RE: Capital Ships in Campeign Games

How about accounting for the possibility that a ship may not
be fully functional in time for a battle? Maybe they've run
out of hydrospanners to fix the dodgy hyperdrive, or the ship's
been overrun with moties. Or, quite simply, that ship was
needed elsewhere for a more important engagement.

If there's a 1 in 3 (or 1 in 6, or 5 in 6 (!)) chance of each
ship you've planned to send to the battle won't be there,
then its a large investment risking everything in a big ship
which might not make it.

This chance could be modified by ship class, or possibly
how 'optimal' the ship is. A batteries might be better than
everything else, but they're finicky, and need overhauling
more often than anything else. A ship with lots of A batts
has greater chance of being in for its MOT. You could also
(or alternatively) increase the chance of the more powerful
weapons being taken out in threshold checks (maybe +1 to
the die roll for A bats and pulse torps).

Another idea: Where ships come out of FTL is predictable,
and small ships come out first. This gives a balanced
fleet with lots of escorts and cruisers chance to get into
position _behind_ where the other guys fleet of capital
ships is coming out, with missiles, mines and what not
else already deployed and ready to hit him where it hurts
before he's even aware that battle has been joined.

Actually, I like this idea a _lot_ better than the first
one, since it's not prone to a few bad die rolls crippling
your entire fleet before the battle.

-- 
Be seeing you,					     ARM not Intel.
Sam.					       Acorn not Microsoft.