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MGT Only: Weapon Bays in MGT 2nd edition don't seem correct.

OK, perhaps I am missing something here, but as I look at the 2nd edition for Mongoose High Guard rules I have realized that something is amiss. What is the deal with 500 ton bays versus 100 ton bays? For several of the weapon types the only difference I can spot is the 500 ton bays are heavier and more expensive; damage and range remain in changed. Am I missing something?
 
OK, perhaps I am missing something here, but as I look at the 2nd edition for Mongoose High Guard rules I have realized that something is amiss. What is the deal with 500 ton bays versus 100 ton bays? For several of the weapon types the only difference I can spot is the 500 ton bays are heavier and more expensive; damage and range remain in changed. Am I missing something?

LArge bays (500 ton bays) do have changes (page 27, upper left corner):

All bay weapons suffer DM-2 when attacking targets of 2,000 tons or less, and DM-4 when attacking targets of 100 tons or less. Large bays add +1 per damage dice (this is done before multiplying by 10 for Destructive weapons) to the final damage total, and gain DM+4 when attacking targets of 3,000 tons or more, due to the massive amount of weaponry they hold. (missile and torpedo salvoes do not use these modifiers).

They do deal more damage (this isn't included in the table), they are more likely to hit capital ships (3000+ tons), and are more likely to critically hit those same capital ships (crits occur when your roll an attack with an Effect of 6 or more, so the DM+4 to hit helps improve the chances of a critical hit).

While none of that applies to missile and torpedoes bays, the 500 ton bay fires 5x the number of missiles/torpedoes as the 100 ton bay. So for the same tonnage as 5 100 ton missile bays, you get a single 500 ton bay that shoots the same number of missiles, requires the same number of hardpoints, costs the same, but requires less than half the crew.
 
LArge bays (500 ton bays) do have changes (page 27, upper left corner):



They do deal more damage (this isn't included in the table), they are more likely to hit capital ships (3000+ tons), and are more likely to critically hit those same capital ships (crits occur when your roll an attack with an Effect of 6 or more, so the DM+4 to hit helps improve the chances of a critical hit).
OK, that makes sense. I guess I did miss something. Thanks!
 
Note that the weapon must inflict at least 1% of the targets hull points for the hit to be a critical hit. Hence even moderately large ships are immune to crits from large bays...
 
OK, perhaps I am missing something here, but as I look at the 2nd edition for Mongoose High Guard rules I have realized that something is amiss. What is the deal with 500 ton bays versus 100 ton bays? For several of the weapon types the only difference I can spot is the 500 ton bays are heavier and more expensive; damage and range remain in changed. Am I missing something?

Here's how it works with missiles. Lets start with missiles. All standard missiles deal 4D damage. This is true whether you are talking about Turret, Barbette, Small Bay, Medium Bay or Large Bay weapons. What changes is the NUMBER of missiles being fired. Turret fired 1, Barbette fires 5, Small Bay fires 12, Medium Bay fires 24, and Large Bay fires 120. Theoretically, you can roll for each missile's damage individually, but it is much easier to just made the number a multiplier. So a large bay's missile damage is 4D x 120 (for an average of 1,680). Mind you armor applies to each individual missile so it is really (4D-Armour) x 120. All this I know for a fact because I asked Matt about it during the playtest.

Something similar is true for torpedoes. Except they fire 3, 6 and 30 for small, medium and large bay weapons. So it would be (6D-Armour) x3, x6, and x30, respectively. So a large bay torp launcher does an average of 630 damage (before armor). That may sound like missiles are much better than torpedoes, but when you are taking on the Tigress Class Dreadnaught (good luck with that), after reducing that aver 14 damage per missile by the 15 armor, the entire bay does nothing. The large bay torp launcher does 180 damage in total (average of 21 damage -15 armour x 30).

EDIT: deleted stuff that steventirey1985's post contradicted; his makes much more sense than what I posted.
 
