FT/SG interface

Someone suggested that shipboard weapons be considered as having basic fire
control. I wonder about this. Let's think about the comparative difficulty of
tasks. Hitting a 10m long target moving at (if its a tank) 100 kph (let's be
generous). Range on this shot might be about 30km or less. Or hitting a 10m
long fighter manoevring at multiple Gs at 6000km. Hmmmm.

And needle beams particularly are designed to punch through stuff by a focused
beam, they'd be pretty rough on any SG2 vehicle they hit.

I think if one wants to downrate FT FC, one must do it on the basis that the
target predictor software is not setup to track ground targets, not that the
system isn't sensitive enough. But, OTOH, you'd expect adaptive systems at
this time, so you'd think it wouldn't take long to recalibrate to engage the
tanks. And the ECCM suite on the average warship ought to be able to null out
ANY ECM mounted in a tank.

Let's try this:
Assume an FT fighter probably has a 2-3 armour in SG2. So a PDS must be
capable of beating this. So let's call it a class 3 weapon.

PDS: Class 3 HEL. All RB are considered short. FC vs. VTOLs and other airborne
targets (except in NOE) is Superior. Vs. VTOLS in NOE or ground targets,
Enhanced.

Class 1: Class 5 DFFG. All RB are considered short. FC is considered Basic. If
you believe in adaptive systems, it could improve to Enhanced
in 1d4+1 turns. Versus infantry or other dispersed targets, it would
always be Basic.

Class 2+: I agree with the suggestion to treat as artillery, but keep in
mind the damage should be pretty gross. This system can do 6 pts without
rerolls in FT. It should have a pretty high chance of annihilating any ground
units it hits.

Now, people may ask what insanity even sparks the desire to have FT ships
interface with DS or SG. First, I guess in a campaign someone might want to do
it. Second, I was thinking of a particular scenario where all the cash
strapped colonial government might have access to is a converted freighter
with a PDS and a class 1. They may want to use it as "poor man's ortillery" to
support their troops fighting rebels on some backwater planet. Regular force
units will come with ortillery support, and fleet elements will have better
things to do.

Plus, if you allow it, coming in atmosphere should be a big risk for a
ship - for partially streamlined ones, it'd be doing damage every turn.
For fully streamlined ones, you still have to watch for THAAD systems, ZADS,
PDCs, and perhaps most grossly of all you cut your PDS's response time so
fighters or SDBs might be able to engage you with missiles or beams before
your PDS can defend you (from the fighters or the SDB missiles). So coming in
atmosphere like this would be a rare event for a
non-ortillery ship. And I assume a support ship that expected to be
engaging in a hot situation would have ortillery, PDS, ECM, decoys, it's own
interface fighters, and lots and lots of armour.