SPACE COMBAT - Sand Caster

[Arkathan]

Electromagnetic radiation does not care what it hits. It hits something and imparts its energy to that something. Attenuation through dust is treated as armor.
HG2022 updates this, even though the Core book still says lasers only.
This may be why MgT treats sandcaster cannisters as only one attack. Ablation of the field.

 

[Condottiere]

Yet not sufficient energy dump for lasers, otherwise you wouldn't need to add reflection.

If it actually worked against fusion guns and particle accelerators, I'd sandbag the hull, inside and outside.

 

[Spartan159]

crystals are multispectrum and heat absorptive?

 

[Tupper]

Going back to the original question, about whether you can disperse sand multiple times, I'd suggest allowing it once per sandcaster. For example, a double turret with two sandcasters could be used against two laser attacks at 1D each, or a single laser attack at 1D+1.

 

[Vormaerin]

Unless there is a space combat specific definition of reactions that I have overlooked, I'd be inclined to allow unlimited reactions the same as in standard combat. Each one applying a cumulative -1 to the next action. Which in this case would be firing the sandcaster (unless its a multiweapon turret, in which case the next action might be a different weapon). You are going to run out of ammunition really fast if you do use your sandcasters against repeated laser fire.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on whether it's an extended engagement.

Regardless of whether sandcasting actually makes sense, it's one gunner/turret against one barrage per combat round, though you could have multiple separate turrets trying to deflect a barrage during that round.

 

[Vormaerin]

That probably is the way the rules work as written. It makes sandcasters almost completely useless. You get a chance to reduce the effectiveness of a single attack. This chance costs you limited ammo, while the attack it might hinder does not use ammo. It also prevents you from firing back. So maybe it buys you a few minutes. So unless you are about to jump away and just need to buy some time, its pretty much ineffective. A laser to discourage or potentially damage your opponent would nearly always be more effective, at least for civilian vessels. Not to mention cheaper in the long run, since ye olde beam laser doesn't require you to buy expensive ammo or dedicate cargo space to storing it.

Sandcasters might make sense for military ships that have far more weapons capacity, do most of their damage with bay weapons, and need to hang around in the line of battle longer. But even there, I'm not sure that is actually true. In modern naval warfare, point defenses are mainly for stopping stand off attacks (missiles) or shooting down aircraft. So they aren't actually replacing offensive capability in a meaningful degree.

 

[Condottiere]

You'd have to automate it as a close in weapons system.

Maybe offer it as a variant of the twenty tonne point defence, then you might have multiples.

 

[JustEastOfTheEdge]

Interesting, too, how this magic sand works in time to hit a weapon incoming at light speed.

 

[Condottiere]

Zhodani gunner, so I suspect their spacecraft are chockful of them.

It's a legacy weapon system, whose rationale is hard to fathom, if you compare the density of actual armour plating, against that of half a cubic metre of sand strewn across hectares of space.

I doubt anyone has ever complained, because it's somewhat innocuous.

Anyway, that's why I said it probably has to be automated, as human reaction isn't likely enough to counter light speed weapons after they've been fired.

 

[JustEastOfTheEdge]

haha yes nice. It really is a hangover from the idea of "chaff" I think, or silver strips of metal blocking radar. Makes no sense at all for starship combat.

 

[Arkathan]

haha yes nice. It really is a hangover from the idea of "chaff" I think, or silver strips of metal blocking radar. Makes no sense at all for starship combat.

It does, actually, but this implementation is flawed from a RW physics standpoint.
You would need to fire the sand before the incoming weapon were fired, as a precautionary measure, so not a reaction. All sand fired towards a ship would work against all fire from that one ship, unless you are within dogfighting range of a capital ship, then you'd be defending against individual batteries of weapons, and would be at least partially effective for a number of rounds while dispersing (currently that number is 1), or until either ship used thrust in a vector not in a line that includes the two ships and the sand.

 

[Condottiere]

One case where it would work would be in pursuit, where the sandcasting spacecraft is on the run, and the pursuer more or less in the rear quarter.

I don't recall if there is a rule about it interfering with your own energy weapon systems in that general direction it was launched.

 

[Arkathan]

One case where it would work would be in pursuit, where the sandcasting spacecraft is on the run, and the pursuer more or less in the rear quarter.

I don't recall if there is a rule about it interfering with your own energy weapon systems in that general direction it was launched.

It should, and in our LBB games, we ruled it did.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Sand affects your own lasers in Mayday.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I always liked the Striker and MegaTraveller treatment of sandcasters - they can be used on the ground as giant shotguns.

Which made me think (after watching the Expanse) what if a sandcastter is actually a vvrf chain gun and later a vvrf gauss gun?

 

[JustEastOfTheEdge]

It does, actually, but this implementation is flawed from a RW physics standpoint.
You would need to fire the sand before the incoming weapon were fired, as a precautionary measure, so not a reaction. All sand fired towards a ship would work against all fire from that one ship, unless you are within dogfighting range of a capital ship, then you'd be defending against individual batteries of weapons, and would be at least partially effective for a number of rounds while dispersing (currently that number is 1), or until either ship used thrust in a vector not in a line that includes the two ships and the sand.

The chance of a cloud of fluff being in the right place at the right time between 2 fast moving objects in 4 dimensions is not worth noting really. Seeing as lasers are just "a little" bit faster than missiles, chucking out sand as some kind of pre-emptive defence is quite mad, especially as an attacker's lasers do not run out within game bounds. It is not any form of active defence as far as I can see ,in the sense of attracting the weapon to itself. Especially since this stuff negatively affects the defender's own weapon. There is no way to rationalise it I am afraid. Good job its a game then and we don't have to .

 

[Arkathan]

Free trader with dual sandcasters firing them as they run from a pirate towards the system and the local patrol craft, or to a jump point. The sand moves at the same velocity and vector as when you fired it. Until you MOVE, it is perfectly aligned between you and the ship that is about to fire at you... unless your gunner misses...
In either of the above cases, the pirates have a limited amount of time to effect a takedown. Pirates want what you have. They cannot get that if they blow you to pieces, therefor they refrain from doing that.
And it is just as eligible for rationalization as the jump drive, or the ability to get enough neutrons flowing in a beam to damage a ship's hull over a range of 50,000 km from a device that can take up as little as 1/4 of a turret... because space particle cannons are incapable of firing a coherent beam of charged ions in a vacuum.
And you need different particles for atmosphere, where the neutron beams are useless.

 

[JustEastOfTheEdge]

I see what you mean, but all the attacker needs to do is aim their nose up 1 degree and at those speeds they would be firing "over" the cloud at the target.
Good point about the changed ion beam in a vacuum. I think (others will know more than me) that those kinds of weapons in traveller are supposed to shoot a stream of neutrons or protons or electrons or whatever other cosmic particles, and essentially are a weaponised version of what they use at CERN (which does fire its particles in a vacuum - and has to of course).

 

[Condottiere]

It's like punching through paper.

As I understood it, the reflective properties of the crystals distorted the coherency of the laser sufficiently to degrade performance.