Re: Fw: Weapons for Newtonian based FTIII

>> 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. 
>
>But they don't. That's the problem. You could have a station with 
>zillions of guns and screens and armor and it still wouldn't matter if
I 
>could just stop 1" outside your effective range and nibble you to
death.
>
>And that's exactly what you can do with missiles: Arrive 60" away from
the
>station, conveniently outside the range of all weapons except missiles,
>launch, turn away, reload, come back to 60", launch... 
>
>The only thing, apart from calling help and surrendering, the station
can 
>do is to hope he has such a mass of PDAFs that he can drop more
missiles 
>on average than the enemy can launch in one salvo.
>
>Jump point -style FTL does give fortresses a bit more edge, because it
>limits the number of possible approaches.

Who else is reminded of Starfire from the above?  ;-)

There are other things you can do to enhance your station's survival in
this matter. An optional rule (that has been discussed in the dim past,
and I cannot remember who came up with the idea first) would be to allow
Interceptor fighters the capability to engage missiles. Then no doubt
your
base will be equipped with a fighter bay or four.

Or outlaw missile use. They're optional, anyway (or, following Jon's
'spirit
of the rules', anything's optional  ;-).  Or allow A and B batts to
'power
down' and fire as C batts in anti-missile mode.

Another thought is...where are the base's support ships? Or are you
postulating a scenario in which a base is stand-alone against an enemy
fleet? Maybe it's just me, but I think that'd be a silly
scenario..unless
the enemy doesn't out-range the base in weapons. And if the enemy out-
ranges your base, well, that's what the supporting ships are for. While
the enemy ranges your base, your support ships range the enemy. How you
go about doing this is entirely up to your tactical staff.

I ran a scenario about a year ago (both in PBeM and RL, same scenario)
that involved a base station on one side and an attacking force on the
other. The base station did indeed have support ships in the area - too
bad for the defenders the support ships were rather...scattered. Still,
the base I gave AA batts, and so it out-ranged the attacking force (as
in the PBeM game the attackers found out when on the first turn one of
their lancers went 'poof'). But it wasn't bristling with AA batts; just
had a few for 'heavy weapons support'. I designed the base so it was
*meant* to stand-alone against a small fleet, but it also had assigned
to it a couple of anti-missile/fighter ships and a squadron of
destroyers.
The cruisers in the area were just that: in the area.

Mk
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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All that is gold does not glitter,
     all those who wander are not lost.

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