What TL For Anti Matter Torpedoes? (New Sub Topic)

[Beastttt]

at this point your antimatter torp is now a plot device if it up to the GM to just discribe the effect and not roll dice and apply defenses

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Feasibility Question:

Assuming that the reason that nuke missles and torps only do 2d6 and 6d6 damage respectively is that they detonate some distance away from the ships hull. I can reach no other conclusion than this simply because a 100 ton scout ship can usually survive 2 nuclear torpedo attacks. (Note: I did not say 'and function afterwards'!)

Given the above assumption:

At TL 16 would a suicide drone such as the one described in Traders and Gunboats be feasible with an anti-matter warhead instead of the warhead listed?.

Have to agree about nukes not actually hitting a ship.

Let's say that an anti-matter warhead is ~75% more powerful than a nuke for a given amount of reaction matter and the torp penetrates past both hulls; I'd say that any ship smaller than a couple hundred meters long/wide/deep, is destroyed outright.

I don't know if it could be quantified with dice of damage unless, the structure was SO large as to be a city in space type of craft. Even in that case I'd just determine the radius of vaporization, severe destruction, mod destruction, light damage, etc. a lot of that would depend on configuration, internal construction, etc

 

[far-trader]

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Feasibility Question:

Assuming that the reason that nuke missles and torps only do 2d6 and 6d6 damage respectively is that they detonate some distance away from the ships hull...

Actually I wonder if we have to (or should) address this first? Until it is answered the rest of the Q&A might be pointless.

Is the reason nuke missiles(1) only do the limited damage they do by detonating at proximity because you CAN'T physically hit an evading ship with a missile in combat? i.e. Are kinetic missiles (and the penetrator idea) a pipe dream?

I think it is probably that the original game design presumed actually hitting a ship (physically hitting it) with a missile was a non-trivial task, if not practically impossible. So they (the way I've always interpreted the rules at least) went with a proximity nuke detonation.

Given the slow missile speeds (no faster than the fastest ships, and not much better than the slowest) and ranges of combat it seems to me that evading a missile is almost if not a trivial matter. I think the best one can hope for is to get close enough that a nuke can propagate some significant damage.

At the very least (and perhaps MgT has addressed this, perhaps not, I'm curious though) it seems to me there should be a significant difficulty increase in the task to hit (i.e. kinetic kill and penetrator missiles) a ship as opposed to achieving a close proximity (i.e. nukes and nuke det lasers).

I will also note that the speed required, for what I suspect a decent chance to actually hit a target is, pretty much guarantees that a kinetic kill missile will do much more damage from the impact alone than one can hope for with a warhead. Conventional explosives are nothing compared to the kinetic energy (kg for kg). Even nukes and antimatter will not be significant if the relative velocity is sufficient. I also think said velocities are not possible with the given Traveller performances. At least not in every combat circumstance.

In short (again far too late ) I don't believe kinetic kill and penetrator missiles are possible in the Traveller rules and that the only workable missiles are proximity nukes and nuke det lasers. But I'm willing to be convinced by the maths is someone wants to work it out.

(1) I'm with DFW (iirc it was DFW) on this, the only missiles in MTU are nukes... not counting my "missile" guns take on an option, which are kinetic kill (wound more like), but not missiles so much as semi guide munitions, a big gun with a big bullet, and comparable exceedingly high velocity but limited effective range and damage

 

[DFW]

(1) I'm with DFW (iirc it was DFW) on this, the only missiles in MTU are nukes... not counting my "missile" guns take on an option, which are kinetic kill (wound more like), but not missiles so much as semi guide munitions, a big gun with a big bullet, and comparable exceedingly high velocity but limited effective range and damage

Yep, it was me. After mulling the possibilities since ~'79, it was the only possibility I could think of using real world physics.

 

[Solomani666]

The drone I have in mind would pull (push) 14 G's and be guided by an AI, thus giving it multiple chances to collide with its target. If it determined that a collision/penetration attack was improbable (the target being a small and highly manuverable ship) it could just switch to 'proximity mode' for a more conventional attack.

At TL 13+ I do not think that actually hitting a ship of cruiser size or larger with a missile would be a problem. I think that off-the-shelf nuke missiles/torps are designed with the assumtion that the target ship will have dampers and come pre-programmed for a proximity attack (and/or detonation just prior to their cores being rendered inert.)

If I understand the concept correctly, a meson hit is techinicaly similar to a small tactical nuke burst inside of the target ship.

A large meson spinal mount can do upwards of 500d6 of internal damage per attack so a drone that does 500d6 internal damage should not be rules/game shattering.

Assuming that the above is generally correct (corrections welcomed but lets try not to make this the new thread topic please), how much AM would be needed to do 500d6 of internal damage with a penetrating attack?

How much damage would the same 500d6 warhead do with a conventional proximity attack?




I also think that it appropriate to consider external damage from 'near miss' meson attacks so I started a new thread here:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=656705#656705


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[far-trader]

I'm not intending to pull the discussion off-topic I do think the issue of can you physically hit or not, and how easily, is core to the idea.

The drone I have in mind would pull (push) 14 G's...

Yep, some factor of higher acceleration would be required. Would 14Gs be enough? Versus what though? A 1G evading target? A 6G evading target? Running or closing? A 10ton fighter? A 500Kton behemoth? What of the configuration? A 500Kton sphere presents a significantly different target than a 500Kton dispersed spider web with discreet modules. Not that we need to factor all the possibles, we want to keep it a game scale problem, at least I do BUT all the possibles should be considered in working out a game scale answer. Should have been done already by the author of the device in fact (imo of course), and maybe it was (why do so few of them mention little bits of the design theory so we'd know).

Also, regarding a missile attempting to strike an evading ship as opposed to a proximity detonation, should present a far simpler solution for my anti-missile fire. A trivial calculation, bordering on if not actually an automatic success(1) since I know my own maneuvering before it happens and can use that to plot your missile response as it continues to attempt to intersect my ship.

For a bit of perspective on what I'm talking about I recall a vector combat from ages ago in CT. I'm not sure how well it would scale but getting an intersection against an evading target proved impossible for equally matched accelerations. I'm not sure how much superior maneuvering would have been needed to make it work. I was hoping someone else would have done or know the basic requirements and see the thread to weigh in with at least a ballpark guesstimate

My gut is saying at least 10 times, my brain is saying that sounds optimistic for smaller ships and 100 times wouldn't be too much

So to hit a 6G evading fighter with a missile I think you'll need between 60G and 600G for your missile, depending on if you want it to also evade anti-missile fire. Not only does that sound next to impossible, but a colossal waste of a missile since it would be serious overkill.

On the other hand to hit a 2G evading capital ship (and my sensibilities refuse to accept more than 2G for a capital ship, canon be damned) a 20G missile might be enough, with a few more G for evading to get through the anti-missile screen. And actually hitting the thing is not going to be a minor explosion even if just a simple kinetic kill. A penetrator with an intact(2) nuclear or antimatter warhead is going to be a mission kill if not an outright destroyed ship.

(1) unless your missile is devoting some of its acceleration to evading, in which case it has less to make the intercept with, making your attempt more difficult again, or you need to devote more missile to thrust leaving less for warhead

(2) I still feel this needs to be addressed as well, your penetrator will have to be made of harder stuff than the target to achieve penetration (without overpenetrating unless your ka-boom is well timed) without the warhead being rendered useless slag

 

[DFW]

The drone I have in mind would pull (push) 14 G's and be guided by an AI, thus giving it multiple chances to collide with its target. If it determined that a collision/penetration attack was improbable (the target being a small and highly manuverable ship) it could just switch to 'proximity mode' for a more conventional attack.

I think the mass of a "torp" combined with high velocity could go through. The only problem with a second chance is that IF you miss at very high velocity (10 minutes @ 14G accel), it'll take longer than 10 minutes to decelerate, reverse/reaquire and try again. But, given enough fuel this isn't a problem. Remember, they'll then get 3 attacks against the torp. Coming, going and coming again.

At TL 13+ I do not think that actually hitting a ship of cruiser size or larger with a missile would be a problem. I think that off-the-shelf nuke missiles/torps are designed with the assumtion that the target ship will have dampers and come pre-programmed for a proximity attack (and/or detonation just prior to their cores being rendered inert.)

Good points.

If I understand the concept correctly, a meson hit is techinicaly similar to a small tactical nuke burst inside of the target ship.

A large meson spinal mount can do upwards of 500d6 of internal damage per attack so a drone that does 500d6 internal damage should not be rules/game shattering.

It does rad damage as the particles decay with some heat pressure if in a space with atmosphere. The blast isn't anything like a nuke as far as blast power. Rad power, yes.


