than the same Mass
of K5s, and the NRE ships weren't heavily enough armoured for the lower armour
penetration to make a difference. A greater number of
smaller guns would have been *more* painful, not less :-/
Regards,
> Beth Fulton wrote:
> >Lesson 2: "You can't avoid being in the F arc of a Kra'Vak
Nonsense. They fly merrily along in whatever direction they want, and will
always be facing you unless you are facing an inexperienced player who's too
stupid to guess which general direction you will be in. Even then, logic would
suggest to face your KV slightly off each other's arc in order to catch a
wider spread. I run a lot of ships with Pulse Torps, and very rarely am I out
of arc, much less if my facing and thrust were utterly independant.
> >John suggests the quick and easy modification would be to delete
New. Where a K5 does 10 points of damage 84% of the time. Note that to
average that high takes 15 beam dice, which at 12-24 takes 16 mass worth
of beams. Haha. That's even. Or let's compare PTs, which average 3.5 points of
damage and have the same range bands and (usually) arc limitiations. Gee, that
takes an average of 4.6 (or thereabouts, havn't done the math) to do 10 points
of damage. Five PTs weighs 20 mass. Yup. That's balanced.
> Seeings as it rips thru' armour too your best defenses would be longer
Scatterpacks are trivial--but I'd like to see you "keep them at range"
with a consistently lower thrust (ie, every fleet in the FB, and most of the
designs I've seen on the net) and less maneuverability. I'll not even mention
the difficulties which arise when you have scenario
objectives more defined than "kill the bug-eyed monsters."
> John Leary wrote:
> > >Seeings as it rips thru' armour too your best defenses would be
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> NRE designs are heavily based on the FB1 NAC. In the NRE-KV battle the
CME was my escort varient: 11 PDSs.
> Tacomas. Of course John has renamed them, but these designs are
I like the designs. I hate the French _people_. It's like AK-47s.
Great guns, subhuman users.
> Sounds like a good idea, yes :-/ The Furious-class isn't exactly the
Removing the beam 3 and the PT and throwing on an extra 8 PDSs does improve
it, although the refit will add a second ADFC.
> >Next turn we closed and the KV strikers shot
Some light damage.
> >Concentrated beam fire polished off one Vo'Bok.
Slightly cursed.
> >John suggests the quick and easy modification would be to delete
Nonsense. I can handle them. I can mount the silly things too, they are 50%
stopped by armor, and they don't regularly do 10 points of
damage off a single weapon. I've taken down a good deal of PT-heavy
fleets.
> Well, first of all try to stay outside 6mu range to avoid the
Gee, that's easy with a higher thrust for the KV AND an objective to defend.
> John Atkinson wrote:
John, I think you are missing something in your calculations. PT to K5, both
have same range bands so that cancels each other out.
When a K5 hits, it does 10 points of damage on a 1-5 of a d6 and 5
points when a 6 is rolled. Thus the average damage per hit is 9.17 points When
a PT hits, average damage is 3.5 points. 9.17 diveded by 3.5 equals 2.62 PTs
needed to equal one K5. 2.62 PTs at 4 mass each equals 10.48 mass. The K5 is
11 mass but it inflicts a higher percentage of damage to the hull than the PT.
Looks balanced to me.
> NRE designs are heavily based on the FB1 NAC.
John has specified that his ships were selected for campaigns, not one off
battles.
> Sounds like a good idea, yes :-/ The Furious-class isn't
"Connie Eye"
> Score: IF retained a Mameluke and an Ifrit, both heavily
Correct.
> plus an untouched Ifrit and the Qaws who had shot their bolt
Exactly my point. We weren't fleeing, we were breaking contact and
establishing a high relative velocity....
> Did you roll extremely poorly for the other ships this turn and
Some of my ships were out of range, I was in line ahead formation at this
point.
> or was there some damage from the bigger ships
I didn't notice anything unusual about my dice, which probably means my Teske
field was in action as usual.
> 6mu in front of a KV ship is generally a very bad place to be.
That's okay, they didn't stay there very long...so to speak.
