Weapon Recharge Time

[Abraxus]

I have yet more questions...

The current rules for firing weapons is vague.. I'm going with the thought that each weapon on a ship can fire once per round, despite what a character might have in attacks (ie: +6/+1). Is anyone using the possibly more accurate B5Wars system for firing weapons? Ie: Heavy lasers fire once per four rounds? I am thinking of using it...just wondering if anyone else is also or people are using a different approach as well.

Abraxus

 

[Abraxus]

If a weapon is listed as linked..ie: Twin-Linked...do you /have/ to fire them linked, or can you unlink them and fire sepersately?

Abraxus

 

[psyclonejack]

I am thinking back to the ''Haul Ass'' Scene. The white star stops in hyperspace, and begins firing all weapons, as fast as it can. There seemed to be no 'recharge time'. IIRC the only time 'recharge time' was metioned was in Crusade due to the drain the main gun put on the destroyer. Also, how do you handle rapid fire? 3 shots per gun per round. Recharge whats that?

PsycloneJack

 

[Morgan_Keyes]

I suppose we'll have to wait until the advanced space combat set comes out. One potential source would be AoG's B5Wars. Unfortunetly I haven't been able to find a reference to scale in the basic game yet. That said, in the example of the of the minbari molecular pulsars the AoG material gives them a rate rate of '1 per 2 turns' and each firing potentially landing up to 7 pulses. Now Psyclonejack brought up the episode example with the White Star going Mad Minute. Could be the standard volleying given the number of pulses one gets with a firing in B5Wars, or Option 2 for that weapon which lets it fire 'every turn' (again, whatever unit of time a turn represents in B5Wars) but only landing up to 3 pulses per firing.

Not saying this should have bearing in the RPG, especially given the 1) question on what are the time/distance units in B5 Wars, and 2) a general mood in the RPG community to avoid 'wargame' trappings in games. (Though those that know of me know I don't subscribe to view #2 8) ). Just food for thought.

 

[Brucifer]

I agree - Although the B5W system made life a bit more "realistic" (can i use that to describe sci fi?) in an rpg there are usually so mant things going on that it could be detrimental to the flow of play if eveyone has to keep track of upwards of 10 different weapons recharge times.

However i havent found any real use for the acquire target action - they just havent used it yet. Perhaps recharge times would give them all a round or 2 to consider their options.

Any thoughts?

 

[Dag'Nabbit]

There is a pretty big difference between the B5 Wars setup from AoG and the D20 rules for the B5 RPG. So I wouldn't take too many of AoG's rules and try to put them into the D20 system, atleast not without a lot of work.

Your first question-how does firing work:
Since the book doesn't specifically say that vehicle weaponry is restricted to one shot per round then the rules firing weapons in the 3rd Ed. D&D is used. Thus you gain a number of attacks per round depending on the character's/crews' base attack bonus.

This doesn't seem right to me as it would allow elite crews to fire their heavy weaponry up to 3 or more times per turn. That is just absolutely disgusting and eliminates any sort of balance in this portion of the game. As such I would limit non-rapid fire weapons to 1 shot per turn.

I am toying with the idea of allowing rapid fire weapons to use their base attack bonus to figure out how often they fire, but that seems a little too much. So I'll probably let them fire only once per turn in whatever mode the player wishes to use (single shot/rapid fire-though area suppression will not be allowed in space combat; too big).

Your second question-linked weapons:
The rule book does not provide for unlinking the weapons. I am planning on allowing linked weapons to be unlinked and fired at seperate targets, though I am thinking about applying a penalty to this action as it would put stress on the targeting systems of the ship. Also going to apply a full round action to unlink the weapons during which they can not fire.

 

[LoneStranger]

I can definitely see people wanting to AoG's weapon recharge rates, as far as trying to adapt them I don't even think you have to do that much. All you should do is take the rounds in B5W which I've heard are 10 seconds (which I used in explaining time for a jump engine to cycle in another post) and change it to the 6 second rounds in B5 D20.

As for tracking multiple targets for the weapons on the ships, I don't really see that much of a reason to say the targetting system on a ship would be stressed from that. Most modern RADAR systems can track dozens if not hundreds of targets currently giving range, altitude, and bearing. So it would make sense that a couple centuries from now sensors can do a comparable job. Now I will grant that you won't get complete info on every ship in the area. I'd say figure out how many targets a ship can detect and give it about 1/10th of that for actual targetting purposes. It gives some flexibility in allowing people to choose targets.

And Dag'Nabbit, I can kinda see where you're going with the full round action to unlink weapons, but I just don't see it. If I remember right (no the book isn't in front of me) they do have gunners on the ship and during combat, every gunner post would be manned. In that case all someone would have to do is flip a switch and the lights on another gunner's console would come on. I would be willing to believe that the "new" gunner would fire last in the round though, would make sense to me.

 

[Sundog]

I've just decided to use the recharge times from B5W as is. I think the link-unlink thing would be a free action, and count as one for all gunners involved (so if they're doing nothing else, no problem, but if they want to do another free, like checking out what's going on, it will take a partial...)

