Re: WOTW #12

In message <200108181745.f7IHjns14320@scotch.csua.berkeley.edu>
	  Noam Izenberg <noam.izenberg@jhuapl.edu> wrote:

> I vote for the Heavy beam/HET Laser (and perhaps throw in the (NO!) B5

> Heavy Beam Weapon before going for the kinetics. I'm with laserlight 
> that we should have candidates "on paper" (in the WDA) somewhere
before 
> we discuss them. I'v ebeen a little lax with updating the WDA for a
bit, 
> so I'll try to get caught up this week.
> 
> BTW, excellent writeup for the stealth stuff, Charles. I'll
incorporate 
> it as soon as I can.
Thank You :-)
> 
> Noam R. Izenberg

Well, to start the ball rolling...

>
########################################################################
> 
>
> Heavy Beam  [Alan Brain] (GZG-L, 9 March 2001) 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.
> Hits by a heavy beam do 4,3,2,1,0,0 points of damage (i.e., 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. Subtract the screen
> rating from the damage of each die. So a Heavy  Beam that scored a 4,
> which would normally be 2 hits, would only do 1 against a target with
> screen 1, and would do no damage against a target with screen 2.

[Charles]
Well, I'm not sure I'm in favour of introducing a new type of beam dice,
but it does have the effect you desire (a weapon with more damage than
a conventional beam, but with shorter range, and affected more by
screens). By my calculation, the Heavy Beam is 2.5 times more effective
than the equivalent number of beam dice against an unscreened target,
this drops to 2.11 times against a target with level 1 screens, and 1.79
times against a target with level 2 screens.
The loss of one dice at all ranges is equivalent to the Heavy Beam
battery rolling the same number of dice of a Beam battery of one class
smaller, thus it has twice the MASS of a Beam battery that rolls the
same number of dice (it may be somewhat underpriced, depending on the
frequency of level-2 screens in your game, OTOH, heavy use of Heavy
Beams would encourage heavy use of screen-2s by your opponents :-).
My personal preference would be to keep the relationship between beam
class and number of dice rolled, and so state that it has twice the MASS
(or slightly more) of a beam battery of equal class. A simpler system
would be to treat it as a 'doubled' beam battery, i.e., a class-2 heavy
beam battery equals two class-2 beam batteries. But this would lose the
differentiation in respect to screen effectiveness.
>
> * The same principle could be extended to a "Super Heavy Beam", which
does
> * 5,4,3,2,1,0 but rolls 2 less dice, and so on. But these would have
to be
> * at least of Class 6 to match the effectiveness of conventional
beams.
These have 4 times the MASS of a beam system of the same class, but are
only 3.75 times as effective vs. unscreened targets, 3.42 times vs.
level 1 screens, and 3.21 times vs. level 2 screens. In other words -
overpriced all round I think!
>
>=======================================================================
========
>
> H.E.T. Laser (High Energy Throughput Laser)  [Bif Smith] (FT-List
28-Jan-01)
> Mass: Same as beam batteries (including arcs)
> Cost: 4x MASS
> Range: 8 MU per class
> Damage: Die rolled -3, reroll on a six (i.e. 1 to 3 = miss, 4=1 dp,
5=2
> dp, 6=3 dp + reroll [use this system to avoid extra die rolls])
> Special: PDS Cl.1 L Bats-Same as Cl.1 beam batts
> Notes: Shields have no effect due to the beam being non-charged,
> therefore not affected by the magnetic shielding used on human ships.
Is
> affected by Phalon vapour shields (diffused by the vapour droplets).
>
> Comments/Analysis:
> [Oerjan]
> - Average damage per die is 1.2 (including the rerolls).
[snip comparison table]
> The L3 and P-torp have the same Mass and both ignore screens, which
> simplifies the comparison considerably. The P-torp inflicts less
damage
> at most ranges, but has longer range (and also better armour
> penetration, though not enough better to matter much).
> The L2 looks very nasty up close. Not quite as nasty as Pulser-Cs
> (unless the target has level-2 screens and is within	8mu), but with
> somewhat longer range to compensate (and also somewhat cheaper). Can't
> say I'm too hot at introducing yet another way to read a damage die,
> but it looks OK balance-wise. Making them cost 4xMass might be a bit
> conservative, but not much - and a little too expensive is always
> better than too cheap! What effect does vapour shrouds have? Another
-2
> to the dice?

[Charles] Well, I've long considered a possible PSB for Needle Beams and
PDS systems to be a laser system (using the 'canon' interpretation of
Beam Batteries as particle beams, and screens as an electromagnetic
system).
I'm not sure I see the need for a different dice rolling method, or the
different range bands.
I think I would treat these as normal beam batteries, but unaffected by
screens (vapour shrouds work as usual).
*A possible, but specialised defence - ablative hull armour - as normal
hull armour, but each box absorbs 2 boxes of laser damage (or PDS or
Needle Beam) before being lost.
*Reflective hull coating: acts as level-1 screen against lasers -
(needle beams do no damage on a roll of 5) lost when 1st threshold is
reached? or all armour destroyed?
I will see if i can develop this further.

Charles