[FT] What would you make this cost

> On Thu, 20 Jul 2000, McCarthy, Tom wrote:

> I'm thinking about a vapour shroud variant to simulate a cloaking

Call this a 'jammer' instead of a cloak, maybe. I like it, maybe cost equals
MASSx5 or x4?

Tom McCarthy wrote::

> I'm thinking about a vapour shroud variant to simulate a cloaking

I assume "weapons" include point defence here, just as it does for the vapour
shrouds?

> For fighters or missiles to attack the owner, they must be within 2

Questions:

2 "hits" - is that "2 dice which inflict damage" or "2 damage points",
or something else?

What happens if you get *more* than 2 "hits"? (I guess that you intend this to
count as a "success" as well, but that's not what the above rule says.)

Does Enhanced or Superior Sensors help defeat this system?

How many targets can a single enemy ship roll for to see if it may shoot at
them? (Ie., if it fails the check against one particular target, can it try to
target another one before it allocates weapons to the one(s) it can attack?)

Regards,

> I'm thinking about a vapour shroud variant to simulate a cloaking

In answer to Oerjan's questions:

When the cloak is active, "no weapons" should include PDS. I should expand
this to include no active scans, as well. Really, I mean for it to preclude
anything but thrust and FTL; even charging wave guns should not gain charge
(or possibly lose charge) as should EFSB HBW batteries / capacitors.

> For fighters or missiles to attack the owner, they must be within 2

I would like this cloak to be slightly more visible to enhanced or superior
sensors. I had toyed with a sensor system based upon "successes" which would
be roughly equal to the damage done by a beam system in a similar situation,
so the 3D6 vs. two screens mentioned might be roughly comparable to basic
sensors vs. superior ECM. For example, a roll 0f 1,3, and 6, with a 5 on a
reroll would count as two successes. A 6 on the reroll would have given 3
successes and another reroll.

Detecting a cloaked ship takes a scan attempt (implicitly limiting the number
of attempts per turn to the number of fire cons), but I would further limit it
to a single attempt against any one cloaked ship each turn. Imagine the USS
Big Business, with 3 fire cons, attempting to detect the cloaked ships Kartak,
Karnak, and Slavak maneouvering to flank her. If only one cloaked ship is in
play, she cannot focus all her efforts on that one to increase the odds of
detection beyond 1 in 3 (approximately). Also, I think of scan attempts as
occurring early in the turn, so that the range of possible targets is known in
advance of the shooting phase.

To make this more interesting, I'd love a mechanism where the cloaked ship
doesn't know whether or not it has been successfully detected. To get that
effect (cleanly), I might have to move resolution of the detection into the
fire phase.