Gazer Pocket Warship

[Retry]

So it turns out it's pretty easy to game the system just a bit and come out with a relatively small Dropship that can chew through (light) Warships for breakfast like it's nothing, without the squishiness pocket warships are usually known for.

Code: [Select]

Gazer Pocket Warship
Type: Military Spheriod
Mass: 12,400 tons
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Standard)
Introduced: 3145
Mass: 12,400
Battle Value: 37,182
Tech Rating/Availability: F/X-X-X-E
Cost: 1,508,735,200 C-bills
Fuel: 100 tons (3,000)
Safe Thrust: 3
Maximum Thrust: 5
Heat Sinks: 450 (900)
Structural Integrity: 150
Armor
     Nose: 3552
     Sides: 2829/2829
     Aft: 2103
Cargo
Bay 1: Cargo (1618.0 tons) 1 Door
Escape Pods: 0
Life Boats: 8
Crew: 6 officers, 7 enlisted/non-rated, 16 gunners, 12 BA marines
Ammunition: None
Notes: Mounts 540 tons of heavy ferro-aluminum armor.
Weapons: Capital Attack Values (Standard)
Arc (Heat) Heat SRV MRV LRV ERV Class
Nose (384 Heat)
12 Sub-Capital Laser /3 384 36(360) 36(360) 0(0) 0(0) Sub-Capital Laser
RS/LS Fwd (84 Heat)
12 Laser AMS 84 4(36) 0(0) 0(0) 0(0) AMS
RS/LS Aft (120 Heat)
12 Large Pulse Laser 120 11(108) 11(108) 0(0) 0(0) Pulse Laser
Aft (84 Heat)
12 Laser AMS 84 4(36) 0(0) 0(0) 0(0) AMS

[idea weenie]

That is an impressive metal ball, that opposing Warships will have a difficult time chewing through.  Even more fun is that it is only 36 Capital damage, meaning any fire directed at this is almost wasted.

The only concern is the 3/5 speed means it might not be able to catch up with some Warships.  For those it can catch up to, it will be a very aggravating opponent.

[Lagrange]

There's enough armor there that I'd be tempted to trade some of it for more guns.

At a more strategic level, the default rules seem to favor ASF so much that a vanilla Vengeance with vanilla ASF is cheaper and substantially more dangerous.

[Retry]

Its main use case is escorting larger ships, screening in front of them and pinning down light fighter cover (via AA mode), light frigate-sized Warships or other pocket warships, while the allied Warship presumably engages things that are bigger and more important.  It's just one example of a Pocket Warship, wouldn't be too difficult to have another adjust some attributes here and there.

Yeah, the vanilla rules make other stuff more efficient.  The optimal option for a gunboat would have been to use about 70 Clan LPLs instead of the Subcaps, and use the spare weight for more speed, probably... but that's dumb.  And with Aerospace especially I have to intentionally make suboptimal decisions on paper, lest I end up with abominations like a fast 2,000 LPL "Warship" that wipes everything lighter than a Leviathan in one turn, with some LAMS to nullify any Capital Missiles that get a bearing.

(That's only funny to fight once, btw)

Non-capital fighter weapons inflicting damage to capital-scale armor is one of the things of the Aerospace-level game that I'm... less than enthusiastic about.  I usually take stuff like C-Bill costs and whatnot more as general indicators than the absolute truth, but that goes triple for Aerospace.

[Lagrange]

In the Naval Arms race we made Standard:Capital be 100:1.  ASF are still mildly OP at that scale, but that's a much better ballpark for balancing ASF vs. capital ships.   Adding in something like "armor is immune to damage less than 1/100th it's value" gets you most of the rest of the way.  Discussed a bit here.

[Tyler Jorgensson]

The only thing I’d remove armor for is more speed: at least 4/6. Then it’s good for like 95% of all Warships. I’d also ditch the Marines or add one small craft.

[Lagrange]

W.r.t. screening elements, my preferred approach is multiple 400 ton fast balls of armor with Naval C3, either carried as cargo or in a reinforced repair bay.   Naval C3 is hideously expensive on a dropship but the cost is linear in tonnage and the bonus to hit is amazing.  Some of these can stack up ECM modifiers while others trade turns as spotter for the big guns.   And none of them can be easily targeted by capital weapons given the tonnage.