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Re: [GZG] Screens versus Advanced Screens in Cross Dimensions?

From: Eric Foley <stiltman@t...>
Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 18:20:00 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: [GZG] Screens versus Advanced Screens in Cross Dimensions?

-----Original Message-----
>From: Hugh Fisher <laranzu@ozemail.com.au>

>My issue here is K-1s and K-2s becoming *completely* harmless.

Well, there's no real solution there.  Either advanced screens render
them harmless or the screens themselves are useless against K-1s,
near-useless against K-2s, and pretty cost-ineffective against the
higher calibers.  If you go with my suggestion, K-1s and K-2s are
harmless but it's pretty well balanced against the other stuff.  In any
real life game where advanced screens are available, custom design is
implicit, so the Kra'Vak player just makes sure he's packing K-3s as his
minimum caliber and the problem's solved.  Meanwhile, advanced thrust 3
in an area defense formation still makes plasma and missiles more or
less completely ineffective, K'V scatterguns still pretty completely
ruin fighters, and K-guns still are quite powerful weapons otherwise...
so yeah, I'm not going to be inclined to shed too many tears for the
Kra'Vak.  I'd still take a cloaking Kra'Vak-equipped dreadstar as one of
the two or three most horrifying things possible to build in the
combined rules.

>But hey, this is all theoretical. Please try out your ideas
>and report back how it goes.

Well, I did try out a scenario where I had about a 6000 point
engagement.  One side employed a force of three large multi-role
dreadnoughts with modest plasma armament, level 2 advanced screens,
light hulls with modest two-layer armor, pulsers, and both onboard
fighters and support by five smaller support carriers, sporting
swing-role fighters of interceptor/attack and heavy/torpedo.  The other
was a variant of an area defense battleship design that an old friend of
mine used against me once, that carried a total of 48 dice of class-1
and class-2 grasers and 36 pulse torpedoes with 30% hulls and level 2
regular screens.  Both were adaptations of old ship designs to new
stuff, with my old plasma-and-fighters tactics adding pulsers, the
two-layer armor and advanced screens and my old friend's designs
swapping out plasma for grasers.  I was both trying to test whether or
not the swing-role fighters and advanced screens would be worthwhile,
and whether or not grasers are any subs
 titute for plasma in the kinds of slugfests that we tended to get into
in the old days.  The plasma-carrier designs annihilated the
graser-torpedo guys for almost no significant damage, one ship took
light damage to its outer armor layer and a support carrier took a
graser hit towards the end as one of the battleships threw a last shot
at them in hopes of at least seriously hurting _something_.  So... yeah,
the advanced screens with two layer armor and swing role fighters were
very much worthwhile in that case.

>>The only other question I have is, should advanced screens be 
>>slightly better than regular screens against beams?  Take away the 
>>reroll dice, maybe?

>I think it is easier to have just one screen mechanism for
>beams. Plus IMHO there's been a steady "arms race" in FT
>with missiles, K-guns, and grasers all dealing out more
>maximum damage than beams, and I'd prefer not to see the
>regular beam made less effective by any new system. (This is
>also why I changed beams to be armour-piercing in FT:CD.)

Hadn't noticed the armor-piercing part.  But yeah, regular beams seem
more and more like they're pretty wretched with all the other stuff on
the table.  In all honesty, it's to a point that the main reason I keep
them on anything is if I'm trying to model a starfaring nation that
hasn't developed better versions of similar weapons. :P

E/Stilt Man
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