Federation Commander

Looks liek one for the CRUD.

Sounds more than reasonable, and thanks for working on updating this rule. I may not always agree on the way a rule change goes, but I sure do think Mike and Steve do a awsome job working with us when some thing is brought up.
Thank you guys,


Daniel

If you take a standard Fed CA (with only 4 batteries) to start with 4 preloaded photons you only loose the 4 points from batteries starting on turn 1. Looks to me like a translation of 1 battery to 1 photon. The ratio should hold the same for bases. Unless I've been doing it wrong all this time and only 2 photons should have been considered pre-loaded?

DArc_Tangent wrote:If you take a standard Fed CA (with only 4 batteries) to start with 4 preloaded photons you only loose the 4 points from batteries starting on turn 1. Looks to me like a translation of 1 battery to 1 photon. The ratio should hold the same for bases. Unless I've been doing it wrong all this time and only 2 photons should have been considered pre-loaded?

If you look at other ships you will find a different ratio. There never was a set ratio, it was simply an easy trade off, all batteries for all heavy preloads. Also remember, this probably affects any other such weapon - hellbores etc.

The issue really only applies to bases who would be paying huge battery overcosts for the preloads they get.

The "ratio" is two points of power per photon (or ion cannon), or three points of power per hellbore (or four points of power per PPD). That is the ratio.

For most ships "all batteries empty" gives you a better deal than the above "ratio". This means you are getting a few points of power for "free". (The best photon deals are the DD and NCL which get all four preloads for the cost of only two batteries.)

What this represents is NOT preloading the photons with batteries, but rather grabbing whatever power was available to preload the photons on "turn zero". A logical result of this is that batteries are not able to have power, since everything was thrown into getting the photons started. It isn't the same for every ship, but the general rule keeps everything simple.

The concern is when there are MORE batteries than double the number of photons. So, if you have 10 batteries and four photons (8 points to preload), it seems odd that you would be required to more than was required to preload the photons. So, instead, a cap of sorts has been added to prevent the battery cost from exceeding the actual cost of arming the photons.

In such cases, it is not going to be as good of a deal as the NCL or even the CA. However, it does keep it from being a bad deal.

Incidentally, this "cap" applies to any unit or ship, not just bases. There are a handful of ships where it will apply.

Ratio smatio.

It's in Comm 37.

You use all batteries, unless that would be too much power, then you just use the power (eight points for four photons). This is really going to apply to just a few bases and a couple of massive ships.

Like Mike says, don't forget to put it in the CRUL as well.....

Maybe after we get the company moved to the new building.