Not according to Mongoose 2300 which is what we are talking about.
Really? Yet all the major warships have large missile complements, and the Kennedy writeup (incidently,
largely cribbed from a piece I wrote) outright states missiles are the dominant factor in combat.
Again get back on topic we are not talking about previous edition we are talking about mongoose 2300 which specifically states that these drone are remotely controlled. And it’s a game not a science paper.
It's supposedly a hard sci-fi game. Whilst the players and directors should have to worry about it too much, the designers should. They should make the rules as realistic as possible without losing playability. If done write, the limitations of hard SF should make for good challenges and plot points.
Missiles are indeed remotely piloted. This creates interesting mechanics that were never fully explored. LWS (ISTR) once indicated they'd adopted a house rule that missiles could only be controlled 4 hexes away to account for the delay. Robotic, self-targetting weapons existed (such as the Sentinel) but they had a -3 to hit penalty. Thus as long as the weapon can be guided onto target semi-actively, it can still attack at very long range.
Read the ECM rule vs Remotely controlled vehicles.
Yes. They impose a -2 penalty to active detection and a +4 bonus to passive detection.
There is the unrealistic jamming rule. Communications are tight-beam lasers and masers, and the jammer has no capability to match the frequency.
I will point out that the jamming rule uses the task system wrongly. An opposed check does not produce one effect, but both parties roll separately and get an effect level. Highest level wins (see MgT 2nd ed pg 59). It is perhaps not surprising that Colin doesn't know how the Mongoose Traveller rules system works.
Thus, I have to interpret the rule, and it would be something like:
Jamming, electronics (communications+EDU, 1d6 mins) check at difficult (10+) level. Success is a -1 to hit penalty (-2 on exceptional success)
Resist jamming, electronics (communications + EDU, instant) at routine (6+) level. +2 if comms encrypted (i.e. all comms) and +4 if ECCM available. Success is +1 to hit (+2 if exceptional).
Read page 135 AEH PDF drones are a thing.
Yes, and they are useless.
They have a range of <100 km. One range band is 150,000 km. A missile at warp 3 is travelling 3,600 km/s. A point defense drone has to intercept the missile and is in range for around 1-5 milliseconds depending on the intercept geometry. Similarly, point defences have ranges that equate to the final millseconds of an attack. Unlike an intercepting missile, a target is by definition in the centre of the sphere and for an "impacting" weapon at warp 3, the PD has about 20 milliseconds to engage it. Of course, a bomb-pumped nuke has the same or more range (as written), and so the intercept happens in a small band at the edge of the range.
Lasers have a maximum focal range dependent on the frequency and diameter of the focal array (or individual FA elements). At twice the focal range, the laser is as broad as the FA. Any attacker, knowing the capability of the defending lasers, can simply stay 10% further than the maximum focal range with no danger of any damage.
This also means focusing on a target is critical. If you focus at 100 km, but the target is at 80 km, then the beam is 20% of the FA diameter and so broad as to be ineffective.
