Rules Clarification: Sustained Damage Space Combat

[AnotherDilbert]

I didn't notice that table previously as none of the ships in my game operate above 400 Dtons. It seems odd that a hit from a torpedo* fired from a barbette cannot cause a 6+ critical where the same torpedo hit when fired from a Bay can. Sounds like an unintended consequence.

Missile turrets or bays don't attack, missile salvoes attack.

The missile salvo attacks, but it has no conventional Effect, instead the Effect only determines how many missiles hit.
Missile salvoes don't inflict critical hits. If you launch 1000 missiles, you don't get an automatic crit with severity 995.

Does that seem right?

No, and it is not so...

 

[swordtart]

I am not averse to a cumulative damage rule (not called sustained damage).

All I would change is that each Hull Critical does 2D% of the ships original Hull Points (round up). If that takes it over another threshold it takes another critical. That way a cascade is still possibly, but far less likely. All ships will suffer equally from an equally severe critical.

Effect 6+ hits already do extra damage. They don't need to do crits, but if you really do need something special just say they bypass armour.

Use the critical table for the maintenance critical failure as well and have one table for all of it.

Solved

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Citation please?

https://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/threads/playtest-focus-missiles-iii.118038/#post-895086

 

[AnotherDilbert]

All I would change is that each Hull Critical does 2D% of the ships original Hull Points (round up). If that takes it over another threshold it takes another critical. That way a cascade is still possibly, but far less likely. All ships will suffer equally from an equally severe critical.

Of course you do whatever you want, in your game.

 

[swordtart]

Missile turrets or bays don't attack, missile salvoes attack.

Citation required. LASER bays don't attack batteries of LASERs attack, what is the difference.

The missile salvo attacks, but it has no conventional Effect, instead the Effect only determines how many missiles hit.

And with a LASER effect only adds damage. Neither of these is part of the critical effect rules for rolling 6+. What is the difference.

Missile salvoes don't inflict critical hits. If you launch 1000 missiles, you don't get an automatic crit with severity 995.

Straw-man. I did not say you did. The severity of the critical is the effect-5 as with all other attacks. You get one attack roll per salvo not one per missile.

No, and it is not so...

Opinion not rule citation.

 

[swordtart]

https://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/threads/playtest-focus-missiles-iii.118038/#post-895086

So not actually a rule in the rule books, only a discussion point from 9 years ago.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

So not actually a rule in the rule books, only a discussion point from 9 years ago.

Quite, not in the books, just a rules discussion by the designers...

 

[swordtart]

Quite, not in the books, just a rules discussion by the designers...

One about the previous edition that may mor may not have made the final cut and one that doesn't even mention criticals.

I note the following
Missiles and Targets
When a missile salvo reaches its target, the missile makes an attack roll as normal. However, the Gunner skill of the Traveller(s) that fired the salvo is not used as a DM.

Normal attack roll means normal effect number generated. Application of effect is different for the damage roll, but no mention of any other outcomes from a high effect number being altered.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Citation required. LASER bays don't attack batteries of LASERs attack, what is the difference.

It's in the boiler-plate:

Core'22, p166:
FIRING WEAPONS
When a ship fires at another, it declares it is going to attack and selects a target. The target may then choose to perform Evasive Action. The Traveller on gunner duty for the weapon being fired then makes an appropriate skill check and, as normal for any skill check, if they total 8+, the attack is successful and damage is dealt to the target (see Damaging Spacecraft on page 168).

Missiles are an exception:

Core'22, p172:
MISSILE COMBAT
Unlike most weapons that travel at or close to the speed of light and so hit enemy ships almost instantly, missiles take time to cross the gulf of space. However, despite this drawback, missiles are capable of doing a great deal of damage when they hit an enemy ship.

LAUNCHING MISSILES
Missiles used against targets within Adjacent or Close ranges lose any Smart trait they possess, as there is not enough time for them to obtain a solid lock and take advantage of their advanced guidance systems.

Missiles are launched in salvos. A salvo is all the missiles launched by a ship against a single target in the same combat round. This could be a single missile from a single turret, three from a triple turret with three missile racks or dozens from multiple turrets or bays (see High Guard for more information on weapon bays).

Core'22, p173:
MISSILES AND TARGETS
When a missile salvo reaches its target, the missile makes an attack roll as normal in the Attack Step. However, neither the Gunner skill of the Traveller(s) that fired the salvo nor range are used as modifiers. Other modifiers, such Evasive Action, are used as normal.

