Confused about how Gunner skills interact with weapon mounts

[NOLATrav]

Space Combat should mirror Personal Combat: 1 Significant Action, 2 Minor Actions per turn.

Pilots firing fixed weapons should be a Minor Action. Use the Aid Gunners action as your Sig, fire the Fixed mounts as a Minor (so you’re helping yourself dial in on the target) and maybe Change Facing would be another Minor action. Range bands make facing irrelevant but I think y’all get my drift.

Firing missiles could be Minor Action too, once a Sig Action is used to get target lock.

Ugh, we really do need to clean this game up for 2027…

Edit to add: I absolutely love MgT2e. She’s a bit messy here and there but what game isn’t?

 

[MasterGwydion]

Space Combat should mirror Personal Combat: 1 Significant Action, 2 Minor Actions per turn.

Pilots firing fixed weapons should be a Minor Action. Use the Aid Gunners action as your Sig, fire the Fixed mounts as a Minor (so you’re helping yourself dial in on the target) and maybe Change Facing would be another Minor action. Range bands make facing irrelevant but I think y’all get my drift.

Firing missiles could be Minor Action too, once a Sig Action is used to get target lock.

Ugh, we really do need to clean this game up for 2027…

Edit to add: I absolutely love MgT2e. She’s a bit messy here and there but what game isn’t?

If firing a weapon becomes a Minor Action, then what do gunners do with their Significant Actions? Just curious.

 

[swordtart]

Space Combat should mirror Personal Combat: 1 Significant Action, 2 Minor Actions per turn.

Pilots firing fixed weapons should be a Minor Action. Use the Aid Gunners action as your Sig, fire the Fixed mounts as a Minor (so you’re helping yourself dial in on the target) and maybe Change Facing would be another Minor action. Range bands make facing irrelevant but I think y’all get my drift.

Firing missiles could be Minor Action too, once a Sig Action is used to get target lock.

Ugh, we really do need to clean this game up for 2027…

Edit to add: I absolutely love MgT2e. She’s a bit messy here and there but what game isn’t?

Agreed.

If we mirror personal combat any shooting is a significant action and uses Gun Combat. No one tries to argue that as you are moving the gun onto the target you should be able to use an Athletics action as an alternative. Pilots firing fixed weapons would use Gunner (as the rules say they do).

Steering the ship would be a minor action (and imposes no penalty on the significant action). Allowing the ship to keep moving and pointing in the direction it already is arguably is not even a minor action unless you consider monitoring the display as a level of interaction.

Moving the ship to point at the target would be no different to moving the gun or moving during your shooting round as a minor action. Actually flying the ship in normal space doesn't require a Pilot skill check (just like normal movement doesn't require an Athletics check) it is only when you do something more active like sprinting, or jumping that we require a skill check. When we are doing that it becomes our significant action and firing at the same time is at a penalty (since it is now a multi-action round). This is the same as a pilot making a Pilot skill check to Aid Gunners or Evading to impose a negative DM for incoming fire.

 

[Ol'Weedy]

"Firing a spacecraft-mounted weapon uses the Gunner skill." CRB p166 so definitely not Pilot skill.

Pilots can however manoeuvre to improve the gunners chance to hit.

"Aid Gunners: A pilot may attempt to aid thair(sic) gunners by providing a more stable firing platform along the optimum attack vector. The pilot makes a Pilot check to start a task chain with their gunners, as described on page 63."

If you are the pilot firing fixed weapons then you can presumably task chain yourself, but firing the guns will use Gunner skill (and at DM-2 if it is a turret you are firing).

Fixed Weapon is not a specialism but it would be covered under Gunner-0.

I kind of like leaving the -2DM for turrets. I'd assume for fixed mounts targetting system would be built into the pilot's HUD by default. You could interpret the 'aid gunner' task as the attempt to cancel out the -2 penalty by calibrating the targeting.... if successful, I'd remove the -2 for all subsequent attacks.

 

[MarcusIII]

I'd assume for fixed mounts targetting system would be built into the pilot's HUD by default.

I don't see the point of a separate gunner for a fixed weapon. All the person would do is sit there waiting for the pilot to line up a shot and then once that was done, quickly push the fire button. IMTU such weapons are fired by the pilot.

 

[Endie]

I don't see the point of a separate gunner for a fixed weapon. All the person would do is sit there waiting for the pilot to line up a shot and then once that was done, quickly push the fire button. IMTU such weapons are fired by the pilot.

Maybe for the same range of reasons that armoured fighting vehicles with fixed-mounts instead of turrets usually still have gunners IRL, even when they have auto-loaders (they're rare these days but there have been many, historically).

 

[swordtart]

I don't see the point of a separate gunner for a fixed weapon. All the person would do is sit there waiting for the pilot to line up a shot and then once that was done, quickly push the fire button. IMTU such weapons are fired by the pilot.

You don't require a crewman Gunner to fire fixed weapons, the Pilot can do it (and arguably without the -2 penalty they get if it were a turret). The attack roll is still against Gunner skill though, so if they don't have the Gunner skill then they will be at -3 on the check (as usual).

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I don't see the point of a separate gunner for a fixed weapon. All the person would do is sit there waiting for the pilot to line up a shot and then once that was done, quickly push the fire button. IMTU such weapons are fired by the pilot.

Agreed, and the rules support this:

Core'22, p166:
Weapons on board a spacecraft are fired by Travellers assigned to gunner duty. However, a pilot may fire any weapons in a single turret at DM-2 to the attack roll or weapons noted as being in fixed mounts...

The Pilot can fire any weapons in fixed mounts without penalty, or a single turret at the usual DM-2 for multiple tasks.

 

[Vormaerin]

And since fixed mounts are 360 targeting unless you are in dogfight mode or using optional vector movement systems, they are amazing for saving money on gunners.

 

[MarcusIII]

And since fixed mounts are 360 targeting unless you are in dogfight mode or using optional vector movement systems, they are amazing for saving money on gunners.

Fixed mounts don't need a separate gunner under any conditions.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

And since fixed mounts are 360 targeting unless you are in dogfight mode or using optional vector movement systems, they are amazing for saving money on gunners.

Sure, unless you want to be able to PD or Disperse Sand.

POINT DEFENCE (GUNNER)
Using a turret-mounted laser (beam or pulse), a gunner can destroy incoming missiles.

DISPERSE SAND (GUNNER)
...
Using a turret-mounted sandcaster, a gunner can attempt to block laser attacks.

If you actually want to do damage to a spacecraft you use barbettes.


But if you want a cheap weapon for e.g. a freighter, fixed mounts are great.

 

[Vormaerin]

Fixed mounts don't need a separate gunner under any conditions.

That's not true. They are needed in the situation where your pilot doesn't also have Gunner skill. Though that's not true if you only have missiles on your mounts.

That said, my point is that the major disadvantage of fixed mounts (they don't have arc of fire) doesn't actually exist in the game because the rules don't use any sort of facing rules.

The loss of point defense is problematic, but I doubt many freighters are good enough to actually get benefit from them. Even if they can afford the gunners and the ammunition. Sandcasters are only useful if you are going to be able to jump or otherwise get to safety in a very short time because they run out and bad guy lasers don't.

I don't know how often pirates are firing missiles. They are quite expensive, so seem like a poor choice for profiteers, but YMMV.