Are there any starship weapons that stand out as best choice?

[Senko]

Just heard a bad starship combat encouter from another group and while shields, computers and the like are obvious i'm wondering are there any starship weapons capital, heavy, light, point defense, interpersonal (mounted on the ship as opposed to carried by the crew) that stand out as a better choice?

[HammerJack]

The biggest ones you can afford. Or, past that, the biggest ones yu can afford to dual link. Having a point weapon is also nice, but secondary to main armament.

There is, unfortunately, not a lot of depth in optimizing a ship loadout.

Also, it's best if ships aren't fully combat optimized, because they all end up identical, as heavily shielded deathspheres that don't bother putting anything in actual firing arcs until you have filled the maximum number of turret mounts with heavy weapons. It doesn't make for a very interesting result.

[Garretmander]

Persistent particle beams and masters iirc are among the highest average damage, put them in and dual link them. Maybe throw in a point weapon for missile defense and a couple high damage missile weapons in arcs you don't expect to use much.

But, as hammerjack says, as a GM I limit players to light weapons in the turret to limit the ol' bubble of death.

[HammerJack]

I hope you also alter enemy ships, accordingly?

[Garretmander]

HammerJack wrote:

I hope you also alter enemy ships, accordingly?

Enemy ships have been pushovers in all encounters I've run. Mostly premade ships and premade adventure paths, so admittedly I haven't checked them for turret heavy weapons. If I built them from scratch I would follow the same guidelines until I got to a ship capable of mounting capital weapons.

["Dr." Cupi]

Look at spore weapons. Spore is a quality that, if used right, can be more effective than most weapons.

[Senko]

I was thinking (tier 20 build towards this) a pair of linked persistent particle canons in a turret mount along with a heavy laser net as well as a regular particle canon and heavy laser net in each arc. At tier 20 what id want to get doesnt use all the build points anyway and its either got enough energy (2nd power core) for everything or it'd need to be redesigned anyway so i may as well as give it heavy laser net instead of regular (obviously there's upgrading to get to this. This gives a potential 20 to 28 d6 in any arc and ability to intercept 2 tracking weapons in that arc as well. Throw in a zenith artillery canon for anti-personel when docked/landed and its good to go. Well mostly ...

1) Do I want to swap out the arc based particle canons for X lasers that do the same damage but have the line ability to hit multiple targets if you can line up the shot?

2) Do I want a high mk computer for a high bonus to rolls or one with more cores for lower bonus but can add to more people (+3 to 4, +5 to 3 or +10 to 2)?

Anyway expansion bays are science lab (general), HAC chamber, tech lab, cargo bay and a housing unit for a second core. Plus of course armour, shields, etc.

If I were in your game it'd obviously need more redesign since I'm using the turret as the heavy hitter and the arc based ones as a suppliment in case of damage as a turret suffers effects from every arc. I just wish there some proper magic or at lead hybrid ships especially omes that avoided using drift space.

[Senko]

The light weapons only in a turret really hits damage it drops me from . . .

any range except short: 8-28D6 vs 8D4-10D6 + 8d4. (Basically losing 10D6 damage 10-60 points per shot as they close)
Short: 5-38D6 vs 2D6-14D6 + 8D4.(Basically losing 16D6 damage 16-96 points of damage per shot at close range)

[Telok]

There are best choices, but what qualifies as best depends on some assumptions.

Assumption: Space is Big.
If true then you want to have a 13+ move, decent shields, non-terrible sensors, long range weapons without ammo limits, and a couple point defense weapons. In the light weapon category coil guns and light torpedos are pretty good, heavy is the particle beams (persistent or not depends on your point budget). Your tactic is to be faster than your opponent and stay 36 to 39 hexes away, or 56 to 59 hexes away. At the high 30s long range weapons are at -2 while medium range weapons are at -6. Just keep at range and plink them to death.

This is an optimal strategy. Therefore it is boring, tedious, and safe.

