Well, first a caviet - I havn't actually managed to play Sa'Vas'Ku yet,
so this is all highly theoretical, :-)
The suggestion is a varient of an old idea of limiting the power throughput of
an individual stinger node, but with a twist...
Should a target ship be within the fire arc of more than one stinger node,
then they can combine their shots into a single attack, for example, if we set
the maximum power that a single node can handle to 4, then, by itself, it has
a range of up to 36mu (using 12mu range bands)
Should a target be in arc of two stingers, then up to 8 power may be directed
at it, increasing the range to 48mu.
If it were targeted by 4 stinger nodes, then it could be hit up to 56mu away.
Essentially, for combining multiple stingers, just treat them as a single
stinger with a maximum power capacity of 4 times the number of stingers.
I hope thats all clear. The value of 4 was chosen as it doesn't limit the
published designs (to much, but it changes the dynamics of many of the larger
ones) for instance:
Sa'An'Tha, Sa'Kess'Tha, Fo'Kiir'Tha - unaffected
Fo'Sath'Aan - only effect is reduction in potential close-in firepower
Fo'Vur'Ath - now can project twice as much power forward than it can
laterally, a similar effect will be seen in most of the larger designs.
Well, as I said, a completely untested suggestion, but it does provide
a limit on those 'great blob of cheese' ships - to get the huge
firepower and range of these things you are going to have to buy a lot of
stinger nodes?
Suggestions, Comments, Improvements, Criticism, etc.
> On Sunday, February 10, 2002, at 03:33 PM, Charles Taylor wrote:
> Well, first a caviet - I havn't actually managed to play Sa'Vas'Ku
This was suggested a while back when discussed amongst some of the
play-testers. At that time IIRC, the value I suggested was 8 PP per
stinger node. I believe the problem with 4pp per node was this severely
handicapped some of the SV ships in FB2, a factor that is very undesirable for
any correction.
Going with 4 PP per stinger the maximum PP each of the following ships can use
for stinger weapons is:
Var'Arr'Sha thru Var'TheeSha - 2/3
Thy'Sa'Teth - 1/4
Shyy'Tha'Var - 1/2
Ann'Var'Teth - 8/15
Sla'Tha'Rosh - 3/4
Vash'Sa'Rosh - 8/10
Vas'Sa'Teth - 4/11
Please forgive me if any small errors are in these quickly calculated ratios.
At 8 PP per stinger node all the existing designs can use all of their PP via
nodes (as long as most or all of the nodes are still around) but they still
have some arc considerations and it goes a ways to preventing
the big hulks with masses of power generators getting an even bigger cost
break for needing so little a number of stingers to channel all that power
through.
On Monday, February 11, 2002 10:44 AM, Kevin Walker
> [SMTP:sage@chartermi.net] wrote:
> can use for stinger weapons is:
> PP via nodes (as long as most or all of the nodes are still around)
but
> they still have some arc considerations and it goes a ways to
Another old suggestion is the power allocated is compared to the mass of an
equivalent human beam battery.
Class-1 = 1, Class 2 = 2, Class 3 = 4, Class 4 = 8 etc, and the number
of die rolled is the same. This does disadvantage SV at very short ranges
though, as they can't generate a killing amount of die they need (due to the
lack of stinger nodes).
In message <1F446920-1E80-11D6-B420-003065E3C6C8@chartermi.net>
> Kevin Walker <sage@chartermi.net> wrote:
> On Sunday, February 10, 2002, at 03:33 PM, Charles Taylor wrote:
> can use for stinger weapons is:
> PP via nodes (as long as most or all of the nodes are still around)
but
> they still have some arc considerations and it goes a ways to
Well, I sort of remember the earlier suggestion, but I didn't recall anything
about allowing stingers with overlapping arcs combining their attacks and
being treated as a 'single' stinger (but I could have missed
it).
OTOH, you do have a valid point about the Thy'Sa'Teth and the
Vas'Sa'Teth though :-(
> On Monday, February 11, 2002, at 12:55 PM, Charles Taylor wrote:
> Well, I sort of remember the earlier suggestion, but I didn't recall
It's possible that the overlapping arcs were not specifically spelled out and
the discussion here may have been different than the ones discussed via other
groups. My proposal (I believe it was I that brought this basic idea to the
play testers) was stingers wanting to fire at the same target could combined
together their output power to enable reaching into further bands, needing to
match the energy levels of the original rules.
I'd like to thank you for bringing this up again. I still like this approach
better than the limiting the range bands of the SV, but thats just me.
:))
In message <DAD265C5-1F23-11D6-BB85-003065E3C6C8@chartermi.net>
> Kevin Walker <sage@chartermi.net> wrote:
> On Monday, February 11, 2002, at 12:55 PM, Charles Taylor wrote:
> of the original rules.
> just me.
Well, I actually thought it up while trying to come up with some alien tech
for my 'no they're not vorlons' fleet (as assortment of AoG B5Wars
and B5 Fleet Action vorlon ships - mostly the latter - that I found
going cheap). One idea was a varient of Sa'Vas'Ku bio-tech (I was
feeling brave) - with stingers grouped in 4's (2x AP-FP-F, + 2x AS-FS-F)
using the aformentioned 'limited power' rule and allowing overlapping stingers
to compine (up to all 4 in a group). The idea was inspired by the 'lightning
cannon' that AoG Vorlons use in B5Wars.
The rest of their tech was a combination of SV and human - they used
spicules, screen nodes, and SV drive nodes, but used normal fighter hangers
rather than drone wombs. They had no pod launchers, so had normal ADFCs for
area defence. I then decided it was eaier just to play around with standard
FB1 tech and abandoned the concept (for now).