Still confused by capital ship combat
- Thread starter ColHut
- Start date
You must use the individual weapon damage in the calculations or Colhut would be right. Simply using the damage as a DM to attack works extremely well and shows why bays are way better than turrets.
Against Armor >10 or so, turrets are meaningless. Only bays have the power to punch through such armor. A quick example would prove this IF you accept the reading of the rules that takes IWD into account.
I was going to mention that GURPS Trav only allows 1 particle beam per turret. But it also allows for "heavy" laser turrets and plasma/fusion turrets. YMMV.
Against Armor >10 or so, turrets are meaningless. Only bays have the power to punch through such armor. A quick example would prove this IF you accept the reading of the rules that takes IWD into account.
I was going to mention that GURPS Trav only allows 1 particle beam per turret. But it also allows for "heavy" laser turrets and plasma/fusion turrets. YMMV.
"Artificial Hack" how hurtful...
Two ways here (at least)
make attacks separate from damage so that getting lots of hits is not the same with doing lots of damage.
Don't add IWD (but even lots of cheap pulse lasers start to work well up close)
any way you look at it a 1 dt turret with 3 PWs can mount a 9d barrage by itself, ( a 10 000 tone ship of the right shape is crushingly effective at long range, especially at higher tech). The only protection form PW is armour or armour.
How could you doubt
Bay mounted non missile weapons will work well., but a problem with adding IWD for bays is that I am not sure it works for missiles and torpedoes, as the IWD for these is listed as "missile" notwithstanding the example giving weapons numbers instead of barrage dice:
Supposing it to be so though, perhaps the answer is to use the number of weapons and not barrage dice, as the effectiveness of the attack with be massively modified by the IWD thus surviving missiles and torpedoes because of (insert reason) will score damage on armoured targets whereas turret launched swarm attacks might get no damage as modified score below 3.
We might end up way off the table though with +24 for 100 ton missile bays. :!:
regards
Yea, the missile bays are the problem. The directed energy weapons are fine. I think the missile bays are actually kind of interesting though because they allow you to get an enormous volume of fire into space really quickly. To get 24 missiles into space using turrets, you need 8 hardpoints, instead of just one. Yes, you are only using 8 tons versus 100 tons, but tonnage tends to not be the limiting factor as much as hardpoints on large ships.
Consider a 10,000 cruisery thing. It has 100 hardpoints. It can have 10 bays times its power plant rating (probably 30-40). Let's say I use all 100 for triple missile turrets. Going with the 80% bearing hull, that's 80 turrets, or 240 missiles per barrage. Not bad, but I have no point defense.
Now let's try missile bays, both 50 dton and 100 dton. I'm going to assume a max of 40 bays. That leaves 60 hardpoints, so we know right away that we can put an extra 60 triple missile turrets. 80% of 60 is 48, and 48 *3= 144 missiles. If I have the tonnage, I'll put 40 100dton missile bays. That's 4,000 tons, and is probably excessive unless this thing is a flying missile battery. Still, those 40 missile bays allow me to fire 40*80%*24 missiles = 768 missiles. Whoa. Let's not be quite so insane and use 50 dton bays--that's 2,000 tons and it comes out to 384 missiles. So either way, we're getting MUCH larger missile barrages with bay weapons when hardpoints are a limiting factor (and I do believe strongly that hardpoints are always the limiting factor over raw tonnage).
And the above were just silly designs that had no point defense. Once you incorporate in the need to spend a bunch of turrets on point defense, it becomes quickly obvious that missile bays are hugely awesome for missile combat. That might go a long away alone to help soothe their relative weakness in terms of individual weapon damage.
Consider a 10,000 cruisery thing. It has 100 hardpoints. It can have 10 bays times its power plant rating (probably 30-40). Let's say I use all 100 for triple missile turrets. Going with the 80% bearing hull, that's 80 turrets, or 240 missiles per barrage. Not bad, but I have no point defense.
Now let's try missile bays, both 50 dton and 100 dton. I'm going to assume a max of 40 bays. That leaves 60 hardpoints, so we know right away that we can put an extra 60 triple missile turrets. 80% of 60 is 48, and 48 *3= 144 missiles. If I have the tonnage, I'll put 40 100dton missile bays. That's 4,000 tons, and is probably excessive unless this thing is a flying missile battery. Still, those 40 missile bays allow me to fire 40*80%*24 missiles = 768 missiles. Whoa. Let's not be quite so insane and use 50 dton bays--that's 2,000 tons and it comes out to 384 missiles. So either way, we're getting MUCH larger missile barrages with bay weapons when hardpoints are a limiting factor (and I do believe strongly that hardpoints are always the limiting factor over raw tonnage).
And the above were just silly designs that had no point defense. Once you incorporate in the need to spend a bunch of turrets on point defense, it becomes quickly obvious that missile bays are hugely awesome for missile combat. That might go a long away alone to help soothe their relative weakness in terms of individual weapon damage.
