Re: Re: OUDF design Qs

> Alan Brain wrote:

> >Based on playtests where Tuvalu Block IIs were against NAC Torp-armed
> >Vandenburgs, NSL and ESU cruisers with forward-arc-only Class 3s, and
> >where a lot of the ships spent over 50% of their time in PA or SA
arcs.
> 
> OK. This might be a good time to point out that the Tuvalu Block II is
the
> widest-arced of all the BORON ships when fitted with beam modules,
while
> the Vandenburgs (both variants), Voroshilev, Markgraf and Furious
designs
> are five of the ten narrowest-arced designs in FB1 (the other five
being
> the ESU BC, BB and SDN, plus the SMP-armed strike variants of the
Falke and
> Lenov scouts).

There you have it: all but the FSE have their heavy cruisers having
narrow fire arcs. And in local games, heavy cruisers make up a large
part of most fleets. Now in other parts of the world, the situation may
be different. For example, should the local norm be for no ships over
mass 50, then things will be quite different.
 
> IOW, these playtests don't really say anything about how the *other*
BORON
> ships (which have narrower arcs than the Tuvalu Block IIs) compare to
the
> *other* about sixty FB1 designs (which have wider arcs than the ten
> narrowest designs).

You have a point: perhaps the local norm isn't universal. Our fleets
tend to have about 1/3 of pts values in each of the old "Capital",
"Cruiser" and "Escort" categories. As you've pointed out, for all except
the FSE, this means that 1/3 of the ships have exceptionally narrow
firing arcs.
You might note that in the "numbers in service", the Tuvalus outnumber
the Numbats quite significantly - they're the mainstay of the fleet.

> Compare a Numbat/Gunpack with the Radetzky, or give it a P-torp module
> (like the Numbat on the Example page) and compare it to a Beijing.
Compare
> a River/Standard with a Volga or Tibet, a River/SMR with a Trieste, or
a
> Snake with a Novgorod or Tacoma. Compare a Spider with anything you
like -
> the closest equivalent is the Tacoma/T variant, but the Tacoma/T has a
> couple of B1s.
> 
> In these comparisons, the BORON ships look average or even
narrow-arced
> compared to the FB1 ships.

That's the trouble with modules - while most of the ships have
standard/gunpacks, some of the modules (such as the p-torp) have very
narrow firing arcs. But these are exceptions rather than the rule, they
tend to be used for specific tasks.

> >The FSE is equally good as the OU when it comes to firing arcs,but
has
> >half the hull boxes.
> 
> <snort> So the BORON ships all use 60% of their Mass for hull boxes,
then?
> They'd have to, in order to have twice as many hull boxes as the FSE.

OK, for "hull" read "hull and armour", for "50%" read "43-48%" or some
such. Let's see, a 267 pt Tuvalu Block II vs what, an FSE Heavy Cruiser
or Battlecruiser?. It is a bit larger (81 mass) than one, and a bit
smaller (94? 96?) mass than the next. It has 50% in hull and 3 armour vs
what, 30% hull and no armour?  Depending on your exact comparisons, you
get something like twice the number of hull+armour as the nearest
comparable ship.

Of course if you were comparing a River to a Jeanne D'Arc it would be
different.
Not that such a comparison is meaningful.
 
> The FSE match the Numbats and frigates in hull boxes on an equal-cost
> basis, and have about 75% the hull boxes of the Rivers and Tuvalus.
What
> they *do* have half as much of is beam batteries, but those missiles
of
> theirs might even the odds out a bit if they're lucky <g>

Luck has little to do with it, it's skill <g>. Actually, skill just
determines how many SMs get to hit, the damage that they do is very
variable. I've been hit with 2 SMs that did a total of over 40 pts
before now, vs the 21 that would be the average. And hit an opponent
with 6 SMs that did a total of 13 pts, vs the 63 that would be average.
Both in the same competition.

> The only way to simultaneously talk about fleets *and* compare like
> cost/size with like is if you force ships of similar size to pair off
> against one another and ignore the rest of the battle. I don't think
that
> that's what you intended.

My thesis was based upon what has happened in actual battles, where
*once they got in close* and *using cinematic*, and where every turn
nearly every ship on both sides was using the maximum it could in thrust
to turn, then the OU fleets consistently had more beam dice able to fire
on their primary target than their opponents. Fire on secondary targets
was about equal.

> >And remember that every OU ship has good firing arcs.
> 
> In that case you're saying that a Spider, Snake or Numbat, or just
about
> any BORON ship carrying an SMR or P-torp module, is *not* an OU ship.

Mumble mumble quibble mumble mumble. Fair enough. Yes, a ship with an
uncommon module is "not an OU ship" by this definition, any more than a
Waldberg-M is an NSL ship. I should have inserted the word "typical".

> >Whereas, say, a reasonable mix of Tacomas, Hurons, Furious,
Vandenburg-Ts
> >have some ships with excellent dogfighting ability, and some that are
Hell
> >On Wheels in the forward arc, but not so good SA and PA.
> 
> A reasonable mix consisting exclusively of Rivers and Tuvalus with
Standard
> or Defence modules will indeed be "unusually wide-arced" compared to
the
> above NAC force. That is very true.

I'll even extend that to cover NSL and ESU fleets. But maybe that's
because the Radetsky isn't a popular design here, most people prefer a
mix of light- and heavy- cruisers to escort cruisers. The point is, that
many typical OU fleets actually do consist of nothing but Rivers and
Tuvalus, with maybe a Waikato for support, and a Snake or Numbat for
pursuit duties. There are more Tuvalus than (combat- rather than VIP- or
Raider- )Numbats and Waikatos put together, and more Rivers than all
other designs combined. Spiders are used when the opponent could have an
SDN or Super-Carrier with Screen-2s, and otherwise don't appear. Even
Snakes are relatively rare.

> However, once you mix in some Numbats or Snakes (or Spiders!) in the
BORON
> force, or you put SMR or P-torp modules on some of the ships (even on
> Tuvalus or Rivers) - then all of a sudden the BORON force has firing
arcs
> which are quite similar to those of the NAC fleet.

True. They do have this option. The background though states that the
P-torp modules were unsuccessful, the Spiders hunt in packs and only go
for things like Komarovs which have class-2 screens, and the SMRs are
used for additional fire support when operating with carrier groups. By
the same token, you could say that an NAC fleet uses lots of SMs since
it's possible to refit Furious and Valley Forge class with them, and
Majestics have them.
But by my standards, the NAC doesn't use SMs, and the fleet tactics
against them wouldn't take massed SM fire into account. 
 
> >The OU would LOVE to get its hands on Pulsar-Cs. The problem they
have at
> >the moment is too many systems to repair, they'd like to be able to
> >consolidate.
> 
> Build a module with six B1s. That's pretty much the same thing as an
> all-arc Pulser-C <shrug>

It has 2 important differences: one is that it's better vs fighters, but
more importantly, repairing it is less easy than a pulsar-C. If you take
a threshold at 4+, you have a 50% chance of losing the pulsar-C, but a
reasonably good chance if you have 3 DCPs of repairing it quickly (and
having the DCPs ready for repairing other things, like manoeuvre drives,
fire cons etc). But on a 6-B1 module, you'll probably lose 2-4 B1s, and
take much longer to fix things. So long, in fact, that you probably
won't even bother after the first B1 (if that).

This is particularly important for OU designs, which have to be prepared
to take a lot of hits on the way in, and still be effective fighting
ships. Their big weakness is that they really need more DCPs than they
have.