Re: [VV] Gate Defense

On Wed, Feb 02, 2005 at 05:20:36AM +0100, John Atkinson wrote:

>Analogy:  Wormholes are like rail lines.  Standard FTL is like trucks.

The only reason I can see that this might work differently - and this
is of course tied to your Point Two - is if the physics work out as
"wormholes are like high-speed rail lines, standard FTL is like
walking". Even then you (the wormhole power) are likely to have a big
mobile reserve rather than wormhole point defences...

>Stop thinking in terms of equal point battles.  Those are
>(historically speaking) about as common as two-headed calves.	If you
>are trying to think in terms of a universe's reality, then ignore the
>game convention of equal point battles.

I have been trying to get this idea across for years. :-) The scenarios
I run tend to be:

(1) Part of a campaign game. Each side has the forces it managed to get
on site. We don't really know who "won" until the whole campaign is
over and we can analyse all battles in context.

(2) One-off game. There's a stronger side and a weaker side. Why is the
weaker side staying to fight? It's slower and can't evade; it's
covering the withdrawal of the freighters; it's making a Heroic Last
Stand to defend a fixed high-value target; it's expecting
reinforcements any time now. These are some of the options; I'm sure
there are others. Those are the scenarios I run, and rather than just
count up the number of destroyed ships I usually rate each side's
success proportionally to the force they took in. If you went in with a
scoutship and blew away one destroyer from the Grand Fleet before you
got nailed, that's a "win" for your side...

>If you havn't read at least two of the Starfire novels AND/OR played a
>dozen warp point assaults in the Starfire game system, please shut the
>hell up

I was trying to suggest this, but I think your approach is more likely
to get through. :-)

R