I will admit that the ship I sent into a combat area was a lowly 10 normal hulled ship with some light shielding (no armour). But to imagine the holocaust that occured from the "manuvering ISR fields" is unrealistic at best. My ship took over 28,000 points of damage, plus 5400 extra internal damage before the battle even started (and yes the torpedos were in magazines not cargo bays).
I believe that the effects of alot of the rules changes actually further enhance "uber-fleets" because now the small ships will never even get a shot off.
Goth
Rich Fanning
aka
Lord Lawrence Scrimm
CIA Intelligence Director
| QUOTE (Lord Scrimm @ Sep 28 2005, 07:21 PM) |
| How many ships were you going up against? Rich Fanning aka Lord Lawrence Scrimm CIA Intelligence Director |
Who cares? The point was to stop LIGHT or XtrLIGHT hulled ships, not all small, fast unarmored ships.
I am not complaining about losing a ship, it was not expected to live. The point is that fast raiding ships are now pointless.
That is fine if you already have a massive fleet of heavily armored and shielded ships. The problem is that with the new rules, small affiliations no longer even have the ability to use hit and run attacks. There really is no way to hurt an enemy that has a larger fleet than you.
At least with the way things were, fast raiding ships could at least disrupt merchant shipping.
Consider this: Before the rules change the IMP block could not stop a frontal attack from the DTR (evidence the Adamski system). It could however "snipe" at exposed freighters (ones around the newly conquered base). Now, a ship small enough to run the blockade will be destroyed by pre-fight ISR damage. Ships that could take the damage will have a 100% chance of being stopped before they can get to the orbit.
Somehow, changes that were supposed to be getting implimented to make combat more fluid and hit and run possible have actually cut off the only real hit and run tactics that can be used against the big guys like the DTR.
The DTR can now sit a massive fleet anywhere they want with NO risk of losing even their freighters. There should always be a way for the little guys to hurt the big guys if they are crafty enough or are willing to take big risks.
Goth
If you divide up the damage you take about 150 damage per ship equivalent to 1.5 hulls for a normal. I would look for a target with less than 4 defenders.
| QUOTE (Romanov @ Sep 28 2005, 08:04 PM) |
| About 200 I believe |
I have no problem with the idea that a fleet of 200 ships squashes a scout ship.
I do wonder why rules would be changed to favor these uber fleets to the point of making them virtually untouchable. At least before the scout might have been allowed to fire off the torpedos and at least scratch the paint of those fine battle-monsters. If the rules of the game make it so that tactics have nothing to do with the battle outcome (just more big ships grouped together), you guys are the win.
The ISR attacks never miss, happen before any other weapons can shoot and end the battles before they start.... Like I said when this "pre-attack" was being batted around...it is one of the best weapons out there.
Goth
| QUOTE (Romanov @ Sep 28 2005, 08:23 PM) |
| Any large fleet can only be in one place at once. If our fleet is in Adamski, this does not stop your light raider attacking another location with less defences. Should a single light ship be able to hit freighters defended by 200 ships? If you divide up the damage you take about 150 damage per ship equivalent to 1.5 hulls for a normal. I would look for a target with less than 4 defenders. |
There were no freighters with that fleet. They are certainly not in the orbital quad.
Your numbers are a little jaded, freighters will be untouchable with very few ships that just happen to be in the same location.... no need to screen ships, they can just be sitting there.
Honestly, there is very little left for the smaller space fleets to do now. There is no reason for you to split that fleet and no one can even nip at your merchant fleet (with the most modest of precautions on your part). At this point, even the light "suicide" raiding ship option is gone.
Unless you guys do something really stupid, pirates are more of a threat to you than we are with the new rules.
So even a single layer of standard (40) armour on your normal hull ship would have blocked approximately 20 damage (half armour thickness) from each and every hit.
So even a little armour would have stopped the lot (not actually true as statistically speaking some would get through due to the bell curve). Your ship would then fire its torps and be crushed by the devasting force it went up against.
| QUOTE (Mica Goldstone @ Sep 29 2005, 08:27 AM) |
| There were 2000 individual hits (approx 200 ships * 10 ISR drives), each doing approximately 14 damage each (28000/2000). So even a single layer of standard (40) armour on your normal hull ship would have blocked approximately 20 damage (half armour thickness) from each and every hit. So even a little armour would have stopped the lot (not actually true as statistically speaking some would get through due to the bell curve). Your ship would then fire its torps and be crushed by the devasting force it went up against. |
As far as I can recall my (very limited) knowledge of ship design an normal huller can carry one plate per hull.
Meaning there would be ten plates to destroy... I am not really good in calculating chances, but with my luck the plates will be gone at the moment the 1000nd hit reach the target.... So in all practice, I don't think it would have any chance even with plates. (basically shielding is useless if you take on 200 ships).
But at one point I do agree with Goth.. As this was around an planet (I think).. wouldn't it be more logically that some of them where on the other side of the planet and as such being unable to use the Pepper-effect???
But even then, the ship would have been goner anyway.. OTOH, if you send an clocked ships, it declocks and assaults it should be working. (sometimes)
| QUOTE (ptb @ Sep 29 2005, 03:07 PM) |
| That depends if armour is destroyed by the isr pepper effect or just absorbed quietly. I assumed it was before but Mica's last comment impiles that it wouldn't (or else the ship would have been destroyed regardless) |
Absorbed in the meaning of reflected???
Or reflected but that impiled the damage is done back to someone else
Blocked? hmm that could work.
Anyway so each shot damage is reduced by the armour value but not actually burning off armour
| QUOTE (ptb @ Sep 29 2005, 03:07 PM) |
| That depends if armour is destroyed by the isr pepper effect or just absorbed quietly. I assumed it was before but Mica's last comment impiles that it wouldn't (or else the ship would have been destroyed regardless) |
Each armour plate absorbs about 1000 damage before being destroyed.
A 50 normal hull ship can have 78 armour plates - that is a lot of damage before the thickness drops to the point where the ship is in serious danger.
Rough maths
78 plates = 40 armour (ave 20 defence)
20k damage = 20 plates removed.
78 plates is whittled down to 58 plates = 30 armour
30 armour gives an average of 15 defence = still enough to soak most ISR damage (14 in the above example).
A smaller ship probably wouldn't survive if thrown in on its own against 200 ships each of 100 heavy hulls though as ISR damage is split over all the enemy ships, sending in a couple to their certain deaths might be enough for them to survive long enough to fire their one-off volley...
The pepper effect has been introduced to counter a loophole that enables one shot wonders (no matter what size, anything that does more damage than it takes to produce it) to be used.
The simple 1:1 math is that you should not send anything into combat against a 100 heavy hulled ship if you cannot take 10 hits at roughly 15 damage (from 10 ISR4s).
A 75N with 1 layer of ablative armour plates will be only very slightly scratched (if at all) by 10*15 dmg from ISRs. At the same time it will also do 7*14 dmg to the 100H enemy (who certainly does not care about this since it is heavy).
Why is this a problem?
Thomas
| QUOTE (Thomas Franz @ Sep 30 2005, 11:13 AM) |
| A 75N with 1 layer of ablative armour plates will be only very slightly scratched (if at all) by 10*15 dmg from ISRs. At the same time it will also do 7*14 dmg to the 100H enemy (who certainly does not care about this since it is heavy). |
the 75N would do 8 * 14dmg, but your point is the same and personally i agree it's not a problem.
The ship in question was a 10nh vessel trying to avoid 200+ heavy combat vessels and attack an unarmed cargo ship (if i read the posts correctly), it's hardly surprising it didn't get to fire a shot off.