Re: [FT] Battle report - Dreadplanet vs KV

> stiltman@teleport.com wrote:
> >>>Yeah, my test with my wife involved ships with only thrust 3
> >>>rather  than thrust 6, albeit with far more scatterguns than 
> >>>usual and class 5 K's rather than class 3's.
 
> >>Thrust-3A explains why she didn't attempt to maneuver. My 
> >>main problem was that I constantly had to choose between 
> >>aiming my beams where the KV would be if they decided to 
> >>attack *this* turn, or pointing my PBLs where the KV would be if
> >>they decided to attack on the *next* turn - and thrust-3A 
> >>ships wouldn't have given me this particular headache.
 
> >Would it really make that much difference?
 
> Yes.

[Analysis granted and snipped... hadn't thought of the delay]
 
> With thrust-6A they have several different options to set up their
> attacks, and if you guess the wrong one they're nimble enough to take
> advantage of it before you can recover. The downside is of course that
> they carry less weapons than the thrust-3A ships, but they're much
> better able to avoid your heavy plasma or missile barrages.

Yeah.  So in some ways, we sort of have the dilemma:  if you don't know
whether I'm throwing a DPR or a fleet of direct-fire battleships at you,
is a fleet of Kra'Vak escort cruisers really what you're going to want
to
throw back at me all the time?
 
> >>Why did she use K5s, BTW (ie., why did you give her K5s, 
> >>since IIRC you designed her ships)? [snip]

> >The reason I picked the K5 was pretty simple (and, possibly, 
> >hasty):  
> >it's the best damage:mass ratio gun that needs anything but a 6 
> >to inflict double damage.  Perhaps I didn't look at all the math 
> >quite right and the K3 actually winds up doing more 
> >damage:mass ratio overall than the K5.

> >Let me see... K3's are mass 5, right?  So it's 11 K3's to 5 K5's...
> >K5's are going to do 45.8333 damage (40.8333 on hull) if they all 
> >were to hit on average, the K3's would do 49.5 (38.5 on hull).  So 
> >if you had an unarmored ship, the K3 would probably do a bit 
> >more damage, whereas if the enemy was armored, the K5 would 
> >be better.
 
> It's a gradual changeover, though - the higher the target's
armour:hull
> ratio, the better the K5 is. The changeover armour:hull ratio, where
> the K5 becomes better than the K3, is somewhere in the 1/6 - 1/5
range.
> With less armour than that the higher raw damage of the K3 is more
> important; with more armour the K5 wins. The armour:hull ratio of the
> DPR is roughly 1/33, so in this case the K3 is definitely more
> effective :-/
 
> 'Course, if the target has Phalon-style multiple-layer armour, the K5
> immediately gets better!

Yeah.  I hadn't considered the damage:mass ratio of the K3 as opposed to
the
K5; my main comparisons were between the K5 and the K6+.  Those
comparisons,
it wins.  Against both the K3 and the one-arc pulse torp, it loses the
comparison on raw damage:mass and damage:cost ratios, but wins on armor
penetration.  The margin of loss in raw damage:mass and what not is
small
enough that I'm willing to live with it.  I already knew that the
tradeoff
existed for pulse torps, though I hadn't realized it was also there with
the
K3.

> >I'd be more inclined to go with the K5 overall.  There's a lot of
> >different equations one can draw up here for mass to damage 
> >ratios depending on whether the target's armored, not armored, 
> >screened, not screened, etc...
 
> Indeed. That's the main reason I collect FBx designs - to use them for
> weapon evaluation (aka "target practise" <G>). FWIW, of the designs
> currently in the archive, about 40% are more vulnerable to the K5 and
> the other 60% more vulnerable to the K3.

If this isn't the same archive as the Registry, is there a URL where I
might
get hold of it? :)

[ASCII tables slashed for space]

> When you compare systems with different Cost:Mass ratios (eg. K-guns
> and p-torps, or beams and Pulsers) the "per cost" comparision also
> needs to include the cost of the weapon's proportion of the ship's
> engines and the cost of the basic hull structure holding the weapon
and
> "its" engines.

To some degree.  However, in custom configurations (which is about all
that
a number crunching like this is pertinent to) that applies equally to
just
about anything.

> The "hull" damage values assume single-layer armour. A reasonable
> assumption as long as you don't fight Phalons or start using
> multi-layer armour in mixed-tech designs, but the numbers change
> rapidly when you add armour layers.

True... though the advantage to the K5 gets more pronounced in this
case, as
you say.

> Making a meaningful comparison between template weapons like SMs or
PBs
> and direct-fire weapons is *very* difficult, since there's no good way
> to determine the hit probability of the template weapons while those
of
> the direct-fire weapons are very straight-forward :-(

Agreed.  But it's a consideration.
 
> >>*could* have invoked your suggested "fuzzy edge" ruling 
> >>where ships accused of edge-hugging can be declared "off-
> >>table" and thus removed :-/
 
> >It depends on how much you're hugging it.  If you're a solid 
> >30" away from the edge we wouldn't eject you.  :)
 
> Sitting 31mu away from the edge cut off a full 60-degree sector where
> the KV couldn't circle the DPR without coming into its PBL range and
> from which they couldn't attack. This drastically cut down their
> ability to dance - not drastically enough to let me win the battle,
but
> it came close. In my gaming group, using the table edge to cut down
> enemy maneuverability in this way is considered abusive, intentional
or
> not. That's why our own house rules specify floating edges :-/

*shrug*  I guess our circles just don't abuse it, so it's never become a
serious issue.	Basically every sort of circling maneuver that ever gets
employed in our games is done by skirmishers armed with needle beams
that
are attached to a larger group of capital ships that are not following
the same course.  In all but two instances of those tactics being used,
the skirmishers in question have done their maneuverings under cloak, so
in _that_ case, table edges don't become much of a factor:  either the
cloaked needlers come out within range or they don't.  (We do allow
quick
pre-measures of initial ranges for writing out cloaked ships' movement
orders in advance, so going off the table while you're cloaked isn't
NORMALLY an issue.)  Moreover, in our games it's often a mild surprise
that you even _have_ the skirmishers until they pop up and say hi.

And in the two instances where those tactics _were_ used without a
cloaking
device, it was me throwing a heavy cruiser or battle cruiser at someone,
flying wide of them at high speed, then cutting a high-G turn to make an
attack run all in one turn.  In both cases, the other force was simply
well
out into the middle of the board before I made my run, not that it would
have mattered that much, because I wasn't far past them when I'd take my
cut in either time.

The only cases where any of our ships are usually sitting anywhere near
an
edge usually have the ships in question armed lightly with only class 1
beams.	(e.g. carriers hanging back from the line of battle.)  The edge
isn't a real factor there; if you get any ship-to-ship weapons anywhere
near them, they're in bad shape no matter _which_ direction you come
from.
-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 The Stilt Man		      stiltman@teleport.com
   http://www.teleport.com/~stiltman/stiltman.html
   < We are Microsoft Borg '98.  Lower your expectations and	>
   < surrender your money.  Antitrust law is irrelevant.	>
   < Competition is irrelevant.  We will add your financial and >
   < technological distinctiveness to our own.	Your software	>
   < will adapt to service ours.  Resistance is futile. 	>