UWW TW Ships

[dragonfett]

Is there anything preventing TW's from adding Impervious to Energy to ships? Would there be a size limitation if it could be added (such as ships larger than cruisers are too big)?

[drewkitty ~..~]

Keeping in mind that the spells in the books were written to effect a human sized target (mostly).

There is nothing from a TW from making a magic item to make a ship sized Imp-vs-E effect sized to the ship.
(Note: I am saying that the item should have a tonnage limit over which it will not work for. )

However, I would make it as part of the Magic Force Field generator otherwise the FF will take damage from the energy attacks too.

[dragonfett]

That's along the lines of of what I was thinking, because there is nothing from TW creation rules for anything of that size. I just find it odd that none of the UWW ships I've seen incorporate Impervious to Energy seeing as how the main weapon systems of almost all tech based ship is an energy weapon.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Even having a parrying FF (P.P. Barrior from RT or the P.P. Shield from AU:GG) that is a movable IvE area of effect would be better...and playable. Just having a whole ship effect might not play well as part of the game.

[eliakon]

That's along the lines of of what I was thinking, because there is nothing from TW creation rules for anything of that size. I just find it odd that none of the UWW ships I've seen incorporate Impervious to Energy seeing as how the main weapon systems of almost all tech based ship is an energy weapon.

That lack might point to an inability to do so
Yes, I know the OOC reason that this has not been done is that it would basically make the ship invulnerable to anything, and that while in universe that is desirable for a navy, from a game stand point making one faction have ships that are vastly superior to anything anyone else has and can not be harmed by the foe but can harm them is generally Not A Good Thing.

For the same reasons that we see space magic needing to provide lifesupport instead of an aoe sustain spell, Anhilate Cannons, or the like...
...sure you can make the super I Win device, but generally that isn't very satisfactory from a game perspective, especially as a game designer who wants to make it so that all parts of the game can be played.

And to be frank...
The TW rules don't work for space ships at all, or to be honest for vehicles. They sort of work, okay, for hand held devices... if both the player and the GM work closely together and no one is trying to 'game' the system to 'beat the other side' and 'win'. Even then they require a massive amount of rule of thumbing, eyeball reckoning and bodgework to make anything but a "wand of level 7 wand of fireballs" or the like.

[Slight001]

Lets see... Faction A makes ships impervious to energy... Faction B starts using Kinetic Kill based technologies.

Faction A stops producing ships with impervious to energy... Faction B starts reintroducing Directed Energy weaponry...

It's basically just an endless loop...

[eliakon]

Lets see... Faction A makes ships impervious to energy... Faction B starts using Kinetic Kill based technologies.

Faction A stops producing ships with impervious to energy... Faction B starts reintroducing Directed Energy weaponry...

It's basically just an endless loop...

The problem is that there is a very limited selection of kinetic weapons to choose from for space ships. The spell is amazingly powerful defense for mages on the ground where there is a wide varity of weapons to choose from. In space the selection narrows even further than usual because rail guns errr gravity cannons do significantly less damage than equivalent energy instillations and the heavy KK weapon is outlawed by treaty. Worse, the UWW gets even harder hit by this (the vast majority of TW weapons are energy based), meaning that rouge ships are an even bigger threat to them then to their enemies.

It could be solved I suppose by adding in a bunch of new weapons, and adding new tech, designing a new generation of TW weapons based on kinetics and stuff...
...but that sounds like it would require basically rewriting the entire space section just to be able to add the impervious to energy option to TW.
*shrugs*
If that's worth it to you, go for it. My guess is that the current design team didn't feel that it was worth it.

[Slight001]

I understand that, Eliakon.

Currently Impervious to energy would make any faction a total badass. However, that is currently because the factions of phase world haven't invested in kinetic kill technologies. The reasons for this would likely be numerous and varied from an in universe perspective. Out side of that its likely rule of cool...

Personally I favor kinetic kill weaponry because of the, conceptual, ease of producing different types of ammunition.

