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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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 Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2014 10:10 am Post subject: Updating Anti-Starfighter Weaponry for Capital Ships |
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| Star Wars Sourcebook, 1st. Edition wrote: | | In Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, combat starships should be used for dramatic effect and to advance an adventure's plot. Most player characters, if they have any ships at all, fly around in nothing bigger than a stock light freighter. Small craft simply cannot do significant damage to large combat vessels with massive shield generators and thick armor. For this reason, these ships do not have hull or shield ratings. Characters who refuse to run, hide, or surrender in the face of such an enemy deserve a round of applause followed by a quick death. |
That quote pretty much sums up what the original Star Wars RPG's position was on starfighters vs. capital ships; don't bother even trying. The stats they made up for Capital Ships just served to underline it; they gave lip service to the idea of ships mounting anti-starfighter weaponry, but gave them ridiculously low damage levels. Now, as things have shifted into later versions, WEG's position on starfighters vs. capital ships has shifted somewhat (evidenced by giving cap ships hull and shield ratings, as well as optional rules for combined fire and ship location targeting), but the stats have not been updated to match.
A prime example is the Nebulon B, which mounts 12 laser cannons that do a measly 2D; this in the universe where you can put a single 4D laser cannon on a TIE fighter. There are other examples, but this is certainly one of the most obvious. A simple fix would be to just add 2D to the Damage of every starfighter-scale weapon on a capital ship, which puts the weapons more into play on a one-on-one basis against attacking starfighters. However, a broader issue is that some ships lack anti-starfighter weaponry altogether. WOTC updated the stats for the Imperial Star Destroyer by adding 40 point defense laser cannon, so the issue obviously has some traction. My thinking is that all military starships in the SWU should have at least some minimal form of anti-starfighter defensive weaponry...
Thoughts?
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"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.
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2014 2:18 pm Post subject: |
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IIRC the original thought from the empire was that fighters are a nuisance, so don't need dedicated anti starfighter weapons to be installed on cap ships, but after Yavin, that was changed. Hence the lancer frigate. Other ships were possibly retrofitted after that to have SOME anti fighter batteries, but normally the imp ships use their own fighters as a screen.
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DougRed4
Rear Admiral
Joined: 18 Jan 2013
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Location: Seattle, WA
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| Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2014 4:35 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, I was going to say what garhkal did, that I thought the general thought was that they launched an almost infinite number of TIES, which acts as a sort of defense of its own.
You make some excellent points about how worthless 2D weapons would be. I imagine they're at starfighter scale, so what hope could they even have of doing any damage?
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2014 5:24 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | IIRC the original thought from the empire was that fighters are a nuisance, so don't need dedicated anti starfighter weapons to be installed on cap ships, but after Yavin, that was changed. Hence the lancer frigate. Other ships were possibly retrofitted after that to have SOME anti fighter batteries, but normally the imp ships use their own fighters as a screen. |
I recall something similar, but that explanation never really held water for me. There are too many ships on both sides that feature weaponry that is at least nominally anti-starfighter in nature, especially the 1E versions. The Lancer isn't even the only one to be equipped with quad-laser cannon; the Interdictor, the 1E Dreadnought and the bulk carrier all have them too.
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"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.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2014 5:35 pm Post subject: |
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| DougRed4 wrote: | | Yeah, I was going to say what garhkal did, that I thought the general thought was that they launched an almost infinite number of TIES, which acts as a sort of defense of its own. |
It does up to a point, but most ships that the players will end up facing only carry 1-2 squadrons, so an unlimited number of TIEs can very quickly become "where did all of our fighters go?"
| Quote: | | You make some excellent points about how worthless 2D weapons would be. I imagine they're at starfighter scale, so what hope could they even have of doing any damage? |
Exactly. At 2D, the gunner would be equally as effective and less expensive if he were standing out on the hull in a vacuum suit throwing rocks (or maybe grenades). Combined action rules might allow 2D lasers to coordinate fire for better damage, but it would take ten or more to even have a chance, and when 2E split up the guns into fire arcs without adjusting weapon damage to compensate, they effectively hamstrung the ability of those weapons to do anything useful.
_________________
"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.
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atgxtg
Rear Admiral
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Posts: 2460
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| Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2014 5:58 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, I kinda thing that WEG got it wrong here.
Probably the most sensible thing to do would be to give captial ships some point defense weaponry. Probably standardize the lasers to light, medium and heavy the way starfighter weaponry is, and use the same 3D-5D scale.
Another possiblity is the approach WotC used with D20 where guns fired in batteries of 6, and just link the weapons. I did something for lineked weapons awhile back:
Twin Weapon +1D damage
Triple Weapons: +2D damage
Quad Weapons: +1D Fire Control +2D Damage
So if we linked the capital ship guns to fire in sets of 4 we'd get an improvement. |
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Dromdarr_Alark
Commander
Joined: 07 Apr 2013
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Location: Boston, MA
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| Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2014 6:09 pm Post subject: |
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I noticed that some capital ships had ridiculously week lasers. I didn't think of doing anything about it until now.
