HG Option: Bay Weapon Batteries

[far-trader]

I’ve often thought it’d be interesting to have some medium big weapons, better than bay weapons but lesser than spinal mounts. So I wondered again, why not group bay weapons into batteries like turrets for more effective weapon factors?

I've never sat down and tried it out so I thought I'd just throw it out here for feedback on any problems some might see with it. It was Bill's recent posting of his flexible battery rules that twigged this, and naturally that should apply to bay weapon batteries too

So here it is, a simple High Guard styled table for bay weapon batteries:

Bay Weapons:

USP Code       Meson    Particle                              Plasma    Fusion        
 Bonus         Gun      Accelerator    Repulsor    Missile    Gun       Gun

 +0              1        1              1           1          1         1
 +1              2        2              3           3          4         4
 +2              4        4              6           6         10        10
 +3              6        6              8          12         16        16
 +4             10       10             10          18         20        20
 +5              -        -             20          30          -         -

For example:

Mounting 3 TL10 50ton Missile Bays would normally be 3 batteries of factor 7, but by grouping them as 1 battery you get a USP bonus of +1 for 1 battery factor 8.

Mounting 10 TL15 100ton Meson Bays would normally be 10 batteries of factor 9, but by grouping them as 1 battery you get a USP bonus of +4 for 1 battery factor D.

Mounting 20 TL14 50ton Repulsor Bays would normally be 20 batteries of factor 5, but by grouping them as 2 batteries of 10 bays each you get a USP bonus of +4 for 2 batteries of factor 9.

To Hit and Penetration Tables will need to be extrapolated (a simple exercise I leave to the reader) for Repulsors, Missiles, Plasma Guns, and Fusion Guns. The tables for Meson Guns and Particle Accelerators are already include factors over 9.

 

[BillDowns]

I've played around with the same thing, but I always wind up using the same table as turrets. Mostly because I'm lazy

One of the other things I've played with - altho I lost it somewhere moving to a new laptop - was a spreadsheet that let me custom build bays from 25 tons up to 1000 tons.

I've always had a dislike for spinal mounts - something about aiming the whole ship at a target bothers me.

 

[far-trader]

I've played around with the same thing, but I always wind up using the same table as turrets. Mostly because I'm lazy

Pretty much what I did, and for the same reason Well, and that I thought it might keep things more or less in balance.

One of the other things I've played with - altho I lost it somewhere moving to a new laptop - was a spreadsheet that let me custom build bays from 25 tons up to 1000 tons.

Now that you mention it I seem to recall an article about something like that somewhere. Freelance Traveller maybe. I'll have to look a bit.

Of course I like the smaller bays from the first edition of High Guard too. Never thought to just make bigger bays. That'd do the trick too.

 

[The Oz]

I "built" some larger (and smaller) bays. You can see the result here

 

[far-trader]

Most excellent Oz

The extended Lasers and Sand was next on my list of "I always wanted... "

Thanks for sharing.