FB2, ubership with needle beams

> Perhaps not. But with 15 needle beams, that's two and a half hits per

On a main drive 1 ship? You actually expect to have anyone get within range of
your 15 needle beams, especially in their limited arc of fire?

You are assuming way too much.

Glen

> >Perhaps not. But with 15 needle beams, that's two and a half hits

> On a main drive 1 ship? You actually expect to have anyone get within

No... only that someone might try to simply plow their way through the
fighters this thing carries and trade shots with it at point blank range with
a battleship. The needle beams are there to give people a reason not to do
that; if you stay close to it you'll be out of fire controls before your
weapons will do a terrible amount of damage. If you get within range and
firing arc becomes an issue, I'll park the ship and spin as I need. If you
stay out of its range, they've done their job without having to fire a shot.

> on 6/7/00 12:26, stiltman@teleport.com at stiltman@teleport.com wrote:

> No... only that someone might try to simply plow their way through the

Hmmm...   One of the reasons I like facing limited arc weapons is that
closing with them makes it more difficult for the opponent to keep them in
arc. This is the very reason I prefer having my Phalon Pulser(C) in a 360
degree mode lest I miss great close range shots due to overshooting on my ship
placement a bit. This also give me the option deliberately going a little past
the target, potentially getting out of the arc of their limited arc weapons
while still firing back if I care to try.

The park and spin maneuver has merit in some situation, but surrenders any
semblance of holding the initiative as the turning ship has to be stationary
by the turn in which the spin is done.  Besides - with spinning you
still
have to guess where the enemy is going to be, no better than a 50/50
task if the opponent is coming nearly straight at you with a velocity and
thrust rating that's capable of placing them in front of you or just to either
side. This type of feat is not to difficult to plot if the target is not going
to be more than an inch (Thrust 1) in front of where it started the turn (by
being stationary at the start of the turn).

All in all I've found that most of the FT balance issues (as others have
commented) usually seem worse than they really are once players have had some
time and discussion to look at them in more detail. I only hope some
of post play-test thoughts about SV balance issues go this same
direction.
;-)

[snip]>
> All in all I've found that most of the FT balance issues (as others

I generally feel that while everyone is arguing (in a friendly sense of
course <grin>) about it, then that's a good thing - it probably means
we've got things about right! When everyone stops arguing and AGREES that A is
much better than B, THEN we need to look at the problem......  ;-)