SV: What makes a Capital ship Capital?

Michael wrote:

> I have a hard time sympathizing with people who can't
> fit escorts into their battleline.  A fleet without
> some escorts is dead meat versus a fleet designed to
> exploit that lack.

It should be, yes. In FTII, at least for smaller battles (up to a few
thousand points or so) this isn't necessarily true - it depends a bit on
board size (and thus the speeds involved).

> On the other hand, if Capital ships don't have a slight
> edge in fleet to fleet combat, why in world would they
> be built?

Currently they don't have a _slight_ edge. It is a rather big one IMO -
level 3 screens are _very_ powerful. The fact that they take their
treshold
checks later than smaller ships help a lot too.

> Obligatory silly ship design:
> 
> Marine Scout	cost 5-7
> Mass 1  (Only if odd massed ships are allowed)
> move 8
> damage 1 (everyone keeps telling me to round up for
>	    damage and down for systems, sounds fair)
> systems:
> Crew consists of 1 armored marine with an ejection
> system  (cost, 1 or 2?)

Included in the basic ship cost if you use the MT boarding rules.

> The Marine Scout has four important roles that it can
> serve:
> 1)  There is no cheaper scout.  If you want to quickly
> scan everybody in the opposing fleet, or to shadow
> their fleet reporting their position, these guys are
> great.

For this it is pretty OK in a campaign game. Note, however, that if
you're
using the FT/MT scanner rules it needs to close to 36 mu or less of the
enemy - at which range capitals, at least,  will be able to destroy it
pretty easily - so you need more than one of them. For shadowing an
identified fleet they're fine. It all depends on how you interpret the
scanning rules... but as the MT rules are written, these scout ships are
only able to sense the presence of the enemy (and possibly their general
class - but this is open for debate).

> 2)  Decoys.  With 180 point frigates around, having
> a few cheap decoys around will keep your Torpedo
> frigates around long enough to get some use out of
> their weapons.

This too depends on your scanner/combat information rules, of course.

> 3)  Boarding, 4 marine scouts = 1PDF.  Fleet tactics
> would be to disable an enemy ship's drive and then
> board.  A variant on this scheme would be to have a
> heavier Cloaking version which approaches a drive
> disabled ship under Cloak and then boards.

<g> So to have a chance against my Mass 80 SD you'll need at least some
60
Marine Scouts, preferrably something more like 100, no? Ah well, that's
only 3-500 points anyway... 

> 4)  The ship can attempt to ram.  It is always on its
> last threshold check and would do 1d6 damage if it
> hits, which is competitive with missile costs. 

<g> Referring to "the spirit of the rules" (in this case, FT p.22):
"...but
such suicide attacks should be rarely attempted..." Of course, if you're
playing something like the Arachnids in Weber's "In Death Ground",
ramming
is more or less compulsory!

> It
> is possible to include an ejection system which gets
> the pilot clear before final maneuvers.  Of course,
> if the ship misses its ram attempt the pilot has to
> signal his ship to rendevous with him, which takes
> 1d6 turns or so...

If the ship AI is powerful enough to do this, you don't need a pilot at
all. If it isn't, you only get one chance to ram. This is, of course,
entirely subject to what background (if any) you're using.

> On this general subject:
> Remember that pirate ship design someone came up with
> a while ago, a ship with its own Marine Barracks, a
> good fleet design would be a whole bunch of missile
> boats with needle missiles to take out drives, and
> a bunch of cloaked ships completely filled with
> marines.
> 
> Once the drives are knocked out it is a trivial
> matter for your cloaked ships to match courses and
> then decloak right behind the afflicted ship. Depending
> on the initiative roll boarding could be accomplished
> before anyone gets a chance to fire!

The MT boarding rules don't define exactly when boarding battles are
resolved. If you do it in initiative order, however,
_each_single_marine_
boards individually - and at the odds 0.25 to 80, I'm not prepared to
bet
on his chances. I suggest executing all boarding attempts after
shooting,
and combining all boardings of a single ship into one combat.

A troop carrier can get an impressive 3.125 boarding factors per Mass -
but
this doesn't account for the boarding pods needed, so drop it to 2
factors
or so per Mass of troop quarters for a dedicated boarding design.

Regards,

Oerjan Ohlson

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