Re: Meson Artillery

So, not to make this any more difficult, but does the meson cannon
*have* 
to be that deadly?  What I'm getting at is that if you're aiming through

hills and such, and especially at moving targets like tanks, would it be

more reasonable to expect that the gunners are actually popping the
mesons 
in near the ground surface or something, and that the resulting
explosion 
does the damage?

By defining it this way, you can make them deadlier than artillery (say,

ALL valid, with chits pulled per artillery class - Lt - 1, Md - 2, Hv -
3) 
without making it an automatic kill weapon.

I'm mostly thinking about play balance, unless of course, you just make 
them ungodly expensive...

J

--On Saturday, March 06, 2004 9:31 PM -0600 "Mark A. Siefert" 
<siefertma@wi.rr.com> wrote:

> I'm playing around with some Traveller conversions for DSII, and
working
> on artillery rules for meson guns.  For the uninitiated, meson cannons
> project particle beams that pass through solid matter until they reach
> their intended target where the particles decay with explosive
results.
> Although it's technically a direct fire weapon, it's used as artillery
> because of it's ability for it's beam to pass through hills,
mountains,
> forests, structures, etc..
>
> Meson guns are nasty and the last thing I want is for this to descend
into
> munchkinism!	They ignore armor and attack their target directly.  In
> Striker/Striker II any unit unfortunate enough to fall under
bombardment
> are instantly destroyed no matter what.  For my conversion, I was
> thinking that everything under the two inch beaten zone is KO just
like a
> nuke round only without the morale effects.
>
> The trouble is, since meson guns are energy weapons, they don't need
> ammunition.  However, I was thinking using ammunition markers anyway.
> These markers don't represent actual shells, but the time and
resources
> needed to charge, target, and fire the weapon.  Also, in lieu of their
> destructive capability, I'm making each marker somewhere around 500
> points.
>
> On the other hand, it seems rather arbitrary and unrealistic to put
these
> sort of limits on the gun even for play balance sake.  Any comments or
> suggestions?
>
> Later,
> Mark A. Siefert
>
>
>

John K. Lerchey
Computer and Network Security Coordinator
Carnegie Mellon University

lerchey@andrew.cmu.edu