[Blue_Lion]

Is there anything preventing TW's from adding Impervious to Energy to ships? Would there be a size limitation if it could be added (such as ships larger than cruisers are too big)?

Old school answer yes, it was SoT or book of magic that placed a limit of the max size of TW items to that of the mountaineer ATV. Currant rules may have changed that.

[dragonfett]

Is there anything preventing TW's from adding Impervious to Energy to ships? Would there be a size limitation if it could be added (such as ships larger than cruisers are too big)?

Old school answer yes, it was SoT or book of magic that placed a limit of the max size of TW items to that of the mountaineer ATV. Currant rules may have changed that.

Do you remember the book and page? Thanks anyway.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Is there anything preventing TW's from adding Impervious to Energy to ships? Would there be a size limitation if it could be added (such as ships larger than cruisers are too big)?

Old school answer yes, it was SoT or book of magic that placed a limit of the max size of TW items to that of the mountaineer ATV. Currant rules may have changed that.

Do you remember the book and page? Thanks anyway.

2nd'ed

Cause the TW starships in the 3G seam to break that limitation.
And what limitations I did find in the RBoM were: number of TW mods limited (up to 4, with a TW's personal being the most common to be max'ed) and that High Level Spells could not be incorporated into TW magic items.

[Blue_Lion]

Is there anything preventing TW's from adding Impervious to Energy to ships? Would there be a size limitation if it could be added (such as ships larger than cruisers are too big)?

Old school answer yes, it was SoT or book of magic that placed a limit of the max size of TW items to that of the mountaineer ATV. Currant rules may have changed that.

Do you remember the book and page? Thanks anyway.

2nd'ed

Cause the TW starships in the 3G seam to break that limitation.
And what limitations I did find in the RBoM were: number of TW mods limited (up to 4, with a TW's personal being the most common to be max'ed) and that High Level Spells could not be incorporated into TW magic items.

The TW star ships do not seam to be standard TW items. They do not have standard tw features like impervious to energy.
(If I remember the book and page I would not have used X or Y format on what placed the size limit.)
A quick search looks like pg 68 SoT 1 talks about max size spectrum for TW.

To my knowledge it is that size restriction on standard TW features that justifies you not seeing impervious to energy star ships.

[eliakon]

Is there anything preventing TW's from adding Impervious to Energy to ships? Would there be a size limitation if it could be added (such as ships larger than cruisers are too big)?

Old school answer yes, it was SoT or book of magic that placed a limit of the max size of TW items to that of the mountaineer ATV. Currant rules may have changed that.

Do you remember the book and page? Thanks anyway.

2nd'ed

Cause the TW starships in the 3G seam to break that limitation.
And what limitations I did find in the RBoM were: number of TW mods limited (up to 4, with a TW's personal being the most common to be max'ed) and that High Level Spells could not be incorporated into TW magic items.

The TW star ships do not seam to be standard TW items. They do not have standard tw features like impervious to energy.
(If I remember the book and page I would not have used X or Y format on what placed the size limit.)
A quick search looks like pg 68 SoT 1 talks about max size spectrum for TW.

To my knowledge it is that size restriction on standard TW features that justifies you not seeing impervious to energy star ships.

Two problems there
1) that is talking about TW Converted Vehicles not vehicles built as purpose built TW vehicles. We know from canon that purpose built TW vehicles can be much larger since we have had larger vehicles since at least WB 8 (Underseas page 161 tell sus that many of the 2,000 ton Red Trident Attack Submarines have TW power systems) if not earlier.

2) Starships have features like "Armor of Ithan" which is a regular TW feature. (Dwarven Iron Ship in Dimension Book 3 has a Magical Armor of Ithan Force Field) Yes it scales up so that it costs more than 10PPE to activate and provides more than 100MDC... but that doesn't make it any less of an Armor of Ithan fields than the field on a suit of armor.

