Missiles, Missiles, Missiles
Magic Munchkin Missile Magazines
Your Spinal Meson isn't going to be full factor for long. For that matter your Meson Armed ships aren't going to be around very long if committed to the line prematurely.
Actually, you'd be surprised.
My TL 15 BRs mount J meson guns, carry Armour-15, have agility 6 and Factor-9 Nuclear Dampers. And they do all of that in the size B-K range. They've got at least one weapon in every category, too.
Let's assume you're packing TL15 missile bays, 50 tons a piece, Factor-9.
All other things being equal, At long range you need an 8 to hit. So 15 in 36 of your missiles score a hit.
You'd better be firing nukes, because HE is just going to bounce off my armour (a bit like shooting at a Matilda with anything less than an 88). I might interfere with one or two of your missiles with my sand, energy weapons and lasers. I'll definitely turn one of them back with my repulsor. But we're looking at proportions. So let's ignore them and cut to the chase.
15 / 36 of the missiles you fire register a hit. They're nukes, so they've got to penetrate my Nuclear Damper. That needs a 10. Only 1 in 6 of them do that. So that's only 5 in 72 that progress as far as getting a roll on the damage tables. It's only worth bothering with the surface explosion table ... my armour is impervious to your radiation.
Even with your -6 for nukes, I'm still adding +15 to your rolls for my armour, and that means only rolls of 2 - 6 produce any damage; and only rolls of 2, 3, 5 or 6 produce a weapon hit. That's one in 3.
So 5 in 216 of the missile salvoes you fire will score a weapon hit. Call it 1 in 43.
You get to choose which weapon is hit, and doubtless you will choose to go for my meson gun first; but after that you've got to go for my other four offensive and two defensive weapon types before you're allowed to ask for a second hit on my meson gun.
So if you fire 344 salvoes of missiles, you'll manage two hits on my meson gun, reducing it from J to G.
Those salvoes are coming from bay weapons ... so 344 salvoes implies 344,000 ton-turns of ships.
My BRs are 16,000 tons, if I recall correctly. So 344,000 ton-turns allows me 21 and a bit shots with my meson guns. Let's ignore the bits, and see what 21 shots will do for me.
Assume you're agility 6 ... so I need a 10 to hit. That means 1 in 6 hits. So it's a toss-up whether I've achieved 3 or 4 hits. Have you got factor 9 meson screens too? Let's assume you have. I need a 9 to penetrate. 10 times in 36 I will. So I should get about 1 penetration.
What's your configuration? Needle-wedge? (I assume you're not a dispersed structure, or you can't mount any armour at all). I need a 6 to penetrate needle/wedge. Two times in 3 I will. Odds are, then, that by the time you've chewed two points off one of my meson spinals, in an equal tonnage-for-tonnage fight, I've scored a hit on one of your ships. And that his is going to blat it outright. I've also got my own missiles doing a bit of damage here, a bit of damage there, and pulling down your own offensive firepower.
I don't know what you're mounting your missiles in, but it doesn't really matter. If you're going for big ships, my riders will make mincemeat of them on a ton-for-ton basis, even after allowing for the unproductive weight of the mother ship. If you're pitching a massed phalanx of 2,000 ton missile destroyers against, me, then that might be a different matter, because each hit I score will only knock out a tiny fraction of your fighting strength.
But ... oh dear!! In that case, we've just proved my point, haven't we??
At TL 15 it's no longer the case that your big ships are the battle winners, any more than that in 21st wet navy combat your battleships are battle winners.
