Many Centauri Commanders have believed that the nose of the
Primus was a major weakness of the design. Early in the testing
of the Primus, several solutions were attempted, and the SIDEWINDER
is by far the most talked about in Centauri Fleet Circles. The
structures of the forward, port and starboard sides were fused via
the addition of beams and joists through some secondary passages in
the forward portions of he ship. What was expected was a heavilly
reinforced ship with the side effect of some longer walking distances
caused by the loss of a few passages. What resulted was a stronger
forward end and a very odd side effect. The structure no longer
"gave" as much as it had before, resulting in a cascading effect
of damage from one side of the ship to the other. Only four of these
ships were constructed before the contract to have them built was
pulled (with no official declaration of why). The feelings about
the combat worthiness were debated for years afterwards and the crews
of those ships remained extremely loyal to the design.
Cascade Damage
A side effect of the Sidewinder design. Cascade Damage represents the
tendency for damage to be transferred from one section to another by
shockwaves or other forms of stress to a hull. This is usually the result
of a poor design or some unseen side effects of a modification. Cascade
Damage is rated first by ratio, and then listed by the affected sides.
The fraction represents the total amount of damage transferred during one hit
from one structure block to the other (after armour). In the case of the
Sidewinder the fraction is 1/5. In example, if the Sidewinder was hit by a
Drazi Particle Blaster on it's port side, doing 23 standard damage to structure,
this would leave 18 damage after armour. 1/5 or 20% of 18 is equal to 3.6,
which would be rounded down to 3. So in this case the port structure would
take 15 damage, whereas the other side would take 3. The Cascade damage to the
opposing section ignores armour.
Designer's Note:
The player should take note that the forward twin arrays and thrusters are still
only valid targets when being hit from the foreward arc. Conversely, the side
systems can only be hit from the side. The foreward weapons will still be destroyed
in the event that the side structure block to which they are attached is destroyed.
