Re: Missile Arrays

> How well did this work out in practice in the game, Tom?
> My immediate reservation is that it's an "auto hit" weapon (well, OK,
> an "auto hit unless defended against", to be more exact) which is
> something I'd generally tried to steer clear of in FT.
> How much do you think it would alter things if, for example, each
> missile getting through the defences did 1 "beam die" of damage (ie:
> 0, 1 or 2 points) rather than just an automatic 1 point?

It is a bit different. But compare it to SMs for instance....

a) Has a bit more range than standard SM, less than SM-ER
b) It can strike repeatedly (but how many strikes practically occur in
a game? I'd say 2 for SMs, 4 for Missile Arrays maybe if the ships
live long enough)
c) Average SM damage, undefended, is 12.25 points for 3 mass or 9 points
d) Minimum damage on an undefended SM is 1, maximum is 36
e) You can entirely miss with an SM if you can't aim well
e) With the Missile Array, you don't miss if in range
f) The Missile Array's average damage is 2 per mass, so for 3 mass is
6 which is half that of an undefended SM (average damage in a round
advantage goes to SM by an order of 2)	-- and the cost of 3 mass is 6
so its a bit cheaper because it lacks the upside potential of the SM
g) The Missile Array cannot score more than 6 points damage, the SM
can score 36 (huge upside potential for the SM)
h) The Missile Array is not going to do 1 damage, so that is an
advantage for the array over a double 1 SM roll (number of missiles,
damage per missile)
i) Note the above comparison is to the SM + launcher... once you have
this, subsequent SMs I think get cheaper in mass and cost so this is a
worst case on the SM side.
j) A PDS will average killing 0.8 missile per, so a typical 2 - 4 PDS
ship will neutralize between 2 and 4 missiles from a salvo, which is
equivalent to 1 to 2 mass of missile array

In practice, in the Stargate game, these were defended against by
screening fighters (since fighters don't do much against ships) for a
time, until the humans got in there and thinned out the Lucians'
fighter screens. There were a few conventional beams used to defend
against them as B-1s, but for the most part, the Lucians would rather
have those dice to use against enemy ships. They ate the damage as
'cost of doing business' which is kind of how the missiles behaved in
the genre. The only things missiles blew up in the genre were badly
damaged ships whose shields had been attrited or were otherwise
ineffective at defense.

This weapon is more or less a slow attrition weapon versus most
moderate sized ships. If they have dedicated PDS (not present in the
SG universe really), then they can shoot down some of the incoming
missiles. Beyond that, B-1s could too.

The difference between doing a strict 1 point and 0.8 pts on the die
(if you called it a beam die) is just the mechanical issue of rolling
more dice. The Stargate scenario had made two playtest iterations
whose objective was reducing the die counts to manageable, so adding
extra didn't enter my head. Plus 2 pts damage for a mass and 2 CPV/NPV
seemed like a reasonable trade off. 0.8 seems a bit overpriced to me
but might not be (I defer to superior numbers geeks). Lacking the huge
upside alpha strike potential of any SM that gets through (1 getting
through can do 6 points), they seemed reasonably balanced.

But I wasn't trying them out in all situations. I'd have to match them
up against a variety of FT ship sizes and technologies to really
figure out if there are balance issues. Certainly K-guns have the same
sort of range and slightly average damage for K-1s (without going to
look) if a hit is scored and can't be shot down or intercepted. The
real issue is how much interception is available. That's the challenge
of balancing interceptable systems versus true direct fire. K guns are
expensive but they are both penetrative and non-interceptible.

The other trick is most weapons have damage profiles that are strong
at close range, mediocre or worse at medium ranges, and weak at long
ranges. This one, like SMs, simply has a flat damage profile - not
terribly impressive at close range, competitive for mass at medium
range, and maybe good at long range.

I think of these as something that won't, in one lucky salvo, kill a
ship (unlike SMs). They are a constant painful attrition if you don't
have reasonable defenses.

FT (and not by itself in this by any means) is always sort of
paper-scissors-rock. If you bring a mass of fighters and the other guy
doesn't or doesn't bother with PDS, he's toast. This might have a bit
of that flavour, though less of the knife-edge issue.

It would certainly be worth trying with the beam dice, although it
would add some more die rolling if the pricing wasn't too high. That
would turn an average 8 point salvo (for instance) into a 6.4 point
salvo and maybe that's better for balance. 1.5 mass per damage seemed
too expensive, 1 mass per damage seemed okay but for a very limited
test environment. By going to a beam die, you'd be at 1.25 mass per
damage and that might be better.

I will try it out on various sizes of ship versus some classic ships
and see how it plays.

TomB