Making EM Guns Viable in Space Combat (3e)

[GURPS Fox]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

A guided missile which impacts (or bursts just before impact into a claymore-mine style spread of projectiles) is a kinetic energy weapon too.

I still consider them missiles, just with a KE warhead instead.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

No. My example about the invasion fleet launching from Mars and being met halfway to Earth was from a big battle I did during the Spaceships playtest with _much_ more restricted tech than you describe but its that approaching through normal space giving days of warning that means battles will be fought at long ranges..

Attackers seeking to capture orbital structures won't begin with long range bombardment but defenders will seek to destroy the attackers as far from the orbitals as possible.

So you're telling me to just give up on KEW cannon entirely?

Oh and in either3e or 4e if you're seeking to achieve the performance you spoke of for your HePLar rockets you need to use generic Total Conversion thrusters. No species of realistic nuclear rocket will do.

Also, if I did the work right, you can get HePLar rockets to work like that. Though the last prototype I did had the dV being only about 20Mm/s^2 (which is beyond any conceivable traditional rocket) for what amounts to be a patrol cutter. You might not be a giant pile of guns, but it works.