RabidVargr
SOC-13
Missiles don't dodge, they go straight for the target on an intercept vector. So a nice long stream of VRF Gauss rounds would be very effective, IMHO.
I gotta nasty fighter design in my head struggling to come out...
RV
Weapons and Capacitors
- Thread starter RabidVargr
- Start date
I gotta nasty fighter design in my head struggling to come out...
RV
True, fired projectiles are not long range weapons. A light second is 300,000 kilometers, and energy weapons will take a full second to travel that distance. Based on the size of the ship even 1 second is enough of a lag-time to 'jink' and have your ship not in the space it previously occupied.
If you fire a projectile at 5,000m/s it's travelling at 5km per sec -- which means that it'd take 16 hours to travel the full light-second.
I haven't been saying that fired projectiles are a good replacement for standard traveller weapons (note -- unless launch velocity is *very* high).
Even on modern jets the gun is the last resort weapon. The F4 was built without a gun as the theory was that there would never be a need for it. This sounds pretty similar to desgin philosphy here
I can say from the space combats that I've played in Traveller that on a number of occassions ships can and do enter within 1,000km of each other, and in some cases within 1,000m of each other.
I've not done large scale space combats; have only been small ship on ship; thus the detailed method of space combat I've used.
If you fire a projectile at 5,000m/s it's travelling at 5km per sec -- which means that it'd take 16 hours to travel the full light-second.
I haven't been saying that fired projectiles are a good replacement for standard traveller weapons (note -- unless launch velocity is *very* high).
Even on modern jets the gun is the last resort weapon. The F4 was built without a gun as the theory was that there would never be a need for it. This sounds pretty similar to desgin philosphy here
I can say from the space combats that I've played in Traveller that on a number of occassions ships can and do enter within 1,000km of each other, and in some cases within 1,000m of each other.
I've not done large scale space combats; have only been small ship on ship; thus the detailed method of space combat I've used.
I was thinking that if you put an MRL or VRF onto a fighter you would have to basically get into the same tactical hex as your target and as a GM I'd require an opposed Pilot check to allow the fighter pilot to get within a few hundred meters to strafe the enemy ship.
But if it were to get that close and fire, the MRL is awfully sweet. It would do 6d8 +10 (for volleying all 100 rockets) minus 5 for vehicle weapon vs spacecraft for a total of 11d8 damage.
The best starship weapon you're like to get on a fighter is a Fusion gun and that does 4d20 damage
Three beam lasers only do 4d8
The MRL's seem great if you want to build and ultra-cheap swarm of lower tech fighters that can overwhelm enemy escorts. (They even have a slim chance of scoring some damage on an AR 14 System Defense Boat 11d8-14= 1d8-4).
But, you only get 1 shot and you have to get very, very close.
The Fusion gun is probably better, but I do so low cheap stuff
But if it were to get that close and fire, the MRL is awfully sweet. It would do 6d8 +10 (for volleying all 100 rockets) minus 5 for vehicle weapon vs spacecraft for a total of 11d8 damage.
The best starship weapon you're like to get on a fighter is a Fusion gun and that does 4d20 damage
Three beam lasers only do 4d8
The MRL's seem great if you want to build and ultra-cheap swarm of lower tech fighters that can overwhelm enemy escorts. (They even have a slim chance of scoring some damage on an AR 14 System Defense Boat 11d8-14= 1d8-4).
But, you only get 1 shot and you have to get very, very close.
The Fusion gun is probably better, but I do so low cheap stuff
Personally, I don't really like the hex-based space combat method of personal ship combat. Meaning -- lots'o'ships war-game, hexes are fine (ala SFB, SF, B5, etc).
I've run space combat a LOT of ways. We've done hex-paper (pulled out SFB and used that) we've done toy ships on the floor and tape measure, we've done abstract role-playing style and we've done the butcher paper, colored pencil method.
Here's the issue with space combat games. With the nature of continous trust you'll basically have 1 pass and then combat is over and turns into a chase.
Example, freetrader jumps into normal space. Pirate is hiding by being powered down. freetrader begins accelerating to planet at 1G constant acceleration. Pirate powers on and accellerates at 3G towards freetrader.
