Re: FT AAR - Operation Furious Riposte - 20,000 pt battle

Dean wrote:

>>The ones linkes from Indy's page; RG masses 2, 3 and 5 for classes 1,
>>2 and 3 respectively. Good balance between all RGs of classes 2 and
>>higher; the RG1 is 2-arc to compensate for its lower damage/Mass
>>ratio.
>>
>>However, at a cost of 4*Mass they're a bit too cheap compared to
Pulse
>>torps in particular (P-torps have the same to-hit numbers and similar
>>damage effects on armour and screens, but have a considerably lower
>>damage/Mass ratio); 5*Mass should be OK.
> 
>When we originally debated these RailGun rules, we used the Pulse Torp
>as a base and according to my figures, per cost, the Pulse Torp still
has >a slight edge when the RGs cost 4xMass. Here is what I have for an
>unarmoured target.
> 
>Dmg/Cost	Mass	Cost	0-6	[other columns
>RG1		2	8	0.139	snipped since they
>RG2		3	12	0.208	present the same
>RG3		5	20	0.208	data in slightly
>RG4		7	28	0.218	different clothes]
>Pulse Torp	4	12	0.243	

On a damage/cost comparision for the weapons alone, this is correct. 

When you add in the cost of the hull and engines to carry those weapons
as well, it no longer is. The pulse torp loses ground - it balances for
human
ships which use 50% of their TFM for hulls and engines (which
corresponds to KV ships using 40% of their hulls for same), but is
worse than the RGs on ships using more Mass than this for hulls and
engines. 

None of the KV example designs on the Homestead page use that little of
their Mass for engines and hulls; even the capitals use 50% (and since
they're KV, this corresponds to human ships using 60%).

This is why I prefer the damage/Mass ratio for quick weapon
comparisions
rather than damage/weapon cost - the latter obscures the wider impact
the
Mass of the weapon has on a ship's cost when it accounts for the impact
the Mass has on the weapon itself, and since the wider impact is, well,
wider, the end result is often a bit misleading..

The KV armour would be fairly priced at 5xMass if it only protected
against
beams - that's how much invulnerability to threshold checks would be
worth to screens. However, that'd make its ability to reduce damage
from virtually all weapons (EMP missiles and Needle beams are the only
current exceptions) completely free, and such a powerful ability can't
be free without damaging the game balance.

Finally, the KV hulls... looking at the KV designs linked to from the
rules
page (no, I still don't have the URL handy :-( ), I can build ships
with the
same number of hull boxes, the same engines, and the same Mass used for
systems (give or take 1 Mass) using the standard, "human-style" hull
strengths.

The big KV discussion broke out just when I was moving house, so I
didn't
manage to keep up with it :-( Otherwise I'd have brought these points
up for
discussion then instead of now :-/

>On a side note, I have revised some of the Fleet Book Reserves
>designs posted on Star Ranger's page after feedback from the list 
>and Oerjan, 

I'm part of the list too, but a rather vocal part of it :-)

>and I finally finished updating all of the ship status displays, 
>now I just have to change the web pages.  So maybe tonight I will 
>get the NAC designs up and revise all of the rest, I'll let you after
it is
>done.

Hooray! :-)

Truth to tell I didn't have much constructive feedback on Dean's NAC
reinforcements (not nearly as much as on the ESU ones, anyway <g>).
They're very good examples of the FB1 NAC design doctrine... it's just
that
that doctrine includes what I think of as using too small ships built
to
tackle too many tasks (the Furious-class is a prime example of this,
but
there are several others), with the result that few of their ships do
any
single task really well. My standard reaction to Dean's NAC designs was
basically "<argh> Yes, that's the way the NAC would have built it...
poor
crews :-(" <G>

Dean has done an excellent job of capturing the design doctrines of the
four major powers. If you haven't looked at his FB Reinforcements, do
it ASAP.

> http://www.homestead.com/star_ranger/index.html

Later,

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