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Peter

Pretty much what I remember - although D6's, FV's and F5S became excellent province garrison 'leaders' - and so with additional resources, some areas did become raid proof.

Not necessarily enough to kill a DNL - but enough to basically stop the DNL doing anything (which means, the AO game must have been in the last 10 years, as we would have had the 'ESSC' table) - so a F5L, E4 and F5S say against a DNL+PT was -3 on the raider doing damage.... and -2 on the DNL.

(Hence why a hex with a D6, E4 and F5S was pretty raid proof - unless a LGE was available!!).

By Peter Bakija (Bakija) on Sunday, January 17, 2021 - 11:18 am: Edit

All correct; the main effect of Raids (AO Raids; I have no experience with Advanced Raids) is just that it sucks up piles of Coalition hulls that wouldn't be used like this in the base game. I mean, the Coalition could just hold provinces with single E4s again, and risk the dice, but they'd end up losing scads and scads of E4s, so they generally don't.

Raids only very rarely do anything other than beat up an abstract POL and contest a province as a result. But that they exist mean then the Coalition are stacking up small ships all over the map.

By Timothy Linden (Timlinden) on Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - 03:58 pm: Edit

If you are willing to pay extra for DN's, it likely would have been worth setting up a second starbase and doing the extra major conversions (or just the major conversion facility if you had been playing with that). 11pt DN conversions cost a lot, but so does overbuilding ships. To some extent I personally prefer having more DN's for more lines/etc. than overbuilding ships. (I'd also prefer to pay for more carriers myself than overbuild in general). you'd have less ships, but the higher density in more places has quite a bit of worth itself. As CA/CC's are rather easily directed in comparison to DN's. Which means less DN's later. That is what D7C's are for!

Given how many DN's can be built, I also wonder if it is really worth directing a DN instead of just letting it fall instead. Especially over major hardpoints, where the amount of damage needed is likely to happen. You'd have to kill 3 CW plus deal with 3pts still instead.. Or cripple a lot of things if you did not want to kill stuff. Plus a DN is worth a lot of salvage. The last game I played the alliance did direct DN's at every opportunity (possibly more than they should have) but still only killed 16 DN by turn 11, likely a few more here and there later. The Lyrans still had 7 left on turn 11, and finished with 23 odd DN class ships when the game ended.

Tim.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - 04:37 pm: Edit

Tim

There was no salvage in this game - but I think killing DN's (outside of the form box) is a must, if the Alliance wants to defend SBs and Major planets on relatively even terms.

By Graham Cridland (Grahamcridland) on Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - 05:17 pm: Edit

Over a capital, directing DN's generally also means a permanent loss of compot for the attacking line, so you're saving ~1 damage on every succeeding round of the engagement every time you direct a DN. So if you direct 4-5 DN while the Coalition kills PDUs, for example, the Coalition will be putting up 110-115 instead of 125 + thereafter.

By Timothy Linden (Timlinden) on Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - 04:03 pm: Edit

With no salvage that makes directing DN's more valuable. I could not recall if salvage made it into the base game or not.

Though depending on how many DN's there are, it may take a bit to force them off the line. That should happen fast enough over a T6/7 attack on the Kzinti shipyard, but you could have 7-10 DN's ready for the line. Plus if the coalition gets lucky they'll keep what maulers they have longer while you are busy directing DN's instead. Though if they aren't lucky, free damage!

Is saving 5 odd cripples worth killing 5-6 DN's instead of killing 15-18 CW and crippling a couple of DW/F5? Having done both I am not sure. I suppose it really depends more on what your grand strategy is. If you are going pincount as the main strategy you'd not direct and just let it drop in hopes of killing more ships net, or causing a massive repair backlog. If you are trying to match compots and kill as much of the good coalition ships as possible in the hopes that pays off before you can no longer sustain doing that, you'd pop the DN's.

As others have indicated many times before, that such questions do not have a clear answer is a rather good aspect of F&E.

Tim.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, September 26, 2021 - 09:27 pm: Edit

Game on!

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Thursday, October 07, 2021 - 08:28 am: Edit

This gave is over. I'd happily trade it for the Battle of the Atlantic game, which has a ghost of a chance of continuing.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Thursday, October 07, 2021 - 12:12 pm: Edit

Well, if we can get 1 simple question answered.....

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, October 07, 2021 - 02:01 pm: Edit

Still waiting for Godot.

By Karl Mangold (Solomon) on Friday, March 18, 2022 - 07:10 am: Edit

Oh, there must be some mistake. My name is Loomis, Roy Loomis