House rules for beam-less Centauri?

[Voronesh]

Sounds great on the traits.

Id even go for TD on the heavies, but then again you lose AD and as such crit effect with little advantage in overall damage. And Ion cannons never seemd to be hard hitters on the damage.

From the on screen Primus vs G'Quan fight or the Primus on B5, the ion cannons seemed to be fired in long streams.

So the fixed traits is a very good choice i think.

AD are always negotiable but also kinda the hardest part.

Maybe one can use fixed ranges even.

36" for the Heavies.
24" for the Meds.
Dunno on the lights, depends on what kind of ships really need it, and how much range they should get. 18" maybe?

Plus the Plasma stream should be made more widely available and bettered in AD. For something the Centauri would like to use, it seems woefully weak. Might even replace the Battle lasers on some ships. Like retrofitted Skirmish lvl ships.

Oh yeah i totally love the idea. The Centauri would leave the beam heavy races (of which there are enough, Minbari and Vorlons already crowd the field, with Crusade EA coming up strong) and would move into the area of nonbeam races of which there are few with long range. Makes em more special and more befitting. The Lion of the Galaxy should have little need to copy other races technolgy. And the Lion would be very councious not to let the prime technology fall into lesser races hands.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Agreed. The plasma stream could be useful if it replaced the battle lasers, got more AD and range, and was the only beam the Centauri got.

12"-18" for light ion cannons, 20"-25" for medium and 30"-35" for heavy seems fair. I'll have a go at statting some of the Centauri ships with these armaments after I've had some sleep...

 

[Voronesh]

Sounds cool.

Ill be waiting for it.

 

[Silvereye]

Interesting ideas. I tended to agree with a previous poster about the Array weapons being Ionic in nature. However the ideas behind replacing the Battle Lasers with Ion Cannon seems to have been well made and there are some good ideas being floated around.

I like the distinction between Light, Medium and Heavy Cannons. However range should be based on the weapon and the targetting systems the hull could carry and the role of the vessel. So there should perhaps be some overlap of the range bands, compensated for with a few more AD. For instance using the weapons energy to fire more shots rather then boost the effective range.

The other thing, is what would happen to the Twin/Heavy Array and Matter Cannon systems as they seem to be mostly superseeded by the Ion Cannon as bandied about.

 

[tneva82]

So I decided to try replacing the centauri beams with ion bolt style weapons, kinda like 5th season mentioned.[/q]

5th season mentioned that they used their beam weapons more akin to explosive than slicing type(heck I watched that episode yesterday ). So instead of ion bolts it would be heavy laser in non-beam style.

(of course I could be wrong about what ion bolt precicely is but my understanding is that centauri weapons are lasers same as other races but they just don't use it in beam style).

 

[Captain Kremmen]

Interesting thread, I missed this the first time around.

I have often thought that it is strange that the Centauri are the "beam Team" yet in the series I do not believe there is a single instance of them using beam weapons. They seem to use powerful turret mounted weapons that look more along the lines of SAP DD weapons, maybe even twin linked for the bigger ships.

Don't see any evidence for beams and TD might be overkill.

If the Dilgar did not exist I would say the weapons stats for the dilgar are just about perfect for the real centauri.

On this thread, Precise seems overkill?

Like the idea of lots of SAP DD or AP DD weapons instead of beams

 

[Silvereye]

Unfortunatley their Matter Cannon are already AP, Double Damage

 

[captainsmirk]

The Lion of the Galaxy should have little need to copy other races technolgy.

But maybe the other races copied the Centauri...

(Except the Minbari and Vorlons but since they had little contact with anyone...)

Nick

 

[Locutus9956]

since this thread seems to have been resurected Id just like to asnwer one thing I mentioned earlier

yes there are theoretically ways of firing neutral particles as you say SNJ but then you are talking about a particle weapon, not an ION weapon. Ions are by their very definition charged particles

(my point is that all ions are particles but not all particles are ions)

 

[philogara]

I like this, this laser think has always bugged me, especially when we don't ever see a Centauri ship using one, ever.

Not sure about the precise. It would give them something different to their weapons rather than a lot on interceptable dice.

 

[Silvereye]

How about Mini-Beam instead of Precise? It means that they cannot be intercepted, and loose the beam re-rolls (which can be made up for with AD). Not too sure about the Anti-Fighter part of Mini-Beam fitting into the concept though.

