Re: More and different Sa'vasku ideas

On [Tue, 19 Nov 1996 19:40:08 -0500 (EST)] John Crimmins
<johncrim@voicenet.com> wrote:

>	I very much like the IDEA of the Sa'vasku in FT, but I am not
particularly
>    fond of the way they are presented; for an old, powerful race they
seem to
>    have technology that is remarkably similar to that of Humans, both
in power
>    and application.  I had a few ideas for making them a little bit
>    more...distinct, I suppose you could say.	In addition, this also
makes them
>    substantially more powerful, more in line with, say, the Kra'vak. 
And I
I wondered about this - Is it a set part of the FT background that
Humans
are at a technological disadvantage against the other 'races' in the
game? While this isn't necessarily a good thing in the pure wargaming
aspect of the product, it does make for some great possibilities if they
are thinking of developing a storyline with time..

>    assure you all, none of this is motivated by the fact that I have
some 50 GW
>    Tyrannid ships painted up.  Really.  It's not.
I always thought the Tyranids were the only interesting thing in the
WarHammer 40K background. Trouble was GW used it as yet another excuse
to churn out a long series of ever more powerful figures you had to have
to compete, all of which were increasingly bigger in size and more
expensive to buy <sigh>.
  
<loads of neat stuff deleted>
I particularly like the idea that a Sa'vasku ship can use power points
to heal itself. Why wasn't that thought of? even better,s ay there are
certain forms of damage it can heal (beams, say) but not say, missiles
which cause explosive damage and cauterize the surface of the vessel. Or
is this getting a bit *too* visceral? 

>    That's it for the moment, although I want to do something to
reflect the
>    fact that a damaged ship may actually be in pain from its injuries,
kind of
>    like the Shadow ships from B5.  I'm not entirely sure how to work
that yet,
>    but I have a few ideas.  These have not yet been playtested, and I
would
>    appreciate any thoughts that people may have on this stuff.
The weapons do look nasty. You might want to think about limiting the
rate of fire - say it takes a couple of rounds for the Sa'Vasku ship to
'grow' these things to active status. Either that or only allow so many
units of ammo. As to damage effects, well, try this for starters. Every
time a Sa'vasku ship is damaged, you roll a dice. If the damage is
greater
than the number rolled, the Sa'Vasku ship is 'stunned' and may take no
action for a round - i.e. it loses it's move/fire this round if it
hasn't
or next round if it already has - and continues on the same vector for a
turn. That would mean that (with the new weapons) they would be VERY
VERY nasty if you let them do what they want, but you can survive if you
just keep hitting them as many times as you can to keep them on the
ropes, as it were. 

			TTFN   
				Jon

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