steve98052
Mongoose
It seems to me that the best way to get good missile performance in Traveller is to power them with maneuver drives and batteries. Looking at figures forwhat the batteries are supposed to be able to do, and that seems to add up pretty well.
Long digression:
Since all Traveller batteries are rechargeable, that creates the interesting possibility that if missiles are dodged, run out of power before reaching a target, or otherwise survive a battle, they could be recovered and fired again, if a sufficiently fast missile recovery drone can be dispatched to go after them. That may not be economical, but a missile would always be recoverable, even if the chase drone had worse acceleration than the missile. (Example: a 6 G, 6 turn missile would reach a velocity of 36 and travel a distance of 108. A 3 G, unlimited endurance drone would take 12 turns to reach a velocity of 36, over a distance of 216. From the point where the velocity matched, matching the location would be just like traveling from one point in space to another. Grab it with a magnetic clamp and head back to a salvage station.
Missile recovery wouldn't make sense for starships on campaign, but it might make sense if they were on a long-term patrol, and it would for system defense fleets. It would all depend on the cost of a missile relative to the cost of a drone, and the number of friendly missiles (retrieving enemy missiles might be a bad idea) that are launched but make it through battles without being destroyed.
Long digression:
Since all Traveller batteries are rechargeable, that creates the interesting possibility that if missiles are dodged, run out of power before reaching a target, or otherwise survive a battle, they could be recovered and fired again, if a sufficiently fast missile recovery drone can be dispatched to go after them. That may not be economical, but a missile would always be recoverable, even if the chase drone had worse acceleration than the missile. (Example: a 6 G, 6 turn missile would reach a velocity of 36 and travel a distance of 108. A 3 G, unlimited endurance drone would take 12 turns to reach a velocity of 36, over a distance of 216. From the point where the velocity matched, matching the location would be just like traveling from one point in space to another. Grab it with a magnetic clamp and head back to a salvage station.
Missile recovery wouldn't make sense for starships on campaign, but it might make sense if they were on a long-term patrol, and it would for system defense fleets. It would all depend on the cost of a missile relative to the cost of a drone, and the number of friendly missiles (retrieving enemy missiles might be a bad idea) that are launched but make it through battles without being destroyed.