Originally posted by Kurega Gikur:
Here we go into megaships and fleet actions. How often does combat need to be resolved between really big (5k ton +) ships in the course of role playing? In LBB2 v5 I really think the emphasis should not be on the uber-ships and placed on PC scale ships.
Never. The above simulation was a wargame setting, as was last night's:
Summary
I pitted three light cruisers against seven defense boats of varying potential. The game was a draw, with the player stopping due to boredom.
Setup
All ten ships were generously armed, and somewhat lightly armored.
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">#3 Lt Cruiser J6 M6 A2 L{5,6}
#2 Boat Type A MB A2 L{6}
#2 Boat Type B MB A2 L{4}
#3 Boat Type C MB A2 L{3}
('MB' means Maneuver-11, by the way)
Small laser batteries are 3-2-1
Medium laser batteries are 6-5-4</pre>[/QUOTE]I suppose the Light Cruisers displaced somewhere around 5000 tons, and the boats displaced from 300 to 600 tons.
The boats were at a distinct disadvantage, because their weapon batteries could only damage at close range, and then only inflict one point per hit. Their only saving grace is their vastly superior maneuver capability, which only allows them to break off and abandon their crippled comrades when it's obvious that they can't win.
Highlights
Well, there weren't any, really. From the onset, this was a battle of attrition, with the boats concentrating on taking out one cruiser at a time, and each cruiser battering a different boat.
The only minor event of note was, once more, a lucky crit from a boat that disabled the power plant of one of the cruisers. But the cruisers were wearing down the boats faster, and I figured it was only a matter of time.
Lessons Learned
Too many attacking weapons is NO FUN. With 33 attack rolls from the cruisers, and 29 from the boats, the game turned boring by the second round.
Each attacking side should roll a
maximum of 12 times, for the sake of holding interest. This should be a built-in default. Only players who know what they're doing should be allowed to break batteries into 33 different attacks.
Improvements to Make
Scott Martin's made an excellent observation about how FFS scales weapons into batteries, and is in line with what I was thinking: the ability to group weapons into ever larger batteries could be a heuristic scale.
So then, if a ship has the MFD program running, it can group its weapons into batteries like this:
Every X weapons builds a factor of the next level.
Where X=3 (the "triple turret" view) or 4 (the "quadruple your input energy" view). This would theoretically equate battery factors with hardpoint requirements.
So, for example, say a defense boat has three triple beam turrets, perhaps 1-1-1 damage, and is running an MFD program. If 3 weapons group to the next level, then the ship could bear three 2-2-2 batteries, or one 3-3-3 battery.
Is that mechanic too powerful?
Focus: Linking Ship Firepower
Plank and Scott both have good points: small weapons fire shouldn't damage dreadnoughts... but enough of them could. Perhaps this is an extension of the MFD rule:
If ships have MFD programs running in linked mode, then you can group
their weapons into batteries.
Perhaps that's less efficient than grouping batteries on the same ship. If 4 ships (perhaps with only one battery each) group to the next damage level, then four of the patrol ships above could link together and bear one 4-4-4 battery.
Likewise, a "squadron" of 64 of them (we're up to 19,200 total tons now) could bear one 6-6-6 battery.
