Re: Classed Weapons

On Thursday, September 4, 2003, at 08:13 PM, Jared Hilal wrote:

> Try a Cinematic pursuit battle where the pursuer has the higher or 
> equal Thrust and B3-B5 and the pursued force has a mix of all-B2 ships

> and all-B3 ships (no SML, PBL) on a 4x6 scrolling table.  In this case

> you will find that the * pursuee * gets to dictate the pace of battle.

Do you mean the "purser" gets to dictate the pace of the battle.  The 
side that has the higher or equal thrust and the longer ranged weapons 
should usually be the pace setter unless scenario conditions dictate 
otherwise.

> Key phrase: "On a large enough gaming table . . ."
>
> How about on an average table (i.e. 4x6 or 5x8)?  LL made no 
> stipulation, so it should be relevant to the average, not just special

> cases.  If the Human is the pursuer (to quote LL: "kill or drive 
> off"), the KV can force your human ship off the table if he gets going

> too fast, then continue on to blow up your in-system supply base.

One thing that has to be addressed - there is no way a balanced point 
system is going to true in all situations.  The scenario setting, 
playing area size, and whether the board is "floating" is going to make 
a huge difference.  If the area is 24 mu by 24 mu, B2's and B1's are 
much more effective than B3s and higher, while on a larger playing 
surface this favor may switch to the B3s and higher.  A point system 
that can take this into account amost certainly would need to change 
values as the game factors were known, something that is not acceptable 
to a game system that is being kept simple on purpose (it also 
invalidates the designs and/or information in the first fleet books 
potentially, another bad thing).  Trying to work out kinks in the 
system under the constraints mentioned is a difficult task and you 
should see the discussions that go on about this.

> However, I would gladly take a single FB2 KV CL-equiv. Vo'Bok (mass 
> 60, 238 points) into your star system to raid your infrastructure 
> (using the scenario I described in my previous post) against your 
> proposed ship on a scrolling, cinematic, 4x6 table with 1 MU =1".

I'd meet this change depending upon the conditions placed.  Does the 
defender get to meet the raider out part way from the resource, giving 
them time to dog the attacker?	Or does the raider surprise the 
defender at the planet?  Each one of these favors a different party.  
Both are valid situations, unless your campaign/story lines say 
otherwise due to technology or limits placed on space travel.

Kevin Walker