Re: FB2... hmmmm...

> G'day,
 
> A lot of your queries have been covered already, but here's a couple
more 
> things.

Yeah...

>  >Phalons' plasma bolts.... anyone besides me see lots of abuse
potential in
>  >a custom game?  Is this thing really intended to only be three
points per
>  >mass?  With a six inch radius... the thing's essentially a
higher-end
>  >nova cannon that you can just dilute with screens and PDS.
 
> They have been fairly intensively scrutinised, shoved, pushed and
pulled, 
> but we may have missed something, so if you think there's something
wrong 
> don't feel shy of pointing it out so we can all figure out whether it
is a 
> problem or not thanks.

No prob.  I might not have been around the on-line scene long enough
that I've
gotten my name in the special acknowledgments... *notes the honor
afforded you
and gives a respectful bow* ...but I've been playing the game for quite
a
while.	:)

The thing that worries me is if you've got a custom game, and you just
keep
a ship or two in reserve with plasma cannons to the tune of twenty or
thirty
dice, and then put enough fighters behind them that enemy fighters are
not
going to be a serious factor.  The tactic I'd fear is that if you loaded
up
on plasma cannon and fighter bays, piled on enough fighters that you
could
assure either fighter superiority or dilute their fighter numbers enough
that
they couldn't reasonably expect to defend themselves on point defense,
then
crank off enough huge plasma bolts that you don't really care if you can
only
fire every other turn... because most conventional sized ships aren't
likely
to survive more than one or two hits, and with the radius on the bolts
you're
not likely to miss a terrible lot.  If you piled on enough plasma
firepower
overwhelming even a pretty stiff area defense phalanx wouldn't
necessarily
be that tough, and being an escort in such a phalanx would become quite
a
liability.

If you tried to outrun it, you'd probably give up the fighter
superiority in
the first place, so the fighters themselves would annihilate you.  Even
the
fastest of ships can only run away from fourty-odd fighter groups for so
long.

This is, mind you, thought out from the standpoint of my 5000-point
all-custom,
no-warning-on-enemy-composition-other-than-supership task force battles.
 If
we opened the door to mixing alien tech in here, my worry is that the
plasma
bolts could pretty quickly make a mess of things.

>  >In just about any sort of fighter operations, Sa'Vasku are in bad
shape.
>  >They have to consume biomass to launch fighters of their own or to
effect
>  >any sort of area defense, and their fighters are all plain-vanilla
on attack.
 
> They do appear that way at first glance, but as with most things
Savasku 
> its a bit more subtle than that. First up their wombs cost less, but
you 
> build the extra biomass into their hulls so they can take launching
the 
> fighters, second they have the mini drone launchers which are their
ADFC. 
> Beyond that it comes down to judicious use, they're not necessarily as

> forgiving to mistakes, and there's a steep learning curve, but once
you've 
> got them sorted they're as deadly as anyone. For instance, don't
'suicide' 
> your fighters as much as you might as a human, because when the going
gets 
> really tough you can call them home to sure up your hull a bit more
again ;)

The main mess that I see is, if you can't establish fighter superiority,
it's
usually not worth it to bother with fighters at all.  That's been my
experience
in our custom games:  _most_ of the time when fighters are involved at
all,
they get no shots at enemy ships at all until they've had a huge fight
with
the other side's fighters first.  We've simply never seen a strategic
purpose
in letting fighters have a free go at the ships.  If you've got fewer
fighters,
it's considered best to dilute that advantage on the enemy's part as
much as
possible, and if you've got more, you want to make sure you have free
rein to
attack their ships.  A good sized Chinese wall of fighters just can't
feasibly
be gotten around if the other side has superiority and they don't want
to let
anything through.

Now, it _is_ true that Sa'Vasku could pile on the biomass and
conceivably
establish about as much fighter superiority as they want... except that
in
their case, it literally comes out of their hides, such that their ships
become far more fragile when they do so.  They might get more ships
because
they don't have to spend the side budget for fighters that other fleets
do,
but if the enemy just piles on the fighters enough and keeps enough
ship-to-
ship weapons in reserve, they essentially can damage their enemies quite
well even if their fighters just do a kamikaze run in the inevitable
dogpile
if they're outnumbered and then pick off the crippled enemies once
they've
diluted their hulls so badly.

Will have to see how it goes.  I haven't had a real chance to playtest
this
as much, and I've had the fleet book for a short enough time that I
don't
know if much of what I'm saying works the way I think it does.
-- 
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 The Stilt Man		      stiltman@teleport.com
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