I was thinking about a comment by Oerjan Ohlson about different weapons
being able to be reduced to a few basic concepts (ie-interceptable,
non-intercepterable, ignore sheilds etc), and was thinking about the
comment about HET Lasers being very simular to P Torps (roll to hit, ignore
sheilds), and came up with this idea.
H.E.T. Laser* (High Energy Throughput Laser)
Mass-Same as beam batterries (including arcs)
Cost-x4 mass
Ramge-8 MU per class
Dammage-Die rolled -3, reroll on a six (ie-1 to 3=miss, 4=1 dp, 5=2 dp,
6=3
dp + reroll [use this system to aviod extra die rolls])
PDS Cl.1 L Bats-Same as Cl.1 beam batts, except no penalty for use
against hvy fghtrs (? not sure about this, but is a good exchange for limited
range)
Symbol-Same as a Beam batt, except with a L added in the icon.
Notes-Sheilds have no effect due to the beam being non-charged,
therefore not affected by the magnetic sheilding used on human ships. Is
affected by Phalon vapor sheilds (diffused by the vapor droplets).
I could see this as a good weapon for use on DD`s, for use against capitol
ships, due to the ability to ignore sheilds.
Any comments/suggestions out there?
> I could see this as a good weapon for use on DD`s, for use against
Not a specific comment about your suggestion, but... I get the impression that
a lot of the new weapons suggested or ofiicially introduced over the years
ignore shields, slowly making shields useless. How about some weapons that are
affected by shields, but do ignore armor or other protection?
Greetings
> bif smith wrote:
> I was thinking about a comment by Oerjan Ohlson about different
> Mass-Same as beam batterries (including arcs)
Average damage per die is 1.2 (including the re-rolls).
Does it have the same number of dice per range band as normal beam batteries,
or is it just 1 die everywhere within range?
Comparing 6 Mass of 3-arc weapons and assuming that the hetlasers do
have the same dice per range band as beams:
Avg. damage for 6 Mass of...
Range: L2-3 L3-3 P-torp B2-3* Pulser-C-3*
0-6 7.2 3.6 2.91 4.8 9.6
6-8 7.2 3.6 2.33 4.8 9.6
8-12 3.6 2.4 2.33 4.8 9.6
12-16 3.6 2.4 1.75 2.4 0
16-18 0 1.2 1.75 2.4 0
18-24 0 1.2 1.17 2.4 0
24-30 0 0 0.58 0 0
* The B2-3 and Pulser are of course degraded by screens.
The L3 and P-torp have the same Mass and both ignore screens, which
simplifies the comparison considerably. The P-torp inflicts less damage
at most ranges, but has longer range (and also better armour penetration,
though not enough better to matter much).
The L2 looks very nasty up close. Not quite as nasty as Pulser-Cs
(unless the target has level-2 screens and is within 8mu), but with
somewhat longer range to compensate (and also somewhat cheaper).
Can't say I'm too hot at introducing yet another way to read a damage
die, but it looks OK balance-wise. Making them cost 4xMass might be a
bit conservative, but not much - and a little too expensive is always
better than too cheap!
> PDS Cl.1 L Bats-Same as Cl.1 beam batts, except no penalty for use
Normal B1 batts. don't suffer any penalty against heavy fighters either
- heavy fighters don't get killed on rolls of "4", but B1s don't hit
*any* fighters on rolls of "4".
> Symbol-Same as a Beam batt, except with a L added in the icon.
Is affected by Phalon vapor sheilds (diffused by the vapor >droplets).
What effect does vapour shrouds have? Another -2 to the dice?
> *PS-Sorry to any starfire players out there for the blatent
'Sokay... you came up with a better reason for the name "hetlaser" than the
one Weber used <g> (He describes them as "a pair of heterodyning
lasers in exact wave-length desynchronisation", shortened to
"heterodyne lasers" and then to "hetlaser" - but so far none of the
laser technicians I've talked to have been able to understand what he
means...)
BTW - re. the 18mu-range Needle (I thought I had replied to that, but
haven't seen it appear on the list): If you mean 18mu with a single die
throughout the range, then I think 5 Mass would be reasonable for a
3-arc weapon. The usual caveat applies though: I haven't actually
tested it in battle...
Later,
> H.E.T. Laser* (High Energy Throughput Laser)
I haven't worked the numbers yet, but your cost seems pretty low for what I
see. MASS x2 normal Beams and POINT COST = MASS x3 feels better, but I'll have
to hit it with the spreadsheet.
Schoon wrote-
> I haven't worked the numbers yet, but your cost seems pretty low for
I thought about that, but it jus feels right. I`d be interested what your
conclusions are, but you have to remember the reduced range of this weapon
compaired to the normal beam batteries. I did think about reducing the range
to 6 MU per class, but this would have reduced the range severly (18 MU for
6 mass/3 arc), which is far too low for a weapon in my book (just look
how useful needle beams are). Any body else out there have any ideas?
