Re: Some more comments to the WeapDef archive

Charles Taylor wrote:

>>Charles's suggestion works... sort of, but his guesses at points
>>costs are off by about 100% in both cases: getting 2 hull boxes per
>>Mass is worth 6-7xMass, while getting 1 box per 2 Mass is worth
>>0xMass (actually it is worth even less, ie. *less* than 0 pts per
box, >>but I'm not too keen on negative points costs...).
> 
>Arrgh! another maths failure!

Well, you did indicate that your suggested figures were initial guesses
only :-) Took me quite a while to work them out too, but I had a 2-year
head start <g>

>>I'm still playtesting my "variable number of hull rows" idea, but so
>>far it looks reasonable:
>> 
>>Instead of giving all ships 4 rows of hull boxes, they can be
designed
>>with 3, 4 or 5 rows. 

[snip]

>Hmm.. that looks promising - reminds me of the Earth Force
>Sourcebook.

That's where I got the idea from, yes. Unfortunately the 2-row hulls
don't work out well :-(

>>Raking fire

[snip my comments to Noam's Skunk Works "raking fire" version]

>I had my own idea bout raking fire - but I'm not convinced it works:
>Applies to Beam type attacks only.
>Effect: All normal thresholds caused by raking fire are 1 level worse
>than normal (Threshold (6) becomes Threshold (5+), etc, Threshold
>(4+) is unaltered)
>All Core Thresholds are 1 level better (ie. no check for rows 1&2, row
>3 calls for a Threshold (6) check)
>Screens and armour apply to all re-rolls, as well as the initial
attack.
[snip]
>Cons: well, the Giant Glaring one to me is the canny player who mixes
>standard with raking fire - ie. peel of the armour and most of row 1
>with standard hits, then throw in a fewraking attackes so the
threshold
>will be much nastier.
>
>In general, I think this may be a good example of why we don't have
>things like raking, sustained, etc. fire modes in Full Thrust :-)

<g> Glad you saw it yourself so I didn't have to :-)

>>Side-Slip - Common house rule - allows 2+ point turn to be port then
>>starboard (or opposite). 
>>[OO: Recommended. Should go into FT3 or FB3 (whichever comes
>>first), provided I can find a big enough club to bash Jon over the
head >>with <g>]
>
>Ow!

That's why I'll need a club - I don't want to hurt my hands, after all!

...oh, you meant that *Jon* might get hurt? Considering that he has
survived being aquainted with Mary Gentle for God knows how long, I
don't think he'll take any lasting harm ;-)

>>Starburst Attack
>>[OO: With the fighter re-arming rule in FB2, this has gone from
>>somewhat unbalanced to very unbalanced. Spending excessive >>amounts
of EPs is no longer a serious penalty - heck, on several >>occasions my
KV fighters have gone Ro'Kah, rearmed, returned to >>the fray, gone mad
*again*, rearmed *again*, and had time for a third >>attack - and that
in battles 7-8 turns in length. If KV fighters can >>rearm this often,
human fighters can do it too.
> 
>I think this should be a special (expensive) fighter type - say a
>submunition fighter - carrys 3 small submunitions packs (1 beam dice
>each, range 6 mu), can use them 1 at a time or all at one, the latter
>consumes all remaning cef - have same effects against ships and
>fighters - as standard SMP fighters have no other weapons? - cost -
>dunno? - more than standard fighter I think.

Somehow simply using Torpedo fighters sounds easier :-/

Later,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."