Re: [FT] Cutter Beams & vertical damage.

The comments to Brian's post are mostly requests for clarifications :-/

Bell, Brian K wrote:

>Cutter Beam A
>Mass/Cost as Class-3 Beam (max 3 arcs)

Ie., "Mass/Cost as P-torp" :-/

>Dice: 3 hit on 4+

Is this 3 "straight" beam dice, 3 beam dice after you've rolled 4+ on a
4th
die, or something else?

>Range: 36tu
>Screen Effect: As Beam
>Armor Effect: As K-Gun
>Damage/Effect: Verticle Damage. If bottom hull box is damaged, ship
>takes a threshold check at 6. Extra damage (past bottom row) is lost.

>Cutter Beam B
>Mass/Cost as Class-3 Beam (max3 arcs)
>Dice: 2 hit on 4+

See comment to Cutter Beam A.

>Range: 36tu
>Screen Effect: As Beam
>Armor Effect: As K-Gun
>Damage/Effect: Horizontal Damage. On a roll of all 6s the ship takes
>a threshold check at current level (or at 6 if on 1st row).

>Cutter Beam C
>Mass/Cost as Class-3 Beam (max 3 arcs)
>Dice: 2  hit on 4+

See comment to Cutter Beam A.

>Range: 36tu
>Screen Effect: As Beam
>Armor Effect: As K-Gun
>Damage/Effect: Horizontal damage. If a hull with a crew factor is
>destroyed, the ship takes a threshold check at the current level (or
at 6
>if on 1st row). Note: This versions does not work with Sa'Vasku.

>Cutter Beam D
>Mass/Cost as Class-3 Beam (max 2 arc)
>Dice: Hit as K-Gun, Damage = roll

Roll on a separate die (as P-torp) or the to-hit roll (as Torp
Fighters)?

>Range: 30tu
>Screen Effect: None
>Armor Effect: As K-Gun
>Damage/Effect: Horizontal Damage. On a roll of 6 the ship takes a
>threshold check at current level (or at 6 if on 1st row).

This weapon is considerably more powerful than a P-torp (better armour
penetration, possibly higher average damage, and occasionally inflicts
extra threshold checks), yet costs exactly the same as the P-torp.

>Cutter Beam E
>Mass/Cost as Class-3 Beam (max 3 arcs)
>Dice: As Beam (no rerolls)
>Range: 36tu
>Screen Effect: As Beam
>Armor Effect: As Beam
>Damage/Effect: Horizontal Damage. On a roll of a 6 the ship takes a
>threshold check at 6 (1 system loss max).

How many dice does it fire? If it is as many as the B3, it effectively
gets
the extra "threshold checks" for free.

If it can only take out one system per check, the order in which you
roll
for each system is critical. Who determines which system to check for
when?

Robertson, Brendan wrote:

>With all these variations floating around, I've been having a few
>thoughts myself.
> 
>The closest analogy to the desired effect I can see is the Primary
>Beams from Weber's "In Death's Ground" which punch a 2" hole through
most
ships (regardless of size). >

Primaries in Starfire (on which game "In Death Ground" is based, to the
extent that Weber wrote (his part of) the game scenario module several
years before he and White finished the novel - some of the battle
descriptions in the novel are slightly fleshed-out turn-by-turn
Starfire battle reports) are relatively short-ranged, inflict minimal
hull damage but have a fair chance of destroying more or less important
systems - though very rarely "core" systems, unless the target has
already taken heavy damage from conventional weapons... or is really
poorly designed, eg. the way Weber deliberately designed the Bug SDs to
make them vulnerable to the TFN primary buoys. (The same deliberate
design deficiencies should also have made the Bug ships prone to
blowing up as soon as their armour was breached by other weapons, eg.
fighter strikes or starship beams or missiles, but for some reason this
never seems to happen in the novel.)

I'd equate the basic primary beam (used in the TFN's buoys and the
Bugs' Cleaver-class WP assault cruisers) with FB1's Needle Beam, and
the capital primary beams arming the Bugs' Auger-class SDs with Noam's
"Heavy Needle Beam" (currently undergoing playtesting). The weapon you
describe below (with its option used) sounds more like the "wide-arc
primaries" (2nd generation capital primary beams) used by the Terran
Republican Navy in the battle of Zapata in Weber/White's
"Insurrection"; this weapon slices a 2" wide but several meters long
gash through the target ship. 

>*****
>Cutter Beam
>Mass/cost: same as Pulsetorp
>Symbol: Pulse torp with bottom half enclosed in a circle.
>Effect: same as Pulsetorp except damage is marked vertically from the
>topmost undamaged box of armour or hull.  Any damage in excess of 
>the current number damage rows is wasted.  If the last box of a row is
>destroyed, this has no effect unless ALL boxes in that row have been
>destroyed (similar to Sa'vasku expending their own hull).  Note that
>no row can be hit more than once due to the nature of damage 
>distribution.

Without the option below, this is considerably weaker than the P-torp -
lower average damage except against Phalon cruisers and capitals, and
almost unable to inflict threshold checks. With the option, it might be
worthwhile.

>[option 1]: Increase the mass by 2; damage that penetrates past the
>last damage row, make an immediate Core System check against 1 
>random system at current value +1 per point of penetrating damage.  In

>example 1, one core system would fail on a roll of 6; in example 2,
>there is no roll, as it failed to penetrate past the last row.
> 
>This makes it very difficult to inflict critical damage on an
>undamaged ship (there is still potential), but the chances increase as

>damage accumulates, due to various sections of the hull missing.

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