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Re: Forcing fights

From: Mikko Kurki-Suonio <maxxon@s...>
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 11:59:05 +0300 (EEST)
Subject: Re: Forcing fights

Örjan:

> I can't force the enemy scout to fight, but I can force it to make a
> wide enough detour around the forces it wants to get sensor data on.
> Unless he's content with getting sensor data on my screening forces,
> that's effectively a mnor victory for me.

And the sensor rules are WHERE? Especially ones that don't come labeled
"optional"?

Under current campaign rules, you place all ships in a system to
fight. Even if you mildly adjusted this to allow split fleets, you'd
still
be doing this blind, i.e. without knowledge of the enemy fleet
composition.

Thus, what you'd do (and what we did in our abysmal attempt at "The
Lafayette Incident") is take *one* MD-high scoutship to each
sector/planet, "attack", if the system is empty, take the planet, if
there
are enemy ships, put everything on table, count enemy
ships/types/classes,
do an immediate 180 and bug out -- scouting mission accomplished.

Sign me up for scout service. I like the idea of living through the war
without any risk.

> If it is a fast cargo ship (a smuggler or blockade runner, say) or a
> strike ship, it has problems reaching its destination unless it wants
> to fight my patrol/blockade ships - or, of course, 

I talked about this earlier, but I've yet to see anyone show
MATHEMATICAL
proof that a reasonable intercepts can be achieved in *any* fair
conditions (except at target or jump point i.e. journey endpoints).
Start with vanilla as published FT and let's see how many rules you need
to change/add before you can intercept by anything other than blind
luck.

Ok, assuming you can achieve intercepts (i.e. intercepts are magically
assumed and setup defaults to "default"), it still makes probing a no
risk
proposition. I'd just keep probing until I find a weak spot (or got
bored,
which would probably come first).

> unless both its
> destination and starting point were outside my territory and I'm
> attempting to intercept it during the voyage :-/ 

So, you agree that under current rules it is effectively impossible to
intercept shipping? The U-boat service is a dead cause? Of course the
destination is in friendly territory (or you're talking assault mission
instead).

Which, in turn, reduces campaigns and therefore also
"reasonable" scenarios to a series of raids against fixed points.

You see, if the first thing that comes to my mind after reading the
scenario setup is "why would I ever get caught in a situation like
this?",
my first question will be "how many points do I get as compensation for
accepting this tactical disadvantage?"

Let's consider commerce raiding. Raiders are built on the
"battlecruiser principle", "Outgun everything you can't outrun and
outrun
anything you can't outgun" i.e. they are *excpected* to simply run away
from a stiff opposition.

High enough thrust coupled with the right mindset and nothing can touch
you. Great! Run into some warships, just run away. Catch a merchant and
pounce. Life is great...

...until they start building transports to the same spec. Noboby can
catch
anybody anymore (except at port). And the convoy escorts are just out of
job too...

-- 
maxxon@swob.dna.fi (Mikko Kurki-Suonio) 	  | A pig who doesn't
fly
GSM +358 50 5596411 Tel +358 9 8092681		  | is just an ordinary
pig
Länsimetsä 3B1 02300 ESPOO FINLAND   Hate me? Try |	      - Porco
Rosso
http://www.swob.dna.fi/~maxxon/      hateme.html  |

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