Re: FT - Large scale fleet engagements

Reen-Shuler Adrian wrote:
> 
> 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?

Depends on how good you are at dodging.  ;-)

And frankly, I haven't had a lot of success with the NC (granted
I've only used it a few times in genre-specific scenarios, but...)

> >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.

This is easily solved!

FT is a very generic game, and you can abstract the hell out of it. When
designing ships based on other miniatures, it is often impossible to
have each weapon on a mini be represented by a beam weapon, so you have
to abstract and say 'those three turrets are represented by this Class-2
battery on the SSD'. So in order to drop the number of dice you are
throwing, make the ships smaller! :)  Instead of playing with Mass 200
ships, play with Mass 80 ships and CALL them superdreadnoughts! Make
their thrust ratings comparable (say you have a bunch of Mass 200
thrust-2
ships; make an equivalent number of thrust-2 Mass 80 ships). Things will
abstract down fairly well (you have less hull per ship, but then again,
you have less weaponry to shoot, and by consequence, less dice to throw
:).
The Mass 80 ships will survive an amount of time similar to what a
super-
dreadnought would, given the amount of weaponry that is then available
(Oerjan can work out exact ratios; I'm just offering up the idea and the
basis behind it).

Just a thought to make life simpler. And to not let yourself get caught
up in artificial restrictions.

Mk