Would a far/free trader ever use missiles?

[Condottiere]

It's easier to pass a needle through a camel.

One problem is that we don't quite know the standard dimensions of weapon bays, probably because no one wants to explain the configuration of energy based weapon systems.

In theory, for a smaller weapon system, you have to add baffles, or whatever technical terms exist, that allow them to slot correctly into the bay, and don't move around.

 

[Arkathan]

The small mod exists, ergo a 35 ton bay exists. The module is constructed with the bay and anything else that goes with it - AND in a manner that fits the bay into the configuration required by that ship's module.
So it is a matter of the ship yard getting around to unslotting one module and slotting another.

They are MADE to fit, and therefor they fit. That's the whole point behind having modules.

 

[Condottiere]

You can construct spacecraft with any size and dimensioned bays.

Default weapon bays assumes standard configured weapon systems, so that power and control interfaces fit exactly where they were designed to.

Assuming that a standard fifty tonne missile bay has the launchers arranged two by six, it seems unlikely you could maintain that configuration in a smaller bay.

The thirty five tonne bay could well have a two by six configuration, though the launchers would be slimmer.

 

[Arkathan]

We are not talking about making default or standard bays.
We are talking about building multiple types of weapons bays to fit a module, whether the bays are unmodified, or whether you pay extra to get the bays made smaller.
On a three deck ship, nothing stops you from having a 35 ton bay with six tubes on the lower deck, six tubes on the upper deck, and the loading mechanisms for both on the middle deck. As seen here.

 

[CordwainerFish]

How are mesons weapons suppose to work anyway. They only last a few 10ths of a nano second before deacying. Even if they moved at the speed of light they would only get 0.03m before decaying into something less interesting.

Probably don't want to open that bottle of space magic

Death Beams... it's space opera dammit!!

Per Solomani Front, meson guns don't really shoot mesons, any more than uranium is an alloy particularly suited for making tubes or tanks (the kind with treads and a turret) are containers for holding fluids. The name was a bit of wartime misdirection that stuck.

(And you don't have to be a nuclear physicist to grok that the LBB explanation gets the nature of particle decay massively wrong.)

 

[Geir]

Per Solomani Front, meson guns don't really shoot mesons, any more than uranium is an alloy particularly suited for making tubes or tanks (the kind with treads and a turret) are containers for holding fluids. The name was a bit of wartime misdirection that stuck.

(And you don't have to be a nuclear physicist to grok that the LBB explanation gets the nature of particle decay massively wrong.)

My head cannon has it being some sort of dark matter that only interacts with itself (never mind that I think dark matter is fairy dust or gravitational leakage from parallel universes, but let's go with axions or something like that, or sterile neutrinos, although it's really hard to do vasectomies on those tiny little things). So it's two beams of that stuff that go boom when the beams cross (and now I see Ghost Busters, but yeah, crossing the streams...)

 

[swordtart]

My head cannon has it being some sort of dark matter that only interacts with itself (never mind that I think dark matter is fairy dust or gravitational leakage from parallel universes, but let's go with axions or something like that, or sterile neutrinos, although it's really hard to do vasectomies on those tiny little things). So it's two beams of that stuff that go boom when the beams cross (and now I see Ghost Busters, but yeah, crossing the streams...)

So like how they put the bubbles into those glass sculptures with 3d images inside (and tank sights originally). Individual streams are harmless but where they cross they create a massive localised radiation burst. I also found something that says the mesons are accelerated to relativistic speeds and that extends the decay time by time dilation.

I am not sure if any of these would actually work, but hiding it behind that level of scientific camouflage works well enough for me to suspend belief. Some times the less said the better.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Aren't all small bays 50 tons? HG p31.

This is still much better value than bolting on a ground based one (and the bay one does does far more damage). The only benefit of the "small weapon" version is that it doesn't consume power (for whatever reason).

They got the TLs the wrong way round
In HG 80 50t meson bay is TL 15, the 100t bay 100t, ie TL increase allows miniaturisation.

In MG the 50t bay is TL11 (neat trick since the spinal is TL11), the 100t is TL 12, while the 500t bay is TL13.

35t is what you get with three size reductions for the TL11 bay.

 

[Sigtrygg]

How are mesons weapons suppose to work anyway. They only last a few 10ths of a nano second before deacying. Even if they moved at the speed of light they would only get 0.03m before decaying into something less interesting.

Probably don't want to open that bottle of space magic

Death Beams... it's space opera dammit!!

