Re: "Custom" fleets

At 17:22 2000-06-08 -0700, you wrote:
>Well, I guess it's sort of six of one and half a dozen of the other.
>
>We simply don't have people deliberately try to abuse the borders.  We
may
>enforce an edge, but we do so because we expect people to stay near the
middle
>and fight.  Which is, in practice, what we do.  If people were to
deliberately
>turn to put the edge of the table at their back and fire a one-arc
weapon
>at people, we'd probably start shifting the house rules to decree that
they'd
>flown off the map even if they were technically on it, because this
sort of
>nonsense just isn't done in our games.  The fixed edge is there to
_prevent_
>people from getting too ridiculous in their movements, not to encourage
it.
>
>On the other hand, I've seen both Oerjan and Noam suggest with a
straight face
>that someone make a strategy out of using a long-range beam and abuse
the
>floating edge to ping away at people.
>--
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>  The Stilt Man		stiltman@teleport.com
>    http://www.teleport.com/~stiltman/stiltman.html

It is not an abuse of the edges to sit dread planet in the middle of the

table so it can reach all edges with its gun and deny the opponent the 
ability to move out of range? This seems very boring to me.

I usually play fixed edges, because it shortens the game and reduces 
arguments on where a fleet is when off the table. But I usually also
play 
with smaller ships (cruisers and  escorts) where the average range is
24tu 
with only an occasional 36tu weapon. And I almost play vector
exclusevly. 
If I played more big ships or cinematic, I too would have to insist on a

floating table.

Going on...

Your arguements have seemed somewhat disjointed. At one point you are 
talking about dreadplanets, which can only be in one system at a time,
then 
you talk about playing from a campaign perspective which would require a

presence in multiple systems at the same time. Then you talk about the
cost 
of salvo missiles in a campaign, but use fighters (which are just as 
expendable, but cost more). You talk about balance by playing against 
off-the-shelf ships, but your force is anything but off-the-shelf.

If you are playing a campaign, missiles would be easier to replace than 
fighters (you don't have to recruit and train pilots for missiles), but 
both are acceptable as long as you include the necessary support
elements 
to your fleets (manufacturing, training, & transportation to the fleet).

You will also need to suffeciently cover your star systems, so building
an 
ubership is less cost effective.

Either you use custom fleets or stock fleets. You cannot build a custom 
fleet and complain that someone uses a custom fleet to exploit a
weakness 
in your custom fleet.
---
Brian Bell
bkb@beol.net
http://members.xoom.com/rlyehable/ft/
ICQ: 12848051
AIM: Rlyehable
---