Planetoids are not permitted for Small Craft. HG, page 34, Paragraph 4.
Jump number for Bombardment Cruiser
- Thread starter Garyius2003
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Planetoids are not permitted for Small Craft. HG, page 34, Paragraph 4.
Ah, I didn't realize that. So a buffered planetoid Not-so-small Craft somewhere between 100 and 199T with armor 21 would be better? Even if its to-hit DM would be one level higher.
Hans
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Garyius2003
SOC-13
So for HG jump in two tenders with 20 each of these 99 ton rocks, and ten cruisers with two bays replaced with deadfall. Assume the line is the close orbit, put the rocks on line, rotate them back to the tenders when they get overly nuked, cruisers go in, shoot at the deep meson sites with the spinals for a few turns and shoot at ground targets with the bays, rotate back out and start repairing. Rinse and repeat.
Nice rules exploit.
Nice rules exploit.
Immaterial, as planetoid hulls are forbidden for small craft.
Small craft can't be planetoids, and no non-planetoid craft cannot have more than TL in AV.
Either way, you cant have a 99T AV18 craft below TL 18.
Munchkins. I FREAKING HATE THE MUNCHKINS.
Vladika
SOC-14 1K
By CT Errata you need only ONE dton of fuel for Smallcraft. Endurance drops fast but for 12 hours fighting it should be just fine.
I don't remember where but IIRC 12 hours/36 turns is maximum pilot endurance for combat.
Vladika
SOC-14 1K
Bay Mesons are still going to kick the stool out from under the seat of your pants. Meson hits are not reduced by armor.
As mentioned, a planetoid small craft violates existing rules; it could only exist in a house-rules setting. Kick it up to 100 dTons, you can't drop the bridge, start having to make other compromises. However ...
A 1000-dTon planetoid bomber works quite nicely. It can carry the full Model-9, doesn't have to deal with that lack-of-bridge penalty, and can mount a meson screen.
1000 dTon planetoid orbital bomber
Percentage based components:
35% Buffered Planetoid hull
2% Bridge
14% Armor F-13 (total 19 due to configuration)
17% MD-6
12% PP-6, fuel-6 for agility 6
---
80% (800 dTons)
Tonnage based components:
13 Model-9
40 Meson Screen
needs 12+18 or 30 EP
60 +30 power plant, +30 tons fuel (total PP-9)
50 missile bay
30 quarters for 15 crew (Book 2: pilot, 8 engineers, 2 missile gunners, 4 screen operators)
195 tons
Total: 995 dTons, unless I missed something.
Agility 6, -1 for size. Invulnerable to anything but mesons and PA spinals, and it shouldn't expect to see PA spinals unless someone throws it into a fight against large warships. In that case, about 1 in 36 PA spinal hits will do damage: 1 hit to the missile battery. Meson bays can't penetrate the meson screen.
Spinal mesons, or the main batteries of planetary defenses, need an 11 if the craft stands off at long range (assuming it's a TL 15 world; lower tech worlds suffer DMs due to lower computer ratings). However, I would rule that a bombing craft needs to bomb from short range; deadfall from long range leaves a long time for ground batteries to target and destroy the ordnance, and missiles from long range would hit atmosphere at a velocity that at best blinds them and breaks their communication link with the launcher and at worst destroys them. Ergo +2 to meson fire: they need a 9 at TL 15. The meson screen and buffered hull combination will stop about a quarter of those hits, assuming a TL 15 battery, better against lower tech batteries. Overall, 21% chance of taking a hit against a TL 15 T-meson battery; drops to ~10% against a TL 14 S-meson, ~1.35% against a TL 13 P-meson.
5 tons available cargo translates to 675 missile reloads, if you're tracking missiles, so figure ... actually, I know how many missile salvos a turret carries, but not how many a bay carries beyond the one salvo. Still, at least 14 turns of fire before it has to pull to the rear to reload from a transport.
Cost in quantity is a bit over MCr 640.
If you aren't going to run it against a warship, you only need about 14 factors of armor to be immune from anything but spinals, assuming a meson screen. However, the buffered planetoid is useful for lowering cost and for adding a bit more resistance to meson fire, a nice combination. It costs about half the cost of a 10-boat squadron of the 99-dTonners, since you only need 1 computer instead of 10, and it has much better combat survival against defenders of TL13 or less since it's using a Model/9 instead of an impaired Model/8. And, it's "street-legal".
Garyius2003
SOC-13
This did make me reconsider, though. At TL 15 I can cram 6G A6, full screens, armor 15, with a J Meson Spinal, 6-50 ton deadfall bays, and some bats of casters and lasers, into 15KdT of rider.
Now the HG exploit is working. One J3 tender at 225KdT gives me 8 of these bombardment riders, plus 1KdT for repair parts.
