FT: Thought on Orbital Bombardment...

I don't understand why so many players are dead set against standard
ships being able to make orbital bombardments.	They happened all the
time in WW1, WW2, Vietnam, etc.  Here are my suggestions for orbital
bombardments for those who want orbital bombardment.  Somre races are
better then others, notably the Kravak and Sa'Vasku.  But if you allow
varients, any race can build a MT missile cruiser and load it with
orbital artillary bombs (except the Sa'Vasku who don't need it).  I
suspect that only the Sa'Vasku would qualify as an ST race, although it
wouldn't effect their bio-constructs who could be customized for T
planets, also.	

Using Imperial StarFire or GSF for star system generation, you have 4
types of habitable planets.  If you extend this slightly you have 5
types. 

O1 - low density planet roughly equivalent to the moon with little or no
atmosphere and EM field. 
O2 - medium density planet outside of the bioshell with some atmosphere
and weak EM field.
O3 - high density planet outside of the bioshell with heavy atmoshpere
and moderate EM field.	

T - medium density planet in the bioshell with some atmosphere and
moderate EM field.
ST - high density planet in the bioshell with heavy atmosphere and
strong EM field. 

If you rank these for their ability to disrupt/reduce orbital
bombardement you have:

Rank/Type:

0    Asteroid / Space station
1    O1    
2    O2
3    O3, T
4    ST

You can then reduce the effectiveness of orbital bombardments
accordingly.  And you can use this for ground based fighter to determine
how much endurance they use to climb out of the gravity well, time to
climbed out is one half rank, round up.  To land, fighters must glide in
using no endurance, time is again, one half rank, round up.  I suggest
limiting orbial bombardment to ships that are actually in orbit, and
munitions are reloaded from frieghters before space combat, so any
special munition is one less regular munition you have available in
space combat before you can bombard.  

Beams / Torpedoes / Pulsar Batteries:
each rank increase effective range by 1 range band.  

Fighters:
All fighters have normal attacks.  While fighters glide in to the
atmosphere, all PDS's on the planet can fire at them, but not when the
climb out.  Fighters must spend 1 endurance per turn in the low
atmosphere in addtion to 1 endurance if they make any attacks and they
are automatically destroyed when their endurance runs out while in the
atmosphere.  

Needle Beams / PDS / Scatter Gun Charges / Spicule Nodes:
these are in-effective for orbital bombardments.

MT Missiles:
Ineffective, but can be replaced with orbital artillary bomb doing 1d6
damage regardless of rank.  Same mass and points as standard missile,
but automatically hits...

Submunitions:
standard submunitions, each rank increase effective range by 1 range
band.
special orbitial bombardment submunitions have no space attack
capability.  Halves effectives rank, round down.  Same mass and points
as subminitions.

Salvo Missiles:
standard salvo missiles, -1 per rank for lock-on, 1d6 - rank for lock.
special orbital bombardment salvo missiles have no space attack
capability.  Halves effective rank, round down, for lock ons.  Same mass
and points as salvo missiles.

MKP's:
standard MKP's, each rank affects MKP's like a screesns do to beams,
reducing hits scored.
special orbital bombardment MKP's have no space attack capability. 
Halves effective rank, round down.  Same mass and points as MKP.

K-Guns:
each rank increase effective range by 1 and reduces effective k-gun
class by 1.  

Stinger Nodes:
rank * 3 = power factors for each beam dice.

Pod Launchers:
short range to hit, but each rank reduces damage roll by 1, 1d6 - rank
for damage

Plasma Bolts:
each rank decreases plasma bolt strength by 1

ias