Depends on the handwavium you subscribe to.
The official version used to be acceleration to high near c velocity allows half life extension by time dilation (a bit like how muons can be detected on Earth).

There is the ridiculous idea that "meson" was a smokescreen like "tank"

then there is they were invented by the mass excitation (by) strange oscialltion (via) neutrinos

or the inventor wa a Mr George Meson PhD

My updated handwavium based on current almost physics is that the term meson is just misleading enough and that it is either glueballs, pentaquarks (or other "stable" arrangement) that are hurled at the enemy.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Isn't it something about crossing the streams of them to cause a decay at a specific place?

Yup, a beam of electrons and positrons will produce mesons where they intersect, but not for long, and certainly not in a then propagating beam of coherent mesons.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The fun part is when you want to switch out the bay weapon systems, who have different customizations.

Just use bays that have three size reduction - by TL15 that is all of them apart from the TL15 repulsor.

Size reduction for bays is yet another curious design choice considering the original versatility of bays.

 

[Sigtrygg]

My head cannon has it being some sort of dark matter that only interacts with itself (never mind that I think dark matter is fairy dust or gravitational leakage from parallel universes, but let's go with axions or something like that, or sterile neutrinos, although it's really hard to do vasectomies on those tiny little things). So it's two beams of that stuff that go boom when the beams cross (and now I see Ghost Busters, but yeah, crossing the streams...)

Careful, all the evidence being ignored at the moment is that dark matter has been falsified and so is a dead end. All those money making pop sci books...

 

[Sigtrygg]

So like how they put the bubbles into those glass sculptures with 3d images inside (and tank sights originally). Individual streams are harmless but where they cross they create a massive localised radiation burst. I also found something that says the mesons are accelerated to relativistic speeds and that extends the decay time by time dilation.

Streams of particles carrying enormous energies are never "harmless" - go read up on the story of the physicist who accidentally put his head in a particle accelerator - but the destruction of the meson gun is that there is a huge energy transfer at the "focus".

I am not sure if any of these would actually work, but hiding it behind that level of scientific camouflage works well enough for me to suspend belief. Some times the less said the better.

No it wouldn't, although other explanations are available

Fire a beam of stable glueballs or pentaquarks (other arrangements are available) and then detonate with an intersecting neutrino beam.

 

[Condottiere]

Standardization is meant to allow easy switching of similarly functioning components, in Traveller.

I thought about it, and yes, customized inflation and deflation can throw the equation off.

There are a lot more factors that I had considered, as to what actually does, and can, be, altered in volume.

 

[CordwainerFish]

accelerated to relativistic speeds and that extends the decay time by time dilation

That still wouldn't achieve the effect described. No matter the output velocity, more decays take place in the unit length right outside the muzzle than in any unit length downrange.

Any game entity needs to be mechanicalized so you know in any given situation what dice to throw and what the effects are, but if it violates the Standard Model (FTL, gravity control) it's probably a mistake to go explaining it too much lest some wide eyed nerd wearing a propeller beanie write a letter to a fanzine. I mean, I'm still not comfortable treating Charted Spacetime as Newtonian or Lorentzian, much less pseudo-Riemannian - and as for jumpspace...

 

[Arkathan]

Standardization is meant to allow easy switching of similarly functioning components, in Traveller.

I thought about it, and yes, customized inflation and deflation can throw the equation off.

There are a lot more factors that I had considered, as to what actually does, and can, be, altered in volume.

Anything that accepts mods in HG can be reduced in volume. Scanners, Hangar's, staterooms and bridges, etc., don't get mods.

 

[Ol'Weedy]

Seems like what the Imperium might do. Now, once I create that 200-ton Q-Ship, then that one will have the proof through actions.

If you have the sort of luck I'm familiar with, your first target will just happen to be that one pirate with a /fib computer, and everything else hardened.

And the great, never ending, cosmic game of rock/paper scissors goes on....

 

[Terry Mixon]

If you have the sort of luck I'm familiar with, your first target will just happen to be that one pirate with a /fib computer, and everything else hardened.

And the great, never ending, cosmic game of rock/paper scissors goes on....

Thank goodness for the fusion gun barbette I stuck in there.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Will a size reduced 100t bay not fit?
20x damage...

 

[Geir]

I mean, I'm still not comfortable treating Charted Spacetime as Newtonian or Lorentzian, much less pseudo-Riemannian - and as for jumpspace...

... Lovecraftian