ship weapon issues

[Anonymous]

Yes, I've got "issues." My problem is this: why do the stats for ships weapons not match up with the number of weapon emplacements that we can visibly see on the show? For instance, the Nova's weapon listings in the EF source book have it with a few twin-linked turrets plus a few single cannon (sorry to be vague, but my books aren't with me at the moment), when you can easily see that it's armament is made up of nothing but twin-cannon mounts. The Omega is listed with tons of different weapons, but if you look at the ship it only has (that I can see) a couple of linked forward cannon plus a bunch of smaller turrets (interceptors?). I understand that you would expect the Omega to be more heavily armed than a Nova, but who is to say that they didn't get rid of a bunch of less-powerful armaments and instead mount a couple very heavy cannon? Even smaller ships get this treatment. The game has the Aurora mounting 4 cannon (a heavy pair and a lighter pair) when the show, as far as I've seen, only ever shows them firing one pair of cannon. Why can't the game reflect the armaments you can see visibly mounted on the hulls of the ships? I can understand with something like the Sharlin, where there are no obvious weapon turrets to be seen, that dramatic license comes into play. But if you can see a certain number of guns sticking out, why not just reflect that in the stats? This trend may have started with the Technical Manual, which seems to do the same thing. I was wondering if perhaps some of this is also holdover from the B5Wars game? I don't own either product, so can't say for sure. Please enlighten me.
lum

 

[ShadowScout]

My problem is this: why do the stats for ships weapons not match up with the number of weapon emplacements that we can visibly see on the show?

Good Q. In those instances where this is the case, it also bugs me very much!

For instance, the Nova's weapon listings in the EF source book have it with a few twin-linked turrets plus a few single cannon

"Four Twin-Linked LPA's and ten LPA's" - and of course the usual intercpetor suite.
That's quite OK - every "Twin-barrel turret" seen on the CGI mesh is a LPA, the guys at Mongoose just choose to group the eight turrets mounted front and rear into four "twin-linked" (pairs of twin-barrel turrets) LPA weapon systems. The rules still match the appereance, if not in a way that I would have suggested (I prefer to have every turret available to fire on it's own - more flexibility in the game, even if you have to think a bit more...)

The Omega is listed with tons of different weapons, but if you look at the ship it only has (that I can see) a couple of linked forward cannon plus a bunch of smaller turrets (interceptors?)

Actually there they were prety good - the Omega has:
- Two big turrets on the sides of it's "hammerhead", we know from the show that these turrets can fire both red lasers and yellow pulses, so that led to the Laser and Pulse cannons "sharing" these turrets. Some omegas in the show were never seen firing lasers, which -together with the observation below- led to the "beta" version with pulse cannons only.
- Two or four rear-firing cannons near the main thrusters - made into two barrels firing lasers as seen on the Alexander, and inspired the Omega-beta in the "four barrels firing yellow pulses" version seen on the Heracles IIRC (I think it was the Heracles in "No Surrender, no Retreat").
- Twelve small turrets along the sides of it's main hull, these are Particle beams in any incarnation.
The Omega also has Interceptors, but you can't see those - an "interceptor" in game terms corresponds to multiple very small quad-gun mounts that pop up from hatches in the hull like on B5 and try to shoot down incoming fighters and attacks.

The game has the Aurora mounting 4 cannon (a heavy pair and a lighter pair) when the show, as far as I've seen, only ever shows them firing one pair of cannon.

That probably came from the people at Babylonian Productions - they had a drawing of the the Aurora CGI with four cannons - two below the cockpit that we're seeing firing in the show, and two more "backup cannons" left and right of the pilot.

can understand with something like the Sharlin, where there are no obvious weapon turrets to be seen, that dramatic license comes into play.

Actually I can't understand it here - after all, the Sharlin may have no turrets, may need no turrets with the way Minbari tech seems advanced enough to generate "energy lenses" that allow their green beams to fire in almost any direction from their "gunbarrels" (as seem numerous times in the show), but the gunbarrels ARE quite visible in the show - easy to count, even though people could argue what kind of gun this or that barrel really is...

But there are a few ships where the people at Mongoose hall simply took the stats AoG made for their B5Wars game without checking if they made sense... like the Hyperion... see my post here.

