Re: B5-3 Aft

On Friday, September 5, 2003, at 06:03 PM, Jared Hilal wrote:

>> If one can out range and out accelerate the defenders and they have 
>> to stay around to guard a resource, the attacker has a winning 
>> situation.  Either the defender leaves the resource undefended, 
>> attempts to engage the attacker (which happens at the attackers 
>> whim), or the attacker simply picks the defender to pieces at range. 

>> Not fun for the defender for certain.
>
> However, in the described situation, with the specified ships, the 
> "attacker has to make a pass and then shoot as he leaves (ala light 
> cavalry archers).  As he approaches, that gives the KV a chance to get

> off a shot, and any hit is going to be at least crippling, if not 
> fatal to the Fragile raider.

If you outrange the weapons of the enemy and can out maneuver them, 
thre is no need to enter their weapon ranges - thus no chance of being 
crippled or even hurt unless they surprise you by some mean or you make 
a mistake tactically.

>> Average sized tables is a bit of a opinionated factor.  What is 
>> average?  4 by 6 is common, so is 6 by 8.  There is a big difference 
>> in area between the two (double).  I've played on 16 by 6 foot 
>> surfaces and then again on 4 by 4 and many others to boot.
>
> But in terms of range, the difference is much less.  A B3 still covers

> half of a 6x8, and a K-gun about 1/3.  As for Average, you admit that 
> 4x6 is "common" (I take that to mean more than half of cases) and if 
> you add 6x8, then I guess it's probably more than 75%.  As for my 
> opinion, I asked how many people usually play on a surface as large as

> O.O.'s (c. 80 MU x 120 MU), and you are the second person to answer, 
> but you didn't say what your usual play area is, only the extremes of 
> your experience. Therefore I have evidence of 2 people (and one maybe)

> who play on large tables.  Not a lot.

I mentioned that both 4x6 and 6x8 are common sizes.  Common does not 
alway equal average!   Common can indicate something less than 50% and 
there can be several sizes that are all common.  My usual playing 
surfaces have been 4x6, 4x8, 6x8, 6x12, and 6x16 with 6x8 and 4x8 being 
the most common.  If one uses CMs instead of inches the playing area 
becomes 120x180 MUs for a 4x6 area.  Just a thought.

>> If your primary focus in balancing weapons with vector based movement

>> on a 4 by 6 foot surface is your focal issue, then whether big beam 
>> weapons are worth the cost is not as critical as on a larger playing 
>> surface.
>
> For the fifth (5th) time:
>
> I.  Do.  Not.  Play.	Vector.
>
> I would like to play vector again, but most of my group doesn't like 
> it.
> My "primary focus" was to a simple statement that, IMNSHO, B4+ are 
> overpriced compared to B# and less.  As it turns out, O.O. explained 
> how this is true for medium sized tables, but that the usefulness of 
> B4+ increases dramatically if the play area is larger (or you use cm 
> on a 4x6 or 6x8).

Same thing holds true with cinematic to.  If your playing area tends to 
enforce closer ranges there is less incentive to mount larger beam 
weapons in your ships.	Why have them if part of their cost is factored 
towards the longer ranges when it's much less useful in this situation. 
  Smaller beam weapons in greater numbers generate more dice at the 
shorter ranges - thus there is little reason to have the bigger weapons 
if the long range gets you little to nothing for the cost (regardless 
of the cost, unless it is less than multiple smaller weapons that total 
to the same damage potential).

> The example of a human T8 or T8A ship with a single B5 bearing into 
> the aft three arcs is not a straw man?  What are you smoking?

Now you are starting to get deeming.  I'm attempting to keep the 
discussion level headed.  I would appreciate it if you left out the 
snipes and vitriolic commentary as it does nothing to prove your point 
and only pushes one to feel that you may feel you are on the loosing 
side of the aurgument.	Why is the T8 (either type) and B5 armed ship a 
straw man.  It is not as limited as you believe, at least in my 
experience with custom built ships.  Besides, you can increase the size 
of the ship and add more B5s to it and it stays just as dangerous.  
There is nothing rare or false about players staying at extreme range 
when the designed ships allow, using their weapons to damage the 
opponent while the opponent does not have the range to fire back.  This 
has happened with B4 armed ships, B3 armed ships, and Phalons against 
KVs several times that I can recall, including some online battles 
(although there were fleets and some ships got into closer ranges due 
to the number of vessels on each side...and shear boredom that can 
happen when dancing at extreme ranges and the turns taking a week or 
more each).

>>   The issue of high class beam weapons being king of the battle area 
>> came up years ago and has been factored into current play-testing.  
>> When the costs of larger beam weapons were smaller, I witnessed most 
>> designs involving beam weapons consisting of cramming as many class A

>> beams was the way to go in most cases
>
> In the real world, these were called "dreadnought battleships", and 
> some were really ridiculous, like the American
> classes with 5 or 6 twin 12-inch turrets (making the ship really 
> long), or the French class with quadruple 16-inch turrets (to save dwt

> from having more but smaller turrets).  The term "Dreadnought" refers 
> to a battleship or battleship-cruiser (latter termed a battlecruiser) 
> armed only with guns of the largest caliber (originally 12") and 
> possibly a number of small secondaries (3", 5" or 6") for use against 
> small ships like MTBs and DDs.  "Super-dreadnought" refers to 
> dreadnoughts with a main battery of 13.5" or 14" guns or (latter) 
> larger.
>
> The arms race of 1905-1922 was to see who could build the most 
> powerful * all big gun * battleships.

This has little to do with what I stated above.  The real world 
"dreadnaught battleships", while interesting, has little to do with the 
mechanics of what I mentioned with the earlier beam inbalance.	I was 
pointing out the beam costing issues and the problems we had with it 
about 5 or more years ago as an illustration of what happens if large 
beams are too cheap and can equal or exceed the damage potential of 
multiple same cost and size smaller beams.

>> (if you wanted more arcs then sometimes the smaller class B and Cs 
>> were okay or 3 class Bs had more dice at 0-12 MUs than did 2 class 
>> As).
>
> Unfortunately for your argument, at <12 MU; 3x class B = 6 dice, and 
> 2x class A = 6 dice, and both = 6 mass.

This does not invalidate my point.  At 12-24 MUs the 2xA had 4 dice 
while the 3xB had 3.  Thus the 2xA were always equal to or better than 
the same cost 3xB beams at any range.  Which would you take?

Kevin Walker