David Anla Shok'
Mongoose
So, during the Ritual Reviewing of the Episodes I note that the Omegas forward batterys are just that, forward, not bore sighted. What's up with that?
Omega boresight
- Thread starter David Anla Shok'
- Start date
sidewinder
Mongoose
I think everyone knows that by now. They just dont like to change. And I think they would get ticked off making Omegas fwd arc where narn, an older race, would still be boresighted. If that new experimental rule get used it actually works pretty well with the show. If you get the order off you get a fwd arc but at half strength. Since the laser cannons on an omega only overlap on a boresight I can see how that would make sense.
I just thought it should always be like that for the omega, no order needed.
I just thought it should always be like that for the omega, no order needed.
Methos5000
Mongoose
One thing I noticed that was kinda funny in the show is when the G'Quans fire off bore it looks like half the time they should be cutting off the front tip of their own ships.
Not that I think they need to be limited to boresight, I just thought it was kinda funny thinking of Narn gunnery crews firing their beams and slicing their own ships up. Maybe thats why they died so easy in the series, self inflicted hull breaches.
Not that I think they need to be limited to boresight, I just thought it was kinda funny thinking of Narn gunnery crews firing their beams and slicing their own ships up. Maybe thats why they died so easy in the series, self inflicted hull breaches.
David Anla Shok'
Mongoose
Methos5000 said:
It was the Narn crew in space suits holding the mirrors to reflect the beam that made that possible 0;>
l33tpenguin
Mongoose
its well known the whole boresight idea isn't based on any hard evidence. I enjoy the idea of it as a game mechanic, however. The idea of a boresight LASER is just... dumb, of course. Even mongooses own packaging has images of boresight ships firing way off boresight
David Anla Shok'
Mongoose
l33tpenguin said:
Might have been cool if two or more lasers with forward or close to it arcs were focused together into a boresight.
Methos5000
Mongoose
David said:
That job would certainly suck, although I could see the Narn doing something like that.
Foxmeister
Mongoose
David said:
You mean like the G'Quan?
Regards,
Dave
captainsmirk
Mongoose
sidewinder said:
Not that this effects the argument since most of the Narn's technology derives from Centauri stuff anyway...
But the Narn are not an older race than the humans, they gained their independence from the Centauri in the early 2200's the EA had been an interstellar power since the the 2160's (well at least had jump technology since then anyway...).
As far as I am aware the Narn were not particularly advanced when the Centauri invaded them definitely not to the level the EA had reached when the Centauri first encountered them.
Basically the Narn may have more advanced technology than the EA, but that is not due to them being an "older" species.
Nick
cthol24601
Mongoose
Well we've often played with the house rule that a bore sighted weapon is just less advanced than a full forward arc, ie the focusing mirrors are not as well controlled etc and so given boresighted ships a 2" arch which basically means in practice that if its in line with the circular base its good enough rather than the stem. Still allows for tactical difference with a full front arc and limits the effectiveness of the boresight in comparison but fits with the on screen evidence from the show and makes init sinks less devastating against bore sighted weapons.
nekomata fuyu
Mongoose
It also makes sense in the pseudo-physics dept. It's easy to imagine that firing a beam weapon at full strength could be enough to destroy the lens/mirror/etc used for targetting, especially when dealing with beams as destructive as in B5.
One solution to this would be to fire a low power beam whilst using the lens/mirror, and to move the lens/mirror out of the way whilst firing at full power. This neatly translates into a full strength boresight, and a part strength forward arc.
(I like things to make sense. It aids in suspension of disbelief.)
One solution to this would be to fire a low power beam whilst using the lens/mirror, and to move the lens/mirror out of the way whilst firing at full power. This neatly translates into a full strength boresight, and a part strength forward arc.
(I like things to make sense. It aids in suspension of disbelief.)
Foxmeister
Mongoose
captainsmirk said:
Not certain that is true. From what we know of the Book of G'Quan, the Narn were sufficient well advanced during the time of the 1st Shadow War (circa 1250 AD Earth time) to know about space flight and telepaths, which would make them way more advanced than Humans at that time.
We know little else beyond then to categorically state how advanced they were prior to the first Centauri invasion, but we do know that they gained a lot of their current technology from reverse engineering Centauri tech which would be far more technologically demanding than say just buying technology from the Centauri - which is how the EA gained access to jump technology!
Regards,
Dave
captainsmirk
Mongoose
Of course you could just explain the boresight as being two sets of weapons that due to the limits of their mountings can only both fire on the same target when it is directly ahead (the Omega's forward lasers match this quite well), thus getting half AD within forward arc because only half the guns can target a ship within either half of the arc.
The forward arc ships can target all their guns throughout the forward arc and thus can't gain double because all their guns are already firing ton the target (although the Primus in particular might not fit with this due the supposed placement of its battle lasers...).
Nick
The forward arc ships can target all their guns throughout the forward arc and thus can't gain double because all their guns are already firing ton the target (although the Primus in particular might not fit with this due the supposed placement of its battle lasers...).
Nick
Foxmeister
Mongoose
Da Boss said:
This is true! Where's Katadder?
However, half AD going from boresight to F-arc is nowhere near as powerful as double AD going from F-arc to boresight. As far as I can see, F-arc weapons are usually 1 or 2 AD max less than the "equivalent" level boresight weapon. An Omega, going from 6 AD boresight to 3 AD F-arc is nowhere near the level of say a WS Gunship going from 4 AD F-arc to 8 AD boresight!
Personally though, in the interest of fairness, I think something should give so perhaps a 50% range reduction would be as well as half AD would be a reasonable price to pay for a "free" (as in no CQ check) boresight to F-arc conversion. When you see a G'Quan fire on bore it is usually at quite long range and double beams, whereas when you see it fire off-bore it is a single beam at quite short range.
Regards,
Dave
captainsmirk
Mongoose
Foxmeister said:
No the book of G'Quan tells of how they fought off the Shadows using their telepaths, the fact that the Shadows selected their world as a base was because they had no advanced technology to draw the attention of the Vorlon's lackey's.
The fact that they knew about their telepaths only indicates they their telepaths were more developed than human ones who only seem to come to the fore just prior to first contact with the Centauri.
In fact the very nature of the book itself as a hand written text suggests that they lacked even any form of printing press...
Plus if they had space flight back during the previous shadow war they would in fact be more advanced than the Centauri...
Nick
nekomata fuyu
Mongoose
Regarding the "F arc should be able to fire double AD as boresight argument", that only works if 1AD of F arc beam is equivilent to 2AD of B arc beam using current balancing.
I've just halved the beam AD of a couple of boresight ships, and somehow they just don't look as scary as the equivilent ships which had F arc beams to start with. This suggests to me that 1AD of F beam could be equivilent to only 1.5AD of B beam.
I've just halved the beam AD of a couple of boresight ships, and somehow they just don't look as scary as the equivilent ships which had F arc beams to start with. This suggests to me that 1AD of F beam could be equivilent to only 1.5AD of B beam.
