Re: [GZG] FT:XD changes, part 1

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lWhereas I
generally agree with Damond (and to a lesser extent Eric) on the
point system's inherent natural flaw (all point systems have some
exploits
and I am a big proponent of SG because it has NONE), I also think there
are
reasons it is worth looking at some problems within the context of the
point
system.

After all, you've bothered enough to *have one in the first place*, so
trying to make it work as well as possible isn't a bad idea. Otherwise,
why
have it? Rely entirely on campaign frameworks to make a workable larger
campaign.

So, the problem of fighters was well stated as:

"too few, value lower than you pay, too many (relative to PDS and enemy
fighters), you pay too little"

Oerjan identified this issue as an order of magnitude more sensitive to
disparities relative to other in-game systems. That's a pretty big
distinction. So, yes, in custom builds you do get an element of
Paper-Scissors-Rock, but with fighters it is Paper-Scissors-Plasmagun.

I see nothing wrong with trying to address this *excessive* sensitivity
to
disparities.

Eric is right insofar as it is entirely possible to build fleets that
have
design flaws and get whacked. And he points out there are counters for
most
of them in the form of alternate designs. But in order to figure out if
these combinations are somewhat balanced against one another, one must
look
at what % of cost and mass you have to devote to dealing with <enemy
tactic>. To deal with the mid to large fighter swarm, you need to devote
*a
lot* of mass and cost to dealing with this. A well rounded ship will
loose
to the fighter swarm in many cases.

I don't believe the fighter case is equivalent to all of the other
cases.
Certainly, some other weapons may yield nasty results against an
opponent
unprepared to deal with them (slow battleships vs. SMs). But even there,
a
relatively modest mass of PDS or some BJs will reduce the SM impact to
manageable levels without devoting too much mass or points to the fix.
That
doesn't work with fighters because of the particulars of the situation.
You
need to devote a lot more points and mass to dealing with the threat.

Having been on the recieving end of Can Am 1 (due to an intelligence
failure, and you can read that either way and both would have been
true),
three beam heavy battleships and their escorts were utterly consumed by
fighters with (I believe) little or no damage to the enemy carrier
force, I
got a good luck at the far extremum of being owned by fighters.
The battleship fleet had better than FB level PDS, ADFC and DDEs. But
the
enemy had something obscene like 25-30 fighter groups, against 4 or 6
groups
of heavy interceptors and the point defense. And the death swarm just
ate
their way through a modified Komarov (more mid sized beams, more PDS) in
each attack, after concentrating on the DDEs for a round, eliminating
them.

I guess my point here is just that the fighter issue is more pronounced
than
other issues of design choice. Mess up your balance versus an enemy in
this
regard and the effects will be magnified compared to most other cases
(even
the ones Eric pointed out).

That's why we should look at addressing it. I'm not saying we can fix
the
points system (inherently, they all break somewhere). I am saying we can
reduce fighter-related proclivities, perhaps bringing them into the same
order of magnitude as other potential imbalances.

I'm not looking for a pancea, but a tourniquet.

And campaign rules can do it, but I'd rather have the fix in the
tactical
rules. And I don't really see any reason that's valid for not doing the
fix
there.

Tom