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First off this isn't sarcasm i genuinely can't see why you would use missile weapons as they seem to have the drawbacks of other weapons with added drawbacks (e.g. point defense doing damage destroys them and you need to make a new check each round to continue targetting the enemy) on top of which the damage is balanced against other weapons. So I assume I must be missing something. Can someone explain what the point of them is?
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1) Point weapons actually have a somewhat low chance of working.
2) Tracking weapons have some of the highest damage values (at least at the high end) And at least before the errata, were pretty cheap too.
3) They still shouldn't be your primary weapon, but assuming they're still relatively cheap, they make good front/side/rear arc weapons to pad out your arsenal and contribute to overall damage for a few rounds.
4) I've seen a starship combat go past 5 rounds... twice? But, I don't roll NPC recharge and rebalance checks for shields to speed up combat, so take that with a grain of salt.
I agree with all of Garretmander's points, and would like to add that, since tracking weapons roll against TL instead of AC, there will be some enemies that are easier to hit with tracking weapons than direct-fire weapons.
Point weapons, while okay-ish at warding away missiles, are generally mediocre offensively, so those are BP taken away from improved shields or armor or deadlier weapons.
I think that the greatest value is damage per BP or PCU value. For example, compare the trusty coilgun (4d4, range 20, 6 BP, 10 PCU) to the underrated light torpedo launcher (2d8, range 20, speed 16, 4 BP, 5 PCU). For nearly the same damage and almost the same effective range (assuming you want to hit the target in the same round you fire), you save a third on BP and half on PCU! Note that, unlike most tracking weapons, the light torpedo launcher doesn't have the limited fire property, so you can just keep shootin'.
I agree with Garretmander in that you should probably not select a tracking weapon as your one big gun, but they certainly have value as secondary weapons to protect your vulnerable arcs.
Note that, unlike most tracking weapons, the light torpedo launcher doesn't have the limited fire property, so you can just keep shootin'.
Does anyone have the new CRB to check if this was changed in the errata?
I always thought this was an oversight, but they aren't OP if it wasn't.
Note that, unlike most tracking weapons, the light torpedo launcher doesn't have the limited fire property, so you can just keep shootin'.Does anyone have the new CRB to check if this was changed in the errata?
I always thought this was an oversight, but they aren't OP if it wasn't.
It still doesn't have Limited Fire.
The mega nuke also still doesn't have the irradiate property, though, so they didn't necessarily notice or care about stuff like this even though it was pointed out.
What did change is the cost of a lot of the tracking weapons that used to provide incredible amounts of damage per BP. So some reevaluation will be in order. Also, the cost of the coil gun (now 10bp).
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I see still not entirely convinced the benefits outweigh the drawbacks though. So if you were to add a missile launcher or two would you suggest the unlimitef fire torpedo launcher, the slow high damage variants like anti-mattet or something with special rules like nuclear missiles (irradiate) or magic torpedos (mystic, quantum)?
I see still not entirely convinced the benefits outweigh the drawbacks though. So if you were to add a missile launcher or two would you suggest the unlimitef fire torpedo launcher, the slow high damage variants like anti-mattet or something with special rules like nuclear missiles (irradiate) or magic torpedos (mystic, quantum)?
My players tend to stay within five hexes of the enemy, so they grabbed the biggest damage ones they could fit on the ship.
It's also possible, but slightly more difficult, to stack tracking weapons so they all arrive on the same turn, giving you a rather nice alpha strike to start combat.
I don't recommend trying to stack more than two missiles in this way. It is very unlikely that you will have more than two of them hit no matter how many you stack. Even with just the two, it is quite likely that only one of them will hit. But you do at least have slightly higher odds of having one of the two hit than you would of just shooting one within direct fire range. (Very similar math to that of the two attacks from full attack vs the one attack from a standard attack)
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I also had a problem with missile weapons, but we fixed it in my round with a nice houserule (I think):
Tracking weapons can be fired on targets in any arc as long as the target is within sensor range. In the first round they have to move away from the firing ship in a straight line (based on the arc they are mounted in) for at least speed/2 hex. After this the missile turn toward the target trying to use the most direct route (and follow the normal tracking weapon rules).
With this tracking weapons became really interesting and my players always have at least one tracking weapon on their ship.
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I also had a problem with missile weapons, but we fixed it in my round with a nice houserule (I think):
Tracking weapons can be fired on targets in any arc as long as the target is within sensor range. In the first round they have to move away from the firing ship in a straight line (based on the arc they are mounted in) for at least speed/2 hex. After this the missile turn toward the target trying to use the most direct route (and follow the normal tracking weapon rules).
With this tracking weapons became really interesting and my players always have at least one tracking weapon on their ship.
That makes sense and would make them more useful.
It's also sensor range x 2 for passive sensors (you always detect things wandering that close to you) and sensor range x 5 for active sensors. But I'm pretty sure there's no description of any downside for active sensors, so I don't know why you wouldn't always go active.
I could see it played like passive/active sonar, where passive sensors can detect active ones outside their range x 2 bubble, but they didn't write it up that way.
(All this vaguely recollected from when this last annoyed me 2+ years ago and I wrote about it.)
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It's also sensor range x 2 for passive sensors (you always detect things wandering that close to you) and sensor range x 5 for active sensors. But I'm pretty sure there's no description of any downside for active sensors, so I don't know why you wouldn't always go active.
I could see it played like passive/active sonar, where passive sensors can detect active ones outside their range x 2 bubble, but they didn't write it up that way.
(All this vaguely recollected from when this last annoyed me 2+ years ago and I wrote about it.)
Hmmm I think I'll need to look into real world sensor usages, perhaps something like cloaking devices can be used with passive sensors but not active ones as they send out some kind of pulse that can be picked up even if the ship can't (you see the ripples on the pond but not the stone that caused them). I also see Active sensors unlike passive ones take a penalty.
Active sensors can discern information about a target up to five times the sensors’ range away from the ship, but such checks take a penalty of –2 for each range increment beyond the first to the target. For example, if short-range sensors (range = 5 hexes) were used against a target 12 hexes away, the check would take a –4 penalty.
So a ship with long range sensors can use passive sensors to detect things at a range of 40 hexes no penalty but active sensors take a penalty of -2. To detect at 5 range increments means you have a penalty of -10 to detect things.
I'm also not a fan of observation sensors giving you blind sense life and darkvision at a range of 10 miles. In my opinion all sensors should be doing that between heat sensors, motion sensors, hightech life sign sensors.
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I didn't really think about active/passive sensors, I just wanted to have mechanic/value to limit the "lock-on range" of a missile.
And the standard ranges for sensors (5/10/20) seems like a good number to use (they are already in game, have a logic connection to this mechanic and are easy to understand (no formulars etc.)).