Currently there is no incentive to use bigger than size 1 plasma bolts and
infact it is better to have multipe small ones that the one or 2 large ones
typically used in Phalon book designs. Has anything been done or is planned to
be done with this weapon system so it makes some kind of sense to use it the
way the phalons do?
The problem with using it the way it is is that it is a big mass hog and you
get no mass reduction for larger systems.
> John Tailby wrote:
> Currently there is no incentive to use bigger than size 1 plasma bolts
There is one such incentive, though not a very strong one: each Plasma Bolt
Launcher needs a separate operational FCS in order to launch. IOW, if you
have 6 PBL-1s you need 6 operational FCSs to launch all of them at once,
whereas if you have 1 PBL-6 you only need 1 operational FCS to launch.
But yes, we're aware that the FCS requirement isn't enough to outweigh the
advantages of many small PBLs over a single big one.
> The problem with using it the way it is is that it is a big mass hog
1 PBL-6 + 1 FCS = 31 Mass
6 PBL-1 + 6 FCS = 36 Mass
Looks like a Mass reduction to me, though as I said above it isn't big enough.
Regards,
I've played with lots of custom designs with plasma bolts, and I only really
ever came up with one good use for PBL-1's, which was to use them on
low-maneuverability superships as area defense against salvo missiles in
case they didn't have enough banzai jammers and/or point defenses to
avoid being annihilated. Usually the superships had a few token banzai jammers
anyway, but they had the PBL-1's as a final defense against missiles
anyway. Taking a d6 or two of damage that might not even go through their
screens was a lot better than getting pegged by 50 salvoes of missiles.
Other than that, I never saw the point in spreading plasma around. It was
almost always better, in my experience, to take an educated guess as to where
your enemy was going to be and focus the bulk of it on a particular point in
space. Granted, this wouldn't necessarily work against enemies
that had ADV-6 drives going at fraction-C speeds, but the tables I
usually played on didn't usually have enough space that you couldn't guess,
and somewhere between plasma bolts and fighter strikes the hyperspeed enemies
usually got hunted down eventually.
E
[quoted original message omitted]
> ---- Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:
Done that one it's much better although if the enemy are smart the counter to
that is to use fighters to engage your plasma bolt and if it dies all the
missiles are OK.
PBL 1 make quite a nice defencive weapon. They deny enemy ordinance a place to
go. The point I was making is that you get a more flexible weapon system by
putting 4 class one plasmabolts on your battleship than one size 4
installation. The size ones can be fired together to create the effect of the
size 4 or they can be spread appart to catch small corvettes or fired in pairs
to maintain a continuous barrage every turn.
All other weapons that come in classes offer a mass / performance break
to larger weapons over smaller ones, either they shoot further, or do more
damage. Larger classes of plasma bolt do neither.
If Plasma bolt launchers had a range of 12mu +6mu per clas size then
there would be an incentive to use larger class weapons. Or if they were 5 per
mass for size 1 9 for size 2 13 for size 3 etc there would be some discount
for buying larger sizes.
> Eric Foley wrote:
> I've played with lots of custom designs with plasma bolts, and I only
There's not that much point in spreading the plasma itself around when
shooting at enemy ships, but there are very good reasons indeed to force
the *enemy* to spread their *PDS fire* around. Level-1 bolts are far
more likely to suffer PDS overkills than larger bolts are.
(IIRC you once mentioned allowing PDS overkills to carry over to the next PDS
target, so this might not have been an issue for you. Under the PBL
rule-as-written it gives the PBL-1s a distinct advantage over the larger
types, however.)
Regards,
> From: Oerjan Ariander <oerjan.ariander@rixmail.se>
> Eric Foley wrote:
> There's not that much point in spreading the plasma itself around when
> (IIRC you once mentioned allowing PDS overkills to carry over to the
> rule-as-written it gives the PBL-1s a distinct advantage over the
This is true, we rolled everything over in PDS and fighter fire against other
fighters, missiles, and plasma, if I recall correctly. It just made too much
sense for streamlining the bookkeeping with the scale of battles we played
with all the fighters, missiles, and plasma we always had flying around all
over the place. We had a lot of furballs with
upwards of 20-30 fighter groups per side and plasma strikes that would
vaporize a small moon, and we happened to like finishing our battles inside a
week.:P
But yeah, if you don't streamline it like that and get anal about devoting a
number of PDS and scatterguns to particular plasma bolts,
then PBL-1s might potentially have a bit of an advantage in wasting PDS
on it. Eh. One of many reasons I liked the way I played it, this just
seems a little bit too much like min-maxing to me anyway.
E