From: Charles Taylor <charles.taylor@c...>
Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 21:19:19 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [FT] Spinal Mounts (all of them)
Well, My machine dies and everyone starts discussing real big weapons!
coincidence - maybe ;-)
Well, my £0.019:
Nova Cannon - well, I quite like the concept of a big 'mega-gun'
that requires all of a ships power to fire :-)
IMHO, I agree that the Nova Cannon should be affected by screens in the same
wayas the Phalon Plasma Bolt weapon, and I've considered that it might be
affected by PDS, fighters, etc in the same way (It would have to almost hit
a ship directly for PDS to lock on, however) - with the loss of dice
being proportional. As the PSB is similar to Plasma Bolts, the Nova Cannon is
non-penetrating.
As this downgrades the effectiveness of the weapon by quite a lot - we
could
useit as an excuse to 'beef up' its firepower a bit :-) Also possibly
increase MASS and COST - as it is no longer the biggest gun in thegame
:-) -
say 15/10/5 d6 damage (by range), MASS 40 COST 120 (you could fit one on
a Valley Forge, for example, just rip out both fighter bays, both pulse torps,
forward B-3, downgrade other B-3s to B-2s.
Wave Gun - never seen Starblazers/Space Cruiser Yamato - so I don't know
what the _original_ PSB for this is (apparently the 'Yamato' guncould
waste
small planets :-) - if it is 'pocket' Nova Cannon, then my comments
about shields etc. could apply, but I would probably not let PDS etc. affect
it (shields might). Actually, IMHO I think it should be a different weapon
system to the Nova Cannon - so I'd make it penetrating like a Pulse Torp
(1/2 armour), and I can't make my mind up about screen effects :-(
As to its 'charge-up' system, it takes 6 charges to fire, and re-charges
by 1d6 per turn, so, on average, it fires slightly faster than once every 2
turns. For simplicity, you could make it fire once every 2 turns (like a
PBL) - or for more complexity, use the charging rules, but a 'standard'
wave gun recharges 1 point per turn, with an increased fire rate brought at a
cost in increased MASS and COST - thus: revised Wave Gun (recharge
1/turn -
needs 6 to fire) MASS 6 COST 18 Faster recharge (extra point per turn): MASS
3 COST 9 thus, at Maximum charge rate (6/turn), totals are MASS 21, COST
63.
Also in the past I have suggested that Wave Gun fire be declared on the turn
_before_ the weapon fires :-)
Heavy Beam System (from EFSB)
Possibly a 'Plasma Beam' weapon? - I quite like the idea, but it needs a
MASS and COST - also, do we keep the 'auto hit up to 6mu' rule, and can
re-rolls be used for 'long shot' long range attacks?
IMHO, if we use it as it stands in the EFSB, I would say that the following
should be used: Power System: MASS Power Capacity x3 + Recharge x2, COST
=
MASS x3 Projectors: MASS Maxium Power Used, +1 if can be used as PDS,
COST = MASS x3
Subtract Screen level from damage per dice?
Cutter Beam (recently discussed on the list)
I like the concept - just don't let it get to complex :-)
Other: Well, there is no 'powerful, long range, narrow(ish)' type beam weapon,
either a 'Death Star' -zap-single-target- or possibly some kind of long,
1mu wide, beam effect (any ideas anyone)
Also, I've seen in the Xeno files, one of the races (Cthar, IIRC) has an
'energy wave' weapon - that effected all targets in a whole _fire arc_
(LEXX
weapon, anyone - see below ;-)
LEXX main gun - when fires, creates an expanding 'arc of destruction'
that moves at 24, filling the front fire arc of the ship (at the time the
weapon fired). Any ship that is crossed by the arc must roll a d6, if the roll
is
under 1/5th of the ship's mass, it is destroyed (fighters may burn a CEF
to
automatically dodge - they don't need to leave the area, just burn the
CEF)
- the arc travels for 3 turns, then dissiplates.
MASS - oh, about 1000, COST 5000 (and these are _low_ estimates) :-)
Finally, and definately in the 'genre weapons' section - has anyone ever
designed a 'combi-beam' weapon - where the weapon is divided into
sub-components on board several ships, that must fly in formation to
fire it? (the components might also function individually, as mundane, low
power weapons).
I've seen this in a number of places - fiction ("The Black Ship", by
Christopher Rowley includes a weapon called the 'Truski Lens Laser' -
generated by 8 ships in formation) - and visual media.
I've played arround with a few versions of this myself, but I'm not sure the
results are worth the cost :-(
Finally, my appologies for lack of attribution, spelling, lousy formatting,
but as I said, my hard drive crashed, and I'm using a temporary lash-up
ATM
:-(