Is spaceship armor useless?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Is is. This branch seems pretty long now . . . I'm already forgetting what it started with. Anyway, point defence gets more shots per shooter/turret due to VRFness, right?

More shots per weapon, and more per shooter assuming you aren't doing something you really shouldn't, yes. But what is the significance of this?

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

You're getting benefits of extra hits as compared to shooting them in one salvo:
Assuming that your skill after all modifiers except RoF is 10:
300 missiles in one salvo: chance of scoring at least one hit is 98%ish, and your average hit number is 9 missiles.
300 missiles in 300 salvoes: chance of scoring at least one hit is enormously close to 100%, and your average hit number is 150 missiles.

Either you need to change the way Rapid Fire works (I'm in favour of this for a hypothetical Alternate GURPS IV / GURPS 5e / G4e Revised), or you shouldn't let missile users benefit from gigantic bonuses at no drawback whatsoever.

I don't think GURPS 4e has any obligation to use RoF mechanics on every possible opportunity, no matter how inappropriate they are.

I agree that it's bad that there is this difference between one salvo and many salvos, but I don't see any reason to think the one salvo answer is even slightly sensible.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Again, one big shoal is either flying as a shoal (suffering from RoF issues), or it's controlled as 300 or whatever number of independent 'piloted' vehicles.

Independent salvos, as I've said at every opportunity. Heck, if you have one shooter per launcher, you literally don't have a choice about that. The definition of a salvo requires every missile to be its own.

Originally Posted by Mirtai

I was speaking about GURPS Spaceships... you know, the book?

Where they list the "range" of missiles pretty specifically, pretty close to where they list the range of all the other types of weapons listed.

Missiles can technically hit targets past their range, they just automatically miss if the target can manuver, since at that point the missile is out of fuel and can't maneuver.

I'm honestly not sure what you mean by "missiles don't have a range"

Just as an example, smaller missiles (I believe they were referring to missiles in the 20 to 28 cm range) are listed as being able to reach long range, and bigger ones X (or extreme) range.

There are beam weapons that can reach the same ranges, and do so instantly, instead of taking a couple hours of flight time, for the extreme examples.

At TL 10, a SM+8 ship can hold a spinal beam weapon capable of hitting you 50,000 miles away 1/3rd of a second after they deside to do so, while a volley of missiles accelerating up to 10 mps will take more than 5000 seconds (over an hour) to travel the same distance, and will be out of fuel upon arrival. I don't care how many missiles you carry. 5000 seconds is a LONG time. Your target has tons and tons of time to deal with your missiles after killing you, if you don't have some armor to take the beam weapon hits.

I'm really not sure where the "missiles don't have ranges" idea is from. A different book?

Spaceships 3, which is also the book where the idea that missiles take time to arrive comes from.

You can't have this both ways. If you're using the Spaceships basic system, missiles have actual range limitations, but they also hit the target instantly. Flight time is abstracted away, so your 'beams hit first' doesn't happen. It is quite true that if you're under the Spaceships 1 system in a regime where targets can actually maneuver (harder than it sounds, that means enough thrust to generate a non-zero acceleration bonus), small missiles have less range than large beams.

If you're using the Spaceships 3 tactical system, missiles (and gun shells potentially) do take time to reach their targets and in the launching ship can potentially be killed before they arrive. But in Spaceships 3, missiles are capable of smart maneuvering, like independent, agile ships. They can burn and drift and then burn again when they need to. So they can cover completely unlimited distances and still be fully able to maneuver at the other end, though given sufficient time a target that can accelerate and has more delta-V than the missile does can put on an evasive vector the missile can't match, and thus prevent it from getting to attack.

It sounds like you've been actually using a version of Spaceships basic combat, houseruled to nerf missiles... In the basic system as written, missiles actually aren't particularly bad at short range. They do hit for twice as much damage at longer range, but that (and the possibility of being outside the enemy's range to shoot back) is all, and their damage is high enough that that's usually not necessary.

Also, in the Basic system, point defense is only possible at the last moment, which results in frag missiles eating everybody's lunch in 20-second turns. (In more than 20-second turns, missiles are seriously nerfed because PD gets bonus RoF, and missiles don't want any bonus RoF.)

Originally Posted by Mirtai

We could create a whole new forum for "Are Railguns Useless" as well.

My opinion is that, like any weapon, they are quite useful in the right conditions. At TL 9, when they first become available, they seem quite good. (And in practice, in my playtests so far.)

And while it may be possible for some ships to always stay in deep space far beyond the range of such pedestrian weapons, I do wonder when such lone wolves ever manage to get fuel or resupply. Of if they live life in universes where no ship ever approaches 10,000 miles of another for fear of sudden death. Where the "hidden weapon" modification is never used to lull someone into close range. Where speed, armor, ECM, and point defence lasers on a bunch of small but deadly fighters never combined to be able to rush into range of these invunerable missile boats and blow them to pieces with their rapid fire Railguns at point blank range.

I do wonder about those things.

So, when should one ship approach 10,000 miles of another ship, exactly?

As your example notes, it's rather necessary for boarding. But that's a rather specialized role for which I've acknowledged the use of specialized craft. Though that isn't essential...you could use unspecialized craft together with the guarantee of annihilation from competent backup. (Also, railguns only go about 1 mps and have negligible maneuvering delta-V. They've got very, very serious problems with time of arrival, if we're using the tactical system.)

It's also necessary for docking, but you should never be docking with someone you don't trust, or in a place where anyone is even remotely likely to be shooting at you. If you do, your death is going to be because you did something that dumb, not because you didn't have armor and railguns. If the enemy is actually getting the drop on you, why would they leave you intact enough to shoot back once you know there's a fight on? This doesn't mean there can't be any two ships that don't trust each other in a spaceport, it just means they need to be trusting the port itself not to stab them and to guarantee that attempting an ambush in docking space is not going to end well.

Armor and ECM do almost nothing to protect against missiles, and a fast, armored, ECM-equipped ship can't carry enough point defense to counter a serious missile attack. It is possible, as I have noted, to close in considerably using speed (well, good acceleration and delta-V to burn) alone. However, with no in-flight delta-V, the effective range of the guns is pretty well limited to how long it takes the target to perform a one-hex per turn burn, which is probably not long In the Basic system they can get the (rather more generous) range S, but if the enemy has weapons to force the engagement to Distant scale it's fantastically hard piloting to actually get to range S.


EDIT: Also, at TL9, how are you building these fast fighters? The only things at that TL (even with superscience) that have serious thrust and any delta-V to speak of are Orion and NSW, and Orion only has 4 mps/tank, which is going to run out very fast dodging missiles.