So we have known for well over a decade before SoT came out that you can make TW vehicles much larger than a Big Boss. Now what Tolkeen does or does not convert is their business but it does not change what is actually possible. (the size limit in SoT1 is doubly amusing since in SoT 6 Tolkeen is making things like the TW Demon Barge found on page 58 which is larger than the supposed maximum size...unless of course the size limit doesn't apply to purpose built vehicles.)

[Blue_Lion]

The OP asked if there was a size limit, and I gave the only size limit I know of. You seam to be auguring it for the sake of auguring it.
And remember exceptions to a rule does not disprove a rule.
The limit was for standard TW features which is what impervious to energy is. The examples you provided do appear not to be standard TW features.

[eliakon]

The OP asked if there was a size limit, and I gave the only size limit I know of. You seam to be auguring it for the sake of auguring it.
And remember exceptions to a rule does not disprove a rule.
The limit was for standard TW features which is what impervious to energy is. The examples you provided do appear not to be standard TW features.

The OP didn't ask for a size limit per se other than to ask if only certain ships could have it. Since we already know that canon says ships can have TW so there is no question on that front.
The OP ask if there was a reason the ships didn't have it, and if ships can have it, is there a limit to which ships can have this feature.

Your the first person to claim there was a size limit on what can have TW features at all. A claim which I might add, doesn't seem to be supported by the actual book text or any other material in any other book, and that in point of fact requires that we ignore every single TW ship in existence...

I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing. I'm arguing for the sake of clarifying that RAW there is no size limit on what purpose built TW vehicles can be.
Thus there is no 'rule' for there to be exceptions to the only size limit in any book is that Tolkeen was not able/did not choose to convert previously built technological vehicles larger than the Big Boss ATV into TW vehicles. Which is not even remotely the same thing.

[Blue_Lion]

Is there anything preventing TW's from adding Impervious to Energy to ships? Would there be a size limitation if it could be added (such as ships larger than cruisers are too big)?

Hmm he did not ask about a size limit?
He asked about a limit in two parts.
Part 1 is there anything preventing it and would there be a size limit.

The TW ships in writing do not have standard TW features they are not acting like the standard TW items. They are acceptions out side the rules for standard TW fetures.

I am not the first person to say there was a size limit, as the person that wrote it was. I merely knew about an obscure reference that most people are not aware of.

And yes trying to drag me into an augment about this is arguing for the sake of arguing not clarifying RAW. RaW says there is a size limit on adding TW features including built in weapons. Auguring about weather or not it applies to X is when it does not say one way or another is arguing for the sake of it.

I am threw because this is only going to drag it off topic.

[drewkitty ~..~]

The TW star ships do not seam to be standard TW items. They do not have standard tw features like impervious to energy.
(If I remember the book and page I would not have used X or Y format on what placed the size limit.)
A quick search looks like pg. 68 SoT 1 talks about max size spectrum for TW.

To my knowledge it is that size restriction on standard TW features that justifies you not seeing impervious to energy star ships.

Two problems there
1) that is talking about TW Converted Vehicles not vehicles built as purpose built TW vehicles. We know from canon that purpose built TW vehicles can be much larger since we have had larger vehicles since at least WB 8 (Underseas page 161 tells us that many of the 2,000 ton Red Trident Attack Submarines have TW power systems) if not earlier.

Actually the sentence with the size limitation in it is talking about reference is ""The size limit for TW Converted Vehicles that Tolkeen has done the conversion.""
So that limitation is only a regional limitation, so is very narrow in scope.

[eliakon]

The TW star ships do not seam to be standard TW items. They do not have standard tw features like impervious to energy.
(If I remember the book and page I would not have used X or Y format on what placed the size limit.)
A quick search looks like pg. 68 SoT 1 talks about max size spectrum for TW.

To my knowledge it is that size restriction on standard TW features that justifies you not seeing impervious to energy star ships.

Two problems there
1) that is talking about TW Converted Vehicles not vehicles built as purpose built TW vehicles. We know from canon that purpose built TW vehicles can be much larger since we have had larger vehicles since at least WB 8 (Underseas page 161 tells us that many of the 2,000 ton Red Trident Attack Submarines have TW power systems) if not earlier.

