Re: [GZG] Monster ships

Points:

The adaption Oerjan talked about for MTMs/HMs to FB rules is required
to keep their points value somewhat adequate. I'm not sure what an
appropriate cost for a behaviour and resilience more like the original
MTMs would be, but I'm darn sure it is more PV. Otherwise the MTM/HM
is unbalanced in a FB world.

As to Indy's point: I sort of agree with you, but again it would come
down to costing. The concept was that the sensors of the missile are
small and limited versus the EW environment they are operating in,
thus making them lucky enough to hit *something*. Metagame-wise, you
have one type of missile that hits a single target accurately (MTM/HM)
and one that hits a somewhat random target (still must be in range of
acquisition) (Salvo Missile). If they had selective targeting, they'd
have to be much more expensive.

I don't know if anybody recalls SFB drone warfare, but I always used
to play a Klingon. Drones were my bread and butter. Swordfish,
spearfish, armoured, ECM and so on. But you had control limits (IE the
firecon limitation). And the effective, survivable, larger drones
(MTM/HM equivalents) were rather sizably expensive in point value as
they needed to be to balance things. It tended to keep the number of
armoured, fast, size IV, spearfish drones (you had a big enough
payload on a IV to put two different sorts of payload module on a size
IV) to a minimum on the board.

If you didn't put reasonable point costing on HTM/HMs (and I haven't
heard OA or anyone say what that would be) but kept the old-school
behaviours, then you've got a very long range, very selective weapon
for an overly cheap price. Even *WITH* the firecon limit. Squadrons of
missile destroyers with 2 HMs help get around the firecontrol limit
but still let you deluge the battlefield with these very accurate,
destructive weapons outside of even class 4 beam range.

I was pleasantly surprised by the idea of FTL-bombing banzai jammers.
That's a technique I hadn't thought of. Mind you, for that matter, you
can use this technique beyond just engaging banzai jammers... you can
use it to actually attack big ships. It is going to be (I think) far
more lethal in vector than in cinematic (as far as getting the hits
in), but you could use this approach in place of conventional weapon
attacks. Swarms of small ships all attempting to open FTL windows
blanketing an enemy fleet.

Was there not a change at some point to let the ship doing so die but
fail to damage others just to avoid this sort of thing? If you allow
it for neutralizing banzai jammers, then it really does become the
carpet bombing tool.

Tom
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http://www.stargrunt.ca

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