Re: SaVasku Comment ( was Re: Fire Control lock-on)

John Leary wrote:

>Opinion: Not to deride the intent, but the result
>really does not change the original statement I
>presented earlier.   The only thing that may change
>is the duration of the game, not the outcome.
>(If you look from my point of view.)

If you look at it from the point of view of the playtest games fought so

far with this rule, your opinion doesn't seem all that well founded <g>

(Yes, LL, this concept *has* been playtested - IIRC there are even some 
AARs in the playtest list archive... More playtests are always good, of 
course.)

Since the Sa'Vasku have to expend 1 biomass point on each successful
repair 
roll they make (FB2 p.24 - though some SV players seem to, er, 
"consistently forget" that particular rule in the heat of battle!),
every 
failed stinger burn-out roll costs them 1 biomass point. Outside range 
48mu, they inflict more damage on *themselves* by repairing burned-out 
stingers than they do even on an unscreened enemy (unless the SV ship
has 
128 or more Power Points to spend on each shot, but for ships that big
the 
CPV hull cost begins to make itself felt in earnest).

Even when shooting at an unscreened target at range 36-48, the margin 
between biomass spent on repairing burned-out stingers and the damage
they 
inflict on the enemy isn't very big (again with the exception of ships
with 
128+ power points available for shooting). This means that an SV force 
planning to hang at range 48 and grind the enemy down will need quite a
lot 
of biomass in order to outlast the enemy, so the "minimum biomass,
maximum 
power" style of designs that are so popular with some SV players will 
almost certainly run out of biomass before an FB1-style enemy runs out
of 
armour and hull boxes. 'Course, the more biomass the SV ships have the 
bigger engines they need, and the more power it costs them to move on
those 
alternate turns they spend increasing the range...

...and suddenly the "stay out of range and grind the enemy to death"
tactic 
is no longer quite so trivial to pull off as it used to be. Particularly
if 
the enemy is uncouth enough to use screens on his ships, or is able to 
force the SV to devote some of their power to something else than moving

(eg. anti-fighter defences) on those game turns they'd prefer to spend
all 
their power on moving, or has weapons with enough range to hit back out
to 
range 45-48 (eg. the ESU B4s or the New Israeli Long-Range P-Torps), or 
manoeuvres in such a way that the SV ships would end their movement
outside 
range 48 if they make no manoeuvres, or force the SV to spend power on 
manoeuvring even on those turns they plan to fire, or uses any of the
other 
dirty anti-Sa'Vasku tricks available to them...

So, please try the burn-out rule out in your next battle against the 
Sa'Vasku. You might be pleasantly surprised <g>

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ariander@telia.com

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