Re: Strike Boats...

On 13-Feb-00 at 23:54, Sean Bayan Schoonmaker (schoon@aimnet.com) wrote:
> >...the tug + sublight strikeboat option will give you fewer
strikeboats
> >and weaker supporting warships than the non-tug warship + FTL
> >strikeboat option does. As you pointed out earlier, strikeboats need
> >numbers to be effective.
> 
> Huh? My comment was about trying to make the smallest possible
package, not
> necessarily the most cost efficient.
> 
> >Which would you prefer: 41 FTL strikeboats and 2 battleships with 40
> >hull boxes each, or 36 sublight strikeboats and 2 "battleships" with
36
> >hull boxes each? All strikeboats have the same hull, armour, thrust
> >rating and armament regardless of the option you choose; the
> >battleships have the same armour, thrust and armament but not the
same
> >hull.
> 
> I'm afraid that I don't always design with the mini-maxing in mind. I
don't
> disagree that 10% is less than 20% when calculating FTL costs. From a
> purely tactical designperspective, you are correct.
> 
> However, a non-FTL capable SB can serve the purpose of both SDB and
attack
> if you throw a couple tenders into your fleet mix. One design fills
both
> purposes: the procurement officers love that one.

Campaign vision versus battle vision.  I build monitors in our current
campaign game.	Most of the time they sit in a single system as an
addition to the local defense sources.	Occasionally, for an important
battle that I cannot afford to lose, I have one of my Tugs grab up
a monitor and bring it along.  If we were playing "force the tugs on
the board" I would have the Tug FTL out on the first turn.

Roger