RE:[FT] Wave Guns Redux (again!) [long]

> From: Charles Taylor <nerik@monkslode.fsnet.co.uk>
>
> Well, last night me and Adam tried out his EDF designs.
>
> He had the Yamato and the Mogami, I used one of Allan Goodall's
> tournament fleet (the NAC SDN fleet).

I had 2 Heavy Fighter squadrons to your Interceptor and Attack.

> Game parameters were:
>
> Simple meeting engagement
> 1mu=1cm
> Cinematic movement
> no Core Systems
> no Fighter Morale (we forgot! - but there were only 4
> flights in play
> anyway)
> the Wave Gun stated uncharged
>
> In the end Adam won, largely because I still have problems in;
> a) getting my ships to go where I wanted them to go

Wave gun paranoia seemed to help there.

> b) have a mental scale failure combined with paranoia about the Wave
> Guns area of effect
> c) Didn't take out the Mogami first, it had a lot of Adam's
> firepower
> but not that many hull boxes (put that down to bad fleet
> intelligence)

33 hits 10 to first threshold vs 96 and 24. The Mog has 4x3batteries
and a pulse torp to the Yamatos 3x3, 2x2 6x1 and other weapons.

> d) towards the end having a set of bad thresholds combined
> with worse
> damage control rolls (compensated for my damage rolls earlier in the
> game, I guess :-)

You did better than usual on damage and I was mostly doing below
average, the Yamatos guns especially, though that cleared up after I
landed the fighters.

> Initial evaluation of the Wave Gun - It got used once, then Adam got
> paranoid about it blowing up on him.

More that being in among your fleet I could do more damage with the
turrets since I wasn't likely to get more than one of your ships in
the area of effect. The chance of extra damage form it exploding just
kept it cool rather than ready to use. As it was the only time I'd
have hit multiple targets with it after the first shot would have
included the Mogami.

> As has been observed on the list many times, its a lot less
> useful on a
> design like Adam's Yamato, which has a lot of other weapons
> etc. all of
> which are unusable at the same time as the wave gun.
> On a custom 'Wave Destroyer' (A destroyer with a wave gun,
> and perhaps a
> couple of B-1s & PDS for when its charging the Wave Gun) it
> would be a
> lot nastier - a factor I will address below.

The Gearing class IIRC.

> In use, using the FB2 turn sequence, a couple of questions
> came up that
> we would like to put to the list...
>
> Firstly, when fired, the Wave Gun disables the firing ships screens
> through their forward arc - does the list think that...
>
> a) Wave Gun fire should be declared at the beginning of the Phase 9)
> Ships Fire, and the forward arc screens are down for the
> entire firing
> phase?
>
> b) Wave Gun fire is declared when the firing ship is
> activated, and the
> forward arc screen are only considered down from that point onwards?
>
> c) like a), but Wave Gun fire is declared before Phase 8) Resolve
> Missile, Plasma Bolt and Fighter Attacks, to allow for Plasma Bolts,
> fighters, etc. attacks to take advantage of the
> vulnerability - or maybe
> it should be declared even earlier, at the star of Phase 4) Launch
> Ordnance, to allow the opposing player to plan on taking
> advantage of
> the vulnerability?
>
> We used b) - which made a slight difference - not much
> (IIRC the Yamato
> fired its Wave Gun just after the Valley Forge fired
> everything at it
> through the fore arc - but I think I rolled very few '4's
> that time).
> But what does the list think?
>
> Secondly, Should Wave Gun fire be partially penetrating (like pulse
> torpedoes - half damage on armour, half goes through to hull, or the
> next layer of armour on Phalons), or not. We played not, but I don't
> think it would make any difference. The statement in More
> Thrust that
> Wave Guns ignore armour we took to apply to the More Thrust Kra'Vak
> armour, not the more recent Fleet Book 1 armour.
>
> Ok, here  are a few revisions of the Wave Gun rules me & Adam have
> thought up:
>
> 1) Wave Gun Capacitor Charging Rate.
> Instead of this being a straight 1d6 per turn, we think it
> should depend
> on the size of the ship carrying the wave gun (this would reduce the
> effectiveness of the 'wave destroyer' I mentioned above,
> without limiting
> the bigger ships - It would also help for designing ships like the
> EDF Andromeda.
>
> So, each ship would have a 'Maximum Charge Rate' on each
> round that the
> Wave Gun is charged, 1d6 is rolled, as per More Thrust, but the
> _maximum_ charge per round is the 'Maximum Charge Rate'.
> For example, if the Max. Charge Rate is 4, each round, the
> player of the
> Wave Gun ship rolls 1d6, but the capacitors cannot be
> charged by more
> than 4 points each round.

Or requiring more points to charge for small ships, but that would
cause WG Destroyers to disappear on loosing a charge Wave Gun. The
problem with a charge cap is charging becomes more certain.

> I'd actually base the charge rate on the mass of the FTL
> drive, for a
> number of reasons...
> 1) In Space Battlecruiser Yamato/Starblazers, the Wave Motion Gun is
> based on the same tech as the FTL drive
> 2) In Full Thrust, the FTL drive Mass is usually in direct
> proportion to
> the hull mass.
> 3) You can, if you desire, get a faster re-charge rate by
> buying extra
> FTL drive (which may, or may not, be useable as a 'tug' FTL)
> 4) You cannot build a System Defence Wave Cruiser :-)
>
> As a starting value, I suggest that the Maximum Charge Rate be 1 for
> every 5 MASS of FTL drive.
>
> 2) More Wave Gun Charging Rules.
> A Wave Gun cannot begin a scenario charged. Wave Guns are
> charged at the
> same time initiative is rolled for.

>
> Options (largely for Adam's EDF designs)

> Well, thats probably enough for now :-)

Until i can work out how to simmply describe the actions of Drill
missiles. Or the wave motion cartridges and missiles.