nothing, 'cept the changes to the game. if batteries are significantly cheaper and smaller than power plants then one can easily imagine...[?QUOTE] (snip of excellent examples)
Fly,
I very, very, VERY much agree. Having batteries beefy enough to supply a warship with enough juice to buzz through a 50(?) minute HG2 combat round with all weapons firing is taking things much too far. The game is now broke and twenty five years of official designs are now scrap paper. That is not a good thing.
However, let's include batteries and then limit their effectiveness.
You're an ex-squid like me. Every ship, even subs, have emergency diesel generators. They don't allow the ship to fight in any real manner, but they will help the ship with DC efforts. As for subs, they'll even supply a bit of motive power. If you're limping along on your EDGs, you're not looking for a fight, you're just lucky to be alive!
I'd make batteries BIG, TIME LIMITED, and COSTLY. They'll give you a combat round of computer use after your powerplant is knocked out, no more. Maybe they can give you a combat round of 1g from your m-drive, again no more. Maybe you can get a single round of fire from a low factor battery. Maybe having batteries storage capacity equal a certain LOW percentage of your ship's total EP load would give you a bonus on DC rolls. All this is nothing flashy, nothing game straining, just a few more bits of chrome.
I liked playing the HG2-Mayday fusion in my day. Having a chance to tweak your vector after your powerplant is gone would be nice. You can fire missiles and sand after your p-plant is slagged, but the your computer and lasers might as well be gone. Getting some of those back for one turn might fun.
Imagine, you need to choose just what you'll expend your battery's charge on. Do you need that vector tweak? Should you chance firing that laser battery? Or should you save it for the DC roll bonus? Decisions, decisions...
Have fun,
Bill