Re: Forcing fights

Mikko Kurki-Suonio wrote:

>Örjan:
>
>>I can't force the enemy scout to fight, but I can force it to make a
>>wide enough detour around the forces it wants to get sensor data on.
>>Unless he's content with getting sensor data on my screening forces,
>>that's effectively a mnor victory for me.
> 
>And the sensor rules are WHERE? Especially ones that don't come
>labeled "optional"?

FT2 pages 21 and 22. They're marked "Advanced" just like the fighter
rules, all non-beam weapon rules and the ship design rules; it's your
call if that makes them "optional" or not <shrug> 

The enemy scout ships need to get within 54mu of my capitals to be able
to tell what classes they are... or indeed if they are capitals at all,
rather than weasel boats. Your proposed "immediate 180-degree turn"
won't gain you any more information than the FT2 campaign system had
already given you - the general size of the bogies. Wouldn't it be...
very embarrassing, to say the least, if you fled from each battle
because you failed to scan my weasel boats and thought them to be real
capital ships?

>>unless both its
>>destination and starting point were outside my territory and I'm
>>attempting to intercept it during the voyage :-/ 
> 
>So, you agree that under current rules it is effectively impossible to
>intercept shipping? The U-boat service is a dead cause? 

The U-boat service depends on not being detected by the target and
ambushing it when it is too late for it to evade, not on running it
down in a long chase. Yes, since the MT cloaking rules have very large
gaping holes in them the U-boat service is effectively a dead cause.
 
>Of course the destination is in friendly territory (or you're talking
assault >mission instead).

I was writing from the perspective of the would-be intercepting force,
not of the freighter. It isn't quite obvious to me that an enemy fleet
base or planet is considered "friendly" to my ships...

>Let's consider commerce raiding. Raiders are built on the
>"battlecruiser principle", "Outgun everything you can't outrun and
outrun
>anything you can't outgun" i.e. they are *excpected* to simply run
away
>from a stiff opposition.
> 
>High enough thrust coupled with the right mindset and nothing can
>touch you. Great! Run into some warships, just run away. Catch a
>merchant and pounce. Life is great...

In wet-navy history since times immemorial, there have been three
effective responses to fast enemy raiders:
1) Escorted convoys
2) Q-ships
3) Find the raiders' bases (or supply ships) and destroy them.

The "attack the enemy convoy" was the very scenario we fought to the
would-be long-range sniper raiders' exhaustion, and where I learned how
to handle such snipers with slower, shorter-ranged ships.

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