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Re: PP:E AAR

From: Dom Mooney <cybergoths@d...>
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 17:44:21 +0000
Subject: Re: PP:E AAR


On Sunday, January 18, 2004, at 04:21 PM, Laserlight wrote:

> From the GZG List:
>
> >The main thing that I'd say PPE needs is a Quick Reference Sheet, 
> with the turn order, firing chart and modifiers all in one place.  
> Modifiers should include *all* modifiers -- in the PPE text, Agility 
> is off on a different page than the firing mods.

There's a QRS on the Traveller Full Thrust yahoo group site.

> >The two ambiguities in the rules that we found today involved 
> missiles.
> >a)  The firing chart has a -1 for laser, energy weapons and missiles 
> if the LoS for a weapon passes through a sand cloud.	Does that apply 
> to missiles with a Bomb Pumped Laser warhead, or does it also apply to

> missiles that contact the ship?  If the latter, is it if they pass 
> through the sand in their movement, or only if the ship is itself in 
> or touching a cloud of sand that the missile had to move through?  I 
> assumed that sand only affects BPL missiles but not others.

Any missile that moves through sand on the turn of impact will suffer 
the -1 or -3 modifier from the sand (L2 sand is -3). If a ship is in or 
touching a sand cloud the modifier would still apply.

BPLM shots also suffer this problem if the carrier (ie missile body 
pre-detonation) or the laser shot passes through the sand cloud.

This is in line with HG where missiles suffer from sand.

> >b) Mining lasers consider short range to be 5mu.  Point defense range

> is 6mu.  If a BPL attacks from 6mu, can a mining laser defend against 
> it, and if so, is there any different effect than if the BPL had 
> closed to 5mu before detonating?

My view would be that Mining Lasers cannot operate as point defenses 
against missiles. No canon basis for that but my thoughts are they 
aren't designed as military weapons.

> And a couple more:
> c) I can't set a sand cloud directly under the ship; however, there's 
> no reason that I can't place a cloud 1mu in front of my ship, then 
> accelerate by 1mu so I end up in the cloud.  (or, if I'm clever and 
> armed with Particle Accelerators, I might drop sand so that my enemy 
> ends up in it).  The simple way out of this is to say "your ship 
> disrupts the sand cloud" but in vacuum that's a little hard to 
> swallow, and besides, what if you're using a sand cloud effect to 
> simulate being in a dense nebula?

In practicality, feel free to ignore the restriction on the sand cloud 
placement. This rule is a hangover from when sand could be stacked. The 
other reason it was implemented was to stop people forever knocking the 
ship over when placing the counter which caused a few arguments in 
playtests on facings.

The technobabble handwave for the current rule would be that you can't 
generate an adequate shaping field for the ship all around itself. 
Personally, I'd just deploy the sand as you suggest in your example. 
Once the sand is in play there is no issue with a ship being in it.

> d) if a ship in sand is attacked by missiles (or by a BPL which ends 
> up in a sand cloud), what effect if any does that have on point 
> defense?

Sand does not degrade point defense. It is stacked onto the combat 
result table as usual.

Does that help?

Cheers,

Dom

---------cybergoths_at_dsl.pipex.com----------
"Confident, Cocky, Lazy, Dead" Felix Jongleur
	  http://www.powerprojection.net/

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