Re: Anyone use FB ships?

First of all: I don't use FB ships very much (my fleets are almost
entirely non-GZG, and I had doctrines for at least four of the seven
firmly in place long before the FB came out) but my fleet doctrines have
many similarities to the GZG great powers. I'm not entirely without
experience with the FB designs either <g>

Second, remember that the FB designs are *examples* only. Many of the
ship classes have at least one variant described in text only, and these
variants are usually called "...the most common variant ..." indicating
that there are others as well. There are *at least* 3 variants
(including
the one on the SSD) of the NAC Valley Forge SDN, for example. In
addition, the FB doesn't cover all the ship classes used by the major
navies - the NAC Tallahachie DDs and Avalon BDNs, NSL Bayern BCs and
Hapsburg SDNs and several others are only mentioned in the comments, and
there are many other classes that aren't even mentioned. This means that
even if you use the GZG models in the Tuffleyverse setting, there's
still
a lot of room for your own designs - but I'd try to stay "in character"
if I made up new designs for the GZG main powers to make them meld into
the doctrine etc.

To expand a bit on Doug's post:

> Inspite of the nasty things said about them in the book, the ESU are a

> very balanced and strong fleet. I got into them somewhat by accident 
> (most of my purchases have been in close out bins, and ESU always 
>  had a strong presense there.) I was stupid with them against an FSE 
> missle-heavy fleet, but otherwise 'dey been bery bery good to me'.

Some people have said (not here and now,  though) that the ESU lack
anti-missile ships. That's not true - it's just that their anti-missile
CE variant is only described in the text and doesn't have an SSD of its
own... but the Beijing/B(E) (1 ADFC, 6 PDS, 2 Class-2, 2 Class-1) is IMO
the best area defence design in the entire Fleet Book.
 
I'm a bit biased against the ESU - too slow for my taste (...but then
virtually all FB ships are, including the FSE...) and virtually no
shield-skipping weapons, but if you don't mind Thrust-4 they're OK.

> FSE are very fast, and when very lucky with SML's, hard hitting.  They
> can't soak up the damage others can, and if they aren't very skillful
with
> missles, in a load of hurt.

Yep. And if someone manages to hit *them* with SMs rather than being hit
*by* them, they die quickly - unless you design an area defence ship for
them yourself.

> NAC could well be the most balanced, but have had several cases of bad
> luck here. ('Heh, heh, I'll go down the center cuz I KNOW he's spread 
> those SM's in a wide arc in front of me.')

They're the best all-rounders, IMO - and pretty good at killing ESU
ships, with all those Pulse Torps. (When they hit, that is :-) How is
the
Showdown going?)
 
> NSL haven't had as much a try-out here. They are 'dead hard', but I 
> wonder if they have enough 360 degree firepower to make up for their 
> relatively slow/non-nimble ships. 

Depends entirely on what movement system you use. If you're using the
Vector movement, there's no real problem keeping the enemy in one of
your
front arcs (where most NSL weapons are pointing), but if you use the
Cinematic rules they're not that good. Their anti-missile capabilities
are decent in spite of their low maneuvrability IF you don't mind using
those scouts for Banzai jamming :-/

> I know this mirrors most of the comments others have made, but I 
> wanted to say again that FB designs are getting work outs, and that I 
> assume most of the home designs have occurred AFTER playing with >
book
designs.

Or by people who don't use GZG models or the GZG big powers - who,
judging from the recent discussion on minor powers in the Tuffleyverse,
make up a decent part of this list :-)

Best wishes,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

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