Rules Clarification: Sustained Damage Space Combat

[swordtart]

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

A hull crit won't cripple them. It will barely affect them. Those missiles have to get past all the point defence and ECM and they have to be capable of damaging through armour. But this was the reason I raised the query.

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


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

They still do cumulative damage crits. I mis-stated that though. I was thinking in terms of LASERs in an equivalent bay, forgetting LASERs are one of the few things that cannot be a bay weapon. It would have made more sense for an equivalent number of Particle bays.

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.

You don't need to score a Sev 6 crit in one go. Six Sev 1 crits if they end up on the same system is a sev crit, but actually a Sev 1 on each system would likely be more devastating. Crits above Sev 4 are largely wasted anyway as they just turn into hull crits.

You do as you wish, of course.

 

[Arkathan]

I was thinking in terms of LASERs in an equivalent bay, forgetting LASERs are one of the few things that cannot be a bay weapon.

Traders and Gunboats pg 4

 

[AndrewW]

Traders and Gunboats pg 4

Also JTAS #7, page: 16.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Traders and Gunboats pg 4

Where they add burst lasers but ONLY for turrets. Why?

 

[swordtart]

Also JTAS #7, page: 16.

Ok got that one.

So a stacked bay of beam lasers could well be doing at least as much critical damage as the equivalent missile bay. A missile bay launches 25 missiles for 100D if they all hit. With ECM and Point defence they probably wont all hit. The Medium Beam laser does 60D if it hits and EMC and point defence of course have no effect. If you have two or more missile bays you only get 1 crit if you have 2 or more Laser bays you get a chance of 2 or more crits.

A large ship would be +6, +4 for the beam, +x for the gunner (this could easily be +3 for a large ship). You wont to be at too far range for either weapon either to avoid the range penalty or the extra turns of ECM (Very Long at most -4). So overall +9. Average roll 7 gives you Effect +8 straight to Sev 2 crits you only need to roll 10+ and you ar5e in the completely debilitating crits. And you can get One crit per bay per turn.

Any of the other tricks you pull to provide negative DMs affect both missiles and LASER bays so it is a wash. It will be a trade off of range as with all other weapons and there are other trades, but I am not hugely convinced the 6+ critical isn't too powerful across the board.

 

[rinku]

You might be overlooking this other rule:



Without the damage multiplier, it's pretty much impossible for a single missile to reach the 10% threshold on a big ship. A 2500 ton ship has a base 1000 hull points, so the 10% threshold is 100 hits. Missiles are 4D and Torpedoes are 6D damage; even with a REALLY GOOD effect roll, that's not going to get you there for a 10% crit (though you might get a normal one). Enough of them can reach the critical threshold, but it's harder work than for a big bay weapon.

As far as an effect roll crit by a bay or missile torpedo... maybe chalk those up to superior fire control? I'd be fine to just include bays with turrets and barbettes for the purpose of the critical hits on large ships rule, though, since it does appear to be based on damage brackets vs sheer size. Or simply say the large ship critical rule IS talking about the damage multiple brackets, not the mounting itself.

 

[Arkathan]

Where they add burst lasers but ONLY for turrets. Why?

Turrets are good for shooting down missiles.
Anything larger is not. (except Point Defense Batteries, but they are really just a bank of smaller weapons)

 

[rinku]

In space, you want a big beam weapon to better focus. Lots of small ones is a much less efficient use of the same energy, unless it's for something like point defense.

 

[swordtart]

You might be overlooking this other rule:

View attachment 6352

Without the damage multiplier, it's pretty much impossible for a single missile to reach the 10% threshold on a big ship. A 2500 ton ship has a base 1000 hull points, so the 10% threshold is 100 hits. Missiles are 4D and Torpedoes are 6D damage; even with a REALLY GOOD effect roll, that's not going to get you there for a 10% crit (though you might get a normal one). Enough of them can reach the critical threshold, but it's harder work than for a big bay weapon.

As far as an effect roll crit by a bay or missile torpedo... maybe chalk those up to superior fire control? I'd be fine to just include bays with turrets and barbettes for the purpose of the critical hits on large ships rule, though, since it does appear to be based on damage brackets vs sheer size.

None of this was about the 10% crits. They are proportional, it takes a bigger wallop to get the same critical against a bigger ship. That seems reasonable.

It is the Effect 6+ hits. It doesn't matter how much damage they do, as long as 1 point goes through then you get one of those Criticals. I went the missile route to be cheeky, but the same flawed logic applies to even a small bay weapon which can put the hurt on the under 10kDton class ships. You can bet the chief gunner there is going to be my top gunner.

