Sandcasters - how often and effect...

[Nerhesi]

How often can sand casters be used in a combat round?

Also, the -1d6 is applied to a single attack? Or perhaps all of a turrets attacks?

Finally, is there a penalty for a pilot of a single man fighter firing its weapon turret? What if that weapon is. Fixed mount?

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

How often can sand casters be used in a combat round?

Also, the -1d6 is applied to a single attack? Or perhaps all of a turrets attacks?

Finally, is there a penalty for a pilot of a single man fighter firing its weapon turret? What if that weapon is. Fixed mount?

You pays your money and you makes your choice here, different GMs interpret this differently, to start the ball rolling,
1. each sand caster can be fired once in each combat round.
2. we apply the -1d6 to each beam attacking from one turret.
3. if a turret on the single man fighter, the -2 penalty for multiple actions would apply, however, if a fixed mount we cheat and assume that it does not.

There are, however, different interpretations ....

Egil

 

[F33D]

You pays your money and you makes your choice here, different GMs interpret this differently, to start the ball rolling,

Egil

That's how it rolls for me.

 

[Captain Jonah]

There are, however, different interpretations ....

Egil

Ask six Traveller players or refs. Get eight answers :lol:

 

[locarno24]

3. if a turret on the single man fighter, the -2 penalty for multiple actions would apply, however, if a fixed mount we cheat and assume that it does not.

We generally take it even more extreme - a turret requires a man, a fixed mount has to be fired by the pilot - since you have to line the ship up to use it - which means multiple actions.
Actually makes fixed mounts harder to use on ships and explains why they're cheaper.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I am pretty generous with my Sandcasters. I allow the can to effect all weapons fired from a single ship during that combat round.

In the olden days (Mayday I'm looking at you). You would actually block a hex with a sand counter and anything that fired through it was affected; I have kept that idea even though we don't use Mayday any more.

 

[AndrewW]

I am pretty generous with my Sandcasters. I allow the can to effect all weapons fired from a single ship during that combat round.

In the olden days (Mayday I'm looking at you). You would actually block a hex with a sand counter and anything that fired through it was affected; I have kept that idea even though we don't use Mayday any more.

Even weapons not normally effected by sandcasters such as missiles?

 

[locarno24]

Even weapons not normally effected by sandcasters such as missiles?

There you have even more of a can of worms.

Sandcasters can be used for point defence but only against missiles fired from at least medium range.

Incidentally, this means that (assuming a standard 10G missile and a minimal medium range of 1250Km) you need the missile to be in flight for something like 2.6 minutes to realistically engage it with a sandcaster.

However, putting a 'destroyer smoke screen' style stream of sand particles should in theory provide some protection from missiles - I can't imagine they'd have the default 'super-ship-armour' everyone reaches for to explain traveller hulls, because surely that would impact performance; they're short range (in space terms) and expendable and I'd rather have 1% strike dust and misfire and have a 30% increase in effectiveness of the other 99%....

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

In my case, Sand only affects what the rules say it does (CT allowed sand to affect missiles too, but not MGT). In the case of a ship firing missiles and beams, the missiles would still travel through the sand cloud, but would be unaffected (as the rules state). But, every beam fired for that entire turn from that ship would be affected by the sand.

It does make sand pretty powerful, but I figure it needs that to keep the game balance. YMMV

 

[Sigmund]

I'd rule that sandcasters could protect against missiles that use a laser-guided targeting system, but I'm not sure I'd allow it for radar-guided targeting, so it depends (for me) on the setting (sub-setting) and TL and such. I also allow the SC to protect against any beam attacks coming from the same ship. To me that just makes sense. It's been a long time since I ran Trav (CT, although I'm boning up on MongTrav to perhaps run it now), but along the lines of using the sandcaster, has any mods been put out there that perhaps allow sandcasters to use alternate ammo that might work better against missiles. I'm thinking kinda like a big shotgun that uses variable-sized projectiles for different purposes, and ammo that contains larger hunks of metal that could set up a kinda screen that might impact and destroy incoming missiles might be cool. I can't be the first to think about that, anyone know of any details someone else has worked out along those lines?

 

[mr31337]

It seems apparent that the designers have aimed at a 'rock-paper-scissors' type of set up. Sand (almost) beats lasers, lasers (almost) beat missiles, missiles beat sand.

