Early EA- weapon types

[Slightly Norse John]

One of the things that really got to me about the early list in Armageddon was that it wasn't early. Pulse cannon everywhere- frequently twenty years before the EA cracked the technology.
Heavy lasers, great, but what were they using before then? The earliest versions of the Orestes we have ACtA stats for is seventy years later than the actual in service date.
This leaves two options; either the background has to be downgraded in relevance, or the stats do. Both of these are pretty depressing, actually. So, given the choice betwen a grumble and a suggestion...

What do we see in the early EA lists?
Particle Beams- range usually 5, always anti-fighter, possibly twin-linked or weak. Standard point defence weapon.
Medium Plasma Cannon- range usually 8, AP Twin linked. typical tertiary/ standard all round fire weapon.
Railguns; range usually 12, AP Double damage, typical secondary, normal heavy weapon for small craft.
Medium Laser Cannon; range usually 15, arc Boresight, Super AP Beam. Heavy weapon usually.
Light Missile Rack; range 20, Precise Super AP, Slow loading, cannot use variants- sound medium weapon, railgun alternative on small ships.
Missile Rack; slow loading; range, other traits by missile type.

From that, we can reasonably expect light laser cannon, and light and heavy plasma cannon, to exist.
Light Laser Cannon- range 8-10, (8 as part of an LPA, 10 as an independent mount?) AP Beam, not necessarily boresight
Light Plasma Cannon- range 6, either AP or twin link
Heavy Plasma Cannon; range 10 or 12, Double damage twin link

Only fair to add, Mr Punch's points conversions rated them rather differently- range 4, AP for a light plasma cannon, range 12, AP double damage twin link for a heavy plasma cannon- all three is just a shade too good, I think.
He did add Particle Cannon; range 15 or 18, Beam Super AP, full arc.

Some ships need outright restatting to fit with the unavailability of Pulse Cannon before about 2240; the Nova, the early actual cruiser version of the Hyperion, the Olympus (which spent just under two thirds of it's service life without the pulse cannon the standard version has), and the Orestes, which served for seventy plus years in a version we have no stats for. Mostly mainstay ships, in other words.

For simple conversion, replace pulse cannon with 2/3 the AD of plasma cannon; replace mediums with mediums, lights with lights, etc. The Missile Hyperion (a variant which went out of service long before pulse cannon were being used by rather than against the EA) would have 4AD of medium plasma forward, and 3AD each port and starboard (2.66*, rounding up to 3). The Explorer would get 4AD of heavy plasma forward before 2240, upgrading to 6AD heavy pulse in that year. Etc.

Just before I actually start doing this- am I completely out of my tree, or not? (should have made that the poll option...)

 

[Iain McGhee]

I was messing about with a similar idea when the Dilgar book came out, using the Earth/Minbari War book EA as a basis and replacing the Nova arrays with Heavy Plasma guns and the rest with Particle weapons replacing Pulse cannons, Torpedo tubes replacing early Heavy Pulse cannons and such using Narn and Drazi weapons as starting points. I ended up scrapping the idea due to a lack of accurate information although I think AOG's Dilgar War book had stats on the EA ships of that period.

Best of luck !

 

[Slightly Norse John]

Accurate information? The only firm plan I have is to use Post-It notes, jot the pre-2240 weapon complements down on a sticky and paste them over the entry in Armageddon, possibly multiple layers for variants over the ship's time in service.
I was thinking in purely ACtA terms, not B5W; Mongoose's take on things, not AoG's. That said, ship by ship;
Artemis- rail and particle, not a problem.
(Most other stats remain constant, Artemis-Alpha has medium plasmas, -Gamma is a gunship with particle cannon, the Mongoose accepted versions are the Beta, railgun, and Zeta, 'Escort', pulse cannon. What happened to Delta and Epsilon?)
Avenger, post Pulse Cannon, not a problem.
Explorer; as stated, replace Heavy Pulse Cannon with Heavy Plasma cannon between 2225 and 2240, range 12, F, 4AD, Twin link Double damage. A net gain in firepower moving to Pulse Cannon; they must be more efficient.
Hermes; missile and particle, not a problem.