All the other weapons start to look a bit superfluous.

I am going to have to run a few .mall actions with bigger ships to see how this plays out in practice.

I fear it will be eggshells armed with hammers.

 

[rinku]

Mm. I think what the rule is just saying is that above certain damage vs size differentials it's not reasonable for any shot to be able to cause those kinds of criticals. The missiles were an obvious oversight there, but the lack of damage multiple for them justifies treating all bay weapons the same as turrets.

You also need to actually achieve that effect 6+. If you're relying on a bunch of small bays, armour will work better than vs the same tonnage in a bigger one if you don't get that.

Doesn't have to be egshells though. Big ships can equip a bunch of small bays too, to see off swarms while they use the big guns on targets that require it.

 

[Yenaldlooshi]

Yes, they've said they are looking at reviewing/reworking the way criticals work, and Paltrysum is on the update per the request for suggestions in the Feedback forum.

Please clarify because I simply did not understand this; "and Paltrysum is on the update per the request for suggestions in the Feedback forum" can you share a link for this to me? (I spose I could also search lol)

Who or what is "Paltrysum"?

 

[Arkathan]

Please clarify because I simply did not understand this; "and Paltrysum is on the update per the request for suggestions in the Feedback forum" can you share a link for this to me? (I spose I could also search lol)

Who or what is "Paltrysum"?

Link to First Post in the HG update thread

Paltrysum is the author for HG2022 and the upcoming update

 

[swordtart]

Please clarify because I simply did not understand this; "and Paltrysum is on the update per the request for suggestions in the Feedback forum" can you share a link for this to me? (I spose I could also search lol)

Who or what is "Paltrysum"?

I have added to that thread with my suggestions to improve this.

 

[swordtart]

Mm. I think what the rule is just saying is that above certain damage vs size differentials it's not reasonable for any shot to be able to cause those kinds of criticals. The missiles were an obvious oversight there, but the lack of damage multiple for them justifies treating all bay weapons the same as turrets.

This is a clunky solution. Setting arbitrary requirements just based on tonnage Vs bay size is going to cause issues. 20 beam LASERs in a bay is no different. Each laser is only capable of 3D it is only after penetration that you conduct multiplication.

You also need to actually achieve that effect 6+. If you're relying on a bunch of small bays, armour will work better than vs the same tonnage in a bigger one if you don't get that

As AD pointed out getting effect 6+ is easy if you are adding +1DM per missile in a salvo. Adding large positive DMs for high Gunner skill and DEX plus targeting aids is no harder for a LASER.

Doesn't have to be egshells though. Big ships can equip a bunch of small bays too, to see off swarms while they use the big guns on targets that require it.

That would just give them more hammers

 

[AnotherDilbert]

A hull crit won't cripple them. It will barely affect them.

Hull? No, of course not, but M-drive and Power plant are highly problematical, and Fuel Tanks Destroyed or All Weapons Destroyed are crippling. Together that is more likely (14/36) than a Hull crit...

Those missiles have to get past all the point defence and ECM and they have to be capable of damaging through armour. But this was the reason I raised the query.

Unless the defender has prodigious PD capability some always gets through...

A potential knockout from 15 missiles would change combat completely, the attacker would want to launch masses of tiny salvoes doing crits, instead of a few large salvoes doing damage. Tiny missile boats would rule space...

They still do cumulative damage crits. I mis-stated that though. I was thinking in terms of LASERs in an equivalent bay, forgetting LASERs are one of the few things that cannot be a bay weapon. It would have made more sense for an equivalent number of Particle bays.

Everything does, but that is mostly colourful fluff for large ships: you get a small penalty, repair it the same round, done...

You don't need to score a Sev 6 crit in one go. Six Sev 1 crits if they end up on the same system is a sev crit, but actually a Sev 1 on each system would likely be more devastating. Crits above Sev 4 are largely wasted anyway as they just turn into hull crits.

A Sev 1 in each system is largely irrelevant and repairable, a Sev 4 Fuel Tanks Destroyed is game over...

Getting a Sev 4 Fuel crit from many Sev 1 crits takes a lot of crits... A Fuel crit is 3/36=1/12 likelihood, so getting four of them requires about 48 crits delivered in a single round (otherwise they would just be repaired).

If missile salvoes could crit, they would always automatically deliver the same crit punch as dozens of crits from any other weapon system. And they would do it from Distant range, long before any other system (but Long Range Particle Beams) could return fire.

