Re: Needle Beams

On Wed, 4 Dec 1996 hal@buffnet.net wrote:

> Hello List members,
>   Have a minor question for you...
> 
>   Suppose you have a ship with nothing but needle beams.  Further
suppose
> that you concentrate it's fire on a battle ship with 3 fire controls. 
Now,
> further suppose that you get lucky, and you knock out all three
firecontrol
> systems.  Does that mean that the ship's effectiveness just went out
the
> door (the capital ship I mean)?  So, a fleet armed with multiple
needle
> beams can be a major hassle???

Yes it can be.	Its usually performed at least once as a swarm tactic, a

horder of ships armed soley with a needle beam and thrust 8.  The proper

way to defend against this is to spread out your fleet assets, use 2 
cruisers instead of 1 capital ship or add more fire controls.  Needles 
vs. A bats is a loser for the needles except in rare cases where the 
needles get lucky and achieve greater than 1/3 hits.  The added range of

A bats usually give them 1 free shot before coming under fire.	Against 
small ships a few good hits is all that is required to force a threshold

or even destroy them.  From a statistical point of view, pulse torpedoes
are 
more dependable to do damage although higher risk since you have to get 
in closer to have a good chance of doing damage. Another extreme tactic 
is mini ships loaded to the gills with scatter guns, but once again, you

have to get close enough to be effective.  Like any other strategy 
taken to extremes it can be tough to defend against, but not impossible.

--Binhan