Topic: SM:P:VM Low Mark Ship Weapons

[Skaran]

Looking at the lower Mark weapons, especially the tech level 18-20 weapons and comparing them to the ships hull materials of the same and lower tech levels, can anyone explain why a navy of these sort of levels would even bother to mount such weapons.

For example the very early TL18 Mk Laser in the ultra-large mount can not damage armour XIX at all which is fair enough given the armour is from a superior tech level, but it cannot do criticals to any armour type the Mk1 can only just scratch type XVI armour from the same tech level and so on. Why would a warship carry these weapons at all?

Now admittedly at these lower levels missiles and torpedoes with projectile cannons will be the principal offence (though realistically unless at very close ranges the projectile cannons should really be useless as well). In my universe I have a fighter with type XV armour and 201 hits which has a triple Mk1 laser mount and 6 Mk7 Torpedoes. Ignoring the torpedoes if two of these fighters went head to head with the lasers the best damage that could be inflicted by the lasers is 3x3 or 9 hits so combat would take a very long time (more than 22 rounds) to attrition the other fighter to 0 hits.

Personally I think this is a problem in a generic construction sequence vessels of the same tech level should be able to moderately damage other vessels of similar capability at the same TLs and more severely damage lower TL vessels and much less severely damage higher TL ones.

Incidently the Mk1 laser is available at TL21 but cannot even scratch most armours from TL18 they are not even that useful v infantry either.

[markc]

 I am going to offer an explanation but I do not know how good it is going to be for you. I think the designers were trying to design in the idea that new technology often starts big and un-useful and proceeds to small and very useful. So yes early lasers are very low power, big and do not do a lot of damage...even to older armor.


 Does that make any sense to you?
MDC

[Marc R]

Also keep in mind that battleships carry a crapload of chain guns that can't hurt other battleships, but come in handy for shooting at aircraft and missiles. . . .

Or, taking it back a few centuries, swivel guns rarely decided conflicts with other ships of the line, but were handy to shoot up soft targets like small boats, or boarding parties.

Your gun might not be handy for shooting another "ship" but come in handy for taking out boarding shuttles and other easier to damage targets, or bombarding space or ground installations.

[Skaran]

Actually I don't think that those low mark energy weapons are useful for taking out shuttles since they have pretty much no chance of actually damaging them and the rating versus infantry does not appear to be any better. The weapons at these tech levels with reasonable mark numbers are the projectile cannons and torpedoes which I can see being the principal armaments of warships of that era but unless ranges are very short the projectile weapons projectiles are not going to hit anything but a stationary target.

This is one aspect where Travellers TNE/FF&S system works better, a Traveller TL9 150MJ laser will do the same damage as a Traveller TL15 150MJ laser at their respective effective ranges, its just that the TL9 lasers effective range will be much shorter and the laser much bigger.

[markc]

  Another note is that in Treveller just as in SM:P you can have different Tech levels for different technologies. So your society might be Tech 23 in lasers and Tech 17 in armor or something like that.
  I know it does not help fix your observation that range and power should be included in there somehow.


  In SM2 range was based on the MK # of the weapon which may be a good work around for one of your problems. The second problem might be solved by scaling up the mass and volume of the early lasers to better reflect what you would like them to do damage wise.


MDC

[Defendi]

Markc is right.  There is stuff, like this, that I didn't think would be used directly but has two purposes.  First, it gives information for world-building purposes that GMs might need to know for their military tech histories, and second, just because I didn't think it would be useful didn't mean a GM might not find something to do with that info that I didn't foresee.

[Marc R]

another example perhaps. . .real world modern tanks can be fitted with lasers or plasma weapons (there are modern era weapons firing either). . .but at modern era power and focus technology levels, neither would be capable of killing another tank at any reasonable range / or in any reasonable length of time on target. . .so in the current era, those two weapons are kinda useless to mount on tanks intended to kill other tanks. . .they might be used for other purposes. (Like taking down fast moving drones/missiles, or close in anti-infantry defenses).

