Spinal Mount Damage Against Black Globes

[branford]

I am somewhat confused as to how to calculate capital ship scale damage by spinal weapons when a ship is protected by a flickering black globe. It is clear that as per HG, p. 52, if a ship is struck by a spinal weapon when a globe is fully active, the screen absorbs the spinal damage multiplied by 10. When flickering, the globe acts as armor and the damage absorbed is adjusted per the barrage damage table on HG, p.76. However, to hit, armor and damage formulae are calculated differently for spinal weapons, without resort to the barrage damage table.

Would the "armor" provided by a flickering globe simply act as additional points of armor against a particle beam spinal mount (where such screen "armor" is hit first and the damage absorbed by capacitors before adjustments for the ship's normal armor)? If so, would residual damage still result when a screen absorbs all the damage from a particle spinal hit?

For meson weapons, would the flickering screen now provide "armor" as per the particle mount? Also, would a concurrently active meson screen have priority or any other effect?

Lastly, on a related note, is there any way under the HG rules to mitigate the residual damage from a particle mount strike? If not, it would appear that a particle mount, despite its lower TL, might have a distinct strategic advantage against lesser armored capital ships protected by strong meson screens.

Any help or comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Per page 50, in the last paragraph describing BG flicker, it says each 105 is worth 2 points of armor. I would go with your suggestion that these would be the first 2 points encountered (and would absorb the equivalent damage). Don't forget that the 2 points of armor is for inbound and OUTBOUND fire.

Reread the section on page 52 about how Capital ship barrages are affected by BG flicker, it seems to make sense to me (but I have not actually fought a combat with it).

Spinal weapons still inflict damage and those values should be used for determining how much is absorbed and how much gets through.