RE: Fixing salvo missiles

--- Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:
> G'day,
> 
> > We have gotten our house rules for Salvo Missiles to where we like
> > them, and although I have given up trying to get salvo missiles
> > really fixed officially...
> 
> I'm sorry I have a really bad memory of late, could you please remind
> me what it was you found broken about the SMs as is?

No problem.

The "place missile marker, then it looks for targets" is really the
biggest problem.  We use a "maneuver the missile to a specified target"
house rule, similar to MT missiles.  This is the part that we gave up
as "never going to change".

The close second is the "1d6 missiles lock-on".  We feel that missiles
should be much smarter than this, and the vast majority of misses
should come from PDS or evasive defenses such as Stealth Hull or ECM. 
I.e. if you have no PDS or advanced capabilities of stealth or ECM, you
should suffer 90%+ hits.  If I thought I wouldn't be laughed off the
List, I would have suggested 1+ or 2+ to-hit rolls against any target
in the attack radius.

Additionally, the "1d6 lock" mechanic limits the launchers to salvos in
multiples of 6.  a "roll to-hit per missile" mechanic allows for future
development of a range of SML/Rs with varying numbers of missiles.

> 
> > The "# of missiles lock-on roll" is my biggest gripe.  Replace it
> > with a lock-on roll for each missile in the salvo. 
> 
> Out of curosity about how many salvos would you fire in a game and
> what would be the typical number per turn? Thinking of the games we 
> play, where we can have more than 40 salvos go off at once, your 
> suggested changes would make for a lot of dice rolling ;)

In games with salvo missiles, a mixed beam-SM capital (BBG) will have
2-4 launchers, a missile capital (BG) will have 6-8 launchers, and
escorts might have 1-4 launchers.  Each launcher usually has 4-8
salvoes in magazine with a couple of launchers sharing a magazine (so
8-16 salvo SMMs).  Some players have fewer launchers, but then add an
equal number of SMRs (e.g. 6 SMLs and 6 SMRs instead of 8 SMLs). 
Capital squadrons of 3-6 ships escorted by 1-2 escorts per capital. 
Games of up to 12 capital ships per side.

For our group, having a box top on the table and rolling handfuls of
dice is no deterent.  It's no different than rolling lots of beam dice.
 In fact, I would think that for those who have complained about some
weapons being too wildly random, the statisitcal averaging of lots of
dice would be a plus.

> 
> If I remember correctly you play in vector. Have you found the "drop
> off in chance to hit" as an alternative solution to just dropping
> engagement ranges to3mu in vector? 

No.  My group plays cinematic.	I am interested in trying vector again,
but have no opponents who want to play vector.	So, for me vector is an
interesting theoretical exercise, but only a couple of actual games. 
As  I said above, I would have suggested high probabilities for hits if
I thought anyone on the list would even consider it.  Since I don't, I
didn't.  To change my suggestion ito Vector, just divide all the listed
ranges by 2 (wild guess here, based on 6-3 FB rules).

We tried this mechanic and it worked, but as our "targeted, maneuvering
SM" house rules require SMs to get really close now (1 MU), the TH
rolls we use now are related to the position of the target relative to
the F of the missile marker.

> 
> > (option: missiles which fail lock-on try against next closest
> > target, etc. until all possible targets exausted....
> 
> As someone who sees a fair amount of her missiles go "target, what
> target?"  I'm not immediately opposed to the idea (beyond the
> potential complexity of tracking which missiles are going where). 
> Could someone with a greater knowledge of missiles with warheadlettes

> explain if its plausible (it probably is I just don't know to judge)
> 

Many models of torpedoes going back to WW2 have "search and acquire"
modes.	Submarine launched torpedoes usually have a safety that
disables the torpedo if it turns 180 and returns a certain distance
(like 50%), but aerial and rocket-delivered ones have 360 search
patterns and some models, like the US MK-50 will return to reacquire
missed targets.

> > Idea #3)
> > 1-arc SML = 2 MASS
> > 5 arc SML = 4 MASS
> 
> Nice idea.
> 
> > Idea #4)
> > SM magazines take threshold checks as protected systems (like Core
> > Systems)
> 
> Do you find you lose a lot of magazines or is there some other reason
> for the suggestion?
> 

"Feel", PSB, "suspension of disbelief".  Just don't like the idea of
magazines being in the same category as "surface features".  We do the
same thing for fighter hangers (which we have seperated from the
launch/landing bays)

> > Idea #6)
> 
> I am partial to the idea of multiple warhead types for missiles.
> 

Do you mean a scale of warhead sizes traded against range (as I
suggested) or warhead *types*, as in "Standard Warhead", "Beam
Warhead", "Nova Warhead", "Hyperspace Warhead", etc.?

J