Re: [FT] Playtest of Fulton's MT Missile rules proposal

Schoon wrote in reply to -MWS-:

> What I'm worried about is an "eggshell" mounting three missiles, say:
> 
> Mass 20 Missile Boat:
> 
> Fragile Hull, 2 MASS, 4 POINTS
> FTL Drives, 2 MASS, 4 POINTS
> Thrust 3, 3 MASS, 6 POINTS
> 1 FireCon, 1 MASS, 4 POINTS
> 3 EMP Missiles, 12 MASS, 36 POINTS
> 
> 54 POINTS
> 
> Three of these babies can take down our SDN "in a vacuum," at 162 >
points.

It's not quite that bad.

First, DCPs can repair EMP damage. They are unable to repair Needle
damage and damage from 'other "selective" weaponry', but EMP missiles
aren't very selective IMO :-/ So, unless you have other ships ready to
batter the SD immediately it is fairly likely to bounce back rather too
fast for the missile barges' liking.

Second, destroying half the weaponry aboard a ship without damaging its
hull structure at all is not the same thing as destroying half its
combat
power (ie, half its point cost). It is only worth roughly 30% of the
cost, and that's assuming that the damage can't be repaired. As seen
above, EMP missile damage can be repaired.

So, in the Valley Forge vs 3 missile barges example the missile barges
*temporarily* knock out on average ~190 points worth of SD, and have
themselves completely expended 162 pts to do so - all the missile barges
can do is to withdraw as fast as possible, which may not always be
possible given their low Thrust rating.

If those three barges had had *standard* warheads though, the ship
would've taken on average 4.6*7 = 32.2 pts of damage... no, sorry, -MWS-
only wanted the specialty missiles to be doubled in size, not the
standard ones. OK, it gets hit by 18 - 4.4 missiles, for on average 95.2
pts of damage - a rather massive overkill, I think. *This* is
unbalancing
IMO.

There's *very* little chance at all to dodge the missiles - if you move
at speed 15 or less in Cinematic, not even a Thrust-8 MT Kra'Vak ship
would be able to dodge at all since the 12" secondary move and the 6"
engagement radius, together with the ability to engage any target rather
than the nearest, covers all possible end locations for the ship... OK,
I
usually fly faster than that, but Human drives allow much less dodging
than KV ones. 

I think Derek seriously underestimates the ease of hitting with these
missiles. That is probably to be expected if he draws on experience from
battles against Beth's FSE ;-) ;-) ;-)

(Schoon guesstimated the increased hit probability of the Derek missile
vs the SM salvo to 2-3x better. It depends a bit on how fast you fly, of
course, but judging from my "how to place SMs" Excel spreadsheet I'd say
4-5x better at speeds of 25 and above, infinitely better (*no* chance of
missing, unless your ships consist of nothing but engines) at speeds of
15 and less... interpolate for the area inbetween <g> The 4-5x better
could be a bit low, though - I have Excel at work, and the past few days
have been... hectic, like :-/ )

Without the secondary movement, Derek's missiles would be much better
balanced IMO. They still have longer range and somewhat better hit
chances than SM salvoes (no banzai jamming helps a lot!), trading this
for somewhat lower damage against heavily protected ships.

And a comment to Derek's post:

On the FC requirement:

> On the other hand if you think that missiles/SMs are an autonomous,
fire
> and forget system then the use of dedicated FC systems (even one) is 
> not required. The ship's sensors provide the targeting information to
the
> missile(s) and once they are launched and on their way, no further
input > or control from the launching ship is needed.

I assume that the missiles are autonomous once fired, but they need to
be
programmed with the target profile to know what to look for. Without the
FC's data processing resources, this can't be done (just as the local
fire control of a beam battery can't pick out a target without guidance
from an FC)... and a missile which doesn't know what to lock onto is
either a dud or a fratricide waiting to happen.
 
Later,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

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