Thing is, the Plasma Blaster requires two points of energy to arm; something I always wanted to honor, even with a new race. Problem with THAT is that it led to the energy costs for arming all its P-1 equivalents to be prohibitively expensive (think about it; if it had as many Plasma Blasters as a refitted Fed CA has Ph-1s, that'd be sixteen points of power; nearly half the ships generated energy). Well, long story short (too late
), my alleged mind eventually told me to think in terms of a new power (Section 'H') system; a Plasma Generator that is able to generate two points of energy per SSD box per turn, but this power can only be used for plasma systems. It felt good (at first) because of power systems like the Hiver JPRs and the Eneen HPRs. I say, "At first," because I saw it reducing the power costs for Plasma-S torpedoes to 1-1-2 and "Two Turn Effs" to 1-2. IMO, that's too cheap in terms of power for such potentially damaging systems.
I also thought of what a sublight WB could be with this replacing its APR bank.
Got me thinking of a potential shortcoming or three for this sort of system. Here's what I've come up with for that...
FIRST, the system has to be warmed up/energized/powered up. For this reason, if a ship with a PG starts a scenario at WS-0, the PG will be off-line. Same thing with if the ship is surprised. The PG is unable to do anything (aside from absorb damage) until it's energized. This requires one unit of energy (from any source) and, if this is done on turn 'X' then on turn 'X+1' the PG is able to generate one point of plasma energy, two points of plasma energy on turn 'X+2', and double every turn afterwards up to a maximum of one point of plasma energy for every box of the PG on the SSD, with each point of plasma energy counting as two points of normal energy for the purposes of arming plasma type systems and weapons.
If a ship is at WS-1, it can start with the ability to generate a maximum of one point of plasma energy per PG on the first turn, doubling every turn thereafter. If the ship is at WS-2, it's at 50% generation (round up) on the first turn and at 100% on the second and subsequent turns. If the ship is at WS-3, it starts at 100% generation capability.
Another weakness, and one to explain why the Romulans never came up with this system (or at least why they never utilized it) is that if a ship utilizing this system takes damage to it while under cloak, it's treated as a momentary exposure, similar to what FRAX submarines suffer from when they fire an overloaded Axion Torpedo under cloak.
In short, the Romulans were concerned enough about possible voidance of their Cloak (okay, Mask and Veil first) that they opted to NOT develop this technology.
Anyhow, like I said, it's something I came up with for a pretty oddball reason, but is it something that looks worthwhile to any of y'all?