Another point about missiles. In CT, beam lasers did 1 hit, pulse lasers did 2 hits, and missiles did 1d6 hits. Somehow, in MGT, beam lasers and missiles do the same damage.
Without having to change a single design, simply increasing missile damage would help balance them out immensely.
For example, standard missiles could do 2d6 (i.e. pulse laser, but no -2 DM, but can be shot down). Nukes do 4d6. Standard torpedoes do 8d6 and nuke torpedoes do 12d6.
Other options: shaped charge missiles that gain Armor Piercing (ignore 1 or more points of starship armor). X-ray laserheads for standard sized missiles (doing 2d6 standoff damage).
The beauty of MGT is that you can introduce slight changes to weapon stats without having to change any designs. It's all balanced as long as you are consistent.
I do personally find 1d6 missiles to be a little weak and I might house rule that so that the PCs have a much greater incentive to shoot down each incoming missile!
My current house rules? First, all spacecraft weapons get Effect added to damage. Nukes get Effect times the number of dice they do, so standard nukes do 2d6+2xEffect and torps do 6d6+6xEffect. Standard missiles are considered shaped charges and do 1d6+Effect, AP 1. Same goes for torps, except they are AP 4.
Without having to change a single design, simply increasing missile damage would help balance them out immensely.
For example, standard missiles could do 2d6 (i.e. pulse laser, but no -2 DM, but can be shot down). Nukes do 4d6. Standard torpedoes do 8d6 and nuke torpedoes do 12d6.
Other options: shaped charge missiles that gain Armor Piercing (ignore 1 or more points of starship armor). X-ray laserheads for standard sized missiles (doing 2d6 standoff damage).
The beauty of MGT is that you can introduce slight changes to weapon stats without having to change any designs. It's all balanced as long as you are consistent.
I do personally find 1d6 missiles to be a little weak and I might house rule that so that the PCs have a much greater incentive to shoot down each incoming missile!
My current house rules? First, all spacecraft weapons get Effect added to damage. Nukes get Effect times the number of dice they do, so standard nukes do 2d6+2xEffect and torps do 6d6+6xEffect. Standard missiles are considered shaped charges and do 1d6+Effect, AP 1. Same goes for torps, except they are AP 4.
Nice analysis. It does increase the volume of fire you can deliver over turrets for missiles, even if the ratio per missile to dt ratio drops from 0.33 to 4.16 (1/3 to 100/24).
So long as you can get on the table (depending on how you see IWD), even 10/20% is a good hit, and you can just keep salvoing - tieing up their point defence weapons. Specialised but not nutty. I would put in a lot of armour with the space left and some screens!
Do you think you can store torpedoes and Missiles in bays in the same way you can apparently put 2 torpedoes in a barbette?
I like the idea of ignoring a level or 2 or 3 of armour up to the armour level only. This way they do not do more damage against lesser armoured ships (which adding a raw +n modifier would do). Maybe even they would only be 1/2 damage dice each, and you might mix and match your loadout.
AndrewW
Emperor Mongoose
apoc527 said:
That would be 101 tons per 100ton bay (assuming no TL modifications reducing tonnage), missile bays also use 1 ton for fire control. But they can also have a tonnage versus turrets saving in less crew (staterooms) needing only 2 crew members per bay, depending on how you divide up the turrets.
Why are we trying to make missiles better and particle beams worst?
The difference is there is the core rulebook. A triple particle beam costs the same (1MCR more actually) as a 50 ton missile bay, more than a particle barbette.
Got home from work and read page 4 of the thread an wondered where we were going - and why?
The difference is there is the core rulebook. A triple particle beam costs the same (1MCR more actually) as a 50 ton missile bay, more than a particle barbette.
Got home from work and read page 4 of the thread an wondered where we were going - and why?
The way i see it is this..
Beam lasers are a civilian grade installation designed to deal with physical threats to the ship, ie meteors, missiles etc. it may serve as a deterrant for raiders especially if there are other weapons aboard (such as missiles)
Missiles are again primarily civilian/planetary naval weapons designed to defend against aggressors.
Pulse lasers are military grade weapons/upgrades to the basic defence having much greater impact but reduced accuracy. however, if a ship is mounting multiple systems then this lessens some what.
particle weapons, bays etc are military weapons that are designed to obliterate the enemy.
Beam lasers are a civilian grade installation designed to deal with physical threats to the ship, ie meteors, missiles etc. it may serve as a deterrant for raiders especially if there are other weapons aboard (such as missiles)
Missiles are again primarily civilian/planetary naval weapons designed to defend against aggressors.
Pulse lasers are military grade weapons/upgrades to the basic defence having much greater impact but reduced accuracy. however, if a ship is mounting multiple systems then this lessens some what.
particle weapons, bays etc are military weapons that are designed to obliterate the enemy.
