Re: Fw: Weapons for Newtonian based FTIII

On Mon, 5 May 1997, Mikko Kurki-Suonio wrote:
> Well, ignoring sandcasters for a while and returning to my favorite 
> source of controversy, missiles, yes you can take this approach.
> 
> But it still castrates stations as military installations. I.e. if the
> battle is decided by keeping the missile boats over 60" away from the
> target station, the station's weaponry won't matter one teeny weeny
bit --
> so why blow points on any? Why even put it on table? Just designate
one 
> table edge as the "last line of defense".
> 
> So, it still removes the fun of having a battle within the range of 
> "shore batteries".
> 
> To put this in SF terms, I'd like it to matter whether the Death Star
has 
> guns (apart from the planetbuster) or not.

I would think that a space station will be a form of static defense in 
case of vital point. I would like to use Honor Harrington Series as 
example:

	Manticore Worm Hole junction is heavily fortified by fortresses
(I 
don't know how many). The fortresses forms 2 rings of defense in 
anticipation of the first ring of fortresses can be destroy easily by an

attack. The idea is the fortresses is the only really possible defence 
against this kind of attack, and there are no really alternative ways. 
The fortresses are there to discourage any attack. Plus the enemy who 
come through the Worm Hole junction will always has surprise with the
first 
shot. But with the sheer number of space fortresses guarding the worm 
hole,  the enemy's destruction is almost 100%.

I want to agree that space stations are easily toasted, but the idea of 
station with weapon is give it chance to survive or at least give the 
enemy some second thoughts before attacking stations. I also think that 
space stations should have very limited mobility to represent the 
thrusters that may help it maintain position. Just my thoughts...

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*Chun-Kai Wang a.k.a. Kevin, Zelt, and Zilvra Argith		       
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