Re: Technology levels was FT Newtonian Acceleration

Mike Hillsgrove wrote:

>What FT doesn't natively do very well is simulate technology levels
very
>well.	A Vorlon Corvette could toast an Omega fairly easilly. Mimbari
ships
>trounce human kind pretty handilly as well. Not represented well at
all.
>
I noticed this when going through the Weapons/Defense Archive.	A lot of

the suggestions (e.g. Stealth Hull, ECM, Sensors, etc) assume that the 
ships from the basic (RAW) design system are level 0.  We have been 
working with this scale:

Level 0 = None, Civilian or Antiqated System
Level 1 = Basic Military, Enhanced Civilian or Obsolescent System
Level 2 = Standard Military System
Level 3 = Enhanced System
Level 4 = Superior System

And for the three examples that I mentioned above, the RAW for both 
designing ships and combat assume that all (military) ships have level 2

(standard) stealth hull, ECM and sensors.  Also, 2nd echelon military 
vessels (transports, tenders, etc. have level 1 (basic) and civilian 
ships have level 0 or 1.

Bonuses/penalties then are applied for levels 0,1,3 & 4.

Also, if (taking your examples) the Minbari are Superior (level 4), you 
could say that the Vorlons/Shadows are Advanced (level 5 or 6)

>Personally,  it's the simplicity of a class 1, 2, 3, and so forth
>laser/phaser/photonic cannon or so forth that made me dump Fleet Action
for
>Full Thrust.  Simply better for fleet actions.  I have no problem with
a
>Vorlon packing a Class 5 Laser in the same space as a Mimbari Class 3,
or
>Human Class 2, or Merchant Class 1, depending on technology level.
>
Unfortunately, there is a deliberate attempt to limit the size of the 
standard battery to C3 or C4 by making C4 and larger disproportionately 
expensive in terms of size (mass) relative to their combat potential 
(compared to smaller batteries of the same type).  I.e. a 3-arc class 3 
battery is not three times as useful as a 3-arc class 2, a class 4 is 
not twice as useful as a class 3, a class 5 is not 4x as useful as a 
class 3 etc.  However, this is NOT done with other open-ended classed 
weapons, like the KraVak K-gun or the Phalon Plasma Bolt Launcher.

J