The Roman War: All is Quiet?

[Ur Lord Tedric]

We can't agree with the 'being able to select primary target' approach.....

 

Forget RL wet navy analogies (a la Victory)..... You cannot fire 'over' intervening ships.

 

You're in space!!!

 

They're screen ships - they get in the way of the shot(s), you don't get to choose to shoot past them.

 

And sometimes they don't manage to get in the way and you hit ships further back in DepLoc.

 

In fact, and we've said it before, do not think of the 'screen' ships as ships at all - they're defensive 'mine'fields. To get through them you need to clear them first.

 

And they can, at best, move one system at a time. They are purely defensive systems and make a played HW quite difficult to attack, but that's all......

 

We would dearly love to see it proved and have the Naval Battle Report show sufficient detail, but, in theory, once your FC reaches 50+ then you should be able to destroy the maximum number of screenships that could pass through any WP - thus preventing any attack from succeeding.

 

Check the incoming WP sizes and choose your defence-line accordingly.

 

Chief Warmaster to Ur-Lord Tedric

[ShadowKitsune]

I know I'm in space ... which is vast and filled with a lot of nothing. [i'll refrain from the obligatory Hitchhiker's Guide quotes and/or oblique references at this time.]

 

Screen ships aren't an impenetrable wall. They can only occupy so much of the spacial volume, which means I can fire through them. Unless they are jumping in front of my Long Range weapons, I can certainly target the ships behind them [read shoot at higher Deploment Location values]. If my Battlecruisers are in DepLoc2 and my screen ships are in DepLoc1, I'm obviously shooting through them to hit my enemies vessels, right?

 

You're also making the assumption that the big ships are in deeper DepLocs. They don't have to be. Other than Carriers [Drone or Fighter], why should they be? If the FC spreads the shots out evenly, I can have everything in DepLoc1 and just use the math of big numbers to 'screen' my large warships with my 1000t mobile 'minefields'.

 

Again, I was never advocating that the targetting priority addition to the combat system be an all or nothing deal. If it just re-tasked a reasonable portion of my fleet's firepower to ships of a certain size or greater, I'd be happy. Heck, if it required a Naval Officer, I'd be happier! If it was a function of the 'skill' of the officer, I'd be momentarily ecstatic then happy [i.e. 7.5% Re-task/'level' of the Naval Officer for a progression of 7.5% to 52.5% re-task].

 

Yes, I know I'm advocating changing the 'rules of the game' as it were. I am not oblivious to this fact. I also know that the odds of this being implemented are somewhere around Paris Hilton getting elected Chancellor of Germany levels. I also know that if players, such as myself, didn't say anything, the odds would be an absolute zero. It may also be in there and those of us advocating change on the board just haven't stumbled across the technology, yet.

 

This isn't a deal-breaker for me, honest. It may not even be one of my better ideas for enhancements to the game. It certainly isn't my worst.

 

-SK

[Lord Uriel]

"Paris Hilton getting elected Chancellor of Germany "

 

If only that could happen. We could then deny her entrance to the US for some obscure reason.

 

I agree with SK. If your opponents screen mines/ships can block all shots from your fleet, then why should his big ships be able to fire past his screens? Doesn't make sense.

[AKO]

Interesting, I agree with Ur Lord Tedric.

The guys on the screen ships have only 1 goal: get in the way of the opponents weapons. That's their job, they were trained to do just that.

Your screens try to avoid shots fired by your own weapons, but want to get on purpose in the way of the attackers weapons. Maybe your fleets trained on how to fire and make sure that you do not hit your own screens (attack profile Alfa Kappa). I think that is doable.

 

How to crack a planet with a lot of screens:

Build a ship with some engines, not too much weaponry, no armour but with a high FC (let's say FC on 100 and just enough weaponry enough to kill 100 screen ships with the first shot, but not more).

It should last only 1 round, but take away almost 100 screens (except for the few blobs that actually hit a big ship).

After that one was send in, send another on the next cycle, and another on the next and another on the next. Then send in the real fire power on the next cycle. Shouldn't take too much tonnage with the first ships. I think this is also what Hobknob means with this suggestion 3.

 

Just my 2 cents.

