SV: Submunitions questions

Michael Sandy wrote:

> How exactly are submunitions targetted?
> 
> Relevant to the topic of Gunboat vs Gunboat where
> there are a huge number of 2 mass and 4 mass ships
> about, can the submunitions target multiple ships?

No. One SubMunition Pack can target one ship.
 
> Can submunitions target fighters?  Is the bulk of
> the cost of ADAF and PDAF the targetting systems
> rather than the actual weapons? Can the submunitions
> missile target fighters?

No. Fighters are too small for the SMP to lock on to.

> Could you purchase one-shot fighter defenses?  At
> 1/2 the normal cost?

Kra'Vak Scatterguns (in More Thrust) are one-shot fighter defences...
but
they're very good against ships too. But there are no one-shot *DAF, no.

> I'm a bit confused about how the Electromagnetic
> Pulse missile is supposed to work.  Isn't this just
> incredibly more effective than the needle missile?
> The needle missile disables a targetted system 1/2
> the time, where the pulse missile has about a 1 in 6 for
> every single system.

The Needle has a 50% chance to permanently disable the target system in
addition to the 1D6 damage (which passes through screens without
reduction); the EMP missile causes no structural damage but knocks out
on
average (all ship references are to the design examples in FT, p.14-15)
:

27.8% of the systems on an unshielded target (eg, 2 systems on the
Destroyer)
19.4% of the systems on a ship with screen level 1 (eg, 2 systems on the
Heavy Cruiser),
11.1% of the systems on a ship with screen level 2 (eg, 2 systems on the
Battledreadnought) or
5.5% of the systems on a ship with screen level 3 (eg, 1 system on the
Superdreadnought).

Of course, the damage potential of the EMP missile is very big - but on
average, it isn't that powerful. Also, in my experience those ships most
vulnerable to it (unscreened ones) are either Escorts or Kra'Vak, and
both
types tend to be quite maneuvrable (and thus have an easier time to
avoid
the missiles).

> Does the system the needle missile is targetting have to
> be designated during launch?	(My guess, yes.)

The rules say "on attacking, the missile's owner picks its target
system"
(MT p.3).

Regards,

Oerjan Ohlson

"Life is like a sewer.
What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry