Torpedo spheres in space combat.

[garhkal]

Our Sparks group are currently discussing one of our upcoming big missions (every pc involved) being something against (or potentially) an imperial Torpedo sphere.
Some of the concerns i noted were that with the torps being 'maximized for anti planetary shield use', so only doing 4d cap damage, AND only having 1d fire control, with the ship's cre having a base 4d+2 gunnery they are not really going to be that much of a threat against even Enemy capital ships.
Take the MC-80 for instance. Ave crew skill (as per the main rule book) is 5d+2 cap ship piloting. Add to that the racial bonus for mon cal, and the 1d maneuvering, and they are dodging with 7d+2 against 5d+2.. So unless the imps combine say 8 missiles at once, they are on average NOT going to be hitting.

Its even worse with their turbolasers, since they have no FC listed (in the ISB, or gry's ship book).

So since it is also listed as NOT having any fighters of it's own, what do you think a good 'escort group' for a TS would be?
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[CRMcNeill]

Here's my expansion of the Torpedo Sphere concept. Maybe it'll help...
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]

I remember that, but even the tyrant is not much better in cap to cap ship combat. Though it does have some squadrons to deal with gnats in cap to sf scale combat!
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[CRMcNeill]

Here's some things that might work...

1). Seeing as how Torpedo Spheres also carry over 8,000 troops, they very likely have something like an ISD's troop transports available to transport them to a planet's surface. The presence of launch bays for those transports would, in turn, indicate that it can also carry fighters.

2). Since the Torpedo Sphere is intended for planetary assault, I assigned it a starfighter Assault Wing, with 3 bomber squadrons, 1 fire control squadron and 2 fighter squadrons. This is basically the same as the Scimitar Assault Wing in the ImpSB, and I've taken the concept and turned it into the standard wing type assigned to Bombard Fleet units.

3). Allow the Torpedo Launchers to fire both normal and shield-buster torpedoes, then place a limit on the number of normal torpedoes that can be fire-linked together (I capped mine at 50). Then use the coordination rules to generate a bonus (at 50 torpedo tubes, you're looking at ~16D), which can then be applied to Damage or Fire Control or split between them as needed. If all 16D were applied strictly to Fire Control (2D), you could even engage Starfighters with a torpedo barrage, with the Fire Control equivalent of 12D, and no starfighter can survive a 9D hit from a pro-torp.

And with 500 torpedo tubes, you can engage 10 different targets every round...
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]

Might work. Alternately they could have 'flak' torpedoes that are used to create a 'field of debris' to make it harder FOR fighters to close in..
Say these flak torpedoes have a higher FC, and create a field that adds +15 to all maneuvering difficulties, and any fighter failing takes say 7d damage (1d cap scale)...
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[CRMcNeill]

Instead of flak, how about a torpedo with a bomb-pumped-laser warhead? Basically, the energy of the warhead detonation is focused into multiple individual beams that fire in an arc. Instead of flak (bits of metal in space, which is what navigation shields are for), you get a hedgehog of high-powered energy beams. They can be proximity detonated, with the number of laser-heads (and the beam dispersion angles) in the warhead varied depending on what kind of target you are shooting at.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[CRMcNeill]

Or a cluster torpedo that spews out a cloud of thermal detonators instead of shrapnel...
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]

TDs might work, since even with the 6d scale diff they are still going to do 4d to fighters!
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[CRMcNeill]

Presuming the starfighter only gets hit once. Imagine if the warhead fired its TD cluster in a shallow cone instead of in every direction at once; the target starfighters would get showered by them instead of just one or two. Somewhere in the Thrawn Trilogy Sourcebook, they have stats for a Cluster Trap, which uses concussion grenades instead of TDs, so that might give you some ideas.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]

So perhaps

Cluster TD bomb.
When launched this weapon needs a 'set SU" to detonate in. All enemy fighters near it get to make a 'reactionary' dodge against the initial TN that the gunner hit, when placing the cluster bomb on target. BUT unlike grenade and dodging, when this is dodged/not dodged, how well the defender(s) roll, determine how many of the cluster of TD's are there hit.

Each TD bomb contains 30 total TDs, sprayed out in a conical or spherical pattern.
If in the Cone form, all those in the forward arc (3 forward hexes if using a map board), get hit with 10 'tds, going into each 'hex'. When target's in that AOE dodge, if they fail, they get hit by 1-5 of these TDs, the rest missing (roll 1d6 and on a 6, none hit).
If they make the dodge, by 4 or less, roll 1d6 and halve the result. If by 5-9, only 1 or 2 make connection.
If by more than 10, then no TD's hit.

If used to spray in a sphere, 5 TDs get sprayed into all 6 surrounding hexes. A direct hit causes 1-2 to smack into each ship that failed to dodge (assuming 2 fighters or freighters per hex). Making a 'good dodge' by 4 or less means only 1TD hits. While 5 or more is a miss by all.

Unlike other capital missiles, though these cluster bombs are still CAP scale for the launcher they use, they are SF scale for all to hit/dodge rolls, even if the TD's themselves are still the base character scale thermals (so only cause 4d damage to starfighter scale targets hit).
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[CRMcNeill]

I'd call it a Cluster Torpedo...

You don't really need to be specific about how many TDs it carries. In fact, considering how little factual information we have about ranges in space, it might be best to use a nonspecific descriptor...

As for the rest, I don't generally use hex maps, so I can't really comment on how that would work out. Personally, I'd just give it starfighter-scale stats with a high FC to represent the scatter effect, low damage since it is using TDs as a submunition, and maybe some special rule that adds 1D-2D bonus to hit multiple targets. Maybe some difficulty rules there for hitting starfighters flying in close or loose formation...
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Whill]

Left turn here. Has it ever been established when torpedo sphere's first appeared? I have read they are considered a precursor to Death Stars, and Death Stars have their origin in the Clone Wars. So, did torpedo spheres not appear until the Empire? Or might they have existed before the Clone Wars? If it hasn't been established, what do any of you think?
_________________
*
Site Map
Forum Guidelines
Registration/Log-In Help
The Rancor Pit Library
Star Wars D6 Damage

[CRMcNeill]

[cynanbloodbane]

I've been considering this a lot recently. I cant find any hard dates like the VicSDs or the ISDs, so I am running with the idea that the Torpedo spheres were developed early in actual Death Star production to fill the imperial need to negate planetary shields, and as a test bed for propulsion systems reactors, interior structure... virtually any system that couldn't be installed in the still skeletal Death Star, but hadn't yet been proven on more traditional Imperial ship designs.
_________________
"Yes because killing the guy you always planned on usurping and killing anyways in order to save your own kid, totally atones for murdering a roomful of innocent trusting children." The Brain

[CRMcNeill]

Try the link I posted above for my take on the Torpedo Sphere, as well as Bombard Fleets and ships.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index