RE: [FT] WotW #9 Beam Bridge & E/M Sabot

From: "Robertson, Brendan" <Brendan.Robertson@dva.gov.au>

>The base Beam Bridge is way undercosted even allowing for the threshold
>roll, the mass is more efficient than the equivalent beam weapon.  
>Eg1: Base version: 8 class 2s + 27 Beam Bridges (at mass 1 each) = 43
mass
>with the ability to fire as a CLASS NINE BEAM (256 mass) with possibly
3
>arcs.

Not at all. Guaranteed that several of the 27 bridges will fail
Threshold
(On average 4.5). The augmented beam will never fire, and several of the
class 2's will probably also short out.

>Eg2: Alternate 1: 8 class 2s + 7 Beam Bridge (at mass 1 each) = 23 mass
with
>the ability to fire as a CLASS NINE BEAM (256 mass) with possibly 3
arcs.

Same story (pretty much guaranteed that one of the 7 bridges will fail
the
threshold), although an extremely lucky player might get one shot off.
this
way. One beam die at 102 range isn't going to impress anybody.

Even Alternate 2 will be lucky to get more than one shot in with that
many
bridges. The largest practical (IMO) set of bridges is probably 3, which
gets you a class 4 out of 3 C2's, or a Class 5 if using alternate 1, and
even that will have close to a 50% failure rate each shot. I don't want
to
do parallel bridges, since that adds too much complexity, but if you
really
wanted them, you could tie two beams together with more than one bridge.
That way if one of them failed, you could still fire the augmented beam
(if
both beams survived _their_ thresholds induced by the bridge failure).

>Beam Bridge: Mass: 2, cost: 8.
>2 beam weapons can be joined to target together to fire as the next
largest
>size beam (maximum of 1 size larger).	Everytime the Beam Bridge is
used,
it
>rolls a threshold against itself and each battery used.
>Eg: 2 x class 2s + 1 beam bridge = 6 mass, fires as a class-3 battery
with
>threshold rolls.

>Still undercosted, but better than a backdoor uberweapon...

This is certainly another route to go. I disagree that the original is
anything approaching an uberweapon.

From: "bbell1@insight.rr.com" <bbell1@insight.rr.com>

>Or Class the bridge. The mass/cost of the bridge is 
>equal to the maximum class of beam that it can output with 1 arc.

>So if you have a Class-3 bridge it has a mass of 4. But you can combine

>3 Class-1 beams to have an all arc Class 3 beam. If 
>you have a Class-4 bridge, it would mass 8, but could 
>combine 4 Class-1 beams for an all arc Class-4 beam 
>or 2 3-arc Class-2 beams (with the same arc) for a 3 
>arc Class-4 beam.

This adds more complexity than I would like and has less flexibility.
Would
you eliminate thresholds? I don't see buying this over another beam

In the original concept, 3 bridged Class 2's (same arcs) can fire as one
class 4, or any two of them could fire as a class 3 if one got damaged
(assuming they were all cross-strapped - With alternate 1, if the center
beam was damaged, the outer two couldn't combine.

From: "Bif Smith" <bif@bifsmith.fsnet.co.uk>

>Hmm, I have a problem with the fact the beam bridge allows you to fire
as
>one class higher, in that it would allow you to have a larger weapon
without
>paying the full mass for it. If you had it so the batts required
doubled
(4x
>cl.1=cl.3), this may be a better idea. Or am I on the wrong track?

That's exactly what I didn't want to do. I wanted to have something that
allowed higher beam power without buying the full mass of the beam. The
tradeoff is you only get to shoot once or twice before thresholds take
the
ability away, and you always risk losing beams as well as bridges.

From: Charles Taylor <charles.taylor@cableol.co.uk>

>Of cause, in Noam's original, you'd have to make 27 threshold checks
>before you even get to resolve damage 

Exactly.

> which leads to the question - if
>part of a multi beam-bridge [BB] network fails - does it fail to fire?

In the original, yes. In alternate 2, it always gets to at least once
because threshold checks happen after firing

>fire at reduced strength? 

No.

> If the former option, this weapon will very rarely work :-)

Unless you use it reasonably and don't use more than a couple bridges
for
any grouping. Which was the point of the design.

>If the latter - large BB-nets will seriously slow down the game!

Which is why I wouldn't do it that way.

Noam