Re: Missile Balance [for Jon]

On Tue, 1 Apr 1997, Mikko Kurki-Suonio wrote:

> On Tue, 1 Apr 1997, Ground Zero Games wrote:
> 
> > about FT missiles before; those who use a large play area and move
at high
> > velocities find missiles next to useless, while those who move
slower in
> > smaller areas find them lethal. 
> 
> Big area is not major factor, since nothing outranges missiles. 

Yes, it is. Big area means higher speeds, and higher speeds means much 
higher chances to avoid missiles.

> Even if 
> your table's a mile wide, you can close till 50" with impunity before 
> unleashing the missiles -- usually closer. Big tables allow higher 
> velocities, but even they are limited -- it gets hard to shoot
anything 
> once your speed is higher than your weapon range.

Not in my experience. It means that each fire pass is shorter - or,
rather, it _may_ mean that. For light torpedo- or submunition-armed
ships,
speeds have to be pretty high - certainly higher than 24, anyway. 

Of course, I usually don't use speeds over 36 (for A-armed, low-thrust
capitals) - that's limited to playing on the floor; but you don't need
to
fly that fast to be able to run past the missiles (and missiles turn
very
slowly...). You need to fly at (at most) speed 25 for that, which is a 
normal speed for my heavy cruisers and lighter (ie, thrust 4) capitals.

Mikko, do you measure in cm or inches? My average speeds (and my
tactics) 
changed drastically when I started measuring in cm - and that included
my 
opinion of fighters, which are much more maneuvrable than fighters: they

suddendly weren't able to catch anything!

Later,

Oerjan Ohlson

"Life is like a sewer.
 What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
 -Hen3ry