Re: [GZG] More advanced screens

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Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 4:18 AM, john tailby <John_Tailby@xtra.co.nz> wrote:

> But don't semi AP and AP weapons simulate the local burn-through
perfectly? A beam weapon burns through and the reroll does damage
directly to hull as
> do plasma torpedoes and K guns.
>
> So 2 ways to beat a Langston Field: roll massed dice to overload it or
use AP weapons to bypass it.
Robert Mayberry wrote:
> I would say no, because there aren't any weapons with AP effects
attested in the book. Also, every ship in the CoD universe uses the
Langston Field as its defense; there'd be no reason for anything other
than AP weapons if one was invented. The Field absorbs all kinds of
energy-- including kinetic, proportional to the (cube? fourth power?) of
the incoming energy.
That's fourth power of the /velocity/ of an incoming particle -- so 
non-photonic radiation from a nuke (which is what the torpedoes are) 
gets absorbed more readily the hotter it is. Since we know that the 
Field absorbs photons, too, we can assume that the rest of the radiation

is absorbed as well.

Robert has a point: the only ship weapons that we've seen are laser 
"guns" and torpedoes with thermonuke warheads, and nothing punches 
through the Field the way that, say, a needle beam does FT screens. In 
fact, most FT weapons don't really match up with CD/EoM-style space 
combat, and it's an interesting question as to whether something like a 
K-gun (and related technologies) would be effective against a 
Field-equipped ship. My first instinct is to limit EoM-type ships to 
standard beams and SMLs and/or SMRs, with PDSs to cope with (some of) 
the salvo missiles.

> In the book, burn-throughs seem to happen mostly from torpedoes,
whereas most of the energy you pump into the Field comes from the laser
batteries. That's why I like threshold checks for modeling
burn-throughs.
>   
I agree. With only the example of /Lenin/ against /MacArthur/ and the 
battles around the Mote in TGH to go by, one gets the impression that 
ship combat is a fairly slow business when both combatants have Field 
technology, punctuated by brief periods of mad activity when a 
burn-through is achieved and some actual damage is done -- both in terms

of change in ship's status and as DC parties madly rip out and replace 
damaged system modules.

In fact, I do wonder why the primary armament of the Imperial ships is 
their lasers; again, given the examples of combat that we see in the 
books, I'd be inclined to reduce the number of guns in favour of a /lot 
/more torpedoes, as they are the weapons that seem to cause the most 
burn-throughs. Lasers pump energy into the Field, but that does nothing 
to the target until it overloads the Field or unless a tight enough 
focus can be maintained to cause a hot spot and burn-through. Okay, the 
supply situation is an obvious counter-argument, as is the use of the 
lasers in combat against ground forces and installations, but I'd think 
a Torpedo Battleship, intended for Fleet operations, would be a useful 
capital ship.

Of course, that all changes when the thermal superconductor comes into 
use; then, it's a case of pump as much energy into an opponent's Field 
as quickly as you can, to overload it completely. Burn-throughs don't 
damage the target, they just make it hotter -- right up until the 
superconductor fails, and then it's fried spaceship time!

Phil