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

Samuel Penn wrote:

> > > 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.
> > 
> > You forget a few things:
> > 
> > First, if you use the re-roll option (which is what at least I did
the
> > playtesting with), level 2 screens are only going to stop 42% of the
> > incoming fire (cutting your "bonus" damage points from 30 to 21 in
one
> > fell swoop).
> 
> Like I said, I've only browsed the FB briefly, so I'm not aware
> of _all_ the changes which have been made. I presume you mean
> 6's roll up.

Yes. Natural rolls of '6' allow an extra damage die to be rolled, for
certain weapons (beams in particular). This extra die ignores both
screens and armour, so it is quite important against heavily protected
units.

> > Second, the chance that both your screen generators will survive
through
> > all three treshold checks without going down at one point or another
is
> > less than 8%, which reduces your "bonus" damage even further.
> 
> I talked about this point in another message, so I won't repeat
> it here except to say that if you've reached a threshold with
> armour, then all your armour is definitely gone. If you reach it
> with shields, there's a good chance your shields will survive
> until the next threshold. Also, shields go some way to delaying
> threshold rolls as well.

Oh, certainly. They just aren't nearly as far ahead of the armour as you
indicated - a realistic estimate is that they give about 1.5x more
"bonus" DP than the armour would rather than the 3x you thought
initially, if you're fighting a beam-heavy force. 
In your example (the NSL Maximilian-class battlecruiser, although I
don't
think you were aware of that), level-2 screens only give about 5 extra
DP
before the first treshold check if you use the re-roll rule, whereas the
armour give the full 10 points. If you don't use the re-roll option, the
screens give 7 extra DPs just like you wrote.

> Also remember that
> DCPs can bring shields back online. Presumably armour can't be
repaired.

No, neither armour nor hull boxes can be repaired during a game. DCPs
have been improved somewhat too, and if you don't take damage too fast
they might be able to patch the failed systems up. DCPs are lost in
proportion to your hull damage, though	(which means that some of them
will be lost before the first treshold check for large units!).

[snip]
 
> I'd noticed PTs have had their range extended now. They always were
> the weapon of choice v screened ships.

That's the least of the PT changes! They also have had their basic Mass
reduced to 4, and are allowed up to a 180 arc of fire (though extra arcs
cost extra Mass, just like for the beams).

> But yes, I was aware I was
> only taking beam weapons into account, and that other methods of
> mass destruction are much less effective against armour than they
> are against screens.

Yes. Note that the NSL ships seem to be very much designed as anti-FSE
units - the FSE depend very heavily on SML (which ignore screens), so
the
NSL ships have heavy point defence suits and strong armour and/or strong
hulls.

> You've obviously played around with the new rules a lot more than me,

Yes... I was one of the FB playtesters (and the primary FB/FTIII
number-cruncher, too <g>).

Later,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@nacka.mail.telia.com

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