RE: [FT] Yet Another Fighters Suggestion

Binhan Lin wrote:

 >The problem of that idea is munchkinism - for instance if 200 points
of 
ships
 >can defeat 150 points of ships most of the time, the side that has 30,

ten point
 >ships will almost always defeat the the fleet with 2, 150 point ships,
by 
simply
 >generating a temporary imbalance on the board (sending 10 one after
one ship
 >and twenty after the other).

This is not munchkinism; it is sound Lanchestrian tactics. Aside from
the 
fact that the smallest legal armed ship design in FT/FB2 costs 15 pts 
rather than 10, the scenario you describe only occurs if the two 150-pt 
ships (ie., light cruisers) allow themselves to get separated for long 
enough that the 200 points of small ships can destroy their target
before 
the other large ship can come to its aid.

(Meanwhile that other light cruiser has an even bigger local advantage 
(3:2) over the 100 pts of small ships it is facing than the 4:3
advantage 
the 200 pts have over its sibling. 'Course, if the small ships split up
in 
this fashion but the cruisers *don't* allow themselves to get separated,

the smaller ships can easily find themselves in very deep trouble
indeed...)

So, let's assume that you were thinking of NPV 15 or 18 armed ships (1
hull 
box, 1 FCS, 1 B1, main drive, and the NPV 18 version also has an FTL 
drive). You get 16-20 of these scoutships for the cost of 2 NPV 150
light 
cruisers with 2 FCSs each. (Note to Glen B.: Linhan was talking about
*NPV* 
150 ships, not *Mass* 150 ships; NPV 150 ships are typically light
cruisers 
with 2 FCSs.)

The two cruisers can kill up to 4 of these scoutships per turn - not so 
easily at longer ranges of course, but at close range their chances of 
shooting the maximum are quite good. Furthermore, due to the way the 
shooting initiative works they'll usually be able to destroy scoutships 
which haven't fired yet this turn. Even if the cruisers don't manage to 
kill any scoutships at long range, that means that 20-25% of the
scoutships 
are likely to be gone before any of them can fire...  not a particularly

good start of battle, really. Usually not quite so bad as to make the 
scoutship swarm chanceless, but certainly bad enough to give the
cruisers a 
good chance of winning the fight.

(As a side note, keep in mind that *each* of the scoutships, including 
those who die before they can fire, needs its own FCS. In this
particular 
matchup the scouts pay 4-5 times more for their FCSs than the cruisers
do 
for theirs.)

***
So no, I don't agree that the scenario you describe is munchkinism. It
is 
the alternative - ie., if 200 points of some ship design *can't* defeat
150 
points of some other ship design most of the time - which opens the gate

wide for the munchkins, since it means that the 150-pt design is much
more 
cost-effective than the ones from the 200-pt force. Guess which of the
two 
types of designs the munchkins will use?

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

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