Re: [GZG] Orders Writing and Thresholds, and Game Plans....

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http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Fri, Dec 18,
2009 at 3:00 PM, Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> >From: Tom B <kaladorn@gmail.com>
>
> >Part of the delay is some people honestly don't play that often
> >(sometimes once a year) and they tend to be less decisive as a result
> >of unfamiliarity and trepidation. That's just the reality of
> >tournaments. And my observation is it isn't 1 in 8 people at the
> >table, but 3-4 in 8.
>
> Yeah... this does kind of hurt.  Last Saturday I had a group with
three of
> us, we'd played a few times and they'd gotten used to it for the most
part,
> and after their beef with the massive dice rolling I came up with a
few more
> conventions for reducing it.	We played through them both having
9000ish NPV
> squadrons against me role playing the bad guys with 17000 NPV, and
banged
> through it all in about three and a half hours.  Conversely, at
Celesticon
> we had four of us, two of us were vets and the other two were new,
each side
> had roughly 4000 NPV of fleet book ships, all the procedures exactly
by the
> book, and it took over twice that long.  I can think of three main
reasons
> for the difference:  1.  Fleet book ships are way less lethal than
custom
> designs.  (e.g. my favorite epic fail moment at the convention was
firing
> off at point blank range, nose-on firing arcs with an undamaged NSL
fighter
> carrier and managing to fail to kill an FSE frigate that I only had to
do
> six points
>  of damage to.  I don't think any non-carrier capital ship in my
custom
> games would ever manage to fail to kill something that small at that
range
> no matter how bad the roll was.)  ...]
>

Fleetbook designs, as was stated by Jon when they first came out, are
not
nor were they ever meant to be, the most efficient designs. They were 
made
with inherent flaws. Consider these flaws to reflect the pre-gaming
design
and construction of said ships while different contractors bid and
underbid
on building said ships. They were designed purposefully to not min-max
capabilities.

So, no, they are not efficient ship-killers in and of themselves. But
that
makes for a different and interesting tactical situation all by itself.
:-)
Of course, I don't think most of us play games anywhere approaching the
size
of yours, Eric.  ;-)

Mk