Quote:
Originally Posted by muduri
Intrigued by the bombs in SS4. But I'm thinking we might need something heavier - with some SM6 fighters taking on SM14 cruisers it seems like some serious penetration will be necessary to break through say nanocomposite armor.
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Two systems of nanocomposite on a SM14 cruiser is dDR400, or approximately 115 dDice. A spinal SM7 (since bomb systems are one size smaller) mount for a dedicated bomber is 32cm, which deals a base damage of 6dx80 dDamage - the SM6 bomber doesn't even need to get the bomb up to 2mps to reliably penetrate. If it _does_ hit at a relative velocity of 1mps, it does 480 dDice of damage, which blows through the 115 dDice of armor and 200 dDice of HP and leaves the SM14 cruiser at close to -1xHP, which is probably 'no longer a functional combat unit'.
If we want to reliably disable a system on a SM14 nanocomposite cruiser, we need to deal 115 (armor) + 20 (10% of dHP) dDice of damage, which is a 10cm projectile at 1 mps for 150 dDice of damage. On a SM6 fighter, that's smaller than the smallest missile that you're allowed to mount (16cm for 240 dDice, which destroys systems and brings the cruiser to 0dHP in two hits), which a SM6 fighter can mount as a secondary missile battery, a tertiary bomb mount, or a medium gun battery. Things just get worse from there if your ships are capable of accelerating to relative speeds of more than 1mps.
Realistic kinetic weapons _hurt_.
So if you're concerned with SM6 fighter's ability to threaten SM14 cruisers at TL10 with kinetics, I conclude that either there is something much heavier than nanocomposite protecting the cruiser (You need on the order of dDR 1300 to defeat a dedicated SM6 bomber at 1mps) or you're in a universe like Star Wars or the X series where spaceships aren't actually moving at orbital velocities and you need to get your damage from elsewhere, probably something like the X-ray warheads in SS4.
More traditionally, the issue is that kinetics are short range only for accurate fire (usually, range S or worse), and so the SM14 cruiser mounts a tertiary battery of 10GJ UV lasers to hit incoming fighters with 80 dDice of damage (vs. their 30 dHP / +10 per system of nanocomposite) out at L range and the incoming fighters never even get to launch their warheads. But that's no fun for the plucky heroes in the SM6 fighters.
Can you share a bit more about the available tech and engagement parameters that you expect?