Re: [GZG] Re: Full Thrust Playtest? Plama bolts

["Eric Foley" <stiltman@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've played with lots of custom designs with plasma bolts, and I only really 
ever came up with one good use for PBL-1's, which was to use them on 
low-maneuverability superships as area defense against salvo missiles in 
case they didn't have enough banzai jammers and/or point defenses to avoid 
being annihilated.  Usually the superships had a few token banzai jammers 
anyway, but they had the PBL-1's as a final defense against missiles anyway. 
Taking a d6 or  two of damage that might not even go through their screens 
was a lot better than getting pegged by 50 salvoes of missiles.

Other than that, I never saw the point in spreading plasma around.  It was 
almost always better, in my experience, to take an educated guess as to 
where your enemy was going to be and focus the bulk of it on a particular 
point in space.  Granted, this wouldn't necessarily work against enemies 
that had ADV-6 drives going at fraction-C speeds, but the tables I usually 
played on didn't usually have enough space that you couldn't guess, and 
somewhere between plasma bolts and fighter strikes the hyperspeed enemies 
usually got hunted down eventually.

E

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Oerjan Ariander" <oerjan.ariander@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <gzg-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, October 29, 2006 4:24 AM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Full Thrust Playtest? Plama bolts


> John Tailby wrote:
>
> > Currently there is no incentive to use bigger than size 1 plasma bolts
>
> There is one such incentive, though not a very strong one: each Plasma 
> Bolt Launcher needs a separate operational FCS in order to launch. IOW, if 
> you have 6 PBL-1s you need 6 operational FCSs to launch all of them at 
> once, whereas if you have 1 PBL-6 you only need 1 operational FCS to 
> launch.
>
> But yes, we're aware that the FCS requirement isn't enough to outweigh the 
> advantages of many small PBLs over a single big one.
>
> > The problem with using it the way it is is that it is a big mass hog and 
> > you get no mass reduction for larger systems.
>
> 1 PBL-6 + 1 FCS = 31 Mass
>
> 6 PBL-1 + 6 FCS = 36 Mass
>
> Looks like a Mass reduction to me, though as I said above it isn't big 
> enough.
>
> Regards,
>
> Oerjan
> oerjan.ariander@xxxxxxxxxx
>
> "Life is like a sewer.
>  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
> -Hen3ry
>
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