Re: SMLs/The GZG Digest V1 #608

Roger Books wrote:

> You obviously aren't playing campaign.  

Not in FT. Only in Starfire - including mixed-tech campaigns using both
 Akelda Dawn technology (many non-FTL ships carried by FTL tugs)
against standard Starfire tech (all ships FTL capable).

> You have to expect to lose all
> your defense drones/banzai jammers every engagement.	Any you get 
> away with is just a bonus.

In a campaign, how do you resupply your forward forces with new non-FTL
drones after each engagement? By dedicated tugs (eg the normal supply
ships, since using your already-existing ones will inevitably cause you
logistic problems whenever you need those tugs to carry out normal tug
duties), or by withdrawing all of your capital ships to a shipyard to
pick up new drones whenever they've been shot away?

The first option only forces you to pay twice for the FTL tug capacity
(plus any maintenance on those ships), which might be acceptable. The
second puts a big crimp in your ability to sustain an offensive - or,
indeed, to defend any place which lacks drone-building capacity of its
own. Is there a third option that I've missed?

The FTL drones cost a bit more apiece than the non-FTL ones, but they
do reduce your logistic worries quite drastically.

> 6 mass X 0.2 is 1.2 extra mass on the tower.	I didn't see any 
> dispensation for towing that said it doesn't get the rounding
advantage.

True. Unless, of course, you've optimized your ships to have masses
ending in -4 (24, 34, etc) - that Mass rating normally gives you the
biggest rounding benefits. The tug drive Mass is added to the standard
FTL drive Mass before rounding, so that extra .2 would push the FTL
size above the rounding limit :-/

> You know what I would dearly love to see, even more than FB2 or 
> anything else?  An official campaign game. It doesn't need to be
terribly
> complicated.	It does need to have costs for expendable ammo and
> production rules.   Everyone here seems to work on different 
> assumptions depending on what campaign system (or lack of one) they >
are using.

Of course they do. Unlike Starfire (just to pick a completely arbitrary
campaign system out of thin air <G>), FT isn't tied to one single
background for its PSB. That makes it bloody difficult to come up with
"realistic" campaign rules - eg, campaign for Star Wars probably
wouldn't work very well in the B5 universe, nor would a Motie-universe
campaign system work well in an SAAB setting.

> I'll agree, if every game is a one off then you are better off with
FTL
> capable banzai jammers.

In a one-off game, the FTL-capable jammers are probably less efficient
than they are in a campaign since that's the only time you don't have
to worry about getting more non-FTL jammers forward to the front :-/

> If I were doing it my high speed communications ships
> would never have contact with the enemy.

No? Then, unless it is heavily escorted, my ships will most likely be
able to chase it away, suddenly leaving parts of your force cut off :-/

>  If you are in a campaign
> and you have FTL comms then my jammers are better.

Except for the logistics problems involved :-/

>  What would be nice
> would be a rules mod that fixes the problem having jammers go away.
> I play FSE based fleets, jammers hurt me much worse than they help >
me.
 
Of course they do - they're an anti-SM gimmick, after all. It's just
that they can be overcome by changing your tactics.

> Oh, and for the record I still see SM's primary reason d'etre (my 
> french is rather atrophied) as a way to keep my fighters alive.

<chuckle> Which is of course a fair way to use them. IOW, you have
developed new tactics to deal with the jammer problem <g>

Regards,

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