Re: FT - Large scale fleet engagements

Reen-Shuler Adrian wrote:

>I'm new to the list and was wondering if anyone had found a good way
>to play large (10+ SD's per side) fleet battles.

>Is that 10+ SDs *and escorts* per side, or 10+ SDs on their own?
10+ SD's on their own.	I think we'll try with escorts now.
But, don't they just get picked off at range by Nova Cannons?

>10+ SDs without escorts isn't much more work than 10+ smaller ships (I
>usually field fleets of around 20 ships of varying sizes), but your
>comments about problems with SMs doesn't sound as if you have any
>escorts nearby.

>Anyway; I don't think 20-30 ships (of all sizes) per player is any
>problem. I wouldn't go above 40 ships per player though, and others
>would put the limit lower. The best way to shorten the gaming time for
>big battles is to have multiple players per side rather than only one.

Game time isn't really an issue, just having to count up all the damn
dice.

>A bigger problem was that SM's have dominated the game every time >we
>play (even when we have an integrated PD net: every SD has Area
>Defense fir con and 10 PDFs).

>PDSs. PDF is a file format, PDSs shoot down incoming missiles...

>This debate came up immediately after FB1 was published, but died down
>after a couple of months when the list members had learned how to cope
>with the SMs. There should be quite a few tips in the list archives
>(Jerry, what's the address?) from the summer and autumn of 1998.

Great, I'll take a look through them.

>Anyway:

>In one particularly egregious game 2 SD effectively crippled
>(i.e. 50-75% damage) more than 10 opposing SD's in a single turn.
>Does any one have effective tactics for defeating SM heavy SD's?

>Lessee... 10 SDs with 100 PDS between them and at a guess about 600
>hull boxes in all; call it 400 points to reach the damage levels you
>indicate... that's just over 50 SMRs on target assuming average rolls.
>(Given the number of dice involved, I'd be mildly surprised if the die
>rolls were very far from average.) IOW, that's some 200-220 (or
>300-330, if you used SMR-ER) Mass of single-shot weapons, so those two
>SDs must either have been very big or have had nothing except minimal
>hull, minimal engines and their missile payload.

Indeed.  We've been designing ships as "line of battle" ships, not as
multi-purpose.
We've rarely seen a ship receive fire for more than two turns and still
be
operational, so we tried a few designs with minimal armor, hull, and
SMR's
not SML's.  The ships die horribly, but have tremendous firepower.  Of
course they need protection from small ships, but we found a few beam
heavy
SD's generally takes care of that.

>Defence against SMs have two tiers:

>1) Don't let them lock on to your ships

>2) Shoot them down if they manage to lock on

>2) is obvious - lots of PDS systems, including those on nearby
>ADFC-equipped ships, and possibly some Class-1 batteries as well.

Yes, but the mass cost is tremendous and useless versus non-SM equipped
ships.

>1) can be done in two ways: either you don't end your movement within 6
>mu of the enemy SMs (or 3mu, or whatever, if you play Vector; there's a
>very strong reason why the SM rules in FB1 suggest that the SM target
>acquisition radius be reduced if you use the Vector movement rules), or
>you mix in a bunch of smaller ships between your capitals - ie, the
>Banzai Jammers Alan was talking about.

>Elaborating on 1a):

>In Vector, dodge your ships around as much as you can. Whatever you do,
>don't fly in nice predictable lines. Dodging as much as you can won't
>help that much, but every salvo you can evade is one less that's able
>to hurt you. Reducing the target acquisition radius makes it easier to
>dodge, but it still isn't very easy.

We only play vector.  we found that targeting any one ship was
problematic,
but hitting a group wasn't too difficult and isolated ships got mugged
real
fast.

>In Cinematic you need to fly fast enough to force your enemy to spread
>his salvoes out (and guarantee that some of them miss), or risk missing
>with *all* of them if he misjudged your maneuvers. For a thrust-2 ship,
>"fast enough" is speed 23 (which is "too fast" for my taste); for
>thrust-4 ships "fast enough" is IIRC speed 7. IOW, equip your ships
>with thrust-4 engines or better if you play Cinematic. If your opponent
>can't predict your maneuvers far too accurately, this type of dodging
>should cut the number of salvoes that manage to lock on by 30-50%.

>A completely different solution is to use weapons that out range salvo
>missiles, and play with floating edges (ie, effectively unlimited
>playing area) so you have space enough to retreat. Class-4 beam
>batteries work well for this; if you can make him chase your ships
>Class-3 batteries and even Pulse Torps work OK too. It results in a
>rather drawn-out and boring battle, but it is one the missile fleet
>have no chance of winning unless they're considerably faster than the
>long-range fleet.

We talked about this but decided that it was dull and pointless (why not
just build a big ship with a few class 6 batteries?)  More to the point,
the
out ranged side would realistically always disengage.  not much fun as a
game.

>Or should the SM point costs just be higher?

>No.

Maybe this is in the archives, but why do all weapon systems have the
same
cost?
They don't all seem equal.  Also, has anyone ever come up with a point
cost
for the special missiles from MT (i.e. the EMP and Needle missiles)?

>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