Re: Beam Batteries

On Fri, 4 Oct 1996, David Kendall Lewis wrote:

> This is my first message to the Full Thrust mail group, so forgive me
if I
> am covering already hashed over ground.  I just bought the game and
it's
> More Thrust last night and I am having a problem with Beam Batteries.
> 
> Unless you only have 1-2 mass left on your ship, I can't see a time
where
> you would want to buy anything *but* A batteries.  A Batteries are
clearly
> superior in a cost/benefit analysis which I show below using the
lowest
> common denominator for mass (6):
> 
>		     Min      Max      Range	  Range      Range
>		     Arc      Arc	0-12	  13-24      25-36
> Mass	   Weapons     Cost	Cost	 Damage     Damage     Damage
> ----	   -------     ----	----	 ------     ------     ------
>  6	      2 	14	 26	  6d6	     4d6	2d6
>  6	      3 	15	 27	  6d6	     2d6	N/A
>  6	      6 	18	 30	  6d6	     N/A	N/A
> 
> As you can see A Batteries are always cheaper and always do as much or
more
> damage out to much greater range.  I feel that this should be
rectified and
> the More Thrust tried to do this, but fell short.  I am thinking of
amending
> Battery point costs to be "A:4+4/arc B:2+2/arc C:1+1/arc".  This would
change
> the above chart to look like the one below:
> 
>		     Min      Max      Range	  Range      Range
>		     Arc      Arc	0-12	  13-24      25-36
> Mass	   Weapons     Cost	Cost	 Damage     Damage     Damage
> ----	   -------     ----	----	 ------     ------     ------
>  6	      2 	16	 32	  6d6	     4d6	2d6
>  6	      3 	12	 24	  6d6	     2d6	N/A
>  6	      6 	12	 24	  6d6	     N/A	N/A
> 
> With this new scheme A Batteries would still be clearly better, but
would
> cost between 33% and 50% more that B/C batteries (depending on the arc
> of fire).  I feel that B & C batteries costing the same per mass is OK
> as More Thrust allows C batteries to act in point defense and I feel
that
> this balances B batteries advantage at ranges 13-24.
> 
> What do the rest of you think?

Well... I don't think it'll help very much just to change the cost,
since 
weapon costs are usually a rather small part of ship costs (... in my 
experience the drive is the really big part). Increasing the mass, 
however, works better - this makes it a choice between range and
firepower.
Increasing the mass of an A battery, using your costs would give the 
following table:
		    Min   Max
		    arc   arc	   Damage at range... 
Type  Mass  Number  cost  cost	 0-12	12-24	24-36	Notes: 
----  ----  ------  ----  ----	------	------	------	------
 C     8       8     16    32	  8d6	 N/A	 N/A	Point defence
ability
 B     8       4     16    32	  8d6	 4d6	 N/A
 A     8       2     16    32	  6d6	 4d6	 2d6

Here, C-batteries swap longer range for a limited point defence ability 
(from More Thrust) and higher durability - two A-batteries are far, far 
more vulnerable to unlucky treshold checks than eight C-batteries! - the

B has no special abilities but has twice the range of the Cs, and the A 
has longer range still but is weaker than either of the two close up. AA

batteries are more powerful and have longer range, but are limited to
one 
arc and risk burning out every shot.

Regards,

Oerjan Ohlson

"Father, what is wrong?"
"My shoes are too tight. But it does not matter, because
 I have forgotten how to dance."
- Londo Mollari