Re: [FT] Heavy Beams - 4321

In message <200103121904.f2CJ4xB03263@d1o4.telia.com>
	  "Oerjan Ohlson" <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> wrote:

> 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.)

Hmm.. well, if you can keep the range open to about 48-60 mu then I
guess that a Cl.5 would be _infinitely_ more effective than the
equivalent mass in Cl.3's - the difficult bit is keeping the range open.
(One soultion, if necessary, would be to impose a maximum possible
targeting range - which probably brings us back to the hoary old topic
of sensors - lets not go there just now :-).
> 
> [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>

Ok, I used a spreadsheet to work things out, and didn't use very many
decimal places :-)
> 
> >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
>
Thanks

Charles