 February 6, 2011 - 7:53am | Thread to discuss weapons Personally I think that all rocket, missiles and torps need to be rethought in the area of beam weapons: drop the Proton and Electron beams add rail guns I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 6, 2011 - 8:12am | Missile combat: Missiles fire with lock on their target. their starting
speed is the speed of the firing vessel and then their own ADF is added
(how many gs does a rocket launching a shuttle pull? or does anyone have
numbers on what an ICBM pulls? a futuristic missile should have a
similar or better ADF) Missiles with lock will hit. but since they move
across the map (usually in salvos) the defending player does everything
he can to eliminate that threat. it does not play out by the firing
player making an attack roll (though maybe he rolls to ensure proper
lock: Roll to lock on is PC's skill + d100 + bonus for every undamaged
radar array and lidar array and remote drone in range vs opposing ECM
officer's skill + bonus for decoys) Every turn the defending player makes attempts to jam or shoot down the incoming missiles in the salvo. The longer a salvo is in space the better the chance an weapons officer will manage to jam or cause some of the missiles to loose lock, out to a certain range counter missiles are fired to intercept some of those missiles and close in last ditch laser cluster (dedicated defensive weapon, not effective vs ships hulls but adequate vs missiles) or even a rail gun defensive cluster blast away at the incoming missiles each of those things are rolled for by the defending player then the surviving missiles go boom! warheads are nukes. either standard nukes which do hellacious damage to the ship as the missile must get very close but the fact the missile must get closer with this war head means a second roll by 1/2 the defense clusters. the other war head is a bomb pumped X-ray laser that sends out stilletos of lasers in several directions and its close proximity to the ship means that some of them will hit. the bomb pumped warhead is a bit more stand off ish than the std. nuke thus its the primary missile ordinance. another warhead that would be seeded into the salvo is the ECM missile that attempts to jam and mess up the defenders targeting of the lethal missiles standard reaction missiles, from eary in the timeline would be single stage chemical fuel rockets topped with warhead of choice. they burn with a certain ADF for 1-2 turns latter two stage reaction missiles were added. Each stage has a certain ADF for 1 turn but can be programed to delay for a turn or two before activating the second stage- this means that they coast toward the enemy during the delay turn then the second stage kicks in for a full power drive at the target. or it can just burn both stages concurently- but this has to be programmed at launch. the latest and greatest and very expensive is the atomic drive missile. where reaction drive missiles are short legged 1-2 turns of burn the atomic drive missile has at least 3 turns of burn on its drive (which if fired by a ship at speed 20 will scorch across the map. missles should come in 3 grades depending on the size of ship its intended for, A,B,C though their is no stopping a mid ship from mounting a capitol grade missile launcher if it has the space- its just not likely to really carry them in significant numbers due to space. a grade increase means a damage output increase- very important to shoot down capitol grade missiles even if you have to ignore the pinprick form a fighter. Also ships that are part of a formations -meaning they have been assigned togehter and drilled together will have practiced setting up a tactical net by tight beam laser communications- the Tac Net means that the flag ship of that fleet or task force can controll all defenses of all ships for a unified missile defense. so if a massive missile salvo is bearing down on the flag ship and all of her siste ships are within the same hex and the tac net is up then it can coordinate all of the missils defenses against that salvo even though it is not targeting the other ships. if the net goes down that will be very bad for the ships involved of course. Tac nets cannont be set up without prior drilling and practice so ship that come together on the map from different locations will not have one. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 6, 2011 - 8:18am | Also all battery weapons can be tasked with missile defense if a player thinks that he needs them to prevent leakers from getting through his missile defense. missile duels will start at long range without much happening beside a luck few leakers- but as ships close and drones & decoys get picked off and missile flight times shorten it wont be a lucky few leakers anymore Then we get down to Sword range where cannons kick in dagger fighting range is very close where battery weapons are also effective and ships begin to blast apart from all the punishment. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 February 6, 2011 - 8:52am | I remember I once posted a list of cannons and batteries of different sizes, but I need to find it. I like your idea of Anti-missile systems. There should be weapons designed to take-down fighters, like small anti-fighter batteries mounted on spaceships, and fixed guns on fighters, so they can get in dog-fights. Anti-missile and anti-fighter systems could be interchangeable, as both acts like fast moving rockets. |
February 6, 2011 - 1:34pm | I was also thinking to include rules for dogfighting If the movement rules are the old ADF/MR then anytime two opposing squadrons are in the same hex they can dogfight. if one tries to flee or leave the other gets an advantage. piloting skill more then anything else will determine the outcome of a fight. if vector rules are being used then the fighters will need to close to range on the same vector. they continue to drift along at previous speed & vector while dog fighting. again pilot skill is the determining factor in a dogfight. additionally a squadron may close to knife fighting range with a capitol ship and fly against it shooting up what they can. proceedure for this? put the squadron counter on the capitol ship and move it with the ship? or the squadron only gets one pass for one turn before breaking away and coming back in. While fighters are flying "against" a capitol ship do the missile defenses get a shot? no if they are engaged with a missile salvo and only a small few will even get a shot if they are not already engaged with a missile salvo. So what do we want to do with the canon list of weapons keep all, keep some, add new and update old? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 February 6, 2011 - 1:43pm | I'd kinda like to keep proton and electron beams (and their opposing screens) in, but with maybe a switch involved. They would involve the same machinery, but a player could choose at the start of the turn to positively or negatively-charge the weapon. The opponent would have to make the same decision for his screen. Both decisions would be made secretly, possibly in writing. That does seem a bit gimmick-y, but I think it might be something to chew over. Another bit might be that only one side or faction might even use them at all, say one alien empire or the other. For a given campaign or set of scenarios, they would wreak havoc until the enemy develops the counter measures. |
February 6, 2011 - 1:48pm | Another bit might be that only one side or faction might even use them at all, say one alien empire or the other. For a given campaign or set of scenarios, they would wreak havoc until the enemy develops the counter measures. this is something I've suggested before but for hand weapons; I think we can bring different flavor with making sathar missiles operate on a different set of stats then space fleet missiles will be a simple way of doing this. if you're fighting sathar you have to take the change in capability into account but if you're fighting corporate privateers or run of the mill pirates then their capabilities will be largely the same. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 18, 2015 - 4:28pm | Different weapons, defenses, and ship design factors would be great for defining the various factions. The Frontier has developed kinetic, particle, and laser beams and magnetic shields and reflective/armored hulls. The Sathar have highly focused and concentrated plasma beams which are shorter range than the Frontier weapons but more damaging and Plasma Armor that is effective against most weapons types. The Rim has developed and deployed advanced kinetic weapons and heavily armored hulls and rarely uses shields. The Zuraqqor have developed "teleported" weapons that though counter measures decrease the chance of hitting do a set amount of damage at all ranges. However their weapons have to be calibrated for long, medium, or short ranges and can't be changed in combat. Their bioships have soft "armor" that absorbs a great deal of incoming damage though the actual ships themselves are pretty fragile. And so on... Randy |
