'lo everybody,
I don't think this has been brought up on the list before. At least, I don't
remember seeing it, and I didn't find it in my cursory search of the archives.
Anyways; here's the idea. Many times on the list, analogies have been
drawn between batteries and naval cannon i.e. class-1s are the quick
firing 76mm or 5" gun, while class-3s are 16" battleship cannon.
One thing that makes the analogy break down is that, under current rules, all
batteries have the same 'rate of fire' i.e. they fire once a turn.
It could offer some interesting design and tactical choices if the larger
batteries had a 'recycle' period. Here is the mechanic I'm proposing:
At the end of a turn, for every battery that has fired, roll 1d6. If the roll
on the die exceeds the class of the battery, that battery will be ready to
fire in the next firing phase. If the the roll fails, then
roll again next turn, adding +2 for every turn since the battery last
fired.
I haven't playtested this, I have no clue if the extra mechanics make it worth
while, or even if it's balanced. It feels like it might be cool,
though it might also mean ships start carrying hordes of Class-1s as
opposed to the mixed batteries they carry now.
Thoughts?
Thanks for letting me ramble,
J.
> On 13-Aug-99 at 09:46, Jerry Han (jhan@canoe.ca) wrote:
The turn is so long that fire rates really aren't necessary. It's pretty
balanced the way it is, after all, instead of a 6 arc class three that does 3
dice at close range you can have 9 class 1's. For that matter for a 1 arc
class three you can have 4 class 1s.
All you are going to do with the proposed changes is drive everybody away from
the larger weapons.
[recharging beam batts on a die roll idear]
> I haven't playtested this, I have no clue if the extra mechanics make
My immediate thought is that this would promote people to start making
'hedgehog' ships. And except occassionally, I don't think they're much fun to
play.
In addition, once your 'hedgehog' begins making threshold checks, you have a
much higher chance of losing more systems than a mixed boat will. And losing
more systems means that many more you have to try and fix, and it's almost
guaranteed you won't be able to fix them all, whereas a ship with fewer
internals will be able to focus the attention of more damage control units
onto the repairs at hand.
These are just my initial thoughts. No further will be coming this morning (at
least on this topic):)
Mk
> On Fri, 13 Aug 1999, Jerry Han wrote:
> Anyways; here's the idea. Many times on the list, analogies have been
not necessarily. i've always thought of it as a turns firing being equal
to possibly several shots: three pulses from a 3-batt, fifteen from a
1-batt or several hundred from a PDS. those with a more hard-sf view see
it instead as some period of continuous fire, sweeping a laser beam back and
forth across a region of space, trying to hit something.
given that the general consensus for turn length is on the order of 15
minutes, which is plenty long enough for pretty much any weapon to fire,
dealing with reloading is probably not appropriate.
still, this is FT, so if you want to, do it!
tom