Re: (FT) Meson battery, armor-penetration missiles

Glen Bailey wrote:

> > > I was thinking of adding a Meson battery as another weapon: size
of
> > > class 3 (A) but damage as class 2 (B) and it ignores armor.  This
a
> > fair
> > > weapon?
> > 
> > Should be reasonably OK. Maybe a bit weak, but at least that's
better
> > than too powerful :-/

Let me revise that statement now that I've done some calcs:
*Definitely* a bit weak. If the Meson battery is to be better than
pulse torps or Class-2 standard batteries, your enemy needs enough
armour to make the NSL heavies look under-armoured - 15% or more of the
total hull Mass to compete against pulse torps, and 25% or more to
compete with Class-2 batteries. (Most NSL ships use about 10% of their
mass for armour, but the scout and the corvette have 13-14%...).

> That's what I figured.  The Meson Gun comes from Traveller
> and is a short ranged weapon.  Maybe have it do 3D6 from
> 0-12" and 1D6 from 13-24"?

Looks better, yes. Not as elegant and not as easy to expand into more
classes, but balances better.

> But then I thought about it some more and having Meson
> batteries would mean you want all Meson batteries.  Any
> other weapon system will still have to go through armor.

Meson batteries, needle beams, MT-style EMP missiles, the other EMP
weapons that have been discussed on the list, and boarding parties...
quite a lot of choice, I think.

> But this might add "flavor" for another race that uses
> mesons instead of "lasers" (or whatever the "humans" use
> as the beam weapons).  A small Meson battery (marked with
> a little "m") would be the same as the class 1 (C) in
> mass, points, and damage (and ignores armor).

It must *not* be the same in mass and points if it is the same in
damage and ignores armour. Same damage but ignores armour requires
higher cost in mass and/or points, or specific anti-meson defences. If
the mass and cost is the same for the same damage, we get either of two
effects: the meson-using race gets something for free (bad for game
balance, as shown by the Kra'Vak), or no-one uses armour any more (bad
for game variety, which you say is a bit weak already).

> How about armor-penetration missiles?  The first point
> of damage from a missile hits armor, the rest goes against
> hull?  If a missile only does 1 point of damage then all
> it does is damage to armor.  These probably should take
> up 50% more mass than a regular missile.

Game-mechanic-wise I don't see a problem with AP missiles (though I'm
not sure whether you are talking about MT missiles or SM missile
salvoes).  Anti-missile defences are good enough to make the increased
size (and therefore the reduced salvo density) take out the reduced
power of

The main problem with AP missiles is PSB-based: they require direct
hits to work, or possibly a laser warhead which somehow manages to
channel virtually all of the energy into one single lazing rod. I'm
much more comfortable with proximity-hit dirty nukes or multiple-rod
laser warheads PSB-wise. 

However, to bring the screens back into favour the EMP missile is
probably better - AP missiles only mean that ships use stronger hulls
and less armour, but EMP missiles means that the screens will actually
do some good.

Regards,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry