Re: New Conversion of Babylon 5 for FT

Peter Mancini wrote:

>The rules are proposals and have not yet been tested.	I am working
>on the SDD's now.  I am writing an improved excel worksheet for
>calculating ships. I found one that was useful, but when generating
>lots of ships proved to be inadequate.  I should have the Narn done
>shortly.
 
>On the meson beam - with most ships only having 3-5 crew, this >weapon
is seemed to me to be very effective.

Hm? Not sure if you mean 3-5 crew members or 3-5 crew stars on SSD
here.

If you mean 3-5 crew stars (TMF 41-100 in FBx), that means that you
need to roll on average 18-30 meson beam dice in order to knock out the
entire crew. With a maximum size of 4 and no more than 1 per ship,
it'll take quite a while (or a large number of large ships at short
range) to fire that many Meson or Neutron Beam dice at a single target.

If you mean 3-5 crew *members*, well... there are several shots from
interiors of Minbari, Centauri and EA cruisers suggesting that their
crews number in dozens or even hundreds (IIRC a Hyperion-class cruiser
has a crew of around 250). The only shots I can remember from Narn
ships show a bridge crew of 3, but that's just the *bridge* crew. Since
the G'Quans are capable of taking out the Centauri heavy cruisers, I
find it somewhat hard to believe that the 3-person bridge crew is all
the crew there is on the ship :-/

>If we take B5 the series at face value we have several problems with 
>consistancy and those must be resolved.  The first has to do with ship

>designation.  Cleary JMS is an average joe in comparison to his
>knowlege of naval operations.	The Omega "Destroyer" should really >be
called the Omega "Battleship".

I can name another well-known SF series (movies though, not TV) where
the biggest capital ships are called "destroyers"... and at least one
SF author who uses the terms "battleship" and "cruiser" to mean
"short-ranged ship with endurance for a single battle only" and "ship
with endurance for long-distance patrol cruises" respectively (which
IIRC is closer to the original naval meanings of the words than today's
usage is) :-/

>Another is tactics - in 50% of the battles involving Omegas, there
>were at least 1 if not more ramming attempts.	1 fellow in our gaming
>club has painted Galley Eyes (see any number of Greek Triream
>illustrations) on his Omegas. 

If it's Greek it is "trieres", if Latin "trireme"... the eyes seem
quite appropriate though, given that most or all Omegas have names from
Greek ancient history and myths :-/

>I am sure he was just trying to be dramatic.  The same goes for the 
>Shadow Weapons slicing up ships with one hit.	Dramatic, but pretty
>much uninteresting from a gamig point of view.  It is more akin to 
>paper-scissors-rock.  

If you give the Minbari heavy screens to give them their normal
invulnerability against human weapons - they'll need at least level-2
screens to come within shouting distance of the "historical" effect,
and level-3 would be preferrable - they will *also* be virtually immune
to the Shadow weapon. Unless you vary the number of screens they have
depending on who they fight at the moment, of course.

The Minbari in the show - Delenn in particular - seem to be quite
nervous about fighting the Shadows... but why would they be nervous, if
the Shadows couldn't harm Minbari ships?

>Now then, I suspect I'll get over-ruled and much more devestating
>weapons will be proposed, in which case the Shadows will be >relegated
to scenarios rather than be useful in a strategic-tactical >game. The
Shadows are either all-powerful or totally neutralized by >psi.

Pretty much, yes. Just like real-world heavily armoured battleships are
all-powerful against small ships without torpedoes (and pretty close to
invulnerable to small surface ships *with* torpedoes, too...) but
neutralized by subs or aircraft <g>
 
>On armor blocks, having played naval games from all periods of
>history, I do believe that big ships should be basically untouchable
by >small ships until something has been done to ablate their armor.  

The same problem as the Shadow beam weapon, but we've swapped roles <g>
The problem is that real armour very rarely ablates at all :-(

>Also, please don't forget that there are NUMEROUS weapons that >bypass
armor in the rules as written - 

>From your page, there are Meson beams, Neutron beams, and the
"horrible" beams - none of which is very powerful in its current
incarnation, and all of which are strictly limited to their respective
user race.

In the standard game the EMP MT missile and the Needle Beam clearly
ignore armour. K-guns, P-torps and other missiles might - but the way
you phrased the armour block rule - "They are meant to stop beam
weapons, missiles, kinetic weapons and the like" - strongly suggests
that you intend the armour blocks to give full protection against all
the normal FB armour-piercers.

And, as the rules were written last I read them, you hadn't yet decided
how often the armour would apply each turn :-/

>The Minbari are interesting. [snip] This lead me to believe that the
>Minbari rely heavily on electronic means of security over robust
>physical design. 

According to what's said in the show (and AFAIK), they use both. What's
said doesn't always agree with what's seen, of course - but which of
the visuals and the dialogue is more likely to be dramatic effect? <g>

>Using the concept of symetry I have started to design their weapons
>and defenses on concepts around Screens rather than around armor.