 

[MasterGwydion]

The simple solution is that missiles can't crit from Effect, only from accumulated damage. There, problem fixed.

 

[swordtart]

If missile salvoes could crit, they would always automatically deliver the same crit punch as dozens of crits from any other weapon system. And they would do it from Distant range, long before any other system (but Long Range Particle Beams) could return fire.

I think we are both in agreement that a single attack that goes immediately to Severity 6 is a bad idea with respect to preserving the effectiveness of huge battle ships.

I posted the missile example to paint it red, but the issue is the way you just use the effect of the roll-5 as the severity. Missiles add many +1DM because you launch so many, but it caps at Effect +11 regardless of the number, but it is not only missiles that add DMs.

A small Pulse laser bay does the same base damage as the missile.
The Missile bay launches 12 missiles. The Pulse Laser multiplies damage by 10 so they are within a few dice of each other (if all hit)
The LASERs are always multiplied by 10 regardless of effect, the missiles are only multiplied by effect and capped at those that get through.
The missile gets a DM of +12, ignores range but also Gunner skill. The LASER is affected by range but can use all the Gunner skill +aids.
The missiles can be jammed and killed by point defence. Lasers could be degraded by sand, but it doesn't reduce the multiplier.
The LASER gets to add the Effect to its damage greatly increasing it's chance to penetrate armour.

A quick fag packet calculation allows me a reasonable Gunner-2 with DEX(9) (DM+3), Gunnery Officer providing a Leadership (DM+1), DM+1 per 1000 DTon of target, Range DM-2, Pulse LASER DM+2. Firing at a 6000+ DTon ship I make the total DM to be +10 without any targeting aids. That means an Effect of 2D+2. With an entirely average roll of 7 my Effect is +9. As this is a LASER I add that to the damage before testing the armour. If only 1 point gets through (which even multiplied by 10 would hardly be noticed), the ship takes a Severity 4 hit. Severity 4 is crippling enough on most systems. A slightly above average roll or a slightly better gunner or some software and I could average the same Severity 6 hit which is such a problem for missiles.

If I have multiple bays my missiles get no more effective as they are all classed as the same Salvo, but with the LASER bays each one gets it's own chance to hit, and critical.

I was noodling a 300 DTon Asteroid Monitor with just 3 small Pulse Laser Bays. It could lurk dark in a gas giant and if an enemy capital ship of less than 10000 DTons jumped in, I suspect it could cripple it before the big ship even noticed it was there. The effect to cost ratio would be enormous. It would make large ships pretty much pointless.

The problem is not missiles, the problem is allowing the Severity to be a function of the Effect. Effect 6+ always giving Severity 1 rather than Effect-5 would solve that issue. You can still get higher severity with crits but only by hitting systems that have already been damaged. That sounds like an exciting space battle not "wow, one shot kill on the "Indefatigable, all your characters are dead".

If I want a torpedo to hit an exhaust vent and destroy the capital ship with one hit I can make that a story element, I don't want it to just happen by accident.

My point isn't that missiles should be great, it is that the system is broken as any ship can do crippling damage in one hit to a ship that otherwise vastly outclasses it. Any ship 10000+ DTons can be taken out with a 500D DTon ship. You could field 100's of such ships for the cost of a Dreadnought. Each gets a chance to one-shot kill it. Only 1 has to get averagely lucky, the Dreadnought has to kill every one of them.

 

[swordtart]

In space, you want a big beam weapon to better focus. Lots of small ones is a much less efficient use of the same energy, unless it's for something like point defense.

Maybe, but that is not how the game is written. Bays are full of 10s or 20's of 3-5D weapons. You take the armour off the damage from one of them and then multiply it afterward. A big laser would take the armour value off the total damage (and be far more effective as a result)

 

[MasterGwydion]

The problem is not missiles, the problem is allowing the Severity to be a function of the Effect. Effect 6+ always giving Severity 1 rather than Effect-5 would solve that issue. You can still get higher severity with crits but only by hitting systems that have already been damaged. That sounds like an exciting space battle not "wow, one shot kill on the "Indefatigable, all your characters are dead".

Simple change to make to so that Effect 6+ just gives you a Crit 1. Makes Called Shots deadly as hell though.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I think we are both in agreement that a single attack that goes immediately to Severity 6 is a bad idea with respect to preserving the effectiveness of huge battle ships.

Agreed.

