Merchants weapons

[Vormaerin]

There's also a point where you have to have some common sense. Yes, the rules let you extend the range on sandcasters, but it's basically meaningless. Sandcasters function by putting a cloud of magic dust in the space between the enemy and they function like missiles that deploy chaff at a designated point. At least, that's how they worked back when they weren't time travelling into the past to block light speed weaponry that you were firing in reaction to.

You can also immediately detonate the canister to make it basically a shotgun to shred nearby personnel, whether in space or atmosphere. Even if you could design a weapon to fire improvised canister at extended range, this isn't a thing that would actually be built. You would build something actually designed to deal with boarding parties, not make your half arsed desperation action into a 3/4 arse desperation action for the very rare times it would come up.

Because for that to actually matter, first you need personnel trying to board by spacewalking while you still have a facing turret weapon manned and functioning. Which is the dictionary definition of seeing a pink unicorn.

 

[Condottiere]

It all depends on what exactly a caster is.

It could be a trebuchet, but I tend to think it's a mass driver.

Existing ammunition performance does indicate it could damage a spacecraft hull, if you assume double dees from a plasma or fusion man portable gun can damage a hull, or any other groundscale weapon system with double dees.

Or, potentially, any damage caused by a groundscale weapon system that manages at least ten points of damage.

Logic might discount a twenty two long rifle with maximized damage achieving that.

But, a light howitzer should manage that.

This is designed as a basic offensive round for a sandcaster. When targeting boarders, pebble canisters cause 1DD damage (Ground scale).

Limited to canonical ammunition types available, a double dee should be sufficient to punch a hole through a low armoured spacecraft hull.

My guess is, it's rather similar to a rocket propelled bunch of ball bearinged warhead, bearing down on a target.

Switch that for a missile warhead, sans guidance and propulsion, that's anywhere between a fragmentation to a bombardment effect.

 

[swordtart]

For anti-boarding actions where sand casters might be used, I would have thought that the leveraging the Smaller Weapons rule (HG2022 p40) would be more efficient and flexible. Depending on the weapon(s) chosen it could eliminate small craft at close range and deal very effectively with personnel. There is a small cargo overhead, but by using lighter weapons you are free of the limitation of hardpoints and firmpoints and can keep the sandcaster ready for any incoming laser fire.

 

[Vormaerin]

I'm sure at some point someone will try to make another attempt at making sandcasters make sense.

Yes, it mentions both Pebble and Anti Personnel sand. No explanation of why you would actually expect to use that or need to stock them. Do someone imagine that boarders are spacewalking onto the ship when the ship has a working turret facing the approach? The way the Anti personnel one is described, apparently you shoot your own ship to kill people outside the hull?

I'm kind of thinking if you explode a regular sand canister in the middle of a crowd, it'll kill everyone pretty nicely too considering it has to expel the particles with enough force to form a meaningful space cloud to ablate the incoming laser fire. And the core rules say it does 8D ground scale damage (More than the anti personnel bomblets).

The sandcutter is may favorite, though. Is there a reaction to reactions phase? Because someone fires a laser at your ship and your gunner instantly fires a can of sand into space at FTL speeds to protect your ship from that specific laser attack. So then the enemy ship (IF Adjacent or Close) can counter fire sandcutters to defeat your sand so that original laser shot is less impaired by your sand... (So we have two reactive launches of sandcans before the original laser can cover 10km).

(I am assuming whoever invented sandcutters thought sandcasters worked like in CT, where you had to deploy them in the missile phase of the previous round and they were physically represented as a sand cloud between the two ships.)

 

[swordtart]

I'm sure at some point someone will try to make another attempt at making sandcasters make sense.

Yes, it mentions both Pebble and Anti Personnel sand. No explanation of why you would actually expect to use that or need to stock them. Do someone imagine that boarders are spacewalking onto the ship when the ship has a working turret facing the approach? The way the Anti personnel one is described, apparently you shoot your own ship to kill people outside the hull?

I'm kind of thinking if you explode a regular sand canister in the middle of a crowd, it'll kill everyone pretty nicely too considering it has to expel the particles with enough force to form a meaningful space cloud to ablate the incoming laser fire. And the core rules say it does 8D ground scale damage (More than the anti personnel bomblets).

The sandcutter is may favorite, though. Is there a reaction to reactions phase? Because someone fires a laser at your ship and your gunner instantly fires a can of sand into space at FTL speeds to protect your ship from that specific laser attack. So then the enemy ship (IF Adjacent or Close) can counter fire sandcutters to defeat your sand so that original laser shot is less impaired by your sand... (So we have two reactive launches of sandcans before the original laser can cover 10km).

(I am assuming whoever invented sandcutters thought sandcasters worked like in CT, where you had to deploy them in the missile phase of the previous round and they were physically represented as a sand cloud between the two ships.)

Yes, I would treat them like smokescreens (but with inherited velocity). You would put one between yourself and the enemy and give it a little forward thrust on deployment so that you remained in the shadow of it until the following combat round. It should not be a reaction.

I think they wanted to treat it like a diving for cover in ground combat, but not every sort of combat needs to follow the same mechanism.

It would be easier on a top down wargame style of space combat with vectors etc. as you can put a sand counter on the actual map, but that might not be as fun for the yoof who think all wargames should be WH40K and all RPGs should be D&D 5th edition

 

[Condottiere]

Casters have evolved, and just because the descriptive sand tends to be attached, doesn't mean that's the only material, or variations of such, that they can chuck.

Pebble canisters are designed as basic offensive rounds for a sandcaster. Pebble round canisters allow the sandcaster to deal 1d3 damage instead of one damage when used as an attack. They do not provide protection against laser fire.

Which came up in the previous edition.

While the primary purpose of a sandcaster is to block incoming beam attacks, they can also be used as an attack. A sandcaster has a range of Close and inflicts 1 damage.

 

[tytalan]

Since a pebble round does 1DD “ A Destructive weapon is noted in its Damage score with two Ds (for example, if a weapon was listed as having Damage 3DD, it would be Destructive, rolling three dice for damage). A Destructive weapon multiplies the total rolled for Damage by 10. ”or 1d6 times 10 ground scale and the scale “ This is designed as a basic offensive round for a sandcaster. When targeting boarders, pebble canisters cause 1DD damage (Ground scale). ”difference is 10 “ The reverse is true as well. A Traveller attacking a Spacecraft with a Ground scale weapon will divide its damage by 10 (as always, rounding down).” Than let me do the math 1d6 times 10 divided by 10 equals 1d6 ship scale damage. So a pebble round not only damages space walking boarders (if you don’t have a breaching tube and forced linkage) but can also be used to attack small craft used for boarding (I know it’s going to be hard to get through the armor). I’d also allow the defending ship to attempt to attack the breaching tube itself. Also remember a double sandcaster turret firing pebble with both guns is going to do 1d6 +1 + effect vs must small craft that’s actually a possible threat, no it’s not going to take out a heavy fighter but a Cutter or Pinnance that’s a threat. It’s all in the math and how you look at it.

 

[swordtart]

Reviewing my Jump Cutter design I was considering a fighter module. The normal fighter bay module has 4 bays for 6 ton fighters.

I was looking at the cheap as chips Home shield mini-Fighter. For a space fighter you could dispense with the aerofins. As it is only armed with a fixed missile rack there is no need for a Dual Cockpit. With the 1.25 tons saved you can make the only 4 Dtons and add a little extra fuel. Swap out the R-drive for a T6 M-drive and you save enough space for a reload and increase the endurance significantly (but the price moves up to MCr1.9). With a good pilot you have lots of thrust getting the initiative shouldn't be too problematic and you get plenty of chances to evade incoming fire so survival shouldn't be as difficult.

Even if you gave each fighter 1Dton for the docking bay you could fit 6 in a 30 dton module. Each fighter only has 4 missiles, but a missile launched by a fighter counts as a separate salvo. In the jump cutter Q-ship it could easily deploy 18 fighters (if one module is reserved for fighter crews) that could be 18 salvos en-route every round without even considering the 2 hardpoints on the jump cutter itself. If those were Advanced missiles (or you wait until the pirates are at medium range) they would be immune to ECM at long range or less. Each turret can only point defence against a single salvo.

My feeling is that would present quite a tough challenge for the normal pirate to fend off (even staying out of close range and all the dog fighting nonsense).

The fighters can be recovered post combat or just flee for the planet when they have shot their bolt. At just over MCr1 each to be honest they are almost disposable (pilots less so).

I did also design a reflec and BSD armoured, planetoid fighter that came in at 8 Dton and around MCr5. With 10 armour plus the extra 3 vs laser and Thrust M8+R4 for closing (and running) with enough in the tank for plenty of evasive manoeuvres it was probably overly resilient, but it would be a far more effective "Pebble". It would allow 3 barracks in the module for the pilots making it all self contained.

A hybrid buffered planetoid at under MCr2 without the BSD armour (but still with 4 points and optionally the reflec) and T6 in a 4 DTon hull would be a cheap effective compromise.

