Re: Torpedoes

In message <19960809204558.AAA18993@LOCALNAME> James Butler wrote:

> 
>	  It's a definite problem. One of my group's players (for a
quick
> equal point game) put together a capital ship with 14 (!) A-bats and a
> screen generator. That's it. Now if you think that's bad--wait for
it--he
> had no point defense in his entire fleet!!

Hmm... I must admit to going very much the same way for my own fleet
design. I have a special 'mauler' class of capital ships which consist
of armour (my own armour rules, which are somewhat more expensive and
detrimental than the Kra'vak ones), plus A batteries, with one or two
PDAFs to fill out the odd couple of points of spare mass.

Such Maulers though never work alone - they are always accompanied by
other ships loaded with fighters, generally interceptors, which are
used exclusively for anti-fighter defence.

I see no reason why a fleet should be forced to use PDAFs/ADAFs. If a
fleet has no anti-fighter defence, then it's a weakness in the fleet
to be exploited. In the case of my fleet, I've sort of plugged the
hole by using fighters in that role. Of course, using interceptors
means I've no fighters for attacking ships, but that's what I use the
maulers for.

As for the sole use of A batteries (not a single B or C battery in the
entire fleet), this comes from liking long range weapons. The fact that
A batteries _are_ better than the smaller batteries on a damage/mass
basis is an added bonus. In the real world, if you had a similar choice
of weapons, the military would also go for the weapon which is the best
for all situations. Since such a weapon doesn't exist in the real world,
you get use of multiple weapon types.

One fix for the A battery might be to make it only do 2d6 damage within
12". That way, a B or even C battery is better at close range.

-- 
Be seeing you,
Sam.