Re: [VV] Vectorverse FTL

> 
> At 12:05 PM -0500 1/31/05, Grant A. Ladue wrote:
> >
> >    Hmm, I don't know how defendable *any* gate would really be.  The

> >guy on the
> >  other side can just push through large bundles of seeker missiles
and emp
> >  devices.  The attacker doesn't have to worry about hitting his own
ships at
> >  all, so he can just pump seek and destroy weapons through. 
Eventually you're
> >  going to swamp any amount of fixed defenses.  At some point, it's
going to
> >  come down to the mobile assets of the defender versus the mobile 
> >assets of the
> >  attacker.	I would think that the best a fixed defensive system is
going to
> >  manage is to prevent sneak attacks and give you time to prepare
your ships. 
> Its still a choke point. 3D or 2D. The Bospherous were a pain to get 
> through. So is Gibralter and a number of other places. Such a 
> location where the guy that holds the location can build 
> fortifications and plant mines means that you're going to be 
> extremely limited in how you can take it if you can take it at all. 
> Forcing a passage is going to be harder and directly proportional to 
> how much time and money the guy that holds it is willing to sink into 
> defenses.

    The Bospherous (sp?) or Gibralter were pains *for the technology of
the 
  time*.  Right now, we'd just pound them day and night with cruise
missile 
  attacks until a manned force could just walk right in.  That's the
most 
  likely scenario in any SF context.  Fixed defenses are just targets
for high
  mobility "smart" weapons and nukes.  Fixed defenses only work when the

  situation forces the other guys to risk very high value units to bust
them
  up, and I don't see that here.  In reality, the best "defense" for a
gate 
  would be to keep launching your own missiles through to break up the 
  attacker's forces before they even reach the gate.  I think you could
  reasonably game a gate scenario as being the mobile forces battle
after most
  of the fixed defenses have been neutralized.	An interesting
alternative 
  would be the "run the guns" type of scenario where the attacking fleet
tries
  to get a jump on the defenses without neutralizing them first.  You'd
have
  to make the defense insufficient to crush the attackers though.  Sort
of a
  Mobile Bay or Vicksburg kind of thing.

   grant