Re: FT3 rules and SMs

You wrote: 

>I seen and built a lot of fleets with an extremely heavy forward
>armament and not much else.  The theory was that it would be better
>to do as much damage as possible during closing than to waste points
>and mass spreading railguns or pulse torpedos through various arcs,
>as that flexibility would only help _after_ the initial clash did
>about 1/6 my mass in structure points of damage.

And with vector movement it's even worse.  I just played a set of three 
games with my younger brother.	He's a bit conservative, I'll admit, 
but in all of them I was using a medium cruiser with a 1-arc (FB arc, 
60 deg) forward class 3 beam.  I never failed to have it pointing in 
the wrong way.	Since I can fly in one direction with the convoy while 
pointing any way I want (at one point in one game I was rear-burning 
while flying at a velocity of 14 in the opposite direction I was 
pointing.  Keeping up with freighters moving flatout forwards with 
thrust 4 and 6 ships is piece of cake).

>How much Point Defense Systems should I buy?

>group, which is more likely to save the ship, a point defense
>system or a point of armor?

Neither.  But a point defense will likely wear away one or two fighters 
which are being fairly stupid if attacking corvettes anyway.  I target 
only ships with ADFCs with fighters, on the premise that they'll be 
shooting at me anyway. . . :)

>Buy enough to justify an Area Defense Firecontrol, ie, >6

More than 6?  That's enough to cripple the ship for any mission but 
anti-fighter.  What happens if you bring your uberantifighter in and 
you opponent decides he doesn't wanna shell out for fighters?

>Interceptor Group
>Can be used at a greater range
>Can be used offensively against enemy screen
>Harder to target by enemy ships
>50% more effective

You left out "Requires buying a carrier or something".	

>ADAF+ 6 PDS
>Can be assigned during fighter/SML phase
>Cheaper
>Doesn't run out or have to be retrieved
>Time to readiness in an ambush, immediate, versus time to launch and
>then position screen.

Can be included in a destroyer squadron, which sees much more combat 
than fleet carriers.

Of course, let's check my perspective.	I've got a solid background for 
my fleet--to the point of putting together a chapter of "Jane's All the 
Galaxy's Starships" for the Nea Rhomaioi (I really gotta get a web page 
together--anyone wanna help me get a free one and teach me how to set 
it up?) and my brother (who accounts for at least 2/3 of my FT 
games--he doesn't require scheduling a week in advance, is out of 
school during summer unlike all my gaming buddies who work days instead 
of evenings like me, and doesn't close the shop up at ten) is doing the 
same for his colony.  We do small-scale fights as often as grandiose 
fleet battles.	We both like escorts and cruisers, and balanced 
multi-purpose ship designs.  Besides, I can whack him if he gets 
munchy, so that's not a concern.  So 6+ PDSs on a cruiser would look a 
bit odd besides being out of character for us both.

John