Breakaway Hulls in Combat?

[AnotherDilbert]

How are breakaway hulls handled in combat? Is it one single craft with a single hull value?

What if the parts have different armour? Reasonably you'd have to distribute the hits to the different parts of the combined craft?

RAW doesn't give us any clue.

 

[phavoc]

How are breakaway hulls handled in combat? Is it one single craft with a single hull value?

What if the parts have different armour? Reasonably you'd have to distribute the hits to the different parts of the combined craft?

RAW doesn't give us any clue.

Well, you could look at it as if the two craft were separately armored, and the inner hulls didn't have the same armor as the outer. But it would probably be easier to say that both ships would have the same armor factor, and that the internal armor is just there, but doesn't provide any special protections like an armored bulkhead.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I do not understand: inner hull, outer hull?

The craft are simply joined, so both hulls are equally exposed to enemy fire?

 

[Chas]

Probably if the issue came up the ref could just adjudicate this with a % of hit system or similar. Not sure if the rule makers would want to go there.

 

[arcador]

I would just makeshit a d6 roll depending on the ration of both's ship exposure, and will roll alongside with every dmg roll to see which ship is hit.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Yes we can of course house-rule this, but wouldn't it be better if the rules gave a definite answer?

 

[Chas]

The system does work though. :mrgreen: Though there is a bunch of stuff to make decisions about.

Edit: Yes. But keep it simple.

 

[Chas]

There's this in the space station section of High Guard:

Breakaway Hulls: Armour can be allocated on a per
section basis if a breakaway hull is used, in which
case the tonnage and cost are determined as if the
two differently armoured sections were different space
stations.

Which could imply if you have to do battle with different ship parts together there should be a proportional hit system.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The same text is found on p10 for starships.

We had the same problem in MgT1 where different sections of a capital ship could be differently armoured, but the armour of the ship was used in the barrage roll before the section that was hit was determined.

I'm sorry if I was not clear, I was not asking how I could house-rule this, I was illustrating that the rules are incomplete. I was basically asking if someone had seen such a rule, and if not for a rule clarification.

 

[phavoc]

I think the better example of this would be the Enterprise-D, with it's detachable saucer section and the main craft. The saucer would be considered the 'breakaway hull' portion.

I would require that the breakaway portion have at least minimal drives for 1G performance, and sufficient power for drives, life support, and perhaps weapons - though you'd have to decide if you are trying to create a secondary warship, or just a survival pod of really big proportions. And if the former, you are really trying to make a battle rider aren't you?

 

[AndrewW]

I would require that the breakaway portion have at least minimal drives for 1G performance, and sufficient power for drives, life support, and perhaps weapons - though you'd have to decide if you are trying to create a secondary warship, or just a survival pod of really big proportions. And if the former, you are really trying to make a battle rider aren't you?

Up to the one creating it, you might want a breakaway where a portion of the vessel just remains on station, dropping that section off increases the performance of the other part(s). Though sufficient power should normally be there, can see dropping off a portion of the ship that's not needed for the current mission and doesn't require power.

 

[phavoc]

I would require that the breakaway portion have at least minimal drives for 1G performance, and sufficient power for drives, life support, and perhaps weapons - though you'd have to decide if you are trying to create a secondary warship, or just a survival pod of really big proportions. And if the former, you are really trying to make a battle rider aren't you?

Up to the one creating it, you might want a breakaway where a portion of the vessel just remains on station, dropping that section off increases the performance of the other part(s). Though sufficient power should normally be there, can see dropping off a portion of the ship that's not needed for the current mission and doesn't require power.

Yeah, but why would you drop parts of your ship if they were somehow useful? The exception I could see being a cargo ship, in a LASH-style configuration, dropping off entire modules and picking up new ones. But I don't think that was the intent here for the thread (at least not that I picked up on)

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Yeah, but why would you drop parts of your ship if they were somehow useful?

The jump drive and jump fuel is only useful when you jump. In normal space they just slow you down. See Chas' 2+2 concept.

 

[phavoc]

Yeah, but why would you drop parts of your ship if they were somehow useful?

The jump drive and jump fuel is only useful when you jump. In normal space they just slow you down. See Chas' 2+2 concept.

Yeah, but now you are talking the same concept of a battle rider. Or for civilians, to hearken back to TNE, the clipper ships that hauled merchants between star systems. LASH in space!

 

[AndrewW]

Yeah, but why would you drop parts of your ship if they were somehow useful? The exception I could see being a cargo ship, in a LASH-style configuration, dropping off entire modules and picking up new ones. But I don't think that was the intent here for the thread (at least not that I picked up on)

Might want to leave something in orbit for survey purposes while the rest of the ship heads off to another world, down to the surface or whatever for example.

 

[phavoc]

Yeah, but why would you drop parts of your ship if they were somehow useful? The exception I could see being a cargo ship, in a LASH-style configuration, dropping off entire modules and picking up new ones. But I don't think that was the intent here for the thread (at least not that I picked up on)

Might want to leave something in orbit for survey purposes while the rest of the ship heads off to another world, down to the surface or whatever for example.

Most people would just use a shuttlecraft of some sort to do that.

The SW prequels had the jedi starfighters used the same logic, dropping off their lightspeed drives. And in ST-TMP, Spock arrived on a warp-capable shuttle that was able to jettison it's drive 'pod'.

But those were more exceptions to the rule. Leaving a module adrift opens you up to all kinds of different vulnerabilities (potentially). As a rule I would have to say it's ok, but as a rule of thumb I'd have to say it's really only applicable to special classes/types of ships that are looking to perform very specific functions. Otherwise every ship would be using it, and we don't see that.

 

[Chas]

Heh, realized something in the process of looking at breakaway hulls...

Docking space is +10%, docking clamps are x dtons, breakaway hulls are 2% of combined tonnage - effectively 1% in each ship.

I'll have all my fighters attached to the carrier as breakaway hulls thank you very much :mrgreen:

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Thanks, I had sloppily read that as 2% of each hull. Placing the connectors in any section I choose is much better...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Heh, realized something in the process of looking at breakaway hulls...

Docking space is +10%, docking clamps are x dtons, breakaway hulls are 2% of combined tonnage - effectively 1% in each ship.

I'll have all my fighters attached to the carrier as breakaway hulls thank you very much :mrgreen:

Breakaway connectors are expensive. Clamps take a little more tonnage, but are cheap. I think clamps will make a cheaper carrier, at least my first tests say so.

 

[Chas]

Yeah, I didn't crunch the numbers properly. There'll be the savings in jump and M drives as well here, not sure how significant that'll be though.