Revising the particle beam

[Carlobrand]

I'm trying to spice up High Guard a bit. I was hoping to get something where a navy could have an option of using particle beams for long-range sniping or using mesons for knife fighting. I was all set to try out an alternate way of handling particle beam weapons - and then McPerth pointed out a fatal flaw in my logic in another thread. So, I'm back to the drawing board, and I need a bit of help.

As McPerth pointed out, the multiple hit spinal rules imply that the particle beam is, "distributing its effect along several points of the ship," basically digging a long furrow instead of making a deep punch. Each of the several rolls is affected by armor, and each affects a different target. With enough armor, those rolls don't end up doing much.

A particle beam accelerates ionized atoms to near light speed and then neutralizes their charge before emitting them. The particles then smack into a target with massive kinetic energy behind them - sort of a game of billiards in which the cue ball is a round from the main gun of the Yamato. The beam begins as a narrow line but gradually widens as the particles hit atoms in the target, get deflected and transfer energy to them. How fast that line widens, I think, depends on how massive the atoms they're hitting are and how close to the speed of light the particles are going.

So, an alternate way to handle it might be to replace the multiple rolls with a single roll of increasing penetrative power - giving the particle beam a bonus to the damage roll instead of giving it multiple hits. It still wouldn't have the devastating power of the meson, which gets multiple rolls AND ignores armor, but it would have a lot more punch than the canon particle beam.

Now I just have to figure out the math.

 

[mike wightman]

Are you talking about MgT High Guard or CT High Guard?

In CT HG a particle spinal does the following:

spinal mount weapons which hit and penetrate inflict one extra damage roll (on each appropriate table) for each letter by which their size exceeds 9. For example, a particle accelerator with a code of A gets 2 rolls on both the surface explosion and radiation tables; a factor of B receives 3 rolls, etc. The number of extra rolls is reduced by one for each factor of armor the target ship has (but a weapon always gets one roll).

A factor T spinal PA gets eighteen extra hits for nineteen in total, fired at a ship with maximum armour of 15 that is four hits and four radiation hits, two of which are likely to be pushed off the damage table.
In addition they get critical hits:

Critical Hits: All batteries whose weapon code exceeds the size code of the
target ship will inflict (if they hit and penetrate) automatic critical hits equal to the
size difference. For example, if a missile battery of factor 9 hits a size 4 ship,
it will (in addition to any other damage) inflict 5 critical hits. These critical hits are
reduced in number by one for each two factors of armor the target ship has; round
odd numbers down.

So you can defend against these crits by making your ship size and armour factor combine to reduce critical hits to zero.

If you want to make PA spinals more of a threat then consider:
give the PA a DM on the damage tables, grant them the -6 a nuke gets and nearly all of the hits will actually count rather than getting pushed off the table. You won't kill an enemy ship like this but you will reduce their weapons, fuel and a slim chance of a maneuver hit.
Another thing to try is rule that armour that defends against the autocritical hits is reduced by the number of crits it mitigates.
Finally apply a rule that a spinal PA can never have its automatic criticals reduced to less than one.

 

[McPerth]

Are you talking about MgT High Guard or CT High Guard?

In CT HG a particle spinal does the following:

A factor T spinal PA gets eighteen extra hits for nineteen in total, fired at a ship with maximum armour of 15 that is four hits and four radiation hits, two of which are likely to be pushed off the damage table.
In addition they get critical hits:

So you can defend against these crits by making your ship size and armour factor combine to reduce critical hits to zero.

If you want to make PA spinals more of a threat then consider:
give the PA a DM on the damage tables, grant them the -6 a nuke gets and nearly all of the hits will actually count rather than getting pushed off the table. You won't kill an enemy ship like this but you will reduce their weapons, fuel and a slim chance of a maneuver hit.
Another thing to try is rule that armour that defends against the autocritical hits is reduced by the number of crits it mitigates.
Finally apply a rule that a spinal PA can never have its automatic criticals reduced to less than one.

An easier one is to just delete the last sentence in your quoted rule, so that a T rated spinal will roll 19 times in each table (surface explosion and radiation). the effect for armor will be in the tables roll...

As rules stand now, armor affects it twice, by reducing the rolls and by modifying them...

 

[McPerth]

I'm afraid I disagree with giving PAs such a DM...

As you correctly quote me form another thread, IMHO a single roll with heavy modifiers means a localized damage area with heavy armor penetration capacity, while, as you say, the particle beam disperses and affects several parts of the enemy hull.

So, I find more logical the many rolls (several areas affected) with no armor penetrating capacity (no DMs, spinal one aside), as it represents (IMHO) better this effect.

 

[mike wightman]

I'd rather have a couple of DMs a few dice to roll and a resolution table or two than rolling thirty eight dice for a single weapon...

 

[McPerth]

I'd rather have a couple of DMs a few dice to roll and a resolution table or two than rolling thirty eight dice for a single weapon...

This comes again to playability vs "realism" issue. Off course, having to roll 38 times is more tedous than having to roll 8 times, but I think it represents better the effect, affecting many different systems, while being stopped by armor.

