Re: Beam Weapons

At 09:32 PM 11/23/96 -0500, you wrote:

>I use B and C batteries by mandating their use in my game universe. A's
are
>only allowed on capital ships, B's are the largest available to
cruisers,
>and C's are used on escorts. What's more, in my Age of Iridium
background
>C's are the secondary mount. If a capital ship has A's, they can only
have a
>maximum of 4 with any other beam batteries mandated as C's. Cruisers
can
>have up to 4 B batteries, but the rest must be C's. 

This seems quick and effective and you can justify the modification
using
energy considerations.	However, it seems a bit stifling and assumes all
technologies are the same.

>Actually, I go a bit further than that by dictating the ORDER in which
ships
>mount batteries. For instance, if a capital ship mounts an A battery
for the
>fwd/port/stbd arc and an A battery for the rear/port/stbd arc (I allow
rear
>arcs), the ship must mount 4 C batteries before it is allowed to mount
>anymore 

Huh?  Is this a Union rule, Government regulation, or Corporate Mandate?
 ;)

One could consider energy requirements versus 3 power plant sizes
(escort,
cruiser, capitol) in terms of power output, capicitors, weapons
recharge,
etc.  Using this, it would be easy to come up with some REASONABLE
design
rules.	However, such an addition to the rules would be like adding a
fifth
limb, an useful but unneccessary complication.

Mike, when is GZG gonna make the A batteries mass 4 ?!?