Re: [GZG] A New Screen System

[Eric Foley <stiltman@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
>From: Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@xxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Sep 16, 2007 9:30 AM
>To: gzg-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: [GZG] A New Screen System
>
>Stiltman wrote:

>>One way or another, I just don't like the whole PSB behind human screens 
>>in this game.  What self-respecting military mind designs a defensive 
>>system that completely overlooks pretty much all the most devastating 
>>weapons both your own and every other species has ever designed and then 
>>invests 5 or 10% of their warships' mass in it, which basically all comes 
>>out of the ship's weapons payload?  Neat, so you reduce the damage from 
>>one particular limited class of weapons by 20-30%, do absolutely nothing 
>>against all the others, and in the mean time your own firepower is reduced 
>>by 25% or so in return.  Awesome plan.
>
>Mass for mass and point for point, the most devastating weapons in the 
>current Full Thrust rules are the standard B2 batteries, standard fighters 
>(when not opposed by sufficient anti-fighter defences), and the Phalon 
>Plasma Bolts (likewise). Last I checked screens protected against all of 
>these weapons :-/ (For those who use the beta-test weapons, screens also 
>protect against Grasers, EMP beams and AMTs.)

Well, while it's true that I personally made significant use of all of these, B2s usually were a fallback if somebody actually lived long enough to get close.  The fighter defenses in our games were always strong enough that standard fighters literally never won a single game.  As in, zero.  They just didn't have enough striking power against ships that they were ever considered a stand-alone weapon, they died too fast.

B2s made very frequent appearances in our games, but they were always considered a fallback weapon to peck away at somebody if they got through the main weaponry.

Plasma bolts, I agree, they're almost too good, in a way, particularly if you use them together with other weapons (particularly fighters).

>The numerous screen-skipping weapons in Full Thrust fall in three categories:
>
>* Direct-fire single-shot weapons  (SMP, MKP) with short range and narrow 
>fire arcs. They pack a great punch if they get to fire at all, but they 
>also restrict the user to very predictable tactics and forces him into 
>prime B2 killing range.

Yeah, we didn't make much use of these, pretty much ever.

>* Direct-fire multi-shot weapons (K-guns, P-torps, Needle beams). Averaged 
>over range these weapons inflict at best 80% as much damage per weapon cost 
>against unscreened targets as similarly-ranged beam batteries do, and often 
>less. IOW, if your opponent uses these weapons to counter your screens, he 
>voluntarily gives up some 20-30% of his potential (ie., beam) firepower 
>against *all* your ships (including those escorts that are too small to 
>carry screens at all) in order to avoid having his beam firepower reduced 
>by 20-30% against *some* of your ships (ie. the ones that have screens)... 
>Awesome plan?

Yeah, but this is still enough that the screens themselves take enough mass away from weapons payload that the pulse torpedoes are still worthwhile.  Needle beams were another weapon that, in the right place, were very devastating at times.  I've seen whole games won by cloaked ships slipping behind an enemy and needling out their drives.

>* Placed-marker 'single-shot' weapons (SMs, HMs, torpedo fighters) that to 
>a greater or lesser extent have to predict the target's manoeuvres to hit 
>and pray that they aren't smothered by the targets' PDSs or equivalent. 
>Screens don't defend against these weapons, that's true - you'll have to 
>rely on manoeuvre, false targets (BJs) and point-defences for that... but 
>since this is an even narrower selection of weapons than the ones screens 
>protect against, missiles and torpedo fighters by themselves hardly make 
>screens useless :-/

Salvo missiles tend to be hit-or-miss, yes.  We almost never used heavy missiles.  But I'm frankly laughing at you on torpedo bombers.  Torpedo bombers were EASILY the most powerful striking weapon in our games, all-time, period.  They didn't work in stand-alone, they were always combined with something else.  Early on it was other fighters to screen against enemy fighters and to divert fighter defenses, and the torpedo bombers would destroy half or more of the opposing fleet by themselves and then reload on the carriers to destroy the other half.  Eventually anti-fighter phalanxes got prevalent enough as a result that I started using plasma bolts to discourage them, and it _might_ have gotten to a point that plasma bolts might have even become more popular.  But even at that, plasma bolts never convinced anybody to break formation because we knew that torpedo bombers (or even just standard fighters, if they were still alive) would tear the stragglers to ribbons for fun.

>>(It may shock you all to know that I almost never used screens in my ship 
>>designs for mostly these reasons...)

>That *is* a bit surprising, considering that those designs of yours that I 
>can find described on this list were said to carry level-2 screens... (IIRC 
>for protection against plasma bolts, which you and your opponent seemed to 
>be quite fond of at the time.) But if you say so <shrug>

I just pulled my old notebook of ship designs out of the heaps.  My favorite line of ships that was most powerful had 26 different ship designs that I kept.  Four of 'em had screens, all of them superships.  In more normal sized ship designs, I basically never considered screens to be worthwhile for the mass they took away from weapons payload.

E


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