Re: MT missiles and point costs

Adrian Reen-Shuler wrote:

>>>I was really speaking vs. large SD's (200-300 DP). 
>> 
>> 2-300 *DAMAGE POINTS*?
> 
>> If you meant "Mass" (or "TMF") rather than "DP",
> 
>Yes, of course I meant mass.  

It wasn't entirely obvious, because mistake or not your comment that
nukes are more effective ships with less than 30 or so damage points
was spot on as you wrote it...

The point where the EMP missile starts overtaking the nuke seems to be
around 30 damage points (not Mass), give or take some depending on how
many of those damage points are armour, and whether or not the target
has screens and if so how many. 

At this point the average difference between the two in knocked-down
systems starts becoming significant (for most target designs... as
always there are some extreme counter-examples), while the nuke is no
longer able to regularly rip a quarter or more of the target's hull,
and DCPs, to shreds :-/

BTW, the ship I used in the example is the ESU Gorshkov CH (TMF 70);
the other FB1 ship with the same system loss %s is the ESU Tibet CL
(TMF 48). The biggest archived ship with these particular system loss
%s is a TMF 112 carrier, etc - and no, I haven't archived my
recently-posted SD-sized missile barge :-/

Having repeated these calculations for the other archived designs, I'd
say that the EMP missile is definitely superior to the nuke against
anything bigger than about TMF 170, the nuke superior against anything
smaller than TMF 80 (even if the target doesn't lose that many systems,
it has lost a third or more of its hull... and the EMP missile won't
knock down that much either due to a lack of things to knock down in
the first place). For ships between those limits it depends on the
exact design of the ship.

Anyway, that's why I thought that you meant damage points about the SDs
as well :-/

>My mistake (I do seem to be making a lot of them).  

I'm probably oversensitive to details at the moment, too -
proof-reading large rule texts tends to do that to me :-(

>I can't say I have much experience with the MT missiles except in a
>mass setting (and no real experience with the needle missiles), so if
>for more playably scaled games the various missiles are relatively
>balanced that's sufficient for me.

EMP and nuclear missiles have different tactical roles, with the nuke
being better against light and medium combattants (up to roughly
speaking BC-BB size), and the EMP better against the super-heavies
(assuming that you can follow the EMP strike up with other weapons
before the target can repair too much...) and anything you want to
capture intact. If you usually play with SDs only, you don't have much
use for nukes - just like PDS systems are useless if the enemy has no
fighters or missiles, or like how P-torps aren't particularly
worthwhile if your enemy doesn't use any screens.

Needle missiles are equally capable against all targets - take out the
FC on a  small ship (DD and down) since it usually only has one, or
take out
engines and/or screens on a larger ship. They may a bit overpowered,
but since my dislike for them is a PSB one raised by comparison with
the needle beam (see my reply to Roger) I haven't been able to do an
unbiased analysis of them yet :-/

>Mostly I ask because I'm trying to balance a scenerio I'm running at a
>convention at the end of the month. I thought the EMP missiles would
>give the smaller side a better chance, 

Depends both on the enemy designs (if they have too heavy screens the
EMP missiles lose most of their sting) and on player skill (if you
don't hit, or attack the wrong target, the missiles won't do very much
either).

Regards,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry