Originally posted by WJP:
The question we need to answer is this: How many attacks, in 1000 seconds, can a single beam laser make against a target 1000 meters away.
Answer that question, and this whole thing is solved. If we know how many attacks is reasonable and logical when two vessels are within 10,000 km of each other, we can extrapolate how many attacks are allowed at other ranges.
So ... that's the question ...
How many attacks should a single beam laser be able to make against a target that is less than 10,000 km away?
Thoughts, everyone? Thoughts?
I figured this out for T20 actually, which should translate neatly to CT as well.
I'm a little foggy on exactly how I worked it out and the notes aren't around. I think I may have posted about it here a long way back but I'm not sure where. IIRC I based it on the damage differences between Ship lasers vs Vehicle lasers, interpreting the scaling rules and burst fire effects rules with the difference in the combat turns. I think I came up with 20 shots fired in a ship combat turn.
The reason I wanted to work it out was for shooting vehicles with ship weapons, in a vehicle combat turn and range. I think it worked out to a single ship weapon fire action per vehicle combat turn, but with the scaling bonus.
So that's how I'd answer the question, 20 shots fired per ship combat turn.
This jived nicely with my long held belief that the single attack in ship combat is based on saturation fire of the most likely targeting cone in the hope that one of the shots will score a hit.
But I wouldn't complicate CT with multiple attack rolls for range. If it were me I'd stick to the single attack roll but add modifiers for range, similar to the personal combat tables by range. Just make a simple table of the ship weapons with the range effect to the attack roll and factor in the long and very long range penalties and any other effects. For example...
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Weapon - Range: Close Short Medium Long VLong
Pulse Laser_______+4_____+1_____-1______-3____-6__
Beam Laser________+5_____+2_____-0______-2____-5__</pre>[/QUOTE]And I would define the ranges based on the two we have examples for, long and very long, and the personal combat paradigm (more or less) with the breakpoints for the two detection ranges and the maximum range set at the tracking range:
Close range - Boarding to 15,000km
Short range - 15,000km to 150,000km
Medium range - 150,000km to 250,000km (maximum civilian detection range)
Long range - 250,000km to 500,000km (maximum military detection range)
Very Long range - 500,000km to 900,000km (maximum sensor tracking range)
I don't think we need to add any complexity beyond this. No damage bonus or other stuff. Remember, these are weapons designed to be used effectively at ranges of several 10s to 100s of thousands of kilometers. Bringing them to bear multiple times, around your own hull even, when very close won't be easy. Unless your target isn't moving and you are at close range, then implement the personal combat coup-de-grace and simply pick a critical hit result of your choice. Or board them.
Now then, my own question which hit me as soon as I started reading and didn't see addressed, how does this affect missiles? You sure can't be firing them faster like you can (are) doing with lasers to try to score a hit. I've always felt the slow rate of fire was to either allow the launcher to cool and clear before the next one was sent off or because the gunner was doing active guidance all the way to target. Either way a similar simple to hit bonus would seem to the way to go. Even my short range is a flight time of about 1 ship combat turn. And using a missile at close range might be either as dangerous for the attacker or no threat to the defender due to the lack of speed. So I'd maybe go with:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Weapon - Range: Close Short Medium Long VLong
Missile___________na_____+0_____+1______-1____-4__
(turns) na 1 2 3 4</pre>[/QUOTE]That's my take, off the cuff.
