Re: (fwd) Re: [FT] F***ters [was: Operational game]

Imre Szabo wrote:

> >Yes, really. Send in your escorts to take out the Lenovs one turn
BEFORE the
> >missile units get into the enemy's range; while the escorts will
almost
> >inevitably take a very severe drubbing their sacrifice allows your
missiles
> >to hit worthwhile targets. (Lenovs are very, very easy to destroy -
even a
> >crippled Athena-class corvette usually manages to nail one :-) )
>
>You are assuming that his Lenovs weren't a range band behind until the
turn
>we closed to salvo missile firing range

No, I'm not. If you had looked up those AARs I mentioned, you would've 
known that the NSL player tried exactly this in one of those battles - 
without success; I nailed the BJs anyway :-)

What I am assuming, however, is that you have a large enough gaming
table 
that the FSE is not automatically forced into a head-on collision but 
instead have some room to manoeuvre before entering weapons range - I
find 
tables of this size to give a lot more tactical variation than the
smaller 
tables.

>Were his escorts about 8 to 12 inches behind his battle line until he
needed
>them?

In order to answer that, I must first ask you to define exactly where "8
to 
12 inches behind his battle line", when my two squadrons approached from

either side close to perpendicularly to his capital ships' course...

Simply put, if the NSL BJs had tried to position themselves 8 to 12
inches 
behind his battle line from the perspective of my light units, they 
would've been roughly 6 to 10 inches *in front of* his battle line from 
where my heavies approached and vice versa :-)

> >If you can arrange for the escorts to approach the enemy from another
> >direction than the missile units, that's an extra bonus - either the
enemy
> >spends thrust points (or, in Cinematic, come to a full stop to spin
in
> >place) to turn to face each of your squadrons in turn (in which case
he'll
> >be less able to dodge your missiles), or at least one of your
squadrons will
> >be able to avoid his full direct-fire firepower.
>
>Or send a few fighter squadrons out to crush them.

"A few fighter squadrons" will have certain difficulties crushing 5-700 
points worth of light ships in time to stop them from killing BJs, 
particularly if the light ships in question are themselves accompanied
by a 
few fighter squadrons of their own :-) (Which they tend to be if they're
my 
light ships...)

>Actually, I usually bring 4 to 8 Ibiza's and 1 to 2 San Migueles.

That's nice to hear, since many players don't bother with escorts at
all.

>Both class of which attract a lot of firepower if anywhere in or
infront of my
>battle line.  The Ibiza's are a real fire magnet until after the
>submunitions have fired...

Sure. Which is why you want to fly fast enough that the Ibizas hit their

own weapons range at the same time as the enemy gets to shoot at them - 
once again see the "big enough table to manoeuvre on" comment above :-)

[On big-ship advantages]

> >Their *other* advantages are that they also have a better
concentration of
> >hull and armour boxes (so start losing weapons later than a number of
small
> >ships with the same total number of damage boxes) and a better
concentration
> >of DCPs (so far more likely to repair the weapons they lose than
small ships
> >are). All things considered, I'd rate the concentration of hull and
armour
> >boxes as somewhat more important than the concentration of firepower.
>
>I'd argue it's synergistic.

Certainly. Nonetheless, the concentration of damage boxes usually 
contributes more than the concentration of firepower.

> >The big-ship advantages (discussed a bit above) are another problem
area,
> >yes, but the non-linearity you get there is considerably smaller than
the
> >fighter non-linearity.
>
>The problem with small ships is that they need more one-shot high
damage
>weapons to be effective against larger ships.

Sorry, but one-shot high-damage weapons won't help the light ships at
all. 
Thanks to the big-ship advantages, those one-shot weapons are more 
effective on large ships than on small ones (just like any weapons are),
so 
if your opponent puts those one-shot high damage weapons on large ships 
he'll still beat your small ships carrying the same one-shot high damage

weapons...

Your WW1 analogy fails in one critical aspect: in WW1, MTBs were usually

faster than their enemies. In Full Thrust, that's not a given. (WW1 MTBs

also didn't face the strict initiative-order sequence of fire their Full

Thrust relatives do!)

What the small ships need to be effective in equal-points battles is a 
points system which takes the big-ship advantages into account - unlike
the 
current one :-/

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