Re: Battlepod Swarm from Hell...

Date sent:  12-JUL-1996 08:46:19 

>You know, although the battle pod idea would work extremely well in a 
>game, what self respecting FT gamer would use them?  And what SANE FT 
>gamer would PLAY someone who was using them???  :)

>Adam

I would. I ran this through last night. OK so 100 ships is more than I
have. (Yes, even I have only got 97 escort sized ships 8-) ), so I
reduced the points down to 150 a side. Side A (The imperial navy) had
ten battlepods. Side b (NAC) had one standard medium cruiser. I ran
through
the battle several times and here is what happened.

The cruiser at thrust 4 found it hard to outmaneuver the pods BUT with
only a forward fire arc, and an effective range of only 6", the pods
were
having difficulty tracking the cruiser. The cruiser could 'pop' two
pods per turn with unnerving regularity within 24", but in order to do
enough damage the pods HAD to close to point blank (at range they would
simply scratch the paint work without causing crippling damage). The
end result was that the cruiser won every single time, either due to
killing all the pods, or by surviving after all the pods had fired.

Another example of good on paper but crap in practice?

+-------------------------------------+--------------------+
| Adam Delafield, I.T. Officer	      | Bolton Institute,  |
|				      | Eagle Tower,	   |
| E-mail : ad4@Bolton.ac.uk	      | College Way,	   |
| Phone  : +44 1204 528851 (ext 3163) | Bolton, UK.	   |
| Fax	 : +44 1204 399074	      | BL3 5AE.	   |
+-------------------------------------+--------------------+