Re: FB designs & fighters (& strawmen)

From: "Eric Foley" <stiltman@teleport.com>

> Okay.  So let me see if I'm understanding your interpretation of what 
> I'm
> saying here correctly.  You're assuming that, even though my _enemy_ 
> has to
> be sporting _270_ mass of fighter bays (in addition to any other
weapons
> he's carrying) in order to throw 30 fighter groups at me, _I'm_ going 
> to be
> coming at him with _no_more_ than 100 mass of weapons, all of it 
> dedicated
> to scatterguns?

I frankly didn't know what to assume, since you compared 20 PDS to 100 
scatterguns vs. 20 fighter groups free of any other context.   I  can't 
read your mind, so I really don't know whether you're pulling things out

of the air or have specific (or even general) ship models in mind.

> This, from the guy who hasn't yet let a specific example I've given in

> this
> thread go by without calling it a "straw man"?

I've labeled 2 examples IIRC as strawmen, because that's what they were.

When you generalized Ship X into the "50%+ weapon mass" ship doctrine 
and criticised the 25-35% of FB1 fleets, I said: " I have no problem 
with this opinion, even if I don't agree with it."

> No offense, but this comment is drivel.

Though that comment is offensive, I take none.

> Hull, armor, and screens are useful to a point.  But let me illustrate

> what
> I'm talking about here.

> Take the ship that was present in the example Brendan gave me.... it 
> had an
> average hull, thrust-6, and level-2 screens.	That left only 20% of
its 
> hull
> devoted to weapons.  Sure, with thrust-6 and that much resilience 
> together,
> it looks like a tough nut to crack.  But look at the _ratios_ that 
> creates
> just by trimming a little off.  12.5% of the non-weapons systems taken

> off
> gives you a 50% net increase in firepower.  25% of them doubles it.

Are you talking about "Trial by Combat"? You can certainly choose to 
sacrifice hull or drive or screens for more firepower, but then you'd 
have to change your tactics as well. If you give up screens you give 
take 16.7% more damage from opponent's beams for each level you give up,

so you have to judge whether the 11 mass will get you that back. Drive 
and hull tradeoffs are less quantifiable and depend much more on how you

fly. Some players work better at high thrust.

> Total firepower isn't everything, but it's a factor you can't ignore. 

> It
> isn't _always_ a factor with high-thrust ships... but high thrust
ships 
> with
> only short range weapons?  Fit all-arc mounts on all your beams and
you 
> can
> outgun that at any arc without even trying hard.

Are class 2 beams "short range"? Is 1xclass 3-360 beam (at 9 Mass) 
superior to 4.5xclass 2-180's? or even 3xClass 2-360 or 9xClass 1's  if 
the "fast" ship can close to their optimum range quickly? How much 
firepower is the fast ship willing to sacrifice to get to a superior 
range safely? I think these are all legitimate tradeoffs, and that the 
balance point is in a different place than you think it is. Our 
experiences are obviously different.

>> Feh.
>> The Mass/Cost imbalance applies everywhere. Even _within_ FB1 taking
>> SDNs vs. equivalent points of Frigates. It is a problemm with the 
>> entire
>> costing system: Between FB1 vs. custom,  between custom vs. custom ,
>> and	FB1 vs. FB1. It's broken everywhere you take large ships vs.
small
>> ships in the one-off duel setting.

> Everywhere... except for against mass 12 soap bubble carriers, ...

Which exploits the fighter imbalance, which is bigger for massed 
fighters than the Mass/Cost imbalance.

> and submunition bombs as two clearly demonstrated examples...

I'm still not sure about that. It's certainly not "clearly 
demosntrated", You've not convinced me, for example that a heavy PBL 
ship (Say 14 Class 2's, with a double handful of 360 pulsers couldn't do

some heavy chewing. This is also specialist vs. specialist.
>  and, I'm sure, against many
> other tactics that would suddenly get a lot nastier when they're 
> allowed to
> cheat and bring twice the hardware in the name of "balance".

SImply calling it "cheating" is proof by assertion. The numbers 
disagree. As already said, since the "unity" point with the Mass/Cost 
fix is 100 mass, the larger the ship gets, the more the small ships 
benefit. And, as already implied, I probably wouldn't argue for the "100

mass unity" fix if your median ship mass is much over 100. It so happens

that FB1 ships look best served with tis fix. A universe that had Mass 
400 uberdreadnoughts vs. Submunition bombs or soap-bubble carriers would

probably need a different balance point.

>>>  After all, a carrier platform isn't really intended to face a 
>>> head-on fighter anyway,
>> Tha is a universal maxim? I don't think so.
> It is for a dedicated carrier platform that is either unarmed or very 
> lightly armed.

Qualified that way, OK. Are all carriers un- or lightly armed?

> In fact, just about any ship whose tactical role doesn't involve a
very
> high need for survivability --  under this
> system, just to maximize the weapons they're bringing to the field.

I suppose that if all that matters to "win" is to have one ship with one

hull box left while your opponent has none, this is reasonable.

>> Only if the correction goes too far, in which case it's broken the 
>> other
>> way. From what I've heard regarding tests of this fix, this has not 
>> been
>> the case.

> So even though I've given you two unambiguous examples where
exploiting 
> the
> small-mass rules breaks the idea into little bloody pieces due to the 
> fact
> that it lets a smaller vessel class bring between 25 and 100% as much 
> extra
> hardware depending on the size of what they're up against (up to 400 
> mass),
> you're discounting it because this hasn't been the case in some 
> unspecified
> tests?

