Re: Re[2]: Beam Weapons

On 29 Nov 1996 M.J.Elliott@uk22p.bull.co.uk wrote:

> Jon and I were chatting the other day and one of the things that came
up 
> was this beam weapon thing for FTIII (as you may know, we are thinking

> about producing a new version of FT). Jon is quite keen on the idea of

> getting rid of the points system (shock, horror!, what will the
tabloids 
> say?) in favour of a single parameter for ship design, i.e. MASS.

Hm... yes and no. I like the idea of having two parameters to play with
- 
otherwise (at least in campaign games) I'll determine which weapon gives

me most bang per buck (or, in this case, bang per mass!) and stick to 
that (...giving boring designs...). If I have two parameters (like cost 
and mass, or energy and mass), the analysis gets harder ;)
 
> Secondly, we have recognised the problem with beam weapons inbalance
and 
> the latest idea is to distinguish between "casemate" weapons (i.e.
single 
> arc) and "turreted" (i.e. 2 or 3 arc):
> 
>				 MASS
> C battery (turretted only)	  1
> B battery (casemate)		  2
> B battery (turret)		  4
> A battery (casemate)		  4
> A battery (turret)		  8
> 
> 
> What do you all think??

The basic idea is sound, but I think that the bigger weapons are far too

big. (I certainly wouldn't use a mass 8 A turret! It's awfully hard 
keeping the range open long enough for it to wear down the enemy...) 

If a 'roll' manouver is introduced (ie, swap left and right sides), a 
turret weapon isn't as powerful as two casemate weapons. Although it can

cover one extra arc, it can only engage a single target (while the two 
casemate weapons can engage up to two) and is more vulnerable to
treshold 
checks. If the 'roll' isn't introduced the turret weapon is probably 
about even, since if the casemate ship loses one broadside it'll take it

a looooong time to turn around.

I've used the following weapon masses:

Weapon: 		      Mass:
C battery (casemate)	       0.5 (but only in Renegade Legion-inspired
				    games)
C battery (turret)		1
B battery (casemate)		1 
B battery (turret)	       2-3 (I've tried both; mass 2 seems to
work 
				    well if C batteries have point
defence 
				    capabilities)
A battery		       1 + 1/arc (ie, single-arc is mass 2,
triple-
					  arc is mass 4)

Of course, these have mainly been tried out using the '1 (modified) die
per 
battery' variant Ludo Toen proposed, but it seems to give somewhat fair 
results with the standard system too.

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