Re: Fighting Ships

I don't have the book yet (local game store sold out - Grrr...), but I would
like to comment on one remark George made.

>{SIGNIFICANT} almost ALL the main line ships have a Def DM of 7.  I
>have a feeling that this means something.  The gaming that GDW does internally
>must (speculation) have shown that this is the best balanced level.  Note also
>that most of the ships have agility=0 to not exceed that level.  This
is counter
>to my personal intuition, and someone should ask inside GDW and try and see
>if i read this right.

The reason all the main line ships have a Def DM of 7 is because it is the best
practical for a large, heavily armored ship.
Def DM = 9	(best computer available at TL 15)
	-2	(size mod for ships 100,000 tons or more)
	+0	(agility)
	= 7

	The reason that the agility is 0 is due to the heavy armor.  Even though
mass doesn't affect manuver drive performance (handled, along with many other
tasks, by the manuver drive physics nullifier box), it still is used for
agility.  Thus
the heavy armor makes it prohibitively expensive to get any agility bonus.
Example:  A 100,000 ton ship with an armor factor 100 bonded superdense hull
would mass ~1.535 E7 tons just for the hull. In order to get agility 1,
it would require
*spare* power of  ~2.84 E6 MW = 158,000 kl of power plant (11.7% of the ship)
plus 1,024,000 kl for a 30-day fuel supply (75.8% of the ship if you
really want to try).
	Armor that heavy does have the advantage of making you immune to
everything except meson guns, as was noted in a previous post.
	I'm sure I will find other problems when I finally get the book. (I wish
these things had warranties)

>George William Herbert

					W. Dow Rieder

 	When the only tool you have is a hammer, all your problems
start to look like nails...