mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Zhodani are TL14...
course it could be an experimental design post 5FW
course it could be an experimental design post 5FW
Do fighters and battleships have the same problem?
- Thread starter LeperColony
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Amber Chancer
SOC-12
Um, Mike ... I hate to point this out, because I'm new here and from what I've read so far you've got an impressive understanding of the way the rules work and an atittude which I really admire. BUT as someone (can't quite recall who) recently nearly said: if you really think this you don't know HG combat rules as well as you think you do.
Repulsors are part of your ship's defensive fire, so they have to be penetrated at stage C of the combat sequence. Nuclear dampers are part of your ship's passive defences, and so they have to be penetrated at stage D of the combat sequence. (I kinda figure that's why the Repulsor penetration table appears above the Nuclear Damper penetration table). So I think what you SHOULD have said was "the overwhelming majority of your nuclear missiles which aren't turned away by my Repulsors will be rendered harmless by my Nuclear Dampers."
As for your conclusion about survivability, though ... I'm entirely with you there
Amber Chancer
SOC-12
Zhodani are TL14...
course it could be an experimental design post 5FW
They may be in canon ... but I don't believe in giving the Imperium an unfair advantage. I think they need to prove themselves superior (if in fact they are ... I actually root for the Zhodani :rofl: ) in a fair fight.
So IMTU, they've achieved TL15 too
(It's all those cultural visits to the Darrien Federation by leading Zhodani scientists wot done it ... )
Gray Pennell
SOC-12
Traditionally several cruisers should be able to stand their ground against a battleship. We see this in the naval battles of Savo Island show.
Amber Chancer
SOC-12
We also see it in the Battle of the River Plate.
Interestingly, in about 1937 the British Admiralty did a theoretical study of the results of an action between three of their 6" cruisers and one of the German pocket battleships. When it concluded that the cruisers would defeat the pocket battleship, they discarded it on account of its "obviously flawed methodology".
Makes you wonder why they bothered doing it, if they weren't going to believe the answer ...
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Thanks for that, it was a bit of a silly error on my part - probably down to age/lateness of night/medication/brain fart (delete as applicable but probably the latter
)Yup, I could probably have added
"and half of all the nukes that make it though get their damage pushed off the damage results table by my armour"
As for your conclusion about survivability, though ... I'm entirely with you there
Actually, in canon, the Zhodani have at least some TL 15 capability. Zhdant is TL 15, and so are a few other Consulate worlds.
I occasionally create mixed TL Zhodani designs, or TL 14 designs refitted with TL 15 electronics.
One of the british curisers (HMS Exeter) was a 8" one, not a 6", though I doubt the result would have been very different
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Sounds like the Admiralty was pushing for more battleships and set out to "prove" the need. And when their little demonstration of the unsuitability of cruisers vs battleships failed they simply waved it away. Makes one wonder how fairly the demonstration was set up in the first place if that was the case.
Do you know if that was ever followed up with policy papers on fleet composition? Especially on weighting of cruisers and battleships?
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
According to the world generation rules in the Zhodani Alien module their maximum TL is D...
there has to be errata (I hope)
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D? 13? Surely that has to be a mistake. The Zhodani have plenty of TL14 ships in FFW, don't they?
More likely an MGT-ism. DGP never did get around to writing up the Zhodani, IIRC.
Or perhaps not. GT:Alien Races 1 puts Zhdant at GTL12, which would correspond to TTL15 (TTL14 would be GTL11). I doubt that David Pulver would have changed the TL with no canon support (though I could be wrong). Most likely he got it from somewhere. But I can't think of where it might be if it isn't in the Zhodani AM.
Hans
Thats a bit harsh. Bill is the only person I recognize on this forum with more actual gaming experience with HG2/TCS than myself (no disrespect intended to other gamers). No I don't agree with him all the time and yes, I've had some heated discussions, but he is consistent in his views and his views on HG are generally well thought through.
