Re: [FT] Ship movement and fast play Re: [FT] Fighter Balance

The_Beast wrote:

>***
>In Cinematic, a thrust-4 ship can dodge SMs quite well at speeds above
>12mu/turn... that's only half the speed of a standard fighter. Do you
>consider this to be an extremely high speed?
>***
>
>No, I do not. Maybe twice that would be what I'd so term. Half again
for
>merely high speed.

<chuckle> 24-ish is what I consider to be "normal" speed; half again is 
"high", double begins approaching "very fast" :-)

>Of course, a thrust-4 ship is not the slowest, and that would be
dodging
>how many salvos?

Depends on 1) how many salvoes the enemy fires, and 2) how good he is at

predicting your movements. If he wants his salvoes to cover all your
ship's 
possible move-end positions (and thus guarantee that *some* missiles
will 
hit you) speed 12 means that your thrust-4 ship  dodges two-thirds of
his 
salvoes; if he takes a chance and concentrates his missiles into one
single 
area he might get lucky and hit with everything... but he also runs a 
serious risk that you'll turn the other way, in which case you dodge
*all* 
of his missiles.

Thrust-3 or slower ships are far less capable of dodging missiles,
that's 
true. That's why the NSL and ESU like to include some cheap scoutships
to 
play BJs, and why they have the best "official" ADFC cruisers in FB1.

>So, you're telling me 12 or so is on the high end for the playtesting?

Of course not - the *high* end velocities are 50+. I'm just pointing out

that there is a fairly wide speed range where ships are not particularly

easy salvo missile targets but fighters have no problems in keeping up
with 
the ships even without using the screening mechanic.

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."