Re: [FT]Unbalanced?

Corey Burger wrote:

> With the SV, in the several games we have played with them, both the
KV and
> the PH have defeated them by closing, and in the case of the PH,
> overwhelming them with large numbers of small PH stuff. The KV just
killed
> enough mass to force the SV to retire.

Well, I must admit that I have modified my opinion of the SV somewhat in
the
past few weeks, due in no small part to gaining more experience against
them.
However, I do think that one point does need to be addressed, and that
is the
question of spicules and pod launchers.  Allowing the SV player to take
energy
for spicules from the attack pool makes them way too flexible, IMNSHO,
particularly if they are subject to a fighter strike before the big
ships come
into range to hit them.  I was, and will probably always be of the
opinion that
energy for these should come from the defense pool, which would require
the SV
player to think ahead a bit more about where he wants his power to go. 
Now, as
far as the pod launchers are concerned, they are very effective in the
AD mode
because of their ability to fire continuously (assuming, of course, that
the
ship hasn't taken damage), and by virtue of the fact that they have
double the
range of any other AD systems in the game.  Looking at it from a
perspective of
KV vs. SV, if the SV player fired his interceptors for three turns, it
would
cost him three biomass boxes, and the total cost for the pods plus the
launcher
would be 5 mass and 15 points (9 for the launcher, 6 for the biomass
fired).
On the other hand, the KV player would also pay 15 points (5 per
scattergun)
and surrender three mass in order to fire AD that had a range of only
six MU,
and also had a chance to damage the target.  I don't intend to make this
into a
purely mathematical exercise, since we could argue about it for days,
but I do
have to say that I'd be will to pay an extra 2 mass for a system that
could
fire twice as far with no chance of damage to the ship being protected!

> As for the fighters, and as other people have pointed out, I have seen
even
> 10 fighter groups shredded by a good ADFC/PDS net. Mine brother has
some
> objections to fighter 'cause he likes to run his PH shrouded in until
a
> good range, and with fighters he cannot do this and thus is vunerable
to
> combined arms.
>

I love fighters (if you couldn't tell by what I wrote above!) and I've
found
that the best way to use them is to engage the AD ships of the enemy
fleet
first to destroy them and leave the remainder of the fleet vulnerable to
followup fighter attacks.  Once those AD ships are destroyed, my
fighters take
a somewhat more passive role, picking off crippled enemy ships and the
like.  I
normally do pretty well with them, and have used them successfully
against
fleets using as many as four AD ships (Beijing-Bs, Kronprinz Wilhelms,
Furious,
etc.).	One thing that I have found to make fighters more effective is
to use
heavy fighters, due to their ability to wade through the PD fire easier
than
other types.

Mark

>
> Corey