Re: Arcane helm monopoly...

>Sean Reynolds mentioned something called a 'Bolaship'?  What supplement did
>that come out in?  WHo makes it?

I don't know what supplement it came from originally - it's in the
War Captain's Companion.  It's a Gnome Ship, and it is powered by
six rotating wires/ropes with weights on the front.  These ropes
or bola whips can be used to attack, using a whip to attack
another ship reduces the ship's SR by one (the ship's max SR is
six - one for each intact whip not being used to attack).  Small
ship, only 25 tons.

>My impression of the jettison was that is was an exclusively _rear_ firing
>device, it is always found in the rear.  I must have missed the line about
>it being catapulted.

It normally is a rear-firing weapon (I just checked the ships listings,
and of all the ships with jettisons, none of them that specified
the facing of the weapon had it any other way than rear).  I also checked
the listing in Concordance for jettisons, and I can see why the above
sort of info would be missed ... there's a paragraph about the
jettison, then stats for small, medium, and large jettisons, and then
_another_ section about the effects and uses.  Hmph.  I think they
tend not to be used much as you can use a catapult as a jettison if
you need to (but you can't do the reverse), a jettison has the same
THAC0's as a catapult, and can't do hull damage - it's basically
best for stopping pursuit, which is why it's usually rear-mounted.

>Have a Glasssteel, or glassee window
>to target the device and just take parallax into account when you fire.

Hey, and this just might be cheaper than paying for a turret,
if you have a high-level wizard nearby anyway (and while you
wouldn't get the swivel advantages of a turret, on a small ship
it doesn't make much difference).  It looks cooler, too.  :)

>Another question:
>Prior to combat, do you lock the helm room door?

I wouldn't - it attackers are getting close to your helmsman,
you might as well give the guy an extra second or two to get away,
and if he has to fiddle with a lock, the spell-less helmsman
is just going to have that much less of a chance to escape
(or run to the backup helm, or whatever).  This is, unless, the
helmsman is an arsenal even without his spells - if your helmsman
has a good wand or two (or the like), go ahead and lock the door -
have him waiting with his wand charged and anxious to attack.  :)

Sorry if I was cranky before.  I think I'm still angry for
waking at 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning for no reason whatsoerver
and not being able to get back to sleep.

- Sean, wondering why he seems to be the only person still on DIGEST
mode....
--
Sean K Reynolds   a.k.a. Veggie Boy  skreyn@??????.com  skreyn@???.com
"Later, alone, Belial will curl himself up undere the mountains and
remember Seraphiel, and archangel who fell by his side, who was one of
few Belial had considered a friend."