 

[Anonymous]

ShadowScout,
Your post explaining the weapons on the Hyperion was extremely helpful! Until you pointed them out, I wasn't even seeing several of the mounts. I could live with seeing a listing like that for many of the other major ships of B5. The one thing that I haven't been able to find on the web is a site that just lists what you can see (or have seen used in the show) without alot of speculative stuff thrown in. Maybe you ought to make one Shadow Scout. Anyway, here's a few things I'd like to know:

1. The Sharlin. Where are they getting the 18 fusion cannon? In the two seasons I have (3+4) I've never seen it fire anything except single green beams. I could live with the 4 Neutron Lasers that Mongoose gives it, but I don't think anything else should be there.

2. G'Quan, Vorchan, Sunhawk, Vree ships...
My problem here is that all these ships have some "extras" thrown in besides their main weapon. In the two seasons I have, all of these ships besides the Vorchan (doesn't appear) are shown firing a single type of weapon. Where are they getting all the others? My guess is that the B5Wars game added more weapons because a wargame where each ship only had one weapon would be a little boring. Mongoose must have followed their example. But I would rather have the ships be accurate to the show for RPG purposes. The Sunhawk may be debatable, as it has several visible turret-looking things, but in the show it always fires a yellow beam. Thoughts?

lum

 

[Traveller-61]

Perhaps I can jump in here with a little useful (?) information on the ships:-

The Sharlin
In Season 1 (and "In The Beginning") you get to see those fusion cannons in action ripping through EF fighters at the Battle of the Line. Lots of green beam shots seeming to come from all over the ships.

Also in another S1 episode ("War Prayer"?) a Sharlin is scanned by B5 and the readout lists 12 fusion cannons.

The G'Quan
In S2 we saw the energy mines in "The Long Twilight Struggle", and the main lasers (which seem to be able to fire a lot more than the BS arc!!) and a rapid fire weapon suite were in action in "Now For A Word".

The Vorchan
Eeek! This one is a pain! :shock:
Season 1 - rapid fire pulse weapon from the nose "Crysalis" against fighters; and shown in S2 as well, attacking a G'Quan.
"In The Beginning" - bigger version of the same weapon, takes out a G'Quan in one burst! It then goes on to bombard a planet with something that fires from the wings.
S5 - (Cannont remember the episode name) Double barreled pulse weapons firing to knock our a Drazi missile swarm. The Vorchan then launches at least 5 spherical missiles of its own.
Then later in the series a flight of Vorchans cripple a Whitestar in hyperspace using the same pulse weapons.

Not sure about the Vree, I think the only time we saw it fire was in S4, "In To The Fire" (lots of blue bolts from underneath shredding Shadow fighters) and you need to ask a Drazi expert about the Sunhawk!

DW


Hope this helps!

 

[frobisher]

The Sharlin
Also in another S1 episode ("War Prayer"?) a Sharlin is scanned by B5 and the readout lists 12 fusion cannons.

This same diagram gave a size that couldn't be supported by later on screen evidence though - I belive Babylonian just said "ignore it".

The G'Quan
In S2 we saw the energy mines in "The Long Twilight Struggle", and the main lasers (which seem to be able to fire a lot more than the BS arc!!) and a rapid fire weapon suite were in action in "Now For A Word".

The arcs are about spot on for the 120 degrees forward arcs that AoG gave them... The "problem" is the d20 translation of the B5W stats here.

The Vorchan
Eeek! This one is a pain! :shock:
Season 1 - rapid fire pulse weapon from the nose "Crysalis" against fighters; and shown in S2 as well, attacking a G'Quan.
"In The Beginning" - bigger version of the same weapon, takes out a G'Quan in one burst! It then goes on to bombard a planet with something that fires from the wings.

The latter example was a lucky critical (AoG actually tweaked the rules for 2nd Edition B5W to allow that kind of thing to happen). Things from the wing... dunno

S5 - (Cannont remember the episode name) Double barreled pulse weapons firing to knock our a Drazi missile swarm. The Vorchan then launches at least 5 spherical missiles of its own.
Then later in the series a flight of Vorchans cripple a Whitestar in hyperspace using the same pulse weapons.

