Re: Re: [GZG] Revised Salvo Missiles Update

["Eric Foley" <stiltman@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hell, screw the guesswork altogether.  If we're given infinite space, and logically we are, the best combat doctrine for deep space combat under FT ultimately becomes to build a fleet of ships that are designed to never drop below 100 MU, that sport long enough ranged weaponry to basically point and laugh at all the slowpokes with their B-3s and short ranged placed weapons.  With enough of a mixture of fighters (largely for system defense against slower moving enemies if you can't interdict them in deep space) and stupidly large beams to resolve a variety of threats, there really would be nothing an opponent could do about it but respond in kind.  Yes, it'll take twelve weeks to resolve actual combat at any scale, but when the future of your civilization is at stake, who cares?  You're not winning quickly, but you're not losing, either.  If infinite patience means you win every single battle against anything that doesn't respond in kind, guess what?  If that's my home planet on the line, I'll take infinite patience over gameplay fun any day of the stellar week.

 

At some point, Oerjan is right... flying at really stupidly high speeds just makes too much sense for the ability to practically ignore basically all of the most instant-death weapons in the game.  If we don't assume that fighters can build up this kind of thrust, they become useless, and the placed weaponry becomes useless in any case.  That doesn't make for a game that I like either, which is why I usually play on a fixed living room floor at relatively low speeds and let a bit of strategic judgment with fairly good intelligence on where the enemy's going to go and a bunch of dice rolling resolve the battles regardless of the scale of the fleets.  The problem is, FT ultimately has no mechanics other than player interest in quicker games and table space to stop us from flying around like gnats on crack and hurling insults at each other from the next planetary orbit.

 

E

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Roger Books

To: gzg-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sent: Monday, June 26, 2006 6:39 AM

Subject: Re: Re: [GZG] Revised Salvo Missiles Update

My recommendation to you is, if you don't like the mechanic, don't use Salvo Missiles.
If you want a direct fire weapon use one of the direct fire mechanics and call it a missile.
The reason SMs use the mechanic they do is because they are extremely powerful.
If you can hit with them every time you can win every time.  What's the fun in that.
Personally I don't need an ECM race, the fighter/PDS race is bad enough.

I also like the fact that you have to severely outguess your opponent to make them
work.  It's a challange.

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l