I believe you have to have line of sight to lock on the lasers and fire them. There's nothing that says you HAVE to have LOS on missile weapons specifically, but there's nothing that says you can duct tape a camera to it and fly it from the gunners chair either. Without some kind of written exception I'm unaware of it works just like any other weapon.
Wow. I was sure this was covered somewhere, and I'm clearly wrong on that. Interesting question.
Rules as written contain no information. No FAQ entry either. So that just confirms the answer you suspected - no you haven't missed anything.
As for fixing it, your solution seems reasonable. If the asteroids got big enough then I'd argue you couldn't even lock on through them but the module seems to have covered that for you.
Oddly enough after reading through the weapon and starship combat rules on A of N, I didn't see anything that says you need LOS to shoot any weapon at another ship. That does not make any sense.
The way I have been playing at my table. You have to have LOS to a starship in order to target it with direct or tracking weapons (only on the round you fire the tracking weapon).
So if a ship has ducked behind an object that blocks LOS the gunners cannot target it.
If the ship ducks out of LOS after you successfully fire a tracking weapon at it, then the tracking weapon keeps heading for the targeted ship as it has lock, and of course you have to roll every round unit it reaches the targeted ship or misses.
Oddly enough after reading through the weapon and starship combat rules on A of N, I didn't see anything that says you need LOS to shoot any weapon at another ship. That does not make any sense.
If a hex is five miles to a side and in three dimensions, then you need a really big object to block LOS between ships. If the hex is smaller than five miles, it's easier to block LOS. However, they're undefined in size.
If a hex is five miles to a side and in three dimensions, then you need a really big object to block LOS between ships. If the hex is smaller than five miles, it's easier to block LOS. However, they're undefined in size.
It all depends on the size of the ship and the object. The size of the hex is somewhat immaterial.
Small ship behind Large asteroid means LOS is blocked.
Large ship behind moon sized asteroid means LOS is blocked.
Huge ship in field of tiny asteroids means LOS is not blocked.
I am talking about a ship that gets directly behind an object.
As for two ships 21 hexes apart with an object exactly 10 hexes from each ship yes, I agree that it would have to be very big to block LOS.
As for hex sizes, my group and I have been influenced by Star Trek's very long ranges for scanning and combat, so we are treating each hex as 10,000 km.
My gut instinct is that most situations where indirect fire of missile weapons would be plausibly relevant, are also situations where its probably impossible. The same source of persistently blocked LOE, also provides a persistent blockage of LOS and thus prevents making an attack at all ( because your sensors can't see the target at all ). I suppose you could allow attacks where the missiles have no target lock at all, just a set of coordinates to go and chase down whatever they see. . . but I am *very* leery of allowing this, and also, this sounds like the kind of thing every navy, shipbuilder, and weapons manufacturer has great big all-caps red text warnings against doing.
If I allowed such an indirect no-sensor attack, at the very least I'd impose a 50% miss chance on the first attack roll, for the target being unseen. I'd probably also say that:
1. Even if the attack doesn't "miss", if there are multiple hostile ships nearby, which one the missile attacks is a random roll.
2. If the attack roll is a 1, the missile locks onto the nearest friendly, neutral, or otherwise "the players don't want to attack this" target, and rolls an attack against *them* instead.
Well said.
Like you, if I allowed such blind fire the only thing I would change is having the non-missing missile to randomly lock onto any ship within the area the coordinates. The missile has no lock when initially fired and has no idea between friend and foe. It is just seeking out a hunk of metal that is spewing out thruster exhaust.
I actually made a whole combat around effectively this question. Enemy (with good range and gunnery bonus) firing missile barrages at our heroes in an asteroid field. Basically, the rules were simple:
1. LOS required for initial lock. LOS NOT required for tracking rolls on subsequent turns. However-
2. Missiles travel a straight line from their position towards the target vessel. If there is an asteroid in this direct-line path, the missile hits the asteroid, not the target.
This allowed the players to use asteroids as cover, and made the combat much more tactically interesting, as they dodged around to line up the shots they needed on the enemy.