Interesting data on nukes in space

[sideranautae]

Yet a moment earlier you say ships have supercomputers to make missing impossible. Now they suck? Which is it?

No, I make them work like real supercomputers. NOT, like the vacuum tube performance that Trav postulates. DO try and keep up.

For the second statement, we have been discussing ship's weapons, lasers and missiles. How does suddenly referencing vehicles and people equate to the topic? Are ships throwing grav cars and crew members at each other?

You asked where the auto kill rule was for a ship missile getting hit by a Ship's laser weapon was. I told you. What don't you understand about the rule?

 

[Reynard]

You're publicly kidding, right? You jumble two different rule sets that have nothing to do with each other to prove an argument. Ship combat doesn't use vehicle/personal combat from a completely different section to determine if ship point defense takes out a missile. Nor does your personal homebrew rules for computers have anything to do with official rules in the actual game and therefore don't affect ship combat by the Traveller rules.

 

[phavoc]

And yet, in the Traveller Universe, ship lasers do miss and missiles do reach their target.

Correct. And in the trav universe electronics & computers are lower TL that today. :roll: I have corrected the rules to reflect TL's above 7 for those items.

I don't remember any rule saying missiles are auto-kills by lasers.

CRB rule on star ship weapons vs. vehicle/personal sized targets. Insta kill.

Two issues here. The first is that human history shows us when we make a better mouse trap, a better mouse comes along. So sure, we make lasers that can throw up a wall of energy, somebody invents a missile that will dodge, leap or evade it. It's always a contest between the two. I don't see how that will ever change since the tech can be equally applied to both sides.

The other issue is the CRB rule you are stating. Yes, you are correct. Starship weapon just frackin obliterates vehicle/personal sized targets, of which a standard missile is one. BUT (and this is a Nicki Minaj sized one) you have to HIT it first. One hit = one kill. Zero hit = zero kill. Just as the missile has to roll to hit a starship (simple you'd think), the starship has to roll to hit the missile - which should be damn hard considering it's trying really, really hard to NOT get hit. With accurate point defense a grav-drive missile would be dodging like crazy with a HUGE agility bump over what a starship could do. There's no need for a missile to move in a very straight, very predictable near ballistic course so that it could shoot it down. That's like TL-6 thinking! Some missiles today have similar capabilities to make it harder for them to be shot down. ATACMS comes to mind. When it hits it's apogee and starts it's descent, it's speed becomes less predictable so you defenses have a harder time hitting it. Now that we are moving into an age where it IS practical to use point defense and get a hit (as opposed to throwing up a wall of rounds and hoping for a hit by a CIWS), we'll start seeing new countermeasures built into missiles, artillery shells and mortar rounds to make them less susceptible to intercepts. That's just how arms technology works.

 

[dragoner]

It could have MIRV type warheads, with only one being the real one.

 

[sideranautae]

Two issues here. The first is that human history shows us when we make a better mouse trap, a better mouse comes along. So sure, we make lasers that can throw up a wall of energy, somebody invents a missile that will dodge, leap or evade it.

Until you hit the limits of physics. Which have been reached for that sized missile in Trav. Mounted Calvary went away because of this. They could no longer adapt to the weapons used against them. So, history doesn't show us that a better trap always comes along in the SAME package. The calvary had to switch to HUGE tanks. Missiles would probably have to switch to becoming huge, small craft sized nuc drones to survive energy weapon fire.

With speed of light detection and ranging coupled with speed of light weapons, a missile will NEVER be able to maneuver enough at extremely close range to evade. No more than a person can dodge a laser beam once fired.

I'm simply eliminating internal rule inconsistencies & mistakes. Should have been done as part of the evolution of the game.

 

[phavoc]

Until you hit the limits of physics. Which have been reached for that sized missile in Trav. Mounted Calvary went away because of this. They could no longer adapt to the weapons used against them. So, history doesn't show us that a better trap always comes along in the SAME package. The calvary had to switch to HUGE tanks. Missiles would probably have to switch to becoming huge, small craft sized nuc drones to survive energy weapon fire.

With speed of light detection and ranging coupled with speed of light weapons, a missile will NEVER be able to maneuver enough at extremely close range to evade. No more than a person can dodge a laser beam once fired.

I'm simply eliminating internal rule inconsistencies & mistakes. Should have been done as part of the evolution of the game.

With energy weaponry it's even more important because if you miss by a millimeter, you miss completely. Calvary stopped because of machine guns. The first tanks were very slow, but they could be armored and therefore were able to ignore the killer of the time - machineguns. But let's keep using tanks. Tanks put on thicker armor, anti-tank guns got bigger, or more muzzle velocity. So tanks got sloped armor, guns got bigger again. Then we got really, really BIG tank guns and anti-tank missiles. Tanks got chrobram (sp>) armor. Missiles came into play with HEAT rounds, then tanks got reactive armor. It's always been balance, counter balance.

Let's go with the the "never will be able to maneuver close enough to evade" idea. If we go with the Traveller rules, then it comes down to a ship not having to worry about firing arcs (not reality, but lets run with it). A missile is small, with extremely high agility and a very small target-facing footprint (it's what, MAYBE 12" cross-section?).

If you are going to be "fixing" the missile aspect, why not fix it on both sides? Traveller missile launch rules are a joke. I used to be MLRS, and we could launch 12 rockets in less than 60 seconds and cover an entire 1km by 1km area with sub-munitions, and that's with having the LLM (launcher loader module) having to move between rounds. Modern missile fire on naval vessels is the same way. A VLS system can launch a rocket per second. Hell, with the right software you could probably launch two per VLS, assuming they didn't interfere with their exhaust plumes. Missiles really should, if you are going to use them, be swarming targets downrange. The only limitation would be ammunition stowage. If you are firing at long-range you could even use tactics like delayed ignition on your missiles to double, or triple the amount of missiles that would be hitting in a single round.

