Bashkar WP Assault repelled

[RTGPete]

My only remaining concern is that I hear you can build screen ships with nothing but basic resources....is this true? [/b]  I've seen a PDF where the NUD Review Board approves the construction of Screen SHips with nothing more than light metals and a few black market goods......if THATS possible, then we have TOO MUCH of a resource efficiency advantage for the attacker.

 

The NUD shouldn't allow that - if it does, it's an error and will be corrected.

[EternusIV]

Whew!

 

[woolfe99]

Pete:

 

I had a question and a few comments on your post.

 

First, the question. The Bashkar had all its fire control systems on the smaller ship that had no armor or shields. If that ship went down first, would his FC rating have then been modified to "1" mid battle? If so, that could partially explain his poor performance, because if his FC rating dropped to 1 on say the first or second battle pulse, he'd have a very tough time getting past that screen with his other ships in ensuing pulses.

 

Some comments.

 

First, his two larger ships were decently armored and shielded. True, his defenses were tech lvl 2, but so were Apshai's weapons! That is a factor that some people have overlooked. This was a battle between two empires of similar tech lvl, except that the Backshar had some superior weaponry (attack fighters and heavy pulse lasers). While I agree that playing against a screen means you want to balance your design more toward defense, since your massive firepower is overkilling those junkers anyway and you want to survive to get past the screen, it seems that his two monitors had some reasonably OK defense here.

 

Second, I agree with your remarks about the Deploc of the carriers. Since fighters are always considered at Deploc 1, you want your carriers as far back as possible.

 

Third, I somewhat disagree with your remark about it making no difference if size is a factor in targetting. If junkers have to be 100,000 tons to be effective instead of 1,000 tons, that's a lot more production you have to use to have an effective screen. The Apshai here was able to not only defeat, but crush, a superior opponent, with about 75,000 tons of junker ships. That's a trivial amount of production to achieve this kind of effect.

 

I agree that superior tonnage should not equate to victory every time. That would be a samey and boring system, where ship design and fleet tactics would be irrelevant. I like the idea of screening being a viable tactic. However, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing - making one tactic TOO effective. Looking at these results, with the Bashkar having about 70% more tonnage and a 2 TL weapon advantage plus decent FC, I seriously doubt he could have achieved victory even with a lot more armor on his ships, his carriers at Deploc 12, and no wasted tonnage. Maybe would have done more damage, but Apshai's trivial investment of resources to build 75,000 tons in junkers pretty much assured him victory over this superior fleet one way or another.

 

I think you might consider making size A FACTOR in targetting in addition to the deploc of the ship. It wouldn't be hard to code. The core system would be targetting based on size, but effective size would be heavily modified by the DepLoc of the ship, such that ships in farther DepLocs read as much smaller than they are. This way, screening still works as a viable tactic, and it'll take a much bigger fleet of capital ships to defeat a well screened fleet, but maybe not on quite the margin we're seeing now...

 

- woolfe

[PhaseDragon]

We are all assuming that screening ships are just hunks of steel or such without any maneuverability or weapons. Well designed screen ships in deploy loc 1 with lots of armor and a plasma torp and hellbore along with enough engines to allow it to get in the way of enemy fire would make sense. Hunks of steel just to clutter the way does not make sense. A more effective "fix" should consider the effectiveness of the screen ships as screens. Slugs of steel should be easy to maneuver around to get a clear shot to the rear while a highly maneuverable screen should be able to stay in the way for the most part.

 

Just my opinion of course.

[woolfe99]

We are all assuming that screening ships are just hunks of steel or such without any maneuverability or weapons. Well designed screen ships in deploy loc 1 with lots of armor and a plasma torp and hellbore along with enough engines to allow it to get in the way of enemy fire would make sense. Hunks of steel just to clutter the way does not make sense. A more effective "fix" should consider the effectiveness of the screen ships as screens. Slugs of steel should be easy to maneuver around to get a clear shot to the rear while a highly maneuverable screen should be able to stay in the way for the most part.