 

[Slightly Norse John]

That could be a real advantage; the Centauri have virtually no anti- fighter weaponry as it is, and arguably need some. The main counterargument is their own fighters which are capable enough, but operationally fragile (translation; I've lost too many Balvarin.)
It would also remove a big balance problem from the design, enough dice to burn through interceptors maybe being too much against ships that don't have them. That would get neater too.
And yes, Locutus, technically you're right, but then again I reckon so am I. A neutral particle bolt would hold together well enough to break things, an ion cannon shot would spread out to being more of an ion cloud, in the same sort of effect range as a severe solar storm. Which would be a remarkably good way for pirates and raiders to kill crew and take ships intact, now I come to think of it, albeit a bit messy.

 

[katadder]

just think ion canons of star wars fame, EG battle of hoth, they fired bolts quite happily.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Interesting about the mini-beam. It might be worth sticking anti-fighter on the light ion cannons, actually. We see a Vorchan shoot down three Frazis in rapid succession in one episode, with every round hitting perfectly. Since I intend to replace the plasma accelerator with a light ion cannon to be in line with fluff sites I've seen, that would reflect the source material and make some of the Centauri skirmishers useful in a whole new dimension.

It'd also require re-writing the Maximus-class frigate's stats completely...

 

[Slightly Norse John]

Wouldn't be the first time, or the fourth for that matter. The earliest version of the Maximus has 10AD twin array each fore, aft, port and starboard.
SW Ion Cannon, I was responsible for the conversion to ACtA. I gave them the stats they ought to have based on their performance on screen, not on any physical rationale.
There is a small webcommunity of true Star Wars geeks who actually try to justify and rationalise everything in the movies; I go there in the same spirit that 19th century Londoners went on day trips to the Bethlehem Hospice. It was a minor technical aside, don't worry over it too much.

 

[angelus2000]

LOve the idea of houseruling beams in favor of ion cannons. Unfortunately, I'm in the "No precise" camp at the moment until i see a convincing argument otherwise. SAP, DD, TD, AP all make sense to a certain degree, but I can see no logical reasoining behind the precise trait other than "that how star wars handles ion cannons" pop up so far. any weapons that rely on multiple shots hitting in order to inflict damage will have some scatter effect over distance, thus negating the very high hit concetration to a paticular area that a beam weapon can obtain.

However, I would like to suggest somethign in order to keep the precise trait. Give every ion cannon something like the Nova's Laser/Pulse array, in that lose AD and range and gain Precise. So a Primus would have

12AD F 30 AP , TD Normal firing
8AD F 15 SAP, TD, Precise, SLow-Loading Alpha Strike(yes i know BTech ripoff)

I justfiy the SAP in this reagard. At range a centauri captain would keep continual firing from all turrets on the target, 20 or 30 bolts per minute coming from each turret. As the range closed and more targeting information if gathered, the captain can order all turrets to fall silent while power builds up in the weapons power banks and the target area is locked on. At one word, all turrets fire simulataneously, one shot, overwhelming the targets armor and driving deep into the hull.

I justify the slowloading on the account that targeting arrays needs to be cleared and power banks recharged from a single massive salvo as that.
The shots are still interceptable, but if half get through, ttheres a very good chance that SAP, TD, Precise will inflict some major damage.

Any thoughts on this? I think it manages to create a very unique weapon in regards to the centuari and feel much more like in keeping with their character

 

[Lord David the Denied]

I hate to say it, but I understood about 10% of that post... :?

 

[angelus2000]

Hmm, think of the old wood and sail naval ships. Do you fire all cannons from a broadside at once, hoping to inflict a severe blow in one shot, or do you fire all cannons as fast as possible, wearing down the other ships cannons, sails, hull, crew etc.?

 

[philogara]

just think ion canons of star wars fame, EG battle of hoth, they fired bolts quite happily.

Then it must be possible

 

[Captain Kremmen]

I would like to put my support behind mini beams.

However if I remember correctly in the series, when the Primus shot up B5, the B5 interceptors did in fact stop much of the incoming fire...

So maybe straight AP DD is most accurate.

Regardless though I rather like mini beam.

Kremmen