Re: "No Roll to Hit"

On Mon, 7 Feb 2000, Sean Bayan Schoonmaker wrote:

> Just to point out:
> 
> According to the standards that some are complaining about concerning
HBs,
> regular Beams also have "no roll to hit."

bzzt. wrong. the roll for beams is a roll to hit. it's also a roll to
damage of course.

the issue raised is not of the lack of a roll to hit, it's the lack of
the
possibility of doing no damage to unscreened targets at close range,
without having to guess placing.

> 1-3 results in no damage, and 4-6 results in varying amounts, but they
> always roll that damage die - without a single roll to hit.
> 
> Granted that HBs are assured of damage at ranges 0-6 MU as they are
> currently written. At 13 MU, however, 1-2 results in no damage, and
3-6
> results in varying amounts. This should sound familiar.
> 
> They ARE balanced with P-Torps as currently written (at least
according to
> strict statistics , though playtesting could pick up something that we
> missed or wasn't factored in).
>
> My challenge to the naysayers is: if you don't agree, or don't like
it,
> fine. However, provide a constructive alternative. The basic elements
of
> any criticism should include recommendations for  change or
improvement.

absolutely. the nay-sayers have done this.

we've criticised the automatic hit, and suggested fixes - the 'always
miss
on 1' and 'round up the range band', approaches, both of which have been
rejected without much comment, it seems (the best argument i've seen is
"that would make HBs too weak, and they're balanced as they are"; a fix
to
that was even proposed: the extension of the range bands to 8 mu each).

we've criticised the fact that the capacitor takes two hits before
dying,
and suggested that it should only take one, with the compensation of
either reduced mass or getting to keep charging even though the
capacitor
is damaged (so you can use the charge once it's fixed).

personally, i'd like to see (as i'm sure everyone is now bored of me
saying) range bands being rounded up (ie 1-6 mu is -1, 7-12 mu is -2,
etc)
and one-hit capacitors. after an analysis of the damage output with
these
settings, an appropriate mass and cost can be decided on; we thus end up
with a balanced weapon which doesn't have the two features which have
raised most debate.

tom