Small craft in ground combat.

[d.b.gamedesign]

We are designing a small craft that will see a lot of combat on the vehicle level of scale.

According to Mercenary it equates 50:1. But in HG small craft have their Hull and Structure divided into Personal scale and ship scale with a ratio of 10:1.

So what gives. Is it 10:1 or 50:1?

 

[AndrewW]

Perhaps Supplment 5: Civilian Vehicles will answer this.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Merc was not designed with small craft in mind. So for 100+ ton ships, I'd use 50:1. Anything sub 100 ton, I'd stick with high guard and go 10:1.

 

[Infojunky]

We are designing a small craft that will see a lot of combat on the vehicle level of scale.

According to Mercenary it equates 50:1. But in HG small craft have their Hull and Structure divided into Personal scale and ship scale with a ratio of 10:1.

So what gives. Is it 10:1 or 50:1?

To be honest I'm not sure they know, the utter comprehension of scale is one of the glaring failings of the Mongoose edition.

 

[Golan2072]

As HG gives vehicle armour ratings for small craft, I'd possibly treat sub-100 (or sub-50?) ton ships as vehicles. For ships between 100 and 1,000 tons I'd go with a 1:10 scale, an only above 1,000 tons I'd use the vanilla 1:50 conversion.

 

[Mithras]

I always thought that the conversion of damage from starship weaponry to personal scale was way to high (except for nukes of course!)

 

[GypsyComet]

I always thought that the conversion of damage from starship weaponry to personal scale was way to high (except for nukes of course!)

Having a laser be lethal at 10,000km means putting a LOT of power behind it. Fusion and plasma turrets are going to have huge danger spaces in atmosphere when fired at full power, and you really don't want to be anywhere near the splash point of a PA.

I suspect ship scale weapons that can work at shorter than short ranges have a "low power" mode. No point in putting 5 megawatts into the emitter when you only need to go 5km, unless you really want to cook the Zip Code.