Weapon of the Week

Ok, now that Noam has set the archive up, which weapon or system shall
we evaluate first?

We could do them in alphabetical order, in which case the first is:

Antimatter Salvo Missile (AM-SM)

Ok, I'll kick off:

As Noam comments, this is a slightly over-complex SM / Plasma Bolt
hybrid, I'd suggest removing the damage drop-off effect, and treating
these as Plasma Bolts with a power equal to the number of missiles that
survive the PDS (all ships within 6 mu of the salvo are 'threatened' and
thus can use PDS - however, if they can do this to an AM-SM, then why
not to a normal SM?)

Damage is reduced by screens/shrouds in the same way as Plasma Bolts.

Right, crude cost comparison:

Salvo Missile - launcher is 3 MASS, ER salvos are 3 MASS each
1 use per Salvo
Range is 24 mu

Plasma Bolt Launcher (PBL) - MASS is 5 times Class
1 use per 2 turns
Range is 30 mu

both have COST = 3x MASS, so we can just compare on MASS

So, compare effects of defences:

Defence 	SM		PBL
PDS		1 beam die	1 in 6
Pulsar-PDS	1 beam die	1 beam die
Class 1 	5 or 6+reroll	no effect
K-1		5 or 6		no effect
Scattergun	1d6		1 beam die
Fighters	1 beam die*	1 in 6
Screens 	same effect on both

In general AM-SMs are more affected by defences than PBLs average
effects are as follows:

Defence 	SM		PBL		Difference
PDS		.8		.1667		0.2083
Pulsar-PDS	.8		.8		1
Class 1 	.8		0		0
K-1		.6667		0		0
Scattergun	3.5		.6667		0.1905 
Fighters	.8		.1667		.2083
Average 					0.27 (approx)

So defences are about 3 3/4 times more effective against AM-SMs than
against PBLs.

1 SML + 2 AM-Salvos is 9 MASS
this is equivalent to 2 shots of a PBL-6, but with the increased
effectiveness of the defences.
However, the 2 shots _can_ be on consecutive turns, unlike the PBL
also, the system is more vulnerable to thresholds - as there are two
systems to damage - either of which will KO the system.

A PBL-6 is MASS 30, for comparison.

reduce the range to 24 mu, and the MASS should reduce to about 19 (based
on Oerjan's range vs. cost calculations).

So, which would _you_ buy?