I've searched, and somehow still can't find all the answers to life, the universe, and tracking weapons.
Our group just had our first Starship Combat session last night, and boy was it a lot of learning. Lots of questions of course, but one of the bigger head-scratchers that I feel should be easier to answer relates to Tracking Weapons.1) I've seen it mentioned that after the initial firing of the missile, you do NOT apply range increment penalties to Tracking the target. I've also seen mention that you DO. I don't see anything in the rules (aside from "make your gunnery checks, kids"), but maybe someone else has? If it does apply, is the range based on distance between missile and ship, or ship and ship?
2) Most tracking weapons in the CRB have the Limited fire 5 special property. When you fail your initial gunnery check, is that ammunition consumed? I can't tell if you make the check before or after the launch. To me it makes sense not to pull the trigger until you know you're locked onto the target, and it's just silly to think you launched that missile and it explodes (or fizzles) outside your launch bay because you can't make the check.
3) What happens when someone who's not the target of a missile passes through (or stops in) a hex containing that missile? Can missiles share hexes with other missiles and non-target starships? I know it's locked on to a target, but we were launching a lot of nukes at each other last night. At one point there were more missiles than ships in a 1v4 combat. The field was cluttered with missiles and it was hard to decide if we could fly through them or not.
4) Directly related to the last question, sorry. If you fly into a hex containing a missile targeting you for any reason, does it hit you? The rules SEEM to state that it can only move then hit you in the gunnery phase. But if you fly straight into it in the helm phase...?
5) If a gunner switches roles, who makes the gunnery checks on the missile he fired from a previous round? Does anyone? What if there is no more gunner?
6) Last one (for now). When an enemy ship is destroyed, are its missiles that are still in play removed from the table?
We reasoned it out a lot, and ultimately house ruled, but want to know what the truth is.
Please no house rules, advice, or homebrew. Just want some clarification if it's available.
There are only clearly explicit rules for a couple of these so you really do have to deal with interpretation for the rest, sorry. It's a roleplaying game, not a block of computer code, you're expected to make some interpretation.
A gunner firing a tracking weapon takes a range penalty only on her first gunnery check, when the target is first acquired.
1: No range penalty after initial attack.
If the attack is made with a tracking weapon such as a missile launcher and the result of the gunnery check equals or exceeds the target’s TL, the tracking weapon’s projectile moves its speed toward the target, making turns during this movement as needed (a projectile from a tracking weapon has perfect maneuverability). If it intercepts the target before it reaches the end of its movement, it explodes and deals damage as normal (see Damage below). If not, attempt a new gunnery check at the start of the next gunnery phase to determine whether the projectile continues to move toward the target;
2: Since the missile doesn't move toward the target out of your space unless you beat the target's TL, it's safe to assume you don't actually fire / expend the ammo unless your roll succeeds.
3: As far as multiple missiles in one hex, you can link weapons together and fire them at the same time at the same target, so multiple missiles HAVE to be able to occupy the same hex. At least one of the published weapons is even described as a battery of micromissiles.
As far as missiles and other ships, there is no rule for this at all. But rule of cinema would say that a fighter or shuttle making a heroic sacrifice to intercept a missile to save the larger more important ship should be possible.
4: It's unclear. My interpretation of "if it intercepts the target before it reaches the end of its movement, it explodes" would be that as soon as the missile and its target are in the same hex, it explodes and deals damage.
5: The rules also don't say anything about your missile automatically failing in the second round if you don't assign anyone to gunnery at all. So logically, a given missile would continue to use the gunnery bonus of the person who actually fired it, not whoever is currently at the helm.
6: Following from the preceding, where you don't have to even assign a gunner for previously fired missiles to keep tracking, a ship can blow up and its missiles will still continue to make attack rolls every turn until they either connect or lose tracking. You can definitely have a battle where both sides lose.
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2: Since the missile doesn't move toward the target out of your space unless you beat the target's TL, it's safe to assume you don't actually fire / expend the ammo unless your roll succeeds.
Looking father down that same paragraph, it does say "If the result of a gunnery check for a tracking weapon is ever less than the target’s TL, the weapon’s projectile is destroyed and removed from play." (emphasis is mine)
To me this means that if the initial roll does not meet or beat the TL, than the projectile is lost.3) What happens when someone who's not the target of a missile passes through (or stops in) a hex containing that missile? Can missiles share hexes with other missiles and non-target starships? I know it's locked on to a target, but we were launching a lot of nukes at each other last night. At one point there were more missiles than ships in a 1v4 combat. The field was cluttered with missiles and it was hard to decide if we could fly through them or not.
