Starship Combat: Missiles and Computers

[aramis]

But the sand needs to contact the target to produce the 25mm diameter cloud, right? So does the cloud follow the original vector of the launching ship, or does it follow the vector of the target after release (or is it a combined vector)?

Aramis’ description of the 1” cloud makes perfect sense, but if the canisters are unguided, how will the launcher be able to get the canisters to contact the target? Is there a “canon” explanation? (forgive the pun )

-Fox

As noted, they don't. If a missile's vector takes it through the template, it suffers an attack. if the LOS for a laser shot passes through a cloud, it takes the DM.

 

[Supplement Four]

Can someone explain Book 2 CT Starship combat involving missiles to me?

You may want to use Range Band movement for B2 combat shown in Starter Traveller.

 

[Supplement Four]

Sand-casting is about as clear as mud too...

I cornered LKW on the TML a few years ago, asking him about sandcasting. He was it was MWM's baby, but they always played them as a depth charge kind of thing back in the GDW days.

The sand caster is an adapted missile launcher, firing a cannister(s) of sand away from the ship (he said they were modeled after depth charges). The cannister would explode, throwing sand everywhich way, creating a sand barrier between the enemy ship and the players' ship.

Because of the distance used in Space Combat, the sand cannister is relatively close. So, like blocking out the sun's rays with your thumb when you look directly up in the sky, the sand cloud could be used as a viable defense against incoming lasers.

Ever since Loren described it such, I felt as it if made enough sense for me, and I've been running it like that in my game.

 

[Foxroe]

As noted, they don't. If a missile's vector takes it through the template, it suffers an attack. if the LOS for a laser shot passes through a cloud, it takes the DM.

Ahhh... I think I'm beginning to see the source of my confusion. I believe that what you are implying is that the canister is not launched like a slug, impacting the target, and releasing the sand. Instead, the canister is more like a cartridge round in a gun. It immediately releases the sand upon launch.

This makes more sense, as I always used to consider sand as a defensive screen that surrounded the launching ship until it changed vector. At least this was the impression I had gotten from HG combat. But I'm still having a hard time getting past why it explicitly says in LBB2/TTB that the sand takes effect when it contacts the target.

EDIT: Sorry Supp4, I posted this before reading your post. Definitely makes sense, but why the "contacts target" rule?

-Fox

 

[aramis]

When "fired" at missiles, it only affects the missiles if the sand and the missiles make contact.

 

[castiglione]

Make take on "sand" was that it's like "smoke" in naval combat. So lasers = guns, missiles = torpedos, sand = smoke. Smoke was generally used to mess up the gunnery solution of the enemy and/or cover ones escape in naval combat.

 

[Bob Weaver]

Ok one more question great Missiles Gurus of the CT universe...

If I launch a continuous burn 6G6 missile during the ordinance launch phase at a target 4 range bands away (40,000km), does it hit the target in the same ordnance launch phase?

Since continues burn missiles can't maneuver, it seems like they either always hit (assuming they are in range), or always miss.

If the intruder launches a continuous burn missile during his ordnance phase and they do not strike during that same phase then by the rules, all continues burn missiles always automatically miss any target that is moving. They wouldn’t be able to compensate for the movement of the native during their native movement phase.

ARGH this is confusing.

Thanks to all who posted help on this thread, I've been confused about this topic as well. My question is: is it possible to outrun/outmaneuver a missile under Bk2 rules or not? Because if every missile launched is an automatic hit, I say that's an unbalanced weapon system. ECM & anti-missile fire provide some defense, but most PC ships have tiny computers that don't have the room for those programs, and small craft often have no computer at all, so they are defenseless. How can this be handled?

Cheers,

Bob W.

 

[aramis]

Yes, it's doable. It's unlikely unless you've got a 6G drive, or are more than two turns distant to out maneuver a missile.

Pretty much, the standard missile (per SS3) works out to about 18g-turns of thrust on a continuous 6g burn. For a few thousand more per missile, you can make it discretionary burn.

 

[tbeard1999]

Thanks to all who posted help on this thread, I've been confused about this topic as well. My question is: is it possible to outrun/outmaneuver a missile under Bk2 rules or not? Because if every missile launched is an automatic hit, I say that's an unbalanced weapon system. ECM & anti-missile fire provide some defense, but most PC ships have tiny computers that don't have the room for those programs, and small craft often have no computer at all, so they are defenseless. How can this be handled?

