Re: Classed Weapons

On Friday, September 5, 2003, at 06:26 PM, Jared Hilal wrote:

>> 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.
>
> On a 24x24, B1s are the most cost effective (3:2 compared to B2s with 
> equal arcs), while on a 48x48, B2s are best.	On 4x6, 5x6, 5x8 and 
> 6x8, B3s start to be more useful.

True to some extent.  On a larger board, with the costs system 
currently, B1s and B2s still may be worth their costs (or at least 
close to it) depending upon tactics and other ship design/system issues.

>> A point system that can take this into account almost 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.
>
> I would love to see discussions like that, but since I have been 
> reading this list, it has been:

<snip>

Understood.  Sometimes I wish some of us could discuss more on this 
list, but being part of various playtest groups we are bound not to 
disclose specifics of ideas under consideration, development, and 
testing.  It's for the best since we throw out a lot of ideas to see 
which have merit and thus lots of changes happen midstream.

> And I don't feel like going through the archives to find the 0.01% 
> that would interest me.

This I can sympathize with.

>> 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.
>
> Resource is off-table.  If the raider can get off the "in-system" 
> short edge of a scrolling table (i.e. more than a full table length 
> between ships, so that the table can't be scrolled to contain both 
> vessels), then it is presumed that the raider can destroy the target 
> before the defender catches him.  Of course, if the defender is 
> destroyed . . .

I'll definitely take the raider (higher speed and weapon range of 25% 
or greater - maybe less) unless the table size is less than 60 MUs in 
length or width.  It's a fairly easy battle to win for the raider.  
Using B4s, the raider matches the KVs spees and direction (or closely 
so), staying about 44 inches out.  This is enough distance to avoid 
being surprised by a KV ship's sudden acceleration towards you 
(assuming it has T6A).	Just shoot away with.  If the KV ship slows 
down, so does the raider - with the speed advantage, with proper 
planning and no mistakes, the raider should be able to stay at a range 
of between 32 and 58 MUs if it has at least a 2 drive advantage and 
there are no other mitigating factors (fighters, terrain, board limits 
smaller than this range).

The reasoning for the 60 inches is you artificially constrain part of 
the movement advantage any "dancing" ship has if the enemies weapons 
reach over 1/2 of the length of the board playing area IMO.

Kevin Walker