> Was the missing Ka'Tak killed before it fired (in the previous
After. It, and only it, was within 6MU, so it absorbed PDS fire.
> The KV force in this battle could on average (ie, barring very
Picked the wrong opponent for that.
> Second, watch the targetting priorities. When enemy strike
IIRC I got initiative, his return fire nicked a Ka'Tak and then he
concentrated on the Vo'Bok.
> noted above) he either had the KV ships in his broadside arcs,
I handed out thresholds in all directions.
> * Don't use screens. They don't work against any KV weapon, so
That was noted, yes. Also the Connie Eye--11PDS--wasn't pulling
its weight in this battle.
> (Yes, I know Mike and his friends consider SMs to be the only
Islamic Fed is willing to build them for you...(wow..an
_export!_)
> On the contrary. K3s and K2s inflict somewhat more damage than
As someone pointed out, 10 at once hurts more than 3+3+3+1.
Psychologically.
G'day John,
> Takes practice but is possible - try flanking moves (another thing
OK I'm going to prefice my statements here with the fact we used 'old' vector
in the games we had vs KV and under that hiuman ships of decent speed are just
as manuverable as the new KV so it is quite possible to wrong foot the KV
(even if its only by a hair's breadth out of arc is out of arc). Under 'new'
vector it will be a LOT harder, but even under that pincer attacks work well,
they can't all be facing in both directions at once and as soon as you've
split their fire and turned their noses you've got your foot in the door.
> Even
After the baptism by fire that I got vs Nik's FOR I've gotten very good at not
being where you expect me to be, but like I said we are still using 'old'
vector.
> New. Where a K5 does 10 points of damage 84% of the time....
I can assure you Oerjan and half a dozen others spent countless weekends
making sure they were, I still get nightmarish flashbacks to pages of copious
stats;)
> Scatterpacks are trivial--but I'd like to see you "keep them at range"
Guess my only defense here is that I was giving my experience based on 'old'
vector. Yes it'll take a bit of learning with 'new' vector but given how steep
the learning curve was originally for KV in vector I seriously doubt that the
KV are unbeatable and need recosting for vector.
Cheers
Beth - how dreads to think what John's going to ahve to say about the
Phalons and Savasku....;)
G'day Johns,
> XXX
As John has so lovingly pointed out I'm not exactly renowned for apparently
consistent thought, but in this case I was a little pressed for time and was
just listing all the tactics that had worked for me, sorry should've been
clearer.
> If the thoughts are fighters and missiles, what will you be using
And just to add to your confusion I was also thinking of non-human
opponents. So in an effort to really make this advice as clear as mud I'd
suggest against the KV you try:
a) Using ships light on conventional defenses (i.e. screens/armour)
b) Using wings not tight blobs in attacks c) If humans (and got the choice) go
for longer range weaponary or speed (though under 'new' vector probably only
longer range stuff would help) d) If Phalon stay on the edge of plasama bolt
range and thwack 'em (unless
of course you've got lots of shrouds and pulser-Cs and you're willing to
live with potentially painful counter punch) e) Pray that you're playing
someone who rolls lots of 1s or 6s.
I'm sure the better admirals amongst you will find even more effective ways,
but until then these may help.
> I said 'fake KV' with high thrust and long range. Which is a)boring
OK I've heard this argument a number of times before in a number of settings
(and I know I'm gonna get caned for asking, but...) and what I don't see
immediately is why? OK if it was the only thing you ever did then yeah sure
it'd get tedious, but don't you guys ever just try something for a change or
take on something for the thrill of the challenge??
> b)still not balanced since the KV will destroy a cruiser for every one
Well if you're silly enough to leave it their by its ownsome in a vacuum
bereft of support then it deserves it, but then I tend to take my ships out in
squadrons....;)
Cheers
Beth
> Beth Fulton wrote:
> >> If the thoughts are fighters and missiles, what will you be using
Hrm... moving in that direction already. More inspired by IF than KV. Which
means I'm going to be sucking up a good bit o' weight in
PDS. Price I pay--I think campaign, and the same squadron may have to
slap around IFed and KV in the same week (I have this mental image of a
combined IF/KV fleet, and it's not nice. . . )
> b) Using wings not tight blobs in attacks
Hrm. . .
> c) If humans (and got the choice) go for longer range weaponary or
New vector? Are you referring to something other than FB1?
> e) Pray that you're playing someone who rolls lots of 1s or 6s.
Kyrie Eleison is a battlecry, not a strategy.:)
> I'm sure the better admirals amongst you will find even more effective
Actually, no. I run Imperial fleets. I use a handful of standardized classes.
I don't see a thrill in tweaking my designs for hours on spreadsheets and
running volumes of statistics to 'optomize'.
Redesigning and tweaking for every single one-off battle seems a bit
silly. I may loose more one-offs, but it 'feels' right to me.
G'day John,
> Hrm. . . moving in that direction already.
Well then you're streets ahead f the rest of us already!;) Mind you steer
clear of Phalons in that case...
> Price I pay--I think campaign, and the same squadron may have to
Never pictured KV having many human allies, that's more a Phalon nuance, but
yes I guess the thought would be intimidating.
> b) Using wings not tight blobs in attacks
Is that a good Hrm or a bad one??
> c) If humans (and got the choice) go for longer range weaponary or
Yep, in FB2 Jon has put out another 'alternate' (well revised 'optional')
vector system for those who weren't enamoured with the fact you could
MD/turn/push. Basically all thrust (for MDs, pushes and rotations) comes
out of the total thrust factor of the main drive. Pushes (side or aft) are
limited to 1 thrust maximum per turn by each set of thrusters and multiple
rotations in a single turn are now permitted, but 1 thrust factor is used for
each rotation (no matter how many facings ship rotates through each time).
> e) Pray that you're playing someone who rolls lots of 1s or 6s.
Damn knew I was doing something wrong;)
> Actually, no. I run Imperial fleets. I use a handful of standardized
Actually I think you misunderstood me there, I was thinking more along the
lines of trying new 'moves' etc rather than redesigning everything all the
time (I'm with you on that one, once built that's the way they stay barring
new classes/refits years down the track campaign wise).
Cheers
Beth
> Beth Fulton wrote:
With your comments below, I think I'll focus on bribing them to pester the IF.
If I let them into my universe--I am NOT fond of 'area effect' weapons.
If your scale is larger 1mu = 10km, then they really don't make much sense. Do
one of our math geeks want to calculate it out? Based on a Salvo Missle being
(arbitrarily) a 20kT warhead, an mu = 1,000 km, what it would take to fill a
sphere 6,000 km in diameter with the same energy as 5 20kT warheads produce??
> >Hrm. . .
It's a Hrm Hrm. I dinna like spreading my ships out--mutual support is
good, m'kay. The trick is to have them coordinated in time instead of space...
> >> c) If humans (and got the choice) go for longer range weaponary or
comes
> out of the total thrust factor of the main drive.
Hrm... And that's a somewhatpositivebutI'llhavetoplayacouplagames Hrm.
> Actually I think you misunderstood me there, I was thinking more along
Yeah. I'm revising the basic logic I use for my fleet, then I'm going
to go back and start introducing counter-KV designs which will be
availabe in the 2190 time frame or so.
> Price I pay--I think campaign, and the same squadron may have
Let's see, you'd be facing an unpredictable mix of SMRs
(defence: PDS and armor), beam-2's (defence: screens) and Kguns
(defense: lots of hull). And probably all of it more maneuverable that you (I
don't recall designing an IF ship that wasn't thrust 6). Yeah, that'd be
upsetting.
> Beth Fulton wrote:
...Snip...JTL
> Beth - how dreads to think what John's going to have to say about the
I am thinking in short anglo-saxon words and the game has just
started.
Bye for now,
> John M. Atkinson wrote:
...Snip...JTL
> Actually, no. I run Imperial fleets.
