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Weapons and Capacitors

Got two gearheadish questions for ya.

1) I'm trying to design a fighter with 2 pulse lasers and a missile tube across a foward mounted "turret." I saw the rules on batteries, but I'm thinking that that'd be too inexpensive to just throw in a pair of batteries and I've got 2 full powered lasers for 2 hours at such a cheap cost. Thinking it'd end up a bit munchkinish. So does anyone have any ideas on a capacitor? Saves up extra power every turn till discharged? Caps out at one EP per unit? If you've got .1EP left over a turn, takes 10 turns to charge and all that, but once charged, it's an extra EP? Otherwise I can throw in a cheap battery and have that extra EP for a whole hour.

2) How do you cross over vehicle weapons into ship weapons and vice versa? Say I want to mount a VRF Gauss as a "sea-wiz," an anti missile/ground attack weapon?

Thanks for the ideas, I want to get ideas that ballance the game, not just munchkinate it. ;)

RV
 
Vehicle EP and Starship EP are not the same. And there isn't even an official conversion between them. Besides the batteries don't discharge fast enough to support firing a laser.

You can mount vehicle weapons in a starship turret, you have 4200 vl of space, 1400vl for each weapon. These vehicle weapons will be totally useless in space combat (even at 0 hex range). Otherwise assume the weapon have negligble power draw.
 
I strongly agree about the raw power of batteries in the vehicle rules.

I have been deliberately stearing away from them.

If I had to use them (and I nearly did with a sub) I would drop the power output to 1EP for a round rather than 1EP for an hour. Yes I know that is a huge drop - but there is currently no need to have actual engines!

As regards the jump vehicle to SHip weapons.

The Heavy Pulse Laser (vehicle) is the ship mounted pulse laser. The 5 scaling factors, the prices etc all match up, ditto for the beam laser, fusion guns and plasma guns. So yes, it is just the obvious scaling factors and everything is OK.

As to how many "small" weapons I would allow on a ship - I would let them mount as many "little" weapons as they like (in design phase) however I will only allow their usage against "appropriate" targets.

I am trying to think of a reason why you shouldn;t be able to mount small arms (VFR Gauss) for use in an Anti-Missile mode, and nothing springs to mind.

Oh dear, I'll have to think some more, otherwise missiles become obselete and I don;t want that.
 
I see no problem with the capacitors, though I'd make the energy rate something useful. getting an extra point every ten turns as per your example wouldn't be to useful for a weapon, but you might channel it to other systems. You might give it a drawback too since you're getting a decent benefit out if it....a good one would be if it takes a hit and the capacitor is destroyed then the fighter takes another random hit due to the sudden release of energy.

As for your phalanx system again I see no problem with it. You might do well to look at the striker rules. I believe most weapons are given defensive fire ratings....how well they can shoot down missiles and the like. On a side note, it reminds me of discovering that Striker has Penetration and Damage values for Sandcasters. Considering how wide an area and how densely concentrated sancaster have to be to interfere with lasers, if fired on the ground like a vehicle sized shotgun we called 'em 'Sandstorm in a can' A sancaster as a good chance of stripping someone even in Cbt Armor to the bone :eek:
 
I kinda doubt these batteries are nicads, but instead refer to a generic energy storage device. Besides, capaciters are notoriously "leaky." At TL 7-8 this would be an electromechanical device like a homeopolar generator. At TL 9-10 probably a superconductor loop, TL 11-12 likely a dense, stable plasma toroid.

I ain't gonna guess beyond that.
 
I kinda doubt these batteries are nicads, but instead refer to a generic energy storage device. Besides, capaciters are notoriously "leaky." At TL 7-8 this would be an electromechanical device like a homeopolar generator. At TL 9-10 probably a superconductor loop, TL 11-12 likely a dense, stable plasma toroid.

I ain't gonna guess beyond that.
 
