Re: [GZG] A New Screen System

>One way or another, I just don't like the whole PSB behind human 
>screens in this game.	What self-respecting military mind designs a 
>defensive system that completely overlooks pretty much all the most 
>devastating weapons both your own and every other species has ever 
>designed and then invests 5 or 10% of their warships' mass in it, 
>which basically all comes out of the ship's weapons payload?  Neat, 
>so you reduce the damage from one particular limited class of 
>weapons by 20-30%, do absolutely nothing against all the others, and 
>in the mean time your own firepower is reduced by 25% or so in 
>return.  Awesome plan.

The simple, and honest, reason is that it comes from the very early 
days of FT (the game itself, not the timeline...) when beams were 
pretty much all that were used on most ships (apart from the 
occasional PT or SMP as very "specialised weapons").
Of course, since then the expansion of the game has added missiles, 
K-guns, Grasers and all the rest; so yes, screens are no longer 
anything like as generally useful as they originally were, depending 
of course on who you are fighting.  :-/

Jon (GZG)

>
>(It may shock you all to know that I almost never used screens in my 
>ship designs for mostly these reasons...)
>
>EF
>
>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Ray Forsythe <erf2@wombatzone.com>
>>Sent: Sep 12, 2007 9:02 AM
>>To: gzg-l@mead.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
>>Subject: Re: [GZG] A New Screen System
>>
>>I think the Kravak K-guns use a gravitational field to accelerate 
>>the projectile, not a magnetic one, so they could be using tungsten 
>>or uranium or even plastic as ammunition.
>>
>>--
>>Ray Forsythe - erf2@wombatzone.com - www.wombatzone.com
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>
>>From:  "Michael R. Blair" <pellinoire@yahoo.com>
>>Subj:  [GZG] A New Screen System
>>Date:  Wed Sep 12, 2007 9:31
>>Size:  1K
>>To:  gzg-l@mead.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
>>
>>I was toying with an idea last night. Assuming that
>>the Kra'Vak mass drivers use ferrous projectiles or at
>>least projectiles sheathed in some sort of material
>>that can be affected by magnetic fields then the
>>magnetic fields that human ships use as shielding
>>against their particle beam weapons might possibly
>>serve as the basis of a defensive system against the
>>Kra'Vak weapons. It would use magnetic fields to
>>deflect the projectiles so they miss the target ship.
>>
>>In game terms, which I must admit came after the
>>initial idea, range would be important. The closer the
>>projectiles are fired at the target ship the less time
>>the deflection field has to affect them and the less
>>effect a small deflection will have ñ .1° at 20km
>>would be a clean miss but at 200m range might not be
>>(20 something metres unless my trig is way off). I am
>>not sure how this would work in game terms, I leave
>>that to the experts.
>>
>>Such systems would require a lot of power and be quite
>>large, more so than conventional shield systems. A
>>nice toy for the new UN ships to spearhead the attempt
>>to break the Siege of Earth.
>>
>>Of course there are simple and obvious
>>countermeasures, using ferrous sabots on non-magnetic
>>projectiles for example which adds a nice measure of
>>urgency to a scenario using such a shield ñ no enemy
>>ship can be allowed to escape.
>>
>>If someone else has already suggested such a thing I
>>apologise, it would explain how such an idea appeared
>>so easily.
>>
>>Michael
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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