Re: Retrograde skirmishers

Stilt:
>>> Yeah... that's basically it.  What wartime operation is a 
>>>skirmisher going to be able to fulfill? 

Me:
>> In _your_ game universe, possible very little. In other, 
>> some might argue more practical systems, they (skirmishers in 
>> general) have multiple roles, some already described by others 
>> on the list. 

Stilt:
> There is a role that can be filled by skirmishers: harassment.
..and..
> That's not to say that skirmishers do not have their LIMITED 
> role in a larger war effort.	  

Ah, there we go, you answered your own question (at least partially).
Only
took a couple tries. :-) I also note convergence of design in the
Shrikes
and Little Pricks.

Me:
>>...Are other (tweaked) dreadplanets going to escort 
>> the fighter replenishment convoy and the food
>> shipments to the outer colonies? Is a "Fast/Heavy/Needle BC 
>> fleet" going to be defending each listening post and scout 
>> squadron?=

Stilt:
> You're making something of a straw man argument here.

Only in the eyes of your pseudo-campaign, where apparently 
logistics and supply lines are below the resolution. 

> And no, overstocking your PDS is a _suicidal_ countermeasure. 

Wel, I wouldn't really know that, since I've only seen one design in
detail
(dreadplanet), and read only basic descriptions of several other
designs.
Don't forget, I only countered against one specific thing you posted in
detail. I'll have to take your word that you could pull something else
out
of your hat that will exploit my gimmick's weakness just as well I could
exploit yours. I wasn't trying to come up with a balanced fleet against
your
galactic empire.

> If you overstocked your PDS against the master race, they'd
> thank you for making it easy and let their slaves draw 
> straws to choose which one gets to hand your butt to you.  
>(Read:  it's been tried.)
 
Looks like we can both build strawmen. If I _were_ going up against your
master race, and had a budget of, what, 50,000-100,000 points? to make
into
a bunch of fleets, I doubt all of them would be as PDS heavy as the
dreadplanet-killers. I'd probably invest heavily in cloaked, fast,
spyships
so I could learn your deployments, then dispatch specific counterfleets
against specific threats (and launch first strikes into holes in the
defense
net). This could be done even in a pseudo campaign by saying Player A
can
only bring 4000-4500 points to B's  5000, but A can choose his fleet
after
seeing B's. 

> Maybe we do happen to represent a number of our battle-line 
> combats in open space.  However, the place where what you're saying 
> breaks down here is, we're not doing so to a degree that
> we're losing sight of the assumed fact that, somewhere out 
> there, there _are_ hard targets that these ships are expected to 
> defend. 

Returning to the dreadplanet vs. skirmisher example, exactly where the
hard
target is is essential to the game. If it's so far out that the combat
is
effectively playing in deep space, (i.e. the dp can't make it to the
planet
for assault in the  time frame of the game), then skirmisher vs. DP (and
other force combinations) is a very viable strategy. 

> That's what orbital and planetary defenses with real firepower are 
> for. If anything decloaks at close range to a planet, it's 
> probably not going to survive. 

If I've got orbital bases this powerful, I won't worry that skirmishers
can't stop every incoming battleship. The skirmishers can harrass on the
way
in, and chip at the backside of the assault force while it slugs it out
with
planetary defenses. 

> Cloak-capable ships are _expensive_.	They give up a mild advantage
> to uncloaked ones on mass of weapons and a very dramatic advantage 
> to them on cost of delivering those weapons in a ship to the front.  

I'd posit that in your pseudocampaign with its house rules (especially
the
limiting maneuver space of a "soft" edge), the cloak advantage is
significantly higher.

Noam