Re: Thoughts on FB .....was Re: Bogey Classes FB

At 17:15 23/05/98 +0100, you wrote:
>
>Yanks? Yanks?!? YANKS?!?! I think you'll find that 'pom' is a better
>description... :)
>

	Ah I thought all you blokes would have got it by now.

>As long as they sale linearly with mass (says he of the big ship=fast
>school of thinking)...

	Close but not quite. Usually the mass is double plus 10% but
with the FSE
ships you're looking double plus 25% once you get into Dreadnought size.

>I did manage to browse the FB in my game shop today, and a question
>that did come to mind was whether armour (spelt the British way, please
>note) was balanced in relation to shields. From my quick reading,
>two levels of shields costs 10% of ship mass, and halves damage from
>beam weapons. A mass 100 ship with 30 damage points is effectively
>getting +30 DPs.

	Screens still work the same way but you cant have more than 2
and must use
at least 3 Mass to mount them (or 5% whichever is greater). Remember
that
6's now allow you to reroll (you apply the damage and then see what else
happens). With 2 screens you will cut down the amount of incoming damage
by
a 3rd but you still have to take threshold checks as normal.

>10% of armour on  the same ship only gives you +10 DPs. Shields would
>seem to be 3x as effective. Now I know shields don't protect against
>everything (I presume armour does), but unless I've overlooked
>something, my gut reaction is that armour isn't good enough.

	2 screens will soak up 1/3 of incoming hits for the same mass as
10 armour
boxes. But those ten armour boxes means that you opponent has to do an
extra 10 damage to your ship before it needs to make even its first
threshold check (assuming no rereolls which are always applied to the
hull
directly). That means that your ship will stay operational longer than
if
it had no armour. You now have the choice of one the other or both. I'd
prefer both.

>I couldn't see any real difference between 'hull' and 'armour'. Both
>take one mass and give one damage point. The only difference is that
>use of armour delays threshold rolls.

	You get roughly the same number of boxes of armour and hull for
each Mass
used on them. The real advatage with armour is that it all goes into 1
row
which your opponent has to get through before he can do any damage to
your
ship and that row of armour can be lost without needing to take a
threshold
check. See what I said about escorts. They have the same number of hull
boxes as before but now have to have them in 4 rows. Destroyers will
survive battles just the same but their systems won't as they will have
to
take a lot more threshold checks.

>Anyway, thanks for the info. I'll be able to give things a more
>careful reading (and a few games) once I actually get a copy.
>
>-- 
>Be seeing you,       http://www.bifrost.demon.co.uk/Gaming/Gaming.html
>Sam.		      ----------------------- Roleplaying and Wargaming
>

	Have fun. Now all I have to do is get my regular crowd to all by
a copy
from Nic at SAGA next week and see how the whole thing actually plays.

	Tony.
	twilko@ozemail.com.au