AlexeiTimoshenko wrote:Needle beam pods wouldn't work as the weapon needs Xr to function. On the other hand, at a high enough TL something similar to the Apollo concept from Honor Harrington might be a solution. Essentially have one somewhat larger missile mount Xr and the others have needle beams.
Frankly, this highlights a problem that I have with both the Needle Beam and the Primary. It seems to me that both weapons possess the ability to do two things that synergize well. Penetrate and Precision.
Cutting to the chase, I see no reason why a Primary Beam couldn't mate up with Xr and take out individual systems with precision. OTOH, if Needle Beams have the penetrating ability to destroy individual systems deep within a ship (when mated to Xr), I see no reason that it wouldn't operate like a primary beam, when not working with Xr (except for its inability to penetrate shields). Would this make the two weapons very similar? Yeah, it would. But I really see no logical justification for saying that it shouldn't be so, other than an arbitrary game design one.
(And for that matter, I see no reason why there shouldn't be a penetrating and precision laser weapon either.)
But regarding this beam-armed drones thread, I'm not fond of the idea. However, ignoring that for a sec, I'd rather avoid the HH Apollo controlling drone thing, and just let needle armed drones function as I describe above, similar to primary beams in terms of penetration, though only AFTER the shields on the target were down. (If shields were not down, they'd just do a single dp against the shields per needle beam.)