Defensive turrets

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Greetings,
I have a couple questions on starship turrets in defensive role...

First, I have a triple sandcaster turret (that my autocorrect insists on calling sandcastle).

Does this mean:

A) I can fire three sand canisters as a single reaction? How'd that work?

B) I can use the same turret for three separate reactions (assuming I have enough reactions, of course)?

C) I may react once per round, but won't have to reload for three turns/one reaction but multiple sand types available (high guard)?

Next up: how does large-scale sandcaster-defense work? Not barrage-large, but like this:
There are two mercenary cruisers, Great Balls of Fire and Doom Globe. They are each armed with eight beam laser/sandcaster turrets. Balls fires upon Globe, eight lasers, pew pew pew. Can Globe only react by launching sand upon two (average reaction number) beams, or am I daft and it's actually like this: Balls' aggressive firing of 8 beam lasers counts as one attack, and triggers a single reaction, so Globe can choose to launch up to 8 barrels of sand (one per attacking beam) as a single reaction? Or even more defensively favored: a single barrel of sand intercepts all 8 beams (!)?

Is it possible to launch multiple barrels of sand against a single attack, or always just one per attacking turret (intercepting all beams from a triple turret)?

And finally: a turret may fire once per turn. Does this mean that since Balls (see above) fired all of its lasers this round, it is unable to defend itself from the swarm of missiles* impacting it the same turn? Or does it mean that each turret may attack once, and is free to intercept once too?

*no one knows where the missiles came from, they simply materialized and attacked. This is in no way related to rumors of hyperspace-submarines lurking within jump bubbles and opening micro-holes to launch ordnance upon unsuspecting victims. Nope. Move along, nothing to see here

 

[locarno24]

A gunner may fire any or all of the weapons in his turret or bay but each turret or bay may only fire once per round

To me means that you can pull the trigger to fire all three lasers (or whatever) but only once; so if you chose to fire on a ship you might as well fire all three lasers; you can't reserve one for point defence fire later (because that would involve firing the same turret twice).

If you have a laser/sandcaster turret, therefore, if firing the laser offensively, you're not going to fire sand.

So (B) is a no-go; you can never use the same turret for multiple reactions.

I would say (A) - you've got a triple sandcaster, hence you get three rolls to 'hit' and trigger the 'fire sand' effect.

And yes, one sandcaster 'hit' degrades all incoming beam fire from a single attacker:

If successful the damage of each beam in the incoming attack is reduced by 1d6. Resolve each beam separately.

So if the incoming attack is eight beam lasers, you can potentially block the lot of them with one accurate sand cloud.

 

[Condottiere]

This aspect is kinda abstract, considering the time interval of six minutes.

 

[locarno24]

Indeed, but - as me and my friends are fond of saying when watching films - "don't poke the plot holes".

Otherwise you might find yourself wondering how someone 'reacts' to incoming laser fire (which by definition you can't see coming), or why a ship that reverses direction and starts trying to close the range instead of open it doesn't have to overcome the substantial velocity it will have built up first, or...well...yeah. Traveller may be slightly more self-consistant with science than, say, Warhammer 40,000, but don't kid yourself that it's that much better.

 

[Condottiere]

Use the force, Luke.

 

[alex_greene]

Luke: The Force is ... equal to mass times acceleration.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

Well, ...the mass is more like a potato.

 

[CosmicGamer]

A gunner may fire any or all of the weapons in his turret or bay but each turret or bay may only fire once per round

Things are not always so black and white.

Turret lasers can be used to destroy incoming missiles... A gunner may keep making Gunner checks against missiles until he misses an attack... Attacks may be directed against different incoming missiles

Makes it sound like a turret can keep firing at incoming missiles until the gunner misses.

My take on it:
is that the first quote does not apply to reactions such as sand and point defense.
so
using the "Order of Events" on page 146, the "fire once per round" is for step 3b.

Additional support for this way of interpreting things: Ship designs with turrets that have a combination of both offensive and reactionary weapons.

Others may think otherwise and I'm always open for discussion. Perhaps there are other rules I'm not considering... I'm not well versed in High Guard.

 

[Patron Zero]

IMTU I've adopted the idea of defensive turrets and other 'passive' counter-measures for quite some time, that said let me break down what I mean.

Laser turrets do make great anti-missile weapons but I have such 'scaled' down to operate as a CIWS-local defense measure and not having the range or power to be applied offensively. As such I allow for one standard hardpoint to be divided in half for the purposes of such being two (2) separate mini-turrets emplacements.

I also see sand-casters in the form of missiles somewhat redundant and space-consuming when such work equally well when reconfigured as hull-mounted fixed point counter-measures like smoke dischargers or grenade launchers on modern AFVs. I see that application providing a denser protection 'screen' against lasers and if some additional radar-reflective granules are added to the sand mix, such would also act as chaff.

Mind that also launching electronic 'jammers' or decoys might confuse or deter incoming missiles long enough for a ship to escape or assume a better defensive position in an engagement.