They WERE that way, Beowulf, not so many years ago.

Your nephew now has those style ships.   

I made a sheet of 25-point rng-30 ROF-2 ships that use up one line, half a column, each for the hull/engine (shields?  HA!) hits.  The sheet has 72 such ships.  But I haven't bothered to run that.

For the 2500 point battle we had last Monday, I could have had 100 of those ships, with a total of 200 shots per turn (minus losses).  Even with my bad die rolling I might have made an impression.  Instead I used my recently painted Battlestar Galactica and a "ragtag" fleet (the previous ship example is a new design for my next version of the same scenario).  I'm using other Traveller-based miniatures: passenger liner, laboratory ship (the one that looks like a wheeled space station), the triangular scout, plus a couple of SFB small freighters as bulk transports.  Those 6 ships total 95 points.

What he really did fear was the two big guns I had put on the Galactica: rng 30, 1/3+/3/5, Piercing, Double Damage, [AB] arcs.  I have since found some information on what the new BG is supposed to have for armament so have redesigned it (no big guns  :cry: ).  I like those big guns as I figure, if I ever do hit and penetrate, I want them to actually feel it instead of the usual few pinpricks  .

Why do people insist on others playing with certain playstyles?

Why were there escorts in wet navy fleets?   To counter enemy strategies and tactics; for example DDs were meant to fight small torpedo boats and adapted later to counter submarines.  Does there need to be a DD-like escort in a space game?  If not, then why must I have one in my fleet?

Go back further: did fleets during the age of sail have such compositions?

Or go to futuristic settings:
1) Did Sheridan of B5 insist that his fleets have small, medium, and large White Stars?  2) Did Star Trek's Enterprise always operate in a fleet with a mix of different sized ships?

Why can't I use 100 30-point ships, or 10 300-point ships, or 1 3000-point ship?  Why must my fleet consist of, for example, 1 1000-point ship, 2 500-point ships, and 4 250-point ships?  Just because you have some outdated notion of fleet composition from your gravity-sucking mudball histories does not mean I have to do the same.

Ships can use an option to decrease speeds and increase their chance of being missed (erratic maneuvering?). 

Perhaps there could be a couple of options within that option?

Before blaming Beowulf on a high success rate just because he uses maximum range weapons, you should know that his die rolls are exceedingly above average.  As a long time opponent, I've been victimized quite a bit due to his die rolls.  Also, the arcs of his weapons should be considered: all but one.  He uses the classic FX and RX type weapons that our historical warships have used at their pinnacle of advancement which means nearly every turn every weapon fires at their enemy.  I have often tried to use mostly front arc weapons (like in Star Fleet Battles), and lose due to those arc differences once the game gets to be a turning match. 

I often use 30 range weapons as well, and not have near the success rate.

I think part of the uproar against range>18 weapons is that people are using the badly-designed book ships and think that's how ships should be designed, especially concerning the low ranges that those ships' weapons have.  Most don't even have weapons that go out to 18.  They're matched against each other (bad vs bad  ), but once home designed ships show up they are easily overcome and not just due to range but also arcs of fire can play a role.  I have a few designs that could beat a large fleet of those book ships with just a handful of my designs (being faster with longer-ranged weapons means I'll never get hit).

As far as figuring the cost, yes, I do believe range does not equal speed.  It might be close, close enough that it's hard to really know the difference.  Maybe that's why this is an issue, range-30 weapons are an extreme case that show that the equation is wrong.  Perhaps the only way to really tell is to playtest extreme cases of both, where the cost is even for range and speed (is a very fast short-ranged-weapon ship equal to a slow long-ranged-weapon ship?).

By the way, range-1 and range-2 weapons INCREASE the ORAT over range-3 weapons.  That tells me that the equation does have an issue with range.

So you define a serious battle as one with lots of ships?   What's wrong with fewer but larger ships?   Point costs come out the same, don't they?

I'm in no hurry to play against them, but I suppose I'll be doing so sometime in June.

Beowulf, that is the next time you'll be in town, right?

(Just got my "Battlestar Galactica" and "Viper" fighters in the mail, so I got me some painting and mounting to do.  Although the BG miniature really isn't the BG one, but a smaller version as they were out of stock of BGs.  But it will suffice.)

Before you go making assumptions, Beowulf used expendibles quite extensively in S:X and he posted their statistics several times.  They wiped out my fleets more than his big guns did.  I'm the one that asked that we do not play with that option.  Perhaps we should relook at that house rule.

Expendibles/ammo makes the game boil down to Harpoon: fleets make contact, fire all their missiles, and survivors, if any, win.  I played that game once, never again.

Same thing goes with the super big gun with 1 shot.  I know my die rolls.  I cannot trust that the 1 shot will hit.  Even at 2+ accuracy, I expect a 50% success rate. 

Oh, what is this 'basin thing, anyway?

The trick is getting them within range.  His range 20 weapon is actually a range 30 weapon with Cannonade, and have ROF-3.  Two of them wipe out a flight, or nearly so, long before the fighters can get within range. 

Now, I did a trick with X version before we switched to Admiralty: 1 hull carrier with nothing but 1 fighter flight and speed 19.  On the turn that I thought I could get within a few inches of his fleet (2nd or 3rd turn), I doubled the speed of those things and the survivors, which were many, launched all their fighter flights (then checked for hull damage).  Took him quite by surprise.    :twisted:    My only battlewagon (an "Italian" version of the same style) + cruiser mopped up what was left of the wreckage. 

Btw, I discovered in our last battle that a big gun (a "spinal mount", IMP 3-5, DMG 5, double damage, piercing) is the way to go against his ships.

Every time I see phasers with Ranged-based ROF, or anything with "ROF", I'm thinking Gatling phaser.  And I think that's what every SFB player will think.  Save that for Phaser-Gs, and for X-ships (you know people will design their own).

It's also not in character of regular phasers, from the show or from SFB.

Change it to Ranged-based IMP for the same effect without hinting at multiple shots being fired.