Now those were Demos(es) not Vorchans. Basically a much more heavily armed version of the same hull. Ballistic torpedo launcher and heavy arrays rather than twin arrays.

Not sure about the Vree, I think the only time we saw it fire was in S4, "In To The Fire" (lots of blue bolts from underneath shredding Shadow fighters) and you need to ask a Drazi expert about the Sunhawk!

It's Vorlon fighters we see then shred in "Into the Fire", we previously saw it shred the Shadow fighters in "Shadow Dancing" in S3.

 

[frobisher]

2. G'Quan, Vorchan, Sunhawk, Vree ships...
My problem here is that all these ships have some "extras" thrown in besides their main weapon. In the two seasons I have, all of these ships besides the Vorchan (doesn't appear) are shown firing a single type of weapon.

Erm, the Sunhawk is never seen firing during the show. Ever. The Drazi ship we do see a whole lot of during the series is the Warbird (it has a cowled engine but mostly looks the same). Now clearly, the gun mounts on the Warbird which all seem to fire beams of the same colour are of different sizes which wouldn't make them a single weapon type, which is fine given they are all given as particle weapons.

The Sunhawk, which appears only once (in "Deathwalker") by your criteria would be weaponless - it does not fire.

The Vree ships are actually armed with a number of mounts to match the CG models, we just don't see those fire on screen, the beauty shot concentrating on the Xill's Anti Matter Shredder (which is cool!). The Xorr which we only see in "Deathwalker" doesn't fire a thing so see above...

The G'Quan demonstrates three distinct weapon systems over season 2 alone.

Energy mines (used only once vs Shadows), Pulse cannons and Lasers (used against the Centauri in "And Now For A Word..."). The only thing that doesn't encompass is the Twin Arrays and that's only a minor stretch...

Where are they getting all the others? My guess is that the B5Wars game added more weapons because a wargame where each ship only had one weapon would be a little boring.

AoG did actually match up the CG weapon mounts that weren't used in the show with some secondary weapons. It only seemed to be the EA where things went a little astray. And the Primus... but then it's Battle Lasers are the result of Babylonian's insistence that, that was what they were (depsite the fact they are never fired in the series for some reason...)

Mongoose must have followed their example. But I would rather have the ships be accurate to the show for RPG purposes.

But they are by and large accurate to the show, and due to the way the B5 licences were handed out they are also cannonical

If you limit things to only what is demonstrated to have fired in the series you're into a world of pain... B4 is unarmed (depsite the fact it is said to be the most heavily armed of the Babylon stations), the Warlock is armed only with missiles, the Xorr is unarmed, as is the Sunhawk, Ipsha etc...
[/quote]

 

[Silk]

On the subject on the Sharlin not having turrets and being able to fire from anywhere, I would like to throw this in.

"In the begining" the Sharlin approached with "Gun ports open as a sign of respect", therefore I would assume there are at least a limited number of projection gun ports on any given Minbari vessel, and that these ports probably have fixed positions and should be visible (to scanners??).

To be fair to the guys at mongoose this must be a difficult thing to judge correctly from the films and series, JMS's policy seemed to be that ships had as much firepower as the plot required. :wink:

 

[MongooseMatt]

To be fair to the guys at mongoose this must be a difficult thing to judge correctly from the films and series, JMS's policy seemed to be that ships had as much firepower as the plot required. :wink:

You have no idea

At some point, we will collate all the ship info we have accumulated, have a chat with JMS, and produce a 'definitive' B5 tech guide - maybe in time for a second edition RPG (so it is quite a ways off). For now, we are just trying to get as close to all source material as possible, without tripping up on too many contradictions - and in this, B5 Wars has proved both a blessing and a curse!

 

[ShadowScout]

OK, back from a little compi-tech induced absence...

1. The Sharlin. Where are they getting the 18 fusion cannon? In the two seasons I have (3+4) I've never seen it fire anything except single green beams. I could live with the 4 Neutron Lasers that Mongoose gives it, but I don't think anything else should be there.