Turn 1 all 8 go into close orbit as the line, after turn 2 the most damaged rotates back to the tender in reserve for repairs.
Even if a world has multiple deep meson sites with full screens, 8 Js will take a site down. Given the ability to break off since the world cannot move, the attackers will always end up winning as long as they control that part of the system.
Now the HG exploit is working. One J3 tender at 225KdT gives me 8 of these bombardment riders, plus 1KdT for repair parts.
Turn 1 all 8 go into close orbit as the line, after turn 2 the most damaged rotates back to the tender in reserve for repairs.
Even if a world has multiple deep meson sites with full screens, 8 Js will take a site down. Given the ability to break off since the world cannot move, the attackers will always end up winning as long as they control that part of the system.
Garyius2003
SOC-13
Great. Is there a way to do something like this in Mongoose, even with the bomb pumped lasers? Mongoose seems to have prevented this exact exploit with their remote orbital floating missile bay baby stations with solar power and reactors that come online only for combat.
6D6 and no damper effects can cut through armor quickly on the smaller ships.
6D6 and no damper effects can cut through armor quickly on the smaller ships.
Vladika
SOC-14 1K
You can get all that for a lot smaller ship. At 10kt, and Armor 14, you can even have J1 drives and J-fuel on-board.
In any case, it would be quite an specialized ship, so of only limited utility in real war.
THis aside, I disagree it could retreat if damaged, as if hit by a deep meson gun it would be likely to have fuel tanks shattered, so being unable to move (retreat in this case) and free game for boarding parties if the planetary navy has reserved some SDBs when other ships retreat or are all dead in space, or for target practice by those same deep meson sites until it's fully destroyed (or crewless).
And I guess such a planet will have anti missile systems even when it atmosphere (aside frrom nuking populations does not seem a usual tactic in OTU canon, so I asume there are some war rules, as was debated some time ago).
Aside from agreeing with you, most those exploits would lead to a ship/squadron thought just or one kind of battle (or enemy), and so nearly useless in real war, as it rarely will find its ideal conditions, and even if it finds them, it will be only for one battle, as the enemy is likely to learn.
THis aside, I disagree it could retreat if damaged, as if hit by a deep meson gun it would be likely to have fuel tanks shattered, so being unable to move (retreat in this case) and free game for boarding parties if the planetary navy has reserved some SDBs when other ships retreat or are all dead in space, or for target practice by those same deep meson sites until it's fully destroyed (or crewless).
And I guess such a planet will have anti missile systems even when it atmosphere (aside frrom nuking populations does not seem a usual tactic in OTU canon, so I asume there are some war rules, as was debated some time ago).
Aside from agreeing with you, most those exploits would lead to a ship/squadron thought just or one kind of battle (or enemy), and so nearly useless in real war, as it rarely will find its ideal conditions, and even if it finds them, it will be only for one battle, as the enemy is likely to learn.
There is the minor problem of finding the deep meson sites before they can be targeted. IIRC canon suggests gaining pre-battle intel on their location or targeting the sensors, and no doubt there will be much sensor redundancy.
And if there are no deep meson sites then the TL15 rock may be overkill.
And if there are no deep meson sites then the TL15 rock may be overkill.
Munchkinism? I really don't see how the Wizard of Oz applies to this.
At any rate, there's a simple fix for this particular brand of "exploit": introduce in errata a rule that says there's no such thing as invulnerability from surface damage - a roll of 2 on the surface damage results table will always do at least a Weapon-1 damage result. End result will be ships can't sit there shrugging off masses of laser and missile fire; they'll suffer a 2.8% attritional damage rate to weapons from lucky hits irrespective of how heavy their armor is - which makes a certain amount of sense since, except for mesons, those weapons need to be exposed to some degree if they're going to shoot. Mesons - well, you may not be able to hit the meson within its armor protection, but you can still hit its eyes and ears, so same rule applies.
So's the B-52. So's the Predator drone. Sometimes there's a place for specialized ships.
The answer to the meson is not to get hit. Once you get hit, it's pretty well letters to next of kin time: even a factor P averages over 6 Crew-1 results per hit, thanks to that bit about it getting extra damage rolls. As to retreating or boarding, I remind that the attack in this context is a run on a planet, with the boat presumably doing its agility-6 best to not get hit. The boat's vector would be whatever vector it had in the instant before its drives stopped; it would be very unlikely to have both the direction and magnitude to end up in a circular orbit in that instant.
