Autocannons on starships.

[Hotfoot Jackson]

Watched "Empire Strikes Back" again and the sequence with the Millennium Falcon's small autogun suddenly appears and wipes out some Imperial Snowtroopers before they can set up a laser cannon got me thinking. Why not put an autocannon on a starship?

I'm planning a CT setting that uses an old clapped out Beowulf class free trader. It would have the top turret with a pulse laser/sandcaster/missile rack combo but I was going to have the lower hardpoint empty. Now I think I'll have it that the captain got hold of an old vehicle turret with an autocannon and installed that there instead, controlled from the bridge and second gunnery station on the ship. It'll provide some useful ground defence and anti-personnel capacity.

Has this been done "in canon" before? I know that CT starship hulls are generally impregnable to anything other than ship-mounted weapons, so it's not going to be that much use in combat, but it might add to point defence against missiles. For that matter I can't see starship weaponry mentioned in LBB4 Mercenary, though I think the assumption is that if anything less than a starship gets hit by a starship laser it gets vaporised.

 

[McPerth]

Watched "Empire Strikes Back" again and the sequence with the Millennium Falcon's small autogun suddenly appears and wipes out some Imperial Snowtroopers before they can set up a laser cannon got me thinking. Why not put an autocannon on a starship?

I'm planning a CT setting that uses an old clapped out Beowulf class free trader. It would have the top turret with a pulse laser/sandcaster/missile rack combo but I was going to have the lower hardpoint empty. Now I think I'll have it that the captain got hold of an old vehicle turret with an autocannon and installed that there instead, controlled from the bridge and second gunnery station on the ship. It'll provide some useful ground defence and anti-personnel capacity.

Has this been done "in canon" before? I know that CT starship hulls are generally impregnable to anything other than ship-mounted weapons, so it's not going to be that much use in combat, but it might add to point defence against missiles. For that matter I can't see starship weaponry mentioned in LBB4 Mercenary, though I think the assumption is that if anything less than a starship gets hit by a starship laser it gets vaporised.

In MT there are some fighter craft with anti personnel weapos as well.

In Assignment Vigilante, the Kestrel Fighter has a space rated factor 3 missile turret and an anti-personnel beam laser, and the Raptor Combat Lander has the same missile turet and an anti-presonnel Pulse Laser.

About Starship hulls being inpregnable to anything but space-rated weapons, both HT (MT) and MGT have rules for using (in HT only the heavier) anti-personnel weaponry against starships.

 

[aramis]

Watched "Empire Strikes Back" again and the sequence with the Millennium Falcon's small autogun suddenly appears and wipes out some Imperial Snowtroopers before they can set up a laser cannon got me thinking. Why not put an autocannon on a starship?

I'm planning a CT setting that uses an old clapped out Beowulf class free trader. It would have the top turret with a pulse laser/sandcaster/missile rack combo but I was going to have the lower hardpoint empty. Now I think I'll have it that the captain got hold of an old vehicle turret with an autocannon and installed that there instead, controlled from the bridge and second gunnery station on the ship. It'll provide some useful ground defence and anti-personnel capacity.

Has this been done "in canon" before? I know that CT starship hulls are generally impregnable to anything other than ship-mounted weapons, so it's not going to be that much use in combat, but it might add to point defence against missiles. For that matter I can't see starship weaponry mentioned in LBB4 Mercenary, though I think the assumption is that if anything less than a starship gets hit by a starship laser it gets vaporised.

The Serpent Class Scout mounts a chin turret VRF Gauss Gun... Best of JTAS #1.