Oh, as others pointed out, the FC's are there. Short green beams from the "small barrels" in the side-mounted, teardrop-shaped fins and in the bottom wings killing fighters left and right in the show. Stands to reason that every gun-barrelly thingie of the same size on the sharlin is a FC too - you easily get a lot when you do that math (a good show-CGI derived picture for barrel-counters can be found in the otherwise quite questionable "B5 Security Manual", p.97)
The NL's are the sustained green beams that usually come from the nose-mounted "big barrels" (and since the two big barrels on the bottom fins and the two biggest rear pointing barrels are the same size, it's logical that they too fire the sustained green NL beam, even if I can't recall ever seeing them firing)

2. G'Quan, Vorchan, Sunhawk, Vree ships...
My problem here is that all these ships have some "extras" thrown in besides their main weapon. In the two seasons I have, all of these ships besides the Vorchan (doesn't appear) are shown firing a single type of weapon. Where are they getting all the others? My guess is that the B5Wars game added more weapons because a wargame where each ship only had one weapon would be a little boring. Mongoose must have followed their example. But I would rather have the ships be accurate to the show for RPG purposes. The Sunhawk may be debatable, as it has several visible turret-looking things, but in the show it always fires a yellow beam. Thoughts?

G'Quan:
Seen in S-2:
- Red lasers from the nose ("And now for a word...", "the long, twilight Struggle") - The Heavy Laser Cannons in the game(s)
- White "Energy Mines" from the nose ("the long, twilight Struggle")- same in the game(s)
- Red pulses from the main ship body ("And now for a word...") - the Twin Arrays and Light Pulse Cannons in the game(s)

Vorchan:
Seen in S-1 and S-2:
- Orange tear-shaped pulses fired from the nose, usually in groups of three or four, usable against big ships and fighters. ("In the Beginning", "The Coming of Shadows", "Acts of Sacrifice") In ItB these were enough to kill a G'Quan (though I'm assuming that because the G'Quan was immobile and didn't have it's defenses up, the Centauri were able to use pin-point targeting to hit something Really vital like the reactor, something that couldn't happen in a normal battle where your opponent is moving and using his electronics to fog your targeting sensors) - Plasma Accelerator in the game(s).
Seen in S-5:
- Yellow "energy bolt"-shaped pulses fired from the top/bottom twin-barrel turrets, nasty against fighters and big ships. Can also intercept enemy missiles. ("And All my Dreams, Torn Asunder", "Movements of Fire and Shadow") - Twin Particle Array (or Heavy Array on the Demos) in the game(s).
- "seeker mines" launched (or more fitting "released" as they accelerated by themselves) from a hatch on the bottom side of the nose. ("And All my Dreams, Torn Asunder") - Ballistic Torpedo (on the Demos) in B5W.
Seen in ItB:
- Missile-like projectiles launched from the wings. ("In the Beginning") - Not recognized by any game... yet.

Sunhawk:
Seen in S-3 and S-4:
- Yellow beam from the nose ("Shadow Dancing") - Particle Cutter in the game(s)
Seen in S-5:
- Externally mounted Missiles, seemingly good for one volley only ("And All my Dreams, Torn Asunder") - not recognized for most sunhawks, only one AoG variant replaces it's wing guns with missile launchers.
- Yellow pulses from the wings ("And All my Dreams, Torn Asunder") - Particle Blasters in the game(s).
Seen on the show CGI mesh:
- Three small gun barrels left, right and below the nose - Standard Particle Beams in the game(s).

Vree Xorr Saucer:
Seen in S-1:
- Three big twin-barrel weapons, two above and one below in obvious 360° turret mounts ("Deathwalker") - Antimatter Cannons.
- Twelve small gun barrels built into the top hull in "clock"-positions ("Deathwalker") - Antiproton Guns (obviously several of these barrels were grouped together in one game-mechanics system, as was done with the EA Interceptors according to AoG)

Vree Xill Saucer:
Seen in S-3 and S-4:
- Big, Bad "Rain of green energy bolts" weapon firing "downward" from the bottom saucer half. ("Shadow Dancing", "Into the Fire") - Antimatter Shredder.
And it would be logical to assume, as the game designers must have done, that the ship would also have a ring of smaller defensive guns like the Xorr, only better camoflaged...

See how the game stats came to be? As outlined, most are pretty accurate; especially when there's no show scenes to generate conflicting data as happens with the Hyperion.

