Re: S'V Seekers

Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> 
> Jaime Tiempo wrote:

It's tiAmpo.

> 
>  >>>It takes 2 mass to use a MT missile, It takes 3 mass for the drone
womb, 1
>  >>>mass for the seeker, and whatever energy is finalised on. That's
already
>  >>>more mass.
>  >>
>  >>Six MTMs = 12 Mass, 36 pts
>  >>Six "seekers" + 1 Drone Womb = 9 Mass, 21 pts
>  >
>  >+ 6 mass for the generators if you go with 1 power, which won't
probably
>  >be the final one. This makes it a minimum of 15 mass to get off 6
>  >seekers.
> 
> I know that you've upped the bio-mass requirement, but let's stay with
the
> original version for a while longer in order to see why I got so
agitated:

Ah constructive criticism. I've been waiting for you to give this.
Sorry. But I've come to expect useful critisism from you and I had hoped
for something more then, "You're a moron." 

I never said I had great idea, just that it was an idea, that I wanted
to bounce around. I thought the idea of the SV having some sort of
missile like weapon was a good idea. 

I usually under cost things when I first put them out so that people
will over cost them and eventually decent stats can be produced. The
discussion as to why something should cost a certain amount is just as
important as the cost itself.
 
> If you include the +6 Mass for the generators, you must also include
parts
> of the engines (everything above thrust-2) and a bunch of beam weapons
on
> the *human* missile boat into the Mass devoted to the MTMs - because
that's
> what these SV power generators can do when they're *not* used to power
> missile growth: they generate extra thrust and/or beam firepower.
(Spicules
> and Screen nodes are the same Mass as PDSs and human screens.)

And you have to take into account that SV can really only do one thing
at a time well, 2 moderately well. True that this particular idea the SV
energy needs aren't a factor the way they usualy are, but having played
the SV you run into power allocation problems really quickly if you try
to do anything more the just fire.
 
> BTW, this is why MT missiles will never get the same high mobility as
> fighters unless their cost and/or Mass increase by a near-astronomic
amount
> - with that much mobility each missile is worth roughly 3 times as
much as
> one Torpedo fighter with launch bay...  ie., around 30 points (not
> including hull and engines of the launch platform). At the moment, MT
> missiles cost 6 points each. With fighters currently being one of the
two
> main balance problems in FT/FB (the other being large ships), it
really
> doesn't look like a good idea to introduce a system which is not only
head
> and shoulders, but also body and tail ahead of the fighters...

To me fighters are only partially unbalanced. If you don't have a good
PDS defence or interceptor wing, and you allow the other player to have
a huge fighter superiority then they'll win everytime. If you have a
solid, dispersed PDS system, fast ships to take you to the carriers
(assuming a carrier fleet) and at least some fighters for defence
they're not too bad.

The big things with fighters is the discrepency for those who want to
use pre WWII carrier fleets and those who use pure carrier fleets.

Bif's Battlerider design shows that you can counter fighters for less
points easily.

The balance problem with size is only solvable by some sort of
exponential cost system.
 
>  >Yes but you need so many power points to produce something. You can
only
>  >put so many generators on at once, so you're strike capabilities per
>  >salvo is limited to how much power you have.
> 
> As long as you have enough power to grow at least *one* Womb-ful of
> "seekers" per turn, the strike capabilities per salvo is limted to how
many
> Drone Wombs you have. There's no requirement to launch the "seekers"
on the
> turn after they're grown.

Which I believe I commented on, in an ealier reply, which made the 2
biomass an obvious minimum setting.
 
>  >I don't think they will once the final stats are hammered out.
> 
> Keep hammering. The torpedo fighters are the closest official system
to
> balance your current version of "seekers" against.

I thought the MT missiles were, considering seekers are supposed to be
the SV equivilant.