The Problem With Sandcasters

[Solomani666]

I can not see how sand casters could work against pulse lasers unless the firing ship is also effected by the sand.

I see sandcasters against beam lasers working working like this:

A beam laser strikes the hull and its position registeres on ship sensors.
The turret gunner aims the turret at the incomming beam and fires at it much like a firehose with a wider spread.
He follows the beam (now also visible because of the sand) as it traces across the hull. Thus the sand is localized and should allow other turrets to fire at the enemy.

With a pulse laser it seems the damage should done before the sand turret could react and the only way to defend against a pulse laser would be to put a cloud of sand between your ship and theirs. Thus if they have to fire through sand then so should you. If you maneuver around the sand for a clear shot then they should be able to shoot you too.

IMTU I am considering making pulse lasers restricted for civilian ships without a licence and pulse lasers for mining only doing 1d6.

No 'hand waving' in your responses please.

 

[rust]

The gaps left between the sand clouds from successive sand canisters
would be quite easy to see for the gunners, and it should not be too dif-
ficult for them to fire their own laser weapons through these gaps. The
gunners on the enemy ship, a very long distance away, would have far
more problems to spot the gaps between the sand clouds and to calcu-
late their movements, and therefore would need a lot of luck to hit such
a gap. Well, just an idea ... 8)

 

[DFW]

Sandcasters would be useless anyway if your ship is maneuvering. Change your vector and the sand isn't there anymore...

 

[hdan]

That's why I prefer the CT sandcaster rules from a "how does this work?" perspective - you don't fire a "blast" at incoming laser fire, you launch a cloud between your ship and the enemy ship which stays there until you maneuver. It's like a smoke screen, and blocks fire in both directions.

Having said that, the MGT sandcaster rules are more exiting to play.

 

[phavoc]

From a 'believability' standpoint, sand should be deployed so as to provide a protective cloud between you and the enemy ship. It should be applicable to both the firing ship and the launching ship cause, well, it's shit that is in the way when you fire as much as when they are firing at you.

It should only be effective beyond one turn if the launching ship is being chased. And even then it should be easy enough to maneuver around because the size of the cloud is easily ignored by very minor vector changes by the pursuit ship.

I gotta go re-read the MGT description, but its sounding like another jump drive change on their part for no good reason other than to put their stamp and perspective on things.

Nothing wrong with change, so long as it makes more sense and makes the game better.

 

[DFW]

From a 'believability' standpoint, sand should be deployed so as to provide a protective cloud between you and the enemy ship. It should be applicable to both the firing ship and the launching ship cause, well, it's **** that is in the way when you fire as much as when they are firing at you.

IMTU only civvies use it as they as usually running away from the attacking ship and get into a tail chase situation. For mil ships attacking, it is not worth the wasted turrets unless it's a huge ship...

 

[alex_greene]

They probably use it as a squid or an octopus ejects its ink cloud: spray it in direct line of sight of enemy, accelerate directly away along that vector as hard as possible.

 

[hdan]

From a 'believability' standpoint, sand should be deployed so as to provide a protective cloud between you and the enemy ship. It should be applicable to both the firing ship and the launching ship cause, well, it's **** that is in the way when you fire as much as when they are firing at you.

It should only be effective beyond one turn if the launching ship is being chased. And even then it should be easy enough to maneuver around because the size of the cloud is easily ignored by very minor vector changes by the pursuit ship.

If I'm not mistaken, it was -2 (or -3?) for any shot fired through the cloud from either ship, and the cloud was "launched" with the same initial velocity as the launching ship's current velocity. So as long as the ship didn't change its vector and the enemy was far enough away not to change its "bearing off the bow" significantly, the sand cloud remained.

In an MgT non-vector setting, you'd probably just have to rule that as long as the shooting ship spent no more Maneuver points, it counted as sand covered.

 

[GJD]

I thought a sand launcher system (can or launcher) included gravitics/magnets to hold the cloud in shape/position? (it's all done with magnets).

G.

 

[Mithras]

Personally I like the way 2300AD used the same concept, but ship's could create an electromagnetic field to 'hold' the sand as a cloud around the defending ship even as it changed its position.

 

[DFW]

I thought a sand launcher system (can or launcher) included gravitics/magnets to hold the cloud in shape/position? (it's all done with magnets).

G.

Not in Trav CT, MT, GT, T4, D20 or MGT.

 

[locarno24]

Sandcasters would be useless anyway if your ship is maneuvering. Change your vector and the sand isn't there anymore...

Not for 6 minutes, anyway.

It depends how a sandcaster works. If it literally throws the barrel, to detonate and produce a cloud of sand (like a chaff grenade), then it's no use.

If it's a continuously sprayed 'fire hoze', with one barrel being 6 minutes worth of fire, it's possible (you'll just leave an increasingly expanding trail along your past vector. If that cloud is enough to more or less obscure the ship, you have a defence (think a destroyer "Making Smoke" and turning back into the smoke screed rather than a smoke bomb).

It also means you can fire out without a problem, because - as noted - if you stop firing sand and keep manouvring, the sand will clear within moments. Since your gunners know when this is going to happen, you can stop firing sand, fire, and restart firing sand. If you're smart, the two will be tied together through fire control (to minimize the "window") rather than being seperate actions.

