sideranautae said:
ShawnDriscoll said:
sideranautae said:
I dropped non-nuke missiles for the reasons I outlined. Nukes for similar reasons.
But why though? Why is that your reason?
Reread the reasons I gave until you understand the plain English...
He dropped them because he thought they weren't powerful enough. He thinks kinetic energy weapons would be superior.
The issue I have with that logic is you are circumventing standard logic. A kinetic energy kill requires a direct hit, an area effect weapon just requires you get close enough. I see no problem in applying real-world physics to the game, but you shouldn't pick and choose what laws of physics you adopt.
First off, in the real world all intercepting missiles are detonation-type weapons. When the fuze detects the missile (or shell) getting close enough it detonates. Nobody makes direct contact weapons because if you miss by a meter, you miss by a kilometer. You have better odds detonating and throwing a bunch of shit at your target to damage or destroy it.
Secondly, in the real world we have to deal with things like velocity and vectors. Traveller doesn't. In the real world your missile might not be able to overtake your target - assuming you get lucky enough on your vector that an intercept is possible in the first place. And ships can jink at the last moment. Since Traveller uses Newtonian movement, you have to account for changes in your velocity. That makes missile combat more problematic, especially since they are relatively low velocity weapons.
Also, a nuke allows you an opportunity to do radiation damage, which normal kinetic energy missiles do not. One of the potential downfalls of nukes though is the nuclear screen, which can make your nuke weapons just a bunch of expensive pieces of flotsam. Which is why there are standoff type missiles.
Using the website you mentioned at the beginning (cool find by the way), 1 second of output from an average commercial nuclear power reactor (850 MW) is equal to 203kg of TNT. A W48 155mm nuclear artillery shell is .072 kilotons worth of explosive goodness. Assuming a Traveller laser is firing in the megajoule range, a beam laser does 1d6 damage with the explosive equivalent of 203kg of TNT. A nuclear warhead like the W48 on the tip of a missle does 354 times that, plus there is the radiation factor.
So yeah, you really should be concerned about a nuke detonating 50m off the port bow. IF you can hit a target with a nuke it should be doing a LOT more damage. Unless I got my numbers wrong...