[Spaceships] Weird Numbers

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

I've considered addressing this by using a scale for projectile damage that parallels beam damage. Basically, just decide on how much damage a gun should deal relative to an equal-sized beam, and multiply the beam damage accordingly. My (non-playtested, W-A-G) values for this were x1.5 damage for guns, x3 for missiles. An SM+9 Major Battery beam weapon deals a base of 4dx5, so an equal-sized cannon deals 6dx5, and a missile 6dx10. This does have the side effect that equal-caliber guns and missiles don't have the same base damage; a 20cm cannon is an SM+9 Major Battery, for 6dx5, while a 20cm missile is SM+5, for 6dx2. I think that's fine for Space Opera, and could be handwaved by projectiles being faster moving than missiles (not realistic, but matches the WWII-feel of fighters).

Something has to change, I think. Otherwise, you get the same weirdness with ST and Super-ST, where one is clearly superior to the other at a certain scale. At very high SMs, missiles and bullets become useless, and at very small SMs, beams become useless. Your solution at least allows both to remain equally valid through all scales.