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Thread: Collimator Phasers

  1. #1
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    Collimator Phasers

    While going back over TNG era ships that have adapted for FASA,
    one thing that struck me was the way that big honking heavy phaser
    Enterprise-D used to fire from that big orange ring on the top of the
    saucer is portrayed in the game. True you get a phaser with a lot of
    power (30 points) and a range of 30, but under the standard rules, its
    just one phaser that can do a max of 33 points of damage and is very
    vulnerable to damage. After all it has an arc of f/p/s and a phaser hit
    from any of those directions will disable the whole thing, two hits
    leaves the ship missing its only heavy phaser, and in the case of the
    Akira, with no phasers at all. Add the fact that a uprated Constitution
    can deliver more total phaser damage than an Akira, this led me to
    come up with the following rules:

    The multiple phaser emitters of the collimator allow this array to
    fire once per phase as long as the weapon has power. During the power
    allocation phase, additional power can be assigned to the weapon
    within the limitation of the maximum power allowed of 30 per phase and
    thus an absolute maximum of 90 points of power. If not powered to the
    maximum the power allocated can be expended in any amount, not to
    exceed 30 per shot. (IE 50 points of power assigned. During the turn
    the weapon could fire one 30 point shot and two 10 points or two 20
    point shots and a 10 point, so long as no single shot exceeds the
    maximum of 30).

    If the weapon is damaged by incoming fire, only a bearing emitter can
    be damaged and there are three emitters per bearing 3f, 3p, and 3s.
    (IE if the ship is hit from shield 6, only the portside emitters can
    be damaged) These emitters are not considered banked and thus no
    more than one at a time is disabled per phaser hit.

    As long as at least one emitter is available, the weapon can fire.
    However, each firing requires a functional emitter, thus if one forward
    emitter is damaged, the ship may only fire forward twice in a turn.

    These rules give collimator phasers much more punch than before and a
    huge amount of flexibility that matches the on screen evidence seen in
    TNG and DS9.

    Any thoughts?
    "For to win 100 victories in 100 battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill." Sun Tzu - The Art of War

  2. #2
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    the Officer's Manual tended to use slightly larger and wider arsenals of phasers, and there were a few models of new phaser which simply had Max Beam Powers of 12, and individually weren't much more powerful.

    Your rules look okay to me.
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  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pericles
    True you get a phaser with a lot of
    power (30 points) and a range of 30, but under the standard rules, its
    just one phaser that can do a max of 33 points of damage and is very
    vulnerable to damage.
    Hmmm. I always thought that a beam weapon did it's "+ damage" (+1, +2, +3) for every point of energy put into it.

    So, a OD-2 that does +2 damage under 5 hexes, with a max power of 3, can do a max damage of 9.

    It makes sense if you figure that shields can get multiple points of protection for every point put into it. Photons do 1:8, 12 or 20 depending on the type. Even maneuver for small ships gives a better than 1:1 ratio. Getting essentially 1:1 damage makes beam weapons almost worthless.

    Anyway, I don't have my Starship Combat Simulator book handy, but I thought that's how it was done. That's how I play it in my games... call it a house rule if I'm wrong.
    “I am a soldier. I fight where I am told, and I win where I fight.”

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  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by calguard66
    Hmmm. I always thought that a beam weapon did it's "+ damage" (+1, +2, +3) for every point of energy put into it.

    So, a OD-2 that does +2 damage under 5 hexes, with a max power of 3, can do a max damage of 9.

    It makes sense if you figure that shields can get multiple points of protection for every point put into it. Photons do 1:8, 12 or 20 depending on the type. Even maneuver for small ships gives a better than 1:1 ratio. Getting essentially 1:1 damage makes beam weapons almost worthless.

    Anyway, I don't have my Starship Combat Simulator book handy, but I thought that's how it was done. That's how I play it in my games... call it a house rule if I'm wrong.

    I have never thought of the bonus that way before. I've always played that the bonus was fixed and amount of power by the phaser did not have any effect on the bonus.
    "For to win 100 victories in 100 battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill." Sun Tzu - The Art of War

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