Cheers,

Bob W.

Given that missiles can move at 6G, they can theoretically be outrun or out maneuvered, especially if the opponent fires them at a bad angle or distance. But if they're coming at you head on, or from the rear (and you're a lot slower), they're pretty fierce.

But note, missiles have a finite duration, so the firer really can screw up a missile shot. Also, they can be shot down. Given that a missile rack has 3 missiles, this may not be as hard as it sounds.

Properly used, I think they are effective weapons. But I don't really think that they overpower lasers. IMTU, they tend to be used mostly on small craft (which lack the energy and electronics for effective beam weapons) and on ships that expect to support ground operations.

 

[jawillroy]

When roleplaying LBB2 battles, It's struck me that it's actually best to keep missile tracks and even vectors somewhat abstract. You have a ship with an elite pilot, a brilliant navigator and a crack missile tech, and it doesn't matter a bit if the player gets confused with his vectors.

I suggest one might make things interesting this way:
1) Estimate how many turns the missile will take to make contact if no action is taken: for most fights at the 150,000 - 500,000km range, I usually reckon on 2 or 3 turns. For shorter ranges, 1 or 2 turns.
2) each turn, the target ship makes a roll to course-correct in order to avoid contact. (a moderately tough one, 10+ with mods for pilot and navigator skill, or ship tactics if you're using it) A successful roll delays contact for a turn.

 

[Supplement Four]

When roleplaying LBB2 battles, It's struck me that it's actually best to keep missile tracks and even vectors somewhat abstract.

I've never had a problem with tracking missiles using LBB2 combat.

If playing on a map (like a hex board), just move the missiles as you would another ship. Easy-cheesy.

If playing with Range Bands, just mark them on your Range Band ladder. The missiles will always be between the two combatants, usually moving at full acceleration.

Also note, there's an abstract way to handle missles included in Special Supplement 3: Missiles. There's a roll made (I think a round after they are fired) to see if the missiles get through the target's defenses and hit the target. See SS3 for details (it's kinda buried in SS3, but its in there).

 

[jawillroy]

Yes, hexmaps can work; I've used the Mayday setup to some good effect by adjusting the scale from the frightful huge range per hex that game uses to a 1 hex = 10,000km scale which plays nice with LBB2. (trouble there is that you need to shift sheets around so much, because if you have ships travelling at any decent speed you eat up that space awfully quickly.) Thing is, even as cheezily easy as that is, you get PCs picking vectors in a way that their Pilot-3 characters would never do... A more regular game, with players that were well practiced in the mechanics of it, and this problem would be less pronounced. But alas, such is seldom the case for me.

 

[Supplement Four]

Thing is, even as cheezily easy as that is, you get PCs picking vectors in a way that their Pilot-3 characters would never do... A

You mean they're not following vector mechanics?

I thought that goes without saying. Check out your Mayday rules. That game uses three counters for each ship: The ship counter (in present position), the last position marker, and the future position marker.

A pilot just can't ignore the vector he's built up over previous rounds. A Pilot-3 in a ship with a M-2 drive just can't swing a 180 and move the opposite direction in a single round if the ship has built up to a speed of 42.

You're right, the hex board with 1 hex = 10,0000 km works like a charm. That's basically Range Band movement in 2D (1D Range Band movement uses a sheet of lined notebook paper where only the range between to vessels is calculated...with 2D Range Band movement, as with the hex board, each round of thrust equals movement of a number of hexes equal to the ship's M Drive. Thus a M-1 ship could move 1 hex on round one, 2 hexes on round 2, 3 hexes on round 3, and so on.)

The easiest way (the way I do it) enforce vector movement when using the hex board is to simulate the rule in Mayday. I only use one extra marker--the ship marker and the future position marker. If it's easier, go ahead and use the past position marker.

The idea is to move the future position marker ahead of the ship in a straight line a number of hexes equal to the ship's speed (we're using 1 hex = 10,000 km). The ship can actually move to that hex, or any hex around that target hex as long as it is within the M-Drive rating.

Does that make sense?

For example...

A ship has a M-1 Maneuver Drive. The ship jumped into the system, and its velocity was 3 hexes per turn at the time it appeared in the system (30,000 km in one turn).

Since then, the ship has accelertated at max acceleration for 5 turns. So, Velocity increased to 4 hexes per turn on turn 1, 5-6-7, to 8 hexes per turn on turn 5.

On turn 6, all one has to do is count, in a direct line, in the direction of thrust, before moving the ship, in front of the ship a number of hexes equal to the ship's Velocity. This ship is moving at a Velocity of 8 on turn 5, so on turn 6, simply count out in front of the ship--in the direction of thrust--8 hexes.

That point will be the ship's future position at the end of round 6 if the ship does not try to change velocity.

Put your finger in that hex. The ship can move to that hex without accelerating, or it can move to any of the six hexes around it if the ship does use its M-1 drive.

                                2 3
Ship   X   X   X   X   X   X   1 X 4
                                6 5

You have to remember where the ship was the previous round in order to draw a straight line to the new position (otherwise, it's easiest to just use past position markers.

If the ship in the figure uses its M drive to move into Hex 5, then you will have to remember where the ship was in order to put the future position (8 hexes out) in the correct position.

This is easier to explain using diagrams. If I'm not making any sense, check out your Mayday rules. The concept is explained (better than what I'm doing here) in those rules.

The point being: the vector movement is kept intact using LBB2 combat on a hex board without protractors and rulers.

 

[jawillroy]

Oh, I agree entirely - That's what I like about Mayday, and I know how it works just fine. The problem wasn't with figuring movement per se. The markers do a lovely job for that. The trouble came more in the players trying to sort out what to do when the missiles started coming, rather than how to illustrate those maneuvers. Know what I mean?

 

[Supplement Four]

Oh, I agree entirely - That's what I like about Mayday, and I know how it works just fine. The problem wasn't with figuring movement per se. The markers do a lovely job for that. The trouble came more in the players trying to sort out what to do when the missiles started coming, rather than how to illustrate those maneuvers. Know what I mean?

Oh, sorry, then. My mistake in reading the intent of your post.

In the past, I've always had fun with missiles. Special Supplement 3 is a great resource. Your less expensive missiles tend to move in a straight line, only changing course at the earliest possible moment to vector towards their target. If there's any range between the attacker and defender, I've found that it is usually fairly easy for the players' ship to out-maneuver the incoming missiles....which, of course, leads to the tactical nature of missiles. When to use them. When not to use them. An attacker firing missiles will want to guage the velocity of the target ship and its range to figure if a missile will have a good chance of striking its target.

I've always liked that aspect of LBB2 combat with SS3 missiles. It requires more thinking than just, "Do I fire a missile?" and forget. One has to figure the variables.

An attacker wouldn't want to fire a missile at a target at long range if it was moving relatively slow. The defender can alter velocity too much and avoid the missile.

(This is one reason why ships may not want to travel at their highest M-Drive rating when entering combat--it can be a real surprise to an enemy when a target starts changing vector by 3 hexes per turn--indicating a M-3 drive--rather than the 1 hex per turn it had been showing previous in the combat round.)

Of course, if the target is at long range and is moving relatively fast, chances are it won't be able to change its vector enough to avoid the missile...and I like those types of tactical decision during combat.

Also, I like how Marc, when he wrote SS3, made the more elaborate missiles so damn expensive. Cost should be a factor, even for the NPCs. They shouldn't have too many of the real expensive missiles.

But, it can also be a real surprise for an enemy when a missile is fired that acts just like a ship--only changing course at the last minutes--acting as a "dumb" straight-line missile and then showing some surprising and remarkable vector changes when the missile is too close to the target for the target to do anything about it.

The defending ship may think the special missile is just another dumb missile to avoid, so it takes the same measures it did earlier i the combat to avoid the missile. And yet, this "smart" missile acts like the dumb missile, with the defender evading, and then the smart missile pours one unexpected velocity change, crashing into the hull.

And, these "smart" missiles, besides being more expensive, tend to have less 'oomph' because so much of the missile's payload is devoted to control functions and fuel.

I think missile combat, using LBB2 and SS3 can provide some damn interesting play in a combat scenario.

If you're playing a campaign, there's the cost associated at it too. Every time the players fire a missile, that's at least 1000 Cr spent (and probably more).

Missile combat really spices-up LBB2 combat, imo.

