Laser Barbettes

[ddamant]

It seems logical that 5-ton Laser Barbettes (aka Laser Cannons) would be available for Starships. The issue is making them worth taking vs. a triple turret of the same beam type. I have a couple of initial ideas

Pulse laser barbette - 6 hits, no penalty to hit, 2MCr
Beam laser barbette - 3 hits, +1 to hit, 4 MCr

Limit of one barbette per 200 tons.

Any thoughts?

 

[nobby-w]

It seems logical that 5-ton Laser Barbettes (aka Laser Cannons) would be available for Starships. The issue is making them worth taking vs. a triple turret of the same beam type. I have a couple of initial ideas

Pulse laser barbette - 6 hits, no penalty to hit, 2MCr
Beam laser barbette - 3 hits, +1 to hit, 4 MCr

Limit of one barbette per 200 tons.

Any thoughts?

For High Guard (CT Book 5) I did the following:

• 2t barbettes - +1 to factor, -2 to damage. Pulse lasers got -4 in total. Double the power consumption and cost.
• 3t barbettes - +2 to factor, -3 to damage. Triple the power consumption and cost.

Note that the added baggage of a large power plant (particularly at tech levels below 15) gives them significant cost. For example at TL12, a factor-6 3t pulse laser battery (2x triple, 2x double 3t barbettes, 10 lasers total) would use 30EP. This would take up 90t of power plant for a total cost of MCr270 and 30t of PP fuel to power.

 

[mike wightman]

I have had many thoughts about incorporating barbettes into LBB2 over the years.

What I do at the moment is a barbette can be added in addition to the turret hardpoint allocation.

My reasoning is that a ship can upgun by carrying a fighter - 14t including pilot stateroom on the mothership, which is basically a mobile turret.

So a barbette allows you to mount extra weapons - you are still limited to single-triple mounted lasers etc - but you can also mount PA in barbettes. Plasma and fusion guns can be single or double mounted in a barbette (turret mounted plasma and fusion guns require an additional ton of equipment in addition to the 1ton of fire control.

A few years ago I did toy with heavy turrets and barbettes mounting more weapons, here is the thread:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=3583