Re: Points balance on K-guns vs Beams, part 2

John Atkinson wrote (in two different posts):

 >Try it in cinematic?	Why would I want to do that?

Because Cinematic is the "official" standard movement system around
which
the entire game (including the ship design system) was created, whereas
the
optional Vector movement system was only patched on as an afterthought?
<g>

 >Who plays cinematic?

Jon Tuffley is one, I'm another... <g>

 >Are you saying the K'V are more or less balanced in vector?

The KV are considerably weaker in Vector than they are in Cinematic, yes
(or, at least, than they are in Cinematic played on large or floating
tables
simulating unlimited space). More accurately, the KV *themselves* don't
change all that much - it is how their *enemies* change from Cinematic
to
Vector which has the biggest impact.

The most important difference is that *any* Vector-moving ship, even a
thrust-1 one, is able to rotate to any facing in a single turn even if
it is
moving at the same time. In Cinematic this is only possible if the ship
both
begins and ends the turn at velocity 0; otherwise the ship can only
change
facing by 30 degrees per thrust point spent on course changes and must
always face in the direction it is moving.

This means that a Vector-moving low-thrust ship armed mainly with
single-arc
weapons - eg. your "KV hunters" - is almost always able to point those
weapons at their intended target (the only real exception being if the
range
is very short), whereas in Cinematic the same ship would have to give up
all
tactical mobility (and thus initiative) to do so after the first
exchange of
fire (ie., during the opening meeting engagement, if there is one at
all).
If your "KV hunters" attempt to move in *Cinematic*, they're dead meat
to
the Kra'Vak - too unmanoeuvrable to keep the KV in their own (F) arcs,
and
also too unmanoeuvrable to stay out of the *KV* (F) arcs for very long.

If you want to be able to both move and shoot at Kra'Vak ships at the
same
time in Cinematic, you either need wide fire arcs or very manoeuvrable
ships, or preferrably both. Unfortunately for the humans, a high-thrust
ship
with wide-arc weapons will by necessity have fewer weapons (and thus a
lower, usually considerably lower, total firepower) than a low-thrust
ship
with mostly single-arc weapons; so instead of outgunning the KV by a
comfortable margin it has to do some fancy flying to stay out of the
KVs'
main weapon arcs while using its own wider firing arcs to wear the KV
down.

If you do the maths like you told the rest of us to do <g>, you'll find
that
while the single-arc P-torp is the only human weapon which outguns or
equals
its own points value of K-gun at *every* range (and equals it only
beyond 30
mu, ie. where neither the P-torp nor the K-gun is able to fire at all),
both
the B2-3 and the B3-1 beat their own cost of K-guns against unscreened
targets (eg. Kra'Vak ships) everywhere except for one single 6-mu
interval
(0-6 mu in the B3-1 case; 24-30 mu in the B2-3 case) - and at most
ranges,
they beat the K-gun by a much wider margin than the P-torp does :-/

However, this is not true for wider-arced weapons - particularly not for
those wider-arced weapons which can match or exceed the K-gun range! And
in
Cinematic, the human force needs either decent-ranged, wide-arced
weapons or
very powerful engines in order to be able to shoot at the KV at all...

All in all this means that where a Vector-optimized human force (with
low or
at best moderate thrust ratings and lots of single-arc weapons) can
safely
expect to both outgun and outhull the Kra'Vak, and also runs no real
risk of
being outmanoeuvred by the KV (since it can always rotate to face), a
human
force in Cinematic pretty much has to accept to be either outgunned by
the
Kra'Vak in a head-on encounter because much of its own mass is tied up
in
large engines, or to be unable to bring its main batteries to bear
because
the engines aren't powerful enough <g>

***
Jaime Tiempo wrote:

 >>>In vector.	Try it in cinematic and see what happens.
 >
 >You get carrier fleets :)

You get carrier fleets in Vector as well... and regardless of which
movement
system you use, the Kra'Vak are relatively well equipped to handle enemy
carrier fleets <g>

***
Tim Bancroft wrote:

 >I've found that whilst at a capital ships level the fleets may be
matched,
 >at the middle ranges (CE or below) KV appear to be a marked
*disadvantage*
 >due to a points/damage disparity on K-3/2/1 (Ko'Tek and below)
compared
 >with human ships B1/2 and a few 3 (Markgraf/Voroshilev and below). 
Has
 >anyone else experienced this (or has no-one used such small squadrons
 >(700-900 points))?

The FB1 human force you describe above - FB1 ships only (ie., no custom
jobs), with thrust-4 cruisers forming the core of the force - is one the
easiest target a Kra'Vak commander could wish for :-/

Depending on the movement system and table size you use:

If you play Vector, then the KV force can quite safely hang around at
range
25-30 mu; at that range every K-gun in the fleet can hit the human
ships,
and the humans can only reply with a small fraction of their own
firepower.
Note that this *only* works because the FB1 ship designs are not
optimized
for Vector movement - from a Vector point of view the mass the FB1
designs
spend on extra arcs for the B3s and on B2s and smaller weapons is pretty
much wasted.

If you play Cinematic on a small table, ie. one where you can't
manoeuvre
outside the enemy's weapon envelope, the Kra'Vak are in serious trouble
at
any points values. They need to be able to set up their attack runs from
outside the enemy's weapon range - cf. the "boom'n'zoom" comments in my
other post. Real space doesn't have table edges which force you to stay
in
the enemy's range :-/

If you play Cinematic on a large table, which is the case the Fleet Book
ship design system (and the Fleet Book ship designs themselves) is
intended
for, the KV can have problems at *very* low point levels (IME 400 pts or
less) if you use the "official" designs only. This is because the light
KV
ships in FB2 (Ka'Tak 'FF' and smaller) are very much designed for strike
duties in support of (and supported by) heavier units and don't do very
well
on their own - and at such low point values, they *are* on their own.

At higher point values (including the 7-900 pts range you indicated),
the KV
can afford to bring some of their light and medium cruisers - and unlike
the
small fry these cruisers are designed for independent operations, and
are
quite capable of holding their own against similarly-priced human
ships...
as long as they have enough table space to use their superior
manoeuvrability, that is.

Given a large enough table, Cinematic movement and a KV cruiser
squadron,
how do you defeat an FB1 human cruiser/escort force like the one you
describe above? Well...

- If the humans give up all hopes of manoeuvring and instead come to a
full
stop to spin in place, you use the tactics described for for Vector
above
(only fight at range 25-30 so you can pit all of your K-guns against a
small
part of his armament). Remember that you can't move backwards in
Cinematic
though, so you can't afford to slow down too much yourself or they'll
catch
you eventually.

- If the FB1 human force attempts to manoeuvre against you but stay
concentrated, move into their AP/A/AS arcs and stay outside range 12 mu
(outside range 24 mu is even better since the human ships don't have any
weapons able to hit you there, but it also takes much longer for you to
inflict any serious damage on them from that range).

- If the humans split up to bring at least *some* of their weapons to
bear
against you, use your superior manoeuvrability to concentrate your
entire
force against each small part of theirs in turn and defeat them in
detail.

Regards,

Oerjan

oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry