"Size of a Elephant?"

["Tony L" <a.leibrick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have a question for the savants on the list?

I'm looking at doing a FT campaign with my club, and I want to give one side

(the invaders) a scary new weapon.

I rather like the idea of a meson type weapon, that has the possibility a bypassing all armour.

This is the basic idea so far:-

Range 36mu ( about average I believe for most FT weapons)

Hits as Beam weapon

Damage

hit roll of 4 = 1pt (represents a near miss, 1off armour if ship has armour)

hit roll of 5 = 1d3 (a glancing hit, 1 off armour, rest off hull)

hit roll of 6 = 1d6 (a hit in the interior of the ship, all off hull)

re-roll damage rolls of 6,representing secondary explosions

Screens reduce to hit roll by 1 or 2 points

 

Now you are probably thinking, 'not very scary', but here is the kicker.

As I recall Meson guns in Traveller were affected by the configuration and size of target

So the number of dice you roll is equal to TMF/30

For example if the target is a DD at 30 TMF or smaller you roll 1 die,

heavy cruiser such as a Vandenberg or Jerez (80 and 88TMF) 3 dice, BDNs such as the Excalibur (140 TMF) 5 dice

and against a Jeanne D'Arc (280 TMF) 10 dice!!!

 

My query is, how big should this weapon be, to be balanced?

 

Tony