[Spaceships] Combat Examples?

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by apoc527

You have to define your missile parameters and your sublight drive parameters. If you use Fred's version, 4G hot reactionless thrusters vs 5 G missiles means that if you launch from too far away, you basically never hit anything before all your missiles get sniped...

Then build your missile as a SM+4 ship with 6 hot reactionless engines. 10 tons at 12G and infinite delta-V should do bad things to most ships. If such is possible, a logical warship might look like a cross between a carrier and a missile bus.

[apoc527]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Then build your missile as a SM+4 ship with 6 hot reactionless engines. 10 tons at 12G and infinite delta-V should do bad things to most ships. If such is possible, a logical warship might look like a cross between a carrier and a missile bus.

Well, that has the nice effect of severely limiting "ammo" capacity. It's also very similar to THS's AKV philosophy. Actually, scratch that "very similar" -- it's identical, except THS doesn't have reactionless drives.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by JP42

I'm curious if anyone has done up any detailed combat examples using the Spaceships rules that they could point me to? I'm warming to the system as I read through it, and intend to - when time allows - run some mock combats myself, but thought I'd see if the ground had already been covered.

Even any anecdotal, not-so-detailed summaries of space combats using these rules would be great to hear about.

So, basically, tell me a story?

I ran a combat last night, using a straightforward conversion of the Jovian Chronicles game from Dream Pod 9, which is a relatively low-missiles setting. Sadly, one side didn't have any point defense and got annihilated by a couple of missiles, but it's available anyway:

http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com...hronicles.html

I'm going to redo it in a separate post soon after giving the side without point defense some point defense and see how that goes. I'll write it up the same way.

[apoc527]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

I ran a combat last night, using a straightforward conversion of the Jovian Chronicles game from Dream Pod 9, which is a relatively low-missiles setting. Sadly, one side didn't have any point defense and got annihilated by a couple of missiles, but it's available anyway:

http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com...hronicles.html

I'm going to redo it in a separate post soon after giving the side without point defense some point defense and see how that goes. I'll write it up the same way.

Very interesting. Missiles seem horribly overpowered. I don't quite understand why proximity detonations get a full velocity bonus either...it seems to me that if a proximity detonation goes off at anything other than the right vector, the fragments are fighting against their own vector to hit and do damage. It just doesn't quite make sense to me.

The other problem I have is the base missile damage in space. The standard GURPS "cr ex" damage type should do nothing in space unless in direct contact with the enemy ship. A proximity detonation should do nothing but damage based on fragmentation, which WOULD be velocity based.

Still, missiles seem to work entirely differently in Spaceships than in normal GURPS. For example, the 400mm (40cm) cruise missile in Pyramid #3/37 with a HEMP warhead does 6dx48(10) cr inc + linked 8dx8 cr ex [20d]. Converted to decade scale, that looks like 6dx5(10) cr inc + linked 6d+1 cr ex [2d]. Compare this to 6dx10 with a potential AD (2) for non-proximity detonations. What gives?

I'm sure there was a good reason that Pulver came up with missile damage like this, but they sure seem off to me, especially considering that a shaped charge warhead would need to make contact to hit--proximity damage would be nothing worthwhile, unless "proximity" means within a yard or two, which I find unlikely at space combat ranges.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by apoc527

Very interesting. Missiles seem horribly overpowered. I don't quite understand why proximity detonations get a full velocity bonus either...it seems to me that if a proximity detonation goes off at anything other than the right vector, the fragments are fighting against their own vector to hit and do damage. It just doesn't quite make sense to me.

The other problem I have is the base missile damage in space. The standard GURPS "cr ex" damage type should do nothing in space unless in direct contact with the enemy ship. A proximity detonation should do nothing but damage based on fragmentation, which WOULD be velocity based.

Still, missiles seem to work entirely differently in Spaceships than in normal GURPS. For example, the 400mm (40cm) cruise missile in Pyramid #3/37 with a HEMP warhead does 6dx48(10) cr inc + linked 8dx8 cr ex [20d]. Converted to decade scale, that looks like 6dx5(10) cr inc + linked 6d+1 cr ex [2d]. Compare this to 6dx10 with a potential AD (2) for non-proximity detonations. What gives?

I'm sure there was a good reason that Pulver came up with missile damage like this, but they sure seem off to me, especially considering that a shaped charge warhead would need to make contact to hit--proximity damage would be nothing worthwhile, unless "proximity" means within a yard or two, which I find unlikely at space combat ranges.

It seems that you're seriously misunderstanding what Spaceships missiles are.

First of all, except the nukes, they're strictly kinetic-energy weapon. They don't have explosive warheads, and their damage is not cr ex at all. A conventional explosive warhead is utterly pointless in space combat of the sort Spaceships looks at. (Tangentially, a shaped charge warhead would not exactly need contact to be effective. The shaped charge jet isn't atmosphere-mediated, so it would have stand-off in space similarly to in air. But that's a very short and specific distance in any case.)

