More discussion on this later*, but in general terms:

The simple method is for weapons to degrade uniformly. At each damage step (1/3 and 2/3 of the total), a die roll is made:

ROLL : RESULT
1 : None
2-4 : Apply a -1 firing penalty to all attacks
5-6 : Apply a -2 firing penalty to all attacks

The reasons for these penalties are not really important (i.e. are individual weapons lost? Is the rate of fire being reduced? Is energy bleeding out?); the effect is that the firepower of a ship's weapons is being reduced.

The more advanced method is to track damage to individual banks. At each damage step (1/3 and 2/3 of the total), roll one die per bank:

ROLL : RESULT
1 : Bank is destroyed
2-3 : Bank is damaged; apply a -2 penalty
4-6 : None

A second "damaged" result indicates the bank is destroyed.

The nice thing is, since the overall effect is identical (an average loss of 1/3 firepower at each damage step), each player can decide how to track damage for himself, and the game will still balance out.

*I'm planning on a few more "Designer's Notes" mini-articles, including one on movement, one on defenses, and one on how ships are damaged/destroyed.

I'm pretty excited for this.  It sounds to me that I can make a high damage weapons by making my attack dice hit on a 4+ and I'm sure that I can make them worse by making them only hit on 6+.  I'm also sure that there will be traits that allow me to do two points of damage per hit so that's all covered.

I wish that the movement system had 'more' options than the current system.  I understand the movement system,but new players that come from other space combat systems completely balk at it even if the two systems are akin. 

I reserve my judgment on the inititative system after I get more games with it under my belt, but now I have to wait for the new system and the ships before I send in my events for Klingon Armada for Origins 2012.

In the end, in Dan I trust (and Kevin too - I like Kevin),
-Bren

As mentioned above, it is possible to treat each individual weapon as a separate "bank" -- it's just that IMHO grouping all weapons with a given arc into one bank is much cleaner -- and cuts down on rounding error.

For example, let's say you have five forward half (FH, equivalent to SAE's "GHI" arc) laser turrets with 1.5 attack dice each. If you group them all into a single bank, your attack dice look like this:

LASER TURRETS : [FH] : 8 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 1 - 1

If you fire this bank with no attack modifier, you would roll 8 dice. On the other hand, if you set the weapons up as five individual banks, it would look like this:

LASER TURRETS : [FH5][FH5][FH5][FH5][FH5] : 8 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 1 - 1

With no attack modifier (aside from the -5 for the bank mods), you'd roll a total of 5 dice, not 8.

P.S. You are fiddly.

I'm curious what aspects of weapon design will create a weapon with distinct tactical uses.

For example, the range of a weapon will change how the ship it is mounted on plays.

On the other hand hitting twice for 1 damage is the same as hitting once for 2 damage.

Will there be weapons that excel vs targets with broken shields, or against armor, or at destroying systems, or blowing up fighters, or blowing up battleships, etc? How much of weapon design is fluff, and how much is meaningful?

Also, suppose a bank (either a powerful high ROF or many small weapons) with 10 attack dice and no damage modifier, and a bank with a big weapon having 1 attack die and a damage modifier of 5 (purely hypothetical). Both hit on 4+.
Suppose a target ship have three hulls with a value of 5 each.
In average, both weapons should generate the same amount of damage over time. But during their first fire, the first bank should inflict 5 damage and provoke a damage check. The second one will either hit (two damage check) either miss. Thus, if unlucky, the second weapon will do nothing whilst the first one will damage significantly the target and thus reduce its efficiency, ensuring a better survival.

Marc

Yes. Dual-mode weapons will continue to be supported -- in fact, they will be improved, in that the different modes will now be allowed different range values.

One thing i didn't like with dual-mode weapons was that you have to determine which mode you will have to use when you write the moves. But you could lose the effect if, for example, the mode you chose has a shorter range (AKA overloaded weapons from SFU with carronade). Worse, I usually forget to decide if I will overload my torpedoes...
Now, with easier moves, they can become more powerful...

Marc

Totally agreed. My problem was that I never remember to chose mode before moving. I remember that just before firing and that's too late...

Marc

I notice that on the weapon readouts the strongest arcs are the ones with the lowest numbers.

It seems like it'd be nice if the arc #s were counted from the right, so the higher numbers were the stronger weapons?

I don't know if this would actually work, but high = bad seems somewhat counter-intuitive.

Curse you beta testers. I am impatient!

It's pretty close:

-1 = 70%
-2 = 50%
-3 = 35%
-4 = 25%
-5 = 18%
-6 = 13%
etc.

First group (2-4-6) is the weapon's range bands.