Re: Thoughts on FB .....was Re: Bogey Classes FB

In message <199805241308.PAA22781@d1o27.telia.com>
	  "Oerjan Ohlson" <oerjan.ohlson@nacka.mail.telia.com> wrote:

> Samuel Penn wrote:
> 
> > > Yes the old 100 Mass limit is gone under the new design rules.
> Effectively
> > > there is no limit but the bigger your ship the more Mass you have
to
> have
> > > for drives which will bring some people back to earth a bit.
> > 
> > As long as they sale linearly with mass (says he of the big
ship=fast
> > school of thinking)...
> 
> Yup. Spending 64 out of 160 Mass on engines for a thrust 6
> Battledreadnought seems to balk more people than spending 8 of 20 Mass
> for the engines of a thrust 6 frigate, though <g>

People obviously don't work with big numbers enough then :)

> > 10% of armour on  the same ship only gives you +10 DPs. Shields
would
> > seem to be 3x as effective. Now I know shields don't protect against
> > everything (I presume armour does), but unless I've overlooked
> > something, my gut reaction is that armour isn't good enough.
> 
> You forget a few things:
> 
> First, if you use the re-roll option (which is what at least I did the
> playtesting with), level 2 screens are only going to stop 42% of the
> incoming fire (cutting your "bonus" damage points from 30 to 21 in one
> fell swoop).

Like I said, I've only browsed the FB briefly, so I'm not aware
of _all_ the changes which have been made. I presume you mean
6's roll up.

> Second, the chance that both your screen generators will survive
through
> all three treshold checks without going down at one point or another
is
> less than 8%, which reduces your "bonus" damage even further.

I talked about this point in another message, so I won't repeat
it here except to say that if you've reached a threshold with
armour, then all your armour is definitely gone. If you reach it
with shields, there's a good chance your shields will survive
until the next threshold. Also, shields go some way to delaying
threshold rolls as well.

> Looking at these two taken together, the average damage absorbed by
this
> 30 DP, screen-2 ship if it is fired on by beam weapons *only* and it
> fails all its repair rolls - both assumptions are rather unlikely IMO,
> but it makes the calculations much easier - is about 43 points (give
or
> take some decimals), which is only 3 DP more than what the armour
gives
> (and the armour protects delays the first treshold check, protecting
your
> weapons longer than the screens would). The 10 higher points value of
the
> screens for the 3.2 extra DP is pretty much on target - one DP of
armour
> or hull structure costs 3 points (1 for the Mass, 2 for the
hull/armour).
> 
> If you don't use the re-roll option, the ship instead absorbs on
average
> 47.5 DP rather than the 60 you was looking for. In this case the
screens
> are clearly better than the armour.

Reality is going to be somewhere in the middle. Also remember that
DCPs can bring shields back online. Presumably armour can't be repaired.

> However:
> 
> Third, screens give no protection whatsoever from pulse torps, SMBs
and
> needle beams; armour doesn't stop the needle effect, but at least
absorbs
> half or more of the structural damage inflicted from all these
weapons.
> If your enemy likes these weapons (note that both the pulse torp and
the
> needle beam have been improved from FT/MT to FB), armour starts
looking
> like a good buy indeed :-) 

I'd noticed PTs have had their range extended now. They always were
the weapon of choice v screened ships. But yes, I was aware I was
only taking beam weapons into account, and that other methods of
mass destruction are much less effective against armour than they
are against screens.

You've obviously played around with the new rules a lot more than me,
and what you've said does make about as much sense as it can before
I get a chance to fiddle myself.

I will of course be using armour rather than screens on my own ships -
it's the principle of the thing, if nothing else.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to set my mind at rest. I'm still
not entirely convinced - that will have to wait until I perform some
field trials with my NSL...

-- 
Be seeing you,	     http://www.bifrost.demon.co.uk/Gaming/Gaming.html
Sam.		     ----------------------- Roleplaying and Wargaming