Re: [FT] various subsystems

Laserlight wrote:

>Actually, what I want is "limited arc coverage" for screens and
>armor.
> 
>For screens, I'd say 3% (minimum 2Mass) would give you 2 arc
>coverage.  They can overlap, so you could have one set for FS/F
>and another for F/FP; fire coming in from the F arc would then
>hit Screen-2.

Sounds reasonable. Probably a bit overpriced in Cinematic, but better
over than under.

>I haven't figured out a resonable way to make fractional-coverage
>armor, though.

For Cinematic, long ago, I made each "directional" box cover 1 arc
only, but cost only 1/3 Mass (and 2/3 points). It made the ships a lot
tougher than the current FB1 system, though.

Charles Stanley Taylor wrote:
 
>Hmm.. well, I've considering a couple of similar concepts,
>but hadn't come up with any specific answers...
> 
>Firstly: Retractable systems - useful on Q-ships, mostly System can
>be in two states, retracted and deployed, while retracted, system
>counts as a core system for threshold checks, but cannot be used,
>while deployed, system takes threasholds as usual, and can be used.
>Chance in state is announced during orders phase. (Inspiration -
>several cheap & nasty sci-fi films :-)
>Increased MASS and COST of the system (dunno by how much).

Urgh... <imagines keeping track of several separate retracted or
extended systems on each ship>

If they're useful for Q-ships they must be hidden from enemy sensors
when they're retracted. Depending on what sensor rules you use this may
or may not be a problem.

Cost-wise, well... the actual value depends on what type of system it
is.
Eg., since the FTL drive is almost invariably the first system to go
down
when I roll for thresholds I'd pay quite a bit to make it retractable
in a
campaign situation (where withdrawing the ship means I can fight
another day). There's at least one example of a (semi-)retractable
engine in SF literature (the Peep Q-ship in "On Basilisk Station")... I
wouldn't mind making my SM magazines retractable either, come to think
of it - though that *would* look rather odd <g> 

The main use for retractable systems is on ships with short-ranged
armaments which want to close with longer-ranged enemies without losing
too many weapons before getting into their own range. 

Hm. Based on my experience with vapour shrouds (which are similar to
making *all* your systems retractable, and retracting them all at the
same time), I'd increase the cost of all retractable systems by 1xMass
(without changing the mass itself). This definitely makes long-ranged
weapons overpriced, but I think it'll be reasonably accurate for
short-ranged ones.

>Secondly, Armoured Core Systems - increases Core System >threashold
number by 1, so that the first threshold is on a 8+, the >second on 7+,
and the third is on a 6+. 

This effectively means that the ships takes *no* core threshold hits
until
the 3rd row, and even then it's a pretty low chance.

>MASS should be a percentage of the whole Hull MASS, COST is a
>multiple of MASS. Possible an extra level of armouring could be added
>to make the ship immune to Core system hits. I have no idea what the
>MASS and COST values should be, but if you're using the standard >core
system rules, I think they should be pretty high!

Depends on your victory conditions. The property I call "system
survivability" - the average amount of damage the ship needs to take
before a "statistically average" weapon aboard becomes unable to fire
(either due to being damaged itself, or to being out of
CSs/bridge/power core/ammo etc) - doesn't change very much, because the
only immediately crippling core hit is the bridge (even a damaged power
core can't blow up until after you've had a chance to shoot back <g>).
The big impact from the Core hits doesn't appear until after the 3rd
threshold check, but by that time the ship tends to have rather few
working weapons left anyway.

However, it vastly increases the *ship's* ability to survive the entire
battle. I've seen lots of ships run out of life support right after
their
side had won the battle, and ships which blew up after fighting for
several turns with damaged power cores. These core hits didn't affect
the *battle* at all (ie., they didn't remove any weapons from the
battle while the shooting was still going on), but they did affect the
*outcome* (measured in victory points, or - in a campaign - the number
of ships available for the next battle). 

Sure, I've also seen ships blown up by their own reactors or run out of
life support while the battle was still going on and they still had
significant
numbers of weapons left, but they're a small minority to those which
took early bridge hits, or were destroyed/knocked by running out of
hull boxes or weapons before their damaged reactors or lack of life
support could kill them :-/

So, well... in a one-off battle I wouldn't pay more than 5% of the NPV
for
hardened core systems . In a campaign where the construction rates are
low I'd pay more, particularly for my capitals (which take the longest
to replace), but I still wouldn't pay more than maybe 10% extra. (If
you relate it to the TMF instead of the NPV you make it relatively
cheaper for Phalon and Kra'Vak ships than for human ones, thus I use
percentages of the NPV instead.)

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