Beam games

In the spirit of Glen Bailey's "New weapons" I did some different
playing
around and came up with a variant of the class 2. Since class 2's cost 1
mass and 3 points for 3 extra arcs, I thought you could apply that rule
in
reverse. take 3 class 3's, (6/18) and take away 6 arcs (2 from each) for
a
savings of 2 mass and 6 points. Lo and behold, a single weapon with mass
4+1/arc, cost 12+3/arc. Damage 0-12" = 6 beam dice. Damage 12-24" 3 beam
dice. Note that an additional 2 arcs to this weapon is exactly the same
thing as having 3 class 2's. 
 It packs a mean punch. at medium or close range, but costs the same as
a
class 3, has no long range capacity, and is treated as a single system
for
thresholds (both advantage and disadvantage to that).

Give it a fancy name - the Meson Flechette, and your're good to go.

It may even be balanced.

Light Meson Flechette - 1 mass/3 pts for 1 arc and 5 beam dice or
3 mass/9 pts for a 3 arcs with 5 beam dice at 0-12" only. I'm not sure
if
that's balanced, though it is based on the same principle.

Noam