CTA: SF Plasma bolts and Plasma Carronades

[Loki1965]

How to plasma bolts work?

If I bolt a plasma torpedo is it still a seeking weapon (automatic hit, no shield leaks) or is it a direct Fire weapon (roll to hit and natural 6's by-pass shields) with a Range of 10"?

Example
If I bolt a Plasma-R at 6" range against a target with 25 shields then
does its 3 AD automatically hit for 3D6 damage on the shields
OR
do I have to Roll 3 AD , hitting on 5-6 (due to range) and any 6 ignoring the shields, with each sucessful AD doing 1D6 damage?


ALSO


Do Plasma Carronades isgnore the effects of a Cloakinng Device?

Regards

Simon

 

[Captain Jonah]

Plasma bolts become direct fire weapons. They no longer auto hit and instead have a 4+ hit chance. They also have a maximum range of 10".

They retain energy bleed which logically kicks in at over 5" and over 7.5" given the 10" range but some people stick with the 16" bleed reductions.

They cannot be fired at with defensive Phaser fire.

On hitting they cause half the rolled damage. As direct fire weapons they can penetrate shields on a 6 which is how I use them.

So a Plasma S would have 4AD, bolted it has a range of 10". Say it was fired at 6", it would drop to 3D due to energy bleed. Roll to hit. Then roll the dice for damage but half them. As the bolt is not a seeking weapon it cannot be shot at and cannot be dodged by fast movement or evades.

Plasma carronades do ignore stealth and cloaks. A Plasma F used as a Carronade can fire every turn, has a range of 4” and is multi hit 2 with 2AD. So a Gorn ship closes to 2” from a cloaked backstabber and fires both Plasma Fs as carronades. These are 4+ to hit (half range and under), have 2AD each so 4AD dice in total and each hit will cause 2 damage. They are direct fire weapons so can penetrate shields on a natural 6.

When firing carronades at a cloaked backstabber any rolls of a 6 are to be announced with an evil Mwahahahahaha.

Getting a DD or BDD behind a cloaked ship you can peck at it for turns often forcing it to de cloak or the rest of its fleet to come rescue it.

Note. The Carronade is fired every turn and does NOT need to be reloaded. However once you have used the Plasma F as a carronade it needs to be reloaded to function as a Plasma F torpedo.

 

[Loki1965]

So in your plasma-S example if I rolled a 2,5 & 6 to hit - the 2 would miss, the 5 would cause 1d6 divided by 2 damage on the shields and the 6 1d6 divided by 2 damage that would by-pass the shields?

Does any critical scored by a plasma bolt still cause the relevant score to increase by 2?

 

[Captain Jonah]

So in your plasma-S example if I rolled a 2,5 & 6 to hit - the 2 would miss, the 5 would cause 1d6 divided by 2 damage on the shields and the 6 1d6 divided by 2 damage that would by-pass the shields?

Does any critical scored by a plasma bolt still cause the relevant score to increase by 2?

Your example is correct.

The rules are a bit fuzzy on the whole roll one d6 to hit for the entire torpedo or roll once per AD. Technically you would roll each AD which gives you a situation where the weapons partially hit.

Or you could use the "its one weapon so roll one dice per entire torpedo" idea which can be bad when you roll a handful of low numbers but sometimes you can roll a handful of sixes as well and make your opponent cry by putting several plasmas through his shields.

In terms of criticals. It remains a plasma and keeps the weapons special rules so yes it will do two critical.