Re: [GZG] Stepping out the airlock....

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Humans run more because they want to survive and have only 1-2 ships in
total, not fleets of the things. They are also not immortal a clone or a
zealot that doesn't care about it's individual survival.

I think if you make wraith hive ships at around mass 250 with 6-7
fighter squadrons and some beams or k1s depending on preference for
ship-ship weapons then you probably have something about right.

I think armour as shields descibes what you are talking about very well,
especially if you borrow the phalon shell armour.
Many of the weapons have an occasional armour piercing effect and so
will initially only penetrate through to hull systems in a minor way but
when you get down to the last shell of armour you will start taking
damage very quickly.

The other option is to be a bit less literal about the hull / shields
definition and have no armour/ shields and jsut have lots of hull boxes.
Ships firing energy bolts and munitions at each other that rip appart
sections of planets are not going to be stopped by Titanium/ceramite
composite armour.

I suspect that in FT terms losing your last shielding is the same as
losing your last hull boxes.... massivee explosion.

You could simulate this by giving ships, lots of shell armour and only
10% hull.

Also one thing that FT does not do well is reflect different tech
levels. An ancient missile is as effective as a human one, the only way
to simulate higher tech ships is to give them more mass that allows them
to reflect their combat power rather than their proportionate size.

You also need to consider that wraith ships with loads of fighter
squadrons would caouse havoc against enemies that don't have an
effective PDS system. They would attack from the other end of the table
and launch darts and then run before the enemy gunships ever get within
range.

________________________________
From: Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com>
To: gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Tuesday, 14 April, 2009 11:55:09 AM
Subject: [GZG] Stepping out the airlock....

John, 

I think Wraith hyperdrive is actually considered more efficient than
human. The humans just tend to run more... (they do this when confronted
by Ha'taks too a lot of the time). 

As for size, the Achilles looks about 4.5" long or so and probably
slightly less massive than a Thuerdank. On the other hand, whether 1
mass = 1 fleet book mass is another discussion point. 

My only goal is to replicate the feel of the fights fairly well. If that
means a Daedelus, at 3.5" long, is mass 400, I can live with that,
although it would look a bit odd next to a huge Ha'tak or Ori
mothership. 

Systems: 

Ancient/Alteran/Lantean Drones: I think these are best modelled as fast
attack or torpedo fighters. They can probably be destroyed by darts that
are screening a wraith cruiser, but they pretty much ignore screens and
do some serious damage. Of course, their has to be an attritional
component to the damage - sometimes a drone will fly into a wraith
hiveship and out again, other times that encounter destroys the drone
(hits something solid enough or something). 

For human missiles from the Daedelus (X-304), SMs would probably do, but
they sprout a lot of them in encounters and SM ammo mass is high. It
might make sense to cut the mass requirements to match up with the type
of results seen in the show. Maybe that could be justified by doing D3
per missile or some such thing - half damage/half the mass.

The problem with shields as armour is the shields are sort of leaky. At
full shields, likely no damage passes through. At 50%, damage will be
leaking through, at 20-30%, a fair bit of damage seems to penetrate - or
at least overloads and such are caused. 

Some sort of armour-esque model might do, but it would have to be
tweaked a fair bit. 

T. 

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