RE: Size Class Escalation -- How high in Mass?

> David Griffin wrote:
> 
> > > *Are* the ships in the Fleet Books already balanced
> > > wrt size?
> > >
> > > No. Not really. Large FT/FB ships have several
> > > advantages over small ones
> > > which aren't reflected in the points/design system,
> 
> If however one side's fleet consists of a single or a few very large 
> ship(s) while the other side is mixed-size or consists of smaller
ships 
> only, then the large-ship fleet only has big-ship advantages but no 
> small-ship penalties while the other fleet has fewer or no large-ship 
> advantages and significant small-ship penalties - and this gives the 
> big-ship fleet a significant overall advantage. This case wasn't
tested 
> enough during the FB1 playtesting, so we didn't realise just how big a

> problem it could be.

(BTW MTM = More Thrust Missile in the following)
OTOH.... if and when we get MTMs with EMP warheads going, it's entirely 
possible that ships larger than about 300 could become less than useful.

Get hit by 3 MTMs and take 6D6 damage - which would be crippling vs a
cruiser,
and fairly bad vs a BC. A Komarov can shrug it off, though with some
pain. A 
2000 mass Deathstar won't notice it.

But get hit by 3 EMP MTMs each causing a threshold (at 6) on all
systems, and 
the cruiser's better off, the Komarov's hurtin', and the Deathstar's 
devastated, with nearly half its systems ( OK, 91/216 in fact) off-line.
Of course an EMP-MTM had better be a really short range weapon with some

distinct disadvantages if it's going to be like this.

If we do our sums right, we could - and possibly should - make a slight
tweak 
to the FT game to give the existing FB1 designs a really good reason for
being 
the way they are, and not super-ships. Yet allow super-ships and bases
to have 
their place.

But further discussion had better wait till we've sorted some of the
other 
issues about MTMs in playtesting.

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