If you are eliminating inconsistencies and mistakes, at least take a holistic approach and fix it totally - gatling lasers for point defense, VLS launchers, increased throw-weight, staggered launches, anti-missile missiles, decoys, etc, etc.

 

[wbnc]

I think he was trying to point out that any hit by a laser will vaporize a missile...

which is a valid point, firing off a missile or two is likely not going to do any good if a ship has point defense capability. Unless the defender is a lousy shot, or the missile has some means of evading incoming counter fire.

Since the rules allow for a chance to miss on a point defense reaction, I have to conclude that missiles are capable of some sort of maneuvering, light armor, or some other means of surviving counter missile fire.

With a real world missile missiles tend to fly straight and take no evasive maneuvers, partly because counter missile systems aren't that effective yet.However if you consider the fact that laser based anti-missile systems are available to anyone with the money...( namely a beam laser turret, a real steal at 2 Million yah have to admit), and that missiles are still in use missile

designers have given the average missile a bag of tricks of their own.
A few ideas just off the top of my head.

1) high gee, random maneuvers to through off fire control systems.
2) thin reflect/"sand" sheathing to give it some protection against glancing strikes.(A successful point defense roll means you burned through the sheathing, a miss by a few points means the missile shrugged off a glancing hit.)
3) small single use, dreadfully stupid, radar absorbent coating/structures, countermeasures, flares, chaff etc...

I know all this isn't written up,codified, canonized. And yes if they let me I would be happy to fix that. But part of the attraction of Traveller is I don't need three binders, a set of rules encyclopedias, and a degree in standard and special starship combat rules to play.( Yessssss I played THAT game)

A lot of specific details are left up to the Referee, and he has a wonderful degree of freedom to make up the squishy fun bits of the game world. It's perfectly fine to swap out descriptions and explanation that don't meet your approval with one that does. It's YOUR game/world.
And I understand wanting things in print so you don't have to argue and re-argue the effectiveness, common sense of a ruling with players.Like i said I would like more fluff/explanation inthe rules, but for now I am happy t fill in the gaps myself.

 

[Beastttt]

just because a laser beam moves at the speed of light ,does not mean the turret housing the laser can move fast enough to be brought to bear in time
also there is the dwell time the laser needs to destroy the target
and while a laser is a really narrow beam it does spread so dwell time may increase due to range
there are tons of factors to take into account
and you have not even taken the ECM/ECCM into account

Two issues here. The first is that human history shows us when we make a better mouse trap, a better mouse comes along. So sure, we make lasers that can throw up a wall of energy, somebody invents a missile that will dodge, leap or evade it.

Until you hit the limits of physics. Which have been reached for that sized missile in Trav. Mounted Calvary went away because of this. They could no longer adapt to the weapons used against them. So, history doesn't show us that a better trap always comes along in the SAME package. The calvary had to switch to HUGE tanks. Missiles would probably have to switch to becoming huge, small craft sized nuc drones to survive energy weapon fire.

With speed of light detection and ranging coupled with speed of light weapons, a missile will NEVER be able to maneuver enough at extremely close range to evade. No more than a person can dodge a laser beam once fired.

I'm simply eliminating internal rule inconsistencies & mistakes. Should have been done as part of the evolution of the game.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

just because a laser beam moves at the speed of light ,does not mean the turret housing the laser can move fast enough to be brought to bear in time
also there is the dwell time the laser needs to destroy the target
and while a laser is a really narrow beam it does spread so dwell time may increase due to range
there are tons of factors to take into account
and you have not even taken the ECM/ECCM into account

Remember. Traveller takes place in the far future.

 

[wbnc]

Remember. Traveller takes place in the far future.

Yes and the competition between offensive weapons and defensive measures usually means that in order for a system to still be in use, either it has adapted tot he defenses, or the procurement officer has a relative at the corporation manufacturing the weapon system.

Point defense:
In reality hitting a high peed target with a beam that may be no bigger than the end of your thumb is a tricky process, any slight error in computation,unexpected maneuver from the target, vibration in the laser housing, or movement of the firing platform means a laser misses.
Modern missiles tend to fly in a straight line with no evasive maneuvers on it's part. If you do the math right, and have a targeting system accurate enough, you can shoot them down easily. now if you assume that technology is not static and a need for a missile that can evade incoming fire is great enough, some clever monkey boy will design a missile that ducks, dodges, and jinks.

 

[Reynard]

Isn't that what a cruise missile does, fly low at high speed while jinking to evade being shot at?

I could see a Traveller missile having a tiny thruster system constantly and randomly doing small course changes while still bearing on it's target to explain why a PD system doesn't automatically hit it.

 

[wbnc]

Isn't that what a cruise missile does, fly low at high speed while jinking to evade being shot at?

I could see a Traveller missile having a tiny thruster system constantly and randomly doing small course changes while still bearing on it's target to explain why a PD system doesn't automatically hit it.

they don't jink to avoid fire, they usually only maneuver to avoid things like buildings, hills, telegraph pole, and the odd car on the highway ( exaggerated slightly)

And when dealing with a laser all you have to do is be where it isn't... no mater how advanced the system there would be a slight lag, maybe nano seconds but when your dealing with the sorts of ranges you do in traveller the slight shift in position is enough to result in a miss.