Re: [GZG] Monster ships

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http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Mon, Jan 11,
2010 at 10:00 PM, John Tailby <john_tailby@xtra.co.nz>wrote:

> Not really sure what you mean by banzi jammers and it depends on your
rules
> about mixed and on table hyperspace assaults. We don't allow mixed on
table
> and hyper assault games because it makes it too easy to just jump
accross
> the table and do you might as well equip all ships with close range
weapons
> if you can tactical jump.
>

Banzai Jammer was a termed coined years ago for small, usually
nigh-worthlesss ships (scouts, corvettes, etc) to surround larger
targetable
ships to self-intercept salvo missiles. Given the current rules for
salvos
(attacking closest target, irregardless of targets in the attack
envelope),
sacrificing a 6- or 10-mass ship to several swarms of salvo missiles is
highly cost-effective in saving the larger ship, which could, in turn,
blast
the snot out of the salvo missile firing ship.

If I understand Eric's paragraph correctly, I believe he was suggesting
that
while banzai jammers are easy to kill with anti-ship (i.e., beam) fire,
having a bunch of them means not all may be killed off in one turn by
direct-fire ships. So the easiest way to eliminate the horde of banzai
jammers would be to send a similar horde of dinky ships into point-blank
range and having them fire up their FTL drives, blowing all the tiny
ships
(including the banzai jammers) to smithereens.

Mk

PS: amusing to see the number of replies in this thread and the subject
line
of the thread; I think this has become one of the larger/largest
on-going
threads we have had here in a long, long time

>
>
>
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com>
> *To:* gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
> *Sent:* Tue, 12 January, 2010 2:58:27 PM
>
> *Subject:* Re: [GZG] Monster ships
>
> Yeah, I've been somewhat pondering what to do with this.  On the one
hand,
> I think it's not a bad idea to treat MT missiles sort of like plasma
bolts
> for point defense fire, because if you treat them the same as
individual
> salvo missiles then they get a little _too_ easy to shoot down and
they'll
> have no effectiveness at all.  At the same time, I think it's a good
idea to
> let fighters shoot at them as well, which wasn't possible in More
Thrust.
> We wound requiring each MT missile to use an individual fire control
partly
> because of this.  Area defense got a lot better in the fleet books,
though,
> although we wound up mostly using salvoes in the old group.
>
>
>
> Resupply for missile ships and carriers is a potential issue, but a
lot of
> this depends on how easy you make it to resupply them.  The decoy
drones
> aren't going to work very long if the other side's even the slightest
bit
> balanced or inventive, though.  Even if there's way too many of them
to ever
> reasonably shoot them all with conventional beam support, it's still
so easy
> to just send a similar swarm of drones into the midst of the banzai
jammers
> and FTL bomb the lot of them, even if you don't feel like actually
arming
> them.  Different variants of this can pretty much trash anything that
tries
> to exploit the design rules with 1 hull point, really.  Take a
> few scatterguns and ruin soap bubble carriers too, for instance.
>
>
>
> There's really a lot of different things that can work in battles if
you've
> got the logistics to support it, though, but you usually have to have
at
> least a semi-credible Plan B for it to work.	Good carriers and
missile
> ships still usually need to keep it semi-honest with beams or K-guns
at some
> point, because sometimes it takes a lot of work to get through point
> defense.
>
>
>
> E
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Tailby
> Sent: Jan 11, 2010 11:37 AM
> To: gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
> Subject: Re: [GZG] Monster ships
>
>  Charles
>
> Our gaming group dropped the penalty to PDS hitting the MT missiles a
long
> time ago. A couple of players made fleets whose doctrine was Missiles,
Beam
> 2 and PDS, very like a modern naval fleet... With the increased
protection
> agaisnt PDS fire they were a very superior weapon system especially
when
> compared to Salvo missile weapons.
>
> Unfortunately massed missiles and fighter squadrons make for a rather
> boring game. The ships sit at opposite ends of the table and moves
waves of
> counters at each other.
>
> I agree that missile armed destroyers especially if equipped with
stealth
> technology to protect against long range sniping are pretty effective
strike
> ships
>
>
>
>
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