Re: General EMP Thoughts

Beth Fulton wrote:

> G'day Schoon,
>
>  >1) They should affect a set number of systems
>  >2) They should have a clearly defined, simple list
>
> OK then for arguments sake say it was
> Weapons
> Electronics (FC etc)
> Criticals
>
> How would you deal with the case where there were 3 hits but 5
weapons? And
> how do you stop people saying OK we do the 3 class 1s first then the
class
> 2s (sorry, but I'm in a pernickety mood today).

Shipboard systems with respect to EMP weapons fall into three
categories:
    1) Systems that are trivially easy to shield in a conductively
hulled ship

    2) Systems that handle sufficiently large energies that an EMP is
less
severe than switching it on or off, or using it (the bulk electrical
grid no
longer worries about lightning, the voltages of lightning strikes are
too low,
only hundreds of thousands of volts).

    3) Systems that do not fall within groups 1 or 2.

The only plausible PSB for an EMP missile is that it generates a very
large EMP
event VERY close to the hull (probably within the hull via cascade
ionizing
radiation).  Every other EMP weapon only causes threshold checks for
group 3
systems, which only includes sensors, fire control systems, area defence
FC's,
and weapons which incorporate their own fire control (PDS, spicules, and
scatterguns[so far]).  For simplicity, we can assume that standard
sensors are
optically isolated, and sufficiently small and cheap, that there are
enough
multiply redundant arrays that new can be popped out as needed (or they
would
take up mass, surface area, and volume like they do in Star Cruiser).

So EMP afflicted ships roll for group 3 systems, and on the following
turn (when
replacing their burned out normal sensors) consider all targets that
they were
not tracking as cloaked [requires additional bookkeeping of recording
what
targets are tracked by the FC's] and whatever they choose to engage with
point
defence fire.

They do not need to allocate FC's, but can only tracked ships they fired
at, or
tracked with unused FC's, but can only track a number of ships equal to
the