Best anti Pocket Warship weapons?

[Weirdo]

Minimal tonnage by large craft standards. And if you keep a couple batteries as secondaries but stick to NACs as your main punch, they might keep the PD but you don't have to give them the opportunity to use it.

[monbvol]

While the more modern PWS do carry AMS in greater number and they do not require gunners they still count against the weapon limit and a PWS with a limit of 12 weapons per facing before needing fire control can run out of tonnage for fire control pretty easy before it can make itself completely immune to capital missile fire.

So yeah capital missiles might be limited in effectiveness but the kind of design choices it forces on the PWS combined with the odd missile that does get through does still make capital missiles interesting.

[Jellico]

Corner post it. 3 arcs of AMS should be sufficient.

That said. Just how many DropShips come close to 12 weapons in an arc? SubCap weapons are heavy and don't really allow for it at DropShip masses.

[monbvol]

In re-checking my facts to make sure I actually know how AMS works against Capital Missiles I just read something in Total Warfare that may need an errata.

But from what I read it would leave gaps if you only mounted 3 AMS bays and to take down the hardest hitting Capital Missile would require 12 AMS guns.  Sure only mounting 2-9 could provide quite a modifier but it still leaves the possibility of a missile getting through.

[Weirdo]

You never need to make the ship invincible, you just need to make hits reasonably unlikely until you're in range of your own guns.

[monbvol]

True enough and all I'm saying is the whole paradigm just presents some interesting thought and possible design considerations.

Which reminds me I was going to get some clarification on the last paragraph in Total Warfare on AMS mounted on aerospace units and how AMS has no effect on Capital Missiles(page 130 for those interested).

[Dragon Cat]

What would be the point of AMS if it can't effect the missiles capable of shooting down the WarShip killer nukes?

Oh look I shot down the forty long range missiles but this one carrying a Santa Ana we won't bother with

Maybe if AMS had fire modes? For general scale weapons or capital but not same in one round?  But it Seems a bit of of over complicating it to me AMS shoots at all missiles simple easy to work and doesn't cause hassle

[Vition2]

Which reminds me I was going to get some clarification on the last paragraph in Total Warfare on AMS mounted on aerospace units and how AMS has no effect on Capital Missiles(page 130 for those interested).

As with most rules outside of Total Warfare, they are technically optional, but most people on this board take them for fact.  Strategic Operations, page 94: "The following rules provide additional options for aerospace combat...  All of these rules are optional and participants should agree in advance to their inclusion in a game."

This is followed by the Advanced Anti-Aircraft, Advanced Heat, Advanced Point Defense Weapons (where the rules we tend to follow regarding AMS are included), etc.

[monbvol]

If AMS is indeed meant to only optionally effect Capital Missiles then that presents a huge problem.

While nukes are also optional rules and outside Total Warfare/Tech Manual rules that Capital Missiles are inside such rules and mountable on Dropships that creates a potential huge exploit.

[Weirdo]

Not if you and your opponent hash things out beforehand, or deal with each other in good faith. If either of those isn't true, why are you playing against them?

[monbvol]

That doesn't change the fundamental issue.

In fact if anything that just underlines how bad of a rule it is.

[Vition2]

The entire official aerospace rules are a slopped together mess - that's why they added a bunch of rules to make things fit better with the fluff - the focus of BattleTech has always been and always will be the ground battles where big stompy robots roam.  In canon, the clans had bracketing fire mode, in the rules it is optional.  In canon, anybody would modify their 'mech to the circumstances, in the rules that's optional.

Most of the Advanced Aerospace rules are there to make aerospace game more interesting (and realistic), rather than what amounts to big ships trading blows until one of them keels over.  Anti-aerospace NL targeting mode, bearings launch, preprogrammed way points, bracketing fire - even tracking ammunition expenditure in space combat is optional.

[Weirdo]

That doesn't change the fundamental issue.

In fact if anything that just underlines how bad of a rule it is.

I'm not seeing how having options is a Bad Thing.

You can choose to play games where the chain gun that makes up a trivial part of a thirty-ton fighter can't be expected to do appreciable damage to a forty-ton missile.

You can choose for your large craft to have effective point defenses, and for your fighters and shuttles to act as ad hoc escorts.

Neither choice is wrong.

How is that bad? ???

[Dragon Cat]

I like options I just wish they had true WarShip defences like a nBSG style or passive and active defences black navy games can be fun if a little short lived

[Weirdo]

Total War/StratOps isn't one of those rulesets that can replicate how other sci fi settings fight, it's universe-specific. You want a more flexible system or a system specific to the setting of your choice, you've come to the right guy. PM me, I can probably find what you seek. O0

[Kit deSummersville]

Not if you and your opponent hash things out beforehand, or deal with each other in good faith. If either of those isn't true, why are you playing against them?

They have awesome furniture?

[Weirdo]

I'm trying to imagine furniture that would convince me to keep playing against someone who likes to spring surprise changes in the ruleset. All I'm getting is a jacuzzi that happens to be on the bridge of an actual Star Destroyer.

[Dragon Cat]

Total War/StratOps isn't one of those rulesets that can replicate how other sci fi settings fight, it's universe-specific. You want a more flexible system or a system specific to the setting of your choice, you've come to the right guy. PM me, I can probably find what you seek. O0

I like the BT setting but I'd have liked to see the marriage of Star League navies and modern tech such as AMS, pocket WarShips a proper mix

NBSG is prob a bad example I was thinking of something that could in some way relate

I know the idea is in canon that Pocket WarShips are now the mainstay navy and having a pair of Castrums escorted by an Isegrim and Interdictor with a Titan support is cool the merger of say that force with a WarShip with its own point defences and capitals against another force would be cool

The old capital ships as flagships to DropShip squadrons kinda the way I see the Levi 3 as an area command/support ship for its DropShips

[Weirdo]

...I have no clue what some of that post was trying to say. I recommend splitting some of that stuff into their own sentences.