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

MgT has rules for mounting "anti-personnal" weapons on small craft (mainly FGMPs), which can be carried in addition to starship scale weaponry, and rules for interactions between personal scale and starship scale weapons

Starships weapons and armour is x50 personal scale, so a startship laser does 50d6 damage to a man or a tank,, small arms need to gather 50D6 to get 1d6 damage against a starship. Astock beowulf has 4 points of armour, so a personal or vehicle weapon would need to do 200 points to actaully damage the ship.

it also has the MgT version of a sarafi ship mount twin autocannons on one of it;s hardpoints. it takes the easy option and just models the A/Cs as normal starship weapons (the turret takes up the hardpoint)

note that the drop down gun the Falcon deploys would be a LMG scale weapon rather than a Autocannon.


using MgT rules, i'd model somthing like a concealed drop down weapon like so:

using the vechicle design rules, consruct the pop up mounting for the weapon, and work out the volume used for it and it's ammo. (unless it's a large weapon or to your packing several, it's gonna be way less than a Dton.)

install this package on the starship as an extra, using up space as per the Vehicle mountable version

so, for a 20mm Light autocannon (1.5 M3 with 100 rounds/10 attacks included), with ammo for 50 attacks (500 extra, which is another 1.5 M3) in the hopper, in a internal traversing pop up mount (internal in that you can fire it remotly without popping a hatch and aiming it manually), would mass 2.7 M3 for the gun and 1.5M3 for the ammo, or 4.2M3 for the whole system. you could mount 3 of these for a single Dton, with a bit of space left over for extra wiring, brass catchers, etc.

for true star wars feel try a gatling laser, which on the same mounting design takes up 7.2 M3. can';t quite mount two in a Dton. no need for ammo, as you run these off the reactors.

 

[bubbacleese]

I really like this idea of auto cannon installation on your ships. Lot's of good things to go wrong while in port to give the GM an excellent opportunity to play with the party. I can see it now. "You've landed and are meeting the port representitive. You hand him your papers and he starts to walk off with them when your auto cannon opens up and cuts the poor man in half." :rofl:

"Soon the port police arrive armed to the teeth and arrest the party and takes them downtown for booking." GM to the Party: "So who has a good Legal skill?..."

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

I really like this idea of auto cannon installation on your ships. Lot's of good things to go wrong while in port to give the GM an excellent opportunity to play with the party. I can see it now. "You've landed and are meeting the port representitive. You hand him your papers and he starts to walk off with them when your auto cannon opens up and cuts the poor man in half." :rofl:

"Soon the port police arrive armed to the teeth and arrest the party and takes them downtown for booking." GM to the Party: "So who has a good Legal skill?..."

cuts the customs man in half, ricohets off the floor, punches staight though the customs grav car, and explodes some random passerbys head. Light Autocannon have a stated caliber (15-30mm) that matches up with modern day light armour or IFVs, like a american Bradley or british Warrior.

and you just know some player is gonna load the cannon with some exotic super-HEAT round that cuts grav-tanks in half.........

 

[BlackBat242]

I've done that... mounted an autocannon in one of the slots of the lower turret of a merchant ship.

Hooked it into the ship's gunnery program, linked with the anti-hijack and security programs to provide "perimeter security" for the ship when grounded on-planet.

 

[Matt123]

You can spec it up for CT using Striker design sequences, including armouring the turret to match the ship hull.

 

[mbrinkhues]

For Megatraveller and TNE this is easy. Both have an integrated system and provide the weapons, mounts and all. And TNE drops the "1 ton/100dton" rule for a "takes up hullspace" rule so mounting the weapons is easy. The Victrix sloops in TNE have twin fusion guns for ground attack.

TNE and IIRC Mega also completely integrate vehicle, space and individual combat

 

[Icosahedron]

You can spec it up for CT using Striker design sequences, including armouring the turret to match the ship hull.

Yep, did this decades ago. I decided that for simplicity they would be zero-rated for space combat, so no PD bonus, but as you say, they give an edge dirtside.
Incidentally, linking CTHG and Striker, the starship turret laser is 250MW input, so you can figure for yourself what it can kill (sorry, my figures are buried just now).

...and you just know some player is gonna load the cannon with some exotic super-HEAT round that cuts grav-tanks in half.........

Personally, I like Striker's Californium collapsing rounds... :devil:

 

[Orr]

You can spec it up for CT using Striker design sequences, including armouring the turret to match the ship hull.

Why bother?

