Re: FT - Large scale fleet engagements

The Beast wrote in reply to Alan:

>>***
>>Try keeping your speed up. assuming you have a speed as low as 12,
>>then with thrust-4
>> ***
> 
>Er, thrust-4 SD's aren't the norm, right? 

Of the 29 human-engined SDs currently in my ship design database
(consisting of all legal FB1 designs I've come across on the 'net and
elsewhere):

11 SDs are thrust-2
5 are thrust-3
11 are thrust-4
1 is thrust-5
1 is thrust-6

I guess you *could* say that "thrust-3 and slower SDs are the norm"
since there are currently slightly more of them than there are of the
thrust-4+ types, but maneuverable SDs are quite common.

>Been awhile since I've flown big ships. If you run tourney rules, say
>initial speed of d6+something, big things tend to be wallowing pigs.

Speed is irrelevant for missile dodging in Vector; all that matters is
your
thrust rating.

In Cinematic, a thrust-2 ship needs to move at speed 24 at the start of
a
turn in order to have a 50% chance to dodge an SM salvo; a thrust-3
ship
needs to move at speed 23. Both of these require quite a bit of
acceleration if you start at speed d6+something.

A cinematically-moving thrust-4 ship however needs to start the turn
with
speed *7* in order to have a 50% chance to dodge an incoming SM. It'll
move this fast at the start of turn 3 at the very latest, so unless its
enemies manage to launch their missiles on turn 2 it will be able to
dodge at least some of the missiles. If you're able to launch missiles
on turn 2 you either set up very closse to one another (>=60mu if
you're using SM-ER, >=48mu with normal SMs), or your initial speed was
big enough to allow you to dodge anyway.

(Roger's speeds of 24 for thrust-2 and 10 for thrust-4 ships are the
speeds you need to move at the *end* of the turn the missiles are
fired. Mathematically the thrust-4 ship only needs speed 9, but the
safety margin is only 0.14mu - a bit too close for comfort, maybe <g>)

> Banzai jammers, of course, work but suicide ships are distasteful.

Banzai jammers work very well against a fleet with nothing but
missiles, or unable/unwilling to use their secondary weapons. They
don't do nearly as well against a fleet combining missiles with decent
secondary batteries sturdy enough hulls to survive a beam exchange of a
turn or so before the missiles are launched... but such a fleet is a
very far cry from the ships Adrian suggests :-)

>I've never been completely satisfied with SM's. If you're slow,
>they're sudden death, if you're fast, they're a pretty safe crap
shoot.

In Cinematic, that is. If you're very slow (up to thrust-3 for human
ships,
or up to thrust-1 for KV) massed SMs are sudden death in the absence of
BJs; if you're medium-speed (thrust-4 or -5 for human ships) they're
dangerous but not overpowering, and if you're able to maneuver
(thrust-6+ for human ships) they're not very much of a threat, but OTOH
you won't have that many weapons to fire back with <g>

Reen-Shuler Adrian wrote:

>10+ SD's on their own.

Then there's no real problem IMO. It doesn't take much longer to roll
50 dice in one batch than it does to roll 10... OK, you need 50 dice to
do
it, but that's usually not a problem if you're a gamer <shrug>

Of course, if you don't use any smaller ships you can scale the SDs'
size down by a factor 4 or so. Same number of ships, same ratio of
firepower per enemy hull box (giving the same game length), but much
fewer dice to roll. Since you have no smaller ships to compare with,
no-one can say "but that's only a cruiser" <shrug>

>I think we'll try with escorts now.
>But, don't they just get picked off at range by Nova Cannons?

At long range, you have several turns to dodge long-range Nova Cannon
shots.

Your paper-hulled missile SDs have roughly the same amount of hull
integrity as a normal heavy cruiser or 2-3 times that of a normal
destroyer, but unlike a normal destroyer or cruiser they're too slow to
dodge effectively. If you're into NCs, why don't you use them to pick
off the missile SDs from long range?

>Indeed.  We've been designing ships as "line of battle" ships, not as
>multi-purpose.

I usually don't think of a ship a single which one of my Mass 20
strikeboats can cripple with one shot as a "line of battle" ship
<shrug>

>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.  

No ship survives for very long while being shot at by 10 of its peers,
even
at long range. However, by using paper-hulled ships you guarantee that
the enemy will be able to knock out one or more of your ships with
*one* of his, rather than with ten - IOW, if he gets to fire first you
lose and vice
versa.

>The ships die horribly, but have tremendous firepower.  

Assuming that they survive to launch/fire, that is. With their paper
hulls,
the chances of them doing that is... not too good, like, if the enemy
knows how to counter them :-/

>Of course they need protection from small ships, but we found a few
>beam heavy SD's generally takes care of  that.

Not fast enough, if the small ships are well designed and your SDs are
as paper-hulled as you seem to suggest above. Besides, "small ships" in
this case are anything less than Mass 140 or thereabouts :-/
 
>>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.

Ever heard about fighters...? And, well... you haven't seen FB2 yet
<shrug>

>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.

If your enemy relies on SMRs, isolated ships able to dodge (ie, thrust
4+)
will force him to burn *lots* of missiles to mug them. Think of them as
"baits" Flying maneuverable ships in smaller groups - up to 3 capitals
or so, with a screen of escort vessels - should help quite a lot
against this massed missile threat.

>>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. [snip]
> 
>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?)

Because there are some quite effective counters to such ships as well -
it's just that missiles aren't part of those particular counters. Full
Thrust is a game of stone, paper, scissors; every gimmick design or
tactic has a counter-design or counter tactic able to beat it.

>More to the point, the out ranged side would realistically always
>disengage.  

Assuming that they *can* disengage - ie they're not too close to one
another to risk blowing each other up, they're far enough away from the
nearest planet or star (depending on your background/scenario), they're
faster than the longer-ranged ship, etc. 

Since your missile barges are only thrust 2-3 I wouldn't count on being
able to disengage without fleeing into hyper, and if you use the FTL
rules given in FT2 they'll spend several turns spreading your formation
out enough to allow safe jumps. Your paper-hulled ships will take quite
a lot of damage in those several turns :-)

Besides, if I can force you to disengage in every battle without your
ships
being able to launch missiles against or fire at my ships, bases or
planets... then I've effectively won the war <shrug>

>not much fun as a game.

Any less fun than launching one huge missile salvo per side,
effectively
ending the battle in one turn?

>Maybe this is in the archives, but why do all weapon systems have the
>same cost? They don't all seem equal. 

Class-1 battery:		  3 points
3-arc Class-2 battery:	  6 points
6-arc Class-2 battery:	  9 points
1-arc Pulse Torpedo:		12 points
6-arc Pulse Torpedo:		18 points
Nova Cannon:			60 points
...etc.

I'm afraid don't quite see how you can say that "all weapon systems
have the same cost" - unless you mean to say that 3 = 6 = 9 = 12 = 18 =
= 60, but I seriously hope that you don't!

>Also, has anyone ever come up with a point cost for the special
>missiles from MT (i.e. the EMP and Needle missiles)?

MT and FB1 both say that they cost 6 points per missile...

Remember that PDS shoot down MT missiles on rolls of 4-6 in FB1 (and
Class-1 batteries shoot them down on rolls of 5-6), rather than just
rolls of 6. 

Roger Books wrote:

>RE your SM problem,
> 
>I don't understand how you are having a problem anyway.  If you have
>10 PDS and ADFC on all your ships and you keep them tightly grouped
>he is going to have to hit you with an extremely large number of
>SMs.  Let's see, 10PDS x 6 ships within 6" gives you 60 PDS's, which
>should take out around 48 missiles.  That's what, almost 14 salvo
>missiles?

Which leaves the other 38 or so missile salvoes unengaged (assuming
only 2 missile barges in the enemy fleet) - and since Adrian flies slow
ships, they all hit something <shrug>

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