I might play that out this weekend to see how it pans out against an armed trader, a Corsair and a Corvette. Most will likely take some damage as they can only swat a single fighter per hardpoint and then only if they forgo any point defence.

 

[swordtart]

Casters have evolved, and just because the descriptive sand tends to be attached, doesn't mean that's the only material, or variations of such, that they can chuck.

Pebble canisters are designed as basic offensive rounds for a sandcaster. Pebble round canisters allow the sandcaster to deal 1d3 damage instead of one damage when used as an attack. They do not provide protection against laser fire.

Which came up in the previous edition.

While the primary purpose of a sandcaster is to block incoming beam attacks, they can also be used as an attack. A sandcaster has a range of Close and inflicts 1 damage.

Where are you quoting this from. It seems different to the wording in HG 2022.

"PEBBLE CANISTER - This is designed as a basic offensive round for a sandcaster. When targeting boarders, pebble canisters cause 1DD damage (Ground scale). They do not provide protection against laser, energy or particle weapons."

HG doesn't mention conventional sand as a offensive but CRB 2022 gives us

"Sand may also be directed against incoming boarding parties. If the Gunner (turret) check is successful, each target in the boarding party suffers 8D point of damage at Ground scale (so do not multiply it)."

 

[swordtart]

Since a pebble round does 1DD “ A Destructive weapon is noted in its Damage score with two Ds (for example, if a weapon was listed as having Damage 3DD, it would be Destructive, rolling three dice for damage). A Destructive weapon multiplies the total rolled for Damage by 10. ”or 1d6 times 10 ground scale and the scale “ This is designed as a basic offensive round for a sandcaster. When targeting boarders, pebble canisters cause 1DD damage (Ground scale). ”difference is 10 “ The reverse is true as well. A Traveller attacking a Spacecraft with a Ground scale weapon will divide its damage by 10 (as always, rounding down).” Than let me do the math 1d6 times 10 divided by 10 equals 1d6 ship scale damage. So a pebble round not only damages space walking boarders (if you don’t have a breaching tube and forced linkage) but can also be used to attack small craft used for boarding (I know it’s going to be hard to get through the armor). I’d also allow the defending ship to attempt to attack the breaching tube itself. Also remember a double sandcaster turret firing pebble with both guns is going to do 1d6 +1 + effect vs must small craft that’s actually a possible threat, no it’s not going to take out a heavy fighter but a Cutter or Pinnance that’s a threat. It’s all in the math and how you look at it.

If we want to go purely by the maths an antimaterial rifle with AP ammunition is AP10 (so AP1 for ships) and 5D damage. It has an outside chance of getting 3 points ship scale damage and is pretty likely to get at least 1. With small craft 1 hull damage is enough for a cumulative damage critical.

The HMG also does 5D, can take AP to get AP10 and has auto 3 and covers the whole of Adjacent range.

A disposable plasma launcher is 2DD and so would do 2D at ship scale it can reach out to the limit of Adjacent range.

A VRF Gauss Gun only does 4D so getting 10 points would be tough, but it can also use AP ammo and get AP. It also has auto 8 so could be adding +8 damage for every burst making 2 points damage entirely feasible. Against Vacc Suited boarders it would be devastating.

A Gauss Gun is also pretty credible as a Smaller Weapon on a mount since it is just a magnetic accelerator. At extreme range it could reach into Close range. I would allow that any of the sub 0.25 DTon weapons could be linked in groups for the normal +1 damage per die per extra weapon and as long as the total weight was under 0.25 tons could use a smaller mount.

Lots of nasty options for boarders even before they get on the ship. Once on the ship getting to the bridge to disable the auto defence will be far from straight forward. That is why I think there needs to be a bigger ship at stand off in case the merchant tries anything frisky when the boarding crew are in range. Surrender means let them on unmolested and get the same treatment in return.

 

[Condottiere]

In case anyone has forgotten, Mongoose had their First Edition a while back, and may have been the ones that made sand rather more lethal.

I had an odd notion it was in Trillion, but no, it's Core and High Guard.

 

[Vormaerin]

Well, when you don't use facing on your weapons and you don't use any sort of vector movement, the idea of a sand cloud deployed by a missile like projectile (the original vision of sandcasters) is kind of useless. So might as well make them space shotguns. Still pretty useless since the damage is risible even by civilian standards and the range is cripplingly bad. And most of the canisters are both less likely to be needed AND more expensive than the standard, the win-win of civilian buyer criteria (not).