To question 3, missiles are so small that they do not interact with another ship in the same hex as it. If the other ship had a correct weapon, they might be able to get an AOO on the missile. But there are a limited number of weapons capable of hitting a missile. So yes, the missile can share the hex with a non-targeted ship.
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That bit you quoted is well into the section of the paragraph where it's talking about what to do with a tracking weapon on subsequent turns after it's fired. So yes, if on turn two (or three, or four) if the missile is still in play, and fails its attack roll, it is lost. That doesn't say anything about losing the shot if you fail the initial attack roll. In most media, even Star Trek, if the gunner is having trouble locking on they just don't hit the fire button; in essence they failed the attack roll and so "wasted" their turn, the time spent trying to get a lock on an evasive target, but didn't waste any of the ship's ammo.
That bit you quoted is well into the section of the paragraph where it's talking about what to do with a tracking weapon on subsequent turns after it's fired. So yes, if on turn two (or three, or four) if the missile is still in play, and fails its attack roll, it is lost. That doesn't say anything about losing the shot if you fail the initial attack roll. In most media, even Star Trek, if the gunner is having trouble locking on they just don't hit the fire button; in essence they failed the attack roll and so "wasted" their turn, the time spent trying to get a lock on an evasive target, but didn't waste any of the ship's ammo.
Unfortunately that analogy doesn't quite hold up. Sure aircraft wait for tone before launching missiles but even then due to countermeasures or fancy flying they dont always hit. Also you dont wait to shoot a pistol until your guaranteed a hit you fire when you think its on target and if you miss the shot is wasted. I mean its your game house rule away but the games intent is pretty clear hear. You miss and the missile is wasted.
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That bit you quoted is well into the section of the paragraph where it's talking about what to do with a tracking weapon on subsequent turns after it's fired. So yes, if on turn two (or three, or four) if the missile is still in play, and fails its attack roll, it is lost. That doesn't say anything about losing the shot if you fail the initial attack roll. In most media, even Star Trek, if the gunner is having trouble locking on they just don't hit the fire button; in essence they failed the attack roll and so "wasted" their turn, the time spent trying to get a lock on an evasive target, but didn't waste any of the ship's ammo.
The placing that sentence is poor. It should have been placed in the beginning.
Tracking weapons are OP if they were only consumed when they get a TL and begin moving toward the target. I have never seen a track weapon fired at a range that was outside it's speed so they always hit on the turn they are fired.
As others have said, your game so your house rule. But you will putting an frightful amount of power into a ship if their tracking weapons are not consumed unless they get a TL.
Let’s answer this with cold, hard rules from the Starfinder Core Rulebook then:
1) I've seen it mentioned that after the initial firing of the missile, you do NOT apply range increment penalties to Tracking the target. I've also seen mention that you DO. I don't see anything in the rules (aside from "make your gunnery checks, kids"), but maybe someone else has? If it does apply, is the range based on distance between missile and ship, or ship and ship?
Page 303: A gunner firing a tracking weapon takes a range penalty only on her first gunnery check, when the target is first acquired.
Page 320: attempt a new gunnery check at the start of the next gunnery phase to determine whether the projectile continues to move toward the target; you don’t receive any bonuses from computer systems or actions by your fellow crew members from previous rounds or the current round, but you can take penalties, such as from an enemy science officer’s improve countermeasures action.
The missiles lose both the range penalty and computer and crew bonuses.
2) Most tracking weapons in the CRB have the Limited fire 5 special property. When you fail your initial gunnery check, is that ammunition consumed? I can't tell if you make the check before or after the launch. To me it makes sense not to pull the trigger until you know you're locked onto the target, and it's just silly to think you launched that missile and it explodes (or fizzles) outside your launch bay because you can't make the check.
Page 303: A tracking weapon’s projectile has a listed speed; once fired, it moves that number of hexes toward its target. Each subsequent round during the gunnery phase, it must succeed at a gunnery check against the target’s TL to continue to move its speed toward its target. On a failure, the projectile is lost. If the projectile reaches the target’s hex, it deals the listed damage.