Actually the sentence with the size limitation in it is talking about reference is ""The size limit for TW Converted Vehicles that Tolkeen has done the conversion.""
So that limitation is only a regional limitation, so is very narrow in scope.

which is why I said that in my post

[drewkitty ~..~]

Actually the sentence with the size limitation in it is talking about reference is ""The size limit for TW Converted Vehicles that Tolkeen has done the conversion.""
So that limitation is only a regional limitation, so is very narrow in scope.

which is why I said that in my post

You seam to have left out the words "by Tolkeen" when posing it. And no where later in that post did you correct the omission.
Nor did a correction happen in your next post.

Which is why I presented that sentence's idea in it's fullness.

[taalismn]

Homebrewed rules on Kitsune's site: http://kitsunesden.xyz/Rifts/Rifts-Rules/Phase_World_TW_Starship_Enchantments.htm

[eliakon]

Actually the sentence with the size limitation in it is talking about reference is ""The size limit for TW Converted Vehicles that Tolkeen has done the conversion.""
So that limitation is only a regional limitation, so is very narrow in scope.

which is why I said that in my post

You seam to have left out the words "by Tolkeen" when posing it. And no where later in that post did you correct the omission.
Nor did a correction happen in your next post.

Which is why I presented that sentence's idea in it's fullness.

the phrase

Now what Tolkeen does or does not convert is their business

is sort of where one gets the context of the statement.
This is also why it is generally (i.e. always) it is a bad idea to take single sentences out of context, it almost invariably results in errors by the person doing the taking out of context because... well, by definition they have removed all the context from the statement so you lose all of the context in which the actual statement is said.
Critical thinking by reading the entire post would have allowed a person to understand that the third portion of the post was clearly still part of the same post and that its qualifications of the conversion process would therefore apply to the conversion process seen in part 1.

[drewkitty ~..~]

That was two or three steps away from saying that the limit in that text is limited to the conversions done by tolkeen.

No, it is not worth arguing about with you. I've already said what I meant to say twice now since it was not said directly before the 1st time I said it.

[dreicunan]

:roll:
That was two or three steps away from saying that the limit in that text is limited to the conversions done by tolkeen.

No, it is not worth arguing about with you. I've already said what I meant to say twice now since it was not said directly before the 1st time I said it.

Well, not said directly except for the part where eliakon said "Thus there is no 'rule' for there to be exceptions to the only size limit in any book is that Tolkeen was not able/did not choose to convert previously built technological vehicles larger than the Big Boss ATV into TW vehicles. Which is not even remotely the same thing" in his subsequent post, which was before your post, and covers the idea in its fullness rather nicely.

[Mlp7029]

Check out the Shadow Bolt Strike Ship I. The Phase World book. Write up says it is enchanted with Impervious to Energy but that is all the explanation. My GM and I agree the Impervious to Energy comes from the Lightning Rod gun because the Lightning Rod in the Main Book grants Impervious to Energy.

[DhAkael]

Check out the Shadow Bolt Strike Ship I. The Phase World book. Write up says it is enchanted with Impervious to Energy but that is all the explanation. My GM and I agree the Impervious to Energy comes from the Lightning Rod gun because the Lightning Rod in the Main Book grants Impervious to Energy.

I never thought about that... it makes sense!

[eliakon]

Check out the Shadow Bolt Strike Ship I. The Phase World book. Write up says it is enchanted with Impervious to Energy but that is all the explanation. My GM and I agree the Impervious to Energy comes from the Lightning Rod gun because the Lightning Rod in the Main Book grants Impervious to Energy.

I like the idea that the scaled up Lightning Rod was also scaled up to provide scaled up protection. It makes sense and fits the whole mentality of TWs I think. I.e. it should make sense thematically if not logically. TWs use red paint for fire proof things because fire is red... that sort of thing.


The Shadow Bolt is actually both interesting AND relevant to the OPs question I think.