See the comments about the Shadows vs Minbari above. In the show it
seems that the Minbari EW capabilities aren't as effective against all
enemies - so if you use screens to represent this effect, they'll
probably need level-2 or -3 screens against humans, but against Shadows
(who, according to Delenn, "never miss") their big war cruisers
shouldn't have any screens at all. Against Centauri, or any of the
other races with better tech than the humans but (far) worse than the
Shadows... who knows?

>The Narn and Earth Force will be designed around armor and the
>Centari will use a little of both.  Sort of like the transition for
the >Assyrians from Chariots to Cavalry - they kept the Chariots around
for >300 years out of conservatism.

More likely because it took them a century or two to figure out how to
ride a horse and fight at the same time, instead of having every other
rider refrain from fighting in order to hold the other man's horse :-/

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
From - Fri Dec 22 22:00:00 2000
Return-Path: <owner-gzg-l@scotch.csua.berkeley.edu>
Received: from scotch.csua.berkeley.edu (scotch.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
[128.32.43.51])
	by lilac.propagation.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA24896;
	Tue, 19 Dec 2000 15:07:40 -0600
Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost)
	by scotch.csua.berkeley.edu (8.11.0/8.11.0) with SMTP id
eBJL77n93432;
	Tue, 19 Dec 2000 13:07:07 -0800 (PST)
Received: by scotch.csua.berkeley.edu (bulk_mailer v1.12); Tue, 19 Dec
2000 13:07:05 -0800
Received: (from majordom@localhost)
	by scotch.csua.berkeley.edu (8.11.0/8.11.0) id eBJL74R93410
	for gzg-l-outgoing; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 13:07:04 -0800 (PST)
Received: from soda.csua.berkeley.edu
(IDENT:qgIagUZkqmonFJRRzrStZfk2FZdQCV9I@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
[128.32.43.52])
	by scotch.csua.berkeley.edu (8.11.0/8.11.0) with ESMTP id
eBJL72P93405
	for <gzg-l@lists.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 13:07:02
-0800 (PST)
Received: from mta5.snfc21.pbi.net (mta5.snfc21.pbi.net [206.13.28.241])
	by soda.csua.berkeley.edu (8.11.0/8.11.1) with ESMTP id
eBJL72f94694
	for <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 13:07:02 -0800
(PST)
	(envelope-from s_schoon@pacbell.net)
Received: from [63.201.228.141] by mta5.snfc21.pbi.net
 (Sun Internet Mail Server sims.3.5.2000.01.05.12.18.p9)
 with ESMTP id <0G5U00F3A1RFX7@mta5.snfc21.pbi.net> for
 gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 12:47:40 -0800 (PST)
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 12:50:12 -0800
From: Sean Bayan Schoonmaker <s_schoon@pacbell.net>
Subject: Re: Weapons Concept Question
In-reply-to: <02b001c069e0$5fdbb940$ca2cd03f@pconn>
X-Sender: s_schoon@postoffice.pacbell.net
To: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
Message-id: <p0432040fb66579ebe7bf@[63.201.228.141]>
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
References: <p04320403b66480889786@[63.203.204.49]>
 <02b001c069e0$5fdbb940$ca2cd03f@pconn>
Sender: owner-gzg-l@lists.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
Delivered-To: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
Status:   
X-Mozilla-Status: 0000
X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
X-UIDL: 39d245de0000092c

>I was chatting with a good friend yesterday and he mentioned
>that he'd just read an Honor Harrington novel and wondered whether
>FT had towed missile pods?

Well, these COULD be done entirely with existing systems.

Create you ship with a tug FTL and then create some drive-less 
weapons pods. This is not a perfect match, owing to the FTL-tow 
fudge, but it should get into the ballpark.

