Double and Triple Missiles

[Nerhesi]

Perhaps, for the sake of reason/logic then, a minor revision of point defense is required.

a) There is no reason to say you can't hit the targets out at any ranges (we have rules now for hitting smaller, man sized targets with starship weapons, it is at a -4).

b) Also, it can be reasonably assumed that the accuracy of laser applies regardless of what you're shooting (its obviously not based on size, or the laser bonus would be variable depending on the target size).

Resulting in:

Point defense at any range.
Point defense using any direct fire weapon.
Point defense at a -4 to hit missiles.
Point defense gets bonuses based on weapon type (as per normal, so +4 for beam, +2 for pulse).

You basically simplify the point defense rules, while giving more complex options for players choices in one swoop. You no longer have that weirdness of how come I can hit a small fighter at very long range but I can't hit a missile it's friggin 1km or less away? Or the How come my particle/plasma beams can't shoot a missile down by my laser beam can?

 

[vladthemad]

A triple turret with a mixed loadout is not able to fire all weapons, it's only able to fire one weapon in the combat round, check the last sentence of the first paragraph under Double and Triple Turrets. As to the rest, I agree multiple missiles from the same turret fired at the same time needs clarification.

158 first column under double and triple turrets.

If these weapons are different (a pulse
laser, missile rack and sand caster in the same triple
turret, for example), then only one type may be used to
attack an enemy in a combat round.

158 second column at the bottom.

Just as in other forms of combat, those on board
a spacecraft can perform reactions in response to
the enemy they are fighting. Reactions can only be
performed by Travellers assigned to specific duties, as
described below.

Reactions are Evade (pilot), Point Defence (Gunner) and Disperse Sand (gunner).

71 left column at the top, combat section

In every round a character can perform one significant action (fire at an enemy) and one minor action (sip coffee) OR three minor actions.

In addition he can perform an unlimited number of reactions and free actions, free actions subject to ref limits, reactions with a -1 penalty to each subsequent action.

A gunner in a mixed turret of missile, beam, sand fires a missile at the enemy (attack enemy, significant action), disperses sand against enemy laser fire (reaction) AND point defence fire at incoming missile (reaction).

Which is the example I used in my original question and within the rules. my question was more that a beam or pulse spends the entire round tracking and hitting the enemy but the missile flies itself so could a turret with a missile, a pulse and a beam launch the missile that flies itself, fire the pulse at the enemy and hold the beam for point defence?

Again it's missiles needing clarification, the firing multiple weapons on a mixed turret is covered under significant action and reactions already.

Heck, if all that's true and as intended, it really all needs clarification and examples because it really seems like you're splitting hairs. That makes it even harder to understand that I can only attack with ONE weapon in a mixed turret, but can then use whatever I need to during reactions.

 

[Bense]

You basically simplify the point defense rules, while giving more complex options for players choices in one swoop. You no longer have that weirdness of how come I can hit a small fighter at very long range but I can't hit a missile it's friggin 1km or less away? Or the How come my particle/plasma beams can't shoot a missile down by my laser beam can?

I'm not sure I see how what you're doing there is "simplifying" the point defense rules. Right now it's pretty basic - make an Average Gunnery roll and automatically destroy the incoming missile.

There is little point in using a particle beam in a point defense role if your ship also has lasers. The particle beam benefits of extra range and extra damage don't factor in to point defense, and so are effectively wasted if you use them in that role. I suppose a referee could rule "okay, you can use the particle beam in point defense if you really want to".

At the moment there are no rules on plasma guns, so maybe when those rules come out we'll find they can be used in point defense.

While we're on the subject of particle beams, there's nothing limiting them to one pb per turret in the current rules, like they were in MgT1.0. Does that need to be added, or do we want to allow double and triple particle beam turrets?

 

[AndrewW]

While we're on the subject of particle beams, there's nothing limiting them to one pb per turret in the current rules, like they were in MgT1.0. Does that need to be added, or do we want to allow double and triple particle beam turrets?

As far s I know that's just an oversight that needs to be corrected.

 

[Condottiere]

Might resolve itself, if it's an energy hog.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Well, we only have the ships, not the rules, so maybe the MGT1 rule that it takes a triple turret to mount 1 PB is still there.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Which does raise a question that is very much at the core of a lot of these arguments.

Where is the High Guard Beta if the core books are being released at the same time ?

 

[AndrewW]

Where is the High Guard Beta if the core books are being released at the same time ?

Right now the focus is on the core rulebook. High Guard is next up.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Okay, been giving this a lot of thought.

I am okay with just one weapon in a turret firing at a time - the assumption is that combat at very long distances requires a lot of calculations, which would be different for different types of weapons. So, just one attacks.

Note to Self: This does imply that in dogfights you should be able to blast away with everything, but that might be a complication too far.

Now, missiles

I have put a line in the book now that basically states that missiles are handled individually, so if you have a triple missile rack turret, you fire three independent missiles rather than stacking them up as per other weaponry.

But.

We clearly need a system to handle multiple missiles quickly and easily. The ships in Core don't need it, but missile boats in High Guard certainly will, so that is where we will look at the issue.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Okay, been giving this a lot of thought.

I am okay with just one weapon in a turret firing at a time - the assumption is that combat at very long distances requires a lot of calculations, which would be different for different types of weapons. So, just one attacks.

Note to Self: This does imply that in dogfights you should be able to blast away with everything, but that might be a complication too far.

Now, missiles

I have put a line in the book now that basically states that missiles are handled individually, so if you have a triple missile rack turret, you fire three independent missiles rather than stacking them up as per other weaponry.

But.

We clearly need a system to handle multiple missiles quickly and easily. The ships in Core don't need it, but missile boats in High Guard certainly will, so that is where we will look at the issue.

Even dog fights are carried at at a range of hundreds of kilometers against targets moving and changing vector at hundreds of meters per second. Lots of calculations there as well.

OK, glad to get an answer thanks.


My problem was with the whole triple missiles suddenly become one doing 4D6 + 8 but to make large numbers of individual missiles easier I don't mind some simplicity.

So pick a number to represent fire control and coordination of missile attacks, maybe tech level or 12 or some other fixed number. Combine that many missiles either before point defence and add one to the to hit roll for each extra missile in that salvo or every two missiles dpepending on how you want to balance them.

A merc cruiser fires its four triple missile turrets at a pirate corsair, 12 missiles launched. The corsair gunners take out five of the incoming leaving seven missiles. Roll to hit at +6, say the roll if a modified 11, this is four hits with the other missiles flying past. one hit at 8 then one extra per effect.

Since the missiles guide and target themselves the limit is the number that can attack together which needs to be set in the rules, 12 is a nice scary number, tech with a tech 15 warship is buttock clenching since it will shred anything not an armoured block. If the number is lower, say 9 then each swarm of missiles gets a single guaranteed hit plus the possibility of other hits. The group number needs to be set based on how scary you want missile groups to be, but I would suggest that unless bays use a separate number it be 12 allowing for bays firing 12 or 24 missiles so you can easily group them. A large bay fires two groups of missiles.

You are firing individual missiles and shooting down individual missiles and doing damage from individual missiles but rolling to hit for groups. You could probably do the same thing for point defence, for example a beam laser, gunner 2, + 1 dex, + 1 from fire control program and short range so total +5, rolls 6 for point defence, total 11, shoots down 4 missiles.

Multiple missiles fired individually, only two rolls required to hit and point defence.

Then the bucket of D6s for the damage rolls, mwahahahahaha.

Edit. Thinking about it if high guard has missiles with bonus to hit the +1 per two missiles would be more balanced.

 

[phavoc]

It's sounding like the dice pools from shadowrun. It works, just takes getting used to tossing a dozen dice (or more). But it would be nice to streamline larger attacks, though with adventure class ships you kind of want some white knuckle hope going on.

As far as bays having two separate flights, I don't think that's a good idea. Bays are meant to be bad ass to justify their cost and size. So they should be overwhelming. That's why as a player you don't want to mess with military ships unless you have to.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I am concerned that treating each missile separately means that the Barrage rules from MGT1 are out. I LIKED that rule, once I figured out how it actually worked!

For larger ships (not just Capital ships), there needs to be an easy way to resolve attacks with dozens of weapons of the same type (dozens of Missiles or Pulse Beams or Particle Beams or whatever).

 

[MongooseMatt]

I am concerned that treating each missile separately means that the Barrage rules from MGT1 are out. I LIKED that rule, once I figured out how it actually worked!

Still working on different systems at the moment. I want something more streamlined than barrage, but need to figure out whether it should be reserved for a new Capital scale, or something else.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Well, if you have a 2000 ton ship, you could have 20 triple turrets or 60 missiles firing PER ROUND. That is a LOT of dice rolling per round... I think there needs to be something streamlined at the smaller ship level.

Heck, even the Mercenary Cruiser with 8 turrets can have 24 missiles per round launching (or 24 total weapons), which is a lot of rolls per combat round.