Since it demonstrates that
1) the writer of Phase World was aware of the idea of putting the spell on ships
2) actually chose to put said spell on a fighter
3) when presenting the other TW ships deliberately chose to not give them this same spell.

While it is not 100% conclusive it would seem, to me at least, to be a pretty convincing argument that the intent was that I2E could not be used on anything larger than a Fighter (which conveniently is approximately the same size as the various vehicles/mecha from the other Rifts books and would neatly match up with their theoretical limits)

[dreicunan]

Check out the Shadow Bolt Strike Ship I. The Phase World book. Write up says it is enchanted with Impervious to Energy but that is all the explanation. My GM and I agree the Impervious to Energy comes from the Lightning Rod gun because the Lightning Rod in the Main Book grants Impervious to Energy.

I like the idea that the scaled up Lightning Rod was also scaled up to provide scaled up protection. It makes sense and fits the whole mentality of TWs I think. I.e. it should make sense thematically if not logically. TWs use red paint for fire proof things because fire is red... that sort of thing.


The Shadow Bolt is actually both interesting AND relevant to the OPs question I think.

Since it demonstrates that
1) the writer of Phase World was aware of the idea of putting the spell on ships
2) actually chose to put said spell on a fighter
3) when presenting the other TW ships deliberately chose to not give them this same spell.

While it is not 100% conclusive it would seem, to me at least, to be a pretty convincing argument that the intent was that I2E could not be used on anything larger than a Fighter (which conveniently is approximately the same size as the various vehicles/mecha from the other Rifts books and would neatly match up with their theoretical limits)

Accepting that: a work-around would be to construct larger vehicles/ships in a modular fashion so that every part of the whole has impervious to energy.

[Mlp7029]

Check out the Shadow Bolt Strike Ship I. The Phase World book. Write up says it is enchanted with Impervious to Energy but that is all the explanation. My GM and I agree the Impervious to Energy comes from the Lightning Rod gun because the Lightning Rod in the Main Book grants Impervious to Energy.

I like the idea that the scaled up Lightning Rod was also scaled up to provide scaled up protection. It makes sense and fits the whole mentality of TWs I think. I.e. it should make sense thematically if not logically. TWs use red paint for fire proof things because fire is red... that sort of thing.


The Shadow Bolt is actually both interesting AND relevant to the OPs question I think.

Since it demonstrates that
1) the writer of Phase World was aware of the idea of putting the spell on ships
2) actually chose to put said spell on a fighter
3) when presenting the other TW ships deliberately chose to not give them this same spell.

While it is not 100% conclusive it would seem, to me at least, to be a pretty convincing argument that the intent was that I2E could not be used on anything larger than a Fighter (which conveniently is approximately the same size as the various vehicles/mecha from the other Rifts books and would neatly match up with their theoretical limits)

The Arcane Mark II Patrol Ship in the Phase World Sourcebook has 8 of the Lightning Rod guns. The write-up does not mention the ship is enchanted with Impervious to Energy but given the large number of errors in Palladium books my GM wrote the omission off to inconsistencies in editing and gives any ship with the Lightning Rods Impervious to Energy.

[eliakon]

Check out the Shadow Bolt Strike Ship I. The Phase World book. Write up says it is enchanted with Impervious to Energy but that is all the explanation. My GM and I agree the Impervious to Energy comes from the Lightning Rod gun because the Lightning Rod in the Main Book grants Impervious to Energy.

I like the idea that the scaled up Lightning Rod was also scaled up to provide scaled up protection. It makes sense and fits the whole mentality of TWs I think. I.e. it should make sense thematically if not logically. TWs use red paint for fire proof things because fire is red... that sort of thing.


The Shadow Bolt is actually both interesting AND relevant to the OPs question I think.

Since it demonstrates that
1) the writer of Phase World was aware of the idea of putting the spell on ships
2) actually chose to put said spell on a fighter
3) when presenting the other TW ships deliberately chose to not give them this same spell.

While it is not 100% conclusive it would seem, to me at least, to be a pretty convincing argument that the intent was that I2E could not be used on anything larger than a Fighter (which conveniently is approximately the same size as the various vehicles/mecha from the other Rifts books and would neatly match up with their theoretical limits)

The Arcane Mark II Patrol Ship in the Phase World Sourcebook has 8 of the Lightning Rod guns. The write-up does not mention the ship is enchanted with Impervious to Energy but given the large number of errors in Palladium books my GM wrote the omission off to inconsistencies in editing and gives any ship with the Lightning Rods Impervious to Energy.

That would seem to support the theory that you can't give larger ships Impervious to Energy. Assuming of course, that the Lightning Rod system does actually give the ship Impervious to Energy in the first place. While it is theoretically possible that it was supposed to, but this simply got left out in the writing, it seems to me to instead be a deliberate omission of choice.
Based I would guess on my reasoning earlier in the thread. Namely that Impervious to Energy on actual warships can result in some very radical power shifts making the UWW and other TW using factions far and away more powerful than other factions.
*shrugs* What ever works for people they should do in their own game...
I'm just saying that I suspect that the official stance would be "no" and it is for reasons.

[Mlp7029]

[/quote]That would seem to support the theory that you can't give larger ships Impervious to Energy. Assuming of course, that the Lightning Rod system does actually give the ship Impervious to Energy in the first place. While it is theoretically possible that it was supposed to, but this simply got left out in the writing, it seems to me to instead be a deliberate omission of choice.
Based I would guess on my reasoning earlier in the thread. Namely that Impervious to Energy on actual warships can result in some very radical power shifts making the UWW and other TW using factions far and away more powerful than other factions.
*shrugs* What ever works for people they should do in their own game...
I'm just saying that I suspect that the official stance would be "no" and it is for reasons.[/quote]
I see your point about it giving the magic using Fleets a significant advantage over the pure technological fleets. The other side of the coin is if the Lightning Rods are not giving the ship Impervious to Energy why use them when they are inferior to other technological weapons in terms of range and damage. There is no evidence in the books that TW weapons are cheaper than tech ones in fact quite the opposite. The Lightning Rod is kind of an okay point defense weapon anti-missile weapon but Power Bolt would be way better for point defense since it does not miss. The choice of the Lightning Rod seems dubious to me if it does not give Impervious to Energy but it may have just been added to give the ships more of a magical feel. Certainly if you play Impervious to Energy does not stop magical energy then the Lightning Rod is an excellent point defense weapon because it has unlimited ammo.

[taalismn]

Impervious to Energy giving you fits? That's why most 3G ships carry(or should Carry) a mix of energy and physical kinetic weaponry. Autocannon, rail guns, g-cannons, missile launchers, ball-bearing throwers, sandcasters....
Of course, it means big warships might end up looking like pre-Dreadnought wet-navy warships, with batteries of differing caliber and type, but better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it...

[eliakon]

That would seem to support the theory that you can't give larger ships Impervious to Energy. Assuming of course, that the Lightning Rod system does actually give the ship Impervious to Energy in the first place. While it is theoretically possible that it was supposed to, but this simply got left out in the writing, it seems to me to instead be a deliberate omission of choice.
Based I would guess on my reasoning earlier in the thread. Namely that Impervious to Energy on actual warships can result in some very radical power shifts making the UWW and other TW using factions far and away more powerful than other factions.
*shrugs* What ever works for people they should do in their own game...
I'm just saying that I suspect that the official stance would be "no" and it is for reasons.

I see your point about it giving the magic using Fleets a significant advantage over the pure technological fleets. The other side of the coin is if the Lightning Rods are not giving the ship Impervious to Energy why use them when they are inferior to other technological weapons in terms of range and damage. There is no evidence in the books that TW weapons are cheaper than tech ones in fact quite the opposite. The Lightning Rod is kind of an okay point defense weapon anti-missile weapon but Power Bolt would be way better for point defense since it does not miss. The choice of the Lightning Rod seems dubious to me if it does not give Impervious to Energy but it may have just been added to give the ships more of a magical feel. Certainly if you play Impervious to Energy does not stop magical energy then the Lightning Rod is an excellent point defense weapon because it has unlimited ammo.