Erm, the Sunhawk is never seen firing during the show. Ever. The Drazi ship we do see a whole lot of during the series is the Warbird (it has a cowled engine but mostly looks the same). Now clearly, the gun mounts on the Warbird which all seem to fire beams of the same colour are of different sizes which wouldn't make them a single weapon type, which is fine given they are all given as particle weapons.

Have you ever compared the weapons suites to the show evidence? See above... the AoG "Sunhawk" has the P-Cutter and P-Blaster, yet the "cowled-engine Drazi Hull" that is seen firing in the show, shoots a yellow beam from the nose and pulses from the wing guns, while the AoG Warbird has a P-Repeater in the nose (that would be seen firing pulses if it would fire) and P-Cannons (that would fire raking beams) in the wings.
Clearly something here doesn't match...
Personally for my own games I assume that both hulls are "Sunhawks", and both have the P-Cutter/P-Blaster weapons suite (beam from the nose and pulses from the wings), just that older model sunhawks have an uncovered engine, a design flaw that has been corrected with add-on engine plating after loosing too many of them to enemy lucky shots that detonated their engine - and that your honor is why all Darzi "Sunhawk type hulls" we see after S-1 have the engine cowling. Hmmm... maybe some day this explenation will find it's way into some official product too... I'd be happy to donate it to the "fix B5 confusion fond" :wink: :lol:

And the Primus... but then it's Battle Lasers are the result of Babylonian's insistence that, that was what they were (depsite the fact they are never fired in the series for some reason...)

Yup. And the guys at Babylonian Productions also had the CGI to prove it - thier Primus mesh did have two barrels in it's "wings" that were never seen firing in the show... actually AoG hadled that very well, while I still dislike the fact that in the Mongoose game the BL's are among the weakest of the "big laser guns", when we all always hear how the centauri are older then all the "newcomer races" like the EA or most of the League... doesn't feel like it with that kind of tech...

If you limit things to only what is demonstrated to have fired in the series you're into a world of pain... B4 is unarmed (depsite the fact it is said to be the most heavily armed of the Babylon stations), the Warlock is armed only with missiles, the Xorr is unarmed, as is the Sunhawk, Ipsha etc...

Well written.
A Successful way to do it is first looking at the show, then noting down every piece of data you get for the ship you're working on (and that means both what it is seen firing, and what on it looks like a weapon even if it never fires in the show), then go through all comparable ships to get a "feel" how much hardware fits into a hull of that class, and then think logically and extrapolate what's missing in your game incarnation. Then check it with other designers and game testers, in case you got caught in a personal "Übership" wet-dream (like Tim Earls with his "Official Warlock weapon list", and many B5W "homebrew" ships floating around on the net - some are Really bad, packing a small fleets firepower in an ludicrously small hull...)

On the subject on the Sharlin not having turrets and being able to fire from anywhere, I would like to throw this in.

Well, no need to throw anything in. We can see the Sharlin has gun barrels, and we can see that it can fire it's beams at extreme angles from those barrels. I guess that means they have a high enough tech to generate some kind of "energy lens system" at the tip of their gun barrel that allows them to re-direct the beam from "straight ahead" to whjerever they want it to go, without having to move the whole barrel (as is done in a turret arrangement). Workable for pure energy weapons I suppose... The lower tech races, or those who prefer guns that shoot more or less material projectiles (from railgun rounds to plasma bolts - these are still matter, if very hot and very fast travelling matter) will still have to use turrets...

You have no idea

I can imagine, and offer my sympathies!

At some point, we will collate all the ship info we have accumulated, have a chat with JMS, and produce a 'definitive' B5 tech guide - maybe in time for a second edition RPG (so it is quite a ways off). For now, we are just trying to get as close to all source material as possible, without tripping up on too many contradictions - and in this, B5 Wars has proved both a blessing and a curse!

Well, I really do hope that one day you will get to make a second edition, and use that to officially change the BG to excise all these errors and inconsistencies. I for one will keep posting things that annoy me, and ideas how they could be fixed (see Sunhawk/Warbird explenation above), and hope that if you do get to that point, you'll remember and incorporate them!