Re: A,B,C Batteries

At 07:11 PM 11/23/96 -0500, you wrote:
>   On a seperate note, does anyone use (ever) minedroppers?  I've found
them
>worse than useless, and even bumping them to 4d (as a beam), no one in
our
>group uses them.  Does anyone out there bother?

In my recent PBEM game, four ships were given minelayers. Only one
actually
used it, and the mines never detonated (no ships came close enough). The
problem is that they are hard to use and only really worthwhile if a
ship is
VERY close to you in your rear arc. I'm not sure when you would declare
a
mine drop: during combat or during movement. If during movement, it's
hard
to catch anyone due to the mine's arm time. However, during combat might
be
handy if the mines didn't take a turn to arm. 

Minelayers CAN be handy if you MUST travel straight ahead and you think
someone is going to drop into your rear arc (i.e. heading for a jump
point
in games that use them). They are also good for seeding a jump point in
cases where two forces use the same jump point. However, they don't seem
cost effective for the damage that the 3 mines can do. I usually only
use
them as scenario "plot points."

Allan Goodall:	agoodall@sympatico.ca 
"You'll want to hear about my new obsession.
 I'm riding high upon a deep depression. 
 I'm only happy when it rains."    - Garbage