House Rules - Fixing Starship Missile Combat Damage

[Solomani666]

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Standard missiles in MGT are worthless and torpedoes almost worthless.

I am leaving the barrage rules as they are for now.
These rules only apply to the standard combat rules.


IMTU a hit with an effect of +0 does only half damage.
I apply this rule for both personal and ship combat.
This rule makes even more sense when you read the task description for an effect of 0.
It also adds flavor by allowing the occasional grazing wound.


I use the positive effect of a missiles hit roll as a die number multiplier.

Example:
A standard missile does 1d6 of damage.
Turret gunner Luke fires two standard missiles at a ship making a gunnery check with an effect of +1.
Each missile will thus hit its target on a roll of 7+. (Main rulebook page 149)
He rolls a 7 for the first missile (effect 0) so the target ship takes 1/2d6 (half) of damage.
He rolls a 10 for the second missile (effect 3) so the target ship takes 3d6 (not 1d6x3) of damage.

A missile can now do a maximum of 6d6 of damage which seems to fit the CT to MGT conversion scale of one damage point to 1d6 of damage. The odds of doing 6d6 are highly improbable, so this rule adds some punch to missiles, but does not upset the game balance.


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[Nerhesi]

I've seen this post on the citizens of the imperium forums.

Not quite sure as to how torpedoes are almost worthless... they seem to be quite the opposite of that, especially when you consider the various types of torpedos.

As for missiles, they become worthless in higher tech, more military engagements. So be it unfortunately. As it stands now, many things becomes worthless when you are talking about the top-end fighting. Pulse lasers, beam lasers, fusion guns. You're left in the land of Meson, Particle and Plasma.

I dont see this as a problem, or at the very least, a missile only problem.

 

[Galadrion]

Personally, I'm considering simply tripling the dice for missiles and doubling them for torpedoes. This makes standard missiles a bit more dangerous than lasers, with the trade-off being that they can be countered - and it lends a bit more urgency to counter-missile fire. Nuclear missiles become terrifying for civilians, and are even rather worrisome for military ship. Torpedoes (and even worse, nuclear torpedoes) are something right out of the question for civilian ownership - getting found with these in your possession is going to get you scrutinized very closely!

Overall, missiles should be more damaging than energy weapons. They can be shot down, and they're limited by ammunition supply. If the cheapest, least damaging energy weapon is just as damaging as a missile, then no one in their right mind is going to waste the money and magazine space on a missile system. The only reason to even consider going the other way is your target might have the reflec option on his armor - three extra points of armor, only good against lasers.

 

[phavoc]

Traveller missiles could use a facelift. First off they are pretty tiny things. There have been numerous conversations regarding updating the rules to include things like different sizes, farther ranges, more speed, etc. The size of a standard missile should really be targeting smaller, sub-100 ton craft. Or they should be size of an anti-missile missile.

Torps should be considered the 'ship killers' that the larger anti-ship missiles are today. They would also need some sort of defenses to make a target ship try very, very hard to ensure they don't hit.

Of course upgrading missiles begets the need for a true point-defense system. You should be able to hit a tiny missile at anything but close-range. Point-defense should be done by dedicated point-defense lasers (probably gatling) that can engage multiple targets per round. Having an anti-ship laser used in all scenarios (anti-ship, anti-fighter, anti-missile) doesn't make a lot of sense.

I have a house rule where you get to add 1pt of damage for the increased TL. Missiles start at 6 (which I ignore), but as I see it, they really don't start till 9 when you get gravitic drive missiles. So a TL15 missile does the standard 1d6, but then you add 6pts to account for the higher TL making the drive smaller to increase the penetration aids you'll need as well as the size of the warhead. It makes them a lot more deadly, and it's a reason to seek out higher TL worlds to arm up too.

 

[Nerhesi]

I think essentially though, a missile is nothing more than trying to ram a ship with another ship. As this is a Hard Scifi setting - the vast majority of weapons you have are travelling at light/near-light speed.

Missiles, unlike in other settings, are really only traveling just as fast (and sometimes slower) than their targets (some fighters move faster). I see this is a reason to keep them as a relatively lower/tech/sometimes ineffective option.

You guys remember the star-trek TNG episode where some sort of engagement happens, the captain turns to Worf and asks for a "threat analysis" or something like that. To which Worf replies.. "They're using lasers captain..." which such disdain as to basically ignore even alerting the crew.

