10-03-2008, 05:48 AM | #31 | |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
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Re: [Spaceships] A reevaluation of missiles and point defense
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Fact is you can (and in some cases will, since rcl is often 1 for projectiles) do 10 times the damage with proximity detonations. Makes no sense at all. |
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10-03-2008, 06:15 AM | #32 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: [Spaceships] A reevaluation of missiles and point defense
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10-03-2008, 08:18 AM | #33 | |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
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Re: [Spaceships] A reevaluation of missiles and point defense
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10-03-2008, 08:38 AM | #34 |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: [Spaceships] A reevaluation of missiles and point defense
Given that missile damage is essentially collision damage, I don't think there's a warhead doing anything terribly important here.
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10-03-2008, 08:58 AM | #35 |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
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Re: [Spaceships] A reevaluation of missiles and point defense
I don't know where that last comment was directed but I'll explain this again as simple as possible.
A slug/missile contains kinetic energy and possibly explosives (1). The maximum amount of damage you can do is if you transfer ALL of your kinetic energy, and all energy in any potential explosion. That probably means for the impactor to embed itself in the middle of the target and then explode. In any case, if a direct hit occurs the target will be damaged by impact + explosion. Any other case should do strictly LESS damage, since you lose energy/mass by splitting up, or waste explosives by fragmenting (part of the expanding gas will provide energy to mass going the wrong direction). Or to rephrase: since kinetic energy is linear in mass, you can'possibly do better than to hit with the entire mass. Especially if you wast whatever small explosive you have outside the target. If this were for some strange reason wrong, why don't all slugs proximity detonate prior to impact just to tenfold your damage potential? 1) Slugs are very close to standard APHC/APFSDSDU penetrators in damage and armour piercing qualities, at least up to 12cm which corresponds to a 120mm tank gun. They should not be carrying significant amount of explosives. Last edited by joelbf; 10-03-2008 at 09:02 AM. |
10-03-2008, 09:22 AM | #36 |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: [Spaceships] A reevaluation of missiles and point defense
IDHMBWM, but why do I suspect that ProxDet makes ten times as many missiles hit, and not 10x hits per missile?
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10-03-2008, 09:26 AM | #37 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: [Spaceships] A reevaluation of missiles and point defense
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10-03-2008, 09:27 AM | #38 | |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
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Re: [Spaceships] A reevaluation of missiles and point defense
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10-03-2008, 09:36 AM | #39 |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: [Spaceships] A reevaluation of missiles and point defense
As I said, I don't have the book available ATM. I'm REALLY suspicious it's just bad wording.
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10-03-2008, 11:45 AM | #40 |
Join Date: Sep 2008
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Re: [Spaceships] A reevaluation of missiles and point defense
I appears I've been working under a false assumption about proximity vs impactor warheads. I had thought that they were actually the exact same shells, just set differently. However, the fact that the impactor warheads have essentially identical stats to KE penetrators, while proximity warheads can, obviously, explode, means that they have to be completely different shells.
I'll ignore the logistics implications for now, but I can now more readily except the fact that proximity warheads have the potential to deal more damage against a lightly armored target. I still think their base damage should be lower than that of the KE warhead, however. Of course, on the topic of point defense, I'm still going to stick to my decision that each hit destroys one shell, rather than each hit negating one hit. A proximity warhead that detonates 100 miles out isn't much of a proximity warhead, after all. EDIT: I just realized that I never actually defended my "proximity warhead doesn't work at 100 miles" decision. Basically, if a proximity warhead's shards all stay together, they really aren't going to add to accuracy - at space scale, the difference between a dog-sized missile and a man-sized swarm probably isn't enough to justify a +4 bonus to hit. Then there's also the fact that modern proximity warheads are meant to always detonate very close to the target, and that it's much less of a stretch to go from the book's description to "just like modern ones" than to go to "something completely different." Provided my knowledge of modern proximity warheads isn't completely off, of course.
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Quos deus vult perdere, prius dementat. Latin: Those whom a god wishes to destroy, he first drives mad. Last edited by SuedodeuS; 10-03-2008 at 11:56 AM. |
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combat, missiles, point defense, spaceships |
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