[Spaceships] More Weapons at In-Between Sizes?

[dataweaver]

I don't think that's technically legal. Sure, two of the space requirements can be satisfied by non-core spaces in the front and rear sections; but the third must be a center core space; and a spaceship can only have at most one of those. So per the rules for space allocation, a spaceship can only have one Spinal Battery.

And even if it's possible to assign both core spaces to the center hull (and I don't think it is), that would only permit two Spinal Batteries. Three is completely beyond the pale, barring a house rule negating the need for the center space to be core.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

I don't think that's technically legal. Sure, two of the space requirements can be satisfied by non-core spaces in the front and rear sections; but the third must be a center core space; and a spaceship can only have at most one of those. So per the rules for space allocation, a spaceship can only have one Spinal Battery.

And even if it's possible to assign both core spaces to the center hull (and I don't think it is), that would only permit two Spinal Batteries. Three is completely beyond the pale, barring a house rule negating the need for the center space to be core.

I can see the Spinal Weapons Battery in an SM +X.6 or +X.8 ship having two guns in the battery (technically, the center of both guns would be part of the 5% of the ship's mass in the Middle [Core] section). Maybe four "guns" if they were an "improved" model where the guns have the higher RoF due to having multiple barrels (Spaceships lists that as a possible - but not the only - explanation for "improved").

I cannot, however, see having multiple Spinal Weapons Batteries, which is how I read Refplace's post. That way lies 4- to 10-dimensional madness that our three-dimension-perception minds can't handle.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

I don't think that's technically legal.

Oh, it is definately not legal and a house rule.

[dataweaver]

I still think you'd be more true to concept for the Spinal Battery to be an exception that sticks with the "how big is the weapon?" method, even if every other kind of Weapons Battery uses "how many weapons are there?" for scaling. With the others, you can maintain a continuity by downshifting the Battery type: a Major Battery at SM x.8 becomes a Medium Battery at SM (x+1).0, going from 2.5 SM x guns to 3 SM x guns; a Medium Battery at SM x.8 becomes a Secondary Battery at SM (x+1).0, going from 8 SM x–1 guns to 10 SM (x–1) guns; a Secondary Battery at SM x.8 becomes a Tertiary Battery at SM (x+1).0, going from 25 SM x–2 guns to 30 SM x–2 guns. But there's nothing like that for Spinal Batteries. Again, conceptually, there should only be one gun no matter your SM; or, if dual guns are possible, they should be possible at SM x.0, x.2, and x.4 as well as x.6 and x.8.

Again, the core issue here is that the concept of a Spinal Battery is having one huge weapon; scaling it by "how many" instead of "how big" violates its concept.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Oh, it is definately not legal and a house rule.

I've considered an oversized Spinal Battery in the past; it would be something like 3 Front, 3 Central, 2 Rear, and both Core, for a total of 10, mounting a weapon that is scaled for a ship of 2 SM's larger, like how a traditional Spinal Battery is a weapon scaled for a ship 1 SM larger. At that point, it's basically just a weapon that you've strapped some armor and drives on, rather than a ship with a large weapon. Splitting that into three could be an option. For the actual Trident-class, my own inclination would be to actually have three "ships" of equal size, each with such an oversized battery in them. All three would have drives and Control Rooms (although you can remove the seats in the pylon control rooms, unless you want redundancy), with any additional occupancy (crew quarters, for example) in the center ship. You then either give the pylons one each, or the central ship two, External Clamps, allowing the three to attach together into one ship. As an added bonus, this also means you could have the Trident split apart if needed, either with crew on each or with the pylons remotely-controlled or automated.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Again, the core issue here is that the concept of a Spinal Battery is having one huge weapon; scaling it by "how many" instead of "how big" violates its concept.

It violates one concept, but a Spinal Battery may not necessarily be a question of "how big" - it may be something used to get past Accelerator Tube Limits, something to allow the front of the ship to be more armored but still have the equivalent of multiple batteries (as I mentioned before), etc. So if you aren't comfortable with using in-between weapon sizes, adjusting the number of weapons (or RoF, which has a similar effect) can certainly be an option.

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Another option is for batteries to largely ignore the Spinal/Major/Medium/Secondary/Tertiary splits, and just assign weapons as you see fit; any leftover space can be designated as cargo (or be an appropriate small system). Each of a 10 MJ energy weapon, 10 cm gun, or 20 cm launcher weighs 1.5 tons. A 30 MJ/12cm/24cm one weighs 5 tons, and so forth, following a 1.5-5-15 progression. For consistency with RAW, every three of a given size should have the weight and cost* of one size up (so three 1.5 ton systems wind up at 5 tons rather than 4.5). If you have a ship that weighs 700 tons, for 35 tons per system, a single system could be two 100 MJ + one 30 MJ, or one 100 MJ + three 30 MJ + three 10 MJ, or whatever you get from mixing and matching.

*Maybe I'm looking at an outdated copy, but the prices look wrong to me. They follow a 1.5-6-15 progression ($150K, $600K, $1.5M, for example); changing this to 1.5-5-15 would be more consistent, here.

The more I think about it, the more I like this idea, with the exception of the Spinal Battery. I would consolidate the Major, Minor, Secondary, and Tertiary Weapons Batteries into a single "Weapons Battery" system with 5% of the ship's total mass, which you can fill with any combination of Weapons that will fit. Weapons would be rated by their SM, with SM*4 weapons massing 0.5 tons, SM+5 weapons massing 1.5 tons, SM+6 weapons massing 5 tons, SM+7 weapons massing 15 tons, and so on. You can freely mix fixed mount and turrets; guns, brands, and missiles; and different weapon sizes, as long as the total doesn't exceed the size of the Weapons Battery.

So a 75 ton spaceship would have Weapons Batteries massing 3.75 tons each. You could fit two SM+5 weapons and one SM+4 weapon in there.

I'd rename the Spinal Battery as simply a Spinal Weapon. It would only ever be a single weapon, massing 15% of the ship's mass and taking up the same three spaces that the Spinal Battery does; its stats would be calculated in a manner similar to the original blog (though again, only for the Spinal Battery, greatly trimming it down; and if it's me, I'll precalculate tables that start with possible d-Damage figures and reverse-engineer the other weapon stats from there).

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

I'd rename the Spinal Battery as simply a Spinal Weapon. It would only ever be a single weapon, massing 15% of the ship's mass and taking up the same three spaces that the Spinal Battery does; its stats would be calculated in a manner similar to the original blog (though again, only for the Spinal Battery, greatly trimming it down; and if it's me, I'll precalculate tables that start with possible d-Damage figures and reverse-engineer the other weapon stats from there).

A general "spinal system" could also be an option. In addition to weapons, I could see it being used for a drive system (in which case it's Rear, Center, Core) and possibly for comms/sensors, although that last one would be a bit of a stretch (I think the vast majority of a comms/sensors system would need to be on/near the surface to function, so having a third of it buried in the Core is probably a non-starter). Basically, some systems that aren't normally eligible to be in the Core (and maybe also not Center, like drive systems) might be able to get away with having an oversized version that links to the Core like spinal weapons do (Hangars already allow this IIRC, where you can have a Core Hangar so long is it links up to one or more Hangars on the Hull).

For weapons specifically, Spinal Weapons are probably a good one to make an exception for any generic "no in-between weapons" guideline (that is, restricting yourself to the 1-3-10 pattern). And for those who'd rather not make such an exception, we've certainly provided multiple options here (multi-weapon Spinal Batteries, adjusting RoF, freeform choosing of weapons up to a specified mass limit - which would be compatible with Spinal Batteries if you want it to be - etc).

[dataweaver]

As a generalized concept, the Spinal System is ideal for any concept along the lines of "the ship is literally built around this system". The Jumpships of Battletech would be an example of this. However, I don't see much difference between that and merely installing three Drive systems. The only reason it matters for Weapons is that there's a difference between three SM 4 weapons and one SM 5 weapon.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

As a generalized concept, the Spinal System is ideal for any concept along the lines of "the ship is literally built around this system". The Jumpships of Battletech would be an example of this. However, I don't see much difference between that and merely installing three Drive systems. The only reason it matters for Weapons is that there's a difference between three SM 4 weapons and one SM 5 weapon.

The difference is that most drive systems can only occupy the Rear Hull. So three drives would use up half the systems available to the Rear. But a drive in a Spinal System would take up one Rear, one Central, and one Core, leaving you another 5 systems in the Rear Hull. This is useful if you need a well-armored rear, need room for systems back there that you'd rather be a good distance from the Front (like unshielded nuclear power plants, which get double output but irradiate their hull section), or even if you want to have more than 6 drive systems (with a typical Spinal System, you'd be able to have up to 8 - 5 normal ones and one Spinal, which counts as 3; with an oversized Spinal System, you could have up to 13 - 3 normal ones and the oversized Spinal, which counts as 10). It's a niche application, but then arguably so is the Spinal Weapon.

If you've got a drive system that can be mounted anywhere, even the Core (some reactionless drives would fit the bill here, and I think SS7 has an option that uses portals or similar so the exhaust of reaction drives shoot out the back regardless of where they're at), a Spinal Drive wouldn't be of any use.

[dataweaver]

When I referred to Battletech's Jumpships (which conceptually fit the model), I was implicitly referring to the Stardrive system, which can go anywhere.