Re: Needle fleet

Rick Rutherford wrote:
> 
> johncrim@voicenet.com wrote:
> >
> > Actually, I do havbe a topic that I've been wondering about: has
anyone
> > made a serious attempt to design a needle-heavy fleet?  When I get
some
> > spare time, I'd like to give it a shot and see how well they fare
> > against more standard weapons.
> 
> I tried it once, and I got blown out of the sky. My ships were chewed
to
> pieces, and I couldn't knock out my opponent's systems fast enough to
make a
> difference.

I have a destroyer designed for needle incursions.

TMF: 32
4 Needles (f)
1 B2 (fp/f/fs)
1 FC
Trust: 4
And sundry hull.

The beam 2 was to give it something at 12-24mu. It doesn't really ever
do anything. Usually they're going fast enough that the 12-24 band
doesn't even occur. You need 3 needle beams to get a 50% chance of
knocking out a system. With my rolling I need about 10. When you use
small ships like this to go sniping they tend to die in droves. I think
once, that my unit of 6 of the needle destroyers actually managed to
cripple a ship. Instead of needle ships, I'd say you're better off going
with needle MT missiles.