RE: Soap bubbles?

Chuck Parrott wrote:

>Item			     Mass Points
>Basic Hull		      (14)     14
>Hull Integrity (in 4 rows)	 3	6
>FTL Drive			 1	2
>Main Drive (Thrust 4)		 3	6
>Sub-total			 7     28
>FCS				 1	4
>Class 1 Batt (6 arc) x 3	 3	9
>PDS x 3			 3	9
>Sub-total			 7     22
>Total				14     50
>
>So my question is would my anti fighter ship, resonably handled, defeat
the
>fighters of a soap bubble given average dice luck?

Given average luck with the dice, they won't defeat the *fighters* - at 
least not if the fighters are also reasonably handled and double up
against 
them. (Without ADFC, these corvettes can't support one another.)

They can however defeat the *carriers* by flying fast enough (ie.,
faster 
than 48 mu/turn) that the fighters only get one turn to attack them
before 
each turn the corvettes can fire at the soap bubbles. Once all the
carriers 
are dead, the corvettes can leave and let the fighters die. Be careful
that 
you don't overshoot the carriers though... if the fighters get two
attacks 
in in a row without the corvettes killing any carriers inbetween, the 
corvettes lose.

>I also designed a pure anti fighter ship like so:
>
>Basic Hull		      (14)     14
>Hull Integrity (in 4 rows)	 3	6
>FTL Drive			 1	2
>Main Drive (Thrust 4)		 3	6
>Sub-total			 7     28
>ADFC				 2	8
>PDS x 5			 5     15
>Sub-total			 7     23
>Total				14     51
>
>By itself could only deal with the fighters, but provides protection
against
>fighter swarms in numbers. Is it worthless?

Worthless? Not at all; enough of these you will defeat the fighters.
They 
even has a small anti-ship capability, though it is extemely
short-ranged 
:-/ Unfortunately they can only protect one other ship each against 
fighters, so you'll need quite a few of them.

>So far from my overly simple analysis, it seems fighters themselves are
>underpriced for what they can do. Perhaps with other designs I would
see
>different. But if a 6 pt fighter group

There ain't no such thing as a "6 pt fighter group". The cheapest
fighter 
group available costs 18 pts, and you also have to pay for the bay in
which 
the fighters ride to the battle and the ship in which it is mounted. All
in 
all the minimum cost to bring a figther group to the table is *61.5*
pts, 
not 6 :-/

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

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