Re: FB designs & fighters (& strawmen)

From: "Eric Foley" <stiltman@teleport.com>

> What fact is in dispute here?  If you've got 30 fighter groups and
I've 
> got
> 20 PDS, my verbal response to discovering this is going to be "Oh holy
> @#$@#$!%!"... if you've got 30 fighter groups and I've got 100 
> scatterguns,
> my response is going to be "Pull!"

If you've got net 100 mass of weapons (as 100 scatterguns implies)  with

20 PDS you've got 80 mass of other weapons to balance non-fighter 
opponents. If you've got 100 scatterguns you've got little else. Apples 
and Oranges. Generalized vs. specialized.

> In stating my general principle of what's wrong with FB1 ships, I made

> no
> allusions to exactly how you should disperse the mass you devote to 
> things
> other than weapons -- I only stated that the total percentage
shouldn't 
> be
> as high as 67-75%, as is the case with every FB1 capital ship.

You did eventually say this, though not as plainly as just now. I have 
no problem with this opinion, even if I don't agree with it. In your 
percentage, you give drives short shrift for their combat benefits. They

are not offensive systems, but they significantly effect combat 
capabilities. Others will opine that Hull/Armor/Screens are less a 
detractor than you hold.

>  You just
> assumed that I was also stating that the thrust of FB1 ships was too 
> high
> for their own good as well.... and I've never made such a statement.

I did not make that assumption. I saw that the thrust 2 of Ship X gave 
it a weakness exploitable by FB1 ships you claimed it superior to.

> I merely gave the one example and you assumed from that, that I was
also
> stating that higher thrust than 2 is useless.

I may have made that assumption, with Ship X as you presented it. I 
stand corrected.

>> [The mass/cost adjustment]  compensates for the known problem in 
>> costing large vs. small
>> ships for one-off duels.
>
> And also invalidates your argument entirely.	I'm sorry, but giving
the 
> FB1
> fleets a 60% hardware advantage is _not_ a convincing argument that
they
> don't suck -- if they _need_ one, then they do.  QED.

Feh.
The Mass/Cost imbalance applies everywhere. Even _within_ FB1 taking 
SDNs vs. equivalent points of Frigates. It is a problemm with the entire

costing system: Between FB1 vs. custom,  between custom vs. custom , 
and  FB1 vs. FB1. It's broken everywhere you take large ships vs. small 
ships in the one-off duel setting.

>  After all, a carrier platform isn't really intended to
> face a head-on fighter anyway,

Tha is a universal maxim? I don't think so.

>  In
> fact, just about any ship whose tactical role doesn't involve a very 
> high
> need for survivability --  under this
> system, just to maximize the weapons they're bringing to the field.

Only if the correction goes too far, in which case it's broken the other

way. From what I've heard regarding tests of this fix, this has not been

the case.

> And I _really_ disagree with your assessment that there's no mass-12 
> ships
> that could beat a mass 400 dreadnought when they outnumber it (sorry,
my
> initial math was off) 50 to 1.  Take the following :

[Snip next strawman]
My 5 second analysis may have been wrong, granted. 'Course a 400 mass 
behemoth with a bunch of Long range Pulsers & plasma bolts would be 
interesting to take against the swarm. The Mass/Cost fix does make 
Uberdreadnoughts increasingly inefficient (since the unity cost 
adjustment is 100 mass). I don't consider that a bad thing, but if 
someone wanted a different unity point (say 200 or 400 mass) for their 
game setting, that'd be fine. THey would probably have very few 20-40 or

so mass ships in their setting. Given the scale of the FB1 game, where 
the biggest ship is less than 300 Mass, and it's a carrier, the 
as-written Mass/Cost fix gives a reason to take a fleet of FFs and DDs 
against a Battlecruiser group.

>  After all, in a real war
> effort, a mass 3000 ship means that you only need to get one needle 
> beam hit
> to its FTL drives and you've just rendered a very major piece of 
> hardware
> irrelevant to an interstellar war.

This is why the fix may not be needed in a campaign setting. I was not 
talking about a campaign setting.

As for the fixed table, maybe your group has trained itself to fly and 
fight constrained in a box. Good for you all. Maybe you can try a 
space-sim next. ;-)