(Answered) Damage calculation of plasma weapon bay

[PuppyLikesLaserPointers]

On Large Craft Weapon Bays, 234. TW, a weapon bay is fired as through it were a single weapon, generating heat and inflicting damage in the same manner even though it may actually consist of many individual weapons.

But, what about plasma weapons? It generates heats against heat-tracking unit, and against rest of them it cause the additional damage. Is it all the same against the target? So, say, if a bay had 6 plasma rifles and the attack by the bay hits, then against...

• Heat-tracking units(battlemech, Aerospace Fighter, and Small Craft): 10×6=60 damage, and 6d6 additional heat.
• Any other unit types: 60+12d6 damage and divide it into 5 point Damage Value groupings.

But is it correct? Else, against any other unit types, as Cluster Weapons on Aerospace unit(236.TW) does, get the average of damage(in this case, 60+(7×6=42))?

And What about heat? It is also take the average or roll separately?

An additional reference: Plasma Weapons. 139.TW.

[PuppyLikesLaserPointers]

Two followup questions for this.

1. If the example above is correct, then how grouping the damage by 5? What is correct, add all the damage of the bay and grouping by 5, or grouping the damage by 5 of the individual weapon? If the damage is fixed to the average value(7 of 2d6, for example), and a bay with 6 Plasma Rifles are hits, the former will get the sum of 60+42=102 and divide it with 20 5 damages and 1 2 damages, while the latter will get the sum of 18 5 damages and 6 2 damages. Which is correct?



2. How a plasma weapon bay interacts with the target aerospace units, which subjected to Damage Thresholds(239. TW)? Aerospace Fighter, which is a heat-tracking unit, is fine because it just needs to take additional heat and only the damage part of the plasma rifle is interact with Damage Threshold. But what about the others that suffers additional damage instead of generates heats?

Against the other units, Plasma weapons cause additional 2d6 damage(Plasma Rifle)/3d6 damage(Plasma Cannon) and divide the total damage into 5 point Damage Value grouping. Then, is the sum of those damage is determined for Damage Thresholds, or it is simply considered the series of 5 damages and never able to exceeds the Damage Threshold?

For example, If a plasma weapon bay of 4 plasma rifles hits a location with 91 armor point of an aerospace unit, and if the damage of each plasma rifle in a bay is considered as 10+7 as one of the example above, is it considered to be a series of 5 damages and it never over than its Damage Threshold(which is 10), or the sum of the damage(perhaps 68) is considered a single hit and it is over than the Damage Threshold of 10?

[Xotl]

Plasma weapons still roll random heat when bay mounted.  Heat from outside sources is still capped at 15 regardless.  Same goes for bonus damage in place of heat.

Checking on follow-ups.

[PuppyLikesLaserPointers]

Plasma weapons still roll random heat when bay mounted.  Heat from outside sources is still capped at 15 regardless.  Same goes for bonus damage in place of heat.

Checking on follow-ups.

Thanks. So, is it means the additional damage against units does not suffer additional heat needs to be rolled separately rather than take the average like as the other weapons when used by an aerospace unit?

Also, only the heat is capped for a unit cannot suffer more than 15 additional heat per a turn, but not the additional damage in the case of additional damage, right?

[Xotl]

Large Craft weapon bays always hit only one location.  Fighters, Small Craft, and other aero units that use individual weapons have most cluster weapons (including plasma vs non-heat targets) split into 5-point groups.

[PuppyLikesLaserPointers]

Thanks, so it doesn't needs to be split it in the case of the large craft weapon bays.

Just a bump for the one of the question above. The first answer was...

Plasma weapons still roll random heat when bay mounted.  Heat from outside sources is still capped at 15 regardless.  Same goes for bonus damage in place of heat.

Checking on follow-ups.

So it means that the additional damage of the plasma weapons against non heat tracking units is also capped? Else only heat against heat tracking unit is capped but the additional damage instead of heat against non heat tracking unit is not capped?