House ruling sandcasters can defeat missiles almost certainly will unbalance space combat to a greater or lesser degree, so while I might like to do that from a realism point of view I think the current system is ....'balanced' if nothing else.

 

[F33D]

House ruling sandcasters can defeat missiles almost certainly will unbalance space combat to a greater or lesser degree, so while I might like to do that from a realism point of view I think the current system is ....'balanced' if nothing else.

I toasted missiles (in their current MGT form) immediately as they cannot be manufactured using MGT rules...

 

[Captain Jonah]

MongT High Guard page 50

Point Defence

Sandcasters are as effective as lasers as long as the missile it is
defending against is fired from at least medium range.

Just above the section on Screens.

Its official, sandcasters can engage missiles :wink:

 

[mr31337]

Hmm, I've probably read that and forgotten it several times, maybe I didn't want to hear that! That sort of makes sandcasters almost a must have item on a ship that may face small scale combat. I don't know how I feel about it. :|

 

[SSWarlock]

Time to resurrect this thread a bit with a can of worms. :wink:

1) Can sandcasters gain the "High Yield" or "Very High Yield" upgrades due to TL to improve their defensive quality? (Yes, I've noted sandcasters are not listed in the weapon TL reference table on page 53 of Book 2: High Guard but sandcasters do have an offensive role when using the pebble canister.)

2) Can "offensive" sandcaster munitions like pebble canisters receive such upgrades, possibly automatically doing maximum damage if given the Very High Yield upgrade?

 

[Wil Mireu]

I... ugh. Sandcasters. Possibly the stupidest idea in Traveller, ever. Because sure, an expanding cloud of silica crystals is a GREAT idea when you have ships zooming around at high velocity in the vicinity.

It's like firing a missile in an oceanic naval battle that drops mines everywhere that you and your allies can accidentally run into. Very smart.

 

[Solomani666]

Sandcasters fire a variety of munitions: sand, chaff, pebbles, etc.



IMTU

Sandcasters operate much like a fire-hose with a variable aperture and pressure (velocity) and can operate in various modes.


Each sandcaster turret can do one of the following per turn:

* Attack an enemy ship using pebbles (I do not allow sand attacks) at adjacent or close range inflicting 1d3 per caster.

* Disperse a cloud of chaff providing a -1 defense per sandcaster against all missiles for that turn.

* Fire sandcutter rounds at adjacent or close ranges. (Almost no one uses these)

* Spray a defensive cloud of sand between both ships. Lasts 1 turn and will provide a 1d6 protection per canister used. Effects against all laser fire from both ships and also incoming laser torpedoes.


Each sandcaster turret can do one of the following per ship reaction:

* Hose down a single beam laser attack with sand. Can not be used against pulse lasers and does not effect outgoing weapons fire.

* Attack incoming missiles and torpedoes with pebbles the same way a beam laser does. Does not work against laser torpedoes. (Not limited to missiles fired a medium or greater range)

* Attack boarding parties with sand inflicting 8d6 damage.

* Attack boarding parties with pebbles inflicting 24d6 damage.



So now to directly answer your question...
A sancaster turret may provide defensive fire once per ship reaction.

 

[Infojunky]

I... ugh. Sandcasters. Possibly the stupidest idea in Traveller, ever. Because sure, an expanding cloud of silica crystals is a GREAT idea when you have ships zooming around at high velocity in the vicinity.

And the Problem is?

 

[Infojunky]

Sandcasters fire a variety of munitions: sand, chaff, pebbles, etc.

I was just pondering this, a Sandcaster is basically a low velocity launcher, with that a number of additional ammunition types occur in the form of small deployable packages, Area Jammers, Decoy/chaff, sensors, Deadfall ordinance, Mines (Det-lasers etc...), pretty much anything that will fit into a barrel of Sands worth of space that is pretty much fire and forget....

I tend to view use of sand in combat along earlier editions lines where sand is deployed versus attacks along a single vector or as a deployed cloud if we are using vectored movement. Generally Sand is only effective for the launching ship on the turn it is deployed for a maneuvering ship.

 

[F33D]

I... ugh. Sandcasters. Possibly the stupidest idea in Traveller, ever. Because sure, an expanding cloud of silica crystals is a GREAT idea when you have ships zooming around at high velocity in the vicinity.

I only allow use in a tail chase situation. And, they have no capability to damage other ships.