Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Technically, they're breakaway hulls.
Of Battle Tenders and Battle Riders....
- Thread starter Jeff M. Hopper
- Start date
Technically, they're breakaway hulls.
I've always figured that to fire a spinal mount required a spacecraft to very carefully orient the entire craft on a target, with the weapon perhaps incorporating some focusing equipment for very fine tuning, the weapon needing to have such fine accuracy that the angle being off by the width of a virus could cause a miss at long range. I always figured they only mounted the one because there was no point in another one - the effort required to aim the one precluded trying to aim a second at the same time, and they can line the one gun up for a second shot in very little more time than it'd take them to line up a second gun, little enough as to not be worth the tonnage expended in mounting the second weapon. In that situation, only one of the riders could get off a shot in any given round.
Now figure the rider's sensors are not likely to have an unobstructed view of the target along the the axis of the weapon unless the tender was constructed with that specifically in mind. And, the rider has to be able to control the tender's movements to the same degree of precision as it would its own, which again is unlikely unless the tender was constructed with that specifically in mind. Or, the tender needs to be able to control the rider's weapon so it can aim and fire the weapon as its own, as it is using its own sensors and adjusting its own maneuvers to achieve a targeting solution - again implying the tender/rider pair are constructed with that tactic in mind, with the necessary level of communication links through the docking mechanism to make it possible.
Basically, I think what you're looking at is: this can't be done unless you're specifically constructing a ship in which the spinal mount the ship controls is itself a craft that can disengage from the larger ship - at which point some admiral steps up and asks why they're building a tender that is specifically designed to accompany a single rider into battle. Not so much impossible as impractical to the point of never getting built.
Now figure the rider's sensors are not likely to have an unobstructed view of the target along the the axis of the weapon unless the tender was constructed with that specifically in mind. And, the rider has to be able to control the tender's movements to the same degree of precision as it would its own, which again is unlikely unless the tender was constructed with that specifically in mind. Or, the tender needs to be able to control the rider's weapon so it can aim and fire the weapon as its own, as it is using its own sensors and adjusting its own maneuvers to achieve a targeting solution - again implying the tender/rider pair are constructed with that tactic in mind, with the necessary level of communication links through the docking mechanism to make it possible.
Basically, I think what you're looking at is: this can't be done unless you're specifically constructing a ship in which the spinal mount the ship controls is itself a craft that can disengage from the larger ship - at which point some admiral steps up and asks why they're building a tender that is specifically designed to accompany a single rider into battle. Not so much impossible as impractical to the point of never getting built.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
If it's six seconds per combat round; accuracy increased the more you delay the shot to the subsequent rounds.
But over six, ten or twenty minutes per action, that's a large time period to fire off each weapon system.
But over six, ten or twenty minutes per action, that's a large time period to fire off each weapon system.
The convention, as I understood it, was to assume the weapons are already firing many times in a 20-minute-or-so turn, since otherwise one can argue that the ship does not require full power at all times and can therefore do things like applying power to agility between shots.
Nonetheless, it still remains that the second spinal has no role - except perhaps as a back-up system, with just a little bitty stretch of the rules - if the entire ship is lining up the shot for the first spinal and can then immediately start lining up the next shot with that same spinal after it's fired. It's like carrying two rifles - nice, but you're only able to shoulder and aim one at a time, and spacecraft aren't in a position to shoot "from the hip" at ranges in the tens of thousands of kilometers.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
More like firing off two firelock pistols.
Or two RPGs strapped to your back.With kinetic weapons it depends on magazine capacity, while I've never seen it mentioned in regard to spaceships, for energy based weapon systems, it depends on capacitors, batteries and direct power diversion from the plant.
Actual rate of fire can also depend on cooling down components.
At twenty minutes and no mention of energy points it's abstract. At six seconds and a power rating it becomes material.
Or two RPGs strapped to your back.With kinetic weapons it depends on magazine capacity, while I've never seen it mentioned in regard to spaceships, for energy based weapon systems, it depends on capacitors, batteries and direct power diversion from the plant.
Actual rate of fire can also depend on cooling down components.
At twenty minutes and no mention of energy points it's abstract. At six seconds and a power rating it becomes material.
Which again comes down to whether or not the full power of the plant is being used at all times. If it's not, then there's power available for something else while components are cooling down. Given the cost and size of the power plants, an abstraction that leaves unused power sitting idle is a hole that needs patching. If we assume these abstract rules reflect all power being used at all times, then they make sense. If we assume these abstract rules reflect some power is going unused while parts are cooling down - enough to warrant putting in and using a second spinal while the first is cooling - then the rules imply a setting in which admirals and ship designers aren't making every effort to take full advantage of their warcraft's potential, unless of course they install that second spinal, which the rules don't allow for. So, to justify a second spinal, we have to imagine a hole in the rules that the rules themselves don't imply. But, then w'd have to explain why ships that don't mount the second spinal aren't getting a bit of benefit from periods of increased agility during the cool-down phases, if those periods are significant enough to offer an opportunity for two spinals in play.
Which ... anyone's free to re-imagine the rules, and that can take us to some really cool places. Double-barreled spaceships would be way cool, as would tenders that had their several riders firing mesons at attackers, but the rules as written don't seem to imply that. I've actually been thinking tank-like spaceships with a ginormous turret housing a second spinal would be a better way to imagine it, if one is inclined toward that - and it's actually rather difficult to explain why warcraft can't be built that way. Terran battlecruiser Bismarck launches with a pair of C's in turret housings instead of the standard backbone-mount single-T.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
You could fire the spinal mount twice in the previous Mongoose rule set, then you have to skip a round.
Made battlecruisers more interesting.
Made battlecruisers more interesting.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
I have a whole power allocation game worked out for CT/HG, along with maneuver, kinetic effects, armor being more of a thing, harsh choices with sand, EW sand, four ranges instead of two, and other stuff.
Kept on hanging up on the correlation of to-hit to design value and the damage tables. The really egregious design flaw is the destruction of maneuver drives no matter how big- that's gotta go.
Recently I decided to chuck the damage tables and work up my own. They look more like CT tables then HG, but they get a lot of the same feel and interactions, and I think I can get it down to one page of to-hit and DMs and have it work in abstract fleet, abstract ACS and maneuver ACS scales.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
TNE FFS discuss rate of fire in detail. Weapons, even spinals, fire many times in a space combat round and use the rated power all the time.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
TNE FF&S also allows having more than one spinal mount - the parallel mount.
That sounds very interesting. "Harsh choices with sand"?
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Simply put, sand should interfere with shots outbound as well as inbound.
'EW Sand' would increase the negative to hit- but require no outbound shots or agility/accel maneuver to avoid giving hard energy positional datapoints.
In either case, accel/decel would move the ship out of LOS of the sand cloud, so proper use of sand requires staying put.
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