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Old 06-26-2019, 09:06 PM   #11
David Johnston2
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Default Re: Some questions on Spaceships

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
Because you want the guns on it to be bigger than secondaries, presumably.

And/or because you're using the Starhawk (SS4 p12) as the blatant X-Wing take that it is.
Given that the Star Hawk only has one pilot I would consign the idea that its X-Ray lasers are separate batteries to errata. It would be impossible to target those weapons individually.
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Old 06-26-2019, 09:39 PM   #12
Ulzgoroth
 
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Default Re: Some questions on Spaceships

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Given that the Star Hawk only has one pilot I would consign the idea that its X-Ray lasers are separate batteries to errata. It would be impossible to target those weapons individually.
That makes no sense. There's no possible way they accidentally wrote in four Major Batteries when they meant four fixed guns in one secondary or tertiary battery. That's completely ridiculous. It's not errata.

What it is is a larger-scale rules issue where the authors, either negligently or knowingly, wrote content that clearly isn't based on the rules as actually published. Maybe, like Stormcrow, they don't think that rules text is meant to be taken 'rigidly'.
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Old 06-26-2019, 11:13 PM   #13
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: Some questions on Spaceships

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
That makes no sense. There's no possible way they accidentally wrote in four Major Batteries when they meant four fixed guns in one secondary or tertiary battery. That's completely ridiculous. It's not errata..
So...how does the pilot shoot his guns?
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Old 06-26-2019, 11:35 PM   #14
FeiLin
 
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Default Re: Some questions on Spaceships

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
They are entirely impact weapons, without a significant explosive payload (they might have something akin to such to allow them to be used as proximity warheads) - largely because in space you can get up to sufficiently high relative velocities that your impact alone exceeds the power of any comparable mass of conventional explosive. They simply do crushing damage. Do note that when not used as proximity warheads, they have a (2) Armor Divisor.
Ok, so I reread the relevant parts, and this makes no sense to me. So, they are explosive, just not represented by the ex modifier when they actually hit something? Instead they get +4 TH and can deal MoS (max x10) hits (presumably only to the target).

Also, why the lack of variety of missiles? Afaik the only choice I have is barrel size and "nuke, super or neither" (disregarding warp, which seems not to behave like missiles). What if I want ion missiles that stun ships, more penetration, or different range? Maybe even different speeds depending on ammo. I could, of course, just go in and add/change it, but then I'd have to open the can of worms of adjusting costs, etc, which I'd rather wait with.



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Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
It's not that the longer scale makes the missiles move faster, as it is that if you're using that scale, the missiles would have to be moving faster to hit such distant (and fast) targets (or else there'd be no point in using them). It's not a direct cause-and-effect (distance makes missiles go faster), but a correlation (fast ships means Distant scale, but also means faster missiles which along with the faster ships means relative velocities are typically going to be higher).

The basic combat system (as well as the SS design system) is meant to be fairly abstract and simple. It's not a system of solving Newtonian mechanics equations to determine the actual speed from exact known positions and elapsed times. Lots of values are approximations and averages, not hard engineering numbers.
Sure, there's a lot of approximations, and that's fair. I also agree that missiles need higher speeds if targets are faster. But that still doesn't really make sense that individual missiles will differ in lethality depending on this, unless the scale is fixed by setting (or at least campaign). This may be implicit, since choosing TL and what (super)science is allowed may make one engine type far superior to others, even if it's not explicitly the case in the rules.

Accepting this accepting this phenomena, however, incurs other headaches. Are then the Spaceship rules balanced with regards to weapon types, DR and HP? I dont see the other weapons change depending on their "relative speed", so that makes me wonder if I need to start out by outlining a few basic ship types and see what their move ranges are and thus what the most likely scale will be, and then go back to swap/plug in their weapon holes.

What I'm opting for is a solid foundation of beam weapons, with the occasional missile, but how would you start out if this is decided from the start as opposed to "finding it out" along the way? I could, of course, start meddling with costs, etc, but I'd prefer to keep it "as vanilla as possible".



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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
What it is is a larger-scale rules issue where the authors, either negligently or knowingly, wrote content that clearly isn't based on the rules as actually published. Maybe, like Stormcrow, they don't think that rules text is meant to be taken 'rigidly'.
Again for this issue: balance. I'm on the verge of just ruling that identical beam/gun weapons can fire even if separate batteries, if they're fixed, same facing and same target. But maybe that makes

Also, would you treat this as a higher RoF or make separate attack rolls, and (if separate attacks) would you Dodge only once and let MoS surplus cover more than one attack or Dodge once per attack?
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Old 06-27-2019, 12:49 AM   #15
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Default Re: Some questions on Spaceships

Consistency with the rest of the rules would make such a grouping work like any others - they are all lumped together in one attack, with a rate of fire equal to the total RoF of all the guns added together. See SS, p.57-58 "Rate of Fire".

