Re: SV: SV: Pulse Torpedoes vs. Submunition Packs

Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
Status: RO

> If both you and your player use tactics and stick to a background
flavour,
> you can play it that way. If one of you does a quick analysis of the
design
> rules and starts using the loopholes (eg, never using B batteries
instead
> of A if you use the original design rules, never using PTs at all,
etc) the
> game can devolve all too rapidly into a "cheese slugfest" (ask Mark
Siefert
> about that!).
> 
> The reason I analysed the design rules was to find at least the
majority of
> these loopholes, and try to plug them. I like games where nominally
equal
> forces actually are equal in combat power - that's when the combat
skills
> of the players (rather than their design skills) gets important; I
_don't_
> like games where each fleet consists of massive capitals with level-3
> shields and nothing but A batteries... but this is what the FT design
rules
> produces for one-off games in the hand of an optimizer.

I can't stand cheesy games like that either.  It makes better sense to 
develop some interesting scenarios and have them with you when trying to
do a one-of game.  You design the scenario and let your opponent study
it
and choose which side they would play.	If it is recognizably
unbalanced,
you'll have your head handed to you.

Another alternative is to define the defense and the victory conditions,
and have the players bid on the attacking force.  Lowest bidder gets the
offense and highest bidder gets to defend.  The Avalon Hill game Squad
Leader used this technique for developing random scenarios.  I had one 
player abuse it when he purchased a score of Russian rocket launchers.
THAT was a cheesy game.

Scatterpacks, with their all-round aspect, don't belong on human ships.
I have a bit more manuever to do if I'm charging at a Superdreadnought
with a squadron of subpack frigates and the one-arc limitation.  I
figure
that the frigates will die, but inflict some screen thresholds on the 
capital ship.

Jon Davis