A simple way that a Gunner can group common weapons and turrets together to reduce the number of die rolls would be great.

Perhaps something similar to the Autofire rule?

 

[phavoc]

For smaller adventure-class ships, I think each missile is treated as an individual attack. Makes it easier to deal with, and reflects that smaller ships don't have all the fancy-schmancy fire control, linked batteries, etc, etc. It's where people are most important, not software and the LT sitting at fire control.

 

[vladthemad]

I am okay with just one weapon in a turret firing at a time - the assumption is that combat at very long distances requires a lot of calculations, which would be different for different types of weapons. So, just one attacks.

As a long time player and GM of many systems, there's one place that I'd always side for more complexity (to a point) than simplicity, and that's in combat rules. From a game stand point, not letting all weapons in a turret fire each turn is really just penalizing anyone that uses mixed turrets in game. Now the ubiquitous type S (aka every player's first ship) really doesn't have a choice between raw stopping power or versatility in combat. If I, as a player, know I can't fire all the weapons in a mixed turret in a combat round, why would I bother mixing the turret at all? You've forced the choice for me, linked weapons.

Even from a logic stand point it doesn't hold up. Pulse lasers and beam lasers move at the same exact speed. A particle beam (and mesons once HG comes out) just slightly slower. Modern artillery can fire two shells from the same howitzer and get both shells to hit at the same time. If we can manage to fire one weapon twice and get the comparatively slow moving shells to hit the same exact spot at the same exact time, why wouldn't the far future be able to fire two different weapons and do the same thing?

To use the argument that it takes a long time to get a target solution so only one weapon can fire from a mixed turret in six minutes doesn't hold up either. The pilot can stop jerking the control stick all over the place in what he calls "evasive maneuvers" for a few brief seconds to provide a stable firing platform while the gunner targets and fires on the enemy. The pilot isn't stopping for the whole six minutes, as a matter of fact he's probably only stopping for a few moments. So why can't the gunner repeat that same action, with or without the stable gun platform bonus, more than once in a given six minute round? The gunner isn't in the turret with a slide rule and his trusty TI-84, the ship's computer is doing all that work. I'd say it's a pretty safe bet in the distant future it's going to take seconds, if not fractions of a second, for the software to come up with a firing solution. It would probably take more time for the gunner to pull the trigger than for the computer to make the calculation. The fact that more advanced fire control software can not only give you positive DMs but even shoot the weapons for you makes it even more likely that it's pretty much point and click...the computer does the rest. Variances in damage rolls are what would account for evasive maneuvers and the slight difference in speeds between a particle and laser beam fired together to hit the target.

Still working on different systems at the moment. I want something more streamlined than barrage, but need to figure out whether it should be reserved for a new Capital scale, or something else.

Well hurry up and put it out so we can tear it about for you. Are you thinking big ships with a lot of little guns or big ships with relatively few big guns? If it's the latter scaling would work pretty well. Even if it's lots of little guns scaling would work too now that I think about it. It's either one big laser hitting your hull or lots of small lasers all focused on the same location. The The effect would be the same, you're going to have a bad day. The only difference is the way it's described in the fluff.

 

[phavoc]

I am okay with just one weapon in a turret firing at a time - the assumption is that combat at very long distances requires a lot of calculations, which would be different for different types of weapons. So, just one attacks.

As a long time player and GM of many systems, there's one place that I'd always side for more complexity (to a point) than simplicity, and that's in combat rules. From a game stand point, not letting all weapons in a turret fire each turn is really just penalizing anyone that uses mixed turrets in game. Now the ubiquitous type S (aka every player's first ship) really doesn't have a choice between raw stopping power or versatility in combat. If I, as a player, know I can't fire all the weapons in a mixed turret in a combat round, why would I bother mixing the turret at all? You've forced the choice for me, linked weapons.

I think one way to address that issue is to toss the new limitation out. Offensively we have beam weapons that should only be able to engage one target per turn from that turret. Missiles are unaffected because of how missiles work. Defensively the turret may perform a launch of sand or use the lasers to effect a point defense roll (1 per laser).

You bring up a good point in that adventure-class ships often have to mix weapons in a turret because they are limited by hardpoints.

 

[vladthemad]

If the missiles all hit the same general area of the targetted hull on the same turn.

In both MGT1 and MGT2 - all missiles fired at the same turn, would hit the target on the same turn.

As for the actual mechanical effect or multiple missiles, I think we're waiting to see if the rules as written are actually intended as such. I am concerned for consistency when we get to bays, they fire 12 missiles lets say, how is that going to be treated? 4d6 x 12 or 4d6+44 (hah) ...

