Re: Small Ships--Why?

> From: "Galen Thies" <fldmrshl@hotmail.com>
> Date: 2001/06/22 Fri AM 11:38:26 EDT
> In a 
> design-your-own environment or in the Fleet Book fleets, would small
ships 
> have a role in your fleet in one-off games?

I'm currently creating a game universe of my own design where one side
will have (to begin with) a bunch of small ships. 

They are quite valid in large battles, though -- admittedly -- more so
in FT2 than with the Fleet Book rules.

One thing small ships can do is overwhelm fire controls. If you have a
massive ship with lots of beams but only 3 fire controls, you will only
be able to fire at 3 targets, maximum. Small ships may go "pop" with
this, but depending on the designs you'll see a lot of wasted potential
damage. In FT2, this was particularly useful against massive "munchkin"
ships, as small ships got a benefit in the manoeuvring department.

> I often see "house" rules requiring some proportion of smaller ships
to 
> larger.  To me, this is validation of my perceptions about their
usefulness 
> (or lack there of).

It's not a question of "usefulness". Or, rather, it's a question of
"usefulness" in the context of a wider game.

FT is, essentially, a naval wargame. I've always felt that naval
wargames feel "wrong" in the context of a single battle. Players tend to
fight their ships (starships or naval ships) to the bitter end, unless
victory conditions or roleplaying encourage "historical" outcomes.

In a campaign game, you'd see smaller ships being more useful. How much
does a BDN cost in resources? How long does it take to build? How many
star systems need ships to protect them, or sit there as scouts? How
long does it take to repair damage?

Losing a big ship, in a campaign, could be considered a huge deal. As
such, battles could turn more from firing on small ships to blasting the
really big ones. Battles would also end up being more cruiser versus
cruiser, or destroyer versus destroyer. Small ship battles start to
appear more frequently.

> When addressing ths problem, I find myself thinking about ocean
navies.  Why 
> can't carriers be armed to operate without escorts?  Perhaps in the
answer 
> to this question, an answer an be found to the game question.

Okay, you are trying to compare modern navies to Full Thrust. Not a good
idea. They don't translate. 

Bear in mind that modern surface ship tactics have to deal with things
like curvature of the Earth limiting radar ranges; submarines; aircraft
with a high rate of speed compared to ships; the primary anti-ship
weapon is the missile. In FT, everything on the board is visible, there
are no submarines (unless you use cloaking rules, but the Tuffleyverse
doesn't use them), and fighters are "out of whack" with the speed of
starships (maximum of 24" per turn, while there is no maximum speed for
starships). Missiles, likewise, have speeds vastly different compared to
starships, than today's missiles have compared to modern capital ships.

Today, you have escorts acting -- essentially -- as a big sensor and PDS
screen for inbound missiles and fighter-armed missiles.

In other words, FT just can't be compared to modern combat. 
 
> If there is a problem with smaller ships, is there any simple solution
that 
> wouldn't break the play balance?

I don't think there's a problem. This is just the way the game works.
Small ships go "poof" pretty easily. What's missing is the macrogame,
the campaign game.

Small ships probably shouldn't show up for big battles (except to sit on
the periphery and take out wallowing, damaged ships). This is, funny
enough, similar to the way small ships were utilized at the turn of the
20th century. 

On the other hand, if you start getting into building your own ships,
you may find that your friends build nothing but huge vessels with one
or two fire controls. When they start showing up to the "bring a fleet
of X points" battles with one or two ships, that's when you hit them
with a fleet of tiny strikeboats...