LOL I include the missile costs because ignoring them (as HG does) is so very obviously and very badly broken.
System Defense Fleets
- Thread starter Murph
- Start date
LOL I include the missile costs because ignoring them (as HG does) is so very obviously and very badly broken.
Missile boat is 1300 tons (gives a fac-9 missile and enough sand, laser and energy to soak up the 3 wpn-1 hits it takes to knock the missile out of the fight.)
You have to use nukes because a normal missile can't damage an armour-15 target.
And opps, should be N gun, the most cost effective TL15 meson (though it doesn't change the numbers).
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
How much does the military pay for missiles?
Do they get bulk discount?
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Working from SS3 missiles, a nuke missile costs Cr100,000 for a 0.1Kton warhead and the cost of the missile. And given the shear number of missiles we're talking about (25 missiles per 50 ton bay times 2700 to 4000 turns of fire) I'd damn well hope they get bulk discount
And that's fine as long as you only use the rules as written for the purpose they're meant to be used for -- to design game pieces and play games with them. As long as the rules are the same for both players, who cares if they're screwy as long as they work? Gamability trumphs verisimilitude. But when you start using them to prove how thing "really" work, you get a bad case of GIGO. "How come missiles are so effective in "reality"? "Why, it's because they cost nothing, take up no storage space, and are magically replenished as soon as they're fired".
Missiles cost money, take up storage space, and are expended. If the rules as written don't reflect this, the rules as written are WRONG, and any conclusions reached by assuming that they're true will be rubbish. This doesn't matter in a TCS tournament, but it does matter for world-building purposes.
Missiles cost money, take up storage space, and are expended. This isn't something that I feel the need to prove; it's a basic fact. And it certainly isn't something that I'm willing to accept being disproved by the rules as written.
Hans
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An N gun you should be able to fit onto a considerably smaller hull, I think. If you're using a rider with maximum defenses you need about a 12kton ship - which is a lot less likely to be hit in the first place.
Note that if your opponents actually use these tactics, you're likely better off with maximum factor particle accelerators: They hit a lot more reliably, there is no defense against them and the autocrits will kill small ships.
Sure, but that doesn't *kill* the ship at all. It merely does field repairable damage to the weapons. The fuel hits can eventually result in a kill of sorts, but that takes a lot more time again.
You can simply place all your BRs in the reserve and place a single invulnerable planetoid (or even just a sacrifical lamb of any kind) in the line each turn until you are fully repaired. There is absolutely nothing in the rules that can prevent this, and it allows you to keep fighting ad infinitum. Well, not really - until your fuel runs out. But fuel is hit a lot more rarely.
True.
In the same vein on costs that surely MUST be allowed for; Crew needs recruiting, training, supervision, pay, clothing, tools, feeding, entertaining, refresher courses & on retirement returning back home. All of which costs money, requires facilities and uses expendables. None of which is allowed for in TCS.
(The 10% maintenance you referred to earlier, is only for ship maintenance. Not expendables, nor crew costs.)
On missile costs, historically most fuedal societies did not pay commercial rates for weaponry. They employed their owned bonded (& skilled) servants to manufacture them. The Imperium will not be paying anything like commercial rates for the missiles.
On storage, Hans is absolutely correct. The inclusion of storage facilities will impact all players equally. And it is only at the point you make missile storage greater than the PP & PP fuel required to power the equivalent number of Energy weapons that you come even close to getter players to move away from missiles. Even then it is questionable given the 2+ vs 5+ to hit at long range and 3+ vs 4+ at short. As a consequence, "realism" aside, if it does not improve gameplay, is monitoring missile use on thousands of craft a side, worth the quite large administration effort by pen & paper players?
By the special supplement rules and doing the math, you get 792 missiles per dton, so storage of large amounts of missiles is relatively easy.
I did the math in another thread:
Special Supplement 3 describes them as that is their dimension packed in a tube, if one does the calc for a cylinder, eg pi*r^2*h, it comes in at 17671cc's, so plugging that into 14m^3: or 792 missiles.
Annual maintenance costs 1% (or is it 0.1%?) of a ship's original cost. What do the other 90% or 99% of the budget pay for if not crew, supplies, munitions, logistics, facilities, and peacetime replacement?
It is not only for ship maintenance. If it was, it would cost a lot less.
Odds are that many navies pay retail prices or even more than retail and someone pockets the difference between wholesale and what the navy pays. ;-)
If all you want is a good game to while away an afternoon, definitely not. If you want to engage in world-building, definitely maybe (Depends on how much work it'd be
). Hans
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Are missiles usually stored with their casings touching and is the no empty space between stacked cylinders?
Hans
They are already in their shipping containers, why would you waste space on a starship?
the missiles in SS3 are given l=100cm & r=7.5 cm, for, 17671.458676442588cc out of 14000000cc per Td, or 792.2379389463234
per td, but....
You can't pack to that level. tightest would be hexagonal tesselation, which means a packing of A=2a²√3=3.4641r²- for a 5cm radius as apothem a=d/2, and d=diameter of inscribed circle, thus a=r. which means, for a 10cm diameter missile, packing size of 14000000/(3.4641lr²) per dton in hexagonal tesselationgiven l & r in cm, with no loss area...19485.571585149868
per missile, or 718.4803349915344 per Td.
Useful racking with 2cm thick tracks would be roughly...
