Ken:
>I recently reexamined the Aslan ships in MT. Since I'm not really
>familiar with MT ship combat, my analysis is likely flawed. I attempted
>to evaluate it in terms of my experience in Steve's TCS game.
This is a common fallacy. DON'T make the mistake of trying to compare
HG ships with MT ships. While it is true that a WELL-designed MT ship
can be more than a match for even the best HG ship, in general, HG
produces significantly more-combat-effective warships than MT.
BTW, Rob, the estimates I gave Hans were based on HG, but they actually
work fairly well for edge-of-the-design-envelope MT ships too. For
AVERAGE MT ships, the TL effects should be increased significantly...
>Basically, the Aslan cruiser is rather pathetic. I don't see how it
>could expect to take on the Imperium without a massive numerical
>advantage. In fact, I rather doubt that it would even do very well
>against the Old Islands Alliance Fleet. (Of course, if Steve finds a
>volunteer to play Ihatei, I may get the chance to put my money where my
>mouth is.)
It is unlikely that that particular cruiser could take on the Impy Navy
even WITH a huge numerical advantage. The sensors/computers/electronics
are a joke, and the weaponry is designed for fighting relatively light,
low tech opponents.
But a similar design in HG would be MUCH more effective...so watch out :-)
>Now, it is certainly possible that I have overlooked some important
>difference between warships in MT and in TCS. For instance, I do know
>that MT ships don't need nearly as much jump fuel as TCS ships. Given
>this, I suspect that Ihatei cruisers would be even more lightly armed
>and armoured.
This is the most common fallacy about the relation between HG and MT.
If you go to the trouble of checking, you find that the Aslan cruiser is
54.3% fuel. A comparable performance HG ship would be only 33.6% fuel.
So the effective combat payload (defined as everything BUT fuel and
drives) of an HG version would be 90% higher than that of the ship in
Rebellion Sourcebook. Remember that while MT requires only 2/3 the Jump
fuel (for J-3, anyway), it requires FAR MORE power plant fuel (almost
ten times as much). Think about it...
---Steve