Nuclear Dampers - the hitting issue?

[AnotherDilbert]

The system as it is, is of course completely unworkable for large ships. No one will roll 1000 PD rolls. You have to roll once or just take the average or something...

But you will get used to the system after the first few times, if you use it often enough.

We want some detail for single adventure class ships fighting.

 

[Nerhesi]

Yeah - the roll and reduction is staying for Adventure Class. For larger combat I'm really hoping for roll 2D, add skill, then based on the result between for example 2 and 20, you end up with a value PER Nuclear Damper. Lets see.. This silence can only mean a big update.

 

[phavoc]

Oh, I do hope for large craft there is no skill roll. Cause if you do it for screens, you gotta do it for the spinal, for the bays, for all those turrets... Capital craft combat is best left to the average crew, with only the commander's skill added to initiative. The rest gets too detailed to worry about. I really don't wanna keep track of all my legendary crewmen who can shoot a boarding marine out of space at 1,000 clicks with just a tube of 3D printed pudding.

 

[Nerhesi]

I hope it a reduced number of rolls, because where do you draw the lines at no rolls? Why not have no-rolls for attacks either and just consult a table based on you skill and their evasion to determine % hit?

I liked HG1 crew modifier.. you just took the average. I dont want to track the elite guys either, I just want to track the crew quality and thats it. Make a few rolls to hit (not thousands, but lets say 1 per barrage or salvo) and thats it.

 

[phavoc]

Oh, I do want rolls. Just not thousands upon thousands. This is where maybe the idea of batteries comes into play, with you grouping your ships weapons into batteries and say your BB has a spinal attack, a few big guns, more smaller guns, and then your 100s of turrets might be 1-4 rolls. Or else you just use dice pools, like Shadowrun. So the BB in question might toss 30 D6 to represent all his turret attacks. I never did really get the huge dice pools, but some people loved it because there were so many.

 

[Nerhesi]

Oh, I do want rolls. Just not thousands upon thousands. This is where maybe the idea of batteries comes into play, with you grouping your ships weapons into batteries and say your BB has a spinal attack, a few big guns, more smaller guns, and then your 100s of turrets might be 1-4 rolls. Or else you just use dice pools, like Shadowrun. So the BB in question might toss 30 D6 to represent all his turret attacks. I never did really get the huge dice pools, but some people loved it because there were so many.

Yup then we agree 100%. I just want 1 roll to simulate the 100s of turrets/bays/whatever firing.

This roll should be like an average roll.. so rather than being hit or miss, it's basically somewhere between 0% and 100% of your "salvo/barrage" hits. Then.. subtract armour and go to town.

 

[Chas]

One things for sure though as the fighter thread has shown. Nuclear dampers have to work and they have to be implementable. Otherwise the nuclear missile rules big time, the whole careful balance of weaponry gets tossed.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Nuclear missiles do a lot more damage than Fusion. If you make Dampers good enough to inconvenience nuclear missiles, Fusion Guns are completely irrelevant.

 

[Chas]

Nuclear missiles do a lot more damage than Fusion. If you make Dampers good enough to inconvenience nuclear missiles, Fusion Guns are completely irrelevant.

Not if you make it a simple trim -2d for nuclear missiles, -1DD for fusions. And you pay for the relative power points in power...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Not if you make it a simple trim -2d for nuclear missiles, -1DD for fusions. And you pay for the relative power points in power...

At ~7 damage against nuclear missiles or ~35 damage against fusion the problem is worse..

Perhaps treat them as a PD weapon and letting them kill 2D missiles or 2D damage for fusion?

Letting them kill that many missiles is very powerful, but it is only against one salvo and only salvoes against this ship.

 

[Chas]

Not if you make it a simple trim -2d for nuclear missiles, -1DD for fusions. And you pay for the relative power points in power...

At ~7 damage against nuclear missiles or ~35 damage against fusion the problem is worse...

How are you working that AnotherDilbert? 2D off the nuclear missile makes it a flat 4D weapon. Which means 14 points/missile which means non-average damage to high armor. The descriptor in the nuclear missile line implies that they become obsolete to a degree... the fusions will still get high yield advantages and do reasonable damage through TL15 armor on a large scale.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

If I have understood things correctly, the screens do not remove damage dice, they make their own damage roll and remove that much damage. So one damper removes 2D, average 7 * effect of Angle Screen, say 4 = 28 damage.

Nuclear missiles do more damage than fusion guns, to make Dampers balanced against both they need to remove more damage from the nuclear missiles. Small bay: Nuclear 12*(6D-15)≈72, Fusion 1DD-15≈20.

I get the feeling we are talking past each other, both failing to grasp the point the other is making. Or is it just me?

 

[Chas]

I'm using a flat 'damp' done by the damper of -2d on each missile and -1DD on fusions.

Which per my initial suggestion always works and just costs power points, in a reasonable tonnage + cost paradigm so that ships can put them in.

Which could be implemented in other ways e.g. the screen optimizing software which in its first iteration did work automatically against all attacks.

Or having screen gunners able to make multiple attacks at -1 (and then you need many gunners) and each salvo has a power point burn = to the amount of missiles damage reduced.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

OK, sorry, I was not following.

So, you basically nullify attacks as long as you have power? That's very different. We'll have to see if Matt likes that. Nerhesi hinted at something about Dampers in the fighter tread.

 

[Nerhesi]

Matt has stated before that he's wanted to keep rolls as part of the equation and keep "just flat reductions" as a high-tech shield option.

Although he may change his mind

 

[Chas]

Matt has stated before that he's wanted to keep rolls as part of the equation and keep "just flat reductions" as a high-tech shield option.

Although he may change his mind

I think we can achieve this now with the tools available. If you have the angle shields working by a gunner at multiple salvo/attack attempts at that previously proposed -1 a hit, and then have the software Optimize Shield doing the multiple hit trimming by a set amount there should be a good balance point. The expert shield gunner does better on fewer attempts than the software (and you can hire more gunners) the software works on the macro scale at an even amount.

 

[Nerhesi]

So .. we'd have 2D x Effect by screen AND Useable multiple times? Too powerful if that is the case.

 

[Chas]

Is it though? The example in the fighter thread had the screen being effectively useless as is. And that is not even considering the damper is a resource burn for a very limited weapons threat.

 

[Nerhesi]

But isn't that fine? We dont want them being the end all be all viable defense. Right now, PD can cover other ships, is pretty good at TL14 - we dont want missile immune ships though

 

[Chas]

But isn't that fine? We dont want them being the end all be all viable defense. Right now, PD can cover other ships, is pretty good at TL14 - we dont want missile immune ships though

Not at the moment. We have to remember that dampers are only useful against nuclear weapons. And that given it is so specialized it should work well against nuclear weapons otherwise there is no point in having them. There's nothing wrong with nuclear missiles (only) being seriously reduced in effectiveness, especially through TL. It's not the same as making missile immune ships, quite the opposite in fact. If PD is too good we get missile immune ships. If PD is poor but dampers are good, nuclear missiles get pulled back into line and other missiles actually get to be used.

If we consider a damper can't be put into small ships, the balance works there also. Nuclear missiles are never completely eliminated, they're still the choice of weapon vs. fighters, but stop being the be all and end all of big ship battles, so the big ship has to choose its weapons systems, more against small ships or more against big ships. A good game flow.