14000000/(l * (2r+1)*2r), noting that two sets of tracks can share the same space; one with missiles up and one with missiles down, hence only adding 1cm... giving 24000cc per missile, and 583.3333333333334 per Td.
I would agree with that, give it a easy 500 missile per dton magazine capacity. The loader could be a canted floor with a slot above a 2g grav plate and conveyer belt. The belt takes them to the casette type cartriges that the turret or bay fires (one casette in battery, one condition 1 while the third is loading). Any misfeeds can be fixed by a nine position robotic arm; all automated, very fast loading.
Neither would they pay the full costs for ships, so I see it as similar case (maybe a discount for quntity, but expensive anyway).
Does the 3I have bonded sevants to make them or he must contract comercial companies (more like today's RW) to make them and pay those companies for their products?
Aside from that, is there such a thing as commercial price for something expressely forbiden (in use or possesion) by the 3I, and whose possesion is high crime and against the Rules of War?
Actually no, the 12Kton BR is just as likely to be hit as the 74Kton cruiser, just it can't take quite as much damage. However, as long as you can afford 4 missile boats for each rider (which is a pretty safe bet) the missiles win.
For the purposes of the battle, yes it does kill it. If it can't shoot its useless.
Field repairs:
Must be in reserve (and assume the boats have the odd spinal meson floating around to deal with the odd rock the riders have floating around, resulting in a breakthrough, not good); so have to either have a lot of rocks or keep a lot of riders in the line.
Success is 9+ (10 in 36) so they're out on average for three turns.
Restores 1 factor (B back to C), so unless you're only putting the riders in the line 1 turn in 4, kind of pointless.
Yes the power of the missile is hugely broken, but its how HG is written. Yes a well balanced fleet needs more than just missiles (or more just meson or more than just anything). But the queen of battle and the ultimate decider is the missile.
My apologies yes I did forget a mod. Will see if I can redo the calcs. However don't forget that the MB is actually a ship (surprising what you can cram into a 1000T hull when all you've got is a missile battery) and the rider isn't. So you're looking at about 20-25 MBs per rider and I think the MBs will still come out ahead.
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How do you arrive at this calculation now?
The meson spinals are all killed whenever they dare enter the line. You'd use very small rocks, naturally, just lots of them. I don't remember if you can build rock small craft, but otherwise just use size-1 ships.
It's not like that a breakthrough would be a catastrophe either.
As I said, against many small missile boats, maximum factor particle spinals would be the weapon of choice.
I don't think you can fit 6gs, J-4, computer, armor and and screens into a 1000 ton hull. Since you cannot split the jump capacity between boat and rider, it doesn't really help.
TL15 design
TL __ Td __ MCr ____ EP System
7 _ 1000 ___ 80.0 ___ 0 Flattened Sphere (A6)
7 ___ 20 ____ 5.0 ___ 0 Bridge
F ___ 26 __ 200.0 __ 12 Model 9fib (J)
E ___ 50 ___ 12.0 ___ 0 50 Missile Bay Factor 9 (9/1/1)
9 __ 170 ___ 85.0 ___ 0 MD 6=17%
D ___ 50 __ 200.0 ___ 0 JD 4=5%
F ___ 80 __ 240.0 __ 80 PP 8=8% 80EP
7 ___ 80 ____ 0.0 ___ 0 PPFuel
7 __ 400 ____ 0.0 ___ 0 JFuel
F ___ 20 ___ 50.0 __ 10 Damper 9 10EP
F ___ 40 ___ 60.0 __ 18 Meson Screen 9 18 EP
7 ___ 44 ____ 5.5 ___ 0 Staterooms x11
F ___ 20 ____ 8.0 ___ 0 AV1
======================================================
F _ 1000 __ 945.5 __ 40
Crew: PNM 9E 10G = 22x2=44
Missile Corvette
LM-A6468J2-109900-00009-0
Batt. _______________ 1
Bear. _______________ 1
Agil 4
TL15 design
TL __ Td __ MCr ____ EP System
7 _ 1000 ___ 80.0 ___ 0 Flattened Sphere (A6)
7 ___ 20 ____ 5.0 ___ 0 Bridge
F ___ 26 __ 200.0 __ 12 Model 9fib (J)
E ___ 50 ___ 12.0 ___ 0 50 Missile Bay Factor 9 (9/1/1)
9 __ 170 ___ 85.0 ___ 0 MD 6=17%
D ___ 50 __ 200.0 ___ 0 JD 4=5%
F ___ 80 __ 240.0 __ 80 PP 8=8% 80EP
7 ___ 80 ____ 0.0 ___ 0 PPFuel
7 __ 400 ____ 0.0 ___ 0 JFuel
F ___ 40 ___ 60.0 __ 18 Meson Screen 9 18 EP
7 ___ 44 ____ 5.5 ___ 0 Staterooms x11
F ___ 40 ___ 24.0 ___ 0 AV3=4%
======================================================
F _ 1000 __ 911.5 __ 50
Crew: PNM 9E 10G = 22x2=44
Missile Corvette
LM-A6468J2-309000-00009-0
Batt. _______________ 1
Bear. _______________ 1
Agil 5
The armor isn't GOOD, but it's there.
If I am allowed to reduce PP fuel to 3 weeks, I can either grab another 2AV, or up agility by 1 (for 10Td PP and 7.5Td Fuel, leaving 2.5 Td for an extra half stateroom, so the skipper gets a full stateroom.)
