Re: FB2 - Initial look/a playtester's comments

I've added a spoiler page here :-/

Craig Summers wrote:

>Kra'Vak - Armour has gone, but you do not want to be hit by the large
>class K-guns [2]. The SDN has a potential of 48! damage just with the
>main weapons. Limited arcs do help though my NSL fleet are looking
>bl**dy nervous.

<g> Combining heavy armour and very low thrust ratings is *not* a good
way to beat the KV in Cinematic :-) The lighter NSL ships - BCs and
smaller - are quite effective against the KV, though the NAC ships are
better still (! the only thing the NAC are better at IMO... <g>)

And, well... the SDN has a *potential* of 48 damage with the main
weapons (the secondary and tertiary batteries don't add much unless the
ship is at very short range), but you have to get the enemy in your (F)
arc *and* roll high enough to hit and *then* roll low enough to inflict
double damage. The *average* damage from these main guns at point-blank
range is only about 37 points (OK, "only" 33 points <g>), dropping
rather fast with increasing range. Considering how much you pay for
this SDN, it'd be rather disappointing if it didn't pack a serious
punch :-/
 
>Sa'Vasku - Can we say not-Shadows :). But they look like they will
need
>a lot of care as there are a lot of options. Probably the most alien.
>Also potentially as manoeuvrable as Kra'Vak.

Potentially far more maneuverable than the Kra'Vak, considering that
many of the SV ships can maneuver at thrust 12-15 if they want to...
'course, they can't do much else that turn :-/
 
>Phalon - 6MU Area weapon, ohmigod. I don't think I'll be able to
design
>another ship without thinking PDS first (rather than latter). 

Don't forget ADFCs - you might need them <g> OTOH, anyone used to
defending against massed fighter and/or missile attacks will have
enough point defence to deal with the plasma balls.

>The secondary weapon (pulsar) 

No, not even the Phalons get to use gigantic stars (or whatever pulsars
are - Indy?) as weapons :-/ The Phalon pulsErs though can be quite
nasty... though they're expensive to match their nastiness, too <g>

>may be the real danger

Particularly if the enemy misjudges what pulser configuration the
Phalons use this battle <g> Accidentally straying too close to a ship
with many Close-range configuration pulsers... is not good for your
health, like <g>

>[K-guns have been] Renamed from railgun. Seems railguns are to be a
>future human weapon.

They *might* be. However, in spite of Jon's comment in FB2 one of the
reasons for the renaming was to have a name beginning with "K" for
"Kra'Vak" - just like the two *P*halon weapons both have names
beginning with a "P", and two of three Sa'Vasku weapon nodes have names
beginning with "S" ;-)

Later,

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