Doing away with Meson Guns

[Rover]

And at what rate are the attitude jets firing? Certainly attitude jets can adjust the vector, there's effectively no difference from the acceleration generated by the main drive and the acceleration generated by attitude jets.

I am not sure I am following you here. the attitude jets would not be used to accelerate the ship, only change the orientaion.

Well, there's one detail being that the main drive can produce 1G of acceleration whereas the attitude jets can generate, well, how much can they generate? The key is how long it takes you to change orientation to 25 deg X-axis and 62 on the Y-axis. Once reoriented, the main drive will adjust the vector appropriately. But if the attitude thrusters don't have much power (and they most likely won't), those changes may well not happen fast enough to dodge a light speed weapon.

The main drive can still be accelerating while the attitude gets are firing this would add even more variation to the ships course.

 

[Rover]

...attacks happen over the same long turn. I figure it's multiple shots fired into a probable cone of where the ship may be and the damage represents how many of those shots hit. a lot like the way D&D combat is abstracted. You roll for one effective hit which represents a lot of attempted strikes.

That is a good way to look at it, but what about cloose quarters or a sneak attack? If you can fire multiple beams over a long distance hoping to hit once out of many attempts would you not do more damage or get more hits?

 

[far-trader]

That is a good way to look at it, but what about cloose quarters or a sneak attack? If you can fire multiple beams over a long distance hoping to hit once out of many attempts would you not do more damage or get more hits?

...or more than once, don't forget damage is not always a single negative, some are multiples, some are criticals.

And not necessarily. The first hit is going to alert the target and they'll be evading pdq (unless it happened to kill their maneuver or power plant). And the first hit is also likely to produce a degree of target clouding that will serve to limit the effectiveness of immediately subsequent attacks on the same point. This isn't a factor in most combat since the ship changes course over a turn enough to leave such debris behind.

In such a case I'd probably be prone to allow an automatic first hit and double the chance (2 in 3 instead of 1 in 3) for a specific hit if using a Select program. Of course the tricky part is the sneak attack or point blank range in the first place. Depends a lot on how you handle sensors and target locks.

 

[whartung]

I am not sure I am following you here. the attitude jets would not be used to accelerate the ship, only change the orientaion.



The main drive can still be accelerating while the attitude gets are firing this would add even more variation to the ships course.

The detail is accerlation is acceleration is acceleration and the mass of the ship is going to be fighting it no matter what direction you go. Firing an attitude thruster to change attitude is a matter of firing the thruster, accelerating the mass of the ship toward the new vector, then firing a reverse attitude thruster to declerate the ship and stop the attitude change.

Now, because you're dealing with putting the ship in motion around it's center of mass, it's less force than moving the entire ship, but it's still a rather large fraction of the force necessary.

And a .01g thruster is more than adequate for docking maneuvers (which is why thrusters are hand waved away in the design sequences and simply "come for free"), but quite different for "jinking" the ship in combat. The ship won't want to move, or if it's moving it won't want to stop.

As was mentioned, small ships do this much better than large ships, simply because they mass less.

And the key to all of this is to actually make the ship unpredictable enough that it's vector now will be different than it's vector in 5 seconds.

So, it's not the ability to make the change, it's how fast you can make the change. If I know that once you "turn left" you can't "turn right" for 10 seconds, then I just wait for the turn. Once you start turning, you're committed and that gives me the window of stability to plot a firing solution.

In the game, most of the system tend to ignore ship facing, since the turns are so long (i.e. your vector and your actual ship facing aren't really related), though Brilliant Lances considered this. You can't accelerate at full drive capacity and not be facing along the vector of the acceleration. The less you accelerated, the more you were able to change your facing.

Finally, whatever agility you may have vanishes with range. As you close, agility goes away, since the turn around gets faster.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Who says you need to fire any stinkin' attitude jets? Isn't the M-drive a reactionless drive? If it's a field generator (which I know some folks here use), then you simply turn the field - which takes negligible time. And, since it's reactionless, there's no issue with mass - just volume.

Jiminy, you'd think y'all are playing some other game or somethin'.

 

[aramis]

Umm...

Lasers have the exact same problem. At very likely ship velocities, and at the typical engagement ranges (10ths of light seconds), the Laser firing solution is just as 3-D as a Meson solution. On land, it's a differnet story, simply because of the ranges, and light speed weapons just work wonderful at short ranges.

Actually, the laser is a cylinder a couple km long... but a few centimeters (up to 1000cm) wide. A battery of 20 can fire a sheaf with a POH approaching 99% out to about 1 LS (if it can remain focused enough to do damage) on any ship.

Meanwhile, the meson gun is a sphere only 100-200m diameter. A much shorter, but wider, 3d solution.

 

[The Thing]

Aren't meson guns fairly rare and limited as is, as are the defenses against them?

Meson weapons and their defenses should likely be limited to governments and as such will rarely come down to the players level, unless a gutsy group of players manages to steal a meson sled and load it into their FT as a nasty surprise sort of weapon....

 

[aramis]

The defense is rare: meson screens.

The weapon less so. Expensive, military and restricted purchase.

It's arguable that even Black Globes don't stop them...

 

[jec10]

Well, actually, it may have been deployed operationally as an indirect fire weapon, but it is, in fact, a direct fire weapon. What makes it an indirect fire weapon is simply LOS issues. It's not as if the terrain is going to stop the weapon. Meson guns are the perfect "bunker buster".

It has high lethality, large area of effect, ignores intervening terrain, and has perfect accuracy. They also have fast cycle times, and no flight time. When the Forward Observer calls in a fire mission, he won't get an "on its way" message, he just gets a bright flash. If a ground based observer is calling in missions from an orbital platform, there's no need for that firing ship to have any LOS at all with the target. With every other ordnance, the ship would need to literally be above the battlefield. Not so with mesons, the ship can be on the other side of the planet, assuming the gun has the range (and all ship board guns have the range).

Infantry can hunker down in rough terrain and have a chance of survival against an MLRS, but that won't affect a meson blast. High powered battle dress can have an affect against shrapnel and concusion effects. But not against a meson blast.

Finally, just to sweeten the pot, there's not counter battery fire against a meson gun. You light off an MLRS and counter battery sensors will pin point the launch site in a heartbeat. With meson guns, you just get bright flashes in bad places. The mesons literally simply "show up" and obliterate everything.

Meson Guns: When you want to reach out and touch someone, and send the very best.

All good points highlighting the advantages of a Battlefield Meson Accelerator. But in CT/Striker one costs MCr10 *and* requires a vehicle with a powerplant with 250MW spare (figure another MCr2.8 minimum). All to deliver 10cm of death and destruction once the gun crew gets around to firing.

I can purchase A HELL OF A LOT of remote MLRS or remote drone missiles for MCr12.8. Nothing counter-battery can do about them.

 

[aramis]

All good points highlighting the advantages of a Battlefield Meson Accelerator. But in CT/Striker one costs MCr10 *and* requires a vehicle with a powerplant with 250MW spare (figure another MCr2.8 minimum). All to deliver 10cm of death and destruction once the gun crew gets around to firing.

that's a scale measure, not "in character" measure. That's 15 or 20m sphere of death.

I can purchase A HELL OF A LOT of remote MLRS or remote drone missiles for MCr12.8. Nothing counter-battery can do about them.

Wrong. The thrust trail can be traced back to the MLRS, and the signals (unless meson comm) can be traced for RDDMS.

 

[Border Reiver]

Wrong. The thrust trail can be traced back to the MLRS, and the signals (unless meson comm) can be traced for RDDMS.

Mmm. Shoot and scoot.

 

[travlar]

Missiles and things like that can be shot down, and might be more expensive in the long run.

 

[jec10]

that's a scale measure, not "in character" measure. That's 15 or 20m sphere of death.



Wrong. The thrust trail can be traced back to the MLRS, and the signals (unless meson comm) can be traced for RDDMS.

Err. I think you've missed the point of a remote MRLS in CT/Striker. You drop it off somewhere, fly away, then fire it. Any counter-fire hits an empty launcher.

 

[aramis]

Err. I think you've missed the point of a remote MRLS in CT/Striker. You drop it off somewhere, fly away, then fire it. Any counter-fire hits an empty launcher.

You can still track the commo.

 

[whartung]

All good points highlighting the advantages of a Battlefield Meson Accelerator. But in CT/Striker one costs MCr10 *and* requires a vehicle with a powerplant with 250MW spare (figure another MCr2.8 minimum). All to deliver 10cm of death and destruction once the gun crew gets around to firing.

I can purchase A HELL OF A LOT of remote MLRS or remote drone missiles for MCr12.8. Nothing counter-battery can do about them.

Obviously the point of the Cr cost of the items certainly come in to play.

But the MLRS IS susceptible to both counter battery (if you want to fly around dropping disposable MLRSs around the battle field, feel free), but also the munitions themselves are susceptible to intercept through anti-air energy weapons etc.

The point is though that the Meson Accelerator makes a lethal battlefield that much more lethal. MA's ignore armor, dirt, bunkers, berms, sandbags, etc. They work in good atmosphere, bad atmosphere, no atmosphere, high G, low G, above ground, and under water. And they're (apparently), cleaner than nukes.

"Sir, tank column coming up the road down the block."

"Fry 'em Lieutenant."

Ticky ticky tick on the keyboard, and clickity click on the mouse. "Click OK to make target Extra Crispy" *click* *hmmmmm* *VOT*

"Sir, Aircraft approaching at coordinate Alpha Omega Gamma!"

"Toasty Toasty LT!"

*click* *hmmmmm* *VOT*

"Sir, ballistic Submarine detected in the Straights of Gorgonzola"

"Boil 'em, Son"

*click* *hmmmmm* *VOT*

"Sir, we found the enemy bunker at the bottom of a diamond mine!"

*hmmmmm* *VOT*

"...a ship in orbit...".

*VOT*

"...roaches under the stove!"

*VOT*

See, the MA is REALLY versatile. So while they're expensive, you get a lot of bang for your buck.

And their REAL power (IMHO) is as orbital artillery deployed on ships, not stuck on the ground on grav sleds. Couple of cruisers with a few 50 ton bays for support, and the battle field is going to look like God came through with an Ice Cream Scoop, taking samples.

 

[jec10]

You can still track the commo.

Err. Tightbeam Laser or maser commo? Or seeing as how we should be comparing TL15 MRL with a weapon that is only available at TL15, meson communicators. And if commo is said to always be vulnerable, then pray-tell how the meson weapon gets its fire mission orders? How does it know where to fire at that bunker at the bottom of the diamond mine?

No doubt the Meson is effective. Never questioned that. Its whether it is cost-effective that I'm interested in. For the MCr12.8 of just one battlefield meson (or MCr 30 if going by CT LBB: Mercenary) I could buy ten G-carriers each with ten disposable MRLs and have oodles of variable ballistics cluster munitions dispensing rockets landing on an area hundreds of metres square (not just the few tens of metres a meson obliterates). Also, remember that in CT/Striker point defence is handicapped against MRLs because it gets overloaded. And I'd have cash to spare for other things. For the 1400MCr of a meson bay equipped cruiser I could buy dozens of SDBs or more than a few deep site mesons to keep it out of range.

 

[aramis]

Well, meson comm (TL15 under most editions) is almost immune to commo intercept. But it's not small, not cheap, and requires as accurate a firing solution as counter-battery fire.

As to laser-com, maser-com, or tight-beam radio-com, the correct chaff will RAPIDLY reveal the line of comm, perhaps even the sender (if in the chaffed area) AND break comm-LOS if dense enough.

As to worth it: A single meson hit can kill any adventure-class starship, rendering it to dust. It can potentially cripple even cruisers. It can wipe out almost any ground installation simply by disruption of the central power or comm.

The power draw, however, is enormous.

If you can use it, a major meson gun is able to just flat out eliminate stuff. A capital ship with a dozen factor 5 or 9 bays as secondaries is able to kill just about anything it can hit. One Meson bay, in a single shot, can mission kill even the largest ships, simply by vaping the PP....

 

[The Thing]

This may sound like I'm cracking a joke or being sarcastic, but I swear I'm being serious here, so please treat this as a serious message.

All this talk of meson weapons being able to take out bases in diamond mines and roaches under the fridge made me wonder something, seriously:

Could a micro scale meson weapon, or I should say device, be used to kill tumors in people?

No, seriously, think of it:

"Well, Mr. Smith, I'm afraid I have some bad news, but don't get worried, we're going to take care of it right now."

"W-what's the news, doc?"

"Seems you've got a tumor in your brain. Now, as I said, don't get upset, just come with me, I've got the meson thereapy machine reserved and loaded with the results of your MATscan, it's ready to go."

Mr. Smith and his doctor walk down a corridor to a room labled "Meson therapy." A device looking like a modern CAT or PET scanner awaits. The nervous Mr. Smith is placed on the table and immobolized. The table slides his head into the meson therapy unit and a micro scale meson device proceeds to obliterate the tumor in the middle of his brain without any harm to surrounding tissue.

Now I don't know if this would work, possibly due to heat buildup, but maybe the unit could work in tiny pulses that would kill sections of the tumor over a period of seconds, giving the brain fluids a chance to dissipate heat.

I just realized a meson unit might be able to do something like this, unless some real grognard knows something about them I don't, like if they emit gamma radiation or something like that.

 

[The Oz]

This may sound like I'm cracking a joke or being sarcastic, but I swear I'm being serious here, so please treat this as a serious message.

All this talk of meson weapons being able to take out bases in diamond mines and roaches under the fridge made me wonder something, seriously:

Could a micro scale meson weapon, or I should say device, be used to kill tumors in people?

They already are using mesons for this. Look here:

http://www.triumf.ca/welcome/pion_trtmt.html

to see for yourself.

 

[jec10]

Well, meson comm (TL15 under most editions) is almost immune to commo intercept. But it's not small, not cheap, and requires as accurate a firing solution as counter-battery fire.

As to laser-com, maser-com, or tight-beam radio-com, the correct chaff will RAPIDLY reveal the line of comm, perhaps even the sender (if in the chaffed area) AND break comm-LOS if dense enough.

I'm sorry if I was a bit elliptical, but I really can't see the point you're making here. My point is simply that both the meson gun and the MRL are going to require someone to communicate with them to call in fire beyond LOS. Its a wash. Whats good for the goose must be good for the gander. Either the commo can be traced, in which case the Meson Gun is just as vulnerable as the MRL (and more vulnerable than a remote MRL), or the commo can't be traced in which case we don't have an issue in either circumstance. In which case we are back to the cost effectiveness argument. Given all other things being equal, is a battlefield meson accelerator better value for money than the alternatives, if so, why? (note I'm not talking about starship combat and never was).