Instead, the number of missiles remaining in the salvo greatly affects their chances of making a successful attack. Apply DM+1 to the attack roll for every missile in the salvo.
...
IMPACT
If an attack roll for a missile salvo is successful, the target will sustain damage. Roll for damage as if for a single missile and deduct the target’s armour as normal but do not apply the Effect of the attack roll. Instead, any damage is multiplied by the Effect of the attack roll but the Effect cannot be higher than the number of remaining missiles in the salvo.

With direct fire weapons, each mount makes an attack, modified by the gunner skill.
With missiles, an entire salvo makes an attack, regardless of mount(s) that launched them, no gunner involved.

 

[Jet_Black]

So not actually a rule in the rule books, only a discussion point from 9 years ago.

Core Rulebook Update 2022, p. 173, under the header Impact: "If an attack roll for a missile salvo is successful, the target will sustain damage. Roll for damage as if for a single missile and deduct the target’s armour as normal but do not apply the Effect of the attack roll. Instead, any damage is multiplied by the Effect of the attack roll but the Effect cannot be higher than the number of remaining missiles in the salvo."

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Straw-man. I did not say you did. The severity of the critical is the effect-5 as with all other attacks. You get one attack roll per salvo not one per missile.

Core, p173:
Instead, the number of missiles remaining in the salvo greatly affects their chances of making a successful attack. Apply DM+1 to the attack roll for every missile in the salvo.

If you launch 1000 missiles in a salvo (and none are killed by EW/PD), you get a DM+1000 on the missile salvo attack roll, more or less guaranteeing an Effect of ~995 or so (= the number of missiles that hit).

If you use that number to generate an crit, you would get an automatic Severity 995 hit, causing an additional ~990×6D [≈21000] Hull, disregarding armour... That is completely unreasonable.

 

[swordtart]

It's in the boiler-plate:


Missiles are an exception:



With direct fire weapons, each mount makes an attack, modified by the gunner skill.
With missiles, an entire salvo makes an attack, regardless of mount(s) that launched them, no gunner involved.

According to the words above in both cases it is the Traveller who fired that makes the attack roll. They just don't get to apply any Gunner skill to it (and so could be even be unskilled - missile presumably being point and click). An attack roll is a normal skill check that has an effect. If that effect is 6+ the attack is a critical as long as some damage from the attack causes damage.

Core Rulebook Update 2022, p. 173, under the header Impact: "If an attack roll for a missile salvo is successful, the target will sustain damage. Roll for damage as if for a single missile and deduct the target’s armour as normal but do not apply the Effect of the attack roll. Instead, any damage is multiplied by the Effect of the attack roll but the Effect cannot be higher than the number of remaining missiles in the salvo."

Thank you for confirming that the attack roll for missiles does indeed have Effect (but that this Effect multiplies any damage penetrating armour rather than adding to it). The amount of damage inflicted has no bearing on the Effect 6+ critical rule (other than it being needing to exceed any armour).

 

[swordtart]

If you launch 1000 missiles in a salvo (and none are killed by EW/PD), you get a DM+1000 on the missile salvo attack roll, more or less guaranteeing an Effect of ~995 or so (= the number of missiles that hit).

If you use that number to generate an crit, you would get an automatic Severity 995 hit, causing an additional ~990×6D [≈21000] Hull, disregarding armour... That is completely unreasonable.

If you hit with 1000 missiles each doing 4D then you have already caused massive damage (on average 14,000 Hull Points less any armour). On the cumulative damage rules even for a very large ship that would likely be several criticals anyway. That plus the damage you suffered from the missiles already puts you in a bad place.

As this is a single attack you score 1 critical hit on Effect 6+. The severity of that is indeed 995 but the highest severity you can suffer on that table is severity 6. Most of these disable a specific system and maybe do some collateral Hull damage. The worst this can be is another 6D. 36 extra Hull damage on top of the 14,000 is largely irrelevant. The loss of a system is more important so you would pray for a Hull Critical.

If a spacecraft has already sustained a critical hit to a location that receives another, use the Severity of the new critical hit or the original plus one, whichever is higher and immediately apply any new effects. Once a location has reached Severity 6, it cannot suffer any more critical hits. Instead, the spacecraft will receive 6D extra damage every time the location suffers another critical hit.

