Sand

  To assist Mr. Pournelle I have started this hopefully short-lived
topic in which I will express my opinion of the sandcaster weapon.

  As far as I can tell, the only problem whatsoever with the
sandcaster is that as an offensive weapon it can't be intercepted.  As
long as it's moving at a high enough speed, a defender will not have
time to fire a pulse torpedo at it.  Missiles, while still quite
dangerous, don't have this immunity from defensive fire, even if they
launch and hit the target in the same turn.  Bases, to briefly recall
that ugly topic again, actually have it easy in this regard, if you
think my sand field idea is halfway reasonable.  Since they're not
moving they can spend a lot of time erecting defenses against sand
clouds.  In any event, I think the best way to deal with sand is to
allow both screens and armor to nullify its effect (Alternatively, one
could say that sand does 3 points of damage - the screen/armor level
of the ship in the cloud) - and the damage should NOT be velocity
dependent.  Although that would add a nice flavor it just creates too
many problems.	Assuming missiles and fighters have one damage point
means that they will be killed by sand (unless they are protected by
an extendable screen as described some time ago - see these topics
really all DO work together!).	The PSB would basically say sand is
nasty but in the end it's small, and can't have much of an effect on a
large ship.  Taking a screen hit could get nasty with the alternate
damage rules, though.

  So here are my proposed sandcaster rules.  Of course I've deleted
the original post and I'm too lazy to visit Jerry Han's page so if
something about these rules is silly, feel free to substitute the
original values in.

  Sandcaster
  Mass: whatever Pournelle said it was
  Cost: whatever Pournelle said it was
  Effect: This weapon has no effect on any ship with armor or an
operational screen.  Any object travelling through a sand cloud takes
one point of damage.  Fighters and missiles are assumed to have one
damage point each, except heavy fighters, which have two.  An object
is considered to have travelled through a sand cloud if its path
intersected the path of the cloud at any point (the launching ship is
excluded at the time of launch but may pass through the cloud later).
The cloud is 3" in diameter and is launched with the launching ship's
velocity plus a velocity of 1"/turn in whatever direction it was
fired.	This weapon can be mounted in any arc.

  Nasty Sandcaster
  Mass: same as Sandcaster
  Cost: more than Sandcaster
  As above, except the cloud cause three points of damage to any
object that passes through it.	Each level of screening or armor
reduces this damage by one point.

-joachim