Re: beam class sizes - smaller is better?

Glen Bailey wrote:

> I would think having a high thrust factor would mean you want
> more little weapons.	You can get in close and stay close
> (a "knife" fight).  I'd rather have 8 class 1s, 360 degree
> arcs for free, than 1 class 4 with 1 arc; then stick onto
> the enemy like glue.	

How do you get to knife-fighting range if your opponent has the same
Thrust rating as you do and wants you at long range? Unless you can
catch him between your ships and some fixed point - slow transports, a
base or something else he has to protect, or the famous "edge of the
universe" - you don't. Most games do have the "edge of the universe",
however <g>

> Plus one threshold check isn't going
> to knock off your main weapon.  And if fighters or missiles
> bother you those class 1s can knock a few off.

On the other hand you're almost guaranteed to lose some of the Class-1
batteries each treshold check... and it usually takes longer (or at
least more DCP time) to repair two Class-1 than it does to repair one
Class-4. 

> Can anyone with more experience give their views on big
> beams vs more smaller beams?

If you have the room to maneuver, the combination of long range and
high thrust can be quite devastating - look at the battle between Indy
and Noam where Noam used his NI stealth ships for an archived example.
If OTOH the long-ranged force doesn't have enough space to maneuver in,
it is in trouble.

Having said this, the Class-4 is intentionally weaker than the Class-3,
at least on normal-sized tables. We wanted a simple mechanic allowing
players to build any size of beam battery they liked which still had a
built-in size limitation. 

The Class-3 is slightly weaker than the Class-2 as well, but it is
rather close. In order for them to balance evenly (on my table at least
-
120*80 MU, which admittedly is fairly large) the base Mass of a
single-arc Class-3 needs to be roughly 3.5. 3 is too little, 4 is
slightly too much, but only slightly... so 4 it was. Fractional system
Masses are an unnecessary evil .-/

Later,

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