I posted the missile example to paint it red, but the issue is the way you just use the effect of the roll-5 as the severity.

Agreed.

Missiles add many +1DM because you launch so many, but it caps at Effect +11 regardless of the number, but it is not only missiles that add DMs.

Agreed. Missile Effect isn't capped, but crit Severity higher than 6 has no effect.

A small Pulse laser bay does the same base damage as the missile.
The Missile bay launches 12 missiles. The Pulse Laser multiplies damage by 10 so they are within a few dice of each other (if all hit)
The LASERs are always multiplied by 10 regardless of effect, the missiles are only multiplied by effect and capped at those that get through.
The missile gets a DM of +12, ignores range but also Gunner skill. The LASER is affected by range but can use all the Gunner skill +aids.
The missiles can be jammed and killed by point defence. Lasers could be degraded by sand, but it doesn't reduce the multiplier.
The LASER gets to add the Effect to its damage greatly increasing it's chance to penetrate armour.

Agreed, but:
The Laser is range limited (I guess?).
The Laser suffers a negative DM at longer ranges.
Evasion and Evasive Action will take that down a notch.
Larger ships can't be critted by smaller bays.
Larger warships probably have military hulls and much more armour. 4D damage from either missiles or bays just isn't cutting it against Armour 25-30.


In a naval setting (where bays are an option) standard missiles and laser bays are useless, nukes with 1DD damage are the major offensive option, often penetration even heavy armour (Armour 25-30 or so). A Small Particle bay has the range, but still struggles to penetrate with 6D damage.


12 standard high-tech missiles can be launched by civilians from a few fixed mounts @ 0 Dt cost, not at all comparable to even a small bay. Perfect for a Subbie?

A Free Trader or Subbie with weak sensors and non-optimised crew isn't likely to stop all that many of such a salvo with EW and PD, so will almost automatically suffer a major crit. Not something easily recreated with a few laser turrets without optimised gunners and software support.

A quick fag packet calculation allows me a reasonable Gunner-2 with DEX(9) (DM+3), Gunnery Officer providing a Leadership (DM+1), DM+1 per 1000 DTon of target, Range DM-2, Pulse LASER DM+2. Firing at a 6000+ DTon ship I make the total DM to be +10 without any targeting aids. That means an Effect of 2D+2. With an entirely average roll of 7 my Effect is +9. As this is a LASER I add that to the damage before testing the armour. If only 1 point gets through (which even multiplied by 10 would hardly be noticed), the ship takes a Severity 4 hit. Severity 4 is crippling enough on most systems. A slightly above average roll or a slightly better gunner or some software and I could average the same Severity 6 hit which is such a problem for missiles.

Agreed, at medium range, against a 6-10 kDt medium-armoured target. Larger targets just ignore the crit.
Heavy armour bounces the attack.

If I have multiple bays my missiles get no more effective as they are all classed as the same Salvo, but with the LASER bays each one gets it's own chance to hit, and critical.

Agreed, in a single vs. single ship action. Missile crits would mean many small missile boats launching many small missile salvoes. Naval doctrine would change.

I was noodling a 300 DTon Asteroid Monitor with just 3 small Pulse Laser Bays. It could lurk dark in a gas giant and if an enemy capital ship of less than 10000 DTons jumped in, I suspect it could cripple it before the big ship even noticed it was there. The effect to cost ratio would be enormous. It would make large ships pretty much pointless.

Agreed, unless the target was a heavily armoured warship.

The problem is not missiles, the problem is allowing the Severity to be a function of the Effect. Effect 6+ always giving Severity 1 rather than Effect-5 would solve that issue. You can still get higher severity with crits but only by hitting systems that have already been damaged. That sounds like an exciting space battle not "wow, one shot kill on the "Indefatigable, all your characters are dead".

That was basically HG'16...

My point isn't that missiles should be great, it is that the system is broken as any ship can do crippling damage in one hit to a ship that otherwise vastly outclasses it. Any ship 10000+ DTons can be taken out with a 500D DTon ship. You could field 100's of such ships for the cost of a Dreadnought. Each gets a chance to one-shot kill it. Only 1 has to get averagely lucky, the Dreadnought has to kill every one of them.

Agreed, but missiles are much worse than bays.
A 500 Dt ship with fixed mount missile racks can crit a BB at extended range. A bunch of Subbies can devastate warfleets...
With a direct fire weapon you would need a Large bay and something like a 5000 Dt warship to carry it to crit BBs.

Either way, BBs are non-viable as warships...