...Snip...JTL
G'day John,
> With your comments below, I think I'll focus on bribing them to pester
Shouldn't be that hard, think off them as militant Ferengi without the
ears... ;)
> Is that a good Hrm or a bad one??
Very true, but it comes down to a cost-benefit between mutual support
and being the broadside of a barn vs smaller support base, but multiple thorns
in eth KV side.
> >New vector....
Hey we're gettin' somehwere;)
> Yeah. I'm revising the basic logic I use for my fleet, then I'm going
Sounds OK, though I have a feeling the Xeno War only starts about then
(???
I can't honestly remember off the top of my head) so the dates maybe a bit
early.
Beth
G'day Johns,
> John Leary wrote:
Yeah I think they're cute too....;P <duck>
> John Atkinson wrote:
OK two questions for you John; 1) Beyond the area effect stuff what else don't
you like about the space snails? 2) Would you be so kind as to sketch out an
alien race you would be happy with please?
Thanks
Beth
> John M. Atkinson wrote:
> Actually I don't think that's necessary, just out of interest were
*If* they hit - which they aren't guaranteed to do even at point-blank
range, since you roll to hit as for a P-torp. At point-blank range the
K gun will inflict 10 points only 69% of the time, 5 points 14% of the time,
and 0 points 17% of the shots... and the percentage for no damage rises fast
as the range goes up.
> Note that to average that high takes 15 beam dice,
If you don't use re-rolls, that is. With re-rolls it only takes 12.5
dice (OK, round up to 13)... and you haven't included the chance that
the K-gun misses.
> which at 12-24 takes 16 mass worth of beams. Haha. That's even. >Or
John, I'm *very* glad you pointed out that you haven't done your maths
here - otherwise I would never, ever dare to use a bridge (or even a
dug-out) you've been involved in building, or be anywhere within ten
miles of any demolition you're doing.
10/3.5 = 2.86, not 4.6. You need 2.86 *average-damage* P-torp hits to
equal a K5 hit's *maximum* damage; as you noted the hit bands and hit rates
are equal so you can compare one hit with another. 2.86*4 = 11.4 Mass,
compared to the K5's 11 Mass for the K5.
However, you're comparing the *maximum* damage of the K5 with the
*average* damage of the P-torp. The *average* damage of a K5 hit is
slighly lower than 10 - 9.17, to be exact - so you only need 9.17/3.5 =
2.62 P-torps for 10.5 Mass to equal the K5's 11 Mass.
11.4 or 10.5 Mass to equal the damage of a weapon with 11 Mass seems
reasonably well balanced, at least to me. A bit difficult to get closer
without using dice bigger than d6, or using fractional mass ratings.
> NRE designs are heavily based on the FB1 NAC. In the NRE-KV >>battle
OK. Makes more sense against the IF; agreed - though 11 PDS and only
one ADFC does seem a bit unbalanced... I agree with your planned refit
<g>.
That also confirms my suspicion that the force you used was CruRon4 and
not CruRon5 :-/
> ...the DDs are variants of the FSE San Miguel rather than the NAC
Great guns (though the AK-74 is even better - even I can hold it on
target through a half-magazine burst :-) ), quite a lot of nice (and
also quite well-trained) people... as long as you don't go too high in
the hierarchies :-/
> Concentrated beam fire polished off one Vo'Bok.
OK.
> John suggests the quick and easy modification would be to delete
In that case your proposal to remove the double damage from the Ks is utter
nonsense as well. Most Ks inflict less damage than an equal
Mass of P-torps... and *none* of them inflict as much damage as an
equal *cost* of P-torps.
> Well, first of all try to stay outside 6mu range to avoid the
Attempting a salvage under fire, without first driving the enemy off? You've
only got yourself to blame, then <shrug>
Yes, it is quite easy to avoid having your vectors cross like yours did
in the recent battle even with a 2-thrust difference, particularly if
you start as far away, and at as low a velocity, as the report says you did.
> Third, it was just as important for John to keep your ships in his
With the CME instead of the book Furious, your (F)-arc weapons (6
P-torps; 2 on each heavy cruiser and 1 on each destroyer according to
the OOB on your web page) were 30.4% of your non-PDS weapons. Pretty
close to 1/3, don't you think?
