Josh and I had a Full Thrust action today, pitting a UN squadron against an Islamic Federation patrol. Both sides had 1900 points; the blue beanies had two Luna Mk II battleships and two Point battlecruisers while the IF brought a pair of Jibrail light dreadnoughts (replacing the torpedo bays with heavy missile bays) and a pair of Saif ed Din battleships. We were using the Vector movement rules, which neither of us have used in quite a while.
Calling direction 12 "north", the IF set up facing north, at a velocity of 8mu in that direction, at a point 60mu east of the UN. The UN forces were heading in direction 2, with velocity 12mu.
Both sides kept their forces together. The UN thrust ahead, building velocity, while the IF turned west and thrust to close range. At the end of the second turn, the IF scored first blood with an improbably lucky beam shot; the UN returned grazer fire but missed. The forces drew closer, their paths crossing each other; however, I realized that the velocities were divergent enough that the Islamic Fed forces were never going to have a good missile shot. That meant that I had four bays of weapons that were useless.
We played a couple more turns and called it. One Luna was halfway through its last hull row and ready to FTL out, and a Point was damaged; on the Islamic side, one Said ed Din was wrecked. Both Jibrails were in good shape as far as systems, but they'd lost their armor and would start taking thresholds shortly; we decided that the UN forces came out ahead.
Grazer fire does a lot of damage when it hits, but it didn't hit very often in this game. Josh said that the UN ships must be crewed with uplifted gorillas, and the uplift process wasn't all that successful; the UN review board advised BuShips to put pictures of bananas on the firing buttons. "And hey, this button says Smite--I wonder what that does?" From the Islamic side, I now realize that missiles in vector movement are essentially short range weapons.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
What size radius were you using in vector? 6", 4", 3" for the SMs?
Missiles are best used against *low delta vee* opponents; Those that cannot manouver will tend to suck up the missiles. The missile game is also a game of timing... you have to get close enough to put them in range but not past them, so they have to be able to fox you by speed changing as they close and having enough velocity so you'll get minimal firing opportunities. A stern chase is a great place for missile armed ships.
Torpedos might have been more useful to you.
The graser is the sort of weapon JP calls 'swingy'. He finds SG has already too much of that and some FT weapons are like that. Beams (many dice, bell curve, decent predictability on damage output) tend to be more amenable to predictable results. Swingy weapons will either break you or break your foe.
Strictly as a doctrine aspect, if I were the IF, I would allow deployment of SMRs and be sure the small strike ships were flown by green crews. The survivors would be bouyed by success; the dead would be martyrs to the cause.
If I was the UN or NAC, I would never allow the deployment of a huge number of such swingy weapons. If a NAC or UN ship has to fight 10 battles, the fact that you'll crush a foe in 2 is nice, but getting crushed in 2 in return is terminal and it could be one of the early battles you get crushed in.... swingy is bad for long term sustainment of capabilities.
Or that's my feeling at this point in my development.
I'd love to get a game in with you some time electronically. Maybe we should plan an FT Java game - I think they support IF.
Tom
Post a Comment