[snip]
> How about this. Have turreted weapons and fixed weapons. The
Or the rationalisation I use: Due to the need to design the ship so all
those three-arc turrets don't have to blast through one another (eg, on
succesively higher pylons - like many of those WWI and WWII battleships,
or why not Kafer warships), the turrets will actually be more massive. Add in
some added 3D targetting, and you suddenly have to be able to rotate your
3-arc turret through much wider angles than the 2-arc one :-)
> John Leary wrote:
> At present the 'A' is simply not that much better than 3
At short range, no. But, but, but... as long as I have the thrust to stay more
than 12 mu from the enemy, my single A battery is infinitely better
:-) Those 24 extra mu of engagement range are worth quite a lot -
certainly enough to warrant a higher Mass than the three C's, even if you take
their
limited point-defence capabilities into account. However, the single A
is far more vulnerable to treshold checks if I should get hit.
> (Caution: Big Guess follows) Or perhaps I should ask, is one
I'd say that it is worth about 8 single-arc C-batteries. My preferred
Mass ratio between the three battery types is 4:2:1 for A:B:C of the same
number
of arcs. I've found a Mass ratio of 1:2 between single- and three-arc
batteries of the same class to be pretty well balanced IF you allow a
"roll" maneuver (ie, spend MPs to roll the ship upside-down and thus
swap places on left and right sides).
The tactics needed for the different configurations are quite different,
though - a broadside ship has to plan its movements a lot more to make
sure it has something to shoot at, and if it isn't allowed to roll... well, it
isn't that uncommon to lose the majority of one broadside's weapons while
the other side - usually the one facing away from the enemy - is unhurt
<g>
Later,