You have not suffered another critical hit and so you do not keep adding 6D damage for the excess Effect. If you got hit by another 1000 missiles next turn you would still only suffer a maximum of 1 critical hit and if you took it to a system already at severity 6 you would only take 6D hull damage from the critical.

So not excessive at all.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

So not excessive at all.

Yes, an automatic crippling crit on every attack is excessive.


This is the system chosen:

1. 2D -pilot evasion - evasion software +smartTLdifference +# of missiles in salvo. EFFECT = # of Missiles that hit, as Nerhesi suggests.

The effect is not how well you hit, it's just how many missiles that hit. There's a difference.

 

[Condottiere]

You could scale up the size of the missile.

That seems critical.

 

[Arkathan]

Placement in the book matters. There is a reason that the missile combat section comes after the combat procedures covering effect-based critical hits. Missile combat is a different system than direct fire combat. The missile system does not include critical hits.

This does not preclude you from doing house rules, but remember that the missile combat rules specifically limit the effect to a maximum of the number of missiles remaining at the time of impact.

 

[swordtart]

Yes, an automatic crippling crit on every attack is excessive.

From a 1000 x 4D attack...

Hmm, I think you underestimate their chances.

If you replaced those 1000 missiles with 1000 lasers you would be entirely happy rolling to dozens to attack rolls for each battery and applying a critical for every effect 6+ you got so that is a poor justification.

This is the system chosen:

The effect is not how well you hit, it's just how many missiles that hit. There's a difference.

Attack and damage formulas aren't useful as damage is unconnected to the critical rule.

Since a simple "Except Missiles" in the Effect 6+ rule would be plain and simple and you cannot point to a quote that uses the word critical and missile in the same sentence then I am disinclined to agree with your interpretation.

Lets see if anyone else has an opinion.

 

[swordtart]

Placement in the book matters. There is a reason that the missile combat section comes after the combat procedures covering effect-based critical hits. Missile combat is a different system than direct fire combat. The missile system does not include critical hits.

Not based on experience rules are scattered hither and thither with no regard to continuity. There may be a reason that missile combat comes after the other section, but missile inherits other rules from the more general section. If it was stand alone it all those rules would have been repeated. If what you suggest was true then missile would not cause any accumulated damage criticals either.

As counter case we have
MISSILES AND TARGETS
When a missile salvo reaches its target, the missile makes an attack roll as normal in the Attack Step.

This explicitly states that the missile attack roll is as any other weapon. It then gives some specific variations on those rules for Missiles. Effect is not listed in those variations. Effect is a function of the attack roll.

This does not preclude you from doing house rules, but remember that the missile combat rules specifically limit the effect to a maximum of the number of missiles remaining at the time of impact.

That would make no difference in the 1000 missile strike AD proposed above.

In more sensible cases it doesn't make sense that you can multiply the damage done by the missiles by more than the number of missiles that survive to impact so the multiplier is capped at that level. If you accept that logic you would need at least 6 missiles to hit to get any critical from the 6+ rule (or you could use multi-warheads and get away with 2).

It makes less sense that the Effect of the roll itself should be capped though. The capping is part of the sentence referring to damage so I am disinclined to believe the intent was for it to be a general reduction in the effect number.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

From a 1000 x 4D attack...

15 missiles are enough for an automatic Sev 6 crit crippling any ship, including battleships.

That alone will banish large ship from fleet combat...

If you replaced those 1000 missiles with 1000 lasers you would be entirely happy rolling to dozens to attack rolls for each battery and applying a critical for every effect 6+ you got so that is a poor justification.

They wouldn't be able to score any crits against a 2000 Dt ship according to HG, p27.

15 lasers would generally not score all that many crits, and very unlikely to score any Sev 6 crits. A Sev1 crit is easily repaired, a Sev 6 crit can't be repaired.

Since a simple "Except Missiles" in the Effect 6+ rule would be plain and simple and you cannot point to a quote that uses the word critical and missile in the same sentence then I am disinclined to agree with your interpretation.

You do as you wish, of course.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

As this is a single attack you score 1 critical hit on Effect 6+. The severity of that is indeed 995 but the highest severity you can suffer on that table is severity 6.

Agreed, you are correct.

Sorry, I let a house rule leak into this discussion.