I don't see any reason why multiple major batteries can't be grouped together like this. Then again, I'm cool with ships being designed with some or all of a medium (or smaller) battery's guns being placed into a turret and all being fired together. Naturally such a set-up would prohibit those guns from engaging separate targets.
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Old 06-27-2019, 08:07 AM   #16
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Default Re: Some questions on Spaceships

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Originally Posted by FeiLin View Post
Ok, so I reread the relevant parts, and this makes no sense to me. So, they are explosive, just not represented by the ex modifier when they actually hit something? Instead they get +4 TH and can deal MoS (max x10) hits (presumably only to the target).
This isn't an explosion dealing damage directly, but the penetrator bursting to create more (but less effective, thus the loss of armor divisor) submunitions.
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What if I want ion missiles that stun ships, more penetration, or different range?
While it has some superscience technology, the Spaceships core book largely avoids outright magic like Star Wars style "ion" weapons. If you want to introduce something like that, you would probably need to come up with the stats yourself.
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Sure, there's a lot of approximations, and that's fair. I also agree that missiles need higher speeds if targets are faster. But that still doesn't really make sense that individual missiles will differ in lethality depending on this, unless the scale is fixed by setting (or at least campaign). This may be implicit, since choosing TL and what (super)science is allowed may make one engine type far superior to others, even if it's not explicitly the case in the rules.
Actual movement is abstracted, but at Distant/20 sec, ships are assumed to be moving very fast relative to each other, while at Close/10 min, they are assumed to be very slow. When you launch a missile, it starts at the same speed as the launching vessel. At Distant/20 sec, the engine is primarily used for maneuver, not velocity.
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Old 06-27-2019, 08:10 AM   #17
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Default Re: Some questions on Spaceships

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Originally Posted by Rupert View Post
It says "in a battery", so that probably means you can only group the weapons that are in a single battery.
You're right, and it doubles down on this on page 57, where it says "All identical fixed mount weapons in the same battery may be fired simultaneously..."

I think the idea of fixed mounts changed between the Basic Set and Spaceships. In the Basic Set, you aim the weapon by aiming the vehicle, rolling the lower of your Gunner skill and your vehicle control skill. In Spaceships, there's no sign of using Piloting to aim a fixed-mount weapon: you just roll Gunner or Artillery, and "superior focusing or stabilization systems give fixed mounts better range and fire control (a +2 to hit)." There's also no indication that multiple fixed mounts can't fire at different targets; over the course of a space combat turn surely the ship can reorient itself enough to aim at multiple targets facing the same hull section.

My guess is that the rules for using fixed mounts in Spaceships are simplified from the Basic Set to avoid the complications of comparing weapon skill with control skill and to avoid the assumption that the pilot is also the one firing the weapon.

The fix would be to go back to using the lower of Piloting or weapon skill and to assume that all fixed mounts in the same hull section fire on the same target regardless of what battery they're in.

I still don't think the Spaceships rules were meant to stand up to intense scrutiny. They were written to cover a very broad range of possibilities in as generic a way as possible and in as short a format as possible. Some interpretation is called for and even expected.
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Old 06-27-2019, 09:12 AM   #18
Ulzgoroth
 
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Default Re: Some questions on Spaceships

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
So...how does the pilot shoot his guns?
Either they use them one at a time, making the presence of 4 major batteries fairly pointless and negating the explicitly-noted power issues of the design, or they operate on some kind of houserules contrary to the text of Spaceships. I'm pretty sure, as I said, that the second is what the author of that ship intended.
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Originally Posted by FeiLin View Post
Ok, so I reread the relevant parts, and this makes no sense to me. So, they are explosive, just not represented by the ex modifier when they actually hit something? Instead they get +4 TH and can deal MoS (max x10) hits (presumably only to the target).

Also, why the lack of variety of missiles? Afaik the only choice I have is barrel size and "nuke, super or neither" (disregarding warp, which seems not to behave like missiles). What if I want ion missiles that stun ships, more penetration, or different range? Maybe even different speeds depending on ammo. I could, of course, just go in and add/change it, but then I'd have to open the can of worms of adjusting costs, etc, which I'd rather wait with.
Missiles are not explosive. Things they hit are likely to explode, to a degree, in the same way that things hit by a meteor do. But the missile is no more an explosive device than the meteor is.

Little variety is in large part because Spaceships, and Spaceships missiles in particular, draw a lot on reality and not very much on Star Wars. An 'ion missile' has no real referents.
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Originally Posted by FeiLin View Post
Again for this issue: balance. I'm on the verge of just ruling that identical beam/gun weapons can fire even if separate batteries, if they're fixed, same facing and same target. But maybe that makes
I highly recommend not worrying about preserving balance. There really isn't balance to preserve.
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Originally Posted by FeiLin View Post
Also, would you treat this as a higher RoF or make separate attack rolls, and (if separate attacks) would you Dodge only once and let MoS surplus cover more than one attack or Dodge once per attack?
I hate using RoF in Spaceships passionately...and even I would use multiple linked fixed guns as one attack with combined RoF.
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Originally Posted by Rupert View Post
Consistency with the rest of the rules would make such a grouping work like any others - they are all lumped together in one attack, with a rate of fire equal to the total RoF of all the guns added together. See SS, p.57-58 "Rate of Fire".

