Gothic Thrust - comments and questions

I haven't had a lot of time to look at Tom McCarthy's and Jon Davis's
Gothic Thrust rules (called GT below), but there are some things I
wonder about:

First, the "beam analysis" Excel sheet included in the download .zip
file. 
All it tells me is that if you divide a number by 3, you get 1/3 of
that number - the "BFG hits" columns simply show the values from the
corresponding "FT hits" columns divided by 3, but it doesn't say
anything about how closely the GT weapons simulate the real BFG damage
profiles 
:-(

Second, how do the beam dice work in GT? Is it...

a) Standard FB dice with re-rolls?
b) FT2 dice (ie, *without* re-rolls)?
c) FT2 dice, but having to equal or beat the target's armour rating
    (same effect on FT dice as screens, with 5+ armour corresponding
    to level-1 screens and 6+ to level-2)?

The rules say "Standard FB dice". The analysis uses "FT2 dice having to
equal or beat the target's armour rating". Which one should it be?

Third, GT Eldar:

In BFG, the Eldar holofields inflict one right-shift on the Gunnery
Table on incoming salvoes. This increases the amount of firepower
necessary to kill the ship by on average 36-39% if the ship is closing
or moving away, or an impressive 68% if it is abeam. These averages
include the risk for critical hits, and assume that each attack
inflicts only 1 damage point (which maximizes the risk to lose the
holofield early), but do not include the possibility of repairing the
holofield. Assuming that the holofield does not go down at all (or is
repaired immediately), the averages are 40-43% and 75%, respectively.

Full Thrust screens increase the number of beam dice required for a
kill by on average 20% for level-1 and 53% for level-2 assuming no
repairs, or by on average 26% for level-1 and 71% for level-2 if the
screens never go down.

GT Eldar holofields count as level-1 FT screens, ie they are only about
half as effective their BFG counterparts.

BFG Eldar guns count all targets as "closing". Assuming that all target
aspects are equally common, this means that the Eldar firepower is
effectively...
				Target aspect:
Target: 	Closing Moving away	Abeam
Capitals	   0%		       40%	  100%
Escorts    0%		       43%	  150%

...higher than the raw firepower value would suggest. Assuming that all
target aspects are equally common, the average firepower boost is about
47% vs capitals and 64% vs escorts.

The lighter GT Eldar batteries are about this much more powerful than
their Human equivalents, but the Shadow class is a bit short-changed
:-( 

While I'm certainly biased towards the Eldar, downgrading their
principal defences as well as their heaviest guns by about 20% each
seem a bit... let's call it "biased in the opposite direction" <g>

 Why are all the Eldar Pulser mounts marked with a "2"? If they're
supposed to work just like they do in BFG, shouldn't this be a "3"?


Ordnance and turrets:
The GT turret rule makes bombers much more effective against
battleships (than they are in BFG), more effective against cruisers but
considerably less effective against escorts. Not sure if this is to be
considered a "bug" or a "design feature" <g>

GT turrets are also *much* more effective against (human) torpedoes
than BFG turrets; OTOH the average number of (human) bomber/assault
boat kills per turret is identical. The GT turrets will probably let
some attack craft through more often than the BFG ones do, but OTOH
they'll shoot down some but not all craft in a squadron more often than
not.

Not sure how to simulate the Eldar bomber's survivability - "heavy"
status makes them too fragile - but making them shoot as "Ace"
squadrons gives at least undamaged squadrons about the same damage
ratio to human GT bombers as their BFG counterparts have.

GT Assault Squadrons look weak compared to BFG ones, particularly
against big targets. A BFG Assault sqdn will knock out *all* system in
the target area rather than one system per fighter; a GT Assault sqdn
can only knock out at most 3 systems (and usually not in the same area)
- and most capitals have more than 3 systems in their broadsides.

Is the "Reflex Field" symbol only a marker for "Capital Ships", or
does it represent an actual system? If so, which?

I'll be abroad the next two weeks and won't have any time to look
closer at GT, but it'd be interesting to hear your thoughts about the
above points (particularly the beam analysis).

Best wishes,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry