Ranges on Replacement Starship Weapons and Improving Sensors

[tetsuoh]

As the title states, I'm looking for input on the ranges of replacement weapons from Tramp Freighters.

And I'm also trying to find any rules official or homebrew for improving the sensors of a ship (not the different types of sensors but the die code itself.)

Thanks ahead of time to anyone who helps.

[Captain Xenon]

when dealing with the tramp freighters book, it is important to consider that there are two editions with different rules for upgrades.

for sensor upgrades, i would charge the base price of the sensor from the book multiplied by the pips. so to go from 1D (3 pips) to 1D+1(4pips) would be basex4. the price stays reasonable, and directly related to the quality of sensors in use. the more of an upgrade you want, the more it costs. i would also cap the sensor dice at the hull dice, as a limit to how good a ships sensors can be (power use, antenna placement, ect)

on weapon ranges, you have two choices- find a similar class ship with that weapon (what the weapon can do), or put the range the same as other weapons on the ship (a targeting sensor issue?).

[vanir]

Our group works it so the basic weapon types have standard ranges, which can then be modified if you adjust another specification to compensate and keep balance.

ie. a heavy laser cannon uses 4-tons of hauling capacity to install (likely to be partly mass, partly energy drain), has fire control 2D and damage 5D and the standardized ranges of 1-3/12/25.

Say I wanted more range, boosted to about 1-5/15/30. That should probably reduce my damage rating by an equivalent ratio (around 20% rounded off to taste), for the "greater beam coherence but less striking power" or whatever explanation suits the GM'ing condition. So my heavy laser cannon still costs 4 tons hauling capacity, now only does the damage of a 3-ton regular heft laser cannon (4D), but has a useful range improvement which is where its extra power is going.

Then I can do funky things on top of that like fire-link a pair but not for beam-convergence, for scattering effect instead so instead of raising damage by +1D (fire-linking bonus), I raise the fire control to 3D instead. The difference in scene descriptions would be like twin-gun coordinated fire versus alternating rapidfire.

On top of that I might use the jury-rigged modification rules to go for +2p fire control at +1 mishap and +1D damage at +2 mishap.
Now my emplacement costs 8-tons, has 3D+2 fire control, does 5D damage and its range is 1-5/15/30; but if I mishap when firing I have +1 on the effect table, if I mishap when rolling damage I have +2 on the effect table.

Totally worth it.

So...you use balanced judgement.

Standardized ranges in modern era (old republic is different) are:
Blasters 1-5/10/17
Lasers 1-3/12/25
Ion 1-3/7/36
Proton torpedos 1/3/7
Concussion missiles 1-2/8/15
Proton bombs or freefall concussion/assault warheads 1/2/5 (arc is always "front" but actually means ventrally downwards)

Turbolasers 3-15/35/75*

And then as mentioned these ranges vary on individual weapons for various balancing or purpose-built reasons.

*Turbolasers are a wild card at starfighter scale. Technically they're capital scale emplacements that use starfighter scale laser cannons and massive energy capacitors for extreme powered rapidfire so that they deal capital scale damage and the trade off is tremendous range. They need capital ship power cores for this and work completely differently in a starfighter scale craft like a tramp freighter. For a start they will typically retain the starfighter scale class and have jury rigged modification for the installation.

Some options for installation of a turbolaser on a starfighter scale freighter include imposing a fire rate of 1/3 or reducing range similar to normal laser cannon range (I would say something like 1-5/12/25 would be suitable), but retaining high damage and fire control (3D fire control and 7D damage would be typical at starfighter scale).
Plus in addition to the expense of the weapon itself, the installation should also be a very expensive enterprise.

Another house rule is starship weapons also don't have a "point blank range", the minimum range listing is where the size of the emplacement and its handiness can no longer track and fire on moving targets. If something is closer than the minimum listed short range then you need to switch to another weapon system that has lower minimum range.

Another trick used in starfighter engineering is reducing the tonnage requirements of a warhead launcher like protons or concussions, by reducing magazines, using smaller warheads, etc.
There are concussion missiles that are "mini size" with 1/3/7 range, 7D damage and small magazines for 4-6 missiles, and these can use starship gunnery fire control systems instead of missile weapons fire control.
Similarly an X-Wing has a 6 torpedo magazine yet 2 launchers, keeping limited high power offensive capabilities at reduced weight cost. One would assume the Y-Wing has full size magazines being a dedicated attack-starfighter, but the X-Wing relies on good starfighter performance so uses the smaller magazines and plays an attack-support role rather than the light bomber one.
These points also really have to come under individual GM balanced judgement for their own games.

Whether a projectile weapon (missiles or torpedos or other types) uses starship gunnery skill or missile weapons skill really depends on whether the fire control bonus is coming from a firing solution at the launch craft's computer, or a seeker head in the projectile. Torpedos and short range warheads generally use a firing solution computed by the launch craft. Long range missiles get their bonus from the seeker head and the pilot places them based on his Dexterity/missiles skill.

[atgxtg]