Re: Retrograde gimmickry

>> Stilt:
>Well, here's the problem.  (And the rest of the email I'm
responding to sort
>of goes around this same circle, so....)  It sort of goes for
just about
>every sort of retrograde keepaway game from hell.
>
>The purpose of a starfleet of any sort of starfaring power is
to keep your
>enemies from going places where you don't want them

(snip discussion of the weak point of skirmishing tactics, ie
inability to defend a fixed objective)

High speed/high range ships also aren't going to be much good at
pressing in against a layered defense.

  OTOH, that's not to say there isn't a use for them.  If you
showed up with Thrust 1 or 2 ships, my Thrust 8/Beam 4
battlecruiser isn't going to want to close to knife-fighting
range--but it certainly will keep pace, chipping away at them a
couple of dice per turn.  May not kill the enemy, but at least
the fleet will be weaker when it meets the rest of my ships.
Against something like the dreadplanet--well, if you've foregone
speed for armor and weapons, then I can either try to buy more
armor and more guns, or I can think of a way to use speed to
turn the tables.  If not--well, it's time to go commerce
raiding.
  Now, I grant you I wouldn't much want to play a game of "long
range chipping"--I did once, to prove my point, then we designed
different scenarios.  But I also wouldn't want to play with or
against a 5000 point immobile dreadplanet (thrust one qualifies
as immobile, IMO).  If it were fitted with, say Beam 6's, that
would make more sense to me--and we'd just have to find another
way to take it out.