Missile Turrets: Outdated and Obsolete ?

[Chuck Anumia]

Are Missile turrets outdated?

Are missile turrets on a freighter actually useful for self defense?
It seems to me that getting over a targets PD is extremely hard.
If the ships is armed only to defend it's self from similarly armed and armored ships, are missiles good enough?
Are Missiles useful against possible pirate ships?
Hmmm...

 

[McPerth]

Are missile turrets on a freighter actually useful for self defense?
It seems to me that getting over a targets PD is extremely hard.
If the ships is armed only to defend it's self from similarly armed and armored ships, are missiles good enough?
Are Missiles useful against possible pirate ships?
Hmmm...

As already stated, I guess no. Any beam weapon has advantage over them, as lasers can be used both as offensive power or PD, and PB has the heavier punch a turret can, and none of them needs to spend space nor money in ammo.

 

[Chuck Anumia]

Are missile turrets on a freighter actually useful for self defense?
It seems to me that getting over a targets PD is extremely hard.
If the ships is armed only to defend it's self from similarly armed and armored ships, are missiles good enough?
Are Missiles useful against possible pirate ships?
Hmmm...

As already stated, I guess no. Any beam weapon has advantage over them, as lasers can be used both as offensive power or PD, and PB has the heavier punch a turret can, and none of them needs to spend space nor money in ammo.

Then I see no need to waste precious cargo space by placing useless turrets on ships.

 

[Carlobrand]

Then I see no need to waste precious cargo space by placing useless turrets on ships.

Depends on what you're putting in the turret. To say missiles aren't an effective offense for a freighter is not the same as saying you should leave the freighter defenseless. Adequate defense to stand off a raiding fighter or small pirate is certainly worthwhile. For a large freighter, the increased number of turrets that can come with larger size may be enough to make the fight painful enough for a much smaller opponent to make some pirates and smaller commerce raiders limit themselves to more bite-size prey.

And, I don't know how Mongoose is handling this, but in CT or HG, if the enemy's lasers are busy shooting at your missiles, then they're not shooting holes in you. If a missile does nothing but soak up laser fire that would otherwise be carving on you, then it seems to me that they're doing some good at least for as long as they last - which might just buy enough time for help to get to you or for you to get to atmosphere.

 

[Patron Zero]

Then I see no need to waste precious cargo space by placing useless turrets on ships.

I think this is where I came in originally.

I take the following positions if I may:

-On non-naval/non-military vessels, turrets should be defensive in nature using lasers or other energy projection weapons in that role.

-Said turrets would be deployable mountings and in non-combat circumstances retracted and 'locked-down' in a 'safety-on' mode.

-Missiles have their place on commercial-private enterprise type of ships but in a VLS configuration, achieving a lock-establishing a firing solution would be accomplished by sensors or other dedicated targeting hardware.

-This would also allow any missiles a ship carries to be also 'locked-down' in a 'safety-on' mode.

All said, weapons holstered would be a protocol starships observe when in port or making way in-system on heavily trafficked spaceways.

 

[SpaceBadger]

This may be totally out of left field as not based on any experience with actual space combat rules, but my impression of ACS combat (not big naval forces) was that lasers might be slower in accumulating damage could be do more precision damage, lasers also work in anti-missile role, but if a powerful missile gets through the anti-missile lasers it could be BOOM game over for the target.

This dictates that pirates would prefer to use lasers to disable their targets for looting, and for defense against missiles, whereas merchants would prefer missiles because the don't care about capturing their pirate opponents, they just want to make them go BOOM and disappear.

 

[atpollard]

This may be totally out of left field as not based on any experience with actual space combat rules, but my impression of ACS combat (not big naval forces) was that lasers might be slower in accumulating damage could be do more precision damage, lasers also work in anti-missile role, but if a powerful missile gets through the anti-missile lasers it could be BOOM game over for the target.

This dictates that pirates would prefer to use lasers to disable their targets for looting, and for defense against missiles, whereas merchants would prefer missiles because the don't care about capturing their pirate opponents, they just want to make them go BOOM and disappear.

Yeah, what he said.
If the current missile designs/rules do not support this paradigm, then it is 'House Rule Time'. (IMHO)

 

[whulorigan]

Yeah, what he said.
If the current missile designs/rules do not support this paradigm, then it is 'House Rule Time'. (IMHO)

Any Core Rules updates that Mongoose is planning for MgT definitely needs to address the missile-damage issue. They are far to weak as they currently stand.

Based on CT Book 2 (from which MgT apparently derived its space-weapon concepts) I suggested up-thread that missiles could do 1d6 x d6 damage. McPerth pointed out that multi-warhead missiles in MgT-HG already do that, so they (and other warhead types and torpedoes) would need to be rescaled as well in order to fit the new paradigm.

Suggestion:

Standard Missile: 3d6
Nuclear Missile: 6d6 + Crew Hit
Multi-warhead (Submunition) Missile: 1d6 x d6 *

Torpedo: 5d6
Nuclear Torpedo: 8d6 + Crew Hit
Bomb-Pumped Laser Torpedo: 6d6

* - Alternative: Let all 6 submunition-warheads (1d6 each) strike on a successful hit, but let the defender have to target each one individually with point-defense systems to avoid damage.
​

If necessary for scaling, one could adjust the damage of certain warheads downward to base 1d3's instead of 1d6's.

 

[McPerth]

Any Core Rules updates that Mongoose is planning for MgT definitely needs to address the missile-damage issue. They are far to weak as they currently stand.

Based on CT Book 2 (from which MgT apparently derived its space-weapon concepts) I suggested up-thread that missiles could do 1d6 x d6 damage. McPerth pointed out that multi-warhead missiles in MgT-HG already do that, so they (and other warhead types and torpedoes) would need to be rescaled as well in order to fit the new paradigm.

Suggestion:

Standard Missile: 3d6
Nuclear Missile: 6d6 + Crew Hit
Multi-warhead (Submunition) Missile: 1d6 x d6

Torpedo: 5d6
Nuclear Torpedo: 8d6 + Crew Hit
Bomb-Pumped Laser Torpedo: 6d6
​

If necessary for scaling, one could adjust the damage of certain warheads downward to base 1d3's instead of 1d6's.

In any case, at least for HG, the main issue with missiles is that they are too vulnerable to PD (sandcasters and lasers) fire. By raising the dice, they will somewhat overcome the armor, that's true, but they will still be so.

See that (I asume TL 10 due to this being the numbers already made) if you asume nukes to be 6d6 damage, a salvo (let's say 100 missiles, to make numbers easy) would be 600 - missile - 6. Assuming gunners 2 and FC software +2 (maximum at TL 10) against a 10 armor ship with some sandcsters and lasers, barrage damage would be 2d6 + 2 (gunners) + 2 (fire control) against a defendive modifier of 1d6-2 (sandcasters) + 1d6 -1 (PS lasers) + 10 (armor) - 6 (dice/weapons), so it would be 2d6 + 4 against 2d6 + 1 (+3 if dodging). Radiation damage would be ignored, as the ship has armor 10 (so over 8). On the same roll in both sides (and assuming Dodge) result would be 1, so no damage. Quite more than as written now, that's true...

PA turrets in the same conditions would have the same offensive modifiers, but de defensive modifiers would be just armor minus weapons (so 2d6 + 5 - 7), and if the PAs have high yeld they have and additional +1 and very high yeld (after all they are TL 10) +2, so the barrage roll would be 2d6 (no modifiers). If the target is dodging, again 2D6-2, so will scaore damage on a 5+ (albeit less so than the missiles).

Here we must know if the missiles can also be high yeld, or, in any case, they can ge accurate, so giving them an extra +1...

At TL 15, things favor the defender, as the FC has a máximum of +5 (so 3 more than in the example), while armor may be increased up to 15 (so 5 over).

