Re: Needle Beams

Hal writes,

>    Just seems a crying shame for a ship to be heavily
armored/shielded,
only
>  to be rendered ineffective by a series of needlebeam carrying "sting
ships".

You can rationalize your way around the armor by saying needle beams
fire at
exposed targets (stuff outside the armor). But you'd think that needlers
would be affected by shields, since they are essentially a specialized
beam
weapon. One way to do this is to require needle attack vs. shielded
ships
roll different dice:

target		need to
shields 	 roll
----------------------------------
None	       6 on d6
LVL-1	       8 on d8
LVL-2	      10 on d10
LVL-3	      12 on d12

This has worked well when I've tried it, but it was a scenario-specific
idea
so I'm not sure how it affects cost/balance/etc in a general game. 

Scott

ACTOR: A professional exhibitionist who manufactures emotions in a
manner
convincing enough to earn a living, generally by reciting the daily
specials
to restaurant patrons.