Re: Start For Sa'Vasku "Fix"

Richard Bell wrote:

>As a tongue in cheek way of drawing it to people's
>attention, I submitted the "Starstreak" SDN design (40% power
generators, 
>96 in
>total) to the registry, for which I was awarded the title "Sa'Vasku
poseur".

The Starstreak is very nasty as long as it has enough pod
launcher-equipped 
ships escorting it. If it operates on its own it is extremely vulnerable
to 
fighters, however..

>Sa'Vasku ships also seem to be disproportionately vulnerable to needle 
>beam fire
>on the power generators, so they have their disadvantages, too

It's not all *that* easy to bring your needle beams to bear on SV ships 
though...

Brian Bell wrote:

>I miscommunicated.
>I did not think that all of the below were needed in combination.

Ah, OK.

>Still. I think that another solution needs to be found.
>At 9mu range bands the Sa'Vasku are out gunned at medium or short
>ranges by a significant amount.
>
>Compare a Furious CE to a Var'Kiir'Sha (both 64m).

The fact that they have the same MASS isn't particularly relevant. They
do 
however have nearly the same COST as well - 219 vs 208 pts - which says
a 
fair bit more about their relative capabilities.

>Each number
>represents the number of beam/stinger dice in a 3mu range band.
>Var'Kiir'Sha is displayed using  9mu range bands. +T indicates
>use of P-Torp/Pod Launcher; +S indicates use of Screen; +P
>indicates use of PDS.
>
>Var 5/8/0/3 Move 4
>F 666644441111 +T +S +P
>V 888444222111 +T

Problem here: Your analysis is only valid for Vector, since you're
looking 
at the (F) arc exclusively. In Cinematic those single-arc weapons are
much 
less likely to get a target, so you need to look at *all* the arcs
(except 
possibly the (A) one).

In the four broadside arcs it looks like this:

Var 5/8/0/3 Move 4
F 333311110000 +S +P
V 888444222111 (+P, if the V'K'S didn't expect to get a target for its
pod 
launcher this turn).

>Var 3/12/0/1 Move 2
>F 666644441111 +T +S +P
>V CCC888666555 +T	  C=12

Should be
"V CCC666333111 C=13", no? The pod launcher requires 3 PP, but you only
put 
1 PP in the R pool.

>I also understand the comment about a breakpoint. FB1 still
>has breakpoints. They are just more numerous and have less
>effect. Breakpoints are unavoidable in any system that rounds.

Yes... but the FB1 breakpoints are only 1 Mass up or down per system,
and 
usually no more than 3 systems that are affected. Here we're talking
about 
8 Mass in one fell swoop... that's big enough to be very obvious.

Noam wrote:

>Oerjan pointed out that mass break points for Power generators fall
into 
>difficulty. I'd much rather put a blanket restriction (if we are 
>considering real restrictions) of 30% across all the SV. If the slight 
>added complexity could be swallowed, I'd make it 25% for masses 16 and
up 
>and 30% for 15 and below simply to keep all the FB2 ships legal (with 
>rounding, there are no weird breakpoints, and PSB is easy - scouts 
>can/need to have overpowered engines).

0.5 rounds up everywhere else in FB, so you have to make it "25% for
mass 
12 and up and 30% for 11 and below"; that still keeps the FB2 ships
legal.

>In FB2, the Power generators are divided into four even-as-possible
groups 
>(with the remainders added to the later groups. Allow one power point
to 
>be moved one level "deeper" in the ship for a cost of 3 points. No PG 
>could go from 1 to zero, and no "shallower" PG can be larger than a
deeper 
>one: For example, a Var'Arr'Sha (3/3/3/3), NPV 169, could redistribute
to 
>2/2/4/4 at a cost of 12 points ( it could never go 0/4/4/4, or
3/2/2/5). 
>In order to prevent extremes, don't allow any PG to mass _more_ than
10% 
>of a ship (rounding ship mass up to the nearest 10 to keep that darned 
>scout legal.

Hm. For 24 points the V'A'S goes from 3/3/3/3 to 1/1/5/5, which makes
the 
first two threshold checks almost negligible... haven't had time to look

very closely at it, but it feels as if this could cause more problems
than 
it solves.

Dean wrote:

>One fix I haven't seen mentioned yet is limiting the amount of power
each
>Stinger Node can handle to say 8 points, but allow multiple stingers to
>combine power for the very long range shots (ie if you want to use 32
power
>for a single die from 60"-72", you need to have 4 Stinger nodes in arc
and
>they have to be dedicated to this shot and can't be used for anything
else
>that turn).

What is this a fix *for*, though? The main effect of such a fix is to
make 
the SV weaker up close, but it doesn't restrict their extreme-range 
firepower much.

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

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