Re: FT-Weapon idea for wave gun

In message <000901c099a6$9249b9e0$20b6893e@inty>
	  "Bif Smith" <bif@bifsmith.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:

> I know there`s people who don`t like the wave gun, but I don`t think
of this
> gun as too overpowered for a FT game, and it does appeal to me from
the
> anime ships seen in various films/comics/serieses. I did have 2 ideas
for
> wave guns that I`d thought I`d share-
> 
> 1-Scaleable wave guns
> 
[snip]
IIRC similar ideas have been suggested before (including by me - but my
current idea on this subject, the Spacial Discontinuity Cannon - is a
bit of a departure in that it is powered of the ship's FTL drive - see
the Weapons Archive for details).
Thinking about it, I'd increase the mass of the generators relative to
the mass of the whole system - my reasoning is this:
Take a Wave Gun with a standard generator - ie. it requires 6 power to
fire, and the generator produces 1d6 charges per turn - it will be able
to fire about every second turn, usually.
Give it doubled generator capacity, ie. 2d6 charges per turn - it will
be able to fire almost every turn - this is a large increase in
capability - almost double that of the first example.

Something you omitted from your description was how the weapon
effectiveness increases with class - one idea I'd use is this:
Range is 12 mu times the class
Damage is 1d6 per class, minus 1d6 per full 12 mu of range
area affect is a path, 1 mu wide for 0-12 mu, 2 mu wide for 12-24mu etc.
(yup, this isn't quite like the MT wave gun - but its close enough)

Under this scheme, the mass of the weapon should progress like that of
beam batteries, ie. each class is twice the mass of the previous one.

So we could have the following

Class  MASS of emitter	MASS of generator
1	     1		     2
2	     2		     4
3	     4		     8
4	     8		    16

If you stick a smaller generator onto an emitter, double the number of
charges needed to fire for each point of difference in class (ie. a
class 3 emitter with a class 1 generator requires 24 charges to fire -
and is likely to be used once at best)
Likewise, a larger generator on a smaller emitter, double the number of
dice rolled for every point of difference in class.

Personally, ! don't like the random charging, and would set the charge
rate to 3 per d6 (ie. assume all dice roll a 3).

Hmm.. question - can a 'classed' wave gun fire at a reduced power level?
(ie. class 3 has half the needed charge, 3 points - can it be fired as
a class 2?) - this would make the higher powered ones more versatile.

> 
> 2-Focusable wave guns
> 
IIRC one of the websites has a 'wave beam' which is a similar idea - its
on:
http://web.missouri.edu/~pjs7f1/ft/ftindex.html
if you want to have a look.

As regards your suggestion - firstly, a wave gun has the mass (and cost)
of _three_ P-torps, but has a longer range, more limited fire arc, needs
to recharge - and is an 'exclusive' weapon - on the turn it is fired,
nothing else can be (and that includes PDS) - so your proposal is
probably not unbalanced (I'm guessing here :-).

You could combine the two, say a focussed, classed wave gun has the
following stats:
Fires as P-Torp (when charged), but range band is 2 mu per class, damage
is 1d6 per class.
> 
> A a aside, does anybody else out there consider wave gun not too OTT
> compaired to normal FT guns/ships, and should be allowed in FT games?
Or am
> I just totally off course in my thinking? (what I`m asking is has
anybody
> compaired wave guns, with their disadvantages/advantages, to normal FT
> weapons, and tried balancing them? I know if they were allowed as
standard,
> they would probably become standard fit on capitol ships <HE,HE>).
> 
> BIF
> "yorkshire born,yorkshire bred,
> strong in arms, thick in head"
> 
> 
> Another crazy idea for a crazy world.
>
I've yet to try one of these out, but the limitations on it are quite
nasty - for instance, you cannot fire it in the same turn you use PDS (I
assume that wave guns fire during the normal fire phase).