 

[jawillroy]

I always wanted to see LBB2 edited just one more time, so that it included what got accidentally dropped from the first edition (pulse laser mods?) along with some of clarifications that eventually came with SS3 and Mayday. SS3, actually, gives me more than I really want... all I really wanted was for LBB2 to tell me how fast that baseline cr5,000 missile went. I didn't want my players, or myself, to get too bogged down in maddening detail, which is what SS3 offered up plus typos.

One thing that Missiles do in Mayday -whether they're likely to hit or no- is make many targets more vulnerable to laser fire. Evade programs, when running, cause ships to accelerate at 1G less than they otherwise would; Auto-evade prevents regular maneuver at all. So if you want to maneuver away from a missile track in a 1G ship, you can't evade laser fire that turn.

When I learned that, the difference between Maneuver, Maneuver/Evade and Auto/Evade programs in LBB2 made sense, and I use the Mayday rationale in my games when doing LBB2.

(I mull this here:http://festeria.blogspot.com/2006/06/thoughts-on-book-2-combat.html)

 

[Supplement Four]

When I learned that, the difference between Maneuver, Maneuver/Evade and Auto/Evade programs in LBB2 made sense, and I use the Mayday rationale in my games when doing LBB2.

I don't do it the "Mayday-way" because Mayday is one level "zoomed out". A better way of saying that is to say Mayday is LBB2 with a degree of abstraction. Bigger hexes, longer time period, etc. Thus, I don't think mixing and matching Mayday rules with LBB2 is necessarily a good idea (similar to mixing and matching HG rule swith LBB2).

I always thought the difference in the program you mention above was pretty clear, as well.

Maneuver is needed to allow the ship M-Drive to function. Doesn't provide any defensive protection. This is a basic maneuver package that doesn't come with the necessary programming to do more elaborate maneuvers that are sometimes needed in combat. Although it takes a qualified pilot to operate the software, much of the maneuvering is automated.

Maneuver/Evade allows the ship's M-Drive to function and allows a portion of the Pilot's skill to act as a defensive modifier. This is an extended version of the basic package that allows more manual pilot control over the vessel's maneuvering system.

Auto/Evade allows the ship's M-Drive to function and provides automated defensive maneuvers (that can be more effective than pilot input--depending on the pilot's experience).

That all seemed pretty clear to me from reading LBB2.

 

[jawillroy]

The bit in LBB2 that especially didn't make sense to me was whether or not Maneuver and auto/evade could be operated at the same time. Certainly, there's no reason they can't be loaded into the computer simultaneously - but there's good reason for them not playing nicely with each other. See:

Just going by the stated rules, M/E is the same as Maneuver except it allows evasion. A/E, though, is a puzzle: in terms of the evasion -DM, A/E is generally more than twice as effective for evasion than M/E 1, which costs twice as much and will only give a -DM of 1/4 the pilot's skill, rounded down: it takes a crack pilot skill of 4+ to get even a -1. If it's assumed that A/E and Maneuver can be used together, then even at Mcr.6, they're more effective than M/E 5 in the hands of a novice pilot, which costs Mcr 5.

Doesn't make sense.

What MAYDAY says is this:

Maneuver, Maneuver/Evade and Auto/Evade cannot be used together.

Maneuver allows use of the M-Drive.

Maneuver/Evade allows a negative DM on the attacker's to-hit, AND allows use of the M-Drive but at 1G LESS than the Drive's Rating

Auto/Evade allows a negative DM on the attacker's to-hit, but PROHIBITS use of the M-Drive in maneuvering.

And I say this is a clearer rule than the one stated awkwardly in Book 2, and fits the Traveller ethos better overall. It doesn't follow the LETTER of the Book 2 rules, but I argue it follows the SPIRIT better.

 

[jawillroy]

IMTU I generally simplify missiles, going with 6G accelerations for 6 turns and doing damage as per LBB2 (nukes I'll have do D6xD6)

One thing I'd love to be able to do someday is sit down with someone who doesn't have to be taught the whole LBB2 combat rules from soup to nuts, and properly smoke-test some ship-to-ship tactics to see how things really work.

I brainstorm a little here,
http://festeria.blogspot.com/2006/06/book-2-detection-and-ship-tactics.html
and here...
http://festeria.blogspot.com/2006/06/book-2-detection-and-ship-tactics_12.html
and here.
http://festeria.blogspot.com/2008/03/book-2-ship-tactics-fast-or-slow.html