FWIW, with a standard Furious the (F)-arc weapons are almost 40% of
your total weapon Mass, but since I wasn't sure Laserlight really meant
CruRon4 rather than CruRon5 I left it at "about 1/3".
> noted above) he either had the KV ships in his broadside arcs, or
OK. IOW; bad luck with your dice while Laserlight rolled quite hot. A really
good basis for objectively evaluating a new weapon, don't you think?
Regards,
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
Yeeps. As near as I can figure, I was thinking 15, not 10. Too tired
to think--much driving, followed by much drinking in too small a time
frame. I'll just go commit suppukku.
> That also confirms my suspicion that the force you used was CruRon4
Umm... Yeah. You're right.
> >Gee, that's easy with a higher thrust for the KV AND an objective to
Went for the K'V to try to whack them--leading them a merry chase "at
range" would result in leaving the salvage undefended.
> OK. IOW; bad luck with your dice while Laserlight rolled quite hot. A
Hrm. . . I guess you win--so-so tactics and poor (though not
spectacularly so) dice combined to give bad first impression.
> John M. Atkinson wrote:
> Yeeps. As near as I can figure, I was thinking 15, not 10. Too tired
I hope you don't do that in the field (drink too much, that is)... 'Course, if
the Kosovars and Serbs offer you as much plum (brandy?
liquour? whatever) as they've done to some of my KFOR-deployed friends,
not drinking too much might be difficult without upsetting the locals
<g>
> Gee, that's easy with a higher thrust for the KV AND an objective to
And in doing so, you got a little too close. You couldn't've known that since
you had never fought the FB2 KV before, but the difference
between the *average* damages the remaining KV could dish out at 0-6mu
and 6-12mu ranges was roughly equivalent to the damage it took to
cripple both your CLs (or kill the CME). OK, good enemy die rolls can easily
throw all statistic probabilities out the airlock, but those few mus increased
the risk of your getting badly mauled quite considerably.
> OK. IOW; bad luck with your dice while Laserlight rolled quite hot. A
Yeah. Quite a few of our initial playtest results went like this too,
but once the players started figuring out counter-tactics the battles
were a lot more even - indeed, some of the playtesters expressed
worries that the KV were too *weak* and would be road-kills once the
opposition learned to handle them.
Your battle sounds like a pretty historical result, too - an NRE
commodore engaging an alien squadron with unknown capabilities gets his head
handed to him by an alien with at least some experience of human designs, and
your violent reaction to the outcome mirrors Humanity's
panic in the early stages of the Xeno War quite well ;-)
Later,
> Yeeps. As near as I can figure, I was thinking 15, not 10.
Too tired
> to think--much driving, followed by much drinking in too small
Actually, John might fit in fairly well in Kosovo. After all, he's still
irritated at the French for something that happened nearly 800 years ago
(AD1204).
> you got a little too close. You couldn't've known that
In John's defense, I didn't calculate all this out either (although I usually
do some figuring with "anticipated damage at range"). I was trying to get to
point blank, but I didn't realize quite what a difference it would make.
> and your violent reaction to the outcome mirrors Humanity's
"Strategos, CruRon4 is overdue by two weeks." "Very well. What is their
revised ETA?" "Sir, they haven't reported. At all." "Check with the Office of
Barbarians." "I did, sir. They say the ragheads haven't been acting up lately,
and if they did hit a squadron, we'd know about it." "You're telling me an
entire cruiser squadron has just disappeared and we don't know why."
"Yes, sir."
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
No, it won't be. US forces are on a no-booze status when deployed.
Stupid, but there it is. Part of reason--we have two kids who will be
going to prison for getting blitzed in an Albanian's house and "loosing"
ammunition, night vision equipment, a plugger, some illum flares, and
misc other equipment. But the first three are sensitive items--very
much bad to lose.
> Your battle sounds like a pretty historical result, too - an NRE
Heh Heh Heh...