 

[Abraxus]

I think i'm going to use recharging as well. I don't think there would be too much worrying about weapons and managing tons of weapons recharge rates... I think it will add a certain feel of suspence when the players in their ship fire their only Heavy Laser Cannons and miss and have to wait 4 rounds in order to fire again... It'll be nail biter time..

Abraxus

 

[Dag'Nabbit]

I can definitely see people wanting to AoG's weapon recharge rates, as far as trying to adapt them I don't even think you have to do that much. All you should do is take the rounds in B5W which I've heard are 10 seconds (which I used in explaining time for a jump engine to cycle in another post) and change it to the 6 second rounds in B5 D20.

Don't get me wrong, I like what B5 Wars did with weapon re-charge times, but I don't think it necessarily reflects what we saw on the show. How many times have we seen the White Star rip shot after shot with its Improved Neutron Laser? Now, there were obvious delyas in some weaponry such as EA's Heavy Lasers and Narn/Centauri Lasers, but the Minbari, Vorlons, and Shadows didn't really seem to have this problem in the show.

As for tracking multiple targets for the weapons on the ships, I don't really see that much of a reason to say the targetting system on a ship would be stressed from that. Most modern RADAR systems can track dozens if not hundreds of targets currently giving range, altitude, and bearing. So it would make sense that a couple centuries from now sensors can do a comparable job. Now I will grant that you won't get complete info on every ship in the area. I'd say figure out how many targets a ship can detect and give it about 1/10th of that for actual targetting purposes. It gives some flexibility in allowing people to choose targets..

The reason I was going to impose a penalty was that it only takes one gunner to fire a linked weapon system, if you ask that one person to target multiple targets then he is going to have additional penalties. Now if you want to say that the ship has multiple gunners then you are going to have to count the number of weapon systems per ship and compare that to the number of gunners; also note that you are going to have to allow extra gunners in order to fulfill the military requirements for 'backup systems'. Only problem here is the books don't list 'Gunners' as part of the crew on ships. Sensor Operators and Cremen yes, but not gunners.

And Dag'Nabbit, I can kinda see where you're going with the full round action to unlink weapons, but I just don't see it. If I remember right (no the book isn't in front of me) they do have gunners on the ship and during combat, every gunner post would be manned. In that case all someone would have to do is flip a switch and the lights on another gunner's console would come on. I would be willing to believe that the "new" gunner would fire last in the round though, would make sense to me.

The main reason I am planning on making it a full round action is the time on the show when the stations defesive firing areas were repositioned to fire down a certain corridor. Now this could also mean that the actually changed the firing arc of their weapons, but that's an entirely different debate.

 

[Abraxus]

Well, I hadn't intented to bring up this idea, but I was thinking about it some more and thought that it wasn't quite right...I had previously decided to use the B5 Wars recharge times...but then I got to thinking that if I were firing an EA Heavy Laser Cannon, the B5 Wars has its recharge time of 4 (wait for 3 turns, fire again on the 4th). So that means, in D20 terms, waiting 18 seconds at least.

But then I began to think that a ship waiting 18 seconds to fire again seemed like a long time...much longer then we saw in the show, or was it?

But neither do I like the idea of a ship simply being able to fire all its weapons once each turn without penalty...

So then I thought of an Initiative Penalty for each weapon... A penalty to a specific weapons initiative (or weapon Type). Thus, Heavy Laser Canon might have a Initiative Penalty of -8, thus faster weapons would fire first... The big guys would fire last.

I am considering doing the following: 1 player rolls the ships init. Each player controls a gun. They then add their guns recharge penalty to init to the roll. This rule is good for capital ships.

Recharge Penalty to Init: To determine this, take the B5 Wars recharge time for weapons and multiply by 2. If you don't have B5 Wars, then assume a recharge penalty of 2 for light weapons, 4-5 for Medium, and 8 or so for Heavy weapons.

Eg: The EAS AEGEUS, a Hyperion Class cruiser is in its 3rd round of combat. The init roll of the ship is 15. Thus, the initiative for the various weapons would be:

Heavy Laser: 7
Medium Pulse Cannons: 8
Interceptors: 15 ( I probably would not give them a recharge penalty)

and so on. With this method, the heavier weapons go later, but not always. There might still be some nail biting as you are hoping you can recharge your weapons and fire again before your enemy can turn around and hit you.

But then I still ask this: Does the show show us that a EA Heavy Laser Cannon takes 18 seconds to recharge? If so, then the B5 Wars rules could apply here. I may still use the B5 Wars recharge times....Although not as accurate perhaps, it still would give that edge of your seat feel during starship combat.

Abraxus

 

[Dag'Nabbit]

I like the idea, though it might make it more of a pain to keep track of things if you have anything approaching a moderately sized fleet. Unless of course you could just roll one initiative for each side, though keeping track of all the weapons would still be a minor headache.