Re: needle beam thoughts)

Chad Taylor wrote: 
>Something else to keep in mind is that if your fleet is made up of many
>smaller craft an enemy fleet that begins losing firecons might have a
hard
>time of it.  If you include mostly capital (100 mass type) ships then
the
>odds are the enemy was going to fire all of any one single ships
firepower
>at those ships anyways, thus reducing the disadvantage of losing some
(but
>not all) of his firecons.  
>
>I would probably go for cruisers.  Put level two shields on it, about
>six needle beams and a high thrust.  I haven't been too impressed with
>escorts so far.  Has anyone else had good results with the smaller
ships?

I've had good luck with small ships by mounting them with sub-packs,
etc.
and letting them drop their load from behind a large enemy ship after a
quick maneuver.  It helps to use them in wolfpacks since some are
guaranteed
to be destroyed by passing to close to an enemy fleet.	This method
works
like the old WWII torpedo boats - go fast and hit hard in numbers.

Mike Miserendino