Another relevant question is why this doesn't mess up sensor locks at all - since every sensor suite listed in the core rules includes a Lidar component that should logically get screwed up by a sand cloud as well. Granted it's not the only component, but losing one of a sensor suites 'senses' must have some effect.

 

[GJD]

Personally I like the way 2300AD used the same concept, but ship's could create an electromagnetic field to 'hold' the sand as a cloud around the defending ship even as it changed its position.

That's where I got it from.

G.

 

[phavoc]

Sandcasters would be useless anyway if your ship is maneuvering. Change your vector and the sand isn't there anymore...

Not for 6 minutes, anyway.

It depends how a sandcaster works. If it literally throws the barrel, to detonate and produce a cloud of sand (like a chaff grenade), then it's no use.

If it's a continuously sprayed 'fire hoze', with one barrel being 6 minutes worth of fire, it's possible (you'll just leave an increasingly expanding trail along your past vector. If that cloud is enough to more or less obscure the ship, you have a defence (think a destroyer "Making Smoke" and turning back into the smoke screed rather than a smoke bomb).

It also means you can fire out without a problem, because - as noted - if you stop firing sand and keep manouvring, the sand will clear within moments. Since your gunners know when this is going to happen, you can stop firing sand, fire, and restart firing sand. If you're smart, the two will be tied together through fire control (to minimize the "window") rather than being seperate actions.

Another relevant question is why this doesn't mess up sensor locks at all - since every sensor suite listed in the core rules includes a Lidar component that should logically get screwed up by a sand cloud as well. Granted it's not the only component, but losing one of a sensor suites 'senses' must have some effect.

Well, you gotta factor in a few things. First the rules don't really deal with velocity, but if you have been boosting at 2Gs for 4hrs trying to get to your destination and you enter into combat, you are going to have a great deal of velocity built up. Changing headings is going to make it nearly impossible to get back behind your 'smoke' because of velocity - much different than a DD dropping smoke and trying to weave in and out of it.

Secondly I don't think you could do the firehose-type of sand deployment, then fire, then deploy more sand during a single combat round. The combat rules really aren't set up for that sort of thing. Not as I understand them anyway. While you would think that you could do a LOT of things in 6 minutes, the rules have always been 1 combat action. So fire, or don't fire. But I've never seen anything that would let you deploy sand, think about firing, fire, then deploy more sand. If you did that, wouldn't you potentially have half-strength defenses since you have left the protection of the first cloud?

I agree that sand should equally affect the attacker and defender. As far as messing up your Lidar, combat ships could offset that by deploying sensor drones that provide you more sensing positions, while most civilian ships aren't going to do that due to costs.

 

[DFW]

Well, you gotta factor in a few things. First the rules don't really deal with velocity, but if you have been boosting at 2Gs for 4hrs trying to get to your destination and you enter into combat, you are going to have a great deal of velocity built up. Changing headings is going to make it nearly impossible to get back behind your 'smoke' because of velocity - much different than a DD dropping smoke and trying to weave in and out of it.

The 'smoke' has the same velocity as the ship. So the frame of reference is zero whether the ship is 0 kph or 200,000 kps.

 

[hdan]

The 'smoke' has the same velocity as the ship. So the frame of reference is zero whether the ship is 0 kph or 200,000 kps.

Exactly. Move 100m out of cover, then move 100m back. The sand (which starts off with your velocity and does not accelerate on its own) is now your "zero" velocity reference.

As an aside:
The only game I've seen that "got it right" from a physics perspective is Jovian Chronicles. You have two types of engagements - one is which you are at almost the same velocity that plays out like a "naval battle" of sorts, and another (the "Lightning strike") that occurs at very high relative velocity and allows both fleets to get one shot in each before blowing past each other.

But its more genre-appropriate to have ships closing and duking it out, so I ignore that stuff in my games, though I don't tend to have encounters out past the 100d limit. If players are flying between planets, then they won't get into encounter range until they are near their destination.

 

[phavoc]

Well, you gotta factor in a few things. First the rules don't really deal with velocity, but if you have been boosting at 2Gs for 4hrs trying to get to your destination and you enter into combat, you are going to have a great deal of velocity built up. Changing headings is going to make it nearly impossible to get back behind your 'smoke' because of velocity - much different than a DD dropping smoke and trying to weave in and out of it.

The 'smoke' has the same velocity as the ship. So the frame of reference is zero whether the ship is 0 kph or 200,000 kps.

Only upon launch. At that point the ship will continue to build up thrust, and add in vector changes. The sand will retain its original heading and velocity. Plus space is 3-D, not 2-D like if you popped smoke on a ship or land vehicle. Everytime you maneuver, you put yourself farther off the original trajectory of your sand cloud. And every minute of additional thrust makes it that much harder to get back behind it - especially if you are stooging around in a 1G freighter with little to no agility.

 

[DFW]

Only upon launch.

Right but, your ships velocity when you use sand is irrelevant.

 

[lastbesthope]

My current project at work is something not entirely unrelated to this, the fact that I have now connected my work to both Traveller and CTA:NA in my head fills me with hope that my geekiness has not yet died.



LBH

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Don't worry LBH, we know you are a Geek! :wink: