Re: [GZG] Monster ships

Richard Bell wrote:

>I have always had a fondness for grasers.  They are massive and
>expensive, but if you allow them to reroll 6's, they can be worth it.
>The 18 range brackets are also nice.  IIRC, grasers are about four
>times the mass of a beam battery, but (with rerolls) only do 3.5 times
>as much damage.

Only if you compare them to beam batteries of the same *class*, and 
even that goes out of kilter if you look at the bigger Grasers (eg. 
G3-1 at Mass 24 vs B3-1 at Mass 4, ie. 6 times as big). It is far 
more useful to compare weapons of the same *max range* (and the same 
number of fire arcs), and there the ggrasers are usually 2-3 times 
the Mass of the corresponding beam battery - eg., the closest beam 
comparison for a G2-1 (Mass 9) is a B*3*-1 (Mass 4) since both have a 
max range of 36mu, while the G3-1 (range 54mu, mass 24) falls between 
the B4-1 (Mass 8) and B5-1 (Mass 16) in range.

>The longer range brackets are offset (not necessarily
>balanced) by grasers being mass*4, instead of mass*3 cost weapons.

Er, no. The longer range brackets are primarily offset by part of 
their greater Mass (the rest of the extra Mass offsets the higher 
damage per beam die, of course). The extra 1*Mass points cost is just 
fine-tuning, and is only paid if you allow Grasers to reroll '6's. 
Grasers without rerolls cost 3*Mass.

>It is not bigger k-guns that are needed, but longer range k-guns.  If
>the long range p-torp (double the cost for 50% greater range) is
>balanced, than long range k-guns are equally balanced

Yep. Works reasonably well the other way too (for both P-torps and 
K-guns) - half the Mass for 2/3rds the range band (ie. 4mu bands), at 
least in Cinematic. In Vector I'd expect them to be a bit too 
short-ranged to be really useful though... and for many of the 
K-guns, rounding errors are a bitch :-/

Regards,

Oerjan 

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