[doulos05]

Originally Posted by doulos05

Ok, guys. I'm of two minds about this so I want to put it to a crew vote. We have two options for armament, a single TL9 Pulse Laser or a single Missile Launcher w/ 5 missiles.

I didn't see any responses on this, so I assume that the general plan is just to avoid space combat. That said, I like to be prepared. I've looked at both of these and, especially considering that our Pilot has Gunner(Beams), I think we should go with the TL9 Pulse laser.

Additionally, the Ship's Locker will be reposted below, broken up by category so that we can ensure I've not missed any categories. Additionally, I've left the Pros and Cons intact below just in case you guys disagree but didn't get a chance to comment on it. We can still change it.

Here are the pros I see for the Missile launcher:
Longer range: With 8.0 Gs of sAccel, we can reach out an touch a target up to 24 hexes (240,000 miles) away. That's farther than we can effectively can (and we'd be shooting at a -8 just due to range, but still). Pulse lasers TL/9 only go to 3 hexes, and they only do full damage a 1 hex.
More damage: Missiles that hit do 12d(10)burning damage, which is more than enough to disable another Hero-class (average damage puts a Hero at -11 dHP).
Slightly easier to hit: As I'm reading the rules, assuming we have Gunner(Missiles)-12, we need a 15 to hit another Hero at max range. It goes up by 1 for every 3 hexes closer it is.
No power demands: Kind of self-explanatory. We only have 8 MW of power to play with. A TL10 Pulse laser uses 10. So we'd have to switch off the sensors to fire the laser (or switch off an engine). A TL9 Pulse Laser only uses 2.5 MW of power, so we could install up to 3 of those before we ran out of power.

Pros of the Pulse Laser:
No Ammo: Missiles are $30,000 a pop. They'll probably end the fight, but at present we could only afford 5. A full load would be 12 per launcher. Meaning assuming we don't get in a fight before we load up to the gills, we need $210,000 to spend on ammo alone. Once the ammo runs out, reloading can only be accomplished out of combat.
Cheaper: We could put another $400,000 in our pockets if we took a Pulse laser ($250,000 for the price difference between the weapon systems + $150,000 for the 5 missiles we have). That allows us to buy some more nice kit for the ship or puts us just $100,000 away from another pulse laser (or just $380,000 away from a missile launcher w/ 1 missile as an emergency backup).
No point defense: Ok, here's the biggie for me. A Pulse laser allows us to take point defense rolls in case the enemy shoots a missile at us. I just showed that an average hit from a missile puts us into disable territory. As it is, we can knock two missiles out of the sky per turn, at the cost of 1 sandcaster canister per missile. Pulse lasers can knock as many out of the sky as they can hit and cost no ammo.

So, what's your vote?
Missile Launcher w/ 5 missiles ($900,000, $30,000 per reload, and 12d(10) @ +(8.0 - their sAccel)/2 Accuracy)
TL9 Pulse Laser ($500,000, 2.5 MW of power, and 3d(5) @ +0 Accuracy)
TL10 Pulse Laser ($500,000, 10 MW of power, and 4d(5) @ +2 Accuracy)

A TL/9 Beam Laser could be had too if we dropped a Sandcaster ($1,000,000, 5 MW of power, and 6d(5) @ +0 Accuracy), but that seems really risky to me, having only 1 sandcaster means we can only protect ourselves against 1 missile OR 1 ship per turn. Granted, we'd only be $100,000 away from buying the second sandcaster, but still...