You are locked on the target, but it has defensive countermeasures and the pilot’s skill to try and evade the missile (represented by the ship’s TL score). Some of them are dodged, some are scrambled. The enemy is not a sitting duck, and the missile is not an automatic hit – otherwise, who’d bother installing anything other than tracking weapons?
3) What happens when someone who's not the target of a missile passes through (or stops in) a hex containing that missile? Can missiles share hexes with other missiles and non-target starships? I know it's locked on to a target, but we were launching a lot of nukes at each other last night. At one point there were more missiles than ships in a 1v4 combat. The field was cluttered with missiles and it was hard to decide if we could fly through them or not.
Page 319: Since the hexes in starship combat aren’t representative of three-dimensional distance, starships can move through hexes containing other starships, but they can’t end their movement there.
Hexes are huge, plenty of room to share with a missile.
4) Directly related to the last question, sorry. If you fly into a hex containing a missile targeting you for any reason, does it hit you? The rules SEEM to state that it can only move then hit you in the gunnery phase. But if you fly straight into it in the helm phase...?
Page 320: If it intercepts the target before it reaches the end of its movement, it explodes and deals damage as normal.
“Seem”? They state right there that missiles are harmless outside of gunnery phase! You can fly right through all hexes occupied by missiles without a care in the world.
Trying to ram your ship into the missile would be another thing though, and not yet covered by starship combat rules.
5) If a gunner switches roles, who makes the gunnery checks on the missile he fired from a previous round? Does anyone? What if there is no more gunner?
Page 303: Each subsequent round during the gunnery phase, it must succeed at a gunnery check against the target’s TL to continue to move its speed toward its target.
Page 320: If it intercepts the target before it reaches the end of its movement, it explodes and deals damage as normal (see Damage below). If not, attempt a new gunnery check at the start of the next gunnery phase to determine whether the projectile continues to move toward the target
The missile was fired using the original gunner ability and is independent after that, just keep the same check, sans range penalties and other bonuses.
6) Last one (for now). When an enemy ship is destroyed, are its missiles that are still in play removed from the table?
Only two things get rid of missiles:
Page 303: On a failure, the projectile is lost. If the projectile reaches the target’s hex, it deals the listed damage.
Page 320: If it intercepts the target before it reaches the end of its movement, it explodes and deals damage as normal. [...] If the result of a gunnery check for a tracking weapon is ever less than the target’s TL, the weapon’s projectile is destroyed and removed from play.
A hit or a miss.
You can also try to outrun them:
Page 303: A starship weapon can fire at a target up to 10 range increments away.
Or use a weapon with the Point property, if your ship has any BP to waste in such a thing.
I wouldn't consider point weapons a waste, considering how powerful missiles are. A point weapon is one of the best things you can possibly put in a turret, since it can then respond to missiles coming from any direction. And in practice I'm finding that like 2/3 of all attack rolls are made from in Close range anyway, so you can still also use the point weapon on your turn as an active attack against the enemy ship.
I wouldn't consider point weapons a waste, considering how powerful missiles are. A point weapon is one of the best things you can possibly put in a turret, since it can then respond to missiles coming from any direction. And in practice I'm finding that like 2/3 of all attack rolls are made from in Close range anyway, so you can still also use the point weapon on your turn as an active attack against the enemy ship.
Right now I'm of a "biggest damage in the shortest amount of time" mindset concerning starship battles - and point weapon damage is just subpar.
Look at the best light weapon with a point property, the Laser Net: 9 bp, 2d6 damage. You can trade that many bp for a High explosive missile launcher (4 bp, 4d8 damage) and a Tactical nuclear missile launcher (5 bp, 5d8 damage). If you can put those two on a turret mount... my goodness. You could be tossing 9d8 damage against your enemy in any arc instead of spending your gunnery phase defending yourself (that's the science officer and engineer jobs to begin with - let them eat crow) against the second missile coming your way.
Yeah, I know the PCU is higher, but still worth it.
A weapon with this special property is always short range
and can’t be fired against targets that are outside the first range
increment. If a tracking weapon would hit a ship in an arc that
contains a weapon with the point special property, the gunner of
the targeted starship can attempt an immediate gunnery check
with the point weapon against the incoming tracking projectile
using the bonus listed in parentheses in the weapon’s Special
entry (instead of her usual bonus to gunnery checks).The DC for this gunnery check is equal to 10 + the tracking weapon’s speed.
