[Spaceships] Combat Examples?

[JP42]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

You already have stats for 3KJ lasers that do 1D-4 dDamage. You don't want to go smaller than that.

Yes, for point defense there's little better than the 3KJ VRF UV laser (for best range), given the rules that any hit, no matter how light-weight the force, destroys a missile or gun shell.

I'm still tinkering with the idea of using the size/speed table for calculating bonus to hit from high RoF - I think it goes awry too quickly above about 25 as written.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Launching just outside beam range was to give you the minimum flight time.

Which is voluntarily walking into the problem you're attributing to the weapons.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Still if we go and do the math (SM+9 ship w/Fusion reactor) I get a net +1 to detection rolls at 10,000 miles during a 3 minute Turn. That's +43 in applicable bonuses and -42 for range.

I disagree with your calculation. + 9 (SM) + 3 (time) + 10 (plain sight) + 24 (in space) + 7 (heat) = +53. I'm guessing you missed the plain sight? Plus the telescopic vision bonus of your sensors which should be at least +4. (That's for a TL9, SM+6 ship with only basic sensors, providing minimal habitat capability to your group. A real fleet should probably have better sensors than that.)

So that's a favorable modifier at 1 million miles (-54). A favorable modifier on a roll your sensor specialist can retry every three minutes, so that's more of a minimum range for detection.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

So, no the missile ship probably can't launch from arbitrarily great distances at other combatant ships. Spacestations and celestial bodies sure but not ships.

When you start using a detailed system like Ve2 you'll find that missiles sensors end up being very limited when attempts are made to use them on a spaceship scale. They will generally be very dependent on getting tactical info from a friendly ship.

This wouldn't have to be active remote control and it wouldn't have to be the launching ship either but missiles relying on their own sensors wouldn't have anything like the detection range of the launching ship.

While the details of how missiles are supposed to work are largely absent, and especially any kind of information about their onboard sensors, it seems pretty clear that the missiles are quite willing to fly wherever the controlling ship tells them. As calculated above, the controlling ship will know quite well where to tell them to go, and won't be in any danger of being suddenly silenced by a laser while doing it.

Originally Posted by JP42

Yes, for point defense there's little better than the 3KJ VRF UV laser (for best range), given the rules that any hit, no matter how light-weight the force, destroys a missile or gun shell.

I'm still tinkering with the idea of using the size/speed table for calculating bonus to hit from high RoF - I think it goes awry too quickly above about 25 as written.

Actually, 100 separate 3KJ lasers might be significantly better, if you're adjusting the rules to allow sub-size weapons anyway...

[JP42]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Actually, 100 separate 3KJ lasers might be significantly better, if you're adjusting the rules to allow sub-size weapons anyway...

Doesn't RAW tell you to combine them into one big salvo anyway, if they're the same type of weapons all firing at the same "target" - in this case, a flight of missiles?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by JP42

Doesn't RAW tell you to combine them into one big salvo anyway, if they're the same type of weapons all firing at the same "target" - in this case, a flight of missiles?

Only if a gunner is firing multiple identical fixed mounts which are in the same battery simultaneously. You don't want that, since being treated as rapid fire is a massive penalty.

Effective use of or defense against missiles calls for a lot of gunners. Preferably dedicated AIs.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

ECM seems dubious since simple telescopic spotting is more likely than radar and probably can't be dazzled effectively.

One explanation of space-based ECM I've seen is a defocused laser that threatens to fry delicate sensors, forcing the enemy to shutter their more sensitive detectors. Like shining a flashlight in your enemy's eyes so he can choose between seeing nothing but glare and seeing nothing at all. The enemy can clearly tell you are there (not much way around that if you are above 3 K), but cannot fix your position well enough to target you with accurate fire.

Whether it's plausible or not, I don't know. I can't recall now what context I initially saw this in.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Which is voluntarily walking into the problem you're attributing to the weapons.

I disagree with your calculation. + 9 (SM) + 3 (time) + 10 (plain sight) + 24 (in space) + 7 (heat) = +53. I'm guessing you missed the plain sight? ...

