Re: (fwd) Re: [FT] F***ters [was: Operational game]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Allan Goodall" <agoodall@hyperbear.com>
To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2003 8:34 AM
Subject: Re: (fwd) Re: [FT] F***ters [was: Operational game]

> On Wed, 5 Feb 2003 14:41:12 -0800, "Eric Foley"
<stiltman@teleport.com>
wrote:
> >I'm sorry, this is flat out wrong.

> No, it's not, but I was implying FB ships, and I don't think that came
out
> clearly. It's easy to build a ship that will defend against 15 or 20
fighter
> squadrons... but it won't be much use against anything else.

FB1 ships are in very bad shape against massed fighters.  There, we
agree.

It is also true that a ship that can defend against soap bubble carriers
with human tech PDS will probably not be much use against anything else.
There, we also agree.

It is _not_ true that a ship that can defend itself against soap bubble
carriers with scatterguns will not be effective against anything else. 
The
density required per ship mass is not significantly greater than what
you
see on a K'V cruiser straight out of FB2.

> >Bring twenty fighters, and your opponent brings
> >about 50-60 scatterguns, and you're dead.

> That's assuming you're using KV, isn't it?

Not at all.  It takes the rules set for what it is, in such
circumstances:
a generic system that can work across many genres.  If someone's gone
and
thrown soap bubble carriers into the game, they're already breaking
outside
the canon -- and outside the canon, there are as many restrictions on
who
can use scatterguns as there are on how dense a fighter payload you can
carry:	those defined by house rules.

If your house rules are allowing soap bubble carriers and aren't
allowing
scatterguns, then as far as I'm concerned, it's your house rules that
are
screwed up, because the system allows a perfectly good anti-soap weapon
as
it is.

> So, how does your group play? Do they just allow any design and hope
that
they
> chose the right specialization to win that battle? Or do you make some
sort of
> announcement as the type of fleets to bring, and battle with similar
fleets?
> For me, I usually cut to the chase and go with the latter idea of
"similar
> fleets", the similiar fleets in this case being fleets out of the
fleet
book.

We play pretty much completely off-the-cuff.  Typically, you get a round
number's worth of ships (usually either 5000 or 10000), and absolutely
anything except for Sa'Vasku tech goes.  We allow nova cannons and wave
guns
to be scaled up linearly like plasma bolts, and we don't allow any one
fighter squadron to carry more than one specialization.  (i.e. you can't
have a fighter that is both heavy and an interceptor.)	Other than that,
the
gloves are completely off.

It is true that there were a few specialized cases early in our gaming
careers, but over time, a balance has been established where nobody
tries to
get too cute or fancy or special with what they're trying to do.  Fleets
that work are designed so that even if the enemy isn't carrying quite
the
weapons mix we expect, we'll still be able to handle it effectively. 
This
balance has included carrying a few more fighter defenses than you see
in
FB1, yes... but not by so great a margin that a FB1-ish fleet that
carried
large amounts of ship-to-ship weapons are going to have a picnic. 
That's
going to come down to who handles their ships better... which is how it
should be.

Completely fighter-centric doctrines have not worked in our games for
some
years now.  I started out using them, and my opponents have not
generally
figured out the knack for how to handle fighters better than I do, so I
often won the games even when they had more fighters than I did. 
They've
sort of given up trying it on me some years ago, and for my own
purposes,
their anti-fighter tactics have gotten sound enough that I don't
typically
use fighters myself without integrating them into a doctrine together
with
plasma bolts.  On the rare occasions on which I use fighters by
themselves,
I've been cruelly reminded why I don't like to do that any more. 
However,
bringing sufficient defenses to at least hold your own against a carrier
fleet have become a standard operating procedure amongst our circles...
it's
simply too risky not to bring such a simple defense against such a
simple
weapon.

E
(aka Stilt Man)