On 24Feb2018 0522, Rusty Witherspoon wrote:

> Oh, it gets worse - they presume a single target model for PD and EW
> in 1e - gunners take out 1 missile per roll, and get DM-1 for very
> roll after the first, and the same for sensor Ops doing EW. In 2e, it
> gets even worse considering the relative strength of missiles. You
> get one attempt at PD, which removes a gunners effect (total throw-8)
> in missiles, sandcasters do nothing against missiles, and every salvo
> can have only one EW attempt against per round, which of course
> removes the effect in missiles. Yeah, even with their specialised PD
> system (auto intercept a small number), their bad attempt at counter
> missiles (blow away lots of small craft! Or one missile, per
> missile), and the ability to add sensor ops, they don't make
> effective use of them.

Ah yes, I do remember that - I read the HG text in playtest, decided it
was incurable, and aside from skimming it recently haven't looked at it
since. You can have missile salvos in the hundreds, but gunners and EW
guys can only remove maybe 10 missiles per attempt. It does make turrets
worth having I suppose - each turret can be a battery, and thus get a PD
roll. As for PD batteries, they take up 2% of the ship's hull (and at
lower TLs a lot of hardpoints), a significant amount of power, and
reduce salvo sizes by 3d6, which is pretty meaningless vs a 120 missile
salvo.

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief