George William Herbert presented the salient pointsa of the discussion we have
been having correctly. My own opinion on the matter, is, of course, to follow
m,y suggestion. (-: (-: However, a few extra points could be considered...
most heavily armored naval vessels can or do carry lightly armored auxiliaries,
which would still be larger than the typical players vessel, and could chase
them down as they tried to accelerate away at 2Gs. Any retention of the volume
bases system needs a clear explanation of what happens in the close proximity
of a planetary surface when you attempt to use your maneuver drive (even if
that explanation is a clear statement that Nothing Awful Happens). As it
stands now, there is a strange zone of incompatibilty when you cross the line
between "vehicles" and "spaceships" that would be retained.
By the way, does anyone out there besides Metlay go back as far as the first
edition of High Guard? The one that clearly stated that you could use your
maneuver drive as a fusion gun in an emergency? I, personally, would be in
favor of dropping this whole thrusters business and replacing them with
"reasonable" fusion rockets...something that the physics types cook up based
on "reasonable" fusion efficiencies, current engine weight categories, and
calculations starting with exhaust velocities of the resulting helium/hydrogen
stream.
Rob (its just my opinion) Dean
[I for one had a mint copy of Edition 1 High Gaurd in High School. It
was so worn I had to glue in page hinges to keep the book from falling
apart. I eventually gave it away when I got the second edition of High
Gaurd. Just after I got the first edition, I did a "Trillion Credit
Squadron" sort of campaign with two of my players -- one designed a
dozen really big TL15 ships, and was so positive he was indestructible
he invited me (the ref) and the other player to do our worst. With our
thrifty spending we built about 50 medium-sized TL13
battleships/carriers and a giant decoy ship. They each carried about
500 100-ton modified scout vessels with 6G manuever drives and triple
beam turrets. The Scout ships were surface-mounted on the
battleship/carriers. When the battle began (instigated by the player
with hubris), the decoy lumbered out and immediately drew the proud
player's fire. The scout ships launched, used their lasers as point
defense, and swarmed over to the attacking player's fleet. The primary
damage inflicted was the point-blank fusion gun effect of the scout
manuever drives. The battle ended predictably, with the
battleship/carrier player losing the giant decoy and only bring about
1/3 of his fleet into the combat -- the fusion drive scouts won the day.
Notably, I developed a statistical combat system for the scout ships -
since there were thousands of them flying around. -- James]