Interesting bit of Interceptors fluff

B

Burger

Cosmic Mongoose
Browsing through an episode summary, lookies what I found... interceptors do work to a limited degree on Beams!

The interceptors have two components, one that throws a ball of energy at an incoming weapons charge (physical or energy) and causes dissipation, and the other is a net-like energy web that reduces the severity, but does not deflect or absorb, beam type energy. This allows some time for maneuvers after beam contact.

Note that Major Ryan (He'll always be D-Day to my brother!) was very reticent to fire on the Clarkstown at all. Knowing that the Interceptors were down made his job all the more difficult. The rear facing beamn on the Alexander is similar in design to the front facers on the Clarkstown. When the C-town fired on the rotating section ofthe Alexander, it did not explode, as the interceptors were still active.

George Johnsen
CoProducer, B5
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Source: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/guide/054.html
 
There is a significant amount of disagreement between B5 fans on that, those who agree and those who believe that explanation to be a PSB bit of ret-conning to explain a cock-up by the sfx guys

I agree with the latter
 
Burger said:
Browsing through an episode summary, lookies what I found... interceptors do work to a limited degree on Beams!

The interceptors have two components, one that throws a ball of energy at an incoming weapons charge (physical or energy) and causes dissipation, and the other is a net-like energy web that reduces the severity, but does not deflect or absorb, beam type energy. This allows some time for maneuvers after beam contact.

Note that Major Ryan (He'll always be D-Day to my brother!) was very reticent to fire on the Clarkstown at all. Knowing that the Interceptors were down made his job all the more difficult. The rear facing beamn on the Alexander is similar in design to the front facers on the Clarkstown. When the C-town fired on the rotating section ofthe Alexander, it did not explode, as the interceptors were still active.

George Johnsen
CoProducer, B5
Click to expand...

Source: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/guide/054.html
Click to expand...

I suppose it would be easy enough to add in interceptors on beam, they simply roll on a 6+ to intercept beam weapons, with every attemp to intercept a beam still increasing the interceptor count, and failed beam intercepts stripping out IDs.
 
The energy web bit was put into B5Wars originally. Basically interceptors worked to fire at incoming shots but also, as long as you had active interceptors in the arc you were shot from the EA ship had a slightly higher target number. Now personally whether you agree on the existence of Energy Webs or not (and bear in mind as I've said before, JMS has in his preface of the rulebook stated the B5Wars rulebook to be Canon) in ACTA nearly all EA ships have hull 6 or 5 for slightly weaker ones. I would argue that the energy web component is already part of their target number.

Now with the proposed changes to beams maybe this could be incorporated in some way like, beams and minibeams hit on 5 as opposed to 4? Of course this would require making interceptor protected ships that teensy bit more fragile to compensate for this increased resitance to the beams or they would be blantantly unfair, but its a thought still....
 
Greg Smith said:
emperorpenguin said:
and the Primus is supposed to have an energy web, can we get that too? :wink:
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It is? How so, it doesn't have guardian arrays?
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In the Primus Ship Plans and some AOG stuff I believe it was mentioned, based on Starfury guns appearing to "splash" onto the hull in "The Fall Of Night"
I mentioned it tongue-in-cheek, I think it's nonsense just like interceptor webs :wink:
 
Not according to the AOG stuff Im afraid. The interceptors (proper interceptors with energy webs) were EA only. The Centauri Guardian arrays didnt have energy webs (and the Primus didnt have any anyway, (that said the Primus didnt really need them, it had soo many twin arrays spare it could chuck defensive fire at will while engaging from out of twin array range and even aside from that it was one tough SoB in terms of actual armour!

That said, the guardian array thanks to advanced Centauri targeting systems could be used to fire defensively against shots targetting OTHER ships. That was in fact the point of the maximus in B5Wars, it was BRISTLING with guardian arrays, mark it near your primus and defend it with them :D
 
Dead easy. "Shared Interceptors" trait:

Ships with "shared interceptors" can pool their interceptors dice if they remain within 6" of each other. Any shots fired at any participating ship can be intercepted by the total dice pool.

How's that for an off-the-cuff rule?
 
I like. And personally Id love to see the Maximus shifted back to this role (as it stands you can basically do it anyway by using manuever to shield them...)
 
Locutus9956 said:
I like. And personally Id love to see the Maximus shifted back to this role (as it stands you can basically do it anyway by using manuever to shield them...)
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...and you take the hits for them. This way, any shot that isn't intercepted would hit the target ship as normal.
 
True, but what I meant was that you can sort of use Maximus to intercept hits for other ships at the moment and that I would indeed like to allow them to just lend interceptors :)
 
I would say yes normally, personally I got into ACTA as I wanted essentially a 'quick play version' of B5Wars and I always found it a shame that some of the really interesting ships either suck in ACTA or just got turned into boring old ships that just do the guns and hull thing like every other ship. A few unique quirky ships adds alot to the fun :) (the main two that spring to mind are the Maximus and Darkner but there were others too)

However. 2nd ed is well into play testing and youll probably just get the 'its too late to change anything no matter how good the idea is as that would mean we migh have to rethink some other stuff' answer from most of the playtesters.... Ok Im going home now before I start of on a rant (its been a LOOOOOOONG day ;))
 
Locutus9956 said:
However. 2nd ed is well into play testing and youll probably just get the 'its too late to change anything no matter how good the idea is as that would mean we migh have to rethink some other stuff' answer from most of the playtesters.... Ok Im going home now before I start of on a rant (its been a LOOOOOOONG day ;))
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Far from it, what LDTD has suggested is something I have already been working on for weeks now! :wink: Can't say the others or Mongoose will go with it though....
 
Burger said:
Browsing through an episode summary, lookies what I found... interceptors do work to a limited degree on Beams!
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Yes, we have been aware of this since the start of 1e. However, there is nothing on screen that is really convincing or is not perhaps better explained another way (to our minds, YMMV), so it was. . . ignored. . .
 
Lord David the Denied said:
Ships with "shared interceptors" can pool their interceptors dice if they remain within 6" of each other. Any shots fired at any participating ship can be intercepted by the total dice pool.
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I think you are going to like the new Escort trait. . .
 
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