Re: Re: [FT] Battlecruisers vs. battleships

----- Original Message -----
From: "Laserlight" <laserlight@quixnet.net>
To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 5:24 PM
Subject: Re: Re: [FT] Battlecruisers vs. battleships

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

> > > Er, Eric, it [l]ooks to me as if you're saying a Thrust 6 ship can
go
> > > toe-to-toe with a Thrust 2 ship?

> > Strictly speaking, not really.  I wouldn't define the tactics 
involved
as
> > toe-to-toe so much as hit-and-run.

> You were, IIRC, the one saying that high thrust wastes space that
> would be better invested in weapons?

No... I said that there is a point of diminishing returns where putting
too
much thrust, hull strength, and armor/screens altogether cuts too deeply
into the weapons load for the ship to be effective.  Giving yourself a
few
of them so that the ship fills some specialized tactic is always a good
thing.	Giving in too much to the "kid in a candy store" disease and
taking
too much of it all is usually at the root of every bad design.

Example that everyone's even _agreed_ on, for a change:  the Bonaparte
class
BDN of the FSE.  Every lister I have seen is pretty much unequivocally
agreed that this is the single worst ship design in either fleet book. 
Now
stop for a moment and think about _why_ that is?

I'll give a blunt hint for where it starts:  it's the design with the
largest percentage of its total mass devoted to things other than
anything
related to weapons and fire support, at 75%.

Granted, the actual weapons fits themselves are also singularly awful,
another victim of the urge to do too many things without giving it the
capability to do any of them well.  A single fighter bay on a ship of
that
size is useless.  The missile launcher has more ammunition than it
needs,
thus further diluting its other weapons all the worse.	Which leaves it
with
a negligible beam armament.

In the end, it's an absolutely classic example of what happens when you
try
to give a ship too many goodies, top to bottom.  But even if you put a
focused armament on the thing, it'd still suck, just not as badly --
there
still wouldn't be enough weapons to make it worth while as anything
other
than maybe a giant, re-usable submunition bomb or something similar.

E