Hyperions; oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...
AoG bit; Alpha, early cruiser- all round plasmas and boresight particle cannon. does not appear in ACtA.
Beta, mongoose's Hyperion Missile Cruiser. (delete Pulse Cannon, it left service a decade before the EA worked out how to use them. replace with Medium Plasma Cannon; range 8, AP Twin linked, 4AD F, 3AD each P, S.)
Gamma, mongoose's Hyperion Assault Cruiser. (It retains the forward plasma cannon, even after the introduction of pulse cannon. Eh? The fluff doesn't help. Replace all the medium pulse cannon with medium plasma cannon, range 8 AP, 4AD F, P, S, 3AD A. Yes, it does have two sets for forward Plasma Cannon, one 6AD and twin linked, one 4AD and not.)
Delta, mongoose's Hyperion Pulse Cruiser. Post 2240- in fact the ship that introduced pulse weapons to the EA- not a problem.
Epsilon, mongoose's Hyperion Command Cruiser. Postdated to the Dawn of the Third Age; not a problem.
Zeta, mongoose's Hyperion Rail Cruiser. Appears in the middle of EMW, only problem is it's spectacularly weaker than the prototype. No background issue (piece of junk, though.)
Eta, patrol cruiser (does not appear in ACtA.)
Theta, post-2246, final version Hyperion Heavy Cruiser. again, not a problem.
Lambda, anti- fighter version, does not appear in ACtA.
And;
Hyperion Command Prototype- in service 2245? Doesn't really fill a gap, does it?
Hyperion CA prototype- only predates the final version by a year.
Hyperion Rail prototype- vicious little beggar, isn't it? Tougher than a Drazi Warbird and spitting more dice than an Altarian.
So there are twelve versions of the Hyperion, three pure AoG, three purely Mongoose and six common to both. Joy.

In terms of 'new' construction, two versions of the Hyperion Heavy are needed- one pre 2240, and one with pulse but before heavy laser weapons, 2240 to midway through the EMW.
More later.

 

[Slightly Norse John]

OK, it's later.
The Hyperion base stat block won't change; no need to retype it.

Hyperion Cruiser flight 1 (2216)
Medium Laser Cannon; range 15, Bore, 5AD Super AP Beam
Heavy Plasma Cannon; range 12, F, 4AD, Twin linked Double damage
Medium Plasma Cannon; range 8, AP; 5AD each P, S, A
Particle Beam; range 5, T, 4AD, Antifighter Weak

Hyperion Cruiser flight 1A (2230)
Add Medium Laser cannon; range 15, Bore (aft), 3AD, Super AP Beam
otherwise as flight 1.

Hyperion Cruiser flight 2 (2241)
Medium Laser Cannon; range 15, Super AP Beam; Bore 5AD, Bore(Aft) 3AD
Medium Pulse Cannon; range 10, no specials, F, A, P, S each 5AD
Heavy Plasma Cannon; range 12, F, 3AD, Twin linked Double damage
Particle beam; range 5, T, 4AD, antifighter weak

Hyperion cruiser flight 3 (2246) replaces the medium lasers with heavies, removes the heavy plasma cannon for mediums for power efficiency's sake, and turns into the current version.

Moving on, I, J, K, L, M...not much happening in the middle of the alphabet, is there?
Nova. now we're getting somewhere. The Alpha version seems to have been armed with medium lasers, which makes no sense with ACtA's stats for a medium laser; going from that to LPA would be an effective downgrading. What pulse cannon and lasers have in common that lets them be twin mounted anyway, I don't know.
I have seen stats for a railgun armed version of the Nova; they had a certain malevolent charm. Plasma is the most likely possibility, though, or light lasers.

Plasma Nova;
main stat block unchanged. Weapons;
Medium Plasma Cannon; range 9, AP Twin linked; 6AD each F, A, 9AD each P, S (retains twin linked because it looks the part, and the Nova's pulse cannon are, when it recieves them.)

Rail Nova (whoever was responsible for this, come forward to claim credit for it please)
main stat block; only 2 squadrons of Furies, otherwise unchanged.
Railguns; range 12, AP Double Damage, 4AD each F, A, 6AD each P, S

Laser Nova;
main stat block unchanged.
Light Laser Cannon; range 10, AP Beam, 6AD each F, P, S, 4AD A

Olympus; replace the Medium Pulse Cannon (twin linked anyway) with Medium Plasma cannon;
range 8, twin linked AP, 4AD each F, P, S. Railguns and missiles OK.
Olympus Gunship, the name on the system says Medium Laser Cannon, it's got the same stats as a heavy though. Have to think more about that one.

 

[Slightly Norse John]

Right, moving spongily on;
the Olympus Gunship raises the interesting question of what it was the EA actually wanted from the Narn. If it's possible to get the same effect from a large battery of small weapons as it is from a small battery of large weapons- what's the point of heavy lasers? Engagement range? Makes no sense on the Olympus or Hyperion anyway, the Omega was, all but a prototype few, too late for the war- overcoming production shortages? Could be. Or possibly the Narn simply took our money and laughed all the way to the bank. (More likely our precious metals- would you validate the credit rating of a civilisation that was about to be rendered extinct?)
Oracles, such is the fragility of the thing, I usually house rule allow the SFoS version, at Skirmish level. Well handled, it can justify itself as a combat unit. If picked as a target, it tends to go phut. Either way, all it's weapons are era appropriate, not a problem.