Same way, if gunners are assumed +3, then the offensive modifier would be +1, but so will both PD rolls, with a net -1 to the missiles (PAs would receive only the +1 offensive modifier).

 

[McPerth]

And I just realized in all this thread the Nuclear dampers ahve not yet appeared, while they are another argument against the nuclear missiles (imagine just having a -4 due to screens on my post above...)

 

[mike wightman]

MgT also conveniently leaves out repulsors, which would further reduce the effectiveness of missile barrage fire.

Has anyone ever tried to house rule repulsor bays into MgT HG?

 

[Travellerspud]

http://www.wired.com/2014/02/navy-mini-missile/

not for use against other large ships, but small craft (i have always thought the "classic" turret missile would at best be useful vs. incoming missiles or small craft at "point blank range")

 

[Carlobrand]

Playing around with Striker missile design the other day, it occurred to me that the drone rules at TL13 imply a wicked little mini-missile. You can build a 30 kilo drone that hypothetically pulls 15 G's (well, half that outside of 10 diameters, if I recollect a'rightly) for a High Guard turn. Mix and match a bit gives you homing missiles in the 20 kg range with similar performance. Ought to be some way to parlay the little things into salvoes of little short-range kinetic-kill Macross missile massacres.

 

[BlackBat242]

Or just "counter-missile" micro-missiles.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

You know, I've always (since CT at least) had different types of missiles and sandcaster loads. While a missile bay resembles a large group of cell launchers IMHO, a missile turret resembles an older US Navy Standard missile launcher and can be loaded with different missiles depending on the fire mission. Turret launchers are more versatile.

 

[shadowcat20]

Only had experience with CT and HG but from my understanding........

First Turrets were the only offensive/defensive item allowed on civilian ships. All the screens, bays, and spine mount weapons were military only. In order for the normal Traveller PC ship to have them they would need to be registered as a Aux cruiser with some small world and have a good reason for being out of it's area of control.

Bays were also confusing in the early days. You got one per 1K tons so it was understood by everyone I knew that you needed at LEAST a 1K ship to even be able to have one. Funny thing was, a lot of the FASA ship designs had bays on ships under 1K.

Now for the turret/ missile thing, you can either fire lasers or missiles each round. Maybe the turret has a command beam/targeting laser the missile needs for it's combat run. That could make sense considering the ranges and speeds in space combat. If not for some sort of tie in to the turret then your VLS system or a droppable missile pod (From the Harrington series) could really muddle up combat and break it. Each missile bay could also have said targeting beam explaining power usage and rate of fire. Higher tech would have faster firing and targeting missiles. This would explain the higher HG numbers for the same size bay.

Just the ramblings of a old grognard,

 

[BillDowns]

Or just "counter-missile" micro-missiles.

You mean like this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Wolf_(missile)

 

[Vladika]

You mean like this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Wolf_(missile)

Or even this:

http://www.wired.com/2014/02/navy-mini-missile/

 

[Timerover51]

I have not read the entire thread, but has anyone plugged in the fact that it you are firing missiles when in orbit, unless you fire retrograde, the missiles go in orbit too, and do not go away? The same hold true for missiles fired when not in orbit. Like the Energizer Bunny, they just keep going and going and going . . . . .

 

[Carlobrand]

I have not read the entire thread, but has anyone plugged in the fact that it you are firing missiles when in orbit, unless you fire retrograde, the missiles go in orbit too, and do not go away? The same hold true for missiles fired when not in orbit. Like the Energizer Bunny, they just keep going and going and going . . . . .

Standard civilian missile's supposedly capable of 5Gs for at least six turns. (!!!) Navy missile's got to be a good bit faster or they're not much use. If you're using hex map - or that band system, if I recollect a'rightly - you have to deal with a 1G vector representing the gravity well. With a minimum 5G thrust available, they don't go into orbit - they just get slowed or deviated or sped up a bit, depending on what direction they're going relative to the gravity well.

Of course, with the right propulsion system, you can arrange for them to go into orbit if you want. Or you could go into orbit and then just "place" them to float in the orbit you want.