Federation Commander

Hi Folks,

So my Imperial Player in our Early Years campaign is on the cusp of his "Y" class designs, which include Ion Cannons. Yes, the ion cannons from Star Wars universe. My Imperial player would like to mimic the Ion cannon effect - ie, damage only temporarily knocks out power, not systems. Vudar Ion cannons do not have the effect he wants.

Is there any weapon system in the SFB games that has similar power-drain or disabling effect?

Carnivon Heel Nippers damage warp engines directly, so that is a possibility.

Another is to use Disruptors as the base and either rule that damage is always on the #1 line, or to have IC damage affect the available power and/or baseline speed.

Thoughts? ideas?

Thanks!

-Peter / refeco@yahoo.com

You could have him always target power systems which gives a 50% chance for line 1 of the damage table. Even an ion cannon shorting out power is probably going to destroy systems through short circuits and electrical fires anyway.

Since it's a temporary power loss, why not just reduce available power?

In other words, you take 3 damage from ion cannons, you lose 3 available power.

I'm willing to give the damage to available power a try, but My SFB friends had a cow when I mentioned attacking power.

Is there any "abuse" problem to worry about here?

We'?ve been playing over a hundred Early years battles, and I don't see a game system vulnerability, really. Especially if the energy cost for the weapon to damage is no more than 3:5 or so.

Your SFB pals are remember that "soft kill" weapons are on the "automatic reject" list for submissions. The concept was tested and found to ruin the game. Either a soft kill weapon is easier to do damage with (in which case the game unbalances and collapses) or just exactly as hard (in which case there is no point in a soft kill weapon, just use a real hard kill weapon).

Ah. Gotcha. Thanks Steve!