Re: MT missiles

From: Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com>
>Laserlight wrote:
>
>[Vector movement is realistic but problematic]
>
>>Area effect weapons (eg Phalon PBL, wave gun). or Lay down a
>>"minefield" at a distance from the target.  It can attack
missiles
>>(destroying them) and rocks (pushing them off
course)--anything
>>moving faster than Xmu per turn, select X to suit your fancy.
>
>Area effect weapons would work in reality, assuming that you
know the
>missiles are coming. Mines, well... as long as they cover a
large
>enough volume, yes, they'd work too.
>
>The problem in Weber's backgrounds is that the missiles come
*really*
>fast. "High-velocity" means that the missiles are coming in at
0.99c or
>thereabouts. Do you have enough time to detect them and
launch/trigger
>your area effect weapons before it's too late?

In Weber's background--HH, that is, I read a Starfire novel or
two several years ago & don't recall specifics--you've got
instantaneous gravitic sensors, so yes, you can see them coming.
You may need to use a house rule "area effect weapons attack any
target which _passes through_ their danger zone" to account for
the granularity of the system.

>To use an extreme FT example: my ships approach at speed 4000
(with
>1000 km/mu and 7.5 minutes/turn, that's equivalent to 0.03c).
Since you
>are a fixed or orbital installation I know exactly where to
find you so
>I can launch my missiles at their maximum range - assuming
three turns
>of endurance, that's 12000mu. You can detect me launching those
>missiles (ballistically - they don't need to use their own
engines) at
>range 54 or thereabouts. When do you fire your area effect
weapons?

But the 54 mu sensor limit isn't "realistic" and the complaint
was that high-velocity missile strikes weren't handled
realistically.	Let me have a realistic detection range--say,
30AU, or about 4.5 million mu at 1000km/mu--and I can probably
spot your ships in time to do something about it.