 

Just my opinion of course.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Very good point. In order for a ship to effectively "block" an enemy from firing at a larger ship in the vastness and 3 dimensionality of space, the screen would have to have high maneuverability at the very least...

 

- woolfe

[Ixpuztec]

This is not correct. Look more carefully and compare the ratings.

 

-IXY

 

First, his two larger ships were decently armored and shielded.  True, his defenses were tech lvl 2, but so were Apshai's weapons! 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[MacBeth]

"As you are aware Ken, those monitors have been waiting outside the system for a bit now. I was waiting for my fleet of 50 armed gnats to show up, but this last turn I said, BAH! forget it. i dont want to wait 4 months just to get a fleet of ships whose SOLE PURPOSE is to take advantage of how the game system works at the moment. Thats senseless. The only think more pathetic than a Fleet Admiril who will not choose to target the most dangerous ship in a fleet is a Shipyard commander who would choose to build ships for no other purpose than to act as chaff."

 

"This is ridiculous. A larger fleet with better fire control defeated by a much smaller fleet plus a bunch of junk. We are being forced to build silly fleets because the targeting system is obviously broken. And wars will grind down to a glacier pace as swarms of non transwarp gnats crawl back and forth across the map because that's the only way to win battles."

 

Goodness Gracious. You guys sound like the French during the Hundred Years War.

 

Sacre bleu! Our knights outnumber the English knights by many hundreds! Those peasant longbowmen can't possibly affect the outcome of the battle. They are not of noble blood! War is the business of knights! Get our peasants out of the way! Charge!

 

etc. etc.

 

[octagon999]

Realism, as silly as it sounds in a sci-fi game, certainly should not trump play balance or playability, or even just plain fun. Besides which, anyone can have their own justification and definition of "realism".

 

I'm satisfied with Pete's explanations and look forward to even more discoveries in the game.

[Ur Lord Tedric]

Very good point.  In order for a ship to effectively "block" an enemy from firing at a larger ship in the vastness and 3 dimensionality of space, the screen would have to have high maneuverability at the very least...

 

- woolfe

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

'Space is big, really, really big'

 

However, weapon ranges are in, relatively, spitting distance.

 

With weapons limited, at best, to light-speed and ships moving at an appreciable percentage of that speed then avoiding weapons fire is quite possible.......

 

As is keeping any 'screen' between you and the enemies fire. And filling the WP exit vectors with minefields a very reasonable tactic.

 

Lots of 'junker' screens works fine defending behind a WP. It will work pretty well, but less well, in an open space battle. It pretty much sucks as an offensive through a WP tactic..........

 

If defending WPs didn't work then the "Bugs" would have conquered all in "In Death Ground".

 

For our part we can envisage many scenarios where the end result seems very reasonable, although the actual mechanics of getting there don't make totally perfect sense. Indeed this makes even more sense when we remember that our dear Oracle didn't really want to give us any more than the result at the beginning. We're glad he relented though, as we still wouldn't have much of a clue as to how to design ships.

 

At which point, it must be time for the New Year plea of:

 

1-Weapon Ranges

 

2-Defense statistics explanation

 

3-Fighter & Drone effects and tactics.........

 

Please....

 

Chief Warmaster to Ur-Lord Tedric

[athonian]

my question is does size already affect targets? or no? i think it would be nice if there was some consideration in that direction.

[Dr.0]

Why should size affect targetting?

 

What are likely engagements ranges? My guess is 10,000 miles.

 

You cannot 'see' your opponent.

 

Radar will give you location but not size.

 

Some sort of energy emission detector would give direction, but probably not distant.

 

So, even though it would be desireable to target the best ships. In a practical (in sf??)

sense it could likely be impossible.

 

Jack

[EternusIV]

Fire Control ratings go down as you lose your fire control components.....if you have a large ship with nothing but computers and it dies in the first round, your fire control will plummet for subsequent rounds.

 

This isn't me talking. Pete has mentioned this in past posts (as recently as a month ago?)

