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Re: SV: SV: What makes a Capital ship Capital?

From: Mikko Kurki-Suonio <maxxon@s...>
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 22:43:08 +0200 (EET)
Subject: Re: SV: SV: What makes a Capital ship Capital?

On Fri, 5 Dec 1997, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:

> But convenience tends to have great impact <g>  

It does... but every once in a while you wake up and think in the middle

of a game you're losing: "Why the f**k am I doing a stupid thing like 
this?" and realize the only answer is that you're too lazy to place your

ships on the window sill or do whatever else that would be logical and 
effective, but inconvenient.

For me, moments like this flush the enjoyment of the game straight down 
the toilet.

> Especially since it is much
> more comfortable (and thus convenient) to win with your designs rather
than
> your tactics! ;-) 

Hee hee hee. Just the attitude I love to see encouraged.

> Sure - but I'll have to measure in mm to do it :-)
 
Yeah, and your C-batts wouldn't even reach the edge of your ship's
base...

> More seriously, I _have_ played a battle where the speeds eventually
> approached 100 even for the battle-wagons. (Starting speeds were in
the
> 10-20 range.) It used the vector movement rules though, and the
general
> direction of travel was the same for most of the ships - so after a
while
> we did a Galileic coordinate transformation and made the table move
with
> the ships... Great fun, that was. Had we used the standard movement
rules
> we'd have been in trouble <g>

I should have said *relative* speeds. I should have made it expressly 
clear that I meant the FT rules as printed. Silly me.

> How much info do you give on the size of the various ships? (This is
not
> defined anywhere in the rules... 

Errmm... there's an extensive scanning table in MT. Even a few ships
with 
improved sensors brought the game to a halt. I never bothered with spray

painting ping pong balls.

> But this is IMO the same thing as your other examples above - an
> optimization stemming from a bad rule (in this case, the too-low mass
of
> the A). And thus, IMO, a bad optimization.

Erm. it's a bad rule, but not an unrealistic one (I should have made
this
distinction). The situation may very well be that A-beams are the
cutting
edge of technology and B's and C's are simply obsolete (which is the 
situation in vanilla rules). Massless armor is a bit harder to swallow. 
 
> The problem as I see it, or at least part of it, is that FT lacks the
kind
> of "tech development" which forces new designs. This means that in
order to
> encourage design variety, all weapons present in the game need one
area
> where they are better than the others. As the A was without a shadow
of
> doubt the best of the beam batteries prior to the mass change (to 4),
the
> other beam sizes simply weren't needed.

Agreed. So it's 4 now? How about the "3 arcs is the only thing that
makes 
sense" problem?
 
> No. However, if he gave all his troops bolt-action ones instead of
> breach-loaders in a mid-19th century skirmish I might, though.

You mean *repeating* bolt-action rifles, don't you?

Hmmm... depending on what you consider "mid-19th C."... both the Henry 
and the Spencer rifle saw use in ACW. It is quite conceivable that a 
skirmish scale unit (especially a select one) would be completely armed 
with repeaters.
 
A similar case would be MP-44 armed germans in a WWII game. Possible,
but 
didn't happen that often in real life. Yanks, OTOH, had Garands
a-plenty.

In any case, it's the job of the point system to balance the dominance
of 
emerging technologies.

> Exactly. Which is why the non-viable ones need some strengthening -
enough
> to make them viable once more.

I sincerely hope the new design system in FB will be better without
added
complexity, instead of simply throwing anoraks at anyone who finds a
flaw
in it. 

-- 
maxxon@swob.dna.fi (Mikko Kurki-Suonio) 	  | A pig who doesn't
fly
+358 50 5596411 GSM +358 9 80926 78/FAX 81/Voice  | is just an ordinary
pig.
Maininkitie 8A8 02320 ESPOO FINLAND | Hate me?	  |	     - Porco
Rosso
http://www.swob.dna.fi/~maxxon/     | hateme.html |

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