Author Topic: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons  (Read 8472 times)

AlphaMirage

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Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« on: 25 April 2019, 21:57:34 »
I will admit to not being super knowledgeable in the arcane Aerospace arts.  For my fanfic I was refitting the Clan's SLDF era Warships with arrays of Sub-Capital weapons instead of their cavernous cargo bays since these ships have such poor point defense.  I know TPTB don't like Warships but they did exist but there are some canon remnant vessels that might benefit. 

What is your opinion of Sub-Capital Weapons on Warships?  If TPTB brought them back (unlikely) would they incorporate all the things that make Pocket Warships so dangerous in order to protect themselves from that threat?

Liam's Ghost

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #1 on: 25 April 2019, 22:44:19 »
The biggest complication to using subcapital weapons is logistical. Like capital weapons, you need a gunner for every single subcapital gun. If they're ammo based, you're also burning through ammunition at a faster rate and will need a larger supply.

So you're burning up more consumables if you go for a big number of sub capital weapons instead of a smaller number of capital weapons.

I still like them as secondary guns, though. A supplement to the main battery for use against smaller targets (you can use bracketing fire with them, and the penalty to hit fighters is lower by default).

Another option is a massive battery of small subcapital lasers or sub capital cannons for use in planetary bombardment. It lets you fine tune just how much fire you're dropping on a target.
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Vition2

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #2 on: 25 April 2019, 23:40:41 »
When I think about building a fleet, I like putting them on smaller ships - ships meant to focus on the peripheral elements of an enemy fleet/force.  So I put them on corvettes and destroyers so they can more effectively screen their larger brethren from fighters and dropships.

This allows larger and heavier batteries of capital weapons to be placed on cruiser and larger vessels, making them more effective in the wall - they don't have to waste weapon slots, and therefore, tonnage, on weapons intended to fight these smaller opponents.

Again though, this is with the idea of building an effective battle fleet which is intended to engage an opposing battle fleet.  Since warships built in the battletech universe (at least those in the more recent eras) are intended to be closer to stand alone forces, when I build warships with this paradigm, I build them similarly to Liam's Ghost - they are a secondary weapon system supplementing the larger capital weapons.

monbvol

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #3 on: 26 April 2019, 00:58:58 »
The +3 instead of +5 for targets below 500 tons is a good way to beef up anti ASF firepower then how much fire control, quarters, and additional supplies subcapitals can allow you to absorb does create break even points.

Where these break even points are does vary a bit and it is important to remember the engagement ranges that each option presents.

wundergoat

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #4 on: 26 April 2019, 10:36:15 »
Subcapital lasers in AAA mode are pretty excellent fighter defense.  They’re only +1 to hit ASF and reach out to far greater ranges with far more accuracy than standard weapons.  I personnaly like twin SCL/3 bays.

Daryk

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #5 on: 26 April 2019, 18:13:50 »
Monbvol mentioned the natural limit to that strategy: fire control tonnage.  If you can only mount a certain number of weapons before incurring a mass penalty, it only makes sense to make each individual weapon as effective as possible.  That would generally drive smaller weapons on to smaller ships (that can't mount the maximum number of larger weapons).

Alsadius

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #6 on: 26 April 2019, 19:32:09 »
Monbvol mentioned the natural limit to that strategy: fire control tonnage.  If you can only mount a certain number of weapons before incurring a mass penalty, it only makes sense to make each individual weapon as effective as possible.  That would generally drive smaller weapons on to smaller ships (that can't mount the maximum number of larger weapons).

In principle, yes. In practice, you have to get to fairly large ships before it's an issue. You don't want 100% subcap guns on a battleship, but they could be the dominant weapon on most capital ships ever launched with no meaningful difficulties. I just threw together a quick million-ton capital ship (3/5, 120 SI, reasonable fighter wing and cargo), equipped it with 20 heavy sub-cap cannons per facing, and it used up the mass just fine. No fire control mass required. Admittedly, that's the heaviest of the sub-caps, but still. It's also quite mass-efficient compared to capital guns, in addition to being able to massacre fighters by the zillion.

Daryk

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #7 on: 26 April 2019, 19:34:14 »
At what range again?  That's the usual advantage of the bigger weapons (Extreme Range)...

monbvol

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #8 on: 26 April 2019, 19:40:44 »
Extreme Range is pretty meaningless in terms of engaging ASFs thanks to +6 and ASFs being able to Evade.

Vition2

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #9 on: 26 April 2019, 20:00:51 »
Even at long range it's very difficult to hit - ASF don't have weapons that can effectively fire back at you until they are withing capital medium ranges, so we can always assume they are evading.  You're looking at Gunnery 2, +4 Range, +5 smaller than 500 tons, angle of attack nose +1, evading +3, bracketing fire -3 = 12+ to hit (Capital lasers in AAA mode are at 13+ to hit).

So using medium range sub-capital weapons means you get much more reliable attack rolls Gunnery 2, +2 Range, +3 smaller than 500 tons, angle of attack nose +1, evading +3 (and +3 on the fighters' attack roll), bracketing fire -3 = 8+ to hit (sub-capital lasers in AAA mode are 9+ to hit, capital weapons are at 10+ to hit, and capital lasers in AAA mode are 11+ to hit.

Against dropships, its a different story, capital weapons are going to annihilate them at pretty much any range they can hit them at.

The_Caveman

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #10 on: 26 April 2019, 20:11:31 »
If you want to kill fighters, use Barracudas.

Subcap cannons are for making DropShips feel important.
Half the fun of BattleTech is the mental gymnastics required to scientifically rationalize design choices made decades ago entirely based on the Rule of Cool.

The other half is a first-turn AC/2 shot TAC to your gyro that causes your Atlas to fall and smash its own cockpit... wait, I said fun didn't I?

Daryk

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #11 on: 26 April 2019, 20:17:09 »
At Extreme Range, you hit the ASF carriers, then run the fighters out of gas...

Vition2

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #12 on: 26 April 2019, 20:44:29 »
If you want to kill fighters, use Barracudas.
At Extreme Range, you hit the ASF carriers, then run the fighters out of gas...

Let's let the enemy be smart too, guys.  Random PoS fighters aren't going to be thrown at a warship piