• Registered: 2010-03-09
  • Posts: 630

Topic: [SFU] Mauler?

I don't know if this already has been talked about so...
How would you simulate the mauler as being seen in SFU ships?

IIRC, it's a very big weapon, firing battery power over a narrow arc. So I would give the following stats:
RNG 15 ROF 1 ACC 3+ IMP 3 DMG 1 - Slow-firing, Fire-linked; the fire arc is G

As the ships takes time to replenish the batteries with power, hence the slow-firing. The fire-linked is there because, as the weapons is, AFAIK undestructible in itself, its firepower is reduced everytime battery boxes are destroyed. To simulate that in Starmada, I use many weapons to represent it and avoid adding a rule saying that the weapon should fire at only one target (although a FL weapon could fire at more than one target... :roll: ). Currently, I don't know how many, but 4 to 6 seems OK, especially as the ship will be voided of almost all other weapons.

Any comments/ideas/hints?

Marc

  • Registered: 2013-04-25
  • Posts: 5

Re: [SFU] Mauler?

Reviving a kind of dead thread here...but here are my thoughts.

The SFU mauler cannon is actually kind of a short ranged weapon with a maximum range of 10. The Mauler player has to get in close; there is no possibility of bombarding at range. For Starmada, I would give it range 9 or 12, I think. A shorter range would also somewhat offset the advantage of the forward focused [G] arc, making the weapon more balanced in a fleet of ships.

I would give it IMP=1, and Damage=1, with either Range Based Impact or Range Based Damage. In SFU, the (damage / input power) ratio varies with the range. At close range it's 2x, at medium it's 1x, and at long range it's 1/2. So one of the Range Based traits should apply. If using Firelinked, I'd prefer Range Based Impact to give a better chance of penetrating shields. Although, the shield strengths in SF Starmada are rather weak anyway so Range Based Damage would work fine too...

I think Firelinked is fine. In SFU, the Mauler can fire more than once per turn. It can fire as many times in a turn as it has groups of Power Batteries. Some Maulers even have more than one Mauler Cannon allowing the ship to fire at more than one target simultaneously. Given that in Starmada all weapons fire that occurs over a turn is resolved at once, I feel that the Firelinked trait isn't really necessary. Although, it certainly doesn't hurt anything either.

Another consideration is that in SFU, the Mauler is a guaranteed hit (unless using Electronic Warfare rules). One could drop the Firelinked trait and give it the No Range Modifiers trait with ACC=2+ to represent the terrific accuracy of the Mauler.

The Mauler ship would have as many Mauler weapons as needed to make the CRAT work out.
So, I think the Mauler could look like this:
MAULER CANNON: RNG 9 / ACC 2+ / IMP 1 / DMG 1
(No Range Mods, Slowfiring, Range Based Impact) 
[G] [G] [G] [G] ...