DS2 PDS/ECM

New player question.

Have I got something wrong here?

PDS systems cost more and take up space

Why would anyone want them instead of ECM?

Paul Grogan asked:

> New player question.

Because rolling two defensive dice (one for ECM, one for point defence) gives
you a much better chance to survive than rolling a single die (for ECM only).

Regards,

> On Wed, 22 Sep 1999, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:

> Because rolling two defensive dice (one for ECM, one for point

You should see how hard my Oceanic union Hvy tanks are to kill....

> On Wed, 22 Sep 1999, Grogan, Paul wrote:

> New player question.

You don't want either/or. You want both, at least on vehicles big enough
to mount a PDS. This can make big tanks nearly immune to missle fire. I have a
superheavy tank design:

Size 5 Hull, Armour 5R, 2x MDC/5 TU, SUP FireCon, SUP ECM, EHN PDS,
APFC,
1xAPSW. (I think - it's been months since I played DS2, I'm afraid. I am
sure about the ECM/PDS/Armour combo)

This damn thing is nearly immune to missles. I've had 10+ missles
volleyed at a platoon of three of these tanks, and all the missles have either
been spoofed, shot down, or bounced off the armour. It rolls d10, d8 to defend
against missles, and the Reactive armour makes most surviving missles bounce!

Throw an ADS vehicle in, and missle fire near these beasts becomes a complete
waste of time.

Smaller vehicles have to make do with ECM and occasional ADS support, but with
vehicles large enough, it's usually worth it to add PDS as well.

> Brian wrote:

Were the twin MDC hull mounted?

> On Thu, 23 Sep 1999, Andrew Martin wrote:

> Brian wrote:

Sorry, got the stats wrong. It's 2x MDC/4 - Turreted. No 5s here. The
rest of the stats are accurate, AFAIK. It had Backup Systems as well; total
cost is nearly 600 points each. (580 something) Slow GEV, BTW.

Big ugly tanks, but they have a mixed track record. Many fights, they fail to
kill their own worth in opposing vehicles before being KOd. One thing
they ARE great at is Ogre-killing, for the various games we've run Ogres
in DS2.

I basically set out to design the ultimate heavy-gun tank in DS2; with
cost not really a concern. I think I've succeeded; the problem being that DS2
isn't really kind to big vehicles. (Which is realistic, but I still like my
big big tanks.) With such big guns and SUP systems, they're rolling d12 more
often than not, and they draw a great fistful of Damage Chits.

I like them; my regular opponents respect them, but kill them all too often.
They tend to be fire magnets...but it's worth it just to see my
opponent's face when he lobs vast numbers of GMS/H shots at them, all of
which fail to connect!