RE: [FT] WotW #4: Railguns

In message <B18DDC5F1158D311A66900805FD47181C89E01@VSTASV1>
	  "Robertson, Brendan" <Brendan.Robertson@dva.gov.au> wrote:

> Amazing how my own argument seems so stale after this time.  Forget my
old
> suggestion, I doesn't work well enough.
> 
> After thinking about it, Human railguns don't need a different
mechanic and
> doubling the range bands makes it too cheap compared to every other
> lightspeed weapon (remember, kinetic projectiles are still sublight).
> 
> What about simply using the K-gun rules; negate the doubling roll &
reduce
> cost to 3 pts per mass (in line with other human tech), effectively
making
> it a fixed damage, armour penetrating weapon.
> 
> Damage Comparisons:
>	0-6;	7-12;	13-18;	19-24;	25-30
> Ptorp 2.9	2.3	1.8	1.2	0.6
> R-1	0.8	0.7	0.5	0.3	0.2
> R-2	1.6	1.3	1.0	0.7	0.3
> R-3	2.4	2.0	1.5	1.0	0.5
> K-3	3.8	3.0	2.3	1.5	0.8
> R-4	3.0	2.5	2.0	1.3	0.7
> 
> A lot more inefficient mass-wise.  The other option is to use the full
K-gun
> rules, but add 1 mass to each class to account for the different tech
base.
> 
> Neath Southern Skies -http://home.pacific.net.au/~southernskies/
> [MKW2] Admiral Peter Rollins - Task Force Zulu-Beta
> [Firestorm] Battletech PBeM GM
> 
I agree, another option is to keep the re-roll, but make Railguns more
massive than K-guns, thus:

Railgun Class	MASS	COST
1 (1-arc)	1	3
1 (3-arc)	2	6
1 (6-arc)	3	9
2 (1-arc)	4	12
2 (2-arc)	5	15
3 (1-arc)	6	18
each additional class adds +4 MASS, and +12 COST.

Note that the Class 1 has the same PDS capability as a K-1
_in_the_arc_it_covers_, also, the multi-arc RG-1s are increasing
inefficient compared to K-1s - this was intended.

As Noam points out, to get the best out of these, you need a lot of
thrust, probably at least Thrust-6 or preferably Thrust-8 or more.
Whatever version you use.