Re: VGA planets, anyone?

Scott Field wrote:
>Tom wrote,
>
>> And has anyone had any experience 
>>  with needle beams? I'm thinking of creating an anti-capital ship
ship to
>add 
>> a little something to out current games.
>
>I love needle beams, but as with all 1-arc weapons they put a high
emphasis
>on maneuverability. I find they work best on escorts and fast cruisers
where
>you have a much better chance of "bringing your guns to bear." I'm
still
>chafing from one early game I played where my fleet was heavy on
thrust-4
>cruisers armed with torpedoes & needles. My cursed opponent (sound
familiar,
>Monty?) had mostly escorts and flew circles around me; on most turns I
was
>lucky if half my ships got to fire. :-(

Recently Paul Neher and I played in an FT game using his SW stats.  Paul
fleet consisted one battlegroup with two Victory class Star Destroyers
and
one Imperial class Star Destoyers.  The other group had one Imperial SD
and
about 4 Nebulon B frigates.  Both Imperial SDs contained about 2 fighter
groups and one pulse toerpedo group(TIE bombers).  My fleet consisted
two
carrier task groups made up one part of NAC and the other ESU.	Each
consisted of a fleet carrier, one CA, two DDs, and one FG.

We thought it would be fun to mix genres.  On the Imperial SDs, he
mounted
three needle beam weapons covering the port, fore, and starboard arcs on
a
Star Destroyer to mimic an ion cannon.	He also included about 9 or so A
batts and misc lesser batts.

Paul had a difficult time bringing the needle beams to bear.  I don't
recall
any of the needle beams actually scoring a hit(lame Imperial gunners ;)
).
The ESU fleet took a beating with just the CV and one escort surviving. 
The
NAC fleet survived with just the lost of the FG, but was able to take
out
two Nebulon Bs and severly damage the other two(one had completely lost
all
offensive and defensive systems).  The Imperial fleets started to
scatter by
the end of the game with the one battlegroup of three SDs moving strong.
 We
stopped the game with my entire NAC battlegroup near the aft of one
Imperial
SD and the ESU group near the aft sections of the other SDs.  Wish we
could
have finished it! :)

Note: The entire ESU and NAC fleets were comprised of just standard beam
weapons and some sub-munitions.  Of course the four groups of attack
fighter
and four groups of fighters helped a bit as well.

Mike Miserendino