No, I rejected it as double-dipping when you had the +24 for silhouetted against space.

I did go back and add the Telescopic Vision in an edit this afternoon I also added in the bits were you can "run silent" by turning off your fusion reactor and suing a stealth hull too. That's a possible -11 from the bonuses.

It didn't really change the bit about not being able to launch missiles from arbitrarily long ranges.

If you want to be strict about RAW missiles are given maximum ranges and those do not exceed 100,000 miles.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

No, I rejected it as double-dipping when you had the +24 for silhouetted against space.

I did go back and add the Telescopic Vision in an edit this afternoon I also added in the bits were you can "run silent" by turning off your fusion reactor and suing a stealth hull too. That's a possible -11 from the bonuses.

It's right there in the book. Page 44. It explicitly says that those two modifiers are cumulative. You want to call it double dipping, go ahead, but your draconian sensor house rules aren't the system we were talking about.

Also, the modifiers are for different things. You lose the +10 if the target is hidden among debris or cloaked, for instance, neither of which seems to impinge on the 'in space' modifiers, while a ship in entirely plain sight takes away (most of) the +24 if there's a planet behind it.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

It didn't really change the bit about not being able to launch missiles from arbitrarily long ranges.

If you want to be strict about RAW missiles are given maximum ranges and those do not exceed 100,000 miles.

Look, you can talk about either combat system if you want, but you can't pick and choose bits from each and pass off the combination as official. The tactical system in SS3 has no range limits for missiles that I'm aware of...if you can find some, give me a page reference. The simple combat system in SS1 does, but it also has missiles arrive instantly.

[Varyon]

I should note that needing to detect enemy ships is really only a limiter on the defenders. Space is huge. The probability of two (groups of) ships coming across each other is vanishingly low - unless one already knows (within some error) where the other one is. How good are the sensors on missiles? It seems to me that, if you have a decent idea of where the target is, you could launch missiles "blindly," then have the missiles actually zero in on the target once they've detected it. Let's say (stealing the previously-determined bonuses) that missiles simply have +0 sensors and lack telescopic sight. That puts automatic detection at 15,000 miles, right? So, if you know your target's location (or, rather, their location by the time the missiles get within range) within 15,000 miles, you can blindly fire the missiles from anywhere and still be able to have them hit. If you don't know the target's location within 15,000 miles, you'll need to get within 3,000,000 miles for automatic detection (+4 sensors, with +10 for telescopic sight negates another -14 in range penalties), at which point you can launch your missiles. If you don't already know your target's location within 3,000,000 miles (or whatever your ship's "detection limit" is), you probably aren't ever going to find it.


All that said, would it be possible to let the old Missiles vs PD SNAFU rest? I think this thread is meant to be for discussion of actual combat examples, not for discussion of why people haven't bothered to run combat. Unfortunately, I don't currently have access to Spaceships, or I'd go ahead and run a couple examples...

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

It's right there in the book. Page 44. It explicitly says that those two modifiers are cumulative.

So it does. It still doesn't make launching missiles from arbitrarily large distances a viable tactic in all settings and at all times.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

So it does. It still doesn't make launching missiles from arbitrarily large distances a viable tactic in all settings and at all times.

True. It's probably not if you're using by-the-book rocket-propelled missiles and high-performance reactionless spaceships, for instance. (Though you can design a 20-ton reactionless drive super missile built as a ship...that will probably cost less than a 1-ton missile, because missiles are bizarrely expensive. Then use it as a bus to deliver your missiles close enough to attack effectively, because the 20-ton hull is going to be wrecked when it hits laser range.) It also might not work in a setting where cloaking devices are common.

It's also not in quite a lot of settings that require massive alterations to the Spaceships setup to match and which generally should not use missiles as written at all.

Or in David Drake's RCN universe which could probably largely use Spaceships but requires custom missile rules, and may not actually work because I suspect you couldn't really hit anything more mobile than a moon with missiles that are completely unguided...