This mailing list has been quiet lately. Too quiet. What's happened? Has
Strephon's assassination caused the second Long Night, and everyone's asleep?
Or are Vargr, Zhodani etc. intercepting all communications between the Core
(i.e. North America) and the outlying regions (i.e. U.K.)? :-) :-) :-)
Anyway, here are a few points to consider about starships. GDW starships in
particular.
1. In "Traders and Gunboats", we find the "Gazelle" class close escort. With
drop tanks fitted, it's 400 tons. (Ignore for the moment the fact that the
plans make it look smaller than the 200 ton "Empress" class far trader!)
Without those tanks, it's 300 tons. "High Guard" says you can have a hardpoint
for every 100 tons of hull, so with the tanks fitted, you have 400 tons, i.e.
4 hardpoints. So the "Gazelle" has two laser turrets, and two particle
accelerator barbettes. When it drops its tanks, the ship becomes 300 tons, and
one hardpoint is now invalid. Does it fall off too, or do the control links
just disappear? Incidentally, how does that ship burn the fuel from the drop
tanks, drop them, and THEN execute its jump 5?
2. In the same book, where are the power plant and computer on the Type S?
3. Whoever designed the "Kinunir" class cruiser should be shot. It has 8 dual
laser turrets, which some moron grouped into two batteries of 4 turrets, or 8
lasers, each. This gives it a High Guard USP factor of 4, boosted to 5 by
high tech. 3 turrets to a battery would do the same, leaving the other 2 free
for use as missiles or sandcasters. I also checked the energy calculations for
that ship.
Computer 7
16 lasers 16
2 partcle accelerators 10
Nuclear damper 5 50
Total 83
Power plant 7 gives 87.5 EP, so agility = (87.5-83)/1250 * 100 = 0.36 = 0
But then I looked in the back of "High Guard" where the design is shown, and
they give the damper 40 EP, which gives the ship enough EP for agility 1.
In fact, the damper is rated as 8 tons, MCr 30, 40 EP. And these are the
figures, not for a factor 5 damper, but for a factor 4. But the factor 4 is
TL 14, and "Kinunir" is TL15. Does the damper get a factor increase for this?
If so, why haven't I found a rule to that effect elsewhere in the book?
Thanks for getting this far. Now back to sleep! :-) :-)