Re: FB2, ubership with needle beams

on 6/7/00 12:26, stiltman@teleport.com at stiltman@teleport.com wrote:

> No... only that someone might try to simply plow their way through the
> fighters this thing carries and trade shots with it at point blank
range
> with a battleship.  The needle beams are there to give people a reason
not
> to do that; if you stay close to it you'll be out of fire controls
before
> your weapons will do a terrible amount of damage.  If you get within
range
> and firing arc becomes an issue, I'll park the ship and spin as I
need.  If
> you stay out of its range, they've done their job without having to
fire a
> shot.

Hmmm...   One of the reasons I like facing limited arc weapons is that
closing with them makes it more difficult for the opponent to keep them
in
arc.  This is the very reason I prefer having my Phalon Pulser(C) in a
360
degree mode lest I miss great close range shots due to overshooting on
my
ship placement a bit.  This also give me the option deliberately going a
little past the target, potentially getting out of the arc of their
limited
arc weapons while still firing back if I care to try.

The park and spin maneuver has merit in some situation, but surrenders
any
semblance of holding the initiative as the turning ship has to be
stationary
by the turn in which the spin is done.	Besides - with spinning you
still
have to guess where the enemy is going to be, no better than a 50/50
task if
the opponent is coming nearly straight at you with a velocity and thrust
rating that's capable of placing them in front of you or just to either
side.  This type of feat is not to difficult to plot if the target is
not
going to be more than an inch (Thrust 1) in front of where it started
the
turn (by being stationary at the start of the turn).

All in all I've found that most of the FT balance issues (as others have
commented) usually seem worse than they really are once players have had
some time and discussion to look at them in more detail.  I only hope
some
of post play-test thoughts about SV balance issues go this same
direction.
;-)

Kevin Walker
sage5@home.com