Re: FB2... hmmmm...

stiltman@teleport.com wrote:

>>>Well, beam fighters do 4 26/36 points of damage per six dice to
>>>unscreened ships, 3 26/36 points to level 1, and 2 26/36 points to
>>>level 2.
>  
>>Unless you have modified the re-roll rules (to not re-rolling
re-rolls
>>that come up with a "6"), the correct values are 4 4/5, 3 4/5 and 2
4/5.
> 
>4 2/3, 3 2/3, and 2 2/3 then, isn't it?  4 out of 6 on the rerolls?

Yes, true. I don't see where you get the 26/36s from... stop after two
re-rolls, or something?

Since the re-rolls aren't affected by screens, the average cumulative
effect of the rerolls is 0.1333... (2/15) per die. Each die thus
inflicts 0.8, 0.6333333... (19/30) and 0.46666666..... (14/30) against
level-0, -1 and -2 screens respectively; 6x that is 4.8, 3.8 and 2.8
(or, to use fractions, 4 4/5, 3 4/5 and 2 4/5). 

> >>K-gun fighters do 4 points to everything. The damage drop to 
> > >screened ships is, IMO, well worth being able to combine the extra

> > >attack power against screened ships with no sacrifice at all in
> > fighter-
> > >to-fighter attacks (where the K-gun fighters are identical to 
> > >everything else).
> 
>>Beam fighters get to re-roll 6s in dogfights, so inflict 4 4/5 hits
per
>>6 dice vs non-Heavy fighters and either 3 4/5 or 3 3/5 vs Heavies
>>depending on how you interpret the rule. Interceptors (which are a
>>sub-set of beam fighters) inflict 7 1/5 hits per 6 dice vs
non-Heavies
>>and either 6 1/30 or 6 damage vs Heavies. Kra'Vak fighters inflict a
>>flat 4 per 6 dice against all targets. "Identical"?
> 
>No, re-read the book.	It says that Kra'Vak fighters reroll against
other
>fighters anyway, just not against ships.

Ah, you're right. Makes them kill 4.8 enemy fighters per 6 shots, not
4. I was looking at the pre-publishing drafts.
 
>>>>And where exactly do you expect a high-thrust (or 
>>>>Kra'Vak/Sa'Vasku) ship starting at speed ~24 to be? <g>
>  
>>>If you're flying that fast, I won't care about predicting.  Your
guns
>>>have one arc.
>  
>> <sarcasm>
>  
>>That was news to me, actually. I was quite unaware that any
>>Sa'Vasku ships only had one-arc weapons, and I also didn't know that
>>the high-thrust (6+) human and Phalon ships were so restricted.
>>Must've done something seriously wrong the past six or so years...
>>
>></sarcasm>
> 
>Um, I think it's _probably_ obvious that I was referring to the
Kra'Vak in
>that case, since that was the original context we were discussing at
the >time.

Since I had, in the very sentence you replied to, explicitly referred
to "high-thrust ships (or Kra'Vak/Sa'Vasku)", I was very clearly NOT
discussing Kra'Vak only here.
  
>We haven't found that to be a serious problem against slower moving
>ships... parking and spinning typically allows slow ships to deal with
>fast ones fairly well, enough that the extra guns and passive defenses
>they carry will make the difference.

As long as you guess right, it can work. It's all those other times
when guess wrong you get fried <shrug>

[On killing fighters]

>Oh... perhaps I should clarify a point here then.  Not only do we
allow
>fighters to recombine at will and don't use morale rules, we _also_
>allow just about anything shooting at fighters to carry over excess
>losses.  With 40-odd groups and 90-odd things shooting at them on the
>board we don't like to do a lot of individual group math.  Just roll
your >dice, total it up, we take off as many groups' worth as you
killed.  When >it's all one monolithic group attacking a phalanx
anyway, I find the group >divisions rather artificial in more ways than
just fighter morale and >recombining groups.  Perhaps that dilutes
their advantage a bit.

Against Scatterguns/Interceptor Pods, it dilutes them a fair bit
(increases average fighter losses by about 22%). Against PDSs the
effect is negligible against full-strength squadrons; it only matters
if the individual squadrons are depleted (which they never are in your
battles).

>She didn't do a terrible amount of maneuvering... she didn't think she
>could keep her guns pointed at me better than I could guess where to
>put the plasma, so she just took a dead man's charge.

With the emphasis on "dead", yes.In short, she didn't use her
maneuvering advantag at all, allowing you to concentrate all the plasma
in one blast. Too bad for her, particularly if you had the PBLs spread
out in the way you describe below.
  
>>BTW, which fire arcs do you suggest for the various 1- and 3-arc
>>weapons on the dreadstar, and how fast would you fly it?
> 
>L = forward/port
>M = forward
>R = forward/starboard
> 
>The (currently still somewhat experimental) version I've got has the 8
4->die plasma bolts at 2L/4M/2R, the 10 class 3's are at either
2L/6M/2R >or 3L/4M/3R, the needles are all M.

OK, good.

>It's designed based on a fixed-edge, cinematic background.

I've always found the concept of "fixed edges in space"...
"fascinating" is probably the nicest word I can think of :-/ (And no,
the game - particularly the Cinematic game - isn't "obviously designed"
for fixed-edge tables as you claim in your reply to Noam; at least not
the FBxs...) Does this mean that you do sit it in a corner so it can't
be outflanked, or do you risk advancing it out into the middle of the
table?

>I'd probably keep the thing flying pretty slowly so that it pretty
easily
>park and spin.

OK. This means a maximum speed of 1, 'cause otherwise the Kra'Vak will
be able to outflank it.

>I was able to put all the plasma on my wife in our game last
>night without a terrible amount of trouble.  If you're flying faster
I'll
>either pile all the plasma at once if you're going with hit-and-run or
I'll
>go half-and-half if you're staying within range from turn to turn. 
Once
>the plasma's burned down your scatterguns, the fighters will start
>dogpiling.

<chuckle> Once the plasma's burned down my scatterguns, you are most
likely out of dreadstar - and you're definitely out of fighters. At the
very least it should be down to its last few hull boxes <g> We'll see
how I fare tomorrow.

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