Something that definitely is; the Orestes. This is a ship that was being phased out in the 2140's; having numbers for the last ten years of it's life just isn't enough. AoG seem to have given the version that fought in the Dilgar War almost as cockeyed a weapon layout as the Ochlavita; I intend to disregard that.
Mongoose- wise, we have the SFoS version, 'System monitor', 2249+, nothing desperately wrong with it that two dozen new engines wouldn't cure;
the EMW version, 'dreadnought', 2241-49, with more fighters and interceptor dice and a pulse cannon in place of the heavy laser; interestingly, it gives a full forward arc, not bore, for the medium laser.
the Armageddon version, also 'system monitor', same stats as the SFoS version but now said to date from 2241.
The original box set's fluff gives the maiden voyage as 2130. (Disgruntled harrumph.)
The Armageddon version's dates must be out. Heavy lasers simply didn't exist in EA service until 2246, and they were an urgent refit- the poor old Orestes was probably at the tail end of the queue. I'm inclined to go with the EMW and SFoS versions and dates.
Before 2240, though, what? I don't really want to go much further back than the Dilgar War. So...the mission is take and hold; follow up on the Oracle- class's scouting reports and protect newly established colonies. With that sort of requirement, an appropriate payload (you can tell I'm waffling to buy myself thinking time, can't you?)- energy heavy.

2224-2241; basic stat block as the Dreadnought version, weapons;
Particle cannon; 18, F, 4AD, Beam Super AP
Light Laser Cannon; 10, A, 4AD, Beam AP
Heavy Plasma Cannon; 12, F, 4AD, twin link double damage
Medium Plasma Cannon; 8, AP twin link, P, S each 6AD
Particle Beams; 5, T, 6AD, antifighter weak.

 

[Slightly Norse John]

2130-2224 will have to wait for more inspiration or another time.

Orion Starbase; before pulse cannon, it would presumably have mounted Heavy Plasma Cannon; range 24, space station rules apply, 4AD, twin linked double damage.

Sagittarius; time to leave well enough alone, I think. No background problem.

Starfuries; there were two older versions of the 'Fury at this time, weren't there? One replaced 2230- fought through the early part of the Dilgar War- and the later version, current 2230-2244. Tiger, Nova, Aurora, then Thunderbolt, isn't it?

Aurora (2244- the foreseeable future); spd 12, SM, hull 4, dogfight +2, afterburner, dodge 2+, fighter
Uni- Pulse Cannon, 2, T, 2AD twin linked.
Either the EA got the hang of fighter class pulse weaponry well before it managed it for capital ships, or it needs a different weapon type.

Nova (2230-2244, or the later stages of the Dilgar War onwards)
speed 12, SM hull 4, dogfight +2, afterburner, dodge 2+, fighter
light particle guns, 2, T, 2AD twin linked weak

Tiger (turn of the century to early Dilgar War);
speed 10, SM, hull 4, dogfight +1, afterburner, dodge 2+, fighter
light particle guns, 2, T, 2AD twin linked weak

Tethys; all listed versions have extremely short operational lifespans, arriving in 2246 in the middle of the earth-Minbari War. The fluff says it was very heavily modified into a great number of variants, the original box set book 2 gives a first flight date of, again, 2130.
Bear with me, conjuring up half a greek alphabet of variants might take a while.

 

[captainsmirk]

One question.

Why twin-linked on the plasmas?

The ones on the Hyperion are only twin-linked because their supposed to be the forward battery thing which has two barrels...

Nick

 

[tneva82]

Keep up with the good work! This is area where I would like more expansion from official lists as well, the older EA fleets and variants.

Even if it wouldn't be possible to balance them against newer fleets(without resorting to something like 2 for skirmish etc) and just for certain period so what? More variants of game and easy to use without buying lots of new models(how could early year hyperion model differ from recent hyperion anyway?). Cool!

Though not so cool from Mongooses point of view of course :lol:

 

[Slightly Norse John]

Yes, you're right, the Avenger's are only AP aren't they? Smeg. It's only really them and the Hyperions in the lists with plasma cannon, and I was looking much harder at the Hyperions because of their problem status.
Worse yet, I set the progression through light-medium-heavy with them as the centre term, AP to AP Twinlinked to Double Twinlinked.
Basically, I was assuming that the trait attached to the weapon system rather than the mounting on the ship- clearly not so, w/ref the Olympus Gunship's double damage medium lasers.
Right, this is going to take a bit of editing.

Done now (post edit), I've assumed that where a ship has twin linked pulse cannon now, it was a more or less direct replacement, and it had twin linked plasmas back in the day- where it didn't, they've been stripped bck to AP. The Heavy plasmas keep their twin linked as a matter of weapon rather than ship stat, though; mainly to differentiate them from railguns amd matter cannon.