Again the reason you would not use powerbolt is precisely because they do not miss.
The goal is not to make the perfect system that is unbeatable, but to make the system that is the most fun for the game.
A ship that is immune to everything but railguns and missiles, invisible to all sensors, and has weapons that never miss protected by a regenerating force field of terror and able to magically jump across intergalactic distances in seconds might be the most optimal ship you could build from a power stand point...
...but it is not going to be much fun in a game because it is going to give the UWW a massive "I Win" button and unless the goal is to explore the story ramifications of the disruption to the status quo as the UWW suddenly become the military super power and render most of their rivals ships two or three generations obsolete...
Thus the various ship designs are deliberately not optimal.
This is seen over and over again in ships, power armor, robots and the like. Designs could be made far, far better with much better use of technology, better use of resources, resulting in far, far more powerful units...
...but that takes the fun out of things, so most of the time they deliberately make things weaker and instead you get things that are build thematically. A power armor built around a concept of one weapon instead of having 'one of everything' so as to cover every possible fire mission. A TW ship that can go toe-to-toe with a tech ship, instead of ones that can annihilate fleets.

[dreicunan]

That would seem to support the theory that you can't give larger ships Impervious to Energy. Assuming of course, that the Lightning Rod system does actually give the ship Impervious to Energy in the first place. While it is theoretically possible that it was supposed to, but this simply got left out in the writing, it seems to me to instead be a deliberate omission of choice.
Based I would guess on my reasoning earlier in the thread. Namely that Impervious to Energy on actual warships can result in some very radical power shifts making the UWW and other TW using factions far and away more powerful than other factions.
*shrugs* What ever works for people they should do in their own game...
I'm just saying that I suspect that the official stance would be "no" and it is for reasons.

I see your point about it giving the magic using Fleets a significant advantage over the pure technological fleets. The other side of the coin is if the Lightning Rods are not giving the ship Impervious to Energy why use them when they are inferior to other technological weapons in terms of range and damage. There is no evidence in the books that TW weapons are cheaper than tech ones in fact quite the opposite. The Lightning Rod is kind of an okay point defense weapon anti-missile weapon but Power Bolt would be way better for point defense since it does not miss. The choice of the Lightning Rod seems dubious to me if it does not give Impervious to Energy but it may have just been added to give the ships more of a magical feel. Certainly if you play Impervious to Energy does not stop magical energy then the Lightning Rod is an excellent point defense weapon because it has unlimited ammo.

Again the reason you would not use powerbolt is precisely because they do not miss.
The goal is not to make the perfect system that is unbeatable, but to make the system that is the most fun for the game.
A ship that is immune to everything but railguns and missiles, invisible to all sensors, and has weapons that never miss protected by a regenerating force field of terror and able to magically jump across intergalactic distances in seconds might be the most optimal ship you could build from a power stand point...
...but it is not going to be much fun in a game because it is going to give the UWW a massive "I Win" button and unless the goal is to explore the story ramifications of the disruption to the status quo as the UWW suddenly become the military super power and render most of their rivals ships two or three generations obsolete...
Thus the various ship designs are deliberately not optimal.
This is seen over and over again in ships, power armor, robots and the like. Designs could be made far, far better with much better use of technology, better use of resources, resulting in far, far more powerful units...
...but that takes the fun out of things, so most of the time they deliberately make things weaker and instead you get things that are build thematically. A power armor built around a concept of one weapon instead of having 'one of everything' so as to cover every possible fire mission. A TW ship that can go toe-to-toe with a tech ship, instead of ones that can annihilate fleets.

Wasn't there a TW rifle that used powerbolt as part of the spell chain but just gave a bonus to hit since you still had to aim the weapon?