This is going to both the GDW-Beta list and the TML, in case any
TMLers are wondering where these quotes came from:
>> Has anyone
>>else looked over the booklet vehicle designs, or any of the
>>weapons designs?
>
> Glenn (plays "Ess", the Droyne engineer in the Pocket Empire playtest
> campaign) and I noticed some problems in the slug rifles table. There are
> definitely two typos (we noted them, but I don't have it with me now) and a
> couple of other strange things in it.
One thing I've noticed in the "didn't consider the extremes" department
is in crewing ship PAWs and Meson Guns.
Unless you're giving it a range overcapacity for improved planetary
bombardment performance, ship PAWs only need to have an effective
range of about 50 hexes, since once range DiffMods are factored in
(+1 per 3 hexes), 50 hexes is the absolute maximum range you can
hit anything, given an 800 RoF and a Gigantic target.
Cruiser-sized PAWs with an effective range of 50 hexes may be
200+ meters long, but less than 2 meters wide. PAWs have a maximum
bore per length but no minimum (both rightly so, IMHO). However,
since the crew requirement is directly tied only to the volume, the
volume of a EffRng=50 PAW yeilds a crew of one or two at tech 15.
The crew of a Meson Gun of comparable energy will be in the hundreds,
since its bore is related to the discharge energy. If the PAW had
its bore close to 1/8th its length, it would also have a crew in the
hundreds. But the minimum crew is only one, not per-length or
per-megajoule, so you wind up with widely differing crew levels.
This also shows up with lasers, since they seem to only to require
a crew of one if crewed at all, no matter how big it is.
That means if you build a laser spinal mount (a laser lance with
megajoules comparable to big PAWs or Meson Guns), it only requires
a crew of one, no matter how big.
In fact, they seem to have given no thought to lasers as anything
other than small secondary weaponry. But check this:
At 40,000 Mj, a PAW has a maximum PV of 1000. However, if you're
willing to make the armor thick enough (and this is fairly cheap
and easy in terms of space and cost), you can stop it.
A Meson Gun of the same energy will have a maximum DV of 1000, but
due to the way they work will have an effective range far shorter
than a PAW. In addition, a sufficiently powerful Meson Screen will
make hitting an Impossible task.
Now get this.... A 40,000 Mj laser will have a maximum DV of 500,
but it will have an effective range out to whatever it can hit (50+hexs)
and will slice through armor like it almost wasn't there.
The penetration rating will be 1/160, so it will only lose 7 DV
chewing through 1000pts of armor. That leaves 493 to do internal
damage, and you don't even have to bother with any silly ole' screen...
Without some effective countermeasure, big lasers become the best
way to deliver damage to a target. Even with MFD-linked sandcasters,
you need a lot of them to stop this kind of damage.
What's needed is heavy-duty sancasters.
I disassembled the basic turret sandcaster into three components:
workstation, cannister magazine, and sensor/launcher package.
I don't have my "build your own sandcasters" list here, but
I simulated barbette and 50-ton bay sandcasters by using multiple
turret casters.
The barbette had two launchers, one crew workstation, and without the
need for the second workstation the magazine could hold an extra
seven volleys. Whatever the number of dice rolled for a turret
sandcaster for DV reduction, you rolled twice that many dice.
The 50-ton bay worked out best with 18 launchers, one crew workstation,
and it worked out that this also produced room for an extra seven
volleys in the magazine (note that one "volley" is 18 cannisters for
this bay, or 2 canns for the barbette).
If I remember right, at TL-10 it would on the average stop the
40,000 Mj laser above completely, or at least mostly.
One thing that becomes important with this is how the laser sensor
works. Does it just know that you're being targeted, or can you
determine which ship or how big a weapon is targeting you?
If the former, you might wind up blowing an awful lot of canns
on small lasers, lest you risk getting hit with a big one.
John H Bogan