Soooooo If we put together a fighter that was underpowered for it's two pulse laser armament, say (for arguements sake) it's powerplant puts out an extra .5 ep a round.
The two pulse lasers require 2 ep, 4 if you use the doublefire program. So if you're close, you want an extra 3.5 ep a round so you can do your damage as you pass and get out.

Now say this fighter has a bank of capacitors. 5 of them to be exact. Each holds 1 EP, and requires a trickle charge of .1EP to maintain the charge or it looses .1ep a round (The leak thing). The max charge per round is .2ep (.1 ep after trickle charge subtracted) as a game ballance issue, plus, you don't want to blow out your capaciter.

You'd then have enough power to fire 4 shots round one as you're closing in, (Dumping 4 capaciters as the lasers use 1 ep each x2 shots). You now have a surplus of 1 capaciter and .5 EP extra. You place .2 into two capaciters and turn up the air conditioner with the other .1.

Your next turn you can fire one laser at least, or more if you cut your speed, but after that, you need to get clear to recharge your capaciters. This is where a pair of batteries could come in handy, using them to charge the capaciters, and the extra powerplant power to charge the batteries.

It does make it kind of complicated, but it does give fighters at least one savage bite before they're shot down.

What say you all? Comments, concerns, Jeers?

RV
 
Originally posted by RabidVargr:
You'd then have enough power to fire 4 shots round one as you're closing in, (Dumping 4 capaciters as the lasers use 1 ep each x2 shots). You now have a surplus of 1 capaciter and .5 EP extra. You place .2 into two capaciters and turn up the air conditioner with the other .1.

Your next turn you can fire one laser at least, or more if you cut your speed, but after that, you need to get clear to recharge your capaciters. <snip>
What say you all? Comments, concerns, Jeers?

RV
i would say no, just for the simple fact that the lasers are "designed" to fire at the rate of fire they they show in the book. it will just not be possible to fire it faster, just cause you have the extra power to do so... the weapon still needs to cooldown / recycle itself to its starting position for it to be able to fire again. the concept is good as an "extra-shot" when you have run out of your ordinary power. but not to make it shoot faster than normal.

it's kinda like the six-shooter guns of the old-west, the enemy "knew" you only had 6 shots and then you were out, but this would be like having the gun redesigned to hold 7 shots, that way you can come out with the "oops i'm out of bullets" look on your face, then when they let their guard down... blammo with the 7th shot. but it still wouldn't let you shoot 7 shots any faster than you could before (ignoring the usual reload time of course)... recovering from the recoil and the motion to shift the cylinder from one round to the next still takes the exact same time to accomplish. (for the purpose of this example, yes i am ignoring the time to reload in order to be able to fire the 7th shot out of a 6 shot gun...) the principle is the same.
 
Originally posted by tjoneslo:
Vehicle EP and Starship EP are not the same. And there isn't even an official conversion between them. Besides the batteries don't discharge fast enough to support firing a laser.

You can mount vehicle weapons in a starship turret, you have 4200 vl of space, 1400vl for each weapon. These vehicle weapons will be totally useless in space combat (even at 0 hex range). Otherwise assume the weapon have negligble power draw.
I'd say do the factor 5 that is done for weapons for power

also -- vehicle weapons are NOT useless in space combat. The damage is much reduced. But, you have a 'flying ordinance' type of weapon in this case.

Since all Traeller combat takes place within 1 LS of each other it's not hard to figure in travel time for the weapons (hell, to ignore travel time just use the ranges as listed for the weapon).

So, you CAN have a fighter loaded to the gills with vehicle weapons. It's ability to inflict damage is GREATLY reduced, but it *can* still inflict damage (depending on the weapon types...etc)
 
The killer vehicle weapon to put on a fighter or other spacecraft is the Heavy MRL (muliple rocket launcher). If you salvo all 100 tubes at once you can really put a hurting on a spacecraft. Now you only get 1 shot, and you have to get really, really, really close, but it might be worth it to allow fighters to do some serious damage to a larger ship (and there's no power cost).
 
