RE: [FT] MRIM

Hi Tom!

Additional comments below marked by [Bri]

-----
Brian Bell
-----

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thomas Barclay [SMTP:kaladorn@fox.nstn.ca]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2001 3:35 AM
> To:	gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
> Subject:	[FT] MRIM
> 
> Brian said:
> 
> [Bri] Much too cheap in comparison to PDS 
> and ADFC.
> PDS: 1m 3c
> ADFC: 2m 8c
> MRIM: 1m 4c (1 shot? 3 shot?)
> If this cost/mass is per shot, we are a little 
> closer.
> 
> [Tomb] I had in mind 1/4 per shot. And PDS 
> has 360 coverage. This only has 180 
> (though it occurs to me this could be 
> infeasible due to how fighter attacks get 
> executed). 
> 
[Bri] So at 1/4 per shot that would be 1 mass
for 4 shots.  You are trading 180 degrees of
arc for 3x damage over 4 turns, if an average
PDS fires for 4 turns. If a PDS average number
of turns fired is greater the value increases, if
less, the value decreases. It is rare in a game
that I have been able to fire PDS for 4 turns
(except on a SDN). So lets look at 2 MRIM (one
facing Fore and one facing Aft) vs 2 PDS over 
the course of 4 turns:
	       Dice Damage
System	    Fore    Aft    Total  Total per Turn
PDS	     4	     4	     8	      2
MRIM	    12	    12	    24	      6
 A PDS carring ship would have to last 3x as long
(12 turns) under Fighter/Missile/Plasma attack
as the MRIM carring ship to break even.
Even if all the fighters attacked from the same
arc, you would get:
	       Dice Damage
System	    Fore    Aft    Total  Total per Turn
PDS	     4	     4	     8	      2
MRIM	    12	     0	    12	      3
The PDS carring ship would have to last 1.5x as
long (6 turns) under fighter/missile/plasma
attack to break even.
 If you drop it back to 2 dice of PDS damage, you
would break even over 4 rounds, if they all attacked
from the same arc:
	       Dice Damage
System	    Fore    Aft    Total  Total per Turn
PDS	     4	     4	     8	      2
MRIM	     8	     0	     8	      2
and gain if they attacked from multiple arcs:
	       Dice Damage
System	    Fore    Aft    Total  Total per Turn
PDS	     4	     4	     8	      2
MRIM	     8	     8	     8	      4
 If you stay at 3 dice damage per attack and reduced
the shots to 3, over _3_ rounds (attacking from 
multiple arcs) you would get:
	       Dice Damage
System	    Fore    Aft    Total  Total per Turn
PDS	     3	     3	     6	      2
MRIM	     9	     9	    18	      6
and attacking from the same arc:
	       Dice Damage
System	    Fore    Aft    Total  Total per Turn
PDS	     4	     4	     8	      2
MRIM	     9	     0	     9	      3
almost even.
 All of the above figures ignores damage done to
the ship from the fighter attacks and potential 
loss of systems. It also ignores the fact that
the MRIM would likely remove a whole fighter group
each time it fired, reducing the damage to the
ship. And it ignores overkill effects. And ignores
the ability of the MRIM to attack at longer range
and attack any f/m/p in range.

> Would all 3 PDS dice go against the same 
> fighter group or would it be spread out? If 
> spread out, the value increases.
> 
> [Tomb] I had in mind 1 group - logic is that 
> the warhead is some sort of shrapnel 
> thrower or has submunitions with very 
> limited range ergo 1 group gets the lot. 
> 
[Bri] This helps the equasion (unless you play like Bif
and ignore squadron orginization). It would pretty much
kill any 1 group of fighters/missiles/plasma if it attacked
in a covered arc. Hmmm. 9m, 27c for Standard Fighters
vs 2m, 8c for 2x MRIM and MRIM is almost a guaranteed
a kill. Hmmm. I still do not think that it is balanced as
proposed.

> If the damage could be spread out, I would 
> choose 3 of these over 3 PDS almost every 
> time (at this mass/cost).
> 
> [Tomb] Unless of course you planned to use 
> your PDS more than once! This was 
> designed as a one shot (like scatterguns) 
> system. Buy more if you want more. 
> 
[Bri] ???? I thought that it was was a 4 shot (1/4 per
shot as listed in your comment above) doing 3 PDS
dice per shot.
 Perhaps I misunderstood. Did you mean 1 shot 
doing 3 or 4 PDS damage with a 180 degree