Space Combat

[Welsh Knight]

Hi,
Traveller player returning after many years!

In regards to space combat in the basic book, it seems to me that there is not much point in having anying other than Beam lasers in a turret?

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Check the eratta - Beam lasers only do 1d6 and Pulse Lasers do 2d6 damage (with a -2 DM to hit).

Nuclear missiles are worth it (if you can use them legally of course).

 

[Welsh Knight]

Thanks Rikki, makes more sense, how about normal missiles? They seem useless as they can be shot down and cost extra to fire
Ta

 

[locarno24]

In the basic book, you're quite right. Except that a turret with three particle beams in it will cause some seriously unpleasant experiences, if you can afford it. Nuclear missiles are kind of pointless as they only do the same damage as a beam laser - which can be used to shoot them down until you run out of ammo.

See high guard, as above.

Pulse lasers are '6-pounders' - harder to hit with but hurt more

Beam lasers are light guns. They can hit but armour will cut their teeth easily - but they're the preferred weapon for point defence.

Sandcasters....meh. I've never liked the idea anyway. You can't do point defence against a speed-of-light weapon. I do like the option of 'pebble' rounds, which essentially turns the sandcaster into a light autocannon firing D3 damage shots - sufficient to do point defence (if the attacker's far enough away) and shoot down unarmoured light fighters and merchantmen, and to strafe ground targets, but not threaten an armoured warship. Plus the ammo genuinely is cheap, as is the weapon.

Particle beams hit like a mack truck but cost a lot more than pulse lasers and require an entire triple turret to themselves.

Missiles.....errr....yeah. They're stilll kind of cruddy. Multiwarhead missiles (again, high guard) or nukes are nice, but liable to get you in trouble.

Barbettes are essentially big turrets. Particle barbettes are scary and easier to mount than bay weapons, whilst torpedo barbettes give you much, much nastier ordnance that's actually worth flinging at an armoured opponent. Ortillery torps are as scary as hell - hard to hit with and easy to shoot down - but capable of turning a ship inside out with a couple of hits.

There are a few other weapons in other sourcebooks - magnetic harpoons for boarding is a big one - but not many.

 

[hdan]

Pulse lasers are '6-pounders' - harder to hit with but hurt more

Beam lasers are light guns. They can hit but armour will cut their teeth easily - but they're the preferred weapon for point defence.

Sandcasters....meh. I've never liked the idea anyway. You can't do point defence against a speed-of-light weapon.<snip>

The basic weapons stack up against each other pretty well, as you show. You also have to take into account their relative prices.

I think Sandcasters work because the laser weapon does not instantly deliver all that damage, but rather delivers the damage over a period of time. My rationale is that the damage roll indicates how long you were able to keep the heat on the target. A sandcaster can reduce that time.

Particle beams hit like a mack truck but cost a lot more than pulse lasers and require an entire triple turret to themselves.

Missiles.....errr....yeah. They're stilll kind of cruddy. Multiwarhead missiles (again, high guard) or nukes are nice, but liable to get you in trouble.

I don't like MgT standard missiles, they're too weak. In basic CT, they were potentially the most dangerous of all turret mounted weapons, doing 1d6 'hits" (a beam laser did 1 hit, a pulse laser did 2 hits), but that was mitigated by the fact that you had to pay for each shot. A merchant could lose most of the profits from his run by needing to fire a missile or two, but that missile was likely to take out the opponent, or at least tie up his lasers in point defense for a while. A lightly armored ship in MgT can safely ignore incoming missiles, which doesn't feel right to me.

But MgT has taken the approach that missiles are more like modern TOW missiles than exocets or silkworms. Which I suppose is borne out by their small size, but it doesn't make them feel like effective space combat weapons.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Check the eratta - Beam lasers only do 1d6 and Pulse Lasers do 2d6 damage (with a -2 DM to hit).

What eratta? Link please.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Hi,
Traveller player returning after many years!

In regards to space combat in the basic book, it seems to me that there is not much point in having anying other than Beam lasers in a turret?

If you have the Tech Level and the MCr, then get the lasers instead of missles. If nukes are available, then what's the point in having lasers? And so on, and so on.

 

[AndrewW]

Check the eratta - Beam lasers only do 1d6 and Pulse Lasers do 2d6 damage (with a -2 DM to hit).

What eratta? Link please.

Available from here:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/rpgs/traveller/core-rulebooks-accessories/book-2-high-guard.html

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Check the eratta - Beam lasers only do 1d6 and Pulse Lasers do 2d6 damage (with a -2 DM to hit).

What eratta? Link please.

Available from here:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/rpgs/traveller/core-rulebooks-accessories/book-2-high-guard.html

Ok. Totally different book then. This thread was asking about the core book rules.

 

[Captain Jonah]

In the basic book, you're quite right. Except that a turret with three particle beams in it will cause some seriously unpleasant experiences, if you can afford it. Nuclear missiles are kind of pointless as they only do the same damage as a beam laser - which can be used to shoot them down until you run out of ammo.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Erm P-Beams are a three space weapon. Only one in a Triple turret.
Nuke Missiles do 2 dice damage.
Run out of ammo, with a beam laser :shock: Ah so a week or two later when you run out of power fuel. :wink:

Bad locarno24 :lol:

It is fairly easy to become immune to beam lasers and normal missiles. A single layer of bonded gives you 6 points. Even a number of standard civilian ships with Crystaliron gain 4 points making them very resistant.

Pulse laser do the damage but need a decent gunner to hit with.

For a wargame missiles can be used. In a player level game missiles cost far too much for the limited effect they have. At over a Kcr a shot a single triple turret fires Cr3,750 a time. A few rounds of combat and you are broke. Nukes, just hand over the cargo, they are way too expensive to fire.

P-Beam cost isn’t that much when you factor it into a 50-100 megacredit ship mortgage.

But until you start fitting P-Beam turrets or barbettes to your small traders battles between small ships are very drawn out. A Free Trader or Far Trader fighting another such ship just armed with beam or pulse lasers will take a long time as they keep bouncing off or missing. Even bigger ships such as Patrol Cruisers and Merc cruisers, if armed with standard missiles and beams, take a long time to destroy a 200Dton trader with 4 armour.

 

[locarno24]

In the core book, without high guard changes, Beam lasers are 2D6, the same as nukes (making nukes pointless), and you can have triple PAWs.

Which is why they did the High Guard updates (see the rest of the post) which make more sense.
Standard missiles are still a bit guff, though, as noted. The Multiwarhead missile isn't bad but since it's D6 hits x D6 damage, it's still going to bounce off anyone with armour (albeit that it'll make a freakin' mess of anyone without).

If you want the scary missiles of old traveller, reach for torpedoes.