So, by the time the Pirate overtakes the freetrader, they'll get a pass of weapons fire and then they're making a giant vectored turn-around. They can 'spin' and decellerate as they come in so they can attempt to match speed -- but they're exposing their engine to direct fire from the target ship.
I haven't seen any game that realisitically simulates space combat; be it table-top or computer game.
In the butcher-paper vectored math combats I've done, a lot of thrusting is done to keep the ship *in* combat.
The only problem with this method of space combat is that it takes a big table...
Not sure how I'm going to space combat in the campaign I'm working on....most likely it'll be similar to the butcher paper method since now I game in a conferenc room with whit-boards all over the walls.....
I've run space combat a LOT of ways. We've done hex-paper (pulled out SFB and used that) we've done toy ships on the floor and tape measure, we've done abstract role-playing style and we've done the butcher paper, colored pencil method.
Here's the issue with space combat games. With the nature of continous trust you'll basically have 1 pass and then combat is over and turns into a chase.
Example, freetrader jumps into normal space. Pirate is hiding by being powered down. freetrader begins accelerating to planet at 1G constant acceleration. Pirate powers on and accellerates at 3G towards freetrader.
So, by the time the Pirate overtakes the freetrader, they'll get a pass of weapons fire and then they're making a giant vectored turn-around. They can 'spin' and decellerate as they come in so they can attempt to match speed -- but they're exposing their engine to direct fire from the target ship.
I haven't seen any game that realisitically simulates space combat; be it table-top or computer game.
In the butcher-paper vectored math combats I've done, a lot of thrusting is done to keep the ship *in* combat.
The only problem with this method of space combat is that it takes a big table...
Not sure how I'm going to space combat in the campaign I'm working on....most likely it'll be similar to the butcher paper method since now I game in a conferenc room with whit-boards all over the walls.....
RabidVargr
SOC-13
Ever play elite?
Realistically, the best way to conduct a raid like that is get in a position to overtake your target. In the 3g pirate/1g FarTrader, I'd want to start out behind this guy, as my accell will definatly close the gap, expose *HIS* engines to my guns (unless he turns to guard them, in which case you got him cause he's not getting away like that). Space combat is not quick. It happens over several quick passes (with long timespans inbetween) or a chase (the looser likely being the one with less guns/accell)
Now these fighters we've been talking about...
They'll have to be agile to get in and get out, have a high accel. But since most of their EP can go to engines, since they're mounting projectiles or rockets, it shouldn't be much of a problem to put that space toward ECM or an actual missile launcher or two. (ECM drones, anyone?) The way the attacks are done is the fighter has such a high accel, it keeps pace with the target, but it moves laterally at a high hexrate, allowing it to close very quickly and pass the target, keeping it in the danger zone a minimum of time. This breaks down to fighters coming in at 30-40 hexes a turn, long turn around times, and they're back in for a second pass, maybe chucking missiles to keep the guns occupied so they can get in and out. Bad choice, either kill the missile or kill the fighter, either way, you're getting hit...
RV
Realistically, the best way to conduct a raid like that is get in a position to overtake your target. In the 3g pirate/1g FarTrader, I'd want to start out behind this guy, as my accell will definatly close the gap, expose *HIS* engines to my guns (unless he turns to guard them, in which case you got him cause he's not getting away like that). Space combat is not quick. It happens over several quick passes (with long timespans inbetween) or a chase (the looser likely being the one with less guns/accell)
Now these fighters we've been talking about...
They'll have to be agile to get in and get out, have a high accel. But since most of their EP can go to engines, since they're mounting projectiles or rockets, it shouldn't be much of a problem to put that space toward ECM or an actual missile launcher or two. (ECM drones, anyone?) The way the attacks are done is the fighter has such a high accel, it keeps pace with the target, but it moves laterally at a high hexrate, allowing it to close very quickly and pass the target, keeping it in the danger zone a minimum of time. This breaks down to fighters coming in at 30-40 hexes a turn, long turn around times, and they're back in for a second pass, maybe chucking missiles to keep the guns occupied so they can get in and out. Bad choice, either kill the missile or kill the fighter, either way, you're getting hit...
RV
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