Their damage is based on velocity, as explained on both SS61 and SS68.

'Proximity detonation', for conventional warheads, really means the missile separating into submunitions in a rather deliberate (though probably violent) manner. It basically works like Annular Blast Fragmentation warheads, described on HT174, though the scale involved is rather larger and the speed much higher.

I'm not really clear on how the contact version manages to earn its (questionably useful) armor divisor. I've seen it described, but don't know why it adds up to a (2) rather than something else.


EDIT: Again to tangent, but you might note that UT missiles actually default to a solid impact warhead, not an explosive warhead. And that it's actually somewhat reasonable to use them that way...

[apoc527]

So all "conventional warheads" are "mega-flechette" or "mega shotgun" style warheads and all power comes from velocity. Still seems odd to me that the rules are written that way. If that was the case, I'd expect to see a RoF modifier, as per standard multiple projectile loads...then each submunition would get its own damage rating and you'd roll to hit normally. That seems to be how the proximity detonation rules read, but it would be nice if they were more explicitly.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

'Proximity detonation', for conventional warheads, really means the missile separating into submunitions in a rather deliberate (though probably violent) manner. It basically works like Annular Blast Fragmentation warheads, described on HT174, though the scale involved is rather larger and the speed much higher.

I'm not really clear on how the contact version manages to earn its (questionably useful) armor divisor. I've seen it described, but don't know why it adds up to a (2) rather than something else.

My pet peeve with the proximity detonation rules is that they don't seem to impact the missile's damage and penetration nearly as much as they realistically should. A +4 to hit is equivalent to x16 RoF, and based on the multiple projectile rules in High Tech firing 16 sub-munitions means each one inflicts 1/4 normal damage (and may also have a less favorable damage type, though at the spaceship scale that probably won't matter). Lacking the full projectile's (2) Armor Divisor gives the sub-munitions effectively 1/8 the armor penetration.

This doesn't address the point defense problem, but at least it means that prox det isn't a no-brainer; against maneuverable lightly-armored targets it can improve the chance of a hit, but against armored targets you need the higher penetration of a direct hit.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by apoc527

So all "conventional warheads" are "mega-flechette" or "mega shotgun" style warheads and all power comes from velocity. Still seems odd to me that the rules are written that way. If that was the case, I'd expect to see a RoF modifier, as per standard multiple projectile loads...then each submunition would get its own damage rating and you'd roll to hit normally. That seems to be how the proximity detonation rules read, but it would be nice if they were more explicitly.

All those effects are covered by the rules, though. The exact way it works isn't broken down, perhaps. Frankly, that'd be the very last thing about missile mechanics I'd object to...

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

My pet peeve with the proximity detonation rules is that they don't seem to impact the missile's damage and penetration nearly as much as they realistically should. A +4 to hit is equivalent to x16 RoF, and based on the multiple projectile rules in High Tech firing 16 sub-munitions means each one inflicts 1/4 normal damage (and may also have a less favorable damage type, though at the spaceship scale that probably won't matter). Lacking the full projectile's (2) Armor Divisor gives the sub-munitions effectively 1/8 the armor penetration.

This doesn't address the point defense problem, but at least it means that prox det isn't a no-brainer; against maneuverable lightly-armored targets it can improve the chance of a hit, but against armored targets you need the higher penetration of a direct hit.

You're using calculations for replacing a single bullet with multiple pellets in a firearm cartridge, which isn't quite the same thing, but similar.

Here's the explanation I got. Apparently getting the (2) involves throwing away most of the 'warhead'.

But against targets you can't proximity detonate, you should use nukes.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

You're using calculations for replacing a single bullet with multiple pellets in a firearm cartridge, which isn't quite the same thing, but similar.

That's right. Still, I feel that 1/4 damage and 1/8 penetration is more balanced than full damage and 1/2 penetration. I could just make something up, but the numbers from HT feel appropriate, even if they aren't intended for this exact situation.

Here's the explanation I got. Apparently getting the (2) involves throwing away most of the 'warhead'.

That's... about as far from "generic" as you can get. It may be a realistic proposal, but it bears no resemblance to any missile I've seen in fiction. I'd only use it in a rigorously hard-science setting. It's fine for hard-science missiles to be the default assumption, but Spaceship's complete lack of a softer or space-opera alternative is a major sticking point for me (and others, based on the multitude of threads on this topic.)

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

That's... about as far from "generic" as you can get. It may be a realistic proposal, but it bears no resemblance to any missile I've seen in fiction. I'd only use it in a rigorously hard-science setting. It's fine for hard-science missiles to be the default assumption, but Spaceship's complete lack of a softer or space-opera alternative is a major sticking point for me (and others, based on the multitude of threads on this topic.)

It has one. Don't use velocity damage at all because the missiles are using non-newtonian missiles.