> on 1/29/01 15:12, Sean Bayan Schoonmaker at s_schoon@pacbell.net wrote:
> H.E.T. Laser* (High Energy Throughput Laser)
I'm sure that Oerjan will present better and more concise statistics than
have I. ;-)
I have to agree that they're under-priced.
NB = normal beams Pros: * Ignore Shields (about 80% better than NB vs. Shield
1, about 150% better than NB vs. Shield 2) * Higher average damage by about
50% than normal beams vs. unshielded ships.
Cons:
* Shorter range bands - about 66.7% of normal beams.
Double mass over normal beams might be a bit much (but is simpler) as this is
in effect the cost of two normal batteries of the equivalent rated regular
beams. Then again the old argument of whether it's better to have two separate
weapons or one bigger weapon when dealing with threshold checks and repairs.
I'll not venture into that territory at the moment.
Thanks for filling the blanks in my memory. The Meson Gun!!
I did a netsearch on Meson Gun and found a number of Traveller websites that
describe the Meson Gun and the Meson shields.
> I did a netsearch on Meson Gun and found a number of Traveller
Please don't do Meson shields. The last thing I want is for FT to degenerate
into an "arms race" like Car Wars did!
> At 08:42 PM 1/29/01 +0100, you wrote:
Well, there's the Illuminati Mind Control Laser System.... Short range,
ignores armor entirely, but each level of shielding reduces the effective
range by, say, 6" or so....
I've never bothered to write it up, you understand. A weapon that converts
crew units into hostile boarding parties would be a lot of fun, but I don't
want to be the one who tries to balance the point cost.
Err, yea, that sounds like what I was thinking of beth (or it sounds better
than any of my idea`s <g>).
As for K.H.Ranitzsch, saying that too many weapons ignore sheilds already, how
about another idea, the MAGNETIC PARTICAL SHEILDING. The psb is you have
larger magnetic generators on board your ship that generate a HUGE EM field
around your ship, that is then charged with particals like what the beam guns
fire, and this can absorb a certain ammount of phisical dammage before
overloading and going pop. This sheild can only absorb limited amounts of
energy in pinpoint locations before allowing knetic, partical energy through.
This would mean that it acts like a normal screen for beam weapons,
reduces K-gun rounds by 1 point of dammage for each screen level (psb-
k-gun
rounds are c fractional weapons, and plowing through concentrated particals
would affect them somehow), reduces the dammage from PH PBL`s by 1 for each
screen level, and totally stops missiles (after PDS, causes them to detonate
on impact of the sheild).P torps, because the energy contained is so focused,
would only have a disadvantage of a minus modifier to their dammage
roll equal to the sheild rating. Cost/mass?, no idea at the moment, just
a of the wall idea for discusion.
Another idea, totally stolen from robotech (sorry, macross, must go and fall
upon my otaku sword now), is a pinpoint barier sheild. Same psb as above,
except that it is even more tightly focused, and can be moved to cover only
small parts of the ship. It is so focused, that it can stop even k-gun
rounds totally, but must be placed in location before the rounds hit. To
represent this, you cound roll a D6+2, and exceed the to hit roll of the
other player, whatever the weapon. Multipul sheilds would be allowed, and
could be overlaped to increase dammage absorbsion, but they can only protect
against 1 attack per turn. When the dammage of the pinpoint sheild is
exceeded, the sheild would require say 1D6 turns to regenerate. Could not be
used with normal sheilds. Mass/cost?, no idea, see above.
Just 2 totally OTT, off the wall, crazy, or just plain nuts ideas to
consider. If used, the mass/cost of these would have to be great, due to
the advantages incured by these systems.
> >For the non-mechanically minded in the audience, what would be the
and while we're on this New FT Weapons track, how about weapons that *aren't*
worth 3 x Mass points? I'd like my AE ships to get the 4 x Mass weapons, and
perhaps some smaller nations could only afford the 2
How about a "real" shield...something that attempts to stop everything that
hits the ship? Several scifi settings have these types of shields (Classic
Star Trek for example), but FT doesn't have anything like this.
A few ways to handle it: A. Make it an "optional" or "gener" device. (like the
wave guns, cloak, ect.
Ie: not in the offical fleets/setting.)
B. Make it bigger/costly.
C. Give it to somebody that the known races hasn't encountered yet...
Having weapons that can go through shields and/or armor makes FT seem
too much like Starfire...and I stopped playing that game when I discovered the
"unfixable" flaw.
Donald Hosford
> "kh.ranitzsch" wrote:
> > I could see this as a good weapon for use on DD`s, for use against