T5.09 Space Weapon Mass Fire

[robject]

By T5.09, mass fire adds the attack DM and the damage.

So, say I fire 10 Bay Weapon Particle Accelerators at TL 10. The total DM is +50.

Now looking at attack tasks, range S=7 is a 7 dice task. Rolling 7D < TL + DMs is 7D < 60.

This is a guaranteed hit. In other words, I don't have to roll to hit.

Just noticing this and thinking about it. Not necessarily a bad thing. In fact I might like it quite a bit.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Holy McSmackburgers!

By T5.09, mass fire adds the attack DM and the damage.

So, say I fire 10 Bay Weapon Particle Accelerators at TL 10. The total DM is +50.

Now looking at attack tasks, range S=7 is a 7 dice task. Rolling 7D < TL + DMs is 7D < 60.

This is a guaranteed hit. In other words, I don't have to roll to hit.

Just noticing this and thinking about it. Not necessarily a bad thing. In fact I might like it quite a bit.

Yikes that is gross! Man, I am mounting even more Bay weapons on my ACS designs. They may not kill the Big Boys but they might leave a wound or two.

 

[pendragonman]

By T5.09, mass fire adds the attack DM and the damage.

So, say I fire 10 Bay Weapon Particle Accelerators at TL 10. The total DM is +50.

Now looking at attack tasks, range S=7 is a 7 dice task. Rolling 7D < TL + DMs is 7D < 60.

This is a guaranteed hit. In other words, I don't have to roll to hit.

Just noticing this and thinking about it. Not necessarily a bad thing. In fact I might like it quite a bit.

That said, you get one hit. Not ten possible hits, one. Individually you would just have to get closer, alot closer, to get an ok chance at multiple hits.

 

[robject]

That said, you get one hit. Not ten possible hits, one. Individually you would just have to get closer, alot closer, to get an ok chance at multiple hits.

You're right, but what a hit.

T5.00 handled critical hits better than T5.09, and it did it this way: damage which penetrates is also halved and applied to adjacent hit locations. In short, you can get "strafe" or "collateral" damage if your attack is devastating enough.

I think that rule should remain in ship combat.

Man, I am mounting even more Bay weapons on my ACS designs.

Interesting design question. How many Bay weapons can you fit into an ACS? And is this favoring the idea of throwing everything you got into one gigantic volley, at the expense of not even installing armor?

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[mike wightman]

The wargamer in me says there should always be a die roll, but the 'realistic' situation is there should be autokill ranges.

At a certain range light speed weapons will not miss, you need active countermeasures or armour, but the armour is the hard part. A laser or particle beam capable of causing damage at a light second will burn through your armour as if it wasn't there.

 

[pendragonman]

You're right, but what a hit.



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I am not sure it is a hit the magnitude of a 10 bay hit. It is my impression that the 10 bays are used up getting the plus fifty, so you get a hit of one bay magnitude.

Unless it specifies otherwise, I cannot imagine that an autohit at range 7 hits at full power when it is the shear volume of fire that blankets an area and allows the hit to begin with.


Also, even though its an autohit, I think there should be a roll just to make sure there wasn't an error of some sort (crit failure). Computer link failure so all bays don't fire being the main one.

 

[kilemall]

By T5.09, mass fire adds the attack DM and the damage.

So, say I fire 10 Bay Weapon Particle Accelerators at TL 10. The total DM is +50.

Now looking at attack tasks, range S=7 is a 7 dice task. Rolling 7D < TL + DMs is 7D < 60.

This is a guaranteed hit. In other words, I don't have to roll to hit.

Just noticing this and thinking about it. Not necessarily a bad thing. In fact I might like it quite a bit.

This is a principle I have built into the upcoming HG/CT merge, that bigger patterns of fire yield higher chances of to hit.

Conversely, firing bigger patterns and increasing to hit reduces the damage the successful hit achieves.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Various responses.

You're right, but what a hit.

T5.00 handled critical hits better than T5.09, and it did it this way: damage which penetrates is also halved and applied to adjacent hit locations. In short, you can get "strafe" or "collateral" damage if your attack is devastating enough.

I think that rule should remain in ship combat.


Interesting design question. How many Bay weapons can you fit into an ACS? And is this favoring the idea of throwing everything you got into one gigantic volley, at the expense of not even installing armor?

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I am okay with the adjacent areas not getting blasted, but I am not entirely against it either, it depends on how the ship is constructed, I suspect it is more applicable to civilian ships than military ones since military ships are expecting to take damage and thus keep better compartmentalization than a civvie craft.

I haven't tried to do a full-on bays and spine warship just yet, but first off there are screens and second Staging to reduce the volume if possible. Otherwise, yeppers I am going light on armor which I pretty much do already, but then I don't build low tech ships so I always have screen tech to use. Also multiple screen generators/nodes are generally big savings on volume compared to serious armor. Armor is for backup when a screen might fail. It happens.

I am not sure it is a hit the magnitude of a 10 bay hit. It is my impression that the 10 bays are used up getting the plus fifty, so you get a hit of one bay magnitude.

Unless it specifies otherwise, I cannot imagine that an autohit at range 7 hits at full power when it is the shear volume of fire that blankets an area and allows the hit to begin with.


Also, even though its an autohit, I think there should be a roll just to make sure there wasn't an error of some sort (crit failure). Computer link failure so all bays don't fire being the main one.

The mythical auto-hit is just that a myth. There are systems on paper, the Patriot Anti-Missile Missile on paper has a 100% kill ratio, in actual use more like 60%. Real life doesn't have auto-aim or or auto-hit, just really excellent chances so I too support a chance to fail roll.

The wargamer in me says there should always be a die roll, but the 'realistic' situation is there should be autokill ranges.

At a certain range light speed weapons will not miss, you need active countermeasures or armour, but the armour is the hard part. A laser or particle beam capable of causing damage at a light second will burn through your armour as if it wasn't there.

See above.

 

[dalthor]

Interesting design question. How many Bay weapons can you fit into an ACS? And is this favoring the idea of throwing everything you got into one gigantic volley, at the expense of not even installing armor?

IMTU when it comes to bays and mains, I multiply mount tons by 10 to get the minimum allowed hull size, and divide tons by 10 to get the number of hardpoints it replaces.

For example, a bay takes 50 tons. The ship must be at least 500 tons (50 x 10), and it uses 5 (50 / 10) hardpoints.

This puts a logical limit on it - no superships mounting a crapload of bays or mains and still getting all those turrets or barbettes.

I seem to recall reading this somewhere, but darned if I can find it right now. Maybe GURPS?