Re: FT: maneuver or better weapon arcs?

Glen Bailey wrote:
> 
> I played a battle the other night with ships that had thrust-6 and
> 1-arc class-3s.  The enemy got up to speed 18 and I had a hard time
> keeping him in my weapon arcs.  Is this usual?  Are high speeds
> common?
> 
> I'm considering to lower the thrust to 5 and adding 1 arc to each
> of the two class-3s (FP+F, F+FS) but hate giving up that extra turn.
> A good idea or stay with my original design?
> 
> Btw, these are from my Klingon designs:
> "D6" - mass 54, 2 class-3s (F), 1 class-1, 3 armor;
> "D7" - mass 84, 3 class-3s (F), 2 class-1s, 5 armor
> (the central class-3 could be a pulse torpedo launcher);
> both - average hull, thrust-6, FTL, screen level-1, 2 FC.
> 
> It works out that lowering the thrust to 5 lets the D6
> expand each class-3 by one arc, and the D7 the same plus
> an extra arc for the 3rd class-3.
> 
> Glen

As I see it Single Arc weapons are only useful in a few situations:
1) Slow/immobile targets - it is easy to guess where they will be.
2) At long ranges where the arc is wide enough to compensate for the
enemy	 mobility.
3) When the enemy has to reach a specific location in a limited amount
of time -     this places constraints on where they can possibly go and
still succeed.
4) When you have enough scattered on differing arcs that you can have
weapons    bearing wherever the enemy choses to go (note that in this
case you are	generally better of with fewer multiple arc weapons).
5) When you have an overwhelming mobility advantage - has to be enough
to    compensate for making a serious error in judgement on one turn so
that you
   only need to miss a single turns fire.
6) You know your oponnent's play style so well that you can always
predict    aproximately where he will end up.

#1,2, and 3 are dependant on the specific scenario and should not be
counted on.
#4 is dependant on the ship design - your's don't meet the requirement.
#5 is dependant both on your ship designs and those of your opponent. In
your	case, unless your opponent is flying thrust 2 ships you aren't
even close to	   fast enough.
#6 appears to not be the case - if it was you probably would have done
better :)

In my opinion, the changes you proposed for your ships are a good idea.
As an alternate idea - if the ships are meant to be played in a Star
Trek setting, you might be able to do without the class-1s (shouldn't
see too many fighters or missiles, unless your setting based mainly on
SFB). You could drop those and a point of armor from each ship to get an
extra arc for each class-3 instead of losing the speed.

Chris