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FTL in campaign games

From: mehawk@c... (Michael Sandy)
Date: Tue, 9 Dec 1997 19:10:49 -0800
Subject: FTL in campaign games

According to the Lafayette campaign scenario a ship or
fleet can't change direction once they've entered
Hyper.

So in campaign games, when a ship retreats to FTL,
logically the player should note whether it is
leaving the system entirely or attempting a short
hop.

With respect to merchant convoys it doesn't make
sense to travel sublight between planets in a system
unless the hyper limit is well beyond their orbits.
Alternately, hyper transits within a system have to
be uneconomical and/or dangerous.

The easiest way for it to be uneconomical is for it
to require a lot of fuel.  Say a hyper transit requires
1 Mass unit of fuel in Cargo per 100 Mass of ships
per strategic hex.

So a ten hex jump by 300 mass of ships would require
30 mass units of fuel.	If the fleet brings along
a 100 Mass tanker, the fleet, + tanker, will be able
to transit back.

Unless the fleet manages to capture local refining
or tankers, the fleet could become stranded by a
sneak attack on the tankers.

If FTL transits within a system are possible but
use up 1 Mass unit of Fuel per 100 Mass per AU
traveled you have a very understandable limitation.
One could safely assume that a significant portion
of the Mass of the FTL system is extra fuel tanks
if one wants to calculate the endurance of a fleet.

This kind of logistical complication makes it important
to set up refueling outposts as well as setting up
provisions to deny those outposts to the enemy.  It
also gives the defense an extra advantage.  If they
can use FTL in system to jump on attackers, and then
jump back to base to replentish missiles before the
attackers can rearm, they have a major advantage.
Ships assigned to defend systems would have a lot
more expendable weapons while ships attacking another
system would have to rely more on beams.

Good strategy for an invading fleet would be to first
destroy or takeover the defenders' Gas Giant orbiting
refineries before attempting to go after the settled
planets.  The attacker might bring his own refinery
in and start refueling his fleet.  The defender would
have to consider whether to go out to attack the
attackers refueling base or wait for reinforcements.

Of course, if FTL can be used at all within a system
then System Defense boats are hosed.  There is no
way for them to cover everything.

On the other hand, if an attack fleet needs to commit
5% of its hull space to fuel the system defense boats
will have an even greater edge than they do.

Michael Sandy


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