Re: FT-Tugs and swarm tactics

The only issue I can see with the swarm tactic is how
you set initiative.  

In the book version of initiative, both sides roll,
the winner goes first using one of his ships.  Then
the other player goes using one of his ships, and back
and forth.  

Small ships vs. one giant ship effectively dicounts
initiative.  You may win initiative, but you only fire
with a small ship, maybe 10% of your firepower, while
your opponent (with one giant ship) goes next and can
use 100% of his firepower.  

If your opponent is smart, he will target ships that
haven't fired yet.  

So, say you fire with your first small ship (using 10%
of your total fleet's firepower) your opponent fires
with his big ship (using 100% of his fleets firepower)
and effectively starts whittling down your combat
power before your other ships get a chance to be
useful.  

One way to make sure this doesn't happen is to base
initiative on thrust.  I like this idea the best as
usually the smaller ships have more thrust, meaning
that the smaller, more manueverable ships get a
chance.

--- Bif Smith <bif@bifsmith.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> I was thinking about the masses and costs involved
> with tugs and no-ftl
> ships, and this came to mind.(excuse the mixed tech
> of using C pulsars, I
> severly like the close range firepower they have).
> 
> Pahrana class LAC
> Mass=20
> Cost=73
> Hull=2
> Thrust=10
> Firecon x1
> PDS x1
> SMR x1
> C Pulsar (1arc) x1
> 
> Mother class FTL Tug
> Mass=21
> Cost=63
> Hull=2
> Thrust=1
> FTL Drive=18
> 
> The above tug+4 LACs Vs FTL version of the above LAC
> 
> Shark class FTL LAC
> Mass=24
> Cost=85
> Hull=2
> Thrust=10
> FTL drive
> Firecon x1
> PDS x1
> SMR x1
> C Pulsar (1arc) x1
> 
> If my maths above are correct (someone want to
> check?), a flight of 4 FTL
> ships costs 340 pts and masses 96, Vs a cost of 355
> and a mass of 101 for a
> group of  4 LACs and a FTL tug. In and campain or
> stategic system, I could
> see the non-FTL version being better in the fact
> that you woul only have to
> replace the actual LACs (requiring a mass of 80 and
> a cost of 292), the tug
> staying very far away from the fight. In any
> economic system or campaign
> requiring you to build the ships in the first place,
> this would be a very
> big advantage. As to the combat power of these
> ships, against anything but
> fighters, they will destroy any ship of equal mass
> or cost, with varing
> suvival rates depending on how they are used. I was
> wondering if anybody
> else has had a lot of experiance of using swarm type
> tactics using light
> ships? Also, a question that arised from testing
> these small ships, was that
> when using Cl 1 bats as PDS, you require a F.con per
> Cl 1 batt, but can the
> firecon (NOT the Cl 1 batt) be used also in the ship
> weapon fire phase?
> (just like firecons used with missiles/sml`s?).
> 
> BIF
> "yorkshire born,yorkshire bred,
> strong in arms, thick in head"
> 
> 
> PS-In testing the above ships, the maneuverablity of
> the ships allows you to
> go from beyond the target ships weapon range to
> close range (within the
> range of a C pulsar) in a single turn. Also, it
> doesn`t matter what the
> other ship tries, these things have such a high
> thrust that avioding SML`s
> or catching a ship trying to run is  easy (to see
> what I mean, try 4 of
> these against a CH, rough match in mass and cost,
> but if handled right,
> these little buggers can fire their SMR`s, and break
> away using their high
> thrust and kill a CH before it can do anything.
> Also, missiles hit before a
> beam can fire, so it may be posible to kill a beam
> armed target before they
> could return fire anyway).
> 

=====
Thank You,

Shawn M Mininger

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