DERFACS and UIM

<ahem>

Your pardon for my offering my two kwatloos worth, but the Klingon's were my
chosen race 14 years ago when I played SFB regularly (when I was young, able
to lawyer with the best, and new how to make Feds and Kzinti (often pronounced
Gesundheit like you were sneezing from a cat allergy) disengage by
acceleration immediately after contact...). I have since given up this Evil
Game(TM), in favor of something not based in Gene'sWorld(TM). <And Full Thrust
Rocks!>

As a former Captain of the Doomslayer (D7C), I'd like to speak about DERFACS
and UIM for a moment. I was never impressed with UIM because of the risks of a
burnout. DERFACS on the other hand was utterly reliable, and only died when
your disruptor did, and the edge it gave helped if you had to engage in
a range 20+ knife fight but didn't wish to close. I think it cost 2 or 3
points (out of 130+ for a decent D7 cruiser variant with a drone
loadout) to install a Disrupter Extended Range Fire Attenuation Control
System. It let you get a (possibly key) few extra hits on the opponent during
the closing phases of an action. Well worth the investment. If I recall, it
might have also increased the max range though I'm a tad vague on this point.

I think DERFACS should NOT have its own firecon, but should cost more. This
would be more true to the spirit of SFB (cringes as he says this). And if you
are worried about overcharging, you could state that the table looks like this
(thought this may have been what you meant):

                                R0-6  R7-12  R13-18  R19-24  R25-30
R30-36
Disruptor/PT (DERFACS)  2      3        4          5          5
6

This chart would (I think) certainly justify the extra cost you suggested,
without being overwhelming. It preserves the fact DERFACS only applied at
range. Thought of another way....

                                R0-6  R7-12  R13-18  R19-24  R25-30
R30-36
Disruptor/PT (DERFACS)  2      3        4          5          6*
7*
* - at ranges 25+, DERFACS adds 1 to the PT roll --> making a 7 a
possible result.

On another note....

Drones would be an interesting thing to try and simulate well -
especially
spearfish, swordfish, and armoured drones - I loved mixing them up!
Scatterpacks and rapid fire drone racks would also be interesting to try and
simulate, as would the varying speeds of drones (modifiers to the roll if you
used SMs? or do you make them MT missiles with varying speeds and
endurances?).

I shall re-engage cloak. Ka'plah!

> <ahem>
disengage
> by acceleration immediately after contact...). I have since given up
<And Full
> Thrust Rocks!>

Funny, when I used to run SFB PBeM games a bunch of the people here at work
adopted the phrase 'Kzinti!' whenever someone sneezed nearby; the 'proper'
response was 'Federation'. Some of them still use this to this day. Heh.

And yeah, when I was playing SFB, the Klink D7s were my preferred choice
of ship (though I really did like the array of Phaser-1s the Freds
mounted)

> Mark Kochte wrote:

> <And Full Thrust Rocks!>

I fully agree!

> Funny, when I used to run SFB PBeM games a bunch of the people here at

My personal fav SFB ship was the Gorn cruiser. Had the best phaser arcs of any
cruiser in the game. Even though I felt it's heavy weapons were second rate.
(Try to imagine 8 B3s or B4s arrainged so that 6 can be fired at any single
target
around it -- in any direction -- there was no way to flank that
ship...awesome!)