Re: New threshold levels.

Date sent:  19-NOV-1996 14:45:45 

>> OK. A point was raised yesterday about Large ships hardly ever taking
>> critical damage. Here is a proposal for new damage layout that should
>> alter this. It gets away from the three class split and defines a
ship
>> purely on the bulk/hull integrity.

>Call me a reactionary,

You are a reactionary. 8-)

>but I like the fact that capital-class ships are
>hard to kill. They're big, tough and mean, and have the staying power
to
>go from one battle to the next (especially in a campaign game).

The ships themselves will still be intact, though they would take more
system damage. It would also only effect ships >= 60 mass (58 and
less remain unchanged, but are cheaper), and you'd have to reach 80+
before
it became a serious change. It is a minor tweak, and I think it works.

The damage control rules would also lessen the impact of threshold
checks.

>The
>resilience of capital ships also helps the survivability of
escort-class 
>ships -- if your opponent decides to pound on your capital ship, your
>escorts will be spared (for that turn, anyway).  Otherwise, escorts
tend
>to go up like popcorn.

OTOH, if you can't hurt Capitals without major damage, you'd be a fool
not
to take the escorts out first. If anything the reverse is true. By
giving
people a reason to hit capitals, they may well decide not to shoot at
the
escorts. As it stands, escorts are VERY vulnerable, because everyone
knows
that they can be removed easily, where as you are wasting your time with
early hits on capitals.

+-------------------------------------+--------------------+
| Adam Delafield, I.T. Officer	      | Bolton Institute,  |
| #include "witty_saying"	      | Eagle Tower,	   |
| E-mail : ad4@Bolton.ac.uk	      | College Way,	   |
| Phone  : +44 1204 528851 (ext 3163) | Bolton, UK.	   |
| Fax	 : +44 1204 399074	      | BL3 5AE.	   |
+-------------------------------------+--------------------+