Re: [FT] CPV vs. NPV

----- Original Message -----
From: "Allan Goodall" <agoodall@hyperbear.com>
To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 7:40 AM
Subject: Re: [FT] CPV vs. NPV

> The way the current point system works, 1500 points of big ships will
always
> defeat 1500 points of smaller ships. Okay, you don't have a problem
with
this.
> However... how do you know how _many_ small ships equal a big ship?
The
whole
> purpose of a point system is to give a point balance so that two
fleets of
> about the same number of points will be equal in ability to win the
game.
> Otherwise, why have a point system at all?

Well, at risk of being contrary to every piece of conventional wisdom,
this
isn't altogether true at all.  One of the shortest, most one-sided
custom
games I've ever been a part of was when my brother-in-law put his entire
5000-point budget into a single, giant überbattleship.  No escorts, no
fighters, just one really huge monstrous vessel... that had maneuvering
power for about two turns before its drives got needled out.  He struck
its
colors on the spot rather than go through the formalities of me putting
my
entire fleet in his rear arc and shredding him at my leisure.

I did not see him attempt to use another such vessel again for some
years.
I believe this particular game was played a year or so before my
now-four-year-old daughter was born, and the next time he had the guts
to
try a ship that size on me was over this last Christmas.

In _that_ case, he brought a 1500 TMF ship with strong hull, heavily
armored
(about 250, IIRC), with class 2 screens, about 30 dice of plasma  I
brought
five vessels with thrust-4-adv, 40 dice of plasma, reflex fields, each
with
12 pulsers and 16 scatterguns, very weak hull, modest armor, no screens.
Just to crunch the numbers...  His ship masses 380 TMF more than all
five of
mine put together, his armor alone is 25 heavier than my combined hull
integrity and armor of my entire fleet put together, he's got class 2
screens, and I've got no weapons that bypass his armor or screens at
all.
On paper, does it _get_ much more one-sided than this?	About the only
advantage he didn't have was maneuvering power.

Which is precisely why he lost the battle -- he withdrew after 10 or so
rounds of action.  The first few turns had my ships spinning around at
long
range, their reflex fields reflecting all his beams (which were pretty
puny
at that range anyway), the advanced drives making the enemy plasma
gunners
look like fools, and dropping their own plasma on the behemoth at will. 
He
never landed a single plasma hit, and got off only a single real shot
with
his direct-fire weapons, in a turn when I decided to go for a head-on
pass
with all the pulsers tuned to close range fire... I lost one of my
ships, he
got put past first threshold, and I came out of the pass pretty
hopelessly
entrenched in his rear arcs.  My next close pass came from behind him,
putting him over second threshold in exchange for a light dusting of
class 1
beams.	He withdrew to FTL after the next turn when it became clear that
I
wasn't going to let my ships pass in front of him again.

It _is_ true that tackling a really big ship of that sort is something
of a
chore.	But it's not a great enough advantage that a well-handled force
of
smaller ships can't take it down, as has been demonstrated both here by
me
and by Oerjan with his test games of Kra'Vak escort cruisers against
some of
my own older "Dreadplanet Roberts" designs.  I tend to agree with Oerjan
that a design philosophy that's at least similar to K'V CEs (i.e.
advanced
drives, scatterguns, and at least some form of intelligent weapons load
behind them) can basically take on about anything you'd want to throw at
it.
I frankly don't know of anything that just leaves no chance for ships
following this general philosophy to win.

E
(aka Stilt Man)