Evasive Manuevers and High Thrust

<Brian wrote:>

>I thought about duplicating screen effects for my evasive maneuvers,
but I
>wanted evasive maneuvering to be effective against all types of fire,
not
>just beam weapons....
>
>Brian

Our group uses the following rules.
........................................................................
.
Beam fire on a Thrust 8 ship hits only on a 6, and does 2 points
damage (assuming there are fewer than 2 screens.).  If there are
2 or more screens on the starship, damage is reduced to 1 (per the
standard screen rules).  You do not have to plot EM, nor does it
affect your movement.  It's automatic.

Beam fire on a Thrust 6 ship hits only on a 5 or a 6.  Compute
damage per beam rules.	That is, if there are two screens then
only one point of damage is scored.  If there are 3 screens then
only a roll of a 6 scores any damage (ie. 1 point).

Against Pulse torpedoes, Thrust 8 ships are -2 to hit.	Thrust 6
ships are -1 to hit.  However, rolling a 6 ALWAYS HITS the target!
This assumes the Pulse torpedoe is in range.  If the pulse torpedo
hits, compute damage per the standard rules.

Missiles, fighters and Sub-munitions are NOT affected by target
ships Thrust rating as they are much more manueverable.  (Makes
those Submunition packs a little more useful on large (slow)
starships... especially if they are aimed to Port and Starboard).
Good defense against the swarmed overrun.

The Golden Rule:
Rolling a 6 to hit IS A CRITICAL and always hit's the target.

A starship loses the benefits of it's thrust rating when it's engines
have been damaged (ie. it's thrust is less than 6.)
........................................................................
...

Our group has playtested these rules alot and found them to be easy to
use.
We've found that the system helps to preserve the smaller starships at
close range.  Generally, only 6's hit.	Because 6's are criticals
though,
if a small ship gets hit, it's usually vaporized because we don't adjust
the damage of the Beam/Pulse Torpedo.  Boils down to an all or nothing
result
against smaller ships.

We've noticed people playing around with thrust 8 cruisers now, removing
the screens and replacing the space with weapons.  The cost is rather
high
for these starships and their performance in battle has proven to be 
interesting.  These simple rules do not appear to cause any play balence
problems.  Just adds some variety to our games.

For really large starships, Screens are the better deal because they
cost
less than thrust 8 engines and stop more damage.  We've found that for 
the mid-sized starships, these rules spawned alot of new ship designs. 
Our
games are much more varied now without any added complexity.

Peter Caron