Re: [Spaceships] Can Spinal Battery be bundles of smaller weapons?
 

That's right.

I wonder whether you could use the "Smaller Systems" rule to split a front and both cores into three each, and then combine a system from each of them into a "smaller" spinal battery?

Re: [Spaceships] Can Spinal Battery be bundles of smaller weapons?
 

They only occupy one core system:
The catch is that you can only have one central core system.

I'd allow doing this to split up that central core system, and thus be able to have three small spinal mounts. I don't see that it would ruin anything.

Re: [Spaceships] Can Spinal Battery be bundles of smaller weapons?
 

Why both core systems? Spinal Battery only use Central Core system slot, doesn't it?

Yes. It will use all 3 systems as Smaller ones.

Re: [Spaceships] Can Spinal Battery be bundles of smaller weapons?
 

My mistake. One front hull system, the central core system, and one rear system, each split into three and assembled into three Smaller spinal mounts.

That seems to get the job done, doesn't create a loophole that you can drive a gold-plated Rolls-Royce through, and looks kind-of legal.

Re: [Spaceships] Can Spinal Battery be bundles of smaller weapons?
 

What does this sentence mean?

Re: [Spaceships] Can Spinal Battery be bundles of smaller weapons?
 

It consists of three independent clauses.

• The first clause says that the approach that I described in the paragraph before seems to me to achieve what you wanted.
  
• The second clause is a metaphor that implies that the approach that I described in the paragraph before does not create a flaw that someone could exploit, or at least not one that would give a large and valuable advantage.
  
• The third clause says that the approach I described in the previous paragraph might not comply exactly with some detail of the wording of the rules, but that I think it is close enough, because it represents someone doing the sort of thing that they were meant to allow.

I'm sorry to have phrased that so obscurely.

Re: [Spaceships] Can Spinal Battery be bundles of smaller weapons?
 

Well, I read this again and again, managed to understand.
Then do you think installing bundles of small weapons in a Spinal Battery is possible while not violating the spirit of rules?

Re: [Spaceships] Can Spinal Battery be bundles of smaller weapons?
 

However, you have no more firepower than you would have using 3 Major Batteries in the front section.

It does allow you to use the Central Core section and a rear Section instead of 2 Front sections but it makes me wonder who's selling you those long skinny weapon systems that are otherwise identical to your standard Majoe Battery.

It's one of the core concepts of Spaceships that every increase in SM is a 3x (3.1x actually but we round for neatness) as large as the SM that went before. It's another core concept that spaceships is deeply agnostic about shape, volume and density and deals only in mass. That's what makes the fuel calculations work out as well as they do.

It complicates matters when you try and deal with one of those factors by itself. I'd need to hear a really good story about where you were getting those long skinny weapon systems.

Re: [Spaceships] Can Spinal Battery be bundles of smaller weapons?
 

Yes.

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Re: [Spaceships] Can Spinal Battery be bundles of smaller weapons?
 

Maybe you want a ship with five armour systems in the front and three major batteries in fixed mounts firing forwards.