Stiker explicitly states that turret mounted sandcasters can be used dirtside and provides stats for their use.

The legal issues previously mentioned regarding autocannons are neatly handled when a sandcaster is involved instead... "Gee officer, all we did was use a weapon you already knew we had aboard. You even allowed us to land with it..."

 

[bubbacleese]

Good to see some like minded GMs and Players out there ready to waste some poor inocent passer by and all of the civil servants who work at the space docks. Much easier to kill them outright versus having to have their character sheets worked up and maybe only wound them a bit.

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

Good to see some like minded GMs and Players out there ready to waste some poor inocent passer by and all of the civil servants who work at the space docks. Much easier to kill them outright versus having to have their character sheets worked up and maybe only wound them a bit.

these are role players we are talking about

if it has HP, they can kill it. if it hasn't got HP, they can still kill it.

 

[Rover]

these are role players we are talking about

if it has HP, they can kill it. if it hasn't got HP, they can still kill it.

Do you mean Roll Players?

In game terms I could see the use and desire to mount some heavy anti personnel weapons on a ship. But if my players ever used it indiscriminately there would be consequences.

R

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

Do you mean Roll Players?

In game terms I could see the use and desire to mount some heavy anti personnel weapons on a ship. But if my players ever used it indiscriminately there would be consequences.

R

oh, i aggree completly, and the people i play with would never use to just mow down radom NPCs. Some of them are a little trigger happy, but we manage to keep them in check.

 

[McPerth]

Why bother?

Stiker explicitly states that turret mounted sandcasters can be used dirtside and provides stats for their use.

The legal issues previously mentioned regarding autocannons are neatly handled when a sandcaster is involved instead... "Gee officer, all we did was use a weapon you already knew we had aboard. You even allowed us to land with it..."

Also MT has rules for using sandcasters as anti-personnel weapons (at close range). They are quite handly if someone tries to board you with EVA ops...

Do you mean Roll Players?

In game terms I could see the use and desire to mount some heavy anti personnel weapons on a ship. But if my players ever used it indiscriminately there would be consequences.

R

I fully agree with this. Even at a Law Level 0 system this would have serious consequences (although usually local Law Level is irrellevant, as starports use to be Imperila jurisdiction, as extrality zones).

Never forget that if Law and Order are (more or less) kept, that's because Law Keeping Forces are up to it. I've always applied this principle, even in games where a full company of normal men are no match for a highly experienced Character (e.g. AD&D).

 

[Rover]

I just want to add that with T20 Traveller rules (T20 still gets some love from me) you can use ship's weapons against Characters or vehichles. with either +10 dice or +5 dice damage. No matter how well armoured the character after +10 dice damage all that remains is smoking boots. (Battle Dress counts as a vehicle so it would be +5 dice and that is not medicine cabinate hurt)

R

 

[bubbacleese]

...Battle Dress counts as a vehicle...

There is a phrase that puts things into perspective.

 

[McPerth]

I just want to add that with T20 Traveller rules (T20 still gets some love from me) you can use ship's weapons against Characters or vehichles. with either +10 dice or +5 dice damage. No matter how well armoured the character after +10 dice damage all that remains is smoking boots.
R

If your smoking boots where left after a space weaponry hit, then in T20 space rated weapons are less powerful than in MT.

In MT, a direct hit (and probably a mear miss) by a space rated weapon won't leave not even that from a character (except perhaps a sancaster), and liitle more from most vehicles.

 

[Rover]

If your smoking boots where left after a space weaponry hit, then in T20 space rated weapons are less powerful than in MT.

In MT, a direct hit (and probably a mear miss) by a space rated weapon won't leave not even that from a character (except perhaps a sancaster), and liitle more from most vehicles.

Wow I didn't mean to start a peeing match over versions. Fine you win. The smoking boots reference was meant to convey, in a mildly humorous manner, that in almost all circumstances a character hit by a ship's weapon was not just dead, but vaporized with the only thing left being smouldering footwear. Dead is Dead, but if the character is more dead and more vaporized in MT I'm fine with that.

R