Re: Points balance on K-guns vs Beams, part 2

John Atkinson wrote:

 >>In those Vector-playing groups whose designs I've
 >>seen and who haven't consciously or unconsciously enforced an
adherence
 >>to the FB1 wide-arced design style the way you have with your NRE,
the
 >
 >I started checking and found the following mass could
 >be freed up by dropping arcs:
 >
 >Under CE: 0--no multiarc Class 3s or 360 Class 2s.
 >CA: 2
 >CB: 5
 >BB: 7
 >DN: 6
 >DNK: 2
 >DNL: 6
 >DNLK: 6
 >
 >Dunno about you, but that looks fairly trivial to me for the benefits 
gained.

That's because you aren't nearly radical enough. B2s are one of the best

all-round weapon in *Cinematic*, but in Vector they are relegated to
fourth 
place after B3-1s, P-torps and B4-1s; B1s are relatively weak in
Cinematic 
(unless their PD capability is needed) and weaker still in Vector. Your
NRE 
ships have quite a few of both B1s and B2s which can easily be exchanged

for B3-1s or P-torps to improve the firepower.

  A quick look through the NRE "Jane's" listing gives the following:

Belisarius, Maniakes, Cimbalongus, Constantine Isoapostolis  (FF, FH,
DD, 
CE): Replace 2xB2-3 with 1xB3-1.

Milvian Bridge (DH): Replace 4xB2-3 with 2xB3-1.

Thessalonika (CL): Either replace all weapons with 2xB3-1, or replace 
2xB2-3 with 1xB3-1 and keep the other B2-3 and both B1-6s.

St. Symeon (CA): Replace B3-3+B2-3 with 2xB3-1.

St. John Chrysostum (CB): Replace B2-3+B2-6+2xB3-3 with 4xB3-1+1xB1-6.

St. Cyril (BB): Replace B2-6+3xB3-3 with 5xB3-1+1xB1-6

...and so on.

For the lighter ships you "move" one die from the 0-12 range band to the

24-36 band - which means that you get to use that firepower a lot
earlier. 
Inflicting damage early is considerably better than inflicting it later
on 
since "later on" can easily mean "never", particularly for small ships. 
(And, of course, any *enemy* ship you knock out early on is one less
ship
which can damage you at close range.)

For the larger ships you typically increase the firepower in the 24-36
mu 
range band by around 50%, and in the 12-24 range band by around 25%.
Again 
the trade-off is reduced close-range firepower; but again it is much
better 
to inflict damage early than to inflict it late.

If the enemy tries to exploit your weakness at point-blank range, he
must 
first close through your outer range bands without taking excessive
losses 
- and those outer range bands is right where your firepower has just 
increased significantly.

 >Maybe I'm a moron, but I occasionally have targets out of the forward
arc.

Then you're letting them get too close to you - which isn't terribly 
surprising, since you probably want to bring all your own B1s and 
especially B2s into play and those only come into their own at close 
ranges. Outside 12mu range, each firing arc is so wide that a ship only 
rarely is able end up in more than one of your arcs.

 >Of course, I don't run computer programs to determine all
 >possible locations of enemy vessels during a game.

<snort> You don't need a computer for that in either of the movement 
systems. You know where they are now; you know what vector they have
now; 
you know at least roughly what thrust rating they have. This gives you a

very good idea of where they could end up.

In Vector you have the additional information that all of their possible

end locations are clustered on or inside within a circle with a radius 
equal to their thrust rating centered on the point where they'd end up
if 
they used no thrust this turn - so if you keep the range open and point 
your ship to face as closely as you can towards that point, the chance
for 
them to be outside your (F) arc is very small indeed.

 >Maybe on the BB I might want to add another battery, though.

Why *one*, when you could easily have *two* more main batteries by
reducing 
the secondary battery?

 >But at max, I could squeeze another torpedo
 >and a secondary battery on the Dreadnought and I'm not
 >sure it's worth it.

Why would you want another *secondary* battery on this ship? For a
Vector 
combattant, it already has too many of those. Replace one of the 
secondaries and the three B3-3s with five single-arc batteries (either 
P-torps or B3-1s, your choice).

 >My main difference between the KV Hunters and the base
 >ships they are derived from is stripping off the
 >shields, armor, and secondary armament.  They are
 >extremely vulnerable to Human beam weapons,

The St. Andrews and St. Theodores are only vulnerable to Human beam
weapons 
*once those beam weapons get into range*. But the important thing isn't 
their defences (or lack thereof); it is their offensive armament.

Have you ever tried to pit, say, a St.Andrew against a Virgin Mary?

If you have done this, you already know that the *only* range at which
your 
Virgin Mary-class DNL can inflict more damage on average than a
St.Andrew 
DNLK can hit it back with is range 30-36. At range 30 or less, the Andy 
inflicts 30-50% more damage on the Mary than the Mary can inflict on the

Andy - as long as the Andy can keep the Mary in its (F) arc.

What is even more interesting is that if you replace three to six of the

Andy's P-torps with B3-1s, it will outgun the Mary (F) arc to (F) arc at

*all* ranges - in spite of the Mary's heavy screens.

The only way (barring extreme luck with the dice) a Virgin Mary-class
ship 
has to defeat a St. Andrew modified as above (ie., replacing three of
its 
P-torps with B3-1s) is to stay out of the Andrew's (F) arc - and that
means 
to get inside range 12 and stay there for several turns in a row.
(Against 
an unmodified St.Andrew, the Mary also has the option to keep the range
to 
more than 30 mu.)

However... if the closure speed was so low that the Mary is able to stay
at 
point-blank range for several turns in a row, it was also so low that
the 
Mary spent many turns closing through the outer range bands... in which 
case the Mary will be in considerably worse shape than the Andrew when
it 
finally reaches close range :-/

 >So. . . in vector eliminate or reduce the KV cost for advanced drives?

In Vector, accept that the special Kra'Vak concept isn't special at all
- 
everyone uses it, and most do it better than the Kra'Vak themselves. Or 
change the way Kra'Vak (or Standard) drives work in Vector, to give the
KV 
their manoeuvrability advantage back. Or introduce a whole bunch of new
KV 
weapons, to give them the same design flexibility as the humans already 
have :-/

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry