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?

No, it probably was a misnomer that I put that there... it's
_approximately_
26/36... not sure how the infinite series of the reroll probabilities
works
out... :)

If the infinite series resolves to 4/5, okay, it's 4/5.  :)

> >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>

Well, if you're cutting in on a turn, there aren't _that_ many arcs in
cinematic that you can follow.	You take half your turn at the
beginning,
the other half in the middle.  If you're going a given direction, all
I've
got to do is eyeball a path you can take to me and, if you cut in, I've
got all my guns pointed against all of your guns.  If you don't, my guns
will probably still be pointed in the right general direction, you might
have yours spread out a bad way.  It's not _that_ hard to spin to keep
your guns pointed at someone else, no matter how fast they're going.

> [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).

Actually, I think it would matter a fair amount, because lucky dice in
one
set of point defense rolls won't get wasted, either.  Sure, on average,
I
guess it wouldn't matter that much.

> >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.

*shrugs*  I don't see that the spread is that bad.  It can put 32 dice
of
them in its forward arc, 24 in each side-forward arc, 16 in each
side-rear
arc.  If I spun, it wouldn't be that hard to keep these focused in the
right
general direction either.
   
> >>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.

Am debating a few tweaks... maybe upgrade it to thrust 2, maybe drop the
needles for some class 4 beams (maybe go to a 3xCL4, 9xCL3 config and
drop
the needles) or class 1's, maybe add some more PDS, maybe take off a few
plasma bolts for more of some other form of weapons (such as downgrading
it from 32 to 30 dice)... the FB1-only version looked about like this:

Mass 1200

Hull/Thrust/FTL:  Same

Armor (85)
FireCons (13), ADFC

Nova Cannon
Fighter Bays (45)
Class 3 beams (10)
Class 1 beams (25)
Needle beams (15)
PDS (~20)

The newer one dropped some armor, the ADFC (how often is it going to get
used? :), some of the fighters, the class 1's, and some of the PDS to
support
the replacement of the nova cannon with the plasma bolts.  I'm not sure
I
like the result I've got; the backup beam armament might have taken a
little
too much of a hit there, although the plasma bolts _are_ undisputably
more
powerful than the 25 class 1's... though I'm not sure that the armor
didn't
also suffer a little too much and its ship-to-ship range is now a bit
less
with the plasma in place of the nova cannon.  Yanking the needles in
favor
of class 4's would rectify that to a fair degree and help it zone off
the
board a bit better.

> >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...)

Well, the commentary that the higher beam classes are less
cost-efficient
seems to imply it to me.  They might not be if you just crammed on scads
of engines and high class beams.  Although if you could catch the ships
in question, I suppose they still are... I don't know.

I guess we've just always done it that way and never had it occur to us
to
do it any other.  It's worked.	*shrugs*

> 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?

We tend to start our games with the ships about 12 MU in from either end
of our playing area, flying directly at one another at a modest cruising
speed of our choice.  I just usually choose a fairly slow cruising speed
to keep the battle at long range (i.e. where the fighters are more
effective
than ship-to-ship weapons) as long as possible.  In truth, I actually
have
not flown this thing in a game other than the playtest last night with
the
wife (in either version) since the fleet books came out, although its
predecessor in FT2 generally ruled the battlefield on the various
occasions
when I brought it out.

> >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 started at 2 last night.

> <chuckle> Once the plasma's burned down my scatterguns, you are most
> likely out of dreadstar - and you're definitely out of fighters.

I wouldn't put the fighters into action until I'd gotten at least one
hit
with the plasma.  It's only going to take one to reduce the scatterguns
to a low enough level that the fighters can shred you.	Either that, or
you won't survive the plasma hit itself.

> At the
> very least it should be down to its last few hull boxes <g> We'll see
> how I fare tomorrow.

Hard to say.  I tend to be pretty good at flying my styles of ships...
if
your guys are used to speed freakishness they might not do as good a
job.
(I probably ought to try playing your style with a few ships, though...
once we exchange a few designs I can adjust yours so they'll survive a
fighter assault in my games and try 'em out a bit...)
-- 
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