RE: Railgun Goals II

>
>I'm for the first option, the so called "trash can."

I agree too, but not to the 'trash can' concept. MT talks about
hyper-velocity
penetrators, this leads me to believe the idea comes from armor piercing
tank
rounds of today and that one 'shot' may contain 1 or more penetrator
missiles
but so closely spaced the distinction between one big slug and several
little
ones is moot.

So its more difficult to hit something at long range but if you do the
damage is the same as at short range. What do the classes give you
perhaps a bigger or faster slug, but we'll abstract to the fact that
bigger RG's do more damage.

>1) Roll d6s vs. a target number. Both target number and number of dice
>decreases with range.

Against as too many variables require a number of die to range look
up table (not KISS enough). I think 2) is better, due to its simplicity.

>2) Roll constant number of dice (not necessarily just one)
>against a target
>number that varies with range. [This is closest to the old mechanic.]

I think the old mechanic has a lot going for it in the simplicity
department.
This with John C's suggestion of 3d6 would work, with to hit number
based
on MU range. Simply brilliant.

You could even use the Silent Death approach and take the damage from
the
to hit roll according to weapon class, to simplify things even more.

	 Damage from to hit die
	 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Class 1  highest roll
Class 2  lowest & highest roll
Class 3+ sum of all three rolls

Example a Class 2 rail gun fires at a target at 10MU. The roll on 3d6 is
2, 3, 6 = 11, this is greater than or equal to the range so the RG hits
and as its a class 2 the damage is lowest (2) and highest (6) rolls a
total of 8 damage points.

>3) Target thrust capability determines number of dice thrown,
>which score
>against a target number that decreases with range. # of hits
>may determine
>damage multiplier. [This is sort of a variation of #1]
>

I'm against this on the grounds of potential over complication i.e.
range and target velocity look up tables (not KISS enough) and the
chance
that it will dictate high velocity as a standard though legitimate
defence.

tim jones
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