Is there a point to any Large bay weapon except torps?

[Chas]

I don't believe so :?:

I'd suggest making things a bit more attractive for specific weapons. A massive tachyon could be given a serious lift rather than a crimp vs. a smaller version. Make it at a minimum AP15 and can move the dice up a chunk more for example. Let's see a large bay weapon that is a large bay weapon as its optimum fighting size :lol:

 

[Nerhesi]

Frig entire post lost/deleted.

I posted somewhere on bay analysis.

Can't have large bays be the best at everything. Otherwise any ship that can have a large bay would only have large bays.

We need to look at benefits such as, better performance vs armour, stateroom/less crew, more power efficient maybe? Etc

Yes I think they may need work as as category overall. Maybe make them more powerful but also have bigger targeting penalties?

 

[Chas]

The issue is right now they are the worst at everything by a long way, except for a slight advantage of 1 crew member for torps and missiles.

 

[Nerhesi]

Yeah, let me put up a table later today about the %age comparisson between Medium and Large bays and we can see the scaling and fool around with it.

PS Im actually not a big fan of Large bays in the first place - They're not really required in my honest opinion - but I try to keep an open mind

 

[AndrewW]

The original idea (and they way they where written up originally for the current edition, just didn't get used till now) was that there would be tradeoffs in going with 5x100 ton bays versus a 1x500 bay. The 100 ton bays could do more total damage but the 500 ton bay was better at getting through armour and such.

 

[Nerhesi]

The original idea (and they way they where written up originally for the current edition, just didn't get used till now) was that there would be tradeoffs in going with 5x100 ton bays versus a 1x500 bay. The 100 ton bays could do more total damage but the 500 ton bay was better at getting through armour and such.

Which it still is - but probably not enough. For example consider the biggest bays, the 2DD vs 3DD per shot. Yes 3DD suffers less from armour, but you can get 5x2DD bays for the price of that one 3DD bay!

Perhaps we should just make them 300 ton bays or so. Or 200 ton "bays" (like Traveller5 main weapons).

 

[Nerhesi]

Large Bay vs Medium Bay Power efficiency vs 0 armour (Bigger numbers are better):
Fusion Gun Bay 0.48 0.88
Mass Driver Bay 2.63 2.80
Particle Beam Bay 0.18 0.62
Railgun Bay 2.80 11.20
Tachyon Bay 0.28 0.70

and now vs 15 Armour:
Fusion Gun Bay 0.41 0.69
Mass Driver Bay 2.25 2.20
Particle Beam Bay 0.10 0.29
Railgun Bay 0.40 -0.80
Tachyon Bay 0.23 0.53



Large Bay vs Medium Bay tonnage efficiency vs 0 armour (Bigger numbers are better):
Fusion Gun Bay 0.21 0.70
Mass Driver Bay 0.21 0.70
Particle Beam Bay 0.07 0.28
Railgun Bay 0.42 1.68
Tachyon Bay 0.06 0.21

and now vs 15 Armour:
Fusion Gun Bay 0.18 0.55
Mass Driver Bay 0.18 0.55
Particle Beam Bay 0.04 0.13
Railgun Bay 0.06 -0.12
Tachyon Bay 0.05 0.16

Notes:
a) The values above indicate "damage points per power" and "damage points per ton", with average damage of 3.5 per die.
b) Do not compare weapons to one-another. Compare only the same weapon between Medium and Large bays.
c) Consider do we really need large bays at all? Medium Bays are already at the "ignoring your armour level"
d) The only bay that is really heavily affected by armour is the rail-gun bay.
e) Small to Medium bay progression is pretty damn good - in that there are clear pros and cons.

 

[Chas]

You could make a case for the large bay to be easier to manage and perhaps have an advantage with fire control software or barrage rules, but that's more complication for the sake of complication I think.

 

[Nerhesi]

Especially with the move towards having fire-control software affect all attacks (new software rules).

If we can move to have software rules being more of a tactical choice (hmmm.. do I want to split 25 rating into evade, 20 into repair, and 30 in fire support?), as you'd mentioned in another post, then yeah bay size becomes almost superfluous.

Except med and small - because the diff between 50 and 100 tons is small enough to allow for minor yet meaningful variances. (e.g. I'm not doing double dmg with my double sized bay, but I am way less affected by armour! hmmm)

 

[MongooseMatt]

Happy to take thoughts here.

My own idea is that perhaps the advantage of big bays is that they a) deliver the one big single punch rather than lots of little ones (good against armour) and b) they offer a better Power to damage ratio - the latter should perhaps really be the point of them.

 

[Chas]

A problem with the power to damage ratio is that it is really neither here nor there for capital ships, as mentioned previously even for the most power hungry fusion guns at 100 to medium bays you are only paying for a single bay in power tonnage when you're at 20 bays plus.

Certainly the armor punch is wanted but that's only 2 or 3d from something that is comparing with 5x 100 ton bays and quickly gets lost in the crowd.

The big bay needs something for taking up those 5 hard points.

It might be simpler and logical just to give large bays a +1 or +2 to hit, just like you do with triple weapon turrets in effect. Kings of long range sniping

 

[MongooseMatt]

It might be simpler and logical just to give large bays a +1 or +2 to hit, just like you do with triple weapon turrets in effect. Kings of long range sniping

I... wouldn't have a problem with that.

Anyone got any objections to this?

 

[FallingPhoenix]

It might be simpler and logical just to give large bays a +1 or +2 to hit, just like you do with triple weapon turrets in effect. Kings of long range sniping

I... wouldn't have a problem with that.

Anyone got any objections to this?

Haven't done any analysis or anything, but gut reaction says that sounds good to me.

 

[Nerhesi]

Bonus to damage we mean right.. not to hit? Slightly confused here Chas. Double/Triple turrets gain a bonus to damage, not to hit

But perhaps we're on to something here...are we saying making the 500-ton weapon sniper equivalent? I may suddenly feeling that this is a great idea because it's a different paradigm! So perhaps combining what you and Matt said to make it worth it:

a) -4 to hit craft under 100 tons (no change), no penalty for craft between under 1000 tons (minor improvement), and +4 to hit anything over 1000 tons (major improvement)
b) Keep the damage as is printed (no change)
c) Halve power requirement (minor change)

 

[Chas]

I did mean to hit, heh.

In the sense, or call it the fudged rationale if you prefer that a single large bay is a lot easier to guide a massive bolt at something with precision than 5 individual bays. You'll get the effect bonus on damage also which is a nod to better armor penetration.Medium and small bays are building the most bang for your buck into the tonnage and hardpoint available. Large bays are about getting all the bells and whistles fine tuning on the weaponry and supplemental equipment to make them more precise. Which is perhaps logical enough.

But as you've mentioned Nerhesi providing a different paradigm direction to open up some choices, without drastically changing the fleet action balances, which would still tend to favor massed 100 ton bays. Torpedoes and missiles aside which would not get the hit bonus but be treated as individual weapons.

The large bays could be the weapon of choice for fast destroyers who want to play long range hit and run. Or mammoth dreadnoughts that want to be sure of getting the hit.

Regards the bonus, say +2 1000 to 10,000 tons, +3 after that? Might be more reasonable than just jumping direct to +4 (which is really significant in itself)?

 

[Nerhesi]

Yeah - I like +4 because it is significant and a +2 for the smaller hulls. I think we should have a significant negative for smallcraft however