Re: [FT] Heavy Beams - 4321

Charles Taylor [CT] and Alan Brain [AB] wrote:

[AT]
>Mechanics:
> 
> Heavy Beams cost and mass the same as normal beams.
> 
>A Heavy beam rolls 1 less die than a normal beam at every range.
>So a class 3 heavy beam rolls 2 dice at 12MU, and 1 die at up to 
>24 MU.

[CT]
>Effectively, they have twice the mass of a beam battery of the 
>same class, using the FB 1 beam battery MASS progression 

Only for the Class-4 and bigger. The Class-2 and -3 ones are *three*
times the Mass for the same number of dice and fire arc, thus a bit
underpowered compared to normal beams.

>(which, IMHO and based on my calculations, is too high for very >large
beam classes).

That's quite intentional :-) We don't *want* B5s and bigger to be as
effective as B2s or B3s, even in unlimited space... though some people
(eg. Mikko) think that we failed, and that the long-ranged beams are
too
*powerful* instead. (Which was a major reason why Mikko stopped playing
GZG games completely some months back, BTW - IHO they're too open to
abuse.)

[AB]
>Hits by a heavy beam do 4,3,2,1,0,0 points of damage, rather than
>2,1,1,0,0,0.
>That is, a roll of a 6 does 4 pts, and a re-roll, a roll of 5 does
>3 points, and so on. Re-rolls also do 4,3,2,1,0,0 points, not 
>counting screens, with scores of 6 causing further re-rolls as do 
>normal beams.
> 
>Screens are particularly effective vs Heavy beams, so just 
>subtract the screen rating from the damage of each die. 

[CT]
>Hmm.. according to my calculation, [...] that averages to 2
>damage points (dp) per dice vs. unscreened targets, 1 1/3 dp vs. 
>level 1 screens, and 5/6 dp vs. level 2 screens. That makes them 
>2.5 times as effective vs. unscreened ships, 2 1/9 as effective vs. 
>level 1 screens,

Almost. The real value is 2 2/19 as effective vs. level 1 screens :-/

>and 1.79 times as effective vs. level 2 screens. 

ie. 1 11/14 <g>

>All for twice to cost of an equivalent number of beam dice - they may
>be a bit on the cheap side (only slighly).

See above. The class-4 and bigger are cheaper than the corresponding
firepower of normal beams, but the small ones (class-2s and -3s) are
overpriced compared to normal beams.

As for "without unduly disadvantaging NSL or KV", I'm not too sure of
that. The KV (probably) won't be unduly disadvantaged in Cinematic due
to the problems of aiming a single-arc weapon at a KV ship in the first
place, but they will undoubtedly suffer in Vector. Thrust-2 NSL
capitals are easy targets for spinal mounts even in Cinematic, so will
suffer heavily no matter whcih movement system you use.

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