On the Hampster effect, that is not new. I've been using those tactics as a norm for decades without considering the rules broken. The common denominator seems to be peoples surprise when they finally work it out. You are experiencing a very common phenomenon, Haig was in denial for a long time over the influence MGs had on tactics and the US maintained the USS Missouri for 50 years after the dominance of Carriers was proven.
The interesting discussion on the Hampster effect will only start when those interested accept they exist within the game and start talking about strategy and tactics to defeat them (new thread please).
On Euresko, I suggest those interested actually dig up those papers and articles and read them, then analyze the fleet. The Fleet design (as opposed to the ship designs that most focus on) is what won the game. A similar Fleet design will win most battles still today, primarily because most HG action these days is by armchair Admirals debating the finer points of Fighters vs BB's at TL15 rather than the subtleties of how to design and fight a Navy and its sub-Fleets across a broad range of tech levels.
I will quote from Bill's much earlier post echoing my views
Page 2 of the same book.
"The tech level of Zhdant is F, the highest
in the Consulate (nearly all other worlds do not exceed E)."
There is an amusing contradiction in that Zhodane is the Highest at TL15. Yet there are other worlds in the Consulate that also exceed TL14... lol
Sorry, just finished a paper on predicate logic!
Is the Hampster Effect the one about medium-sized meson-armed ships being almost as effective as much more expensive large meson-armed ships? Because if you are, you're overlooking that people have had 3000 years to realize that, rather than just 50.
My apologies if you're talking about something entirely different.
Hans
Apology accepted. If I am talking the same Hampsters as Tobius, it is the disposable sub-2000 ton fully armored buffered planetoids sporting a 100 ton Missile bay, maximum computer and not much else.
Of course there may be more than one or two Hampster varients, after all its a derogatory term intended to be applied to any concept not to ones taste.
Thinking further (always dangerous) we have big Hampsters as you describe, medium sized Hampsters as I've describbed and of course the small, nibbled to death by Fighters/Hampsters. Looks like Hampsters everywhere and at every level in HG...
As I mentioned, its not that the concept is new, more that people tend to disbelieve it when they figure it out (Shirley, the world does not work that way!).
Put another way, move on from Hampster tactics aren't real/intended/fair so concluding that changing the rules is the answer. We as a collective group have done that for ummm, decades?
pendragonman
Absent Friends Margrave
Tribbles...
I don't doubt that the tactics are reasonable enough given the existing rules. The problem, in my opinion, has always been that the existing setting material describes a world that does not, in fact, work that way. Which makes rules that makes the world work that way in need of being changed to rules that makes the world work as described in the setting material.
Hans
Is there enough evidence in the setting that the world does not work in that way. Most if not all published ship designs are widely accepted as being flawed, although I prefer, perhaps charitably, to think of Fighting Ships as deliberately inaccurate as befits a publicly available book describing state secrets.
That the Imperium chooses BB's over Cruisers is not an argument, the Imperium at a TL above its neighbors enjoys a huge advantage. BB's could be considered quite sound, at least until the neighbours catch up.
Taking FS at face value (reluctantly...), there are a lot of missile bays used, nearly all the craft over 50kton have at least a third of their hardpoints used on missile bays, with the Tigress dedicating 85%. (before the protests hit, 10 hardpoints are equivalent to 1 bay weapon). The rest of the Tigresses USP is just padded out to make the weapon scrubbing tactic more difficult. All this means the Tigress missile bays will still be in action well after the Spinal Meson is gone. Which brings me to ask, is the Tigress designed to deliver a Spinal Meson (the first weapon to be degraded in combat) or 300 Fighters and 480 missile bays?
Should the Tigress be considered a very large Hampster...
Or the setting material revised to match the rules....
Gray Pennell
SOC-12
Why do hamsters worry us so much? Wolfpacks work against BB its just the facts of life. I do agree the Tigress missile bays are ridicules. When I cut her down to 50K I went down to 30 bays that still seems like a lot.
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