[FT] What was WRONG with Railguns??

What with all the reworking and theories and proposals, I don't honestly
know what the problem was with railguns?  The hit/damage mechanics were
fine. Damage was acceptable. What WAS it that started all this?

-=Kr'rt

> What with all the reworking and theories and proposals, I don't

The goal was trying to update the KV for the next Fleet Book. The problem with
the railguns were cost to mass and then why get a class 3 RG when 3 class 1s
were just as good.

In MT, 2 dice were rolled for each RG, one to-hit and one to determine
damage. Some of the latest proposals are very dice heavy with 1 or 2 dice
per class and then variable to-hit numbers or dice by range, armor
modifers
that can vary dice rolled and then to-hit numbers.  Its getting more
complicated than it should and I think a lot of the solutions are not related
to the problems and change the all or nothing feel of the RG.

I still favor the approach I have already advocated but will have to drop out
of this discussion since too many other things are piling up on my desk and
this discussion is tough to keep up with.

> On Fri, 4 Dec 1998 13:44:33 -0600, "Dean Gundberg" writes:

Why do we have to find a "right" way to do rail guns, and not just find
multiple "new weapon systems". I would think that a lot of places with
campaign games would LIKE to have multiple, balenced weapons to research, or
to give out to enemy ships.

Dean, you should write up a final version of your RG's (dRGs or whatever), and
post it.If other people what to keep working on other solutions, that sounds
fine too. I'd love to see more varients and more weapons to fill my alien
fleets with.:)

> On Fri, 4 Dec 1998, Matthew Seidl wrote:

> Why do we have to find a "right" way to do rail guns, and not just

Matthew,

We are trying to find the "right - kra'vak" railguns. This is not to say
that all railguns MUST work this way. In our world Humans have there own Gauss
Cannons, So Nobody HAS to play with these Railgun rules as all railguns..

> On Fri, 4 Dec 1998 15:43:59 -0500 (EST), Steven Arrowsmith writes:

> =-=

I understand that. I've just seen so many good proposels go by this week, with
most being shot down as "Not kra'vak enough" or some such.

Therefor, I'm asking that people write up their proposals ANYWAY. A lot of
times there are so many mods that its hard to peice together afterword, and if
the author put it together in a single email I know I'd archive it for future
use.:) Thats all.

> What with all the reworking and theories and proposals, I don't

Actually, a very good question.

First, they were not balanced. The mass and/or price cost way not
indicative of their true value.

Second, in large battles they involve ALOT of dice rolling - we were
attempting to simplify as well.

So if it was mass/cost that was the problem, wouldn't it seem more
logical to change JUST the mass/cost stats rather than reworking the
whole Railgun mechanism?

Why don't we collate all the alternate ideas and start a new weapon class of
"Ichyon Accelerators"? (Constructed of only the finest imported Unobtainium,
of course...)

-=Kr'rt

> First, they were not balanced. The mass and/or price cost way not

> Schoon

> Kr'rt wrote:

> What with all the reworking and theories and proposals, I don't

I suppose someone else has already answered this (there are some 110 mails
still in queue to be downloaded, but my ISP has set a new slowness
record - at 6.30 am!), but here goes anyway:

* The MT railguns all have the same damage/Mass (ie, 1.5 unless the ship
is armoured). This leaves you no real reason to use the larger classes -
the R1 gives you the same average damage and range as the larger ones, but you
get a less random damage distribution (due to more dierolls) and are less
vulnerable to losing everything in a treshold check.

* The MT railguns inflict considerably more damage/Mass than beam
weapons for a marginal cost increase, and have no real countermeasures (not
even MT Kra'Vak armour is very effective).

* They utterly outclass the Pulse Torpedo (which shares their immunity
against screens) both in Mass and cost - OK, a Mass 3 R3 costs 2 pts
more than a PT, but it hits more often *and* inflicts on average 29%
more.damage when it does hit, and it is 2 Mass smaller. The FTFB PT hits
as good as an MT railgun, but its damage/Mass rating is still
considerably lower.

So no, I don't think the railgun damage was acceptable - not considering
the cost and Mass of the weapon given in MT. With the 50% Kra'Vak cost
increase suggested on the list, they'd be more acceptable but still *very*
good.

Regards,

> On Fri, 4 Dec 1998, Sean Bayan Schoonmaker wrote:

> >What with all the reworking and theories and proposals, I don't

The Fleet Book changed a lot of things, like Mass, and some basic rules. We
are attempting to bring the Kra'Vak into the realm of the fleet book. We have
to look at every system and balance that out with the overall ship mass.

On a side note: Remember, that the Torpedoes changed from FT to the FTFB. It
gained 6" to its range. If we are modeling the New Kra'Vak railguns after the
FTFB torpedoes, I think we need to incress the range by at least
6".

SA