FB3: the IF designs, spinal mount

>  I have a twofold problem with these ships:
>  Firstly, off-centre firing arcs seem contrary to the spirit of the
other 
> designs.
>  It's very minimaxing to have a "spiral of doom". Still, I could live
with 
> this,
>  as it would give the IF a distinct flavour. It might even be a Good 
Thing(tm)

It is minimaxing.  I've got a few designs like that but rarely play
them.
I even bought the B4 Wars Narn Destroyer since it is off-centered
and have 2 versions: beam 2s or pulse torps that fire F+FS+AS.

I did design some ships with a lot of FP+F+FS beam-2s to make 
charge attacks with, they do have a drawback in that once past the
enemy they have to make a big swing around to try again.

(snip)
  
>  I was thinking of having the 1-arc Beam-3 as a trademark for the OU,
but 
> decided
>  that a) modules b) lots of hull c) Nothing bigger than beam-2 was
quite 
> enough
>  to make em different. So that allows the IF to have it.

In Cinematic mode 1-arc Beam-3s/Pulse Torps are dead meat.
You'll get to fire the weapons once or twice at long range and 
the enemy will stay out of the arc for the rest of the game.  Maybe, 
if you're have a Main Drive of 6 or better higher than your opponent 
you might have another shot, but I doubt it.

Re: spinal mounts
I've created "spinal mounts" by putting many Beam-3s or Pulse Torps
in one weapon and treat it such that it can only fire at one target,
it also degrades in performance from damage (just like Traveller
spinal mounts do).  It's fun to slice ships in two with my Shadow
ship when 8 class-3 beams fire (a mass 284 ship with 6 MD, I
do have smaller versions), or get really nasty with 24 beam-2s.
Okay, so it's small ships that slices in two, but it sure scars the
paint of Steve's uber MD2 ships  (it would be even nastier in
the hands of Steve who averages more 6s than anyone I know).

Glen
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