Not necessarily. In MGT1 each missile has a separate target roll, so it was entirely possible to have 3 missiles fired at the same hit on different turns if one missed on the first pass. There was no linking rule. Also, missiles in MGT1 did 1d6 damage.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing for linked missiles, I think they should be a special case, and tracked individually. The linked rules don't really fit the missile system. It's not like the missiles suddenly glue themselves together in some sort of super missile. They wouldn't even hit close to the same location on the hull of the target. Statistically they would never hit the same spot at the exact same time, so the first one to hit and explode would more than likely disable or trigger the others before they could effectively connect with the target. On top of that, you wouldn't want them flying in such close proximity because they'd be very likely to crash into each other.

A triple turret with a mixed loadout is not able to fire all weapons, it's only able to fire one weapon in the combat round, check the last sentence of the first paragraph under Double and Triple Turrets. As to the rest, I agree multiple missiles from the same turret fired at the same time needs clarification.

158 first column under double and triple turrets.

If these weapons are different (a pulse
laser, missile rack and sand caster in the same triple
turret, for example), then only one type may be used to
attack an enemy in a combat round.

158 second column at the bottom.

Just as in other forms of combat, those on board
a spacecraft can perform reactions in response to
the enemy they are fighting. Reactions can only be
performed by Travellers assigned to specific duties, as
described below.

Reactions are Evade (pilot), Point Defence (Gunner) and Disperse Sand (gunner).

71 left column at the top, combat section

In every round a character can perform one significant action (fire at an enemy) and one minor action (sip coffee) OR three minor actions.

In addition he can perform an unlimited number of reactions and free actions, free actions subject to ref limits, reactions with a -1 penalty to each subsequent action.

A gunner in a mixed turret of missile, beam, sand fires a missile at the enemy (attack enemy, significant action), disperses sand against enemy laser fire (reaction) AND point defence fire at incoming missile (reaction).

Which is the example I used in my original question and within the rules. my question was more that a beam or pulse spends the entire round tracking and hitting the enemy but the missile flies itself so could a turret with a missile, a pulse and a beam launch the missile that flies itself, fire the pulse at the enemy and hold the beam for point defence?

Again it's missiles needing clarification, the firing multiple weapons on a mixed turret is covered under significant action and reactions already.

Where does it state that space combat uses the same significant/minor action system? Those are from the personal combat system, which operates on a 6 second combat round and really shouldn't apply to space combat.

Even then, with the specific rules you're quoting then even with a single turret with a single laser I could only perform one attack in six minutes on one enemy ship...but also for some reason can shoot down half a dozen missiles as a reaction. How is shooting at the front cross sections of multiple high speed missiles at close range less difficult than shooting at a slow moving giant target (relative to the a missile) at medium? Why can I get off multiple shots at multiple missiles? I mean if you want to split hairs and find one word to stand on in a rule, we can argue about whether point defense on missiles is actually an attack on them and should only be allowed during the attack phase and you should only be able to fire at one.

I agree that missiles need clarification, but there's obviously other issues too. If missiles should be able to shoot separately, then why not all weapons? Why can't different linked laser types work together? Light travels at a constant speed after all. Why can't a particle beam shoot together with those two lasers, as it's only slightly slower than the lasers and relatively likely to hit anything they would as well.

 

[Bense]

Under the current system the traditional mixed turret of beam laser, missile rack, sandcaster does have utility. No you can't fire the laser and the missile at the same target in the same round, but you can use the missile rack at longer ranges, and then switch to lasers as you get in range of the enemy ship. Your laser will be your point defense weapon at longer ranges and your sandcaster will provide defense from enemy lasers at shorter ranges. The missile rack will be idle at short ranges, but missiles aren't optimized for short ranges anyway.
The triple mix is much more useful overall on a scoutship than double or triple missile racks (which can't engage at short range and don't provide any defense) or double or triple lasers (which are short ranged and don't defend against enemy lasers).

 

[Bense]

If one attack in 6 minutes isn't fast enough for you, remember that original Traveller had 1000-second combat rounds (16 minutes 40 seconds), with only one attack per turret per round.
High Guard used 20 minute rounds.
And you couldn't use the same weapons on point defense that you were using to attack with - each weapon had to be dedicated to either attack or defend for the entire 16-20 minutes.
T5 space combat rounds are still 20 minutes, and you still get 1 attack per battery and have to dedicate your weapons to either attack or defense the entire round.