Re: Beam Weapons

At 09:47 AM 11/28/96 -0800, you wrote:
>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.

That's actually the point. The game universe is an allegory for the
Russo-Japanese war. As such, the technologies are SUPPOSED to be the
same.
I'm not suggesting that this should be a specific change to the FT
rules.
This is just a campaign specific special rule. I mentioned it as an
example
of specific rules that can be created for FT campaigns.

>>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.

No. Once again, these are campaign specific rules. I postulate that the
ships are long and thin, meaning that there is a limit to the number of
fwd/port/stbd and rear/port/stbd batteries that can be mounted on a
ship. 

They aren't all that complicated and I only use them for my Age of
Iridium
campaign background. They could be used in other backgrounds, or
something
similar could be used. For instance, if one side always uses spherical
ships, require that all of the batteries are two arc batteries or three
arc
batteries.  "Borg" like ships could be forced to have single arc
batteries.
It's not necessary, nor is it always a good idea, to allow all sides in
a
campaign to have all of the flexibility available in the rules.

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