I figure maybe a 1 in 3 chance it just happens to be vectored toward the planet in that instant, with unfortunate results for both the boat and the area within a few hundred yards of the impact point. Otherwise, its vector could take it back out to its fleet or off in some random direction, likely with enough momentum to keep on going rather than fall back in a hyperbolic orbit - and your planet can't follow it. That latter case does give a chance at boarding, but I don't see much point in it: you can't land the thing so there's nothing to do with it until you drive off the enemy fleet; there's the distinct possibility the enemy will attack you if your boarding force drifts beyond range of your planet's defenses; and there's not much left undamaged inside the hull after a spinal meson's detonated inside a 1000 dTon ship, so the military value of such a boarding is pretty much nil. Note that my design deliberately did not use a fibre-optic computer; the computer's pretty much going to be mulch after a spinal meson hit - the TL13 P-meson would inflict an average of about 20 computer damage results between radiation and internal damage rolls, rendering the captured computer twice-over useless as a source of military intel.
If we were talking about a ship-killer, I would agree: the enemy responds to a ship-killer by leading with a type of ship the ship-killer's not designed to face, and the ship-killer's in trouble. The current discussion however presupposes that the attacker is facing off against planetary defenses, not an opposing fleet. In this context, the "ideal conditions" are fairly broad (the enemy fleet must be neutralized) and common (any enemy-occupied planet is a potential candidate). The bomber is specialized only in the same sense that a troop transport is specialized: it exists to perform a specific but common type of mission.
Jeff M. Hopper
SOC-14 1K
Ignore this post if it doesn't fit YTU.
I wonder at how often bombardment is used, IMTU it does not happen often enough to require dedicated ships in the Golden Age of the Imperium. So what happens is that the Navy takes older TL 14 cruisers that are being replaced by newer TL 15 ships and have them retrofitted as bombardment cruisers. I got the idea from how the American Navy reactivated a few old WW2 Battleships and primarily used them as offshore bombardment platforms.
I wonder at how often bombardment is used, IMTU it does not happen often enough to require dedicated ships in the Golden Age of the Imperium. So what happens is that the Navy takes older TL 14 cruisers that are being replaced by newer TL 15 ships and have them retrofitted as bombardment cruisers. I got the idea from how the American Navy reactivated a few old WW2 Battleships and primarily used them as offshore bombardment platforms.
Garyius2003
SOC-13
I think you are likely right.
I have developed an idea over the years that the 3I Army has large fleets in reserve spread over the hi tech/high pop worlds. When landings are called for, the ships are manned by reservists and the Corps and Armies assemble in convoys.
Huge troop transports and vehicle/supply transports; modular high ports; Lander squadrons; TL13 or 14 cruisers refitted with bombardment bays and upgraded meson screens and dampers.
I have developed an idea over the years that the 3I Army has large fleets in reserve spread over the hi tech/high pop worlds. When landings are called for, the ships are manned by reservists and the Corps and Armies assemble in convoys.
Huge troop transports and vehicle/supply transports; modular high ports; Lander squadrons; TL13 or 14 cruisers refitted with bombardment bays and upgraded meson screens and dampers.
Vladika
SOC-14 1K
During World War II the U.S. Army operated approximately 127,793 pieces of floating e
During WWII the US Army had more ships than the US Navy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_of_the_United_States_Army
During WWII the US Army had more ships than the US Navy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_of_the_United_States_Army
We know these ships can last more than 40 years. Supplement 7 speaks to converting 40-year old scouts into mining ships, free traders run 40 year mortgages, Supplement 5 speaks of 28 of the 92 AHL cruisers built between 990 and 1000 being upgraded in 1080, with 15 remaining in service as of 1107, over a century of service. Even some of the ill-fated Kinunirs have managed at least 30 years.
We know Imperial warships favor a lot of bay weapons, and those that aren't missiles can be converted pretty easily. Converting the spinal into bays - or a mix of a lighter Meson spinal and missile bays - is not a great hurdle; the target isn't moving and will rarely be of TL14 or better, so a J or N should be adequate. That same TL bit means the older ship's TL 14 design won't be much of a handicap.
We know from Supplement 5 that the Navy had no problem converting AHLs for their own use: of that 92-ship run, 28 were upgraded with their TL14 PA spinals replaced with TL15 Meson spinals, and 16 were converted to fleet tankers. That's almost half the run.
We know, at least in the Spinward Marches, the wars are occurring at long intervals: 589, 615, 979, 1082, 1107. Elsewhere, other than the Solomani Rim War of a century back, there's been several centuries of relative peace. Outside of the Marches and the Solomani border region, it would not surprise me if the Imperium were only replacing ships as they wore out.
Given the cost of a warship, the long intervals between wars and the fact that the target planets will often be of lower tech, it makes sense to convert something you already have, something which is being replaced on the front line and would otherwise collect space dust in some boneyard, rather than building something new. For this role, obsolescent ships are perfect.
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