If the enemy ship is further away that the speed rating of the missile (or torpedo), the missile will take more than 1 round to reach the target.
If the Science Officer takes a Target System action, if the missile scores a critical it will affect the targeted system.
Does the science officer need to make this check when the missile is launched?
Or does the science officer need to make this check in the round when the missile will hit?
I think you're missing a key element from page 320 CRB. If the weapon gets to the target, it goes boom. If it doesn't make it to the target:
"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; 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..."
My read of this is that if the science officer does a "target system" and the missile hits that round, all is normal and fine. If not, then random chance takes over. The science officer cannot do another "target system" the following round and have it effect the missile.
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I think you're missing a key element from page 320 CRB. If the weapon gets to the target, it goes boom. If it doesn't make it to the target:
"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; 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..."
My read of this is that if the science officer does a "target system" and the missile hits that round, all is normal and fine. If not, then random chance takes over. The science officer cannot do another "target system" the following round and have it effect the missile.
Yea I agree.
Missiles are in a weird place, where - logically - they seem like they should be extra long range weapons, because they can keep going. But practically, they become knife-fighting weapons, where you don't want to fire beyond their first "range increment" (hexes equal to missile speed), because their chance to hit starts dropping exponentially with each check. Especially since target system and other potential benefits are *explicitly prohibited* in later rounds, so it's harder to aim without a huge inherent bonus. It's just... weird. You'd think TL would be lower for large ships (like touch AC was for dragons in pathfinder), but no, even for gargantuan ships, TL is rarely more than a point or two below AC.
Do missiles need to be facing their target when launched? It seems to me their target would not have to be in the same arc they are launched from, but some of their movement for the round would be used up moving and turning to face and follow their target. Are there any rules on this?
Also, is there a limit to the number of rounds a missile can chase the target before running out of fuel, assuming they keep making their targeting roll?
Yes, missles have to be fired at a target that is in arc.
No, there is no limit laid out to the number of rounds a missle can track for, if it does not fail a targeting roll and lose its lock.
First, determine the range between the two starships (counted in hexes) and the arc of attack. For every range increment beyond the first, the gunnery check takes a cumulative –2 penalty. The attacking starship can fire a weapon against only ships in the same arc as that weapon; see the diagram on page 318. If the targeted starship is in a hex that lies in two arcs (the shaded hexes in the diagram), the gunner decides which arc’s weapons target it; it can’t be targeted by weapons in two arcs.
Off arc tracking weapons would be a cool upgrade option in a future starship book, but existing options have to fire at things in their arc when they are launched.
Thanks for the clarifications HammerJack and Xenocrat.
So, on the first round a tracking weapon is fired (in arc), the standard Gunnery check applies:
Gunnery Check = 1d20
+ the gunner’s base attack bonus or the gunner’s ranks in the Piloting skill
+ the gunner’s Dexterity modifier
+ bonuses from computer systems
+ bonuses from the captain and science officers
+ range penalty
But in subsequent rounds this could be modified to:
Tracking Weapon Check (In-Flight Rounds) = 1d20+ the gunner’s base attack bonus or the gunner’s ranks in the Piloting skill
+ the gunner’s Dexterity modifier
+ range penalty
The rules say that computer bonuses and bonuses from fellow crew members are not included in subsequent gunnery checks, but it doesn't disallow the Gunner skill and Dex modifier, so I've left those in.
Would you agree with that?
I'm thinking that I'd like the missile to carry along some of the initial skill/Dex of the gunner so as to have a chance to hit targets farther out than 1 multiple of the speed rating. The range penalty should also be decreasing if the missile is faster than the target. The missiles normally have a range of "long" (20 hexes), but most have a speed of 10. If they lose the Gunner's skill and dex bonuses, then they really become a medium range weapon with a big chance of failing on range increments beyond the first--and that seems to run counter to the "Long" range designation.
In my games I ruled that missiles can't target every enemey within sensor range. They just have to fly half their speed away from the firing ship before heading towards the enemy.
After reading all this here, I also think of a new action for science officers:
"Lock Target" - this allows all missile to add the ships computer system bonus (or the science officers coputer skill) to it's next attack roll.
DC 10 + enemies Tier + ECM (every +5 extend the effect for one additional round)