Re: [GZG] Screens versus Advanced Screens in Cross Dimensions?

>How effective are the Advanced Screens in this rules set, in 
>people's experience?  For extra cost I could see packing them (maybe 
>x5 instead of x4, or even x6)... but at 7.5% mass per level _and_ x4 
>cost, they seem a little steep.  I suppose that being able to shrug 
>off K-guns and pulse torpedoes (along with the occasional missile) 
>is a pretty valuable thing, but I don't even like regular screens a 
>lot of the time because of how much of a bite they take out of your 
>firepower, so advanced ones seem really expensive to me in that 
>regard just take a point or two out of a missile or a K-gun's damage.

I see no problem with declaring that advanced screens don't exist
in the GZGverse. I put them into FT:CD because I wanted to make
a variant good for mixing genres, and for example in Blake's Seven
and Star Trek (looks over shoulder for copyright lawyers) "screens"
also work on torpedo like weapons.

My belief is that advanced systems should be more than just a linear
increase in cost, otherwise you end up with "tech levels" and every
fleet just using the best stuff.

>On the flip side, throwing a level 2 advanced screen plus a couple 
>or three layers of armor so that it takes a class 5 or 6 K-gun hit 
>before a K'V shot even damages the hull on a normal hit seems pretty 
>wicked.  I suppose their sheer potential for flat out ruining K-guns 
>is pretty evil.

I'd suggest that if you do decide to allow advanced screens in GZG,
add the advanced screen level to the double damage die. So against
a level 2 advanced screen K1 and K2 never double, but still inflict
some damage; and the big K6 is still a nasty hit but only doubles
on 1,2, or 3 instead of 1 to 5.

Then again, two levels of advanced screen plus a couple of layers of
armour is going to be 20% or more of your total mass in itself.
Someone that dedicated to defence maybe deserves to be largely
immune :-)

	cheers,
	Hugh
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