Evasive Manuevers and High Thrust

<Brian wrote:>

> I thought about duplicating screen effects for my evasive maneuvers,

Our group uses the following rules.
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Beam fire on a Thrust 8 ship hits only on a 6, and does 2 points damage
(assuming there are fewer than 2 screens.). If there are 2 or more screens on
the starship, damage is reduced to 1 (per the standard screen rules). You do
not have to plot EM, nor does it affect your movement. It's automatic.

Beam fire on a Thrust 6 ship hits only on a 5 or a 6. Compute damage per beam
rules. That is, if there are two screens then only one point of damage is
scored. If there are 3 screens then only a roll of a 6 scores any damage (ie.
1 point).

Against Pulse torpedoes, Thrust 8 ships are -2 to hit.  Thrust 6
ships are -1 to hit.  However, rolling a 6 ALWAYS HITS the target!
This assumes the Pulse torpedoe is in range. If the pulse torpedo hits,
compute damage per the standard rules.

Missiles, fighters and Sub-munitions are NOT affected by target
ships Thrust rating as they are much more manueverable. (Makes those
Submunition packs a little more useful on large (slow) starships... especially
if they are aimed to Port and Starboard). Good defense against the swarmed
overrun.

The Golden Rule: Rolling a 6 to hit IS A CRITICAL and always hit's the target.

A starship loses the benefits of it's thrust rating when it's engines have
been damaged (ie. it's thrust is less than 6.)
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Our group has playtested these rules alot and found them to be easy to use.
We've found that the system helps to preserve the smaller starships at close
range. Generally, only 6's hit. Because 6's are criticals though, if a small
ship gets hit, it's usually vaporized because we don't adjust
the damage of the Beam/Pulse Torpedo.  Boils down to an all or nothing
result against smaller ships.

We've noticed people playing around with thrust 8 cruisers now, removing the
screens and replacing the space with weapons. The cost is rather high for
these starships and their performance in battle has proven to be interesting.
These simple rules do not appear to cause any play balence problems. Just adds
some variety to our games.

For really large starships, Screens are the better deal because they cost less
than thrust 8 engines and stop more damage. We've found that for
the mid-sized starships, these rules spawned alot of new ship designs.
Our games are much more varied now without any added complexity.