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Note that it isn't the number of missiles themselves that determines damage, but the effect of the attack roll for the salvo (core rulebook 162). Resolve the damage as normal fora single missile (so roll 4D, subtract armor), then multiply by the effect of the roll. Each missile adds a +1 DM to the attack roll, so a 120 missile salvo adds +120 to the attack roll. Assuming no other modifiers beyond the die roll (result of 2-12), that gives a total of 122 to 132 on the attack roll. Subtract 8 to find the Effect, you get 114 to 124. So a single salvo of 120 missiles, assuming none are shot down or otherwise destroyed before they impact, could do anywhere from 114 to 124 times a single missiles damage.

Likewise, the 30 torpedoes add +30 on the attack roll, for a total Effect range of 24 to 34, resulting in 30 torpedoes dealing the average damage of 24 to 34 torpedoes.

That also means that a single missile, with a good attack roll (say, Effect 4), will do more than 1 missiles average damage. With Effect 4, a single missile will do 4x normal damage, or the average damage of 4 missiles.
 
Not quite correct.

The Effect is a simplified way of determining how many missiles actually hit, hence the Effect can never be more than the number of missiles in the salvo when it hits.

Core said:
Instead, any damage is then multiplied by the Effect of the attack roll (the Effect cannot exceed the number of missiles in the salvo).
 
All missiles fired by a ship against the same target is a single salvo, regardless of how the launcher is mounted.

Core said:
Missiles are launched in salvos. A salvo is all the missiles launched by a ship against a single target in the same combat round. This could be a single missile from one turret or dozens from multiple turrets or bays

So, apart from the crew requirements, it matters little if you use one large bay or five medium bays. Both use 500 dT, 5 hardpoints, and launches 120 missiles divided among as many targets as you want.
 
Not quite correct.

The Effect is a simplified way of determining how many missiles actually hit, hence the Effect can never be more than the number of missiles in the salvo when it hits.

My copy of the core rulebook puts no limit on the Effect.

Impact
If an attack roll for a missile salvo is successful, the target will sustain damage. Roll for damage as if for a single missile and deduct the target’s armour as normal but do not apply the effect of the attack roll. Instead, any damage is then multiplied by the effect of the attack role.

That is all my copy says on the subject.
 
My drivethrurpg library contains three versions of the Core rulebook:

Traveller_Core_eBook.pdf
Traveller_Core_Rulebook_BW_PRINTFRIENDLY.pdf
Traveller_Core_Rulebook_erratajun2016_Ebook.pdf

Only the last ("erratajun") version does not contain the latest text, so avoid that.


Impact
If an attack roll for a missile salvo is successful, the target will sustain damage. Roll for damage as if for a single missile and deduct the target’s armour as normal but do not apply the Effect of the attack roll. Instead, any damage is then multiplied by the Effect of the attack roll (the Effect cannot exceed the number of missiles in the salvo).
IIRC, the bold part was added in the beta-phase and should definitely be in any release version.



It was discussed in beta, see:
Nerhesi said:
2D -pilot evasion - evasion software +smartTLdifference +# of missiles in salvo. EFFECT = # of Missiles that hit.
http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?p=895161#p895161
Nerhesi said:
Even though it is obvious to me that you can't logically hit with more missiles than those that are left making the attack, perhaps we should be explicit :) :D
http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?p=895176#p895176
 
It's not that complicated. It's even an attempt to simplify...

Instead of rolling to hit 20 times for 20 missiles, we roll to hit once and the Effect is how many missiles hit.

Instead of rolling damage once for each missile, we roll damage once and multiply by the number of missiles that hit.

So, instead of 20 to hit rolls and 15 damage rolls, we roll to hit once and damage once. Not perfect, but much simpler and faster.
 
Sorry, I mean the presentation. Its across two books and it took 3 people to explain it. Should this be rewritten for an easier presentation?
 
We could wish... Quite a lot of requests for clarifications were overlooked during beta.

Try to make sense of the dogfighting rules...

MgT2 isn't perfect, but rather straightforward and playable, which makes it better than most Traveller editions, IMVHO.
 
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