Re: [FT] Heavy Beams - scattered comments to the debate

Schoon wrote:

>>The only way they'll have empty BPSs at the start of a battle is if
>>they've taken threshold damage to the BPS before they get to fire
their
>>first salvo. Yes, that can happen, but the risk for that is about as
>>big for P-torp-armed ships.
> 
>The chance of having initial fire disrupted is actually twice that of
>P-Torps because of the dual nature of the system either the BPS or BEs
>could be knocked out by an initial threshold.

It is less than twice as big if you compare 1 BPS + 1 BE vs 1 P-torp,
because some of the time you'll lose both the BPS *and* the BE but you
still won't lose more than all your firepower for that turn.

If you are talking about a class 2+ BPS, you have to compare it with 2+
P-torps; while they are unlikely to lose all of their number to an
early threshold check, they're likely to lose *some* of their firepower
- which reduces the penalty for multi-system HBWs further still. It
doesn't go away entirely, but it isn't very big either.

>Having the BPS taken down also affects all the BEs on a ship, unlike
P->Torps.

You mean all the BEs linked to that BPS, no? I seem to recall some
discussion on allowing multiple BPSs on a ship, but each BE being
linked to only one of them.

Anyway; multiple BEs linked to a single BPS reduces the HBW sensitivity
to threshold checks and puts it closer that of to single-system weapons
(since only the BPS is truly critical if you have multiple BEs).

>>Assuming A had had a worthwhile target to shoot at on the first turn,
A
>>is more effective. It has had a chance to take out at least some
enemy
>>weapons on turn 1; B hasn't had that chance.
> 
>I was assuming that B was holding fire for a closer range shot.

Which is equivalent to assuming that A did not have a worthwhile target
to shoot at on the first turn, ie the opposite of what I was assuming.
Fair enough.

>>IME you are very likely to have a worthwhile target to shoot at
during
>>your initial attack run (when your HBWs are almost guaranteed to have
>>fully loaded BPSs).
> 
>Depends on if you gamble for the closer range shot.

No, but it depends a bit on whether or not you win the initiative on
the turn you close from range 30-40 to range 9-15, and also on which of
the enemy's fire arcs end that turn in :-/

>>The BPSs are fully loaded the start of each battle, so you'll never
get
>>this "heavy first blow" effect completely averaged out. I strongly
>>suspect you won't even get close to averaging it out.
> 
> Actually, given our present discussion, I'd say that BPSs would start
the
> game empty (PSB - they can't hold a charge over extended periods of >
time).

In our games the opposing fleets are usually deployed 70-90 mu apart,
with the first salvoes being fired on turn 2 (or turn 3, if someone is
flying slowly). Since your BPSs recharge at the start of the turn, the
first HBW shot will be fully-charged in our games no matter their
status at the start of the game.

>>When you call the what-ifs, you need to bring in empirical or
>>experimental data into your evaluation - eg, as I did in the section
on
>>fire arcs below. What you can't do (and still get a reasonably
accurate
>>result) is to just ignore them.
> 
>Also true, but we need to have a rules basis set so we CAN get down to
>the playtesting phase.

Wide vs narrow fire arcs vs maneuvering: Draw on all your previous FT
gaming experience.

HBW damage patterns: Draw on your EFSB playing experience.

Multi-system weapon sensitivity to thresholds: Draw on your SM(L+M)
experience.

IOW, there already is playtest experience available which applies to
several of the problematic areas of the HBW rule. Of course you also
need to playtest the actual rule, but by looking at similar systems you
can avoid being surprised by the things you ignored in the statistics.

>Look at MT, someone thought that the 1st incarnation of the Kra'Vak
were
>balanced (which playtesting obviously disproved), or the Sa'Vasku
>playtested against the Kra'Vak at GenCon two years ago (which served
to
>prove they'd been overbalanced from their previous incarnation - the
K'V
>got severely spanked).

I don't remember any details from the GenCon battle reports, so I can't
comment on them.

The MT KV is a very good example of what happens when you neither
playtest enough nor number-crunch enough - or possibly what happens
when you try to do a pure mathematical analysis and ignore features you
need empirical data on, eg the interaction between KV engines and
single-arc weapons.

The latter case is exactly how I percieve your HBW analysis.

>>IOW you consider all variable-arc FB1 weapons to pay too little for
>>their extra arcs.
> 
> No. They actually hold up very well to statistical and playtest
results.

Assuming the C2-3 and C3-1 batteries are correctly priced at 2 and 4
Mass respectively, your 1:2:4 mass progression for 1:3:6 arcs would
mean:

C2-6: Mass 4 instead of 3
C3-3: Mass 8 instead of 6
C3-6: Mass 16 instead of 9

Alternatively, if you assume the C3-3 to be the correctly balanced
member of the C3 family, your mass progression would put the C3-1 at
Mass 3 (instead of FB1's 4) and the C3-6 at Mass 12 (instead of 9).
 
So, I have to ask... if you consider the FB1 mass costs for extra arcs
to be correct, why would you set the cost for extra arcs much higher
than FB1 does?

>>How often do you use 3-arc C2 or C3 batteries, compared to how often
>>you use 5- or 6-arced ones?
> 
>5 arc C3s are indeed, quite rare. However 6 arc C2s are relatively
>common. Part of the reason for this is that Beam batteries are
>specifically designed to loose efficiency as their class increases, so
it's >not cost efficient to buy a 5 or 6 arc C3. 

<chuckle> The mass ratio between a C3-5 and a C2-6 (8/3 = 2.67) is
*less* than the mass ratio between a C3-3 and a C2-3 (6/2 = 3). 

If, and this if is important, you consider C3-3s and C2-3s to be
balanced against one another and you don't take piloting into the
equation, your formula seems to say that the C3-5 is a *better* buy
than the C2-6 (since you usually can't use the (A) arc anyway because
of using the main drives)... 

...and in spite of this you think the C3-5 isn't cost effective but the
C2-6 is? You must've drawn on playing experience here, not on your
formula <G>

>How many times do you see C4s in regular play, much less one with
>multiple arcs: they aren't cost efficient.

Apart for playtest battles, about a third of my battles feature C4
batteries.
Their efficiency depends a lot on the size of your table, and which
arcs you're using - C4-1s can be very effective in Vector, or in
Cinematic if mounted in the AP or AS arcs (ask Noam about this!), but
I've found symmetrically-mounted C4-3s better than C4-1(F)s in
Cinematic since the ships carrying them invariably want to keep the
range open... but in all these cases you need a table big enough that a
range of 40+ mu doesn't cover virtually all of it. 

Regards,

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