[arakish]

Here is another point for ya.

In our SM universe, the Terran Star Empire (TSE) is comparable to TL27 bordering on TL28.  Their main ships, Monitor Battle Carriers, are armed with 1000s of slug throwing phalanx cannons.  These are considered low tech weapons, being nothing more than the Phalanx CIWS Vulcan autocannon.  However, these weapons are exceptionally effective against fighters, shuttles, drone missiles, and other types of smaller vehicles.  Reason is simple.  The combined kinetic energy is very devestating.  In addition, these battlewagons also have Mark 10 to Mark 20 pulsed phaser cannons as additional PDWS (Point Defense Weapon System).  Then there are the main weapon systems...

Just remember, kinetic energy weapons are fairly low tech, but they can also create quite a bit of damage.

rmfr

[Skaran]

Well I did say that at lower tech levels the main ship board weapons would be the projectile cannons (which based on power consumption must be some sort of mass driver) and the missile/torpedoes.
As for scaling up the low tech weapons they are already as large as the tables allow - large and ultra-large.

I'm also a fan of HALO where it looks like the main weapons are the MAC guns (mass accelerator cannon ie mass drivers) and missiles. These could certainly do a fair amount of damage at the lower tech spectrum. You still need very close ranges though as otherwise they will be easy to dodge.

[markc]

Skaran;
 What I meant was to group multiple ultra-large weapons together as one gun essentially. Yes this does break the rules a bit and it does not raise the damage cap of the weapon but it does give you more damage for increased size and mass.




arakish;
 Do you play in the old universe of Sheldon's Star Maps? IIRC it was also the Space Opera system.


MDC

[arakish]

arakish;
 Do you play in the old universe of Sheldon's Star Maps? IIRC it was also the Space Opera system.

MDC

What are the Sheldon's Star Maps?

No, we use the Hipparcos, Gliese, et. al. star catalogues.  I have a program I bought (from a company in either Sky & Telescope or Astronomy magazine) that reads them in and  can print out 2D maps using either Celestial Coordinates or Cartesian Coordinates.  The program also allows me to give the official star names an alias name.  Thus, I can kind of rename Alpha Centauri to Tranos as it is known to the indigenous species.

The gaming system we use is the SM system, just not the Privateers universe.  Also, we have done quite a bit of work rewriting much of the errata in the SM system.  In our universe, there are the Terran Star Empire, Confederation of Inurian Emirates, the Urgon Hegemony, the Snekra, the Administrative Dynasty, and the Khryshyn Concordium.  Yet to be discovered are the Ibulonic Potentate and The Droves.

rmfr

[markc]

What are the Sheldon's Star Maps?

rmfr

 Space Opera is a Sci Fi game I picked up back in the mid 80's and had some great material for the time. I also loved the pictures of the starships in there books. I will not link to the game here or the Star Maps but you can find them on DTRPG.
 BTW a few of the starship designs were in the move Wing Commander as was the logo for the Earth forces, the Terran Empire.
MDC 

[arakish]

Went to DTRGP and saw the thumbnails.  Now I remember seeing Space Opera in the hobby store.  I think I opted for Space Master because it was less expensive.  Even with the original Space Master, I found it the better system.  A friend had Space Opera and we compared them.  Even he found Space Master to be better.  Since I was in the US Navy, I never got much chance to role play, thus we always used SM for our SF games.  Thus, I have never seen the Space Opera material.  However, seeing what they have at DTRPG has piqued my curiosity.  May have to purchase the Star Maps books and check them out.

Thanks for the pointer.

rmfr

[markc]

 I picked up Space Opera when it was on sale and on a recommend from the clerk who also liked Traveller. I found Space Opera had some (few) good points that I really liked at the time and I liked the Star Maps and Space Ship books for reference work.
 I had SM2 since mid 80's but I did not use it. In the mid 90's I really got on the RM bandwagon and now I have the whole line of modern stuff and older stuff.


MDC