Re: General EMP Thoughts

Schoon wrote:

>>>Of course large ships are more powerful - and they have the
>>>point cost to prove it.
>>
>>Incorrect. Large ships are more powerful, but their points cost does
>>not reflect their privilige of taking fewer threshold checks than
>>smaller ships - and that is a quite big advantage indeed.
> 
>Both small AND large ships take 4 thresholds (though in select cases, 
>the small ship may take 2, 1, or none). I think what you meant to say 
>was that the larger ships have to take more damage before taking 
>their first. True. 

So far so good.

>However, even though the same percentage of 
>systems will break in both cases, more systems will go down on the 
>larger vessels. In other words, the same percentage of MASS will go 
>down in both cases.

Yes, BUT:

>Assuming that same weapons mix and damage potential in both >cases
(statistically speaking), it balances out. If we have a 40 HP big 
>ship vs. 2 x 20 HP smaller ships, each doing an average 1 point of 
>damage per 4 HP (10, 5, 5), they will all die gloriously together. 

This is where you go wrong. It looks as if you've fallen prey to an
over-simplified example - easy enough to do, I know (from bitter
experience :-/ ).

The main things you've ignored here are
* the effects of initiative-based fire (unless you use house-rule
simultaneous fire the big ship will almost always be able to knock out
some small-ship weapons before they can fire in a given turn), and 
* the fact that one half-sized ship taking its first *two* threshold
checks will on average lose more weapons than the single big one loses
on its first *one* check (this remains true even if you use
simultaneous fire).

There are some other factors favouring the big ship as well, as
discussed below.

Call the large 40 HP ship A and the 20 HP ones B and C. The number
before the slash is the HP remaining at the end of the turn; the number
after the slash is the average firepower of the ship at the end of the
turn.

Simplifications: 
* B+C always win the initiative (very unlikely, but gives them a
massive boost), 
* A can split its fire either equally or not at all (reasonably
realistic assumption for a BB or bigger, at least until A has taken its
3rd threshold check),
* All ships involved fight to the death rather than break off (common
trait in players, but favours B+C (otherwise one of them will break off
rather than being destroyed)), 
* None of the ships ever lose all FCSs or suffer incapacitating core
hits (favours B+C; in real games they do on average suffer such
disasters to *at least one* ship more often than A does, and having one
of the two ships knocked out prematurely is enough to give A the
victory)
* Maneuvering, and therefore the effects of limited fire arcs is
ignored (this depends more on player skill than on anything else, and
can strike either way. On the whole I'd call this a slight bias in
favour of A.)
* No repairs during the battle (favours B+C since they have fewer DCPs
available on the ship which has lost weapons).
* All die rolls are exactly average (neutral)

Taken together, these simplifications are quite heavily biased in
favour of B+C. With these simplifications, the example battle will on
average play out as follows:

Turn	A		B	C		Notes
1	32.2/10 20/5	10/2.8		Ship C takes 2 thresholds 
						before firing
2	24.4/8.3	20/5	1.7/1.4 	Ship C fires first
3	18.1/5.6	15.9/5	Destroyed	Ship C fires first	
				       (otherwise it
doesn't get to 
						shoot at all, which is	
				       slightly        worse)
4	13.1/5.6	10.3/4.2
5	8.8/2.8 	7.5/2.8
6	6/2.8		4.7/1.4
7	4.6/2.8 	1.9/1.4
8	3.4/2.8 	Destroyed

Ship A is badly battered to be sure, but it is *not* destroyed at the
same time as B is. On average it *wins*, in spite of both sides having
exactly the same total number of hull boxes, weapons and the
identically same NPV, and in spite of all the simplifications favouring
B+C.

What happens if some of the B+C-favouring simplifications are removed
or reduced? Let's look at what happens if A wins the initiative on
even-numbered turns (ie. giving B+C the opening shot of the battle but
then alternating the initiative):

Turn	A		B	C		Notes
1	32.2/10 20/5	10/2,8		Ship C takes 2 thresholds 
						before firing
2	27.2/8.3	20/5	Destroyed	
3	22.2/8.3	11.7/4.2		Ship B fires first
4	20.8/8.3	3.3/1.4 		Ship B takes 2
thresholds
						before firing
5	19.4/5.6	Destroyed		Ship B fires first

Again A isn't destroyed at the same moment as B or C dies. In fact,
this time it has only just taken its 2nd threshold check when B blows
up (and it hadn't even taken the *first* check when C died)! 

If A wins initiative on odd-numbered turns it suffers a bit worse,
destroying ship B just before A reaches its 3rd threshold. With random
initiative the results can of course range from A losing initiative all
the time to A winning initiative all the time, but the average outcome
is that A wins - and wins quite convincingly.

If you use a simultaneous fire house rule instead of the published
initiative-order fire A's margin of victory grows very small, but it
still remains larger than zero.

If you remove the other simplifications from the above examples - about
half of them biased B+C and the rest were neutral - A's average
advantage grows bigger still.

This example can be scaled as you like. It doesn't matter if you give
the big ship 4 HP and the small ones 2 HP each (a light corvette
fighting two scouts - the CT can't split its fire, but OTOH it'll very
rarely *need* to split its fire in order to avoid overkilling a damaged
SC), or the big one 200 HP and the small ones 100 each (a smallish
"supership" fighting two big superdreadnoughts); the big ship will
still win the average battle. Which is of course the very reason why I
disagreed with your statement that:

>>>We can save the Supership vs. Mixed Fleet debate for another
>>>time.
>
>See above. While I don't deny that FB1 escorts would loose against a 
>larger ship of equal thrust, FB1 large ships have lower thrusts, and 
>FB1 escorts are mostly hampered by their lack of long-ranged >weapons.

I take it that you refer to the above example in order to deny that
cruisers (or bigger) suffer disadvantages against ships twice their
size (since on average FB1 cruisers - as in "cruisers designed under
the FB1 design rules", not as in "the official FB1 cruiser designs")
aren't really higher-thrust or shorter-ranged than capitals. 

However, as you can see above the example shows just the opposite - the
smaller ships *are* disadvantaged, and quite heavily so, against ships
twice their size.

>>Sounds like you've only looked at those lists without actually trying
>>them out in a game, or else haven't read Noam's and Beth's >>comments
to them. One of your conditions was to nail things down >>hard enough
to leave no room for arguments, but short lists leave a >>lot of room
for arguments.
> 
>I would have to disagree here. (and I have read the posts, thanks ;-)
> 
>Take (as stipulated in one of my replies):
> 
>1) Drives
>2) Electronics
>3) Weapons
>4) Fire Control
> 
>Within each category go from lowest MASS to highest MASS (or vice 
>versa, it doesn't matter for the purpose of my example).
>
>That's a short list, and it really doesn't leave alot of room for
>argument.

Either you haven't tried this out it in a game, or you had *extremely*
reasonable opponents when you did. I have tried similar lists (more
detailed than the above one though), but unfortunately my opponents are
only of average reasonability :-( Examples of arguments which would pop
up with the above list are:

FTL or normal drive first? (*Very* important for NSL-style capitals.) 

Which of all the equal-Mass weapons should be checked for first - the
3-arc P-torp, the Mass 6 SM magazine or one of the 3-arc B3s (and
*which* of the B3s)? The SMLs or the all-arc B2s? The PDSs or the B1s
(I'm assuming that PDSs count as weapons here)? 

Which of the equal-Mass electronics should be checked for first - the
individual ECM or the Superior Sensors, the area ECM or the screen?

With anything less than extremely reasonable players, the above list
leaves considerable room for arguments and is quite far from being
"nailed down".

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."