Quick answer to the MRL:

Remember to convert vehicle ranges to ship ranges.
Remember to scale down the damage.
Remember that a 100 ROF used against a pin point target only gives you +10 dice, as an area weapon it gives you +10 to hit (do you spray or concentrate fire)

I agree that, up close and personal, MRLs can lay down a blanket of fire that paves a valley with destruction. +10 to hit with an area of effect makes things very scary for infantry.

I wouldn't allow MRL against "pinpoint" targets - I would only allow them against areas - otherwise they will "jostle" on the way in.

Also remember that, the weapons commonly used by ships are the most effective for their purpose, if the rules occassionally seem to indicate otherwise, there is something missing. If that isn;t true, then those weapons wouldn;t be the common ones.
 
I just had a quick look at the book for MRL stats.
I was thinking what I might say if one of my players wished to equip a small craft/ship with an MRL for use in ship combat

I would let them put a cluster of them on your fighter in place of a "real" weapon. (Probably three as a jury rig thing - the full 7 if a professional design/install)

They have less range than fusion guns, so it is going to be very hard to get into range. That is if you assume that the listed range is for direct fire - Indirect fire would be a more reasonable assumption so the range would be roughly a third of that listed)

If the target is armoured, they will do very little damage. (

The ROF is limited by the number of tubes - so if you salvo 100 tubes at the victim, you get your ROF100 however the tubes are then empty - reload takes a very long time - even longer if you are zipping arround in a fighter.

What sort of neg would you give an iron weapon in ship to ship combat? I think a -10 seems fairly reasonable, or better, have the neg related to the "deflection" of the target.

So what you are left with is a weapon that is useful against large slow unarmoured targets at point blank range - but devastating agianst those. If your target is large, slow and unarmoured then you don;t need a devastating weapon, a normal weapon is fine, because you will be damaging it every time you fire. And why would you want to close to pointblank range?

Where I might allow MRL would be loading them with "flechette/pellet" and using them as sandcasters. But then, why not use sandcasters?
 
I was just thinking, what weapons would I allow if I wanted people to be throwing iron arround in starship combat.

the volley fire rockets don't appeal to me - if they are unguided and you are hoping for a hit by "filling" space then ranges are too long and ships are too quick. (MRLs)

What did appeal was the larger mass Drivers - the muzzle velocity is probably high enough that you might have a chance at hitting things. Of course, the standard mass driver round is unguided which means that range is a serious issue.

So the obvious thing to do is slap "guidance" on the mass driver round. The more I thought about it, the nicer it seemed from a theoretical POV however the worse the engineering aspects seemed.

Assuming the engineering aspects could be sorted out, all that I was left with was a "missile launcher" that allowed the missile to be launched with a high velocity then standard. This didn;t seem very useful to me, so I abandoned that idea.

The standard slug thrower (VFR Gause, Heavy Arty, whatever) just isn;t useful at the ranges and target speeds we are talking about, other than as point defense.

The more I thought about "alternate" weapons, the less useful they all were for anything other than shooting incoming missiles. And if the missile randomly jinks on the way in, even that could get tricky.

So not only is the weapon selection for ships canon, it also makes sense to me (ie energy weapons, sand and missiles).
 
Hmm...

I've mentioned the sub-light in-system campaign I ran a looong time ago before. In it, I had players mounting autocannons and artillery pieces (tank cannons,etc) on space-craft. Since I created spreadsheets to handle all the math involved in the G/Hour fuel-thrust rocket system I just added a sheet that handled ordinance. I don't have it with me at work, but within the 1 LS range the weapons actually worked quite well. The only problem was the high rate of missing (travel time + jinking = greater % of missing); thus 'spraying the area' ala "Wing Commander" (watch the movie?).

Now, having it be used at range in a standard traveller type game will require you to get in close. I still think it'll work, but lets test it.