If space is not big then you'll be staying on the battle mat and keeping within 30 hexes, often being within 10 hexes. Max shields, a high quality mononode computer for your main gunner, some decent point defenses, and the biggest twin linked clobberer you can afford. Max shields and twin linked heavy antimatter missiles are doable by level 10. Pick up a couple particle beams as backup. The tactic is to rush in as fast as possible to get under the speed of the tracking weapons, essentially making then direct fire weapons, and then dump 20d10 damage into your target. The mononode computer is important here, plus anyone who can boost the to-hit should do so.

This may not be a perfectly optimal strategy. But it's much more fun.

Assumption: Level Apporpriate Opponents.
If true then both of the above sections work. If false then I'd go with the 'space is big' build and just accept that some days you need to run away and try a different approach.

One thing you can do is to break out a spreadsheet and try to come up with a value score for different weapons. Average damage per point+power cost, with adjustments for range, ammo, and special effects was my attempt. The coil guns really stood out for light weapons, heavy had several contenders dependent on factors but the particle beams were in the top 5 or 6. I didn't do capital weapons.

By the by, do we know how radiation weapons are supposed to work against the npc crews who aren't statted?

[Senko]

I thought you generally had to be within 20 hexes or even the long range scanners can't see anything. I need to go back to the rules on this it seems if your hitting things at 50 hexes.

Also I prefer to avoid the limited fire weapons as they have a lot more chance of missing.

[Garretmander]

Also, I'm pretty sure there is a line in there about not being able to twin link tracking weapons anyway.

And yeah, the light weapons only in a turret rule means you want maneuverability so you can bring your preferred arc to bear on an enemy instead of just rotating to show the arc with the highest shield points. Still, that's just a house rule, not one you'd find in most games.

As far as computers go, in your build there are two super important checks to make. The check to recharge/redistribute shields, and the check for your guns to hit. The pilot check is less important, so just pick up the best duonode you can find.

[Wingblaze]

There are better weapons and worse weapons. But "better" and "worse" depends what you're optimizing for.

A year or two ago I set out to answer this question for myself. I looked at weapon damage per BP, per power consumed, and so on. I even tried to hybridize a score that took range into account (but I personally favored long range weapons so some of it was just in my head.) I don't have the resulting spreadsheet handy but there were definitely some standouts.

In the heavy weapon category, particle beams were a great weapon along with heavy lasers. Good bang for the buck there. Particle beams were extremely good choices esp. for turret weapons Coilguns and light laser cannons were winners in the light category. (I don't think I really looked at tracking weapons.)

Sure, a persistent particle beam does more damage, but the increase in expense and power is not worth 2d6.

[Ascalaphus]

The dominance of turrets is problematic. A "light turrets only" houserule takes care of that, but then the roll-off for initiative between pilots becomes super dominant.

A house rule for that that I want to experiment with is "complete turns" - instead of trying to do all ships' turns in parallel, do each one sequentially. So ship A does engineering, helm, gunnery; then ship B does engineering, helm, gunnery.

It becomes harder to maneuver quite so much to stay out of front arcs, so maybe ships need to have their total speed reduced a bit / their turn distance increased a bit.

The idea result would be that you're trying to maneuver ships into situations where they can't bring their most powerful arc to bear. The counter to that would be to spread weapons out more instead of putting everything into one super-arc.

I haven't tested this yet though.

[Telok]

Garretmander wrote:

Also, I'm pretty sure there is a line in there about not being able to twin link tracking weapons anyway.

I found it, you're right. It's easy to miss, but you're right.

Welp... I guess we can ignore the tracking weapons then and just go with dual particle beams. We're down to just pretty much one best weapon and build again.

Unable to link the missles I don't find the ammo limit, additional fail rolls (point defense plus extra attack rolls), and extra rules questions to be worth the bother. If you could put six launchers in an arc and fire them all at once it might be ok again, but I think the just have too many points of failure to be worth it.

[HammerJack]

Why would you not be able to fire six launchers at once? Are your PCs never hitting level 6 and gaining access to the Broadside action?

[Peg'giz]

I found Heavy Lasers always be a good choice (dmg/BP wise).

