Yes, lasers and mass drivers deviate from the otherwise consistent FF&S penetration rating system - and both are the source of many problems in their own ways requiring 'house rules'.
I have for the longest time used Rupert's excellent suggested 'fix' for the Mass Driver penetration issue. Perhaps Rupert will post it again for Don's benefit.
I think most of us found the TLx50 MJ 'fix' worked satisfactorily for lasers.
--- In , Rupert Boleyn <rboleyn@...> wrote:
>
> Donald McKinney wrote:
> > Now the limitations you mention -- fixes for those have been proposed somewhere, right? And I have NOT seen the laser limit you mention in the errata I've been reviewing.
> >
> >
>
> I'm fairly sure that was never official errata. However, without a power
> limit you get laser spinal mounts, and because laser penetration scale
> linearly with energy (in FF&S/TNE) while other beam weapons scale with
> the root of energy this makes them vastly superior to other options.
>
> BTW, something to consider when working on a ship design system - for a
> given percentage of mass devoted to armour, thickness scales with the
> cube root of volume. The discharge energy of a beam weapon of a given
> percentage of volume or mass will tend to scale linearly with the ship's
> volume (all else being equal). Therefore, if beam weapon penetration
> does not scale with the cube root of discharge energy you will have a
> regime where, depending on which scales faster, either big ships will be
> invulnerable to each other (and thus anything smaller), or where large
> ships cannot be effectively armoured. Not taking this into consideration
> can lead to unintended consequences.
>