Spaceships: Missile launchers and their individual mass

[The Rampant Gamer]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

That might be an interesting arms race, but it isn't the likely one.

Rather than launch missiles in large volleys that get ridiculously mistreated by the RoF rules, you want your ship to launch big flights of missiles in volleys of one missile each. If you don't have gunnery AIs and hew strictly to RAW this results in somewhat bizarre crew sizes, but it's not unmanageable. Fired in single-round volleys, with proximity settings, missiles overwhelm point defense fairly easily.

I'm AFB, but wouldn't the defending ships just do their point defense in smaller bursts as well, spreading fire if necessary due to too many individual volleys?

And I do allow for groupings of weapons into a multi-barrelled turret. I played too much Traveller as a boy not to expect triple turrets...

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by The Rampant Gamer

I'm AFB, but wouldn't the defending ships just do their point defense in smaller bursts as well, spreading fire if necessary due to too many individual volleys?

Agreed. I'd treat single-missile volleys as individual attacks separated by tens of seconds. As such, point defense would get its full RoF against each volley. The way to overwhelm point defense is not to fire a trickle of missiles over the course of a minute, but a swarm of missiles all at once.

[The Rampant Gamer]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

Agreed. I'd treat single-missile volleys as individual attacks separated by tens of seconds. As such, point defense would get its full RoF against each volley. The way to overwhelm point defense is not to fire a trickle of missiles over the course of a minute, but a swarm of missiles all at once.

But with RAW RoF rules, you don't get that benefit. Unless you force the point defense to shoot at the whole salvo, and then roll the to-hit based on what's left, you're rarely looking at too many missiles "hitting" and needing to get swatted down by point defense.

and if the PD is lasers, there's no inherent ammo to wear down.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by The Rampant Gamer

I'm AFB, but wouldn't the defending ships just do their point defense in smaller bursts as well, spreading fire if necessary due to too many individual volleys?

They can try, but (neglecting the need to power your beams, which is a major issue) equal mass gives you one improved VRF beam to one missile.

The beam gunner has +8 for rate of fire and -1 for missile SM. The missile has +4 for proximity detonation, +4 or better for target SM, and +TL-8 for sAcc. Not great for the PD. Worse, though, is that the beams have to win every time. One missile fragment leaking through will ruin your day, and one 30-ton hull can house a lot of missile launchers.

I tried to come up with an optimal strategy to screen out missiles at one point, which IIRC involved splitting each beam mount's fire 3 ways to reduce wastage...and the missiles still were going to get through.

Originally Posted by The Rampant Gamer

And I do allow for groupings of weapons into a multi-barrelled turret. I played too much Traveller as a boy not to expect triple turrets...

I guess I'd allow that too, but clustering weapons is the opposite of helpful here. To minimize rapid fire related losses you need to make as many attack rolls as possible.

[BlackLiger]

Originally Posted by Langy

That only applies to things that can't move.

I'd say apply it in this case, as an alternative to trying to use the "Smart weapon" rules from Ultra-Tech.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by BlackLiger

I'd say apply it in this case, as an alternative to trying to use the "Smart weapon" rules from Ultra-Tech.

What is it you're calling "the Smart weapon rules in Ultra-tech"?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by BlackLiger

I'd say apply it in this case, as an alternative to trying to use the "Smart weapon" rules from Ultra-Tech.

...What about trying to use the rules in Spaceships? I think those are not all that good, but they're much better than stretching and warping a totally inappropriate special case rule from machineguns to missile batteries, where it would not actually improve anything and would produce all-new bizarre possibilities.

[BlackLiger]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

What is it you're calling "the Smart weapon rules in Ultra-tech"?

UT168.

Genius Missiles, TL9-11


Adapt a few of those to spaceships works. Allow them to 'Macross' their way to a target with their fuel (maybe dropping the range a category, so from L to S, and from X to L, to allow for this fuel use.) Allow them to make their attack roll, and the target to try for point defence. THEN try for their dodge roll. To do them on-mass, make 1 dodge roll, and for every 1 MOS, 1 more missile dodged...

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by BlackLiger

Adapt a few of those to spaceships works. Allow them to 'Macross' their way to a target with their fuel (maybe dropping the range a category, so from L to S, and from X to L, to allow for this fuel use.) Allow them to make their attack roll, and the target to try for point defence. THEN try for their dodge roll. To do them on-mass, make 1 dodge roll, and for every 1 MOS, 1 more missile dodged...

First of all, ballistic attacks are specifically forbidden from dodging point defense fire, even manned ships making ramming attempts.

Secondly, the balance as it is really and overwhelmingly does not need more mechanics to make it harder to defend against missile attacks.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

First of all, ballistic attacks are specifically forbidden from dodging point defense fire, even manned ships making ramming attempts.

Secondly, the balance as it is really and overwhelmingly does not need more mechanics to make it harder to defend against missile attacks.

Which is weird, because a Slamming character may still Dodge (unless doing an AoA) attacks from its target during the approach.

Second, the problem with balance seems to be that all solutions so far result in all-or-nothing outcomes. Either a missile-armed ship is likely to cripple its target in a turn or two of firing (usually with a handful of actual hits at most, out of a huge volley), or missiles are totally useless (auto-success on Point Defence optional rule, or drastically better ship accelerations compared to missile accelerations).

A 'slugfest' of missiles between broadsiding titans, or a situation where missile lock-ons are relatively rare (maybe up to a dozen per combat at most), nasty if they hit, and result in a pilot spending quite some while and effort on evasive manoeuvres in order to avoid destruction, are almost impossible to implement using standard rules.