[Dragon Cat]

...I have no clue what some of that post was trying to say. I recommend splitting some of that stuff into their own sentences.

What happens when you type on a phone and running out of break time

WarShips and Pocket WarShips both with C3, AMS and screens in squadrons together each capable of fighting and defending each other so you get more tactical play and coordination.  Replicating the ground game of units able to work together to herd enemy units and share data.

The Jihad took that away from the aero game without really letting it reach the levels it could have.

[Weirdo]

I'm really hoping that someday we'll get stats for the remaining Kurita and RotS WarShips, and find they've been refitted as NC3 flagships.

[monbvol]

I'm not seeing how having options is a Bad Thing.

You can choose to play games where the chain gun that makes up a trivial part of a thirty-ton fighter can't be expected to do appreciable damage to a forty-ton missile.

You can choose for your large craft to have effective point defenses, and for your fighters and shuttles to act as ad hoc escorts.

Neither choice is wrong.

How is that bad? ???

I think you're misunderstanding what I'm calling bad.

The default rule allows a weapon that has more than twice the range of anything else be unstoppable and generate anywhere from one to three critical chances(the fourth is only possible via optional rules found in Strategic Operations) to exist.

The optional rules(which I would not actually mind being the default instead) may go a bit too far in rendering Capital Missiles ineffective but given the general lack of AMS and PD bays on published designs might not be too problematic.

[Weirdo]

Nothing's unstoppable if you can dodge it until you close to your own weapons range, and evasive action is in Total War. What are the odds of a gunnery 4 ship hitting you until standard long, if you're playing it smart by evading and turning for side aspect mods?

[Jellico]

Meh.
Missiles are stupidly heavy (the ammo) for their effect. They are as exactly as accurate as a NPPC or NL or NAC at any range except for the Barracuda which barely draws a crit.
Heck. Any decent capital bay will be drawing a threshold critical seeing more than 150 points of armour is hard to do under 700000 tons.

Missiles are downright mediocre under TW. They only get interesting as capital weapons with the SO range boost and self targeting techniques.

What happens when you type on a phone and running out of break time

WarShips and Pocket WarShips both with C3, AMS and screens in squadrons together each capable of fighting and defending each other so you get more tactical play and coordination.  Replicating the ground game of units able to work together to herd enemy units and share data.

The Jihad took that away from the aero game without really letting it reach the levels it could have.

You can't physically block someone in space and there is no terrain to physically block someone in space.

What you are talking about can be done right now with existing units. You just need the time to play a big enough game.

[monbvol]

You guys win.

Capital Missiles are a terrible idea and should not be considered without significant optional rules to make them even remotely useful in any role.

[Weirdo]

They're still nice for smacking fighters outside of their own weapons range.

Just because they're not unstoppable and just because a tiny handful(proportionate to the total population of military DropShips) can make themselves really hard to hit with them without resorting to odd maneuvers doesn't mean they're a terrible idea. Just means they're not the be-all end-all of large craft weaponry and, like everything else, you have to think about their deployment to get the best use out of them.

[Vition2]

Also on a damage per ton basis, most of them (excepting only the Kraken), beat out capital-scale energy weapons.  An exploit of the basic rules allows this as only 10 rounds of ammunition are needed to have a full drum for a combat, and as ammunition isn't tracked 10 rounds = infinite as far as the basic aerospace rules are concerned.  They don't quite have the damage potential as most but the versatility in their ability to attack small craft and aerospace fighters makes up for this imo.  In other words, they definitely have their uses, and are much more optimized than, say, naval gauss weapons.

[monbvol]

The argument has been made that Dropships can evade and make Capital Missiles ineffective.  ASFs can evade too and their modifier is even more useful for making Capital Missiles ineffective even if they can't attack.

So no, I'm not letting anyone have it both ways.  If evading makes Capital Missiles ineffective against Dropships it makes them ineffective against ASFs and Small Craft too.

[Weirdo]

Not being able to hit at long range with impunity <> ineffective.

To qualify as ineffective, you would have to hit a fighter or DropShip with a missile and NOT remove a large chunk of armor with that hit. If it hurts the enemy, it's still effective.

[Vition2]

The argument has been made that Dropships can evade and make Capital Missiles ineffective.

You are literally the only one in this thread who has made that claim.  You started by suggesting them for the anti-pocket warship warship, some agreed with you, others countered.  You mentioned the AMS rule, and seemed to determine that this, in conjunction with potential crits, made capital missiles overpowered.  Others argued against this, saying they weren't overpowered, just not the best option for the intended warship.  Somehow you took this as ineffective, as Weirdo is saying, less effective does not mean ineffective. 

I will also add, that for warships with less room for weapons, under the basic rules, will find them more effective than other weapons that need more space.  A barracuda launcher only requires 390 tons, white sharks are 520 tons, killer whales 650 tons.  Each of these are actually below the mass of any of the direct fire weapons, the NL35 is the closest at 700 tons; and the killer whales do more damage, have longer range, and mass less.

With just the absolute basic rules taken into account missiles are not a bad smaller unit weapon, but getting into destroyer, frigate, or light cruiser range the balance shifts towards bigger guns as they have greater potential damage.  Adding in advanced rules gives much more versatility to missiles, but also add counters, to me this is a wash in effectiveness.  Meanwhile other guns, primarily have gains, leaving missiles behind, to be used under niche circumstances.