Re: FT: Question that may be really *old*...

Finally got my net connection back - !"#¤!#!¤%¤ ISP managed to crash
their user ID files so my passwords didn't work :-( It only took them
five days to get back up and send out new passwords...

Richard Bell wrote:

>>>I have some buggy code for two ships slugging it out toe to toe at
>>>range 11 (to solve, a la Monte Carlo, the armor vs screens debate,
>>>screens win until you up number of p-torps).
>>
>>...provided that your hull is strong enough, of course. Eg., there's
>>not much point in putting screens on Fragile-hulled ships, while the
>>same Mass of armour works pretty OK unless you're fighting Aaron
>><g>
> 
>The ships in question were mass 200, 80 hull integrity SDN's with
>some combination of screens and armor.  Armor was better earlier, >but
shields delay destruction laonger than armor delays the first
>threshold check. Of course, shields should not be installed vessels
>smaller than mass 60.

I think you may have misunderstood what I meant. The number of hull
boxes itself isn't very important; what *is* important - as long as the
ship is TMF 60 or larger - is what FBx calls the "hull strength", ie.
the ratio between the number of hull boxes and the TMF (or rather the
ratio between the number of hull boxes and the Mass eaten by your
screens, but since the screen Mass is a fixed %age of the TMF that's
pretty much the same thing :-/ ). The weaker your hull is (the lower %
of your TMF used for hull or armour boxes), the less use you'll get out
of your screens before they go down or the ship is destroyed.

Your test designs use 40% of TMF for hull boxes, which is definitely
"strong enough" - ie., for them screens are the natural choice as long
as your enemy uses beams or similar weapons (Pulsers, Stingers, PBLs
etc). For ships with Average hulls (25-35% of TMF) OTOH, screens and
armour are roughly equal, and below Average hull integrity the armour
wins almost every time. 

Comparing the delay of *destruction* for screens to the delay of the
*first threshold* for armour is somewhat misleading as well. Part of
the delay of destruction for screens occurs after the ship has taken
its 2nd and 3rd thresholds, by which time it has usually lost quite a
few of its weapons as well - ie., getting an "extra" hull box of life
towards the end of the damage track isn't worth as much as getting an
extra box at its start. The more hull (not armour!) boxes and the
stronger screens the ship has, the more noticable this effect is.

In short, try replacing 20-40 hull boxes on each test SDN with beam
weapons, and watch the results change :-)

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
From - Wed Dec 13 16:38:52 2000
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From: "Bell, Brian K (Contractor)" <Brian_Bell@dscc.dla.mil>
To: "Gzg-L (E-mail)" <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Subject: [OT] Military Rank Comparison
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 12:49:50 -0500
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OK, I'm going to show my ignorance (again). 

Does anyone know of a good chart (preferably on the web) of Military
Rank
comparisons from different services and different countries?

For instance, the US Army rank of Colonel is equivalent to a Navy
Captain.
If I am wrong, no flames please, I will accept gentile correction. This
is 
also not a discussion of merit or general quality, only equivalency of
rank.
(No flame wars, please).

I did find http://www.friesian.com/rank.htm, but it only included the US
Army and Navy and only the commissioned officers.

-----
Brian Bell
bkb@beol.net	
-----