 

There are lots of things to sift through on these boards which is why I spent so much time consolidating things said by Pete and Russ on various game mechanics....its about 90 pages with 10-pt font so far!

 

I'm indexing it this week and it should be published by Thursday or Friday (if nothing unpredictable pops up in work)

 

The information is not hiding in some secret pipeline....100% of what we know as a player community about space combat can be found on these very boards, the naval combat primer and the rulebook.

 

ULT-

 

I'm not so sure that the mechanics for warp bubbles are being reported yet (I'm sure its IN....it just doenst show up on reports) I've seen a warp point assault or two with many ships and there is nothing in the report to indicate that screen ships were slaughtered asthey came through....I havent seen an extreme case yet but I'm guessing that you can create very tiny warp bubbles for screen ships to where you can squeeze them through no problemo.

 

 

Comments about realism-

 

As for space combat 'realism'....I think its unrealistic to think that the current combat system will make everyone happy and I don't foresee a scenario where the combat system will change drastically to satisfy a specific version of 'realism'

 

The only real choice we have is to learn the rules, accept them, adapt our tactics to the ruleset and try to have fun

 

I think Phasedragon said it best one time....people are generally upset with the game when the game works out differently than their expectations. In talking about this game with a diverse group of people, I've discovered how many assumptiosn we all carry with us going into such an open-ended game.

 

The only process for us to learn about the game is to provide each other with results and discuss what happened. Luckily, we've had many players willing to share.

 

I guess what I'm tryin to say (and most of you have already learned this...I suppose this is for the newer people).............

 

ASSUMPTIONS ARE DEADLY IN THIS GAME READ AS MUCH AS YOU CAN ABOUT HOW THE GAME WORKS. IF YOU ARENT SURE ON HOW SOMETHING WORKS, ASK PETE OR RUSS

 

 

Norm is a smart guy. The PA is a formidable alliance. I'm certian that a 5 million ton setback will not crush their alliance. If so, it appears that some of the generalizations about Ken's ability to play the game were flat out wrong!

[SargonKingOfSlith]

There are lots of things to sift through on these boards which is why I spent so much time consolidating things said by Pete and Russ on various game mechanics....its about 90 pages with 10-pt font so far!

 

I'm indexing it this week and it should be published by Thursday or Friday (if nothing unpredictable pops up in work) 

 

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Thanks for donating your time on this. I can't wait to see the results.

 

My one complaint has been the lack (or slowness) of coherent information about the game rules. I've read everything on this board, and I have a pretty good memory, but a concise collection on info. should be incredibly useful!

[SargonKingOfSlith]

I’m a bit disappointed that Pete bowed to pressure from the whiners and complainers and supplied a little too much information on winning strategies and tactics. I suppose Pete has to keep customer service in mind as well. But I would prefer for RTG to give us the rules and mechanics of how the game works, and let players develop our own strategies and tactics. Those players who can figure it out on their own deserve to win battles, those who can’t deserve to lose battles.

 

This is a classic example. The Aphsai did a better job of ship and fleet design and made more effective use of deployment location etc. etc. etc. The Aphsai deserved to win this battle through superior strategy and tactics, which in turn was caused by a superior interpretation of the rules.

 

There is plenty of discussion on this board between players about strategies. It’s great. I love reading all of this stuff. Most of it is wildly off base, but some of it is very intelligent and insightful. And I’m very grateful to those of you who post the battle reports since I haven’t been in a single battle myself.

 

I like how the combat system works. If you think this system is broken: Then I think you can’t see the forest for the trees.

 

Speculation and strategy discussions should be for players. Concrete information on rules and mechanics should come from RTG. I’m sorry if I’m offending anyone with this post. But I develop my own strategies and tactics according to my own interpretation of the rules. And the reason I’m in this game is because I want to test how mine stacks up against everyone else’s.

[SargonKingOfSlith]

OK - Reading back over that, I'm being a little too harsh on Pete.

 

Players complain ad-nausium about this, that, and the other thing. Pete answers their complaints. Then I complain because he answers their complaints.

 

Damned if you do - damned if you don't.