[PvK]

Originally posted by jimbob:
PvK, you have a lot of very good points there, but I tend to agree with the Baron on this one. Once you get into battles with more than 5 ships, a targeted ship tends to go Foof! before it ever gets a chance to retreat. If it does survive the round, it will not retreat because it will certainly not have a single engine left. This said, the build up of repair (two turns tops) will at least allow some lucky first round survivors to repair enough to retreat, and perhaps even repair enough to get off one Last shot.
[/QB]

Well it does depend on your enemy's battle tactics. If they are concentrating fire to finish off crippled ships, there are some disadvantages to that, compared to other firing priorities. I have watched many large-scale battles and yes, many ships get caught and destroyed in one turn. Nonetheless, organic armor takes a lot of damage, and often ships are pounded and do get to back away and are not hit again for a turn or more.

I actually haven't run into many enemies using Engine-Damaging weapons, but I'm also not convinced that ships using OA can't just as easily have shields and/or supply storage on them as standard ships.

It seems to me that OA would still be useful even without regenerating ability, mainly because it is relatively strong, immune to shield damaging weapons, and costs very little.

With the new rules, I think I'd only put on organic armor because it isn't made of minerals, which would increase build time (as you've pointed out). Hardly worth picking the Organic trait for this, I'd rather go with Hardy Industrialists.

Build time and maintenance cost, because OA is so cheap. Choosing it is a matter of style, and I don't usually go organic, but the times that I have, have all been quite successful.

As for pre-healing, it's extremely powerful, limited only by the concentrated fire of large fleet battles, and makes zero sense.

PvK