Re: Graser beam observations

First, all of our battles were cinematic.  Most ships
had level-1 screens; except for some small ships
(massing 24-34) that died instantly a Graser was
turned on them.

>> Finally got to test out the graser beams.  The general 
>> consensus is that they are too strong.  But, this is in 
>> regard to us using lots of class-1 Grasers with 6 arcs.
>
>How was the dice rolling?  High, medium or low?

All of the above.  :)  What really skewed things were
the rerolls.  We had a couple strings of 6s on rerolls.
For example, a DD, with 4x 5-arc class-1 Grasers,
hit with only 2 but one roll was a 6.  The rerolls produced
9 damage dice.	My battle winning salvo was with 6x
6-arc class-1 Grasers (replacing the 6 salvo missile racks)
that did 30 damage, plus lots of beam damage (10-15?), 
and destroyed a 244 mass ship that had suffered one 
threshold beforehand.  Is this the effect you want?
The target had a level-1 screen.
FYI: My ship also had 6x class-3 Beams (2x 6-arc, 
4x 5-arc), 3x class-2 Beams (6x 6-arc), 4x class-1 
Beams, MD2 (total mass of 244).

>> IMO, the mass is too small, its the same as a
>> SMR (mass 4) and someone made the claim 
>> that it was like having an unlimited supply of 
>> missiles.  The mass of a 6-arc class-1 Graser
>> should probably be 5.
>
> What if you replaced those 6 G1-6s with 
> 8 Beam2-6arcs, would it have been similar?  
> Would the extra 6" of range of the B2 have 
> made a difference?  What was the normal 
> engagement range?  Did your opponant try 
> and keep away or close?

The enemy had mostly tried a flanking maneuver to
get their Pulse-torp & Beam-3 equipped MD4 ships
to our MD2 ships' rears.  We were going around in
circles as they tried to avoid getting within 18", but once 
they did it was all over.  My ally, Steve, had his WW2 
BB-styled ships, about 10x class-1 K-guns as his main 
batteries but had swapped out his secondaries for Graser-1s. 

The Grasers outperformed every other weapon by
a large margin.  We had 6-arc Graser-1s, they had
some Graser-2s on one ship but it got separated from
the main group (it had MD2 while others had MD4).
He did get initiative but completely missed with the
Graser-2s.  I made him pay for that mistake. :) 
He did have a level-1 screen.
(Andy, Mat: that was Phil)

I'm thinking that the class-1 Graser masses should be:
1-arc: 4, 3-arc: 6, 6-arc: 9.  Except for range, it is
much better than a Pulse Torpedo Launcher.  A mass
of 4 for a 1-arc G-1 is probably on par with the
4-mass 1-arc PTL.  The PTL has range, but only
ever can do 1d6 damage and at long range has a
slim chance to hit.  The Graser has unlimited damage
potential.  Maybe it should have no rerolls, or be
limited to 1 reroll?

>> I also tried out a 1-arc class-1 Graser strike 
>> boat, mass at 7, costing 30 (main drive was 
>> advanced).  I got 33 for 1000 points, lost 7 and
>> destroyed a dreadnought-sized ship.	Steve had 
>> made a similar one costing 49 that had a 6-arc 
>> class-1 Graser (and an armor).
>
> Did all 33 go against a single DN?  33 fire cons vs 
> maybe 4?  That kind of battle can give weird results.  
> Try it again with the same strike boats but with a 
> single Beam2-3arc and see how it goes (you can 
> actually field 35 of the Beam2 versions for 1000 pts, 
> 38 if they have normal drives)

It was 3 people vs. 2 people, 3000 points per side.
I had 1000 points which bought the 33 strike boats.
My two allies were taking a pounding, but also dishing
it out.  When my strikeboats made their attack run at
the time the main combatants were closing it was
a maelstrom of fire from everyone onto everyone.
My allies fired their ships before I did, the enemy had 
several large ships that tossed a few shots at my 
strikeboats.  They were claiming they could take 
out 20 in a turn.  They took out 7, mostly because 
they fired many weapons at my allies' large ships
and also missed a couple of mine.
It did take the remaining 26 to destroy the 
what-was-intact DN (mass was about 134-154,
okay, maybe a BB) with some overkill.  It had
no screens.

This is probably the one instance where escort ships
can make a difference: to keep away the "torpedo boats"
as what happened in the real world.  No one, besides 
me,  in this battle had any ship smaller than 134 mass.

A class-2 Beam vs. a class-1 Graser?  There is no
comparison.  Forgetting about rerolls, an unscreened
target will take 2 damage on a roll of 6 from the 
Beam (or 4 damage on two 6s at close range),
but 2d6 damage from the Graser (averaging 7).  
That extra 6" of range for the Beam?  Sometimes it 
may make a difference, but oh woe is the target that 
gets within 18".

Now, on the other hand, a 3-arc Graser-3 has the mass
of 36.	This is equivalent to 6x 3-arc Pulse Torpedo 
Launchers.  I'll take the PTLs.  Hmm, but that potential
of 2d6 damage out to range 54" has me wondering.... :)

Our playing space was approximately 6' x 8' with no
"boundaries", and we used no "terrain".

Glen