Re: Damn the torpedoes

Mikko Kurki-Suonio writes:

@:) Very interesting analysis, but I was mainly concerned about
@:) missiles, which have a max terminal range of 3x18" == 54".

  Missiles indeed do terminate operations after 54".  The question is
whether they actually hit their target in the mean time.  I've heard a
lot of talk about missile boats and the like but given that typical
fleet speeds in our games are 15", it's not at all uncommon to see the
ships moving faster than the missiles.	This makes it extremely
difficult for them to hit.

  They do make an attractive crunching sound on those rare occaisions
when they do hit.  Oh, also we generally restrict FTL disengagement
enough to prevent ships from dropping out of FTL, launching and then
immediately retreating into FTL.  There was always at least a
three-turn waiting period between FTL uses for any given ship.	Later
we switched to the "FTL = go real fast" system which required ships to
decellerate to a certain speed before they could fire.	Then they
would have to accelerate again to get away.

  With the system as it is, a group of missile boats could indeed
appear and fire without being fired upon.  Zero risk is nice - but
note that in a campaign situation you'll have to pay (big) money for
those missiles and when they don't hit anything you've wasted their
real value - they allow you to force your opponent to manouver.  This
only matters if you are within weapons range of said opponent whilst
said manouvers are occurring.

-joachim