On the other hand, there are the ships that were converted from D20 and Saga that are horrifically overpowered.
For my game, I would look at each ship on an individual basis and adjust its stats to be more appropriate.
2D for a laser battery is just worthless. It's not even capable of destroying a ship without at least 2 sixes on the Wild Die.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2014 6:12 pm Post subject: |
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Unfortunately, in some cases, there are barely enough weapons to link. The Nebulon B only has two 2D lasers in its rear and side fire arcs. I'd lean more towards a blanket 2D increase in the listed strength of starfighter scale lasers on capital ships, with single lasers doing 4D, duals doing 5D, and quads doing 6D (and the high power quads on the Corellian Gunship doing 7D).
I agree with the idea of putting point defense weaponry aboard capital ships, likely just the 4D single lasers, but in large amounts so that they can be coordinated for effect.
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"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.
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atgxtg
Rear Admiral
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 2460
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| Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2014 6:35 pm Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | Unfortunately, in some cases, there are barely enough weapons to link. The Nebulon B only has two 2D lasers in its rear and side fire arcs. I'd lean more towards a blanket 2D increase in the listed strength of starfighter scale lasers on capital ships, with single lasers doing 4D, duals doing 5D, and quads doing 6D (and the high power quads on the Corellian Gunship doing 7D).
I agree with the idea of putting point defense weaponry aboard capital ships, likely just the 4D single lasers, but in large amounts so that they can be coordinated for effect. |
Dude, you gotta read my entire post....
| atgxtg wrote: |
Probably the most sensible thing to do would be to give captial ships some point defense weaponry. Probably standardize the lasers to light, medium and heavy the way starfighter weaponry is, and use the same 3D-5D scale. |
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The Brain
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 03 Jun 2005
Posts: 242
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| Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2014 6:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Dromdarr_Alark wrote: | .
2D for a laser battery is just worthless. It's not even capable of destroying a ship without at least 2 sixes on the Wild Die. |
But do you really need to completely destroy a fighter? In modern warfare the main point of AAA isn't to destroy aircraft but to impede their ability to put concordance on target. A small ship with only 1 or 2 crew very limited supplies and almost no damage control capacity, given sufficient damage most pilots I would think would break off and withdraw baring the fairly odd kamikaze. |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2014 8:53 pm Post subject: |
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| atgxtg wrote: | | Dude, you gotta read my entire post.... |
Im not seeing what you mean. I was saying that a better damage range for standardized laser weaponry would be 4D to 6D, not 3D to 5D, and the big ships would be best equipped with the smaller 4D damage light cannon.
EDIT: By which I mean that existing stats show single, dual or quad lasers, not light medium or heavy. A standardized single laser cannon used for basic point defense would do 4D.
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"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
Last edited by CRMcNeill on Tue Apr 29, 2014 11:43 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2014 9:01 pm Post subject: |
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| The Brain wrote: | | But do you really need to completely destroy a fighter? |
At 2D, the standard capital ship laser cannon only breaks even with a TIE fighter, one of the most fragile ships in the game. To even have a reasonable expectation of damaging for a mission kill (damaging the target sufficiently that it can't perform its mission), the cannon needs to have atleast 1D to 2D advantage in Damage vs. Hull & Shields.
_________________
"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
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2014 11:56 pm Post subject: |
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It gets even more confusing when you look at some of the 1E stats and how they were converted. The 1E Dreadnaught, for instance, was equipped with both Single-Lasers and Quad-Lasers for multi-layered anti-starfighter defense. When converted to 2E, both the lasers and quad-lasers were converted to turbolasers, eliminating all of the Dreadnaught's integral anti-starfighter defenses. Oddly enough, when converting the Rebel Assault Cruiser to 2E, the lasers and quad-lasers were left as is.
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"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.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 12:03 am Post subject: |
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| atgxtg wrote: | | So if we linked the capital ship guns to fire in sets of 4 we'd get an improvement. |
I just decided to use an optional rule to the effect that every weapon on a WEG stat that said "battery" in the name description was automatically a quad-battery, and could shift up to 2D from damage to fire control for free (i.e. without requiring a Command roll to coordinate it).
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"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.
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 2:08 am Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | Unfortunately, in some cases, there are barely enough weapons to link. The Nebulon B only has two 2D lasers in its rear and side fire arcs. I'd lean more towards a blanket 2D increase in the listed strength of starfighter scale lasers on capital ships, with single lasers doing 4D, duals doing 5D, and quads doing 6D (and the high power quads on the Corellian Gunship doing 7D).
I agree with the idea of putting point defense weaponry aboard capital ships, likely just the 4D single lasers, but in large amounts so that they can be coordinated for effect. |
I can agree to increasing the damage for those which have them already there, but putting new turrets on existing ships which don't have them is a little iffy for me. Where is the crew for them going to come from or are you going to up the ship crew needs? What of power? Tonnage like on a freighter?
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