Fw: [GZG] Tinkering with weapons

["Tony" <a.leibrick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for the input Oerjan, sorry it has taken a while to reply RL 
intrudes.

I wrote:
>Fusion Beam
>Envisaged as an earlier ship mounted weapon system before the standard 
beam
>became common.

Oerjan replied
If it is "earlier", then shouldn't it be less Mass-effective but cheaper
than the standard beams? If it is *as* Mass-effective, there's little or no
clear in-background incentive for everyone to change to the current
"standard" beams (which they obviously have done, since none of the FB
powers use it any longer)... To me this fusion beam looks more like a
contemporary alternative to the standard beam, not like an obsolecent or
obsolete weapon.

I based the reason the fusion had gone out of favour due to it's range 
limitations.
A ship that was able to stand outside the range of a fusion armed vessel was 
deemed to
be  more effective.

I wrote:
> >Mass and cost as Beam
> >Range 8mu brackets per weapon class
> >Damage as per standard beam x2 (die result 4-5= 2hits, 6=4hits)
> >Screens- as beams
> >Armour- as beams

> Oerjan replied In theory this should balance OK, but as with all 
> modified-range beam weapons it runs into the problem that the standard 
> class-2 battery is somewhat overpowered/underpriced compared to the 
> standard class-1 and class-3 batteries. Because of this, a 6-arc "class-2 
> fusion beam" (max range 16, Mass 3) will be overpowered compared to 3x 
> class-1 standard beam batteries while a 3-arc "class-3 fusion beam" (max 
> range 24, Mass 6) will be *under*powered compared to 3x class-2 standard 
> beam batteries.

If it's a standard problem with beam type weapons I can live with it

I wrote:
> >Helical Beam
> >Helical adjusted wave guide carrier particle beam, sometimes called the 
> >Hell
> >beam more commonly H beam
> >Mass and cost as Graser
> >Range 27mu brackets per weapon class
> >Damage d3 per hit
> >Screens- as Graser
> >Armour- as Graser
Oerjan replied
> Overpowered compared to Grasers - the average result of 1D3 is 2.0 whereas 
> the average result of 1D6 is 3.5 (ie. less than twice as much), so 
> reducing the damage per hit from 1D6 to 1D3 does not fully compensate for 
> the 50% longer range bands.

Would damage of d6per hit/2 rounding up be better?
> >Salvo Missile Variants
> >SM variants have probably been done to death, but here goes
>
> [mechanics snipped]
>
> >I think the cost for the 2 variants should be the same as standard SM but
> any
> >thoughts please.

Oerjan replied
> Here are the average damages for 1 salvo of standard SMs and the two SM 
> variants, each opposed by 0 - 6 PDSs:
>
> #PDS:   Standard SM:    Kinetic:        BPL:
> 0       12.25           7.50    5.83
> 1       9.75            6.33    5.12
> 2       7.62            5.21    4.46
> 3       5.84            4.18    3.86
> 4       4.39            3.27    3.32
> 5       3.24            2.48    2.84
> 6       2.34            1.84    2.41
>
> Both the Kinetic and the BPL values depend somewhat on how their 
> respective DRMs are applied to the PDS rerolls. Here I've treated the +1 
> as applying to all rerolls (as for Attack fighters) while the -1 doesn't 
> apply to rerolls (as per beams vs. lvl-2 screens), but even eliminating 
> the rerolls entirely has very little effect on the overall result due to 
> the low per-missile damages.
The Kinetic missile looks like it has the correct values and I would put the 
cost at 2 points per mass but only for the mass of the missile magazine
SML are the same as standard as the launching tubes can be used by both 
missile types.
Missile racks are same mass but those with Kinetic missiles cost 10 points 
if with standard range missiles and 12 points for extended range (based on 
racks being 2 mass and costing
3 points per mass and the salvoes massing 2 and 3 mass respectively)

It looks like the damage values of the BPL should be upped to 2,2,2,3,3,4 or 
even 3,3,3,4,4,5 so costs should match standard salvo missiles, although I 
think the 2nd set of values may be too powerful.

Tony 

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