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Scale Difference with Starship Weapons
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DougRed4
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2014 5:20 pm    Post subject: Scale Difference with Starship Weapons Reply with quote

If my players mount a capital-scale weapon on a starfighter-scale ship, it would do more damage (when shooting at a starfighter-scale target), correct?

But how about it's 'to hit' roll? Is it not also impacted by scale (thus making it harder to hit)?
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Ral_Brelt
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2014 5:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

By rulers, a cap scale weapon firing at non cap scale targets has issues. The target would get a +2d per scale difference to dodge. Other things you can to is have energy drain become an issue because of the power hungry new weapon. Also its going to compact cargo tonnage availability due to mounting it and running control and power leads to it.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 29, 2014 6:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Too true
Cap weapon vs fighter size target +6d to dodge for the target, BUT if you hit
+6d to damage.

The power drain should be immense as most freighters/fighters do NOT have that sort of power generators, and if they did, they would definitely be severely restricted to military use (skipray blast boats!!)
In addition, you have the tonnage (as mentioned) and the legality of it to worry about, as well as many baddies will see your ship as a major target.
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atgxtg
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 2:14 pm    Post subject: Re: Scale Difference with Starship Weapons Reply with quote

DougRed4 wrote:
If my players mount a capital-scale weapon on a starfighter-scale ship, it would do more damage (when shooting at a starfighter-scale target), correct?

But how about it's 'to hit' roll? Is it not also impacted by scale (thus making it harder to hit)?


Both correct. But, as garhkal pointed out, actually doing this is probably not very practical.

As an analogy, consider taking something like a fishing trawler and trying to mount a 16" main gun from a battleship onto it. Tricky since the gun probably masses more than the entire trawler! You would need to figure out how to mount the gun without sinking the ship; then figure out how to get it to traverse, rip out a bunch of stuff that a trawler needs just to find room for the gun; then work out a way to reload the thing; squeeze in an ammo magazine; and find space for the gunnery crew. And even then, when you fired the blasted thing it would probably still capsize your trawler!
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 4:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

LOL.. I have actually wondered should there be rules for when a fighter scaled ship fires a cap scale weapon, whether it should get knocked around.
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Methedor
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 8:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
LOL.. I have actually wondered should there be rules for when a fighter scaled ship fires a cap scale weapon, whether it should get knocked around.


A quick and dirty rule:
your ship is moved in space move equal to the amount of dice damage the capital weapon does. IE Interceptor with move of 12 fires a 6D turbolaser cannon it moves 6 backwards of its facing.

OR

Roll piloting vs the damage dice*8 or suffer a "terrain" mishap.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 10:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That could work.
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thedemonapostle
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 6:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvm-1gorCeQ

thats a video of a missile launcher mounted on a pickup truck. ends badly.


most players fail to understand the differences between huge friggen turbolaser cannon and that of standard fighter laser. i usually compare it to the difference between an m-2 (12.7x99mm, 750-850rpm) to an m102 howitzer (105x372mmR, 10 rpm) and show videos of both being fired. then i explain that anything beyond the 30mm range typically slows the jet down too much when they fire it. i think theres an accuracy issue with that as well. put a 105mm cannon on the nose of an F-35 and it will either destroy the nose of the jet after one shot or recoil the gun rear wards through the jet. for freighters i imagine it would be like mounting a 16" deck gun out the side of an AC-130. aerodynamics and flight capability aside, when fired the round would fire forward maybe to a safe distance but the gun would shoot out the other side of the plane. even if it were nose mounted the recoil would launch the weapon out the back of the plane.

yes star wars has technology we dont fully understand so maybe you could mount the larger guns on smaller ships. but as most of you will agree player that do this are usually putting them on commercial vehicles designed to haul cargo, not go toe to toe with warships. structure, power, recoil, size, maneuverability, speed, and so much more make putting a capital scale weapon on a freighter not feasible.

missiles and torpedoes are a different bag of worms. last i checked the proton torpedo on an x-wing was calculated to be in the yield of around 1 gigaton as maximum and around 100 megatons at the lowest. so capital scale versions of these sitting in a small freighter improperly equipped with a device to launch them means certain death for all on board should there be a misfire, or the ship take any damage. that and the unnerving reality of knowing that one minor false step could set off a multi-gigaton explosion with 0 chance of surviving.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 3:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If they go around with a missile/torp in the tube then i should hope they don't whine if the enemy shoots the launcher with the intent to set that torp/missile off..
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atgxtg
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 5:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Methedor wrote:
garhkal wrote:
LOL.. I have actually wondered should there be rules for when a fighter scaled ship fires a cap scale weapon, whether it should get knocked around.


A quick and dirty rule:
your ship is moved in space move equal to the amount of dice damage the capital weapon does. IE Interceptor with move of 12 fires a 6D turbolaser cannon it moves 6 backwards of its facing.



Yuk. SPACE units are supposed to be really big. This rule would be overkill. And worse still, I can see some ships using this as a upgrade to their ion drives! Point the turret to the rear, pop off a few shots, and suddenly the freighters get a lot faster than the fighters.

Methedor wrote:

OR

Roll piloting vs the damage dice*8 or suffer a "terrain" mishap.


Better. I think I would just tack the damage dice onto whatever the normal piloting difficulty would be. That ought to do the trick.
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Ral_Brelt
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 6:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Or you could, as GM, just say no...

Also an option could be to say there would be disastrous consequences if there were ever a complication. If it occurs, then apply something suitable to the mood. All the need for special rules for this, that and the other...well, seem to be a crutch or dare I say, lazy.

I'm not attacking, just looking at the trends I'm seeing on gaming. GMs relying on charts so they aren't to blame for 'bad things' happening to players.
Not taking a stand outright with trouble players, instead referring to rules for a solution.
When did the bite of the GM go away, and get replaced by the rules lawyer?

I'm not talking about being abusive, that still exists and always will. A GM should be fair to his party...but still be able to be a GM and stand up for something.

Rules patching is fine to get the creators intent across...but devising new rules to cover just saying no?
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DougRed4
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 7:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for all the input, all.

Don't some Y-wings actually use capital-scale weapons?
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griff
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 9:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I thought the b-wing was the capital ship scale weapons plateform. A b-wing up against a star destoryer, b-wing looses, but five b-wings against a star destroyer would be somewhat even match. If the b-wing had capital scale weapons of at least 2D damage.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 9:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Neither have cap ship weapons. The only SF scale ship in canon which does is the Skipray..
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atgxtg
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 1:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ral_Brelt wrote:
Or you could, as GM, just say no..


Yeah, but unfornately WEG said yes. No only with the infamous Skipray blast boat, but also in Tramp Frieghters where they introudce a turbolaser than can be fitted onto a freighter-with drawbacks. .

Ral_Brelt wrote:

Also an option could be to say there would be disastrous consequences if there were ever a complication. If it occurs, then apply something suitable to the mood. All the need for special rules for this, that and the other...well, seem to be a crutch or dare I say, lazy.


Not necessarily a bad idea, although I'd say that the complication would have to be big gun related.

Ral_Brelt wrote:



Rules patching is fine to get the creators intent across...but devising new rules to cover just saying no?


It's when the creators make excepts that we get into messes like this. Frankly, I wish the creators had just said that you can't put a bigger weapon than the vehicles scale onto a vehicle, or at least applied the scale factor as a penalty in some consistent manner. But they didn't.

BT, I've never had such a case crop up in my campaigns, and if someone did wanted to do something like this, I'd have a series of challenges that the PCs would need to address to pull it off. Power requirements, structural support, target computer, mass requirements, recoil compensation. All those and more would need to be dealt with.
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