Re: Boarding actions

On Thu, 9 Dec 1999 kaladorn@fox.nstn.ca wrote *but did not clearly
denote*, damn his worthless canuck hide :) :

> ** I just want to make one comment to what Oerjan wrote:
> 
> 1. 100,000kg = 1 BF.... ouch. Even awake your marines must be wearing
> unobtainium knickers. 1 Mass for a BF... how many guys do you imagine
> this is? Under the worst rules I've seen, this would be 5 marines
> awake all the time. Under the most liberal (and probably a little more
> to the point), I'd say it was 25 marines awake all the time.

here's a recap.

FT2.1 says: a mass dedicated to carrying troops gets you 50 CS, where 4
CS
is a fresh soldier and 1 CS is a frozen soldier; that is, 1 mass of
troops
is 12 live men (plus a bonus man when you buy 4 mass - offer must end
soon!). a mass of general-purpose ship gets you 4 CS towards marines, ie
1
mass of ships is 1 live man. this gives you organic marine complements
on
the order of 100 for hefty ships.

FT2.5 says: 20 mass of ship gets you 1 crew factor. 1 crew factor is
4-10
men, so at the outside, you get half a man per mass.

this is clearly incompatible: a mass 100 ship would get 100 marines and
50
crew. this does not compute. this is whence came various huuge debates
on
how to modify the FT2.1 rules for FT2.5, most of which passed me by. a
pointer to a webpage or into the archives would be ideal at this point.

> 2. Sadly, in that same vein, crew units are what - 4 to ten guys? So
> you can't justify a huge defence force on the FT ship. So a dedicated
> Marine assault force is nasty nasty nasty! But it won't get used a
> lot - probably get potted on a threshold before it can do its job....

bear in mind that the assault force also has to provide transport;
organic
marines (grown with only natural fertiliser) can use the ship's
shuttles,
but a larger force has to bring its own rides.

> Fortunately, it should be hard to board. When it does happen, if the
> boarders are professional marines in PA with IPGs, Lasers, and various
> aides (been discussing these with Tom Anderson lately), the defenders
> (if they don't have Marines) are in a world of trouble. Attackers have
> firepower, armour, and nasty dispositions on their side. The defenders
> have home field advantage, but poorer troops and kit (as a rule,
> unless it is defending Marines).

i think most ships (bar tinies) will have at least some marines. also,
given the size of FT2.5 crews and boarding parties, random effects are
going to show up more than in larger actions, so the home team may be in
with a chance.

tom