Re: Classed Weapons

> However, all of Laserlight's post have been condescending and/or
> patronizing, without actually giving any information, ideas, or
> assistance.

It sounds as if you completely misinterpreted my tone, then, in which
case I understand why you're irritated.  (I'll point out that several
of my posts agreed with you).

>  He also uses extreme examples (like a "1 MU x 2 MU table"),

To make a point, yes, which was that the scenario was not valid for
"any" conditions--but that it was valid for "reasonable" conditions.
It's always hard to tell how much one has to make explicit and how
much can be left for the reader to pick up, and I tend to err on the
side of the latter. (yes, I know "reasonable" is open to
interpretation--<grin> "reasonable" mean "agrees with me").

I'll also say that I understand why you have concerns about the way
changes are made, so I'll go ahead and answer here with my own
understanding:
In the rule books, there is limited room, thus tough choices to make.
Do we put in "Designer's Notes" for everything?  If so, we have to
leave *something* out and that means you're getting less for your
money (ie fewer fleets, fewer ship designs, or fewer new systems).
Now, a Designer's Notes web page might fly... if we can find someone
to write it, HTML it and host it.

As for the Playtest List, we know, for example, how we're planning to
handle the issue you raised about extra fire arcs and Advanced Drives
being overpriced.  But:
 a) we could be wrong!	We don't want to have the "solution of the
month" and then come back and say "ah, now that you've incorporated
the changes and designed your ships and gotten used to playing that
way...we found out that it doesn't work."  (it happens enough
anyway--the SV from FB2 need to be fixed, for instance, and the FB1
vector rules had a loophole that had to be patched in FB2).
b) we want fresh ideas!  We don't want to say "this is the way it's
going to be" and explicitly or implicitly quash other people's
creativity--maybe someone will come up with an elegant solution that
the playtest list hadn't thought of.
c) it's a condition for membership on the test list that one not
discuss test proposals on the main list.
So when the Test List members don't explain something, it's not
because we're all curt heartless evil SOBs (<grin> none of the rest of
them are--just me...).