Re: General EMP Thoughts

Schoon wrote:

>>More accurately, this is to maintain the current imbalance between
>>large and small ships. An imbalance I for one would be quite happy
>>to see reduced, though those who routinely fly all-SDN fleets or
>>single superships might disagree :-/
> 
>I do neither of those things and actually feel that escorts have a 
>very important place in the battle line, but that's a whole other 
>debate. 

I was more thinking of Mark Siefert's former gaming aquaintancies <g>

>Of course large ships are more powerful - and they have the 
>point cost to prove it.

Incorrect. Large ships are more powerful, but their points cost does
not reflect their privilige of taking fewer threshold checks than
smaller ships - and that is a quite big advantage indeed. 

Given the same thrust ratings and equipment mixes on both sides, a
single ship is invariably more powerful than the sum of two smaller
ships with the same total NPV due to the fact that the small ships take
thresholds and lose weapons earlier even if they taken together have
the same total numbers of hull and armour boxes.

>We can save the Supership vs. Mixed Fleet debate for another time.

No, we can't. Unlike many other game balance problems, the dynamics of
this imbalance only depend on the size ratio between the individual
opposing ships and not on the total size of the battle; the imbalance
between a TMF 1400 supership and a mixed fleet led by TMF 250 SDNs is
just the same as the imbalance between a couple of TMF 250 SDNs and a
force of DDs and smaller led by a couple of TMF 45 CLs/DHs, or between
a single TMF 120 BB and a squadron of TMF 22 FFs and smaller, or
between a single TMF 60 CH and half a dozen TMF 10-12 CTs/SCs.
 
>>The ship-wide blanket effect of the MTM-EMP (and its proposed
>>direct-fire relatives) is one of the very few FT game mechanisms (as
>>opposed to arbitrary scenario restrictions or tournament rules) which
>>*can* reduce this particular imbalance, which is why I'm not
>>prepared to accept Schoon's first point for all EMP weapons.
> 
>The same EMP weapon hits an SC and an SDN, causing blanket >threshold
rolls on both. What is it's point value?

Same question seen from the other perspective:

Eight DDs have the same total nominal points value as one SDN, but have
a rather less than 50% chance of defeating it in battle. What is the
*real* points value of the DDs (or of the SDN)?

>>If you nail the list down hard enough that there's nothing to argue
>>about, it'll still take almost forever to evaluate, only the rule's
>>author will be completely happy about it, and the list will *not* be
>>simple. Noam and Beth have already pointed out some of the >>reasons
why this is so, so I won't repeat them here.
> 
>Not true: I've seen several simple, short lists that look perfectly
>acceptable.

Sounds like you've only looked at those lists without actually trying
them out in a game, or else haven't read Noam's and Beth's comments to
them. One of your conditions was to nail things down hard enough to
leave no room for arguments, but short lists leave a lot of room for
arguments.

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."