d20 Future - Weapon Batteries... Underpowered?

PL 7 Upgraded Bulk Freighter vs. Strike Cruiser
Bulk freighter stats:
Defense: 7
Hardness: 30
Weapons and Attack:
Battery of 4 fusion beams +0 ranged (10d8/19-20)
Relevant Defensive Systems: Point-defense system

Strike cruiser stats:
Defense: 11
Hardness: 40
Weapons and Attack:
Battery of 4 antimatter guns +4 ranged (10d8/19-20) and
Battery of 3 plasma missiles -2 ranged (18d8/18-20)
Relevant Defense Systems: Light fortification, magnetic field, particle field, point-defense system.

Clearly, this battle is one-sided to the extreme. But extremes are good. Extremes let us see how the system breaks down at its furthest edges.

When attacking the strike cruiser, the bulk freighter hits on a roll of 15 or higher (because of the strike cruiser’s particle field). Let’s ignore the rolls of 19-20 for now as we’ll calculate their effect on expected damage later. Thus, a successful, non-threat hit has a 20% chance of occurring. A fusion beam deals an average of 45 damage (-40 for hardness), so that’s 5 damage on 20% of rounds, or 1 expected damage per round from rolls between 15 and 18 that may occur on that round.

Now let’s look at threats. On a threat, 70% of attack rolls will be normal (as they will miss the particle-field-adjusted AC of 15). The other 30% might be a critical hit, but let’s take into account the strike cruiser’s 25% chance to turn a critical hit into a regular hit via its light fortification. That means that 77.5% of threats (which threats are 10% of all attack rolls) will be regular hits ((45-40)*0.0775=0.3875), and 22.5% of threats (which threats are 10% of all attack rolls) will be critical hits ((90-40)*.0225=1.125). Adding these two expected damage values to our first gives us our total, below.

So, we can expect the bulk freighter to deal 2.5125 damage per round to the strike cruiser… hardly scratching the paint, and easily negated by the occasional damage control check.

Let’s try the same thing, but get RID of the batteries and just make them be individual weapons (hell, they’re cheaper that way anyway). This changes the ship’s partial statistics block as follows:
Weapons and Attack:
4 fusion beams -3 ranged (10d8)

Now that I’ve shown an example of where my numbers come from, I’m going to use a simpler and more concise format.

Bulk Freighter
Notes: Particle field decreases attack bonuses by 4 for energy weapons. Light fortification converts 25% of critical hits to regular hits.
Fusion beam (Qty: 4)
Roll 1-17: 0 damage
Roll 18-19 (10%): (45-40)*0.1=0.5 damage
Roll 20 (5%): 0.221875+0.28125=0.503125 damage
Subroll 1-17 (85% of 5% plus 25% of 15% of 5%=4.4375%): (45-40)*0.044375=0.221875 damage
Subroll 18-20 (75% of 15% of 5%=0.5625%): (90-40)*0.005625=0.28125 damage
Total Expected Damage: 4(0.5+0.503125)=4.0125 damage

Clearly, it doesn’t do much good either way for the poor bulk freighter, but this is after all a rather one-sided battle. When we get to the next fight example, we’ll see how a PL 6 bulk freighter’s heavy lasers mounted in a battery play out against a military-upgraded escort ship (the strongest of the ultralight craft vs. the weakest of the mediumweight… how appropriate). For now, let’s look at the other side of the coin.

Our poor bulk freighter is about to get shredded…

Strike Cruiser
Notes: Point-defense automatically negates 20% of missiles.
Antimatter gun (Qty: 1 battery of 4)
Roll 1-2: 0 damage
Roll 3-18 (80%): (45-30)*0.8=12 damage
Roll 19-20 (10%): 0.15+5.4=5.55
Subroll 1-2 (10% of 10%=1%): (45-30)*.01=0.15 damage
Subroll 3-20 (90% of 10%=9%): (90-30)*.09=5.4 damage
Total Expected Damage: 1(12+5.55)=17.55 damage

Plasma missile (Qty: 1 battery of 3)
Roll 1-8: 0 damage
Roll 9-17 (80% of 45%=36%): (81-30)*.36=18.36 damage
Roll 18-20 (15%): 2.448+9.504=11.952 damage
Subroll 1-8 (80% of 40% of 15%=4.8%): (81-30)*.048=2.448 damage
Subroll 9-20 (80% of 60% of 15%=7.2%): (162-30)*.072=9.504 damage
Total Expected Damage: 1(18.36+11.952)=30.312 damage

Total Overall Expected Damage: 17.55+30.312=47.862

Ouch! But could this warship be beating on this poor, lone, defenseless merchant vessel with even more ferocity if its weapons were not placed in batteries? Let’s find out.

Strike Cruiser
Notes: Point-defense automatically negates 20% of missiles. Attack roll for antimatter gun reduced to +1. Attack roll for plasma missile reduced to -4.
Antimatter gun (Qty: 4)
Roll 1-5: 0 damage
Roll 6-19 (70%): (45-30)*.7=10.5 damage
Roll 20 (5%): 0.1875+2.25=2.4375 damage
Subroll 1-5 (25% of 5%=1.25%): (45-30)*0.0125=0.1875 damage
Subroll 6-20 (75% of 5%=3.75%): (90-30)*0.0375=2.25 damage
Total Expected Damage: 4(10.5+2.4375)=51.75 damage

Plasma missile (Qty: 3)
Roll 1-10: 0 damage
Roll 11-18 (80% of 40%=32%): (81-30)*0.32=16.32 damage
Roll 19-20 (10%): 2.04+5.28=7.32 damage
Subroll 1-10 (80% of 50% of 10%=4%): (81-30)*0.04=2.04 damage
Subroll 11-20 (80% of 50% of 10%=4%): (162-30)*0.04=5.28 damage
Total Expected Damage: 3(16.32+7.32)=70.92 damage

Total Overall Expected Damage: 51.75+70.92=122.67

All I have to say about this is… HOLY SON OF A FREAKIN’ HALIBUT-FISHMONGER! Why would anyone EVER put weapons in batteries?!

Clearly, this is not analysis the d20 Future designers put forth the effort to produce. Next I'll compare a PL 6 bulk freighter (by the book except that the weapons will be in a battery instead of fire-linked) against an escort with military-level PL 6 technology.

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