Missile Barbettes vs Small Bays

[ErinPalette]

Looking at the numbers, there is no good reason for small missile bays.

Missile Bay: Packed full of launchers, a missile bay can unleash salvos of warheads at a target, overwhelming its active defences. A small bay fires 12 missiles at a time... Each bay holds enough missiles for 12 full salvos (so, 144 missiles in a small bay...).

Missile Barbette: Equipped with multilaunchers, a missile barbette can unleash a flurry of warheads at a target. A missile barbette fires 5 missiles at a time, and holds enough missiles for 5 full salvos (a total of 25 missiles).

* 3 barbettes x 25 missles per barb = 75 missiles.
* To equal the missile yield of a small bay (144 missiles), you only need 69 more.
* 69 missiles displace 5.75 dtons.
* Total tonnage for barbettes and ammo is 20.75 dtons.

* A barbette launches 5 missiles at a time.
* 3 barbs launch 15 missiles at once -- compared to the 12 missile salvo of the small bay.

So for about 30 fewer dtons (but two more hardpoints), you have the same ammo capacity as a missile bay but can fling larger salvos!

Something is dreadfully broken here.

 

[Nerhesi]

Looking at the numbers, there is no good reason for small missile bays.

Missile Bay: Packed full of launchers, a missile bay can unleash salvos of warheads at a target, overwhelming its active defences. A small bay fires 12 missiles at a time... Each bay holds enough missiles for 12 full salvos (so, 144 missiles in a small bay...).

Missile Barbette: Equipped with multilaunchers, a missile barbette can unleash a flurry of warheads at a target. A missile barbette fires 5 missiles at a time, and holds enough missiles for 5 full salvos (a total of 25 missiles).

* 3 barbettes x 25 missles per barb = 75 missiles.
* To equal the missile yield of a small bay (144 missiles), you only need 69 more.
* 69 missiles displace 5.75 dtons.
* Total tonnage for barbettes and ammo is 20.75 dtons.

* A barbette launches 5 missiles at a time.
* 3 barbs launch 15 missiles at once -- compared to the 12 missile salvo of the small bay.

So for about 30 fewer dtons (but two more hardpoints), you have the same ammo capacity as a missile bay but can fling larger salvos!

Something is dreadfully broken here.

Except that 3 barbettes Erin take up 3 hardpoints, while 1 small missile bay, takes up 1. I know you've stated that, but that is literally 3 times the firepower if tonnage isn't your main concern. Especially with advanced missile bays being only 30 tons each.

That means, ignoring tonnage a bit (aka military ships). you can actually be shooting 12 missiles per 1 hardpoint rather than 5.

Granted - I still think we should toss missile barbettes anyways

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Turret: 1 dT + 2 dT(gunner) = 3 dT fires 3 missiles
Barbette 5 dT + 2 dT(gunner) = 7 dT fires 5 missiles
Sm Bay 50 dT + 4 dT(gunner) = 54 dT fires 12 missiles

Bigger mounts are inefficient in dTons, but efficient in hardpoints. Choose what is more important to you. Choice is good.

 

[ErinPalette]

I counter your "Yes, but it's efficient in hardpoints" with the following argument:

A critical hit of 2+ severity will render your missile bay useless. That same critical hit against a missile barbette still leaves 2 barbettes capable of firing.

While this likely isn't an issue for capital ships, it's a rather significant one for smaller ones.

 

[Nerhesi]

I counter your "Yes, but it's efficient in hardpoints" with the following argument:

A critical hit of 2+ severity will render your missile bay useless. That same critical hit against a missile barbette still leaves 2 barbettes capable of firing.

While this likely isn't an issue for capital ships, it's a rather significant one for smaller ones.

Actually, critical hits of anything are bit of a thing of the past Erin - at least with the small ship rules now. We're going from multiple criticals a round (MGT1) to under 10 crits for an entire battle in MGT2. A sev 2 crit is 20 damage After taking you past the 10% threshold (so not just anytime). A 500-tonner has 200 hull... so you need to do 10% of it's hull, after armour, in one hit, for even the chance to possibly disable a weapon..

Then it's instantly repaired with a basic -2 roll

 

[ErinPalette]

Okay, whatever. I've posted my objection; I can't make you like it.

 

[Chas]

Big jump ships have hard points to burn but are highly tonnage constrained and as a note I've found in ship builds you end up with so many spare turrets of missiles the missile barbette gets pushed aside in favor of other weapons you prefer to mount in the barbettes you can spare the tonnage for such as particle accelerators.

It's a relevant comment (and admittedly counter intuitive), but it also applies on other weapons systems. There are sweet spots everywhere, and totally redundant builds (large bays are pretty much a total waste of time as currently designed for any energy based weapon). In this case in relative terms it is more of sweet spot. If you're building a battle rider, you can happily throw in medium bays per hardpoint, but there will be a limit where you want missiles and come down to small bays. The small missile bay isn't totally irrelevant. Still it would be nice to see the tonnage make more sense.

 

[Nerhesi]

We will always have sweetspots for certain scenarios. We just have to make sure that the sweetspots aren't so balatant and that they dont totally overwhelm the competition in every scenario.

As you've pointed out, battleriders are an example of where a medium missile bay even is the most optimum choice. So would certain System defense boats, as we've even seen this in MGT1, 400 tons SDBs using a 100-ton bay (and I've used them to deadly effect!). If you have the tonnage, then the bigger bays (except large) are a much better bang than barbettes. However, as Erin points out, for smaller ships that do need jump drives and fuel (example, player adventure class ships), Barbettes may be best.

There isn't anything inherently wrong here. What I feel we need to route out, are examples where we have things like "Use this weapon for every build, in every scenario, as long as you have the TL for it" or the inverse "You will never use this weapon, ever. Ever ever " Which you, Chas, have pointed out as large bays.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

To hurt the enemy with missiles you have to overwhelm the enemy's defences (EW+PD). If the enemy has reasonable missile defences you have to go all out on missiles, or ignore missiles and go for energy weapons instead.
If you can launch twice as many missiles, you will do a lot more than twice the damage.

Example:
Your enemy can kill 100 incoming missiles.
Your ship can launch 75 missiles using turrets, the enemy will kill them all = No damage.
Your ship can launch 125 missiles using barbettes, the enemy will kill 100, 25 can hit = Some damage.
Add a few bays you can launch 150 missiles, the enemy will kill 100, 50 can hit = Twice as much damage.

Barbettes and bays make great sense, even though they take more tonnage than turrets.