From: FieldScott@a...
Date: Fri, 7 Feb 1997 21:55:19 -0500
Subject: Barrier Net
Greeting all, Speaking of mines, I was thumbing through the "Aliens Colonial Marine Tech Manual" the other day, and one of the anti-ship weapons they portrayed was an "Orbital Barrier Minefield," which is essentially a big net "tens of kilometers acoss", with a frame to hold it rigid and small thrusters to maintain position. The idea is that such a net would be very difficult to detect and any ship that hits it at high speeds (many kps, according to the book) is going to take lots of damage. I'm not sure the PSB makes any real sense, but I thought it might be fun to play with anyway. Say the defender in a system invasion scenario gets "x" inches of net to deploy across the table, seperately or in one long line. The nets are deployed secretly, so the invader doesn't know where they are. (This could be hard to work unless you have a ref, or are playing PBeM.) Any ship that passes through the net takes 1 point of damage per point of velocity! The invader can scan for the nets: designate an arc to be scanned, and any nets are detected on a 6 for enhanced sensors, or a 5-6 for superior sensors -- ships with basic sensors had better stay back until the nets are located! (Alternately, you could make the roll easier, but apply penalties based on the scanning ship's speed.) Detected nets can be destroyed by 1 point of damage from beams, torpedoes or whatever. The object of this system would be not so much to damage/ destroy enemy ships, as to slow them down and give the defender a chance to maneuver