But I also created a houserule for tracking weapons, so they are able to fire on every target in sensor range, regardless of the arc. Only rule here is that the missile has to move half it speed within it's arc in a straight line before turning toward the target.

This way you can always fire something even if you lost your pilot check.
Found this rule lead to a lot more missile fire and flak action. :)

[Telok]

HammerJack wrote:

Why would you not be able to fire six launchers at once? Are your PCs never hitting level 6 and gaining access to the Broadside action?

Well you could, if you dedicate all of one arc and all of your turret to them, and the enemy ends up in that arc, and you make a bunch of attack rolls at more to-hit penalties. But the launchers compare pretty evenly to the coil guns and particle beams for point costs, they just do a modest bit more damage at a higher miss/fail rate and have limited ammo. So at that point you might as well just pack regular guns in there and launchers lose again.

[Senko]

I have to say none of the non-capital tracking weapons seem worth it. Same roll to hit though admitedly vs a different AC but then they need to hit the target before running out of fuel, offer a second reactive roll by the attacked ship to eliminate them. Lot more chance to fail for not that much more damage if it were say 10d10 X2 or the like it might be more worth it.

[HammerJack]

Telok wrote:

HammerJack wrote:

Why would you not be able to fire six launchers at once? Are your PCs never hitting level 6 and gaining access to the Broadside action?

Well you could, if you dedicate all of one arc and all of your turret to them, and the enemy ends up in that arc, and you make a bunch of attack rolls at more to-hit penalties. But the launchers compare pretty evenly to the coil guns and particle beams for point costs, they just do a modest bit more damage at a higher miss/fail rate and have limited ammo. So at that point you might as well just pack regular guns in there and launchers lose again.

A -2 penalty to everything for broadside isn't some huge disadvantage. I'm not sure where you're getting the "modest" damage increase from, if we're talking about high damage missles, though.

Using a 5bp tactical nuclear missles launcher instead of a 6bp coil gun gives you 22.5 average damage instead of 10, or a bit more than double.

Using a 12bp heavy antimatter missles instead of a 15bp particle beam gives you an average of 55 damage instead of 28, or just under double.

The high damage for low cost is why using missles and closing to short range, where you'll only need 1 gunnery check to hit, is such a common way of supplementing a ships firepower when people try to maximize their output. Multiple launchers used with broadside will also tend to overwhelm point defenses, since even if the target ship has a point weapon turret ed or in the correct arc, it can only attempt to stop 1 missle per round.

The results of this approach become even more absurd once you hit level 12, and can combine Moving Speech and Broadside.

While only having limited ammunition weapons can be a very bad decision, the idea that tracking weapons don't provide a lot of firepower per build point makes no sense.

[Telok]

Yes, that's pretty much what I said. If you assume that all/most combats will happen at close to point blank range the missiles are a possible weapon choice.

However, the inability to link launchers, additional rolls for failure, extra penalties for broadside, limited ammo, short effective range, and limited weapon mounts are all negatives.

Think, I was advocating linking two powerful weapons then using both high computer bonuses and crew bonuses to minimize missing because of the limited ammo. The highly accurate burst damage of the tactic was to offset the short range and limited ammo. In addition the tactic worked at all levels, not just 6+ or 12+, and doesn't rely on resolve in any way.

Because I was wrong about the ability to twin link launchers it means you can't put significant (+10~ish) to-hit bonuses on one attack roll. Because PC ships are generally limited to 3 weapon mounts per arc and it's a bad idea to only put limited ammo launnchers in turrets you're capping at about 4 launchers if you want to try missile spam tactics. Now you're locked into using the broadside tactic, spending resolve each attack, taking a penalty to hit, rolling separately for each attack, not having the high single computer bonus, plus it still has all the range and limited ammo issues of missiles. It also costs more build points, limits your effective attack arc, and you can't do it at all for the first five levels.

So I don't think that going through all that bother and risk is worth it for

[LBHills]

Senko wrote:

I have to say none of the non-capital tracking weapons seem worth it...

Tracking weapons are at their best when fired from far enough away that they stay "incoming" for a round. The enemy really, really doesn't want to be hit by your round 2 beams and your round 1 torpedo at the same time, and has to divert attention between you and the torpedo. Point defense weapons are a big help to the target, but they aren't a cure-all. They're at their most effective when fired by multiple ships, since they double the number of bogeys that the target has to deal with.

Multiple hits in a single gunner's turn are more effective (because of the way shield adjustments and repairs work) than two hits on successive rounds. Admittedly that doesn't happen too often, but tracking weapons are the only way it can happen.

Where tracking weapons could shine, though, and haven't so far, is in areas other than direct damage. Missiles that burst into particle fields - zones that damage shields, baffle sensors, etc. Torpedoes that produce sensor decoys (think mirror image for ships) and so on and so forth. The spore torpedoes from PW and vandal rockets from AA3 are both nasty little surprises like that, but more could be done in that area.

[Hawk Kriegsman]

As a house rule I have limited turrets based on ship size.

Tiny: 0
Small: 1
Medium: 2
Large: 3
Huge: 4

and so on.

I also note that may players have had very little trouble with the ships that come with the adventures. Most of the builds are awful.

They have had trouble with the ships I have built however.

As for tracking weapon defense, my players use the "Speedy Gonzalez" method. Run!

Every PC ship at our table has a speed of 10 or 12. So the full power option and fly straight for 15 or 18 hexes makes it impossible to get hit by a tracking weapon as there is no tracking weapon with a speed greater than 14.

Maybe it is time to surprise them with a special heavy torpedo. Speed 21 with a lighter 5d4 payload.

Hmmm.

[Steve Geddes]

Hawk Kriegsman wrote:

As for tracking weapon defense, my players use the "Speedy Gonzalez" method. Run!

Every PC ship at our table has a speed of 10 or 12. So the full power option and fly straight for 15 or 18 hexes makes it impossible to get hit by a tracking weapon as there is no tracking weapon with a speed greater than 14.

Maybe it is time to surprise them with a special heavy torpedo. Speed 21 with a lighter 5d4 payload.

Or use torpedoes to herd them towards a minefield/other trap.

[Hawk Kriegsman]

Steve Geddes wrote:

Or use torpedoes to herd them towards a minefield/other trap.

I like that a lot. Have the enemy ship on one side of the PC ship and have a minefield/ asteroid field on the other side.

Ok PCs face the ship or dodge the mines / asteroids.

Nice.

[Metaphysician]

I considered using a minefield in one of my adventures ( the players didn't end up going the route that would involve it ), though I was going to use the mechanic of treating the minefield as basically a bunch of chances to get shot at by a suitably heavy tracking weapon. If you want to lay an actual minefield on the battle grid, I'd recommend doing something similar: secretly label each hex that has a mine, and anyone flies through it, they take a single attack from light/heavy/capital missile. Picking the attack bonus would be the tricky thing, mind; I'm inclined to steal from the trap table based on the desired CR of the encounter, but that's an improvisation.

Either way, its probably best to treat a mine field as being the equivalent of another ship in the fight, in terms of both CR and XP. At least, if the mine field is only hostile to the players; its a slightly different story if it shoots at everyone equally.

[Peg'giz]

In one official adventure (I don't say the name to don't spoil the fun), the players encounter a asteroid swarm on their way.
The rules are something like this:
- 1. Science Officer can scan for the asteroids, giving the pilot a bonus
- 2. the Engineer can boost shields, weapons systems (give the gunners a bonus to hit) or engines (giving a bonus for the pilot)
- 3. the pilot roll a pilot check the result determinates how many asteroids CAN collide with the ship
- 4. the gunners can use weapons to destroy some of the asteroids which would hit the ship (they have low hp, so basically they are a one hit).
- 5. After this the you roll random for each asteroid which shield vector is hit and then roll damage for them.

I would use a similar system for mines. Maybe give the science officer also the option to destroy some with some [insert-Star Trek Tech Babble] Rays.