Given that 1) your examples are not unambiguous, and 2) Where the cost 
goes far afield from the unity factor of the correction it is unbalenced

in the other direction, no. I will happily accede that Mass 400 vs Mass 
12 ships may be ill served by a unity factor of 100 mass. If these are 
the dominant classes in the universe, a unity factor of ~200 or so Mass 
is probably better, but I haven't played vs. Uberships enough to have a 
truly qualified opinion.

> And I _really_ disagree with your assessment that there's no mass-12 
> ships
> that could beat a mass 400 dreadnought when they outnumber it (sorry,
my
> initial math was off) 50 to 1.

I'd give good odds on a PBL/Pulser combo with Thrust 6. If I can keep 
the range to the bulk of the force between 12 and 36" for 4-5 turns, the

Submunition swarm is toast. Same might even be true for a Mass 200 ship 
with a similar mix, by the way, for 10-12 turns.

>> [Snip next strawman]
>> My 5 second analysis may have been wrong, granted.

> These two lines are mutually exclusive.

No, they are merely out of order. My possibly erroneous analysis claimed

"all this [Soap bubbles vs. uberDN] does is indicate that the fighter 
imbalance is greater in magnitude than the Mass/Cost imbalance...and a 
400 Mass Ubership will lay waste to an equivalent
(unmodified) cost of any other Mass 12 ships hands down."

I stand by the first part (fighter imbalance of large swarms is more 
significant than Mass/Cost imbalance).
THe second part (400 mass ubership vs. 12 mass small ship swarm without 
Mass/Cost modification) _may_ be wrong, but I don't know. My strawman of

the Pulser/PBL/Thrust 6 UberDN vs. 29 MKP bombs looks favorable for the 
Phalon to me.

I skipped your next strawman because it also failed to illustrate your 
point.

> Doesn't say much for your powers of logic.

Well, my editing skills, perhaps.

> Neither does your attitude that every specific example that blows an
> absolute statement you're trying to make clean out of the water is a 
> "straw
> man".

If your specific examples actually did this, I might be inclined to 
agree. Since they do not, I do not.

>> 'Course a 400 mass
>> behemoth with a bunch of Long range Pulsers & plasma bolts would be
>> interesting to take against the swarm.

> Plasma bolts are not a serious option for a mass 400 ship against the 
> swarm
> design that I gave.  Even if you went with fragile hull, thrust-1, and
> devoted your entire available mass to plasma, you'd be able to mount a

> total
> of 59 dice plus the fire control to use it.  The swarm is carrying 136
> scatterguns, which (on average) is sufficient to cleanly stop a 
> concentrated
> plasma barrage half again that large.  Then the swarm gets a free turn

> to
> take bets on how many of them will have to actually fire to kill you
for
> fun.	(The smart money will be on not much more than 4.)

This strawman (yes, it is) assumes I would rather sit still and have you

come to me with your concentrated firepower. Pretty 1-D. With my 
strawman (freely admitted) -  Thrust 6 UberDN, -  I can keep the range 
open and pock you with long range pulser fire, forcing you to expend 
Scatterguns every turn while I alternate PBLs My success will be 
determined by how well I can dance with the swarm.

> The longer range pulser option is possibly workable, but installing 60
> seperate fire controls and enough pulsers that you'll be able to hit 
> that
> many individual ships coming in on suicide charges before they get 
> within
> reach is probably not going to happen in real terms.

Nope. GIve me 12 pulsers (and 12 firecons). If I can keep the range 
"open" (i.e. greater than 12 but less than 36", which is a pretty big 
envelope) for ~5 turns (maybe less) I'll be just fine.

>> As for the fixed table, maybe your group has trained itself to fly
and
>> fight constrained in a box. Good for you all. Maybe you can try a
>> space-sim next. ;-)

> I'm sorry, but I simply do not subscribe to the reasoning that only an

> open
> table can simulate a space battle.

It does seem to explain, however, why you didn't think of two Thrust 6 
fleets engaging in a multi-turn battle with potentially high speed and 
intense maneuver.

>  I play as an extension of my imagination
> in visualizing space battles in ways similar to how they're done in 
> various
> forms of entertainment.

Then your play begs for a series of Genre-specific rules depending on 
the cinematic/TV feel you are trying to recreate. I would opine that 
even so none of them require a wall in space.

> An open table is not necessary to that end, and the only major tactic 
> an open table gives over a closed one -- endless runaway -- is neither

> a common theme in any form of science fiction that I enjoy nor is 
> particularly fun to play as a game.

If "endless runaway" were indeed the only new tactic introduced by a 
floating table, you might be right. It is not.

> For that matter, I don't accept that this would be a particularly
viable
> tactic, given the extreme slowness of its effect.  A sufficiently 
> ruthless
> admiral, once he realizes that his enemy's entire doctrine of warfare 
> is to
> hurl insults at him from beyond scanning range, would simply ignore 
> that and
> take whatever miniscule damage the enemy in question wishes to inflict

> on
> him while he flies past them and drops a "Shiva Option" on the enemy's
> homeworlds....

This "example" attempts to change the fundamental nature of the 
discussion from a one-off ship duel in open space to an objective-based 
campaign setting. As applies to the former case and its examination of 
balance of the system, it is hot air.

Bizarre Hempen Analog	 (Noam Raphael Izenberg - pass that clip along,