RE: Space Tactics

Sorry - I should have stated that Spinal Beam fire was Long Range 
Harassment AND Short Range Kick-Your-Teeth-Out-Your-A** :).
I was deep into thought at that point, and was mentally comparing 
performance of a spinal railgun (very nasty at close, but limited to
30MU 
or so) to spinal beam (still nasty at close, but better at longer ranges
- 
REALLY long ranges).  I also remember playing Battle Rider, with escorts
& 
cruisers subliming (turning directly from solid into gas) under capital 
ship spinal meson fire.

Noah

-----Original Message-----
From:	Jared E Noble [SMTP:JNOBLE2@mail.aai.arco.com]
Sent:	Wednesday, August 19, 1998 12:47 PM
To:	FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
Subject:	RE: Space Tactics

>    Has anybody else tried experimenting with really big beam
>batteries/railguns?  I use them to represent Traveller/Leviathan style
>spinal mounts.  One arc only, usually fore or aft.  They seem to be
pretty
>effective.  Long-range harassment with the beam, and massive damage
from
>the railgun.  They also get expensive real fast.
>
>Noah

Well, that's an interesting way of looking at it - Spinal Beam weapon is
a
'long-range harassment'....I guess it doesn't quite capture the
traveller
feel- at least not classic traveller, where the spinal mount was the
primary and most effective weapon.  But then again, with high guard's
abstract combat system, you basically had only 4 ranges. Battle
line-Battle
line/Reserve-Battle line/Battle-line-Reserve/ and Reserve-Reserve.