re: Vertical Damage (was: [FT] nasty idea for spinal mounts)

i have to agree with schoon here.  since all FT ships have 4 rows,
vertical damage does more 
to larger ships.

we use a differing method for "piercing" type weapons:

* the purpose is to hit deep into the ship and damage a few components
early.	as you will 
see, these weapons are not good for causing normal thresholds, but the
trade-off is to nail a 
couple of components earlier than other weapons.
* uses FT damage dice
* damages 25% armor (rd up), skip remainder.
* skip-count damage: mark 1st undamaged hull box and every 3rd one after
that.  continue to 
next row until last row exceeded.
* for every time 1/2 the @original@ row was exceeded, make 1 random
threshold check 
with +1 to the roll.  so that's 1 check at the half-way and row-end
points.  if the piercing 
weapon happens to damage the last box on the row, then perform the
normal threshold 
checks with the 1st one at +1 to the roll.
* any damage left over after the last row is reached, is lost.
* low-tech piercing weapons can skip every 2nd box, and/or do less
damage dice, and/or 
require longer to recharge.  higher tech ones may have other similar
(increased) benefits.

dave