Re: KV 'house' rules for FB (Was "Fuzzy Wuzzy")

On Sun, 4 Oct 1998, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:

> Peter Caron wrote:
> 
> >	Just my 2 cents.  In our house rules, we mandated that EACH
> > railgun required a dedicated fire control system.  This fire control
> > system cannot be shared with any other system, not even another
> railgun.
> 
> This has two effects:
> 
> First, the Mass result using the FB design rules is the same as my
(Class
> + 1) Mass scheme for railguns, and has the same problems - ie, R1 and
R2
> are not only a lot weaker than the bigger weapons, but also than many
> non-railgun weapons, without having any real range or set of targets
> where they are prominent :-(

I originally upped the mass of the railguns also, but wasn't satisfied
with the results.  Personnal taste I suppose.  I would prefer a 1 Mass
Railgun to a 1 Mass C beam (FT2 rules) anyday.	30" range vs. 12" range
is
a significant advantage, IMHO.	However, others may view this
differently.

I agree that the Railgun 3 is better than a Railgun 1, but I did that
intentionally.	RG 1's show up on small vessels in our games, not big
ones.  Adding an Extra Firecontrol is pretty cheap also (Mass: 1 Cost:
5... house rule).  Still, this is a matter of taste.  As I don't own FB
yet I can't comment on the Railgun's strengths or weaknesses in the new
ship design rules.  I understand they've undergone a MAJOR change.

> 
> Second (and worse, IMO), it makes the railguns *much* more vulnerable
to
> treshold checks. In effect, each of your guns has to survive two
treshold
> rolls in each check - OK, it isn't quite that bad since you can assign
> the firecons as you wish each turn (I hope, at least!), but still the
> survivability of the railguns drops dramatically :-(

On Escorts, with 1 firecontrol anyway this doesn't matter.
On larger vessels with multiple Fire Control, this can be a factor but
given the costs of Extra Fire Control in our house rules, it's not
difficult to buy 3 Extra fire control for your Big guns for 3 Extra Mass
and 15 extra points.  It DOES mean that building starships with ONLY
railguns might prove dangerous.  We like to mix our designs up with
Beams
AND railguns.

It doesn't weaken Railguns too severly...  It also helps that Railguns
aren't affected by screens...  Works for us.  'Course, it really depends
on your personnal tastes...

Thanks for your comments, however... I'm always looking for different
ideas/viewpoints... keep 'em com'n :)

Pete