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				*Shivan Slash Type Beam*
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To use this beam:
Place this readme wherever you want.
Place the weapons.tbl in your FreeSpace2/data/tables directory.

I created this beam for purposes of perhaps providing a way for people to bring better balance to FS2 missions.  I do not know if anyone else has had the same problem I have had, but many times I have had a mission wherein a Terran and/or Vasudan force with capital ships attacks a similar Shivan force.  Often times, especially in the case of destroyers, I have found that the Shivans vastly outmatch the Terrans or Vasudans in terms of beam weapons.  I will sometimes try to replace, for example, an LRed with an SRed and this usually helps, but sometimes it is not enough.  Also, what if you have a ship that carries SReds already but you want it to have a lighter damage beam?  Yet I don't really want to radically alter the armament by replacing a beam with a wimpy Shivan laser turret and thus rendering the ship too weak.  To possibly solve this problem, I made a Shivan slash beam much like the Terran and Vasudan slash beams (VSlash, TerSlash, LTerSlash).  Though slash beams look cooler and still do damage, they do not seem to do as much damage as a normal beam because they 'slash' across the target.  I noted that the Shivans had no slash type beam and so I have created one.  The Shivan slasher beam is designated 'SSlash' and is just above the SRed beam when you are looking to put it on a gunpoint in FRED2.  The Shivan slasher does somewhat better damage and recharges faster than its Terran or Vasudan counterparts so the beam still keeps with the generally much better weaponry that the Shivans possess.  However, its slashing attack means it does much less damage than a standard beam type. 

The Shivan slash beam can be used to reduce the effectiveness of a Shivan ship by replacing a more powerful LRed or SRed, but not render it too weak by eliminating a beam altogether.  The slasher will still do good damage to an enemy ship, but will not do as much as an SRed or LRed will.

You can use this table in any missions or you can even combine it with other mods if you wish.  Just remember to give credit to yours truly for creating the SSlash :)

Thats about all there is to it.  If you have any questions/comments/problems/etc. feel free to e-mail me at:   vasuda_prime@hotmail.com

-Ice Heart