We are still left with the problem (if indeed a problem) that a ship equipped with triple particle beam turrets can vapourise itself with a single shot...
That 10,000 ton cruiser with say 80% bearing has 100x3x3x.8 =720 dice barrage. To which add FC, crew quality,-armour-evade. If TL14/15, FC =5, median crew (+2) weapon enhancements (Very high yield) +2. Average dice 7, final score 7+5+2+2-2-Armour = 14-armor - so can absorb 7 armour on average dice and still do 720 damage! Heaven help if you get lucky. A 10, 000 ton ship has 200H and 200S at TL12 in total, more if high tech hull is used but not enough. Honestly your opponent is toast...
That 10,000 ton cruiser with say 80% bearing has 100x3x3x.8 =720 dice barrage. To which add FC, crew quality,-armour-evade. If TL14/15, FC =5, median crew (+2) weapon enhancements (Very high yield) +2. Average dice 7, final score 7+5+2+2-2-Armour = 14-armor - so can absorb 7 armour on average dice and still do 720 damage! Heaven help if you get lucky. A 10, 000 ton ship has 200H and 200S at TL12 in total, more if high tech hull is used but not enough. Honestly your opponent is toast...
ColHut said:
My thoughts are, the rules cover TL 8+. The balance of attack to defence is not the same at each tech level. I agree even with heavy armour its a nasty strike.
Assuming armour 12 + you dodge:
7 = 0 damage.
8 = 72 damage. (42% chance)
9 = 180 damage. (28% chance - worrying hit)
10 = 360 damage (17% chance - toas as you put it).
Less armour increases chance of toast.
TL13 with armour 13 is in much better shap (8% chance of toast, 17% chance of worrying hit). You need sadcasters as well to try and get another -1/-2 from them. TL14 with max arnour can effectively ignore the strike (8% chance og worrying hit, 3% chance of toast).
Hope my maths is right.
I am sort of leaning towards "not a problem" - a manifestation of Tech Level. At TL 9-, the nuclear missile has the same threat level. Armour 8 required to offset the crew hits would require 20% of the hull. If your ship has to stand in the line, you would probably pay it.
Unfortunately I do not think sandcasters are effective against particle beams.... The core rules talk about them "counteracting the effect of lasers" (p.111), then proceeds to talk about reducing the effect of "beam weapons" (ibid.) and again (p. 149). In HG Capital ship rules, it states that:
(p.74)
And consistent with that - spinal weapon particle beam damage is affected only by armour (p.77).
But you might well be right at in terms of it not being a problem - more a design consideration. If you get to add IWD to the attack then that moves the oddds a bit though.(I didn't for the sake of argument add it into my example)
At TL 13 you can mount a spinal Particle beam doing 420 damage, at TL 14 440 damage. However, 13 armour points will eliminate 390 points of that damage, so you are left with only 30-50 damage plus 39 residual, and you have a chance of missing the taget!
Time to move to meson weapons as armour increases. However you only need to get lucky once!
Not sure though that at TL 10/11, triple particle beam turrets aren't wonder weapons.
ColHut said:
Agreed - did not check the rules - to busy doing maths!
At 16MCr a turret (double upgrade), the triple particle beam is expensive. but High Guard certainly exagerates its effectiveness (even without IWF).
At TL 11 the Meson Gun and Fusion Gun seem good bang for buck. The 50 ton fusion gun bay is half the cost of the triple paricle beam turret double upgraded. You need bigger ships to mount them though.
The original Traveller High Guard was rather rock paper scissors, and this seems the same. You would feel silly spending the money and tons on Amrour 13 if your enemy had a fleet of meson gun armed ships.
My entry into the MGT TCS tournament was equiped with heavy armour, and a meson screen - and that meant for some serious tradeoffs (esp. since part of the goal was to also have the 'biggest gun' a non-capital ship could sport).
As stated before, the game mechanics are typically well balanced when all factors are considered - though often not clear to the reader (or anybody for that matter!). Errors are more of ommission, clarity and typos. House rules are generally unneccessary until all possible meanings of 'official rules' have been exhausted.
As stated before, the game mechanics are typically well balanced when all factors are considered - though often not clear to the reader (or anybody for that matter!). Errors are more of ommission, clarity and typos. House rules are generally unneccessary until all possible meanings of 'official rules' have been exhausted.
Triple particle beams are very powerful weapons, but as others have pointed out, they are also incredibly expensive. However, when you add in IWD to the attack roll, it really starts to balance out. Triple particle beams are excellent until armor becomes high tech enough to reliably stop them (requires about 12-13 armor, as I believe was stated to get pretty reliable protection). Even before that though, you won't go wrong using bays and heavy bays because against low-mid levels of armor, you will reliably achieve 500% damage (which is the equivalent of rolling 5's on every die of damage). And really, does it matter if you merely completely blow the hell out of your enemy compared to utter annihilation? I somehow think the enemy crew will fail to appreciate the difference.