.[/quote]

 

[Solomani666]

I'm not intending to pull the discussion off-topic I
Yep, some factor of higher acceleration would be required. Would 14Gs be enough? Versus what though? A 1G evading target? A 6G evading target? Running or closing? A 10ton fighter? A 500Kton behemoth? What of the configuration? A 500Kton sphere presents a significantly different target than a 500Kton dispersed spider web with discreet modules. Not that we need to factor all the possibles, we want to keep it a game scale problem, at least I do BUT all the possibles should be considered in working out a game scale answer. Should have been done already by the author of the device in fact (imo of course), and maybe it was (why do so few of them mention little bits of the design theory so we'd know).

Twice the accelleration is way more than enough.

Also, regarding a missile attempting to strike an evading ship as opposed to a proximity detonation, should present a far simpler solution for my anti-missile fire. A trivial calculation, bordering on if not actually an automatic success(1) since I know my own maneuvering before it happens and can use that to plot your missile response as it continues to attempt to intersect my ship.

Not really. After all a normal missle is trying to hit the ship too.

The drones will be even more deadly cause they can evade.

For a bit of perspective on what I'm talking about I recall a vector combat from ages ago in CT. I'm not sure how well it would scale but getting an intersection against an evading target proved impossible for equally matched accelerations. I'm not sure how much superior maneuvering would have been needed to make it work. I was hoping someone else would have done or know the basic requirements and see the thread to weigh in with at least a ballpark guesstimate

There is a reason for this.
If 2 ships having the exact same acceleration leave high port 1 minute apart the trailing ship can never catch the lead ship. Infact the distance between the ships will increase over time.

My gut is saying at least 10 times, my brain is saying that sounds optimistic for smaller ships and 100 times wouldn't be too much

You were probably fooled by the even G matchup.
2 or 3 G's over the targets acceleration is enough.

(1) unless your missile is devoting some of its acceleration to evading, in which case it has less to make the intercept with, making your attempt more difficult again, or you need to devote more missile to thrust leaving less for warhead.

Anti-matter warhead. We are probably talking about a gram of mass at most.

(2) I still feel this needs to be addressed as well, your penetrator will have to be made of harder stuff than the target to achieve penetration (without overpenetrating unless your ka-boom is well timed) without the warhead being rendered useless slag

Armour 16 in a needle configuration.
Damaging the warhead will not stop it from detonating.
Even if it just impacts the hull, the blast will still do internal damage.

 

[barnest2]

(1) unless your missile is devoting some of its acceleration to evading, in which case it has less to make the intercept with, making your attempt more difficult again, or you need to devote more missile to thrust leaving less for warhead.

Anti-matter warhead. We are pribably talking about a gram of mass at most.

Plus containment systems such as magnets and their power sources. That is quite definitely a non-trivial mass...

 

[Solomani666]

I'm not intending to pull the discussion off-topic I
Yep, some factor of higher acceleration would be required. Would 14Gs be enough? Versus what though? A 1G evading target? A 6G evading target? Running or closing? A 10ton fighter? A 500Kton behemoth? What of the configuration? A 500Kton sphere presents a significantly different target than a 500Kton dispersed spider web with discreet modules. Not that we need to factor all the possibles, we want to keep it a game scale problem, at least I do BUT all the possibles should be considered in working out a game scale answer. Should have been done already by the author of the device in fact (imo of course), and maybe it was (why do so few of them mention little bits of the design theory so we'd know).

Twice the accelleration is way more than enough.

Also, regarding a missile attempting to strike an evading ship as opposed to a proximity detonation, should present a far simpler solution for my anti-missile fire. A trivial calculation, bordering on if not actually an automatic success(1) since I know my own maneuvering before it happens and can use that to plot your missile response as it continues to attempt to intersect my ship.

Not really. After all a normal missle is trying to hit the ship too.

The drones will be even more deadly cause they can evade.

For a bit of perspective on what I'm talking about I recall a vector combat from ages ago in CT. I'm not sure how well it would scale but getting an intersection against an evading target proved impossible for equally matched accelerations. I'm not sure how much superior maneuvering would have been needed to make it work. I was hoping someone else would have done or know the basic requirements and see the thread to weigh in with at least a ballpark guesstimate

There is a reason for this.
If 2 ships having the exact same acceleration leave high port 1 minute apart the trailing ship can never catch the lead ship. Infact the distance between the ships will increase over time.

My gut is saying at least 10 times, my brain is saying that sounds optimistic for smaller ships and 100 times wouldn't be too much

You were probably fooled by the even G matchup.
2 or 3 G's over the targets acceleration is enough.

(1) unless your missile is devoting some of its acceleration to evading, in which case it has less to make the intercept with, making your attempt more difficult again, or you need to devote more missile to thrust leaving less for warhead.