Edited January 11, 2006 by AKO

[hobknob]

Ok, I have 500 screens that have an integrity of 20M each. How will you design your disposable screen destroyers to remove my screens so you can actually get to my capital ships?

 

Let's look at the numbers. At an FC of 50 you would need to do 1B in damage to be assured of a kill in one shot.

 

That is a lot of firepower for a disposable ship.

 

[Lord Uriel]

Well, I believe that means Hobknob's HW is invulnerable. I hope I never have to fight you.

 

As much as I don't like the current system, I accpet it. I wish it was different, but I am "playing the game." Very soon I will be able to build 1,000 screens a turn.

Disgusting isn't it?

 

 

Hobknob, I respect your opinion and your point.

 

As my students would say "peace out!"

 

Lord Uriel

[Kurassier]

Well as a general rule of thumb, I certianly hope my larger ships will fire at the enemies larger ships and not at screens, especially if the screens are hunks of armor with no or minimal weaponry. A quick scan of the enemy fleet (and yes better tech sensors would help here) would be able to tell me if the 'screens' are any threat at all, if not, I fire at the big ships. That being said, I'm sure that if the screens are numerous some of them are going to get in the way and get blown up instead of my ships actually hitting the enemy big ships.

Once the big ships are cleared, then I mop up the gnats.

Now of course this is all pretty moot since it appears to me that individual ships don't target anyway. The whole fleet's firepower is added up, divided by FC and then shots allocated. So of course some of the shots have to hit the 'screen' ships. If my FC is only one or two, then that is my fault when I get wasted.

Personally, if I am doing a WP assault, I'll send in my 'screen' killers the first impulse and then send in my capital ships the impulse after that would hopefully deal with fewer screens.

[Octus Imperium]

The funny thing is that Hugh may be onto something and it might have something to do with complex research. 

 

Enjoy your turns.

 

Lord Uriel

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I also hope Hugh is correct and research in areas other than warfare generate advances of interest in warfare. What did the moon race do for the US economy? Huge and lasting impact, like the 'puters we are all using today. Did Kennedy plan it that way? Not that he admitted. Did someone think about it and has he/she kept it silent ever since? Perhaps. Most likely, the law of unintended consequences. (Nearly as powerful as Robert's Rules of Order, U.S. Senate rules and Murphy's Law.)

 

Anyway, hope to eventually justify some of my research choices. (No, I have not researched advanced plantfood.....yet!)

 

Octus

[Octus Imperium]

"Paris Hilton getting elected Chancellor of Germany "

 

If only that could happen.  We could then deny her entrance to the US for some obscure reason.

 

I agree with SK.  If your opponents screen mines/ships can block all shots from your fleet, then why should his big ships be able to fire past his screens?  Doesn't make sense.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

LOL!

 

At least deny her photo's access to every popular mag! Has there been an issue of People, US, Time, National Inquirer, etc. (All but Health Affairs and the Economist) since her internet video (number 1 of xxx?) that hasn't had her image AND topic reference somewhere in the volume? For what? Well, we know what. But after all this time, bad acting, over exposure, dumb comments?

 

Please note, I have not pesonally reviewed all the above publications. But if you EVER pick one up, you find her.....

 

How do I really feel?

 

Octus

[General Miles Avatar]

Ok, I have 500 screens that have an integrity of 20M each. How will you design your disposable screen destroyers to remove my screens so you can actually get to my capital ships?

 

Let's look at the numbers. At an FC of 50 you would need to do 1B in damage to be assured of a kill in one shot.

 

That is a lot of firepower for a disposable ship.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[/quote

 

1 Billion or more in firepower very doable with large numbers of 6th or 7th generation weapons systems. But your right putting that kind of firepower on

disposable ships is folly.

[hobknob]

That was my thought as well. Doable but very expensive.

[WKE235]

Ok, I have 500 screens that have an integrity of 20M each. How will you design your disposable screen destroyers to remove my screens so you can actually get to my capital ships?

 

Let's look at the numbers. At an FC of 50 you would need to do 1B in damage to be assured of a kill in one shot.

 

That is a lot of firepower for a disposable ship.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[/quote

 

1 Billion or more in firepower very doable with large numbers of 6th or 7th generation weapons systems. But your right putting that kind of firepower on

disposable ships is folly.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I would like to add that I did experiment with this very strategy versus some NSI screen ships. I'm trying to remember everything so, please excuse me if some items differ a bit from any earlier post (it has been awhile). Anyway, the NSI screens were all very low integrity (like around 1000 each). I was able to whip up a ship class (The Medusa) with an FC around 50 at around 50,000 tons in size. Damage from Deploy Location 1 versus DepLoc 1 was estimated to be around 3,000 (I kept it high to allow for other DepLoc testing, or in case damage versus firepower was not a 1 to 1 relationship). A 50K ship for 50 1K ships = a nice experiment ... or so I thought.

 

The result was ... I did MINOR damage to a LOT of screen ships (I think it was around 45 or so), and lost the Medusa to the overwhelming firepower of the Capital ships NSI had in DepLoc 5. After some mails traded with Pete, he agreed something was not right, and equalized the battle results (destroying the screen ships .. which considering NSI had another 500 of the suckers was nothing). While I got the expected results ... I never received any details on what went wrong in the battle. All I can do is hope Pete has had the time to determine what happened and correct the code.

 

Anyway ... such ships are possible and could be useful for sweeping away screen ships of Lower tech levels (when they have little integrity). But, imagine if the screens had 400 Integrity per point of armor ... in other words something like 200,000 Plus integrity per ship. As far as I know, there are no weapons around that would allow you to construct a ship such that you could generate 200,000 damage per 1000 tons of ship. Hence this strategy falls apart at higher techs.

[rotor911]

"Paris Hilton getting elected Chancellor of Germany "

It's odd. I didn't know that "Angela Merkel" was Paris Hilton. Why did she change name?

[AKO]

Agreed that it will not work with the higher techs.

But most of what I've seen here is a lot of low level screens as WKE describes, and then sending in 10 medusa's (one after another) should help a lot.

[General Miles Avatar]

Ok, I have 500 screens that have an integrity of 20M each. How will you design your disposable screen destroyers to remove my screens so you can actually get to my capital ships?

 

Let's look at the numbers. At an FC of 50 you would need to do 1B in damage to be assured of a kill in one shot.

 

That is a lot of firepower for a disposable ship.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[/quote

 

1 Billion or more in firepower very doable with large numbers of 6th or 7th generation weapons systems. But your right putting that kind of firepower on

disposable ships is folly.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I would like to add that I did experiment with this very strategy versus some NSI screen ships. I'm trying to remember everything so, please excuse me if some items differ a bit from any earlier post (it has been awhile). Anyway, the NSI screens were all very low integrity (like around 1000 each). I was able to whip up a ship class (The Medusa) with an FC around 50 at around 50,000 tons in size. Damage from Deploy Location 1 versus DepLoc 1 was estimated to be around 3,000 (I kept it high to allow for other DepLoc testing, or in case damage versus firepower was not a 1 to 1 relationship). A 50K ship for 50 1K ships = a nice experiment ... or so I thought.

 

The result was ... I did MINOR damage to a LOT of screen ships (I think it was around 45 or so), and lost the Medusa to the overwhelming firepower of the Capital ships NSI had in DepLoc 5. After some mails traded with Pete, he agreed something was not right, and equalized the battle results (destroying the screen ships .. which considering NSI had another 500 of the suckers was nothing). While I got the expected results ... I never received any details on what went wrong in the battle. All I can do is hope Pete has had the time to determine what happened and correct the code.

 

Anyway ... such ships are possible and could be useful for sweeping away screen ships of Lower tech levels (when they have little integrity). But, imagine if the screens had 400 Integrity per point of armor ... in other words something like 200,000 Plus integrity per ship. As far as I know, there are no weapons around that would allow you to construct a ship such that you could generate 200,000 damage per 1000 tons of ship. Hence this strategy falls apart at higher techs.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

You are quite right... but at current level of research with our most advanced weapons systems that goal may be close to being attained when we reach

Mk VII which in this case would be 10th generation weapon.

 

That about 2 or 3 more years real time. whoa.