Re: Core hits and striking the colours (LONG!)

Tom B wrote:
>That didn't quite get to my point of curiosity or I missed if it did:
If
>you have 3 row ships under strike the colours, 4 row, and 5 row, is
there a
>suggestion that strike the colours hits 5 row disproportionately hard
and 3
>row disproportionately easy based on the minor difference in hull
costs?

After a couple of evenings trying to analyse this
and crunching numbers, I came up with several
interesting results with little or no relevance
to the question. Eventually I decided that I was
over-thinking things, and in fact there isn't
a problem.

So, my opinion is that there is no significant or
qualitative difference between the different hull
types with the Striking The Colours (STC) rules in
force. Or if there is a difference, it's so small
that it will be hidden in the statistical noise.

 From my previous mind-numbing episode, we learnt
that STC can be regarded as an extremely dangerous
threshold check. Since it can't be repaired, big
ships are just as much at risk as small.

The best defence against STC is obviously not to
get thresholded. With a 3 row hull, the amount of
damage needed to reach the 1st threshold is 33%
more, or you can say that the threshold rate of
occurrence for such ships is only 0.75 of standard.
For 5 row hulls it's 20% less or 1.25 faster rate,
6 row 33% less or 1.5 rate.

That's all else being equal, which of course it
isn't. For a given points budget (NPV) with more
hull rows you can build more ships with the same
mass as their more 'advanced' equivalents, or the
same number of ships with higher mass each.

But, there are other ways to increase the damage
needed to reach a threshold. Adding a level 1
screen is almost as good as an advanced hull,
reducing incoming damage by 20% and the rate to
0.8. A strong 40% standard hull is the same as
an advanced 30% average hull. And a layer of
armour boxes over the top of standard 30% hull
is even better.

These are all valid design approaches to making
a ship more robust. Reducing the rate at which
you get thresholded is not only useful in STC
games. Unless you think that advanced hulls are
always too cost-effective, I can't see why they
would attract a cost penalty in STC games, but
not strong hulls or screens.

And why stop at defence? Maximizing the first
strike is a good tactic with STC, so should
salvo missiles be penalized?

Overall, I think that STC changes the conditions
of combat enough to make certain types of ships,
or design styles, more attractive than others.
But I don't believe you will find that any
individual FT system becomes more cost-effective
than in regular games.

One change you should consider is using NPV rather
than CPV, since big ships are just as likely to
be 'destroyed' on the first threshold as escorts.

	cheers,
	Hugh