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

-----Original Message-----
>From: Hugh Fisher <laranzu@ozemail.com.au>
>First, here's the average damage per die and relative effectiveness
>of torpedoes/missiles against advanced screens:
>  None  Adv1	 Adv2
>  3.50  2.50	 1.50
>  100%  71%	 43%
>
>So while advanced screens are expensive, they really do have quite
>an effect on the damage you take, more than the effect of normal
>screens against beams.

Yes, but it's identical to the effect of normal screens on plasma bolts,
so you can look at the parallelthat way.

>Here's the average damage for K-guns vs advanced screens using my
>proposal of subtracting screen level from K-gun grade. Ignore the
>K1 and K2 for the moment since they're tricky.
>
>Grade	Standard	Adv1		Adv2
>K 1	 1.17		 0.00	 00%	 0.00	 00%
>K 2	 2.67		 1.17	 44%	 0.00	 00%
>K 3	 4.50		 2.67	 59%	 1.17	 26%
>K 4	 6.67		 4.50	 68%	 2.67	 40%
>K 5	 9.17		 6.67	 73%	 4.50	 49%
>K 6	11.00		 9.17	 83%	 6.67	 61%
>
>The average effectiveness is 54% and 29% respectively, but these
>are slanted by K1/K2 doing zero. Advanced screens are more effective
>against K3 and K4, less so against K5 and K6.

I guess my main nitpick on this one is that it would encourage people to
start using K-guns that are outside the norm established in the books,
much as a sliding table is going to tempt somebody to start using class
6 beams.

>Using your proposal of deducting screen level from the initial
>grade and chance of doubling, but not the extra double damage if
>the roll succeeds:
>
>Grade	Standard	Adv1		Adv2
>K 1	 1.17		 0.00	 00%	 0.00	 00%
>K 2	 2.67		 1.33	 50%	 0.00	 00%
>K 3	 4.50		 3.00	 67%	 1.50	 33%
>K 4	 6.67		 5.00	 75%	 3.33	 50%
>K 5	 9.17		 7.33	 80%	 5.50	 60%
>K 6	11.00		10.00	 91%	 8.00	 73%

>Average 60% and 36%, again slanted by the special case of K1
>and K2. Against the big K guns, this isn't achieving much.

>(It is of course possible that I screwed up the math somewhere.)

I was figuring that we'd reduce the target number, i.e. any K-gun of
class 5 or larger is only going to get the extra damage on a 3 or lower,
regardless of how much bigger you get.	This reduces the damage of K-6s
to 9.0 and 7.0 against level 1 and 2 shields respectively; it's an
improvement over reducing the class for a level 1 shield, a slight
disimprovement for a level 2, but it creates a considerable improvement
for larger K-guns.  A K-8 would do 12.8333333 damage against a level 1
shield and 11.0 against a level 2 by your proposal; by mine it would do
12.333333 against a level 1 and 10.0 against a level 2.

I guess at some point it may not make a huge amount of difference, and
it probably would still not be particularly cost effective to go to a
class 8 K-gun just to try to minimize the effect of shielding because
the mass you'd have to crank into that sucker is great enough to create
diminishing returns.

>I prefer my proposal because 1. it's simpler 2. it's more effective
>against the bigger K guns and 3. it's simpler. (I really, really
>like keeping things simple.)

I agree, actually.  It's the one thing I didn't like about my own rule
suggestion there, in that Full Thrust's appeal is partly its simplicity,
and breaking that with K-guns against shields is not necessarily
desirable.

>>Hm.  So a K-1 would basically not be changed at the 24-30 MU range 
>>band at all because this doesn't change from what it normally does, 
>>and a Kra'Vak destroyer that's armed with nothing bigger than a K-2 
>>would then have every reason to just stay at maximum firing range if 
>>it could because approaching any closer wouldn't do it any good? 
>>That's kind of a weird set of side effects...

>Well, I'm not too concerned about it being strange. I dislike the
>idea of ships becoming totally invulnerable to a ship to ship
>weapon, and FT does have a general rule that a natural 6 always
>does some damage, even if you're a useless torpedo fighter in a
>dogfight. All I want to do is make the escort vs advanced screen
>combat almost impossible instead of utterly hopeless. And here I
>think it's even more important to keep things simple, there's no
>point in investing complexity on what is very much an edge case.

Well, the extra roll I'm proposing is no different from what a K-gun
would normally be investing in order to determine if it does extra
damage; in this case it would be making the second roll to do the _base_
damage.

>>Here's my counter-idea:  if the grade drops below 1, the K-gun rolls 
>>its usual to-hit roll, and if it "hits" it rolls an additional roll 
>>similar to how another K-gun would roll for a double, except that in 
>>this case it's trying to roll to do its _base_ damage.  They would 
>>have to roll their original grade or lower, with a +1 bonus if it's 
>>a level 1 screen.  So against a level 1 screen a K-1 would do its 
>>one point of damage on a 1 or 2, and against a level 2 it's just on 
>>1.  A K-2 would get it on 1-3 against a level 1 and 1-2 against a 
>>level 2.  Still makes life pretty pitiful for the puny escorts, but 
>>it takes away the weird side effects where ranges become irrelevant 
>>once you're within 30 MU, and makes a difference between whether 
>>it's a level 1 or level 2 advanced screen against a K-1 as well.

>But I'll run the numbers on this as well, and may change my mind
>again. Thanks for going into such detail.

Not a problem... I do games for a living myself, so sometimes I
literally get paid to think of stuff like this.  Whee.	;)

E/Stilt Man
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