Re: [GZG] Battlecruisers

["Richard Bell" <rlbell.nsuid@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 12/25/06, john tailby <John_Tailby@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> In FT the challanges in trying to play a running game is the weapon arcs.
>
> If you are closing then all your weapons that fire through the front arc can
> fire.
>
> I don't think there is an ship in the FT books that mount class 3 beams that
> fire 360 arcs so that you can play a running game.
>
> If you were trying to design ships along the lines of ww2 naval ships you
> would need 2 class 3 beams firing in 5 arcs centered around the front arc
> and 2 firing to the rear.
>
> The trouble is a ship designed to close with the enemy could then mass far
> more beams than you into the front arcs.
>
> Even in vector movement, the ship tring to maintain the range advantage has
> to spend more of its thrust to turn, thrust and then turn back to fire
> whereas a pursuing ship can spend all its power on thrust, so will close the
> range.


Not really, a ship with thrust 8 fighting a ship with thrust 6, in
vector, can rotate the main drive to the appropriate orientation,
execute a 6 point vector change, and spend the last point of thrust to
bring its single arc beams back onto the the target.  The thrust 6
ship is incapable of closing the range.  Unlike a wet naval vessel,
the ship need not point along its vector.  In cinematic, single arcs
can still be sufficient, but the fight takes up a larger volume and
more time.  You have to maneuver your vessel to make slashing attacks
at long range, from behind.  You may not get a shot in every turn, but
your opponent is unlikely to have that many class-3's firing into the
AP, A, and AS arcs, unless all of your ships are optimised to fight
that way.  With a larger thrust, you intercept the enemy further away
from his in-system target, so you have more time to deal with the
enemy, anyways(assumes some limits on when/where you can engage the
FTL drive).
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