Long range weaponry

Long range combat ability is a classic superiority
tactic in the space combat literary genre.  In
terrestrial naval warfare as well there has been a
quest for a ship which could outrange and thus
outfight her opponents.

Only 4 weapon systems in Full Thrust can affect
targets at greater than 36".  Nova Cannon, AA Beams,
Fighters and Missiles.

Being limited to Capital ships, a ship centered around
Nova Cannon and AA Beams will have a hard time
maintaining their range advantage.  AA Beams are
further limited by how little damage they do against
shielded targets.

Consider, an AA Beam firing 36 times against level 3
shields will do ~12 points at the range it has the
most advantage.  As a ratio of total damage done
by a weapon system compared to the mass it takes up,
this is pretty dismal.	And at closer range, the more
frequent burnout means the AA beam will have a lower
total potential damage, even if it gets there quicker.
AA Beams are best used to kill scouts before they can
gather information, not as a broadside weapon vs other
Capital Ships.

The Nova Cannon is not going to win battles with its
range alone because:
1)  You can't keep the range open when firing a
forward arc weapon
2)  Targets at its ultimate range can easily dodge,
(except for fixed fortifications and mine fields.  There
is no better weapon for taking on something which can't
move!)
3)  It isn't very accurate.  Face it, by the time you
can line up a shot, everybody is going to be moving
at way greater than 3x Thrust, which means they can
dodge the area of effect quite easily.
The Nova Cannon is great for surprise, or to finish
off a ship with low thrust, or when employed en mass,
but it isn't great for a classic range duel.

Now to missiles:
People have very different opinions about how effective
missiles can be.  I imagine the biggest criterion for
how effective they are is whether you are using
Vector Thrust rules or not.  Given enough time to
accelerate, even a Thrust 2 ship can dodge 1/3 of the
missiles targetting them.  I suspect the effectiveness
of *DAF and C Beams versus missiles is based on the
assumption that only about a third of the missiles
launched ever get a lock on.  Otherwise, how to
justify that the defense likely to stop 1 missile
masses 3 times as much as the missile?

Under Vector Thrust, a 2 Thrust ship is dead meat if it
is anywhere within 50" or so.  Under Full Thrust and
8 Thrust ship moving at 30" can dodge completely out
of the range of a missile.  Under Vector Thrust, if
the terminus of movement of the ship without maneuvering
is in reach of the missile, the entire dodge field of
that ship is likely to be within reach of that missile.

Some people have rules for faster, longer endurance
missiles.  Let me point out that there is a great
difference between hitting extreme scanner range in
three turns and hitting it in two.  Let me also point
out that if the sneaky missile launcher chooses to,
he can have those fast missiles move only 18", and
then totally surprise an enemy who was accelerating so
that the missiles would overshoot on their third turn.
The possibility of "Over the Horizon" shots, or firing
from beyond scanner range of the target could become
a legitemate fleet tactic.

Under some movements systems, fighters can also be used
for "Over the Horizon" shots.  Under most of these
systems they are a lot better at it than missiles,
having superior maneuverability and more endurance.
If you allow fighters to act as Thrust 12 ships, may
I suggest that when they do so they write orders
during the ship phase?	Only if they have a speed of
12 (or 18) or less should they be able to wait until
all ships have moved to move.

Unlike missiles, fighter with Thrust 18 or Thrust 12
will eventually find their targets.  The beauty of
it is that except for Area Effect weapons, the fighters
will be able to target anyone who can target them.
Ships can out turn missiles but they can't outturn
fighters.

Using the Fighter Thrust rules, all that matters is
if there is enough destructive power in your fighter
squadrons to kill more than their Carrier's weight
before they run out of endurance.

Versus Level-3 Shields, and 3 *DAF, 18 Mass of
Attack fighters will do:
16*1/3 14*1/3 + 12*1/3	Assume we lose a squadron
attack somewhere due to morale and fudge the numbers
downward.  Somewhere under 14 points.  Obviously
attack fighters alone can't do "Over the Horizon"
tactics versus Dreadnoughts.

Versus 3 *PADF 18 Mass of Torpedo Fighters will
do 16*2/3*3.5 or 37 1/3 damage, or just about
double the Carriers damage taking capacity.

If you are trying to pull a Taranto or Pearl Harbor,
you can do it under Fighter Vector Thrust rules.

A Battle of Midway is more likely as the defender of
a system is likely to have a sensor network to give
early warning and location information to a stealthed
Carrier group, while an enemy attack Carrier group
coming out of FTL and then using high Thrust is
comparatively UNstealthy.

What kind of tactics would help the actual attack
work better?

One might have the first wave be Fast Heavy
Interceptors who dogfight any enemy fighters.
Having some Scouting Fighter along who make sure
you don't waste 18 torpedos on a Capital Ship Weasel
might be a good idea as well.  This implies a partial
defense:
Have Area ECM around your Capital Ships, with a
network of scouts outside the ECM range.

Have a mixture of Attack and Torpedo fighters
following up.  Attack fighters go after Cruiser
and smaller, Torpedo fighters go after Capital
ships.	Not only do Torpedo fighters do more
damage overall than Attack fighters vs Shielded
targets, they spend less time being targeted by
*DAF systems.

Now, after building up the effectiveness of the
Torpedo fighter as the ultimate weapon, I'd like
to point out that for the same mass you get the
Ultimate Defense, a Heavy Interceptor Squadron.
It is more effective than 2 ADAF and may keep the
enemy squadron from even attempting to attack.	If
you can fly Interceptor squadrons in close formation
with your heavies no matter what your velocity, you
are pretty much immunized from the Over the Horizon
fighter tactic.

Now, it is oversimplifying to say that a Carrier
can kill twice its tonnage from ridiculous range.
For one thing, there is the expense of protecting
the Carrier, and the expense of scouting out the
enemy fleet.  These scout forces could easily double
the cost of the strike force.  An Over the Horizon
Carrier strike probably couldn't reliably kill an
equal point opponent for various reasons:

A lot of torpedos will be wasted.  In order to
avoid excessive PDAF casualties, several torpedo
groups will attack a single Capital ship.  I figure
if PDAF can target the fighters, the fighters have
already committed an endurance point.  So if two
torpedo groups turn a Battlecruiser into vapor, the
other two torpedo groups still use up their torpedos.
And sometimes a Capital ship decoy will receive 30+
points of damage by mistake.  Even so, it can be
cheaper to rearm the torpedo fighters than for the
opponent to buy another decoy.

What you need is decoys which explode and do damage
to everything within 6"!

My point, and I do have one, is that seemingly minor
changes in the rules and scenerios will have great
effects on the effectiveness of certain weapons mixes.

WIth Vector Thrust for all ships and fighters, as well
as FTL limits >200" from planets, I'd expect to see
Over the Horizon fighter attacks be a major concern
for fleet designers.  Similarly, with boosted
endurance for missiles I'd expect to see them even
more as fire-and-run-away weapons.

This allows a new type of scenario.  Instead of
dealing with the Grand Meeting engagement you have
the scout mission.  I have 200 points in scouts,
you have 2000 worth of Capital ships with 800 points
in screen.  I get total victory if get scanner readings
on at least 1000 points of ships and stay within
scanner range of them for the 5 turns it takes the
fighter waves to arrive.

Michael Sandy
Any Full Thrusters in the Portland area?