Invincible Fighters

[Klaus Kipling]

Fighters. I'm loving 'em. 12G interceptors chasing down torpedo birds that can take out capital ships (in sufficient numbers), yes siree.

However, I have come across a slight problem. Last night I designed a 40t TL15 12g space superiority fighter with 2 crew and a particle beam / missile launcher payload combo. Cool! However, it also was able to carry 24 points of armour!

Both under the TMB space combat/damage rules, and HG's barrage rules, this vessel is virtually impossible to damage.

In TMB terms, it, with 3d6 damage from the PB, can't hurt it, with 24 armour points.

Under Barrage, with a hefty -24 to the attack roll, doing any damage at all will be rare.


Also, how does the weapon damage itself affect the damage roll. ie: how do 6 beam lasers differ from 2 particle beam weapons, in damage terms.

Is there a forgotten clause that states you subtract the weapon damage dice (1 in the case of a beam laser, 3 in the case of a particle beam weapon) from the armour rating before applying it as a modifier to the attack?

This would make more sense, cuz currently, even a spinal mount will have big trouble killing my single fighter.

 

[collins355]

And this gets to the crux of the issue with making fighters a key part of your space combat system. I'm pretty agnostic on that debate, but if you are going to make space fighters the equivalent of strike aircraft in today's naval engagements then you need to think through all the implications pretty thoroughly. I sure hope Mongoose has done this...

Most especially, from a role playing perspective (as opposed to people who just want to fight star fleet battles) the question is: what do I do in my Free Trader if I have to face one of these uber-fighters. All of a sudden, I can't outrun them, I might not be able to hurt them, and they carry the firepower to obliterate me. Moreover, because they are small craft, every star system has them and every local defence warship will launch them.

This is a fundamental change to the way the role playing game is played. 'Skipping', for instance, suddenly becomes a vastly more difficult proposition. Smuggling more risky. Piracy lunacy. Etc.

 

[captainjack23]

Fighters. I'm loving 'em. 12G interceptors chasing down torpedo birds that can take out capital ships (in sufficient numbers), yes siree.

However, I have come across a slight problem. Last night I designed a 40t TL15 12g space superiority fighter with 2 crew and a particle beam / missile launcher payload combo. Cool! However, it also was able to carry 24 points of armour!

Unless I'm misunderstanding the rules, the max armor is limited -for both small craft and ships, the max is BSD armour, which has a max value of the tech level -in this case 15.

I haven't run the numbers though -does this limit fix the issue ?

Ref: HG armor tables, max Armour column, pgs 57 (small craft) & 41 (Spacecraft)

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Well I've not thoroughly crunched the numbers, or examined the book, it seems. Cheers, Cap'n!

Makes it better, though I still think the barrage rules are still missing the clause that figures in the max damage of the weapon system. I mean, you have to figure the number of dice in the notation for the barrage, but then it doesn't seem to use it in any way.


As for fighters unbalancing the game away from smugglers and pirates, my super-duper tl15 jobbie would be immensely expensive, more than an SDB, only useful for large polities with money to burn where the object is to pack as many into a carrier as possible. Your run of the mill planet or merc unit would only be able to afford a few low tech, low capability birds that would present a fierce but managable challenge for a tooled up free trader or pirate. (A pirate carrier, a la B5 or Buck Rogers, would be cool).

If the Imperial Navy is in town, though, the contest would be a bit one sided.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I read it as 1 Barrage point is 1d6 of damage.

So, if you had a Kill-o-Zap Raygun that did 12D6 damage, it would have a Barrage value of 12.

The armor limit is equal to the TL, so an Armor 24 fighter is not possible, but an Armor 15 fighter is allowed.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

I read it as 1 Barrage point is 1d6 of damage.

So, if you had a Kill-o-Zap Raygun that did 12D6 damage, it would have a Barrage value of 12.

The armor limit is equal to the TL, so an Armor 24 fighter is not possible, but an Armor 15 fighter is allowed.

AR15 is still quite formidable, but possibly beatable (not done the maths yet).

However, the 12d6 Kill-o-Zap has a much higher penetration of armour compared to 12 1d6 beam lasers. Both have Barrage 12, though.


On page 73: "The damage from each individual weapon must still be noted, though, as armour is obviously much more effective against smaller weapons than larger ones."

Notation for the Kill-o-Zap, as per p74:

12-Kill-o-Zap-(range)-12

for the beam laser:

12-Beam Laser-medium-1

So the text states bigger weapons penetrate better, and the rules make you note individual weapon power, but then this is not addressed mechanically at all, even in the examples.

It feels like there's an errant paragraph in the armour defense section...

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I'm not sure there is.

Remember that most military ships (those ships with lots of armor) are not going to be using TL7 Beam Lasers. Military ships will be using Particle Beams and Fusion Guns and the other High Tech weapons that are banned on Civilian ships.

Also, using the TL options, at higher TLs, you can make that TL7 Beam Laser more accurate or more deadly (or a little of both); same with missiles. It helps a little bit.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

But it explicitly states that lower damage individual weapons do worse against armour, and it makes you note down the max damage dice for the weapon, the implication being that this affects armour protection in some way, and then makes no more mention of it.

Very weird. Might not even be a missing paragraph; just a sentence would do.