Damage Multiplier in the new HG, or One Shot, One Kill

[AnotherDilbert]

If nuke missiles are still 6D, they only have ~14% chance if doing any damage and 1-2% of doing significant damage. Not economical...

It seems we have a two-layer combat system, where small skirmish forces fight with fighters and missiles and BatRons fight with spinals, bays, and perhaps torpedoes. Doesn't leave much space for small (<5000 Dt) warships.

 

[Condottiere]

Wasn't it hinted at at the beginning of the year that missiles (and torpedoes) were about to a get a massive upgrade on damage?

 

[kevinknight]

If nuke missiles are still 6D, they only have ~14% chance if doing any damage and 1-2% of doing significant damage. Not economical...

It seems we have a two-layer combat system, where small skirmish forces fight with fighters and missiles and BatRons fight with spinals, bays, and perhaps torpedoes. Doesn't leave much space for small (<5000 Dt) warships.

The new HG book has nuclear missiles at 1DD and nuclear torpedoes at 2DD. A significant upgrade in their damage...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Yowza! Nuke missiles went from av. 6 damage vs Armour 15 to av. 10 damage vs Armour 30. Why use anything but missiles and torpedoes?

Small ships with low hull and low armour are just victims, is even any idea to armour them at all? Just use the space for more missile bays?

 

[Arkathan]

And PDBs to counter them.

 

[Condottiere]

Speed is life - you could try to outrun them.

 

[Alqualonde]

I haven't found any mentions of missiles size (except 12 per dT) in HG. In Classical Traveller, they weighted 50kg. Small enough to be handled by a medium sized sophont. Not surprising they can't do much damage to a military capital ship.
For Torpedoes, they are 4 times larger (3 per dT), thus around 200kg.
The real ship killers are large bays & spinal. Especially Meson weapons since they ignore armour.
You need a 2 or 3000 dT ship to mount a large bay (500dT). Such a ship could damage a battleship (>100 000dT), but the cost would be quite steep. They would blow up easilly. At least the battleship spinal weapon wont be able to target them.
By the way, the Tigress only have AV17. Its the battle riders that are heavily armored. Jump capable ship are using a lot of their volume for fuel (for Jump 4 : 10% for Jump Drive & 40% for Jump fuel)..

 

[Condottiere]

That's one tonne divided by twenty missiles, they used to be smaller.

And last time, the torpedo was around two and a half tonnes,

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I haven't found any mentions of missiles size (except 12 per dT) in HG. In Classical Traveller, they weighted 50kg. Small enough to be handled by a medium sized sophont.

A Displacement ton is about 14 m³, so a missile is about 1 m³ or at least the crate is.

That is, say, 0.5 m × 0.5 m × 4 m, i.e. slightly smaller than a Tomahawk. That would make it something like 1000 kg.

By the way, the Tigress only have AV17. Its the battle riders that are heavily armored. Jump capable ship are using a lot of their volume for fuel (for Jump 4 : 10% for Jump Drive & 40% for Jump fuel)..

Of course we have to sacrifice something to fit the armour. The classical Tigress was J-3.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

And PDBs to counter them.

Even at double effectiveness they are less effective per Dt than laser turrets. It's no game changer, it's just making them somewhat more competitive.

They were utterly useless in HG2017.

 

[Arkathan]

Even at double effectiveness they are less effective per Dt than laser turrets. It's no game changer, it's just making them somewhat more competitive.

They were utterly useless in HG2017.

Per Dt, yes, but not per hardpoint. On a ship where space is not an issue, they are pretty good.

 

[Condottiere]

It's a pity point defence clusters can't damage at close range spacecraft.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Per Dt, yes, but not per hardpoint.

Agreed.

On a ship where space is not an issue, they are pretty good.

Agreed, but where do I find that unicorn?

Warships are generally tightly packed, and commercial ships need their payload space to make a living. If you have a lot of space over, make the ship smaller and hence cheaper...

 

[Arkathan]

Warships are generally tightly packed, and commercial ships need their payload space to make a living. If you have a lot of space over, make the ship smaller and hence cheaper...

Yeah, I tend to start with a list of stuff I want on the ship and then make it bigger until all of that crap fits.