Removing Hardpoint Limits: Necessity or Heresy?

[Infojunky]

Kinetic kill predates GURPS; the moment the weapon designer realizes how open ended the velocity of a large missile can be in Fire Fusion and Steel.

Predates TNE as well. It was one of the early conversations on the TML. I know they showed up in SF before that as well.

In Fact it is in response to perfect point defense against KKMs that Bomb Pumped laser Missiles as a concept was born.

 

[Condottiere]

MIRVing works as a stand-off missile as well.

 

[atpollard]

On the TV show, The Rocinante appears no bigger than 200 dtons, but is bristling with rapid-fire cannons and anti-ship torpedoes. (In the novels it eventually mounts a keel-mounted railgun) In order to accommodate this design philosophy, I'm going to have to ditch the 1 hardpoint/100 dTon limit.

I did some digging and the ship is much larger than that. Roughly 14 meters diameter by 44 meters long (fuselage only) for closer to a 500 dTon ship. Assuming triple turrets, that would be 15 standard weapons mounted to it. If you just fudge the description to make that 15 individual mounts that hold five triple turet equivalent in weapons, you will get most of what you want within the rules.

As a point of reference, her normal crew is 12+ Navy officers and crew and 6 Marines ... making that more than a 200 dTon ship.
Good luck.

 

[Mark A. Siefert]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. It looks like I have a lot to think about.

How would this idea work? If you want to add more hardpoints beyond the basic 1 HP/100 dton limit, it will cost an additional 10dtons to represent structural reinforcement, weapon and magazine space, electronic, etc..

 

[h1ro]

10% is pretty high but I'd say you were on the right track with the idea.

If you wanted more detail, you might make the tonnage required per hard point vary with the weapon, I'd say missiles would be the lowest as I'd see them as a "soft launch" but rail guns and fusion guns might be higher and lasers sitting in the middle.

 

[atpollard]

10% is pretty high but I'd say you were on the right track with the idea.

If you wanted more detail, you might make the tonnage required per hard point vary with the weapon, I'd say missiles would be the lowest as I'd see them as a "soft launch" but rail guns and fusion guns might be higher and lasers sitting in the middle.

Or some sort of diminishing return ...
So a 400 ton ship is allowed 4 hardpoints at the normal cost and dton for the turret, but the fifth turret costs 5/4 as much in Credits and dTons; the sixth turret costs 6/4 as much; the seventh turret costs 7/4 as much; etc.

So you can arm up as much as you want, but each additional weapon becomes ever more expensive to squeeze in. At some point, a larger hull would have been a better economic choice.
It is more complexity than I like, but creates a game mechanics trade-off that is self-regulating. (Sure you can stick 30 turrets on a 200 dTon hull, but a larger ship would have been cheaper.)

And if you really want to make extra hardpoints expensive, then the fifth turret on a 400 dTon ship makes ALL turrets costs 5/4 as much in Credits and dTons!

 

[Condottiere]

Breaking up the hardpoint turret into independent mini-turrets moves you into firmpoint territory.

 

[steve98052]

Kinetic kill predates GURPS; the moment the weapon designer realizes how open ended the velocity of a large missile can be in Fire Fusion and Steel.

The earliest relativistic kinetic kill weapon documented in Wikipedia was in a 1953 novel. Kinetic kill weapons in general are a prehistoric invention; smashing someone with a rock is a kinetic kill attack.

 

[Condottiere]

It's more when the players realized that the default settings no longer apply.