Missile damage

[Richard Saunders]

Hello Siggy.
Thanks but i have T20, may have Mayday but probably not (dont remember it from packing).
Just a thought - because missiles die if you sneeze on them (damage wise) you could probably design them using vehicle rules, the vehicle missile is also 55kg in weight.
T20 needs an intergrated design system for all designs either weight or volumn or both together not one for one and the other for the other.
Bye.

 

[mike wightman]

Hi Lionel,
problem is there are no rocket engines of any sort (chemical, ion, fission or fusion) in the T20 design system. It should be easy enough to port them over from MT.
Unless someone is already working on rockets for T20???

 

[Richard Saunders]

Hello Siggy.
Strange you should mention Fission, i am reading the last of the Harrington books (war of honor i think, yes i should know the title but i'm reading the book not the title anyway).
I would have thought that the manties would have converted their missiles to fission drive because they keep running out of fuel with fusion power, also you could use the reactor to power the bomb pumped lasers, there by saving space.
Basicaly i think where trying to design a sidwinder missile using the design specs for a sopwith camel.
Bye.

 

[aramis]

The official "t20" missile is, based upon a throwaway reference in advanced combat, 6G for 6 minutes. There is no design sequence for t20 missiles.

 

[Dom]

Originally posted by Aramis:
The official "t20" missile is, based upon a throwaway reference in advanced combat, 6G for 6 minutes. There is no design sequence for t20 missiles.

Is it me, or is that a little slow?!

 

[Pagan priest]

Not sure, but I think that current missiles have better accelerations than that, I'm guessing at about 8 to 12 G's. On the other hand, that is only for a couple of minutes, less than 6. Waaayyy back when I was using Mayday, I thought that the missile acceleration values should be doubled.

10 G's for 6 minutes sounds about right for early missiles. At teck level 13, where the USP gets a +1 mod, call the acceleration 12 G's for 8 minutes. After all, a missile shoud be able to catch a target regardless of the target's heading.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Dom:
Is it me, or is that a little slow?!

Well, 6g x 6 minutes is 2,160 g-seconds, which would make NASA giddy with joy if they could accomplish it in a reasonably priced single stage missile. OTOH, it's only a range of 3800 km at best before going ballstic and having no chance in hell of hitting a Traveller ship; if T20 starship weapons have anything like the range of weapons in other versions of Traveller 6g x 6 minutes is completely useless range.

 

[justacaveman]

How about X number of G's for X number of minutes, with X equal to the missle TL.

 

[justacaveman]

Or instead of minutes, how about making the time interval Combat Turns.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by LordRhys:
How about X number of G's for X number of minutes, with X equal to the missle TL.

I can see it now...

"Sir we're being hailed by a, umm, ship I think, they say we are to surrender immediately or they will fire."

"Identity of the craft Ensign?"

"They say they are the USS Magnetite and represent something called Stonefleet. They repeat that their Magma Torpedoes are loaded and ready to fire."

"MAGMA TORPEDOES!? What the hell is that?"

"I think we're about to find out sir, I just detected a launch of a small object by some primitive tension device, it reads as stone with a molten rock core."

Stonefleet Magma Torpedoes - TL1 (cutting edge stoneage )

1G thrust for one turn provided by simple ballistae launcher

If you haven't a clue what I'm referencing check out StoneTrek

Anyway this is just my slightly bored and long about way of suggesting that rather than x being 1 per TL maybe it would work better as something like:

Missile factor = TL where factor is total of max Gs + max turns + d6 damage dice

So one type of TL 7 missile might be 1d6 damage with 3g for 3 turns and another might be 4d6 damage with 3g for 1 turn.

...or not

Maybe I just wanted to have some fun

 

[justacaveman]

Not a bad idea, I'll have to think about it.

StoneTrek eh?

 

[Richard Saunders]

Hello.
LordRhys - I like the Tl limit, but perhaps,
Tl10 = 6g and 6combat turns
Tl11 = 7g/7turns
Tl12 = 8g/8turns
etc.
I also think the damage should go up as the Tl increases.
Far trader - I think your idea has merit but i dont like the idea of being able to convert speed to damage, i have no problem with speed to duration convertion, so i guess that would make my list.
Tl10 = speed+duration=12.
Tl11 = 14.
Tl12 = 16.
etc
Bye.

 

[far-trader]

Hi Lionel,

Yeah I'm not sure it'll work as is, can't even recall for sure which system I had the basic idea worked out for anymore, or the details. It might have been TNE FF&S1 but its just a haunted kind of feeling not a real memory. Anyway the idea was a breakdown into three (four?)* tradeoffs:

Acceleration (and to hit) basically how big is the drive (rocket, thruster plate, whatever)

Endurance (ultimately range) the fuel (propellant or battery usually)

Payload (damage and electronics) the parts that makes it go KABOOM, and at the right time and place

*I might have had the payload broken into two seperate categories at one point, damage and smarts

I know I have this all written down somewhere, or did but just where it is now is difficult to say

I recall building a few to a dozen variants across a couple TLs with some design system and finding that they could all be handwaved very closely along those lines, at least in the middle (i.e. reasonable TL's and performance parameters). It broke down some when pushed to extremes (like very low and high TL's or all go and no payload, though I think mines, i.e. all payload and no go, did work reasonably well).

Anyway I thought it might add to design ideas or offer a simple off the cuff system for those who don't need to know that every nut and bolt has been accounted for in the design.

Ah one last thought, I also recall this being for the standard 50kg missile where you get three of those per launcher. Or IMTU the military and para-military have access to larger missiles (torpedoes imtu) of 150kg fitting one per launcher. These torpedoes would of course have triple the resources available in such a system (i.e. Missile factor = 3x TL where factor is total of max Gs + max turns + d6 damage dice). Oh and all my missiles max out at 6g for the standard and 18g for the torpedoes, I think, iirc

Also ("oh just go to bed already") all missiles in that version of mtu were nuke proximity detonation. No det lasers, no conventional explosives, no impactors, just nice clean KABOOMs. The small ones were allowed under Imperial Articles of War (i.e. exempt from the use Nukes and die rules) for legitimate ship owners. The bigger ones were the ones referenced in the No Nukes ruling and limited to use by the Imperium or its designated powers (i.e. conscripted forces or hired mercenaries). Not that such "rules" would stop the criminally minded from acquiring and using them.

OK, enough rambling, I'm not sure this is still helping so I should probably leave it there for now.