Re: [?] Tournament Fleet Composition

> You wrote: 
> 
> >	The idea of all this was to get people to build balanced fleets
> without >have to spell out too many points ratios or limits. "Swarm" 
> fleets are >totally acceptable.

I happen to think that for the same reason you have a large
number of ships with A-beams you will have a large number
of fleets based around 2 and 4 mass ships.  I am currently
in a campaign game where one has the option of hiring
Kra'Vak mercenaries for 5 production turns of service and
we have discovered that 2 Mass Kra'Vak ships armed with
a railgun apiece are _very_ dangerous.

However, we have also discovered that fleet battles eventually
start involving 10,000 build points worth of ships to a side,
at which point certain other factors come into play.  In order
to avoid Nova Guns, Wave Guns and 'R' Torpedos (a researchable
technology that launches a 2" radius fireball), it is important
to disperse the swarm.	However, for sufficiently large fleets
the swarm is not going to be able to concentrate fire because
a significant portion of the swarm is going to be outside of
30" range.  Our house rules allow Wave Guns on Cruisers but
not Escorts, and we have played out battles between swarms
and wave gun cruisers and it is quite possible for the cruisers
to suffer less than 50% casualties.

We have discovered that while missile ships of any kind can
inflict a lot of damage they generally can't wipe out an
enemy fleet.  We have seen volleys where less than 1 in 3
missiles launched ended up within 6" because the targeted
ships made unexpected maneuvers.  They have no staying
power.

The other problem they have is that while they have a really
big punch, they aren't going to be terribly efficient.	If
you are targetting each ship with enough missiles to get a
sure kill you are very likely to waste a lot of fire power.
It would take 2 missiles hits to have near certainty versus
an Escort, but you could easily do double the damage needed
to kill the target.

Swarms are effective for two reasons:
1)  They can overwhelm the enemy's fire control, at close
ranges when the enemy has enough firepower to reliably
kill any ship within its arc it can still only kill a
few ships.  If the overkill value outweighs the benefit
the larger ship gets from shields and other defenses...

2)  They are hard to efficiently target with beam weapons.
In the 24"-36" range an A-beam has a 50% chance of killing
a 2 Mass ship, but 3 A-Beams have a 12.5% chance of leaving
it completely intact.  Pulse Torpedos and fighters squadrons
waste a lot of potential firepower going against such small
targets.

We have discovered at least one way of humbling a pure swarm
fleet.

Carriers with nothing but Long Endurance Fighters, launch and
leave by FTL.

A 48 Mass Carrier with 4 Long Endurance Squadrons and Thrust 2
costs 368 points.  Mass 2 Kra'Vak with Railgun-1 cost 14 each,
or approximately 26 ships.

The Kra'Vak lose 19 or 20 ships, or 280 points, versus 128 points
for the fighters.

The Kra'Vak can try to stay out of reach of the fighters but that
is difficult if they are protecting an objective.  They 'win'
by holding the space, but they come out behind on points.

Given 100% certain knowledge about the composition of an enemy
fleet I can build a fleet of equal points that can consistently
beat it, (under certain engagement conditions).

Michael Sandy