Re: Space tactics

On Mon, 17 Aug 1998, Thomas Barclay wrote:

> Without sarcasm, I say to those who think a quick strike is hard or 
> impossible to stop - your own velocity is the weapon I use to kill 
> you. At the speed you'd be travelling, just as it gives the defending 
> ships at the planet little time to act, it gives your moving ships 
> scant time to react. Lets say you're moving 280" with thrust 8, I 
> just mine (using hard to detect mines) your path. You can't change it 
> that much because of how feeble your thrust is wrt your velocity 
> vector. So you barrell through my minefield. It could even just be 
> space garbage at that speed - it'd punch right through your hull. But 
> it wouldn't be, it'd be bomb pumped lasers or whatever mines are 
> these days. Your ships chance to dodge would be negigible since your 
> speed would exceed most projections of sensor ranges I've seen so 
> far, so you wouldn't even see the mines coming in time to dodge. I 
> don't have to 'intercept you' and catch up with you, I just have to 
> know where you are headed and mine the space around the planet. Then 
> your own velocity kills you. And if you slow down, then my pickets 
> gang up and attack you. 

I agree, this is a realistic possibility. But it has one serious
drawback -- IT'S NOT IN THE RULES. FT mines, especially, are notoriously
non-costeffective (and velocity plays NO part in mine damage, FYI).

I *DO* think the ships should have 
 - limited reaction matter
 - limited max speed to avoid damage from random space debris
   (tied to hull quality would be a nice touch)
 - a good sensor lock to fire *anything* (including missiles)

BUT THEY DON'T. I'm doing this to point out the logical conclusion
arising from that fact.

Show me a way, in vanilla (vector) FT, WITHOUT HOUSE RULES, to counter
a B'n'Z attack (from a freely chosen jump-in point, as per vanilla
rules again) against a known *immobile* target.

If you can't do it without a house rule, show me the SPECIFIC house
rule,
not just "...mumble no-one sane would do that mumble it's not honorable
mumble..."

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