Re: Full Thrust 3 rules

Michael wrote:

[snip]
>
>A friend of mine also really hates how effective 1 structure point
>ships can be.	In campaign games that is basically all he builds.
>He says that until some mechanic comes into play which reduces
>their effectiveness, why do any differently?
>
>The problem isn't just not having enough firecons to hit all the
>swarmers, part of the problem is how much wasted damage you will
>have versus the swarming ships.  If the average damage one
>does to a swarm ship is 3 points, that is equivalent to fighting
>a fleet of larger ships which only take 1/3 the damage.
>
>In campaigns, swarms dominate until the advent of effective area
>effect weaponry.  Once you have enough Wave Guns and Nova Cannon
>to cover the maneuver envelope of the enemy swarm you can kill
>them before they close.  A fleet of 10 Nova Gun ships spaced
>4" apart covers 40" of front at 48", or well out of range of
>the swarm.  Of course, such a fleet will cost 2500 points or
>so and is really only cost effective versus swarms which are
>substantially bigger than 2500 points...
>
>When you were considering fleets which were limited to beam
>weapons the larger ship classes at least had the advantage
>of having 3 shields, reducing the damage a ship would take
>by 75%.  Of course, between the added cost of shields, the
>mass lost for weapons, and the fact that larger ships
>maneuvered like drunk cows reduced this advantage considerably.
>
>At any rate, after brainstorming a bit we came up with some
>mechanics which would reduce the dominance of the swarm a bit.
>1)  All ships now require maintenance each production turn or so.
>For Escorts the maintenance is 5 points, Cruisers 10, Capitals
>15, etc...  Or in FT3, for mass 1-4, um, 3 points, 5-16 6 points,
>17-64 9 points etc...

An interesting suggestion, but this re-introduces artificial
break-points......

>2)  All ship classes now have to pay for all their formerly free
>firecons.  Paying 23 points for a Submunition Scout versus paying
>13 may be a steep enough jump to make them less cost effective.

Under the FB rules, all ships now pay for their Firecons anyway (and
they
take up Mass).

>3)  Allow Salvo Missiles and Fighter groups to spread their shots
>against all ships in range, allowing the defending ships to
>use their point defense of course.

Hmmm... split salvoes - divide missiles equally between all ships within
range? Possibilities here, but also complications.

>4)  Don't use simultaneous fire.  When alternating fire by
>individual ships the bigger ships will kill a number of swarmers
>before the swarmers get a chance to fire.  Alternately, in FT3
>have ships fire in the order of the Electronics Suites.  All
>ships with level 2 Electronics fire before ships with level 1
>Electronics who fire before the cheapskates with level 0
>Electronics.  Unfortunately, that system would reveal what level
>of Electronics particular ships have... :)

The electronics idea is useful, but "official" FT (1, 2, 2.5 (FB), 3,
whatever) has ALWAYS used alternating fire only. Anyone who uses
simultaneous is using house rules.

Jon (GZG)
>
>Michael Sandy