If the attack hits, the tracking weapon is destroyed before it can damage the ship.
A point weapon can be used to attempt only one
such free gunnery check each round, but this usage potentially
allows a point weapon to be fired twice in a single round.
Wait, gunnery check "DC"? The heck?
So I can blow up an Antimatter mega-missile launcher (a capital tracking weapon) capable of doing 4d10x10 damage with my Flak thrower (a light direct-fire weapon), with a whooping 3d4 damage, by rolling 1d20+8 against a DC 16?
I'm either missing something obvious, or I might have to rethink this issue.
You could be tossing 9d8 damage against your enemy in any arc instead of spending your gunnery phase defending yourself (that's the science officer and engineer jobs to begin with - let them eat crow) against the second missile coming your way.
Yeah, I know the PCU is higher, but still worth it.
I believe you can fire an available point weapon to destroy the missile as a free action, it doesn't take up an action in the gunnery phase. Once you have enough BP that it's a relatively small investment, I could definitely see a point defense turret paying for itself. That said, I'm surprised you guys are so excited for missiles. My group never really considered them. The sharply limited ammo and the point defense mechanic really turned us off the idea, the slightly higher damage didn't offset that drawback.
Wait, gunnery check "DC"? The heck?
So I can blow up an Antimatter mega-missile launcher (a capital tracking weapon) capable of doing 4d10x10 damage with my Flak thrower (a light direct-fire weapon), with a whooping 3d4 damage, by rolling 1d20+8 against a DC 16?
I'm either missing something obvious, or I might have to rethink this issue.
I don't think you're missing anything. You could even spring for the Heavy Laser Net for a beefy +12 modifier, which would destroy the antimatter Mega-Missile on a 4+. If you want to invest in missile offense, it's a good idea to either stagger your shots in such a way that multiple missiles hit the target at the same time, or go for salvos - you really want to saturate and overwhelm any point defense whenever possible.
It is a free action to fire a point weapon on defense, it doesn't use your gunnery action. As for why you can blow up a very damaging missile with something not so damaging, well that's the basic premise of pretty much every missile defense system. Missiles are generally designed to do lots of damage once they reach their target and aren't really that dangerous if they aren't detonated properly. So shooting down the thermonuclear ICBM with a small fast missile works, and doesn't end with a whole city being wiped, at least in theory...
I believe you can fire an available point weapon to destroy the missile as a free action, it doesn't take up an action in the gunnery phase. Once you have enough BP that it's a relatively small investment, I could definitely see a point defense turret paying for itself.
Indeed, that's why I added the "second missile" - the first one is a freebie.
That said, I'm surprised you guys are so excited for missiles. My group never really considered them. The sharply limited ammo and the point defense mechanic really turned us off the idea, the slightly higher damage didn't offset that drawback.
My two missile turret example has a net of 45d8 damage worth, before running dry. If the enemy isn't packing a point weapon (which could potentially destroy all missiles), and your gunner isn't awful, or you have at least two mediocre gunners, you will destroy the enemy before five rounds.
Off course, if you keep doing this all the time, the GM is definitely putting point guns on all enemy ships hunting the PCs. That will be an awful, gridlocked combat, so obliterate NPCs ships with caution.
I don't think you're missing anything. You could even spring for the Heavy Laser Net for a beefy +12 modifier, which would destroy the antimatter Mega-Missile on a 4+. If you want to invest in missile offense, it's a good idea to either stagger your shots in such a way that multiple missiles hit the target at the same time, or go for salvos - you really want to saturate and overwhelm any point defense whenever possible.
I was going for a worst vs. worst comparison. So even the weakest point pea shooter can take out a monstrosity.
I don't know... this gunnery check DC seems like a leftover from a previous version of starship combat or something. The way the gunnery point and the DC never change is too weird.
All this analysis is based on low level ships, by the way, I haven't even come close to mid-levels.
Yeah, the DC to shoot down missiles is so low because the gunner doesn't actually get to use their bonus - they're stuck using the bonus of the weapon. However, that static weapon bonus is more than sufficient because more damaging missiles are slower and thus have lower DCs. Really the DC should probably be a bit higher but eh.
It being static bothers me the most.
A level 1 pilot on a dinghy has the same bonus and DC as a level 20 pilot on a dreadnought, if both are using flak throwers. So weird.