[Spaceships] Pair of wing-mounted weapons

[wellspring]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Suppose you've got a ship with a pair of fixed, wing-mounted beam weapons that always fire together, as might appear in some older science-fiction films. How are those represented in Spaceships?

• A single major battery, with the understanding that the two weapons count as a single weapon in the system?
• Two major battery systems, with the understanding that a hit with one is a hit with both, but one can be disabled or destroyed while the other can still fire?
• A medium battery with two weapons plus cargo space?
• Something else?

Well, something else covers a lot of ground. As an avid player of X-wing and other cinematic space fighter games, it would often take some effort to get both beams to hit, especially if they were spaced far apart from one another on opposite wingtips. So if I did go with a single major battery to represent both beams, I'd use the Improved option to double their RoF. Sometimes you hit with one or the other, sometimes both, depending on pilot skill.

However, I think it would be better to follow the precedent of existing ship examples and have multiple weapons be represented by multiple weapon systems. That's got all kinds of advantages. How do you distinguish between a ship like an X-wing with a battery of small lasers and a strike craft like a B wing with one large cannon?

And if that cargo space bothers you, remember the Small Systems rule. That remaining third of a slot can be used for all kinds of other things.