[kinda-FT] Getting Big (was: RE: [FT] SMLs, Type 3 & Tactics)

Rather than respond to a bunch of individual posts, I opted to lump 'em
together.  :)  (oh, God, being efficient on a monday - somebody shoot
me!)

>From: "John M. Atkinson" <john.m.atkinson@erols.com>
>
>DracSpy@aol.com wrote:
> 
>> 245,875 mass, Average Hull, FTL, Thrust 4, 32 PDA, 4 ADFC, 6 Fire
Con.12294
>> Crew Units.
>
>Why are we discussing a million-point starship?  What the F*** genre
are
>you playing?  Dave Webber's Mutineer's Moon/Armageddon Inheritance
>series?  In which case, what you do is turn on your FTL drives in a
>gravity well, cause a supernova, and blow up his entire fleet, IIRC.

Um, in order:

Why not? We've discussed a number of equally unseeming aspects of the
game
here. Not only FT, but DSII and SGII (though admittedly not as often).

Does it matter what genre he's playing in? I mean, really? Maybe he just
made
it up (it *is* allowed ;)  (a later posting indicates otherwise, but I
wasn't
making any assumptions as to a specific universe he was playing in; he
was
just using the rules to do an engagement - albeit a big-ass one!)

The rest I can't comment on; I haven't read Webber's series' noted up
there
(not sure if this is a good or bad thing, though). Only the Starfire
series.

>From: "John M. Atkinson" <john.m.atkinson@erols.com>
>
>John Crimmins wrote:
>
>> Why are we discussing a million point starship?  Because someone
gamed with
>> it.	That is what we do on this list, right?  Discuss games?  If you
asking
>> why one would play with such a ship, all I can ask in response is:
Why not?
>>  It's no more absurd than the Death Star, is it?  Just think of it as
an
>> Ogre in space.
>
>In order:
>That's what I asked.
>Not someone who's quite right in the head

John, I hope you're being sarcastic here, 'cause it sure didn't come
across that way the first few times I read through this.

>Well, yes.
>Yes.
>Because no opponent in his right mind would agree to a multi-million
>point game, 

Why not? Obviously at least one person did. And why not play this kind
of
game once in a while? Push the limits of the game system, see what
happens
(and speaking of pushing the of limits of game systems, where's Mikko
been?)

>because no one with a normal income has enough miniatures to
>put out a million points of normal ships, 

No one said they *had* to use miniatures...

>because the time spent marking
>off damage would a significant fraction of my lifetime, because it
would
>take a week to plot the movement of a million points worth of normal
>ships, 

If you've played any appreciable amount of SFB (eg, years worth), then
none
of this should even faze you.  ;-)

>and because you'd need a gymnasium to game in.  

That's a good thought...though you could easily change your scale to
something more accomodating! And as the forces close, adjust the scale
to fit accordingly. Voila', problem solved.

(hmmm...a friend of mine just bought a house...has a *big*, open
basement
right now...hey, Noam, let's lean on Karl about hosting a Lareg Game
over
at his place! :)

>I don't use the damn Death Star either.

Why not? Why not use the Death Star? Why limit yourself to 100 pt
fleets?
(for any humor-impaired: sarcasm mode high here :)

>And Ogres are pretty silly too--and die nicely in DSII.

I dunno, I like Ogres. Don't like 'em much in DSII, but in their own
world
they work fine.

>> As for the genre....  It's Science FICTION, John.  Infinite
possibilities.
>> That's why I like it so much.  Broaden your mind, man!  Expand your
>> horizons!  You'll have much more fun that way.
>
>There is SCIENCE Fiction, and *mumblequickly*science*mumble* FICTION. 
>This definitely is latter.

It totally depends on your scale of things, and what assumptions and
constraints you are making and/or imposing on your universe.

Although Star Trek is neither. They're science fantasy (emphasis on
'fantasy')
(and if any rabid ST fans out there want to argue the point, speak to me
off-
line and I'll tell you a story of a ST higher-up I saw at a con once who
came
out and denounced any importance to science in ST; I lost a lot of
respect for
ST after hearing his presentation)

>I'm not saying you can't, 

Your initial post came across in a *very* condescending manner, which
would
lead one to believe you were saying they couldn't.

>it is afterall a free country and you're
>welcome to whatever floats your boat.	But don't get me started on a
>discussion of tactics and then spring this on me.  

I'll admit to being pretty choked when I first read Stephen's post, esp
when
he verified the size of it all. But it led to some interesting thoughts
and
possibilties, and as we saw from Oerjan's(? (I forgot, you did do that
analysis, right Oerjan? or was it Brendan? Hells bells, I can't
remember!
brain...too...full...<gurk!>)) analysis, 3 Class-16 batts vs a like-mass
of
Class-6 batts is woefully lopsided (though *looking* at a Class-16 batt
could
be pretty sobering!). I hadn't sat down to calculate the upper end of
the
diminishing return law as applied to beam batts yet.

>I'd be in a less
>dumbfounded frame of mind if the subject head was "REALLY, REALLY BIG
>SHIPS" and we started out with the stats of this spacegoing planet.

John, m'boy, you need to be more adaptable, flexible, to the
ever-changing
FT-discussion enviroment!  :)

>From:	DracSpy@aol.com
>
>Most of the games that I play are small games (maybe 18 ships or so per
side)
>but every now and then I want to (and can find someone) try out
something BIG
>(like the mega gun carrying ship, or a super carrier) and game that,
these

18 ships per side is a small game to you guys?? Wow...I'm in the group
where <5-7 ships per side is a small game; 18 is a fairly substantial
game
(largest game I've been in has been 31:19 ships, and that was an email
game)

Ah, well, my $0.02 worth for the time being.  :-}   (man, in the time it
took
for me to just type this - an hour - I've been flooded with GZG mails!
Almost
like a swarm of FSE-launched SMLs...  ;-)

Mk