Who here has played space combat using the T20 rules? Why not build a few fighters and see how it works. Could be totally unplayable, may not. I'd say lets test it and see :-D
 
Isn't the big range limitation on projectile weapons due to 1) Gravity and 2) Friction (air)? So if a VRF Gauss is fired in space (snicker does it make a sound) wouldn't the range be increased? Objects in motion tend to stay in motion and all that? Effective range would be most likely how far it could go in one round at maximum muzzle velocity, so still short, but it could take out a few incoming missiles, an annoying fighter with a rocket pack headed your way, stuff like that? I'm at work, so don't have my books or anything with me so sorry I can't quote ranges and speeds. Yes, lasers may be the best choice for starships, but how about fighters that are multipurpose? Strafe a group of ground targets with a laser or 4-6 VRF Gauss cannons? Which are you more intimidated by? Also, on the weapon recycle rate, I think as long as you've got the power, you should be able to shoot. After all, why include a double fire program as one of our options if they can't fire more than once a round?

RV
 
That's the way I played it. It's been some time, but back then we used vectored movement for combat and turn duration was whatever standard time it was set for in book2 or book5 (don't recall). We used butcher paper, colored pencils and a ruler using vectored math for space combat. Having any type of ordinance, be they missiles or cannon-balls, would have a track.

But, a really big thing for folks here to remember is that traveller combat is within a 1 Light-Second distance. This means that most direct fire ordinance type weapons can be fired and hit the target all within the same round.

So, that 6G rocket has a 'muzzle' velocity of 60m/s (+/- ships velocity) -- it's big advantgage is that accellerates over time and has directed guidance. Take a 'dumb' ordinance leaving at 1,000m/s velcity and you have 100G object travelling in space. For MOST distance and turn durations this is a fire and hit the same round weapon. We found that within the confines of the turn length and distances involved that having a cannon on a fighter was actually a weapon that would hit.

And since we used 1mm = 1G if you within 100mm of your target you'd hit the same round you fired.
 
1 light second is a very long way to be firing iron.

The problem isn;t that the round runs out of velocity - it's the accuracy of the weapon. Lasers et al are likely to be much more controllable than things which move mass arround.

Even mass drivers whose muzzle velocity is as high as 4,000 m/s is going to take a long time to hit a target which is 4,500 km away (thats fusion gun range). In that time, the target will have moved a fair bit. (1,000 seconds is about 20 minutes)

You can;t even deflection shoot - the target is accelerating is an fairly unpredicatble way.

The only reason missiles work is that they can terminal guide - as the target dodges, they adjust their flight path.

So the only way I can see that you could use mass weapons is if you put terminal guidance on the round - which is hard to do without air to push against - they need either man drives or rockets.
 
But they'd be a lot more accurate at say 1000km, due to less distance to travel. Perhaps we go with their effective rage being the distance they can travel in 1/4 a round for mobile targets? Space stations and slow unmaneuverable frieghtors may be sol as those rounds will continue straight toward them no matter what the range..

Even 1/4 the range per round will give these weapons a bit of usefullness, such as the sea wiz vs missile/fighters, 4 VRF gauss mounts on a fighter as primary weapons makes for a good multi purpose ship.

RV
 
even 1,000 km takes 4 minutes of travel time - that is a lot of dodging that you can do. And you have to be a fairly accurate rest to be able to hit a target the size of a small building from the other side of the country.

But yes - if you are shooting at something that has to get into knife fighting range (ie missiles) then they may be useful.

Of course, if the missile is nuclear and going for a proximity burst, or a laser head, then there is no real help.

If the opposition fighter is armed with slug throwers, then it has to get in close, so your slug throwers may be useful.

They may make useful fighter weapons - because the fighters are often nimble enough to close in to these ranges and then unload with a devastating pointblank volley fire rocket attack.

Since I'm fairly happy with the current effectiveness of fighters, I'm not going to have them IMTU. If the players have access to a shipyard and the inclination to experiment, then I may review, till then, they are out.
 
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