Schoon
From - Fri Dec 22 22:00:01 2000
Return-Path: <owner-gzg-l@scotch.csua.berkeley.edu>
Received: from scotch.csua.berkeley.edu (scotch.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
[128.32.43.51])
	by lilac.propagation.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA01183;
	Tue, 19 Dec 2000 15:48:38 -0600
Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost)
	by scotch.csua.berkeley.edu (8.11.0/8.11.0) with SMTP id
eBJLmoj94033;
	Tue, 19 Dec 2000 13:48:50 -0800 (PST)
Received: by scotch.csua.berkeley.edu (bulk_mailer v1.12); Tue, 19 Dec
2000 13:48:49 -0800
Received: (from majordom@localhost)
	by scotch.csua.berkeley.edu (8.11.0/8.11.0) id eBJLmm894012
	for gzg-l-outgoing; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 13:48:48 -0800 (PST)
Received: from soda.csua.berkeley.edu
(IDENT:ZJn3/vyQwjyaCC4wj0VNAq/kcQRnmL1d@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
[128.32.43.52])
	by scotch.csua.berkeley.edu (8.11.0/8.11.0) with ESMTP id
eBJLmlP94006
	for <gzg-l@lists.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 13:48:47
-0800 (PST)
Received: from mail1.svr.pol.co.uk (mail1.svr.pol.co.uk [195.92.193.18])
	by soda.csua.berkeley.edu (8.11.0/8.11.1) with ESMTP id
eBJLmjf02414
	for <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 13:48:45 -0800
(PST)
	(envelope-from bif@bifsmith.fsnet.co.uk)
Received: from modem-609.great-egret.dialup.pol.co.uk ([62.137.190.97]
helo=auser)
	by mail1.svr.pol.co.uk with smtp (Exim 3.13 #0)
	id 148Ucj-00015B-00
	for gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu; Tue, 19 Dec 2000 21:48:42 +0000
Message-ID: <000b01c06a05$a61441a0$61be893e@auser>
From: "bif smith" <bif@bifsmith.fsnet.co.uk>
To: "full thrust" <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Subject: More weapon concept questions
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2000 21:49:20 -0000
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300
X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300
Sender: owner-gzg-l@lists.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
Delivered-To: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
Status:   
X-Mozilla-Status: 0000
X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
X-UIDL: 39d245de0000092f

Another question/idea that has been rolling around in my grey matter,
arising from the starfire novels (is that a moan of "not again" I
hear?), is
that of anti-fighter missiles. My idea is you exchange explosive power
for
more sensitive seeker heads (to lock onto the smaller targets that are
fighters) and range for more maneuverablity (to actually hit the very
agile
and evasive targets that are fighters). Due to the severly lacking in
explosive power (incapable of damaging a starship) and range (haven`t
thought about this, guess at 8 MU, at any fighter squad, doesn`t have to
be
atacking anything), I would say you could replace 1 SML round with 2
AFHAWK
missiles (Anti Fighter Homing All the Way Killer). I`m also thinking of
allowing these missiles to be fired in the missiles phase (and target
fighters before they can avoid them? maybe?), or fired at the same time
as
PDS from any unfired launcher(s). The cost I would leave as normal, due
to
the need for a launcher, firecon, limited arcs, and limited fire/ammo
dependent. For the number of fighters destroyed by this, you have to
compair
this to PDS. For a launcher, 2 rounds of ammo & F.Con, you need 6 mass
and a
cost of 19 pts. 6 PDS (same mass) would cost 18 pts, with no ammo
worries.
For this reason, I would say that each AFHAWK salvo rolls 3D6, and use
the
normal PDS results for the number of fighters destroyed, with
armoured/heavy
fighters gaining no bonuses. This makes the AFHAWK missiles very
powerfull,
but only able to be used for a limited number of times due to ammo. Any
ideas/comments on this?

Also, in the game I played using missile pods, I had a universe that had
FTL
drive (where a ship could travel, and have limited combat, in
hyperspace),
and also warppoints/wormholes/jumpoints etc (instantaineous travel
between
two points) just like the HH universe. The speed of a ship in hyperspace
was
the number of lightyears traveled per day equalled it`s MD thrust
(making
faster ships more useful because of the faster responce time to trouble
between diferent starsystems). The warppoints made point blank defence
and
abushes practical, and made fortresses and minefeilds useful. In this
universe, any two ship that tried to jump at the same time rolled a D6,
and
on a 6 for vessels upto 100 mass (5 for 100 to 199, 4 for 200+ (50% min
chance of suscess)), would interpenitrate on exit, destroying each
other.
This led me to design a WARPHAWK unmaned missile pod. These were simular
to
the towed missile pods, but mounted a F.Con to represent the
autonimous/remote comtrol fireprograms, and a engine for limited
independent
maneuvering (at a thrust of 4). These would have 7 mass, a cost of 21,
and
can carry 2 MT (or 1 st. SMR). Any weapon or PDS could kill one of these
on
a sucessfull hit roll, due to having a hull of 0.5. The pods when using
independent targeting would require writing of orders for their targets
(attack any ship of 100 to 200 mass, or attack ant ship within 12 MU. or
attack any fortresses etc,etc), and under remote control could be
controlled
and fired by any ship at the ratio of 4 pods per firecon. Due to being
non
FTL, they required freighter transport between systems, making them a
VERY
useful way of increasing your firepower, but very expensive if you
include
the freighter cost (like in a strategic game over many starsystems). The
warphawk pods I used in only one game, but they made the game
interesting
with 3 people (2 opposing players in different rooms who didn`t know how
each had deployed on either side of the warppoint, and the 3rd player to
roll for interpenitration), and each person wondering if the number of
pods
destroyed before launch would allow the targeted side to survive, or if
the
pods were programed corectly to targets that were actually there. When
the
first ship warps through, the two fleets (and players) were moved onto
the
same table, and fought it out. Became very suprising at times to
different
players.

BIF
"yorkshire born,yorkshire bred,
strong in arms, thick in head"