Federation Commander

To tell truth, I woulda been happy with the no fusion/yes hellbore hydrans and if possible, no fighters.

As a former SFB Hydran player I almost never flew fusion ships. I'd rather have hellbores for the ships, fusions for the disposable Stingers, and keep the number of fighters per ship small exactly as it is on hellbore ships. Especially in FC where they may never introduce fighters for other races (fine by me!) then you wouldn't really even need the Hydran pure carriers to gain fighter superiority.

Hmm, thread hijack--oops!

StarKiller wrote:As a former SFB Hydran player I almost never flew fusion ships. I'd rather have hellbores for the ships, fusions for the disposable Stingers, and keep the number of fighters per ship small exactly as it is on hellbore ships. Especially in FC where they may never introduce fighters for other races (fine by me!) then you wouldn't really even need the Hydran pure carriers to gain fighter superiority.

Hmm, thread hijack--oops!

But a good one!

TJolley wrote:The Phaser-3 is the most powerful non-base mounted direct-fire weapon currently in the game out to a range of 2, per point of power put into it. The only weapon more powerful than a Phaser-3 is the base-only phaser 4..go figure . The phaser 3 is also more powerful than either the Disruptor or the Photon, per point of power, out to a range of 3.

And yet, the Phaser-3 is a suboptimal weapon for what it was designed for - point defense. It fails to destroy an incoming drone 1/3rd of the time. What military would honestly pay for a weapon that allows one out of every three incoming missiles to damage their ships? Honestly, those odds are unacceptable. It gets better at range 0, but still, then only one out of every six incoming missiles hits your ship. That's still ~16%, again, a value that most militaries would consider unacceptable.

The Phaser-G is what a point defense weapon *should* be. For the same energy as a Phaser-3, both drones and suicide shuttles are obliterated, 100% of the time. That is a true defensive weapon.

the Phaser-3 is a suboptimal weapon for what it was designed for - point defense. It fails to destroy an incoming drone 1/3rd of the time. What military would honestly pay for a weapon that allows one out of every three incoming missiles to damage their ships?

The U.S. Navy.

Really 66% ain't bad. Consider the following missile -
Google it - SS-N-27B "Sizzler". And the sizzler is likely to sink or completely disable the ship.

Consider the US Navy's sub launched torpedoes at the beginning of WWII. They flat out didn't work, and some think that in some cases the torpedo turned around and sunk the launching sub.

Weapons are never perfect (lowest bidder). Having a guaranteed 66%, well at least I can plan for it. I personally plan for only a 33% success rate, but I'm a pessimist.

Carnifex wrote:What military would honestly pay for a weapon that allows one out of every three incoming missiles to damage their ships?

I don't know [and I'm going slightly off-topic here] -
I've never read about a successful missile-intercept by the US Navy's much feared CIWS gatlings.

There's neat videos of the CIWS firing and it does indeed make lot of noise and spew a lot of shells, but have they ever actually saved a ship from anything? I've read more than once that they are left "OFF" a lot of the time, due to fears of accidental firing at friendly or neutral targets.

A weapon is useless if it can't be trusted, but most US Navy ships have at least one CIWS mounts.

djdood wrote:

Carnifex wrote:What military would honestly pay for a weapon that allows one out of every three incoming missiles to damage their ships?

I don't know [and I'm going slightly off-topic here] -
I've never read about a successful missile-intercept by the US Navy's much feared CIWS gatlings.

No, but they seem to be rather effective against A-6s, even when they aren't meant to be...

Back on topic, you can't look at the phaser 3 as a weapon with where you have a 66% chance of killing the drone and 33% of not. That 66% chance is really just the outcome of a continuum of situations. Just as the Phalanx is going to perform better in some situations - calm seas, slow target, big target - and worse in others, you should expect the phaser 3 to perform with a range of effects. The game just abstracts those effects down to a set of results that just happens to be a 66% chance of killing a drone.

And just as a real Navy ship has a variety of defensive weapons such as long range missiles, electronic warfare and decoys, your FC ship has different methods to defeat a drone. You've got ADDs, tractors, and the ability to out run the thing.

Anyway, you may have the option of firing 2 P-III's for a sure kill, and even if that fails you might have a tractor available. The P-III can be seen as highly effective if it is considered as part of a layered defence system, especially when combined with ADDs.

Plus don't forget you could set up what is effectively a limited Aegis system by arranging to meet and shoot the drone in the Direct Fire phase at Range 1, then if that fails catching it on your ship card and having another pop at it on the next impulse's defensive fire phase - 2xP-III's fired, but in two separate impulses AND the chance of getting it in one.

Ok, it may take some fancy flying, but with the use of sideslips and perhaps a decel or two as necessary [depending on the position of course], it works. Power-hungry, perhaps, but it is another set of options....

Yeah, the ph-G is basically a maximumly overloaded photon (or partially overloaded if you get really bad rolls) for one energy and can be fired each turn at 0-1 range.

If I'm not mistaken the PH-G can only fire once per impulse, up to 4 times per turn.

USS Enterprise wrote:If I'm not mistaken the PH-G can only fire once per impulse, up to 4 times per turn.

You are:
(4B2f) Gatling Phasers: The Hydrans use this weapon, which can fire four phaser=3 shots per turn (each costing 1/4 of an energy point). They could fire all four such shots in a single impulse or on different impulse.

And good way to revive a thread, by the way. 364 days since the previous post... that may be a record!

Sorry but you are mistaken. You can fire all four shots in the same impulse if you like, as long as you fire a maximum of four shots per turn. Rule (4B2f), second sentence.

I have never played with PH-G's, but I just naturally assumed different impulses. Guess I was wrong.

And of course I'm proud of the record.

And of course I'm proud of the record.

And that record would be what,
The most useless posts in the shortest time ----

Gatling phasers are awesome, especially with Aegis (which we don't have in FC).