I apologise. I realise that Religion, Politics and the Barrage rules for missile flights are the three subjects not to start discussing in polite conversation, but I've been going through High Guard again and I'm still not convinced I've got it right.
With particle beams, it's easy to understand (I think).
40 Particle Beam Turrets, 30 Particle Beam Barbettes and 20 Particle Beam Bays all do the same gross damage - 120d6
As a result, all of these would produce a nearly identical barrage:
120-Particle Beam-Long-3
120-Particle Beam-Long-4
and
120-Particle Beam-Long-6
respectively, so their only difference is the improved DM, which should result in more of those 120 dice becoming barrage damage.
The common complaint is that whilst a barbette or bay-mount particle beam represents a single humungous cannon, missile racks are a multiple launcher firing many missiles of the same size.
The missile bay damage-per-weapon entry of "12 missiles" doesn't help.
The example given - of 10 bays firing multiple warhead missiles, doesn't make this any easier either.
The original example claimed this should be 10-Missile-Long-12, which makes little sense as 1d6 weapons would be better at punching through TL14 bonded superdense plate than a heavy bay-mounted particle beam, which is ridiculous.
The suggestion that only 10d6 are involved is quite clearly wrong too - a 'perfect' barrage of 120 multi-warhead missiles, worked out long-hand for each missile, could result in landing 720 single hits on an unprotected target. Even with a 500% score, 10-missile-long-12 gets only 50 hits, or 150 damage - rather than more than 2000 damage you could get working it out longhand.
This was updated in the errata - but the result doesn't seem to make any more sense: 10-Missile-Long-1d6*1d6
Firstly, what does 1d6*1d6 mean? If it's multiplied together that gives a range between 2 and 36....
According to the barrage damage rules, a multi-warhead missile's barrage damage characteristic is 1d6 per missile. Which doesn't seem to make sense either - a multiwarhead missile doesn't inflict d6d6 damage in one blow, it inflicts d6 seperate hits of d6 damage each - i.e. each individual strike is no more or less effective than a normal missile.
The (many) possible versions are, as understand it:
120-Missile-Long-d6
120-Missile-Long-12d6 (Damage DM seems wrong)
10-Missile-Long-12d6 (Number of missiles seems wrong)
I'd be inclined to go with the first version (so you get no real benefit from missiles being launched from bays rather than turrets, which is how it works in normal combat).
The problem is that the other examples in the rules disagree. Multiple weaker strikes from multi-warhead missiles are summed up, with a multi-warhead missile on average behaving like a 3d6 damage weapon like a turreted particle beam mount.
Railgun bays are multiple autofiring mounts, not bigger railguns, yet a railgun bay generates a barrage damage of 12, and a large bay 18 - the most powerful barrage damage stat that listed unambiguously (unlike missiles and torpedos). These are multiple 3d6 slugs, yet they are being combined into a single 'hit' for the purposes of the barrage.
I haven't seen an official version of this, and being but a bear of little brain, am getting quite puzzled. I was hoping to get some sort of clarification before dumping big missile barrages on the players and getting them as confused as me.
With particle beams, it's easy to understand (I think).
40 Particle Beam Turrets, 30 Particle Beam Barbettes and 20 Particle Beam Bays all do the same gross damage - 120d6
As a result, all of these would produce a nearly identical barrage:
120-Particle Beam-Long-3
120-Particle Beam-Long-4
and
120-Particle Beam-Long-6
respectively, so their only difference is the improved DM, which should result in more of those 120 dice becoming barrage damage.
The common complaint is that whilst a barbette or bay-mount particle beam represents a single humungous cannon, missile racks are a multiple launcher firing many missiles of the same size.
The missile bay damage-per-weapon entry of "12 missiles" doesn't help.
The example given - of 10 bays firing multiple warhead missiles, doesn't make this any easier either.
The original example claimed this should be 10-Missile-Long-12, which makes little sense as 1d6 weapons would be better at punching through TL14 bonded superdense plate than a heavy bay-mounted particle beam, which is ridiculous.
The suggestion that only 10d6 are involved is quite clearly wrong too - a 'perfect' barrage of 120 multi-warhead missiles, worked out long-hand for each missile, could result in landing 720 single hits on an unprotected target. Even with a 500% score, 10-missile-long-12 gets only 50 hits, or 150 damage - rather than more than 2000 damage you could get working it out longhand.
This was updated in the errata - but the result doesn't seem to make any more sense: 10-Missile-Long-1d6*1d6
Firstly, what does 1d6*1d6 mean? If it's multiplied together that gives a range between 2 and 36....
According to the barrage damage rules, a multi-warhead missile's barrage damage characteristic is 1d6 per missile. Which doesn't seem to make sense either - a multiwarhead missile doesn't inflict d6d6 damage in one blow, it inflicts d6 seperate hits of d6 damage each - i.e. each individual strike is no more or less effective than a normal missile.
The (many) possible versions are, as understand it:
120-Missile-Long-d6
120-Missile-Long-12d6 (Damage DM seems wrong)
10-Missile-Long-12d6 (Number of missiles seems wrong)
I'd be inclined to go with the first version (so you get no real benefit from missiles being launched from bays rather than turrets, which is how it works in normal combat).
The problem is that the other examples in the rules disagree. Multiple weaker strikes from multi-warhead missiles are summed up, with a multi-warhead missile on average behaving like a 3d6 damage weapon like a turreted particle beam mount.
Railgun bays are multiple autofiring mounts, not bigger railguns, yet a railgun bay generates a barrage damage of 12, and a large bay 18 - the most powerful barrage damage stat that listed unambiguously (unlike missiles and torpedos). These are multiple 3d6 slugs, yet they are being combined into a single 'hit' for the purposes of the barrage.
I haven't seen an official version of this, and being but a bear of little brain, am getting quite puzzled. I was hoping to get some sort of clarification before dumping big missile barrages on the players and getting them as confused as me.
