[SS] Reigning in Projectile Damage

vierasmarius · 03-16-2012, 05:17 PM

It's a topic that's been discussed many times over: "Missiles do to much damage!", "Eggshells armed with hammers!", etc. The problem boils down to the different scaling of projectiles versus beams in Spaceships. Beam damage doubles for every x10 increase in output, and output roughly triples per SM, so beam damage scales at the same rate as ship HP (ie, x1.5 per +1 SM). Projectile damage is proportional to width of the rounds, which is generally consistent with the stats given in HT and UT. However, calibre doubles every +4 SM, meaning damage increases at a rate of about x1.2 per SM. Large guns and missiles (SM +11 and up) seem mostly balanced, but as you go down the scale solid projectiles become far more favorable. At SM +5, a Missile hit inflicts 7.5 times the damage of a typical beam weapon, over 5 times the HP of a same-sized ship - and that's without factoring in velocity that could easily be above 1 mps. Also, because ships can carry large numbers of smaller-sized weapons, there's great incentive to load up on massive banks of the smallest available missiles, because their damage-per-mass is so great.

Granted, this may be realistic. However, for most Space Opera settings it's very inappropriate, leading to battles that feel very out-of-genre. So my proposal is to come up with an alternate progression for projectile damage, more in line with beam damage. In my opinion, there's a "sweet spot" where beams, guns and missiles inflict damage relative to each other that feels "right" - at SM +9, Beams inflict 20d, Guns 30d and Missiles 60d. It's easy to see how this ratio could be maintained for other weapon sizes, by ignoring the weapon calibres and simply giving Guns x1.5 and Missiles x3 damage relative to Beams.

Guns have the disadvantage of being inaccurate compared to Beams, while Missiles have very limited ammunition and are vulnerable to Point Defense. However, both projectile types can use Proximity Detonation for a huge increase in potential hits. The only downside there is dropping the (modest) armor divisor. I think to better represent the hail of small fragments produced it may be appropriate to give Proximity attacks an armor multiplier of (0.2) or so.

Any thoughts on these options? Keep in mind, my intent is mostly to heighten the importance of beam weapons in Space Opera settings. While realism is generally important, machine guns and missile swarms are generally not in-genre - and when they are, they don't carry the phenomenal stopping power of GURPS SS projectiles.

03-16-2012, 05:17 PM	#1
vierasmarius Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Oregon	[SS] Reigning in Projectile Damage It's a topic that's been discussed many times over: "Missiles do to much damage!", "Eggshells armed with hammers!", etc. The problem boils down to the different scaling of projectiles versus beams in Spaceships. Beam damage doubles for every x10 increase in output, and output roughly triples per SM, so beam damage scales at the same rate as ship HP (ie, x1.5 per +1 SM). Projectile damage is proportional to width of the rounds, which is generally consistent with the stats given in HT and UT. However, calibre doubles every +4 SM, meaning damage increases at a rate of about x1.2 per SM. Large guns and missiles (SM +11 and up) seem mostly balanced, but as you go down the scale solid projectiles become far more favorable. At SM +5, a Missile hit inflicts 7.5 times the damage of a typical beam weapon, over 5 times the HP of a same-sized ship - and that's without factoring in velocity that could easily be above 1 mps. Also, because ships can carry large numbers of smaller-sized weapons, there's great incentive to load up on massive banks of the smallest available missiles, because their damage-per-mass is so great. Granted, this may be realistic. However, for most Space Opera settings it's very inappropriate, leading to battles that feel very out-of-genre. So my proposal is to come up with an alternate progression for projectile damage, more in line with beam damage. In my opinion, there's a "sweet spot" where beams, guns and missiles inflict damage relative to each other that feels "right" - at SM +9, Beams inflict 20d, Guns 30d and Missiles 60d. It's easy to see how this ratio could be maintained for other weapon sizes, by ignoring the weapon calibres and simply giving Guns x1.5 and Missiles x3 damage relative to Beams. Guns have the disadvantage of being inaccurate compared to Beams, while Missiles have very limited ammunition and are vulnerable to Point Defense. However, both projectile types can use Proximity Detonation for a huge increase in potential hits. The only downside there is dropping the (modest) armor divisor. I think to better represent the hail of small fragments produced it may be appropriate to give Proximity attacks an armor multiplier of (0.2) or so. Any thoughts on these options? Keep in mind, my intent is mostly to heighten the importance of beam weapons in Space Opera settings. While realism is generally important, machine guns and missile swarms are generally not in-genre - and when they are, they don't carry the phenomenal stopping power of GURPS SS projectiles.