Errata - that difficult subject

[Carlobrand]

Nothing? Spacecraft weapons are doomsday devices in vehicle combat. If a PA/meson hits you are dead, no matter the details...
Unless the target is a heavy grav tank, a laser will do just the same.

On the other hand direct fire at 50 000 km isn't trivial, with a base difficulty of Impossible beyond 500 km at TL-15.
Anything beyond a few km at personal scale is effectively indirect fire. With a danger space of 15 m you are unlikely to hit a moving target, because of the delay in the fire order.

To be clear, I'm not referencing vehicle combat. 50,000 km is planetary range, which is space combat "near" range, 2 hexes. Even at longer ranges, the penetration is only halved, and 125 exceeds the highest armor rating on the table. Like I said, I've got a weapon here that can slice through battleship armor like a hot knife through butter, but in the Referee's Manual the exact same weapon is getting stopped cold by the battleship's armor. That value is way, way too high.

Yea, the problem isn't hitting the vehicle. The problem is hitting it with power. The atmosphere is a wonderful laser shield. It scatters and absorbs the laser energy.

They actually have rules for that, though I doubt the rules accurately emulate the situation. At any rate, they have addressed that. The basic range bands assume a standard atmosphere. Ship lasers have an attenuation of 5, so they'd be full power to 5 km and half power beyond 5 km in a thin, standard, or dense atmosphere, which puts them in the 35 to 40 range for penetration, not much use except against unarmored vehicles and low tech armored vehicles. I recall someone pointed out that this was a bit absurd - two steps left, you're getting hit for 70 instead of 35. They should probably have come up with a better attenuation system.

Direct fire from orbit is possible for high tech ships, but you'd need some serious bonuses so I'm guessing the target would have to be something like a building; cloud cover would be a factor, but you pretty much know exactly where a building is, so that might not prevent firing. Ship lasers firing on a building from orbit though would be way wicked.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

To be clear, I'm not referencing vehicle combat. 50,000 km is planetary range, which is space combat "near" range, 2 hexes.

There just isn't that kind of congruency between spacecraft and vehicle/personal combat.
By the vehicle rules any good bay or spinal would cut a battleship in half, or even vaporise it outright.

The superficial rules about spacecraft in vehicle combat are more about an ACS in personal combat. At least moderately armoured with very powerful guns. Enemy G-Carrier go splat...

 

[McPerth]

From another old thread about using MT vehicle weapons at starship combat:

This also has several problems. As one square is 25000 km and maximum range is among Planetary (KK 5-50 for Energy Weapons) and Far Orbit (KK 50-500), I'll asume most combat is fought at those distances.

Most space rated weapons (as per table in PM page 80) have attenuation 5, increased to 8 as per table in RM page 23, so they will have its pen value halved.

Assuming ship's tables are treated as fire controlled weapons (PM page 72)...

• Weapons from TL 11- cannotfire at those distances (as their máximum range is regional)
• For weapons TL 12+, table only reaches up to continental (5 KK), where hit is imposible.
• So, let's asume any hit is imposible (so needs a 19+ to hit). Of course, DMs for skill, and tactics may be used (if you have enough of them). Not sure about other DMs (computers? Agility?)

Assuming a hit is achieved:

• Blasers and Plasers under TL 13 will achieve a zero penetration hit, so producing 10% its damage (50-75 hits), modified by success (as per PM page 70-71) all in superstructure (I guess hull)
• Energy weapons and Plasers-13 will have pen in the 40-52 range (low penetration), so inflicting 50% damage (400-450 hits), again modified by sucess. Element hit should be rolled (though not sure in which table, as the one in PM page 74 is not fully adequate)
• PAs have penetration rate x 250 at planetary range and rate x 125 afterwards, so inflicting hi penetration hits, so full damage (2000 hits)
• (Missiles are not in this table and I don't find them right now)

A ship can sustain 90 hits/100 dton in the hull to have it inoperable, and 225 hits/100 dton to be destroyed...

So, a 200 dton unarmored ship (a Beowulf, yact or Safary ship. IMHO the typical players') can sustain about 4 hits from lasers (other than Plaser-13) or 1 from Plasr-13 or energy weapons before having its hull inoperative, and about 9 laser hits, 2 from Plasers or energy weapons or 1 from a PA to be destroyed, and any hit affecting other elements of the ship will destroy it outright.

Also worth to look at this other old thread (over 10 years old)

And this one, from this same thread (though, again years ago), about using PAs as Ortillery (it was prtially fixed in the Consolidated Errata):

Some months ago, in another thread, there was an argument about how damage is applied to vehicles in zero penetration case.

Today, reviewing Traveller Digest nº 20 Q&A (*), I saw in zero penetration situation damage is given as NE with a note that says vehicles and robots take 10% damage as superstructure hits. So, personnel takes no damage (al long as armor is fully closed) and vehicles/robots 10% damage as superstructure (regardles if its armor is complete or it's not) if their armor is higher than penetration.

This gives us a paradoxal situation:

In a planet with standard atmosphere, we have a zone about 200 m in diameter where there are 6 Trepida Tanks (armor 40) and 15 soldiers in vacc suits (armor 5). (Trepidas took most of the budget and there was not money for better personal armor...).

A starship acting as ortillery support fires a factor 7 PA against them, hitting the center of the zone (standard hit, rolling just what is needed, so no multipliers for damage, nor automatic hits). Danger space is (factor x 15), so 105 m radius, affecting all the troops.

As atmosphere is denser than trace, penetration for PAs is 0. Of course distance is irrelevant (as long as it is in range), as you can halve 0 as much as you want and it won't change anything. So both troops and tanks are in zero penetration situation.

Damage for PAs is 2000. Troops are fully enclosed by armor, so, as zero penetration rules say, they are unhurt. Tanks are likewise fully enclosed, in zero penetration situation, but, as they are vehicles, they recieve 10% damage (200 hits) each as superstructure hits.

So, after the hit, we have 6 smoking destroyed Trepidas and 15 unhurt infantrymen in vacc suit...

As much as I try, I cannot see any logic in this outcome, and I feel it's against rules spirit to allow PAs to be used as ortillery in atmosphere in first place, and making tanks more vulnerable than lighty armored infantrymen in second place. So I think something is flawed on those rules.

I know it's an extreme situation, but I've always believed extremes are the best to show the flaws in most rules/laws.

 

[Carlobrand]

There just isn't that kind of congruency between spacecraft and vehicle/personal combat. ...

Which is why I brought the question here rather than elsewhere.

For other weapons, the attenuation rules cut potential penetration in half before you reach space combat ranges. Lasers and energy weapons both are halved outside of 5000 km, so they're only a problem if you create a "point blank" range for space combat. Particle beams are unique in carrying a penetration value that carries into space combat ranges, and the value is so high that it's a problem at all ranges.

 

[Carlobrand]

...

• Blasers and Plasers under TL 13 will achieve a zero penetration hit, so producing 10% its damage (50-75 hits), modified by success (as per PM page 70-71) all in superstructure (I guess hull)
• Energy weapons and Plasers-13 will have pen in the 40-52 range (low penetration), so inflicting 50% damage (400-450 hits), again modified by sucess. Element hit should be rolled (though not sure in which table, as the one in PM page 74 is not fully adequate)
• PAs have penetration rate x 250 at planetary range and rate x 125 afterwards, so inflicting hi penetration hits, so full damage (2000 hits)
• (Missiles are not in this table and I don't find them right now)

A ship can sustain 90 hits/100 dton in the hull to have it inoperable, and 225 hits/100 dton to be destroyed...

Player's Manual damage system is a snarl of tangled problems, I agree. As I recall, it had the interesting property of allowing a company of riflemen to cripple a tank with bullets.

Fortunately, I don't need to try to fix the entire Player's Manual personal combat system since I'm looking at the problem of a single Player's Manual weapon in Referee's Manual space combat. That problem has the advantage of being much narrower in scope and therefore more amenable to solution in an errata forum, although I have no objection to tackling the personal combat system if that's what people want.

 

[Marcatlas]

Direct fire from orbit is possible for high tech ships, but you'd need some serious bonuses so I'm guessing the target would have to be something like a building; cloud cover would be a factor, but you pretty much know exactly where a building is, so that might not prevent firing. Ship lasers firing on a building from orbit though would be way wicked.

With present day visual "sensors" on some of the USA's satellites you could target a person from orbit if you had a laser on the craft.

 

[infojunky]

With present day visual "sensors" on some of the USA's satellites you could target a person from orbit if you had a laser on the craft.

Kinda, if you spend a bunch more money... (hint, my job would be much easier if this level of technology was available). Note a sensor platform on a high altitude drone probably be the more effective solution. Note this is about range and loiter time coupled with off board computational assets (i.e. speed of light delay).