Re: RE-FT PBC

Bif Smith wrote:

>Oerjan Ohlson wrote-
>
>>"Roll same as a Cl.2 batt" means including re-rolls on the dice? In
>>addition to the re-rolls on the damage dice?
> 
>No, I meant that the rerolls are on the beam die, no reroll on
>dammage die. 

OK. You explicitly specified re-rolls on a "6" for the damage dice, but
I'm glad to see it gone :-)

>>If the range and number of fire arcs is the same, double (average)
>>damage means double Mass - unless of course you change the
>>Cost/Mass ratio.
> 
>Yes, and no. You have to think also of the fact that a more massive
>weapon (eg HPBC), if at twice the mass (compaired to Normal PBC),
>would be at more of a disadvantage to threshold checks/critical
>dammage.

But big weapons *aren't* at a disadvantage to threshold checks compared
to small ones. In the first check they even have an *advantage* - eg.,
if you have one big weapon and your opponent has six small ones
inflicting as much damage as your biggie you'll both reach the 1st
threshold at (roughly) the same time - but after the 1st threshold he
is almost guaranteed to have at least one weapon knocked out, so you'll
outgun him slightly less than five times out of six. The sixth time
however you lose your one big weapon :-/ The big difference between one
big and many small systems comes when you attempt to *repair* them:
getting the one big system back on-line takes just as many DCPs/just
the same die roll as getting one of many small systems back, and this
is a major advantage for the big weapon.

The big systems have two main disadvantages: they're more vulnerable to
needle beams than multiple small systems are (though needle beams
aren't very common), and more importantly you can't distribute your
fire as efficiently if you have one big weapon as if you have several
small ones. IME, these disadvantages more or less cancel the big
weapon's threshold check/repair advantages.

>Would allowing no rerolls alter the mass/dammage ratio?

Anything that alters the average damage per shot also changes the
damage/mass ratio, so yes it would.

>The dificulties of compairing it to other weapons are the fact that
its to >hit is the same as beam batts, but the dammage is the same (or
>greater) as a p.torp.

Not at all. If you roll "to-hit" dice as for beams but read each "beam
DP" as 1D6, the weapon inflicts (average of 1D6) times as much damage
per shot as the beam it was modelled on. The average value of 1D6
without re-rolls is 3.5 (the average if you re-roll "6"s is 4.2), so
the light PBC inflicts 3.5 (or 4.2) times as much damage as a B2
battery and the normal PBC inflicts 3.5 (or 4.2) times as much damage
as a B3 battery. 

If you price the PBCs at 3xMass, the proper Mass of the light PBC is
3.5 (or 4.2) times as much as the Mass of a B2 battery, etc - or as
close as possible without using fractional Mass ratings.

If this seems too big, you can make the PBCs cost more per Mass
(4xMass, 5xMass, whatever) and adjust their Masses so their total
points cost is 3.5 (or 4.2) times as much as the total points cost of
the corresponding beam weapons. (I discussed the "total points cost"
concept in a post yesterday, so won't repeat it here.)

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."