I don't see any reason why multiple major batteries can't be grouped together like this. Then again, I'm cool with ships being designed with some or all of a medium (or smaller) battery's guns being placed into a turret and all being fired together. Naturally such a set-up would prohibit those guns from engaging separate targets.
Because, as people keep pointing out, the rules are very very explicit that you can fire "All identical fixed mount weapons in the same battery". Not in the same hull section.
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I think the idea of fixed mounts changed between the Basic Set and Spaceships. In the Basic Set, you aim the weapon by aiming the vehicle, rolling the lower of your Gunner skill and your vehicle control skill. In Spaceships, there's no sign of using Piloting to aim a fixed-mount weapon: you just roll Gunner or Artillery, and "superior focusing or stabilization systems give fixed mounts better range and fire control (a +2 to hit)." There's also no indication that multiple fixed mounts can't fire at different targets; over the course of a space combat turn surely the ship can reorient itself enough to aim at multiple targets facing the same hull section.
There's not really any relation. Spaceships 'fixed mounts' on a realistic ship almost certainly aren't actually fixed and aimed only by maneuvering the entire vessel - they just have a limited aiming capability rather than the broad traversal of turrets. Remember, Spaceships ranges mean you're generally attacking targets that are mostly or entirely impossible to discern with the naked eye, using aimed fire assisted by fire control computers. (See the box on SS p66.)
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Old 06-27-2019, 09:57 AM   #19
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Default Re: Some questions on Spaceships

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There's not really any relation. Spaceships 'fixed mounts' on a realistic ship almost certainly aren't actually fixed and aimed only by maneuvering the entire vessel - they just have a limited aiming capability rather than the broad traversal of turrets. Remember, Spaceships ranges mean you're generally attacking targets that are mostly or entirely impossible to discern with the naked eye, using aimed fire assisted by fire control computers. (See the box on SS p66.)
While this is largely true, the Spinal Battery system tends to speak against an absolute acceptance of this idea. A Spinal Battery is a fixed mount weapon and must certainly be aimed by aiming the ship. The fire control computer would assist in aiming the ship, not any kind of weapon movable independent of the ship's orientation.

And yet not even Spinal Batteries have rules related to Piloting. And if you dedicate enough systems in your ship to have multiple spinal batteries pointing in the same direction, you can and must still, by a strict interpretation of the rules, fire them independently. Again, that may, given the long space combat turns, mean that the ship is changing its facing enough to fire at multiple target one after the other, but then you give up the idea of all your fixed mount batteries firing at the same target simultaneously.

If you want to stick to the rules and have multiple fixed mount weapons fire simultaneously, then you MUST put them in a single, less-powerful battery.

The least change you can enact to make it work is to assume that, like Habitats, Hangars, Open Spaces, Armor, Fuel Tank, and Jump Gate systems, you can combine weapon systems into larger, "single" systems. This is especially true when talking about the Starhawk: it's a generic version of an X-Wing Fighter, and Spaceships page 31 explicitly tells us we can "combine several systems into one" to better fit a fictional spaceship into the rules.
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Old 06-27-2019, 12:28 PM   #20
Ulzgoroth
 
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Default Re: Some questions on Spaceships

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While this is largely true, the Spinal Battery system tends to speak against an absolute acceptance of this idea. A Spinal Battery is a fixed mount weapon and must certainly be aimed by aiming the ship. The fire control computer would assist in aiming the ship, not any kind of weapon movable independent of the ship's orientation.
Not necessarily. A spinal beam weapon could be aimed by even quite minute deflection of the beam at the aparture. A spinal missile launcher or even gun scarcely needs to be aimed in the first place - note that all projectile weapons do not experience range penalties in Spaceships.
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And yet not even Spinal Batteries have rules related to Piloting. And if you dedicate enough systems in your ship to have multiple spinal batteries pointing in the same direction, you can and must still, by a strict interpretation of the rules, fire them independently. Again, that may, given the long space combat turns, mean that the ship is changing its facing enough to fire at multiple target one after the other, but then you give up the idea of all your fixed mount batteries firing at the same target simultaneously.
Having more than one Spinal Battery is completely illegal by the building rules. A Spinal Battery has to pass through the core system in the center hull. You can only have one core system in the center hull, so you may only have one Spinal Battery.

Even if the gun was aimed by turning the ship, frankly, Piloting wouldn't enter into it - it's a minuscule angular adjustment that's completely trivial to tell a computer to do (though not necessarily trivial for the computerized maneuver system to execute) and impossible to do manually. The part where Piloting factors into the use of fixed weapons is in placing the ship so that they are oriented to bear on the target.
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The least change you can enact to make it work is to assume that, like Habitats, Hangars, Open Spaces, Armor, Fuel Tank, and Jump Gate systems, you can combine weapon systems into larger, "single" systems. This is especially true when talking about the Starhawk: it's a generic version of an X-Wing Fighter, and Spaceships page 31 explicitly tells us we can "combine several systems into one" to better fit a fictional spaceship into the rules.
I suspect that was meant in a different sense, like making a reactionless drive that is also a shield, or a weapon battery that is also a mining assembly, rather than deviating from the foundational 20-systems rule.
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