Anti-matter warhead. We are probably talking about a gram of mass at most.

(2) I still feel this needs to be addressed as well, your penetrator will have to be made of harder stuff than the target to achieve penetration (without overpenetrating unless your ka-boom is well timed) without the warhead being rendered useless slag

Armour 16 in a needle configuration.
Damaging the warhead will not stop it from detonating.
Even if it just impacts the hull, the blast will still do internal damage.


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[barnest2]

.... you already said that...

 

[Solomani666]

(1) I'm with DFW (iirc it was DFW) on this, the only missiles in MTU are nukes...

Good Lord man! I hope that you don't allow PC's to own missles IYTU!!!


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[barnest2]

Why? Nukes are barely capable in space, or at least they do not act in a similar fashion too nukes on the ground.
Also, any traveller player stupid enough to try and bombard a planet with them (assuming the missile can even survive re-entry.) will be hunted down with... well probably with everything....

 

[Solomani666]

It does rad damage as the particles decay with some heat pressure if in a space with atmosphere. The blast isn't anything like a nuke as far as blast power. Rad power, yes.

Thanks for your input.

So what causes such devistating structural damage?


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[barnest2]

It does rad damage as the particles decay with some heat pressure if in a space with atmosphere. The blast isn't anything like a nuke as far as blast power. Rad power, yes.

Thanks for your input.

So what causes such devistating structural damage?


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The answer to this has been discussed. What DFW has said there is what a meson will do. There is no way a meson gun fires mesons (it just doesn't work). Therefore, its something else, and that makes a bang like a nuclear bomb...

 

[DFW]

Thanks for your input.

So what causes such devistating structural damage?

The total area inside the ship where the mesons suddenly decay is inside physical objects as well as open areas. So, take engineering for instance. The mesons are "going off" inside the M-drive & the bulkheads themselves. That would be really bad for the actual material. Damage at the atomic level and heat damage.

 

[DFW]

double post

 

[Solomani666]

Why? Nukes are barely capable in space, or at least they do not act in a similar fashion too nukes on the ground.
Also, any traveller player stupid enough to try and bombard a planet with them (assuming the missile can even survive re-entry.) will be hunted down with... well probably with everything....

I was thinking more like:

The warhead being removed.
The Ine Givar.

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[far-trader]

Why? Nukes are barely capable in space, or at least they do not act in a similar fashion too nukes on the ground.
Also, any traveller player stupid enough to try and bombard a planet with them (assuming the missile can even survive re-entry.) will be hunted down with... well probably with everything....

I was thinking more like:

The warhead being removed.
The Ine Givar.

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Probably just as easy to steal a Free-Trader or small craft, get it up to speed and crash it into a starport or city. Same or greater devastation.

Terrorists will always find a way, limiting legal and legitimate uses to lawful citizens won't change that. For that matter the Ine Givar can probably produce their own and larger nukes more easily then they could steal a small yield missile warhead. Or unleash a biological attack. Or...

...small ship nukes are nothing compared to some of the other options available.

 

[Solomani666]

Why? Nukes are barely capable in space, or at least they do not act in a similar fashion too nukes on the ground.
Also, any traveller player stupid enough to try and bombard a planet with them (assuming the missile can even survive re-entry.) will be hunted down with... well probably with everything....

I was thinking more like:

The warhead being removed.
The Ine Givar.

.

Probably just as easy to steal a Free-Trader or small craft, get it up to speed and crash it into a starport or city. Same or greater devastation.

Terrorists will always find a way, limiting legal and legitimate uses to lawful citizens won't change that. For that matter the Ine Givar can probably produce their own and larger nukes more easily then they could steal a small yield missile warhead. Or unleash a biological attack. Or...

...small ship nukes are nothing compared to some of the other options available.

OK.
Since I live in a world where I think that nearly everyone should own and usually carry a gun so I guess a universe where people have their own personal nuke arsenal might be OK too.

Given that, I think I might be more worried about the accidents that will inevitably happen.

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[Jame Rowe]

I would even be heretical and say TL 13 or 14.

Ah! Ye shall surely burn for that. :twisted:

Oh please. Everyone knows that the purpose of heresy is to make people think outside the book... :wink:

But I've always wanted to see what fire feels like. :lol:

To speak to the original topic, I think that the Traveller tech scale should be revised a bit, making antimatter engines TL 15; of course, lately I've thought that the late tech scale (TL 13+) is a bit too fine.