Technology levels was FT Newtonian Acceleration

> Mike Hillsgrove wrote:

> What FT doesn't natively do very well is simulate technology levels
I noticed this when going through the Weapons/Defense Archive.  A lot of

the suggestions (e.g. Stealth Hull, ECM, Sensors, etc) assume that the ships
from the basic (RAW) design system are level 0. We have been working with this
scale:

Level 0 = None, Civilian or Antiqated System Level 1 = Basic Military,
Enhanced Civilian or Obsolescent System Level 2 = Standard Military System
Level 3 = Enhanced System Level 4 = Superior System

And for the three examples that I mentioned above, the RAW for both designing
ships and combat assume that all (military) ships have level 2

(standard) stealth hull, ECM and sensors. Also, 2nd echelon military vessels
(transports, tenders, etc. have level 1 (basic) and civilian ships have level
0 or 1.

Bonuses/penalties then are applied for levels 0,1,3 & 4.

Also, if (taking your examples) the Minbari are Superior (level 4), you
could say that the Vorlons/Shadows are Advanced (level 5 or 6)

> Personally, it's the simplicity of a class 1, 2, 3, and so forth
Unfortunately, there is a deliberate attempt to limit the size of the standard
battery to C3 or C4 by making C4 and larger disproportionately expensive in
terms of size (mass) relative to their combat potential
(compared to smaller batteries of the same type).  I.e. a 3-arc class 3
battery is not three times as useful as a 3-arc class 2, a class 4 is
not twice as useful as a class 3, a class 5 is not 4x as useful as a
class 3 etc.  However, this is NOT done with other open-ended classed
weapons, like the KraVak K-gun or the Phalon Plasma Bolt Launcher.

J

> Unfortunately, there is a deliberate attempt to limit the size of

true
> class 3 etc. However, this is NOT done with other open-ended

Not true, at least for the K gun. I've never bothered to work out the
calculations for the PBL.

> Jared Hilal wrote:

> Unfortunately, there is a deliberate attempt to limit the size of the

> expensive in terms of size (mass) relative to their combat potential

Ever tried playing on large tables, where the B4 is able to pick those
B2-armed ships apart from outside their range? If you did, you might
revise
your opinion about the relative value of B2s and B4s :-/

But yes, there's a deliberate attempt to limit beam batteries to size classes
which don't have the range to cover an entire gaming table from one short edge
to the other. All other weapon types have ranges which are
independent of their size class (eg., all K-guns have range 30), so
there's no need to restrict them in the same way.

Regards,