Thats like missiles in Traveller.

However, I'm completely willing to discard all of that as this is primarily a game - and in a game, fun comes first

 

[Solomani666]

I think essentially though, a missile is nothing more than trying to ram a ship with another ship. As this is a Hard Scifi setting - the vast majority of weapons you have are travelling at light/near-light speed.

Missiles, unlike in other settings, are really only traveling just as fast (and sometimes slower) than their targets (some fighters move faster). I see this is a reason to keep them as a relatively lower/tech/sometimes ineffective option.

Traveller missiles do not actually hit the target ship, but carry an explosive payload that launches multiple kinetic kill penetrators. Kind of like firing a shotgun loaded with a flechette round.

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[Condottiere]

Missiles are probably too cheap.

 

[phavoc]

Missiles are probably too cheap.

Depending on what kind of conversion number you are talking about (I've heard a Cr = $3, or as low as Cr = $2), Traveller missiles are rather cheap.

a Tomahawk costs about $1.5 million
a Hellfire about $120,000
a Javelin AT missile (+ launcher) costs about $150,000
a SM-3 naval missile costs anywhere from $9million to $24million
a AMRAAM costs $300,000 to $1.4million
a Harpoon ASM costs about $1.2million
a mk50 torpedo costs $2.9million

In Traveller a standard missile cost Cr1,250, or the dollar equivalent of about $4,000. The nuclear version costs about $10,000.

So yeah, missiles are pretty cheap in the Traveller universe!

 

[Solomani666]

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In Traveller a standard missile cost Cr1,250, or the dollar equivalent of about $4,000. The nuclear version costs about $10,000.

So yeah, missiles are pretty cheap in the Traveller universe!

Standard missiles have a base price of 15,000 Cr. (Core Rule Book page 111)

So that's $30,000 to $45,000 a pop. Not cheap.


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[Galadrion]

Cr 15,000 for twelve missiles (from the same reference). That works out to Cr 1,250 apiece, or using those conversion factors, $2,500 to $3,750 apiece. Still, for all their likely effectiveness (only a fifty-percent chance of penetrating the armor of a Type A if it even hits) pretty expensive. Certainly not worth wasting the potential cargo space on a magazine.

 

[Solomani666]

Cr 15,000 for twelve missiles (from the same reference). That works out to Cr 1,250 apiece, or using those conversion factors, $2,500 to $3,750 apiece. Still, for all their likely effectiveness (only a fifty-percent chance of penetrating the armor of a Type A if it even hits) pretty expensive. Certainly not worth wasting the potential cargo space on a magazine.

I stand corrected.

The rule I posted at the start of this thread makes missles worth the cost.
The possibility of a missile doing up to 6d6 can not be ignored.

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[Condottiere]

I'm going to speculate it's the reason that the torpedo evolved.

The missiles seem more of a means to ward off pirates and smallcraft.

 

[Nerhesi]

I'm going to speculate it's the reason that the torpedo evolved.

The missiles seem more of a means to ward off pirates and smallcraft.

I also like having a sort of soft-barrier (not explicitly implied) between Military and Adventure/Civilian space craft.

Civilian/Adventure - Armor of 6ish or below, beam and pulse lasers, missiles, the odd plasma and particle weapon but probably hidden.

Military, lasers are only really point defense, masses of barbettes, bays, etc...

 

[mr31337]

The low cost of missiles, the long range, the fact that you probably fire a salvo of 2 or 3 and that smart missiles keep going makes me think that the damages is about right, but they certainly have their disadvantages. It's a very handy defensive weapon against other small civilian style ships.

I've heard some people say missiles are powered by gravitics, which would be interesting if correct, as then they could be fired in any direction and would only need a fixed mount not a turret to do so. The problem with that is the smallest M-Drive that can provide 10G thrust is 2.5 tons, so it seems more likely missiles have some sort of chemical propulsion more akin to high burn thrusters.

 

[Condottiere]

1. Militaries can afford to shoot off expensive hardware; for civilian corporations, it become very much a cost benefit analysis.

2. If piracy costs less than arming their ships, they may take the hit.

3. I doubt most missiles would use gravitics, as it's a one way trip and they probably cost and weigh four times as much as a reaction drive, since the power plant has to be the same factor as the grav motor.

4. The ones that do would be a combination cruise/smart missile, probably stealthed.