Of course, if you're not using computer support, you will end with stastical results (something I personally don't like), mostly if you have more than one ship per side...

 

[kilemall]

I think CT PAs are spicy just the way they are.

They also provide a scissors/rock/paper element to higher tech design, as Mesons can be seriously impacted by hull selection particularly dispersed hulls, so they are good insurance/punishment for that design decision.

If you want a distinction, simply give the Meson Guns a bigger negative DM at long range.

Now if you want to reduce damage rolls, simply apply the damage as is to each system in total until you run out of hits, then roll for the next one, i.e. you hit a weapon, you apply all the hits to it until the weapon is at zero, then roll again if any hits are left.

If you go to that system you have to do something about the drive hit problem, particularly maneuver drives. Guess as a simple patch I'd declare any major system (greater then 100tons) not destroyed until they take a critical, so the engines may fall off to zero but they can be repaired.

 

[Carlobrand]

An easier one is to just delete the last sentence in your quoted rule, so that a T rated spinal will roll 19 times in each table (surface explosion and radiation). the effect for armor will be in the tables roll...

As rules stand now, armor affects it twice, by reducing the rolls and by modifying them...

How does one justify 19 crits on a dreadnought size heavily armored target hit by a weapon that barely scratches the armor? More than half the damage rolls have no effect, the rest do a bit of weapons or fuel damage, and then suddenly the crew are dying or the ship blows up? From what?

I'm afraid I disagree with giving PAs such a DM...

As you correctly quote me form another thread, IMHO a single roll with heavy modifiers means a localized damage area with heavy armor penetration capacity, while, as you say, the particle beam disperses and affects several parts of the enemy hull.

So, I find more logical the many rolls (several areas affected) with no armor penetrating capacity (no DMs, spinal one aside), as it represents (IMHO) better this effect.

Sorry, not sure who you're responding to.

A particle beam delivers 500 EP. A nuke delivers 100 EP. The nuke gouges out a crater, delivering its energy as a spherical blast. (Presumably the half that radiates out to space isn't included in that 100 EP figure.) The beam delivers what seems to be a long gouge, given that it's hitting several weapons and so forth. It doesn't have to be a long gouge: if we assume the energy is delivered as a short burst of increasing power instead of an ever-longer burn of the same power, then it goes deeper instead of gouging longer and longer streaks.

Near as I can tell, for a PB to end up with the same penetration as a nuke, the beam has to fan out a hunk more than 45 degrees after impacting the surface even with the same power. Seems rather unlikely. If I adopt a more conservative angle, it penetrates 3 to 4 times deeper than the nuke. The way they work the armor system, that's really only a -4 to -5 over whatever the nuke gets. Given all that, Mike's idea of giving it a -6 sounds right about on target.

 

[Carlobrand]

Okay, this is what I'm thinking. Adds a bit of complexity, makes things a bit deadlier, not for everyone, but it suits my tastes and I think I'll try it out.

Particle beam turret pulls 5 EP, 1250 Mw. When I run it through the same way I ran through the 100 Mw, it penetrates about as deep as a nuke. So, PB turret gets the same +6/-6 bit the nuke gets - which makes it something a Gazelle would really like to have.

All bays I will treat as a kind of mini spinal, i.e. one larger gun of heavier power rather than several guns of turret power. That makes them an intermediate power weapon between the turret and spinal: greater punch, but still only one damage roll. Bays will not receive the +6 damage penalty that turrets receive. For particle beams, the 30 EP bay gets -1 bonus to penetrate, the 60 EP bay gets -2 to penetrate.

The particle beam spinals will receive a bonus to the damage roll based on energy input. For each 100 EP drawn by the weapon, it receives a -1 bonus to the damage roll. They will likewise receive one damage roll for each 100 EP drawn. Thus:

• A Factor A/B/C particle accelerator spinal, with 500 EP, receives a -5 to the damage roll and gets 5 damage rolls*.
• A Factor D/E/F particle accelerator spinal, with 600 EP, receives a -6 to the damage roll and gets 6 damage rolls*.
• A Factor G/H particle accelerator spinal, with 700 EP, receives a -7 to the damage roll and gets 7 damage rolls*.
• A Factor J/K/L particle accelerator spinal, with 800 EP, receives a -8 to the damage roll and gets 8 damage rolls*.
• A Factor M/N/P particle accelerator spinal, with 900 EP, receives a -9 to the damage roll and gets 9 damage rolls*.
• A Factor Q/R/S/T particle accelerator spinal, with 1000 EP, receives a -10 to the damage roll and gets 10 damage rolls*.

*Number of damage rolls are reduced by armor as normal, with a minimum of one roll.

Damage bonuses cannot exceed the armor rating of a target: a factor T firing on a ship with armor 5 would only get a -5 to neutralize the armor. I didn't figure having everything roll over into crits was a good idea, not in a penetrating beam weapon, not with the volume of noncritical space that there is in the soft creamy center of a ship - quarters and such.

(We really should consider some sort of a rule for ships that are mostly noncritical space, like freighters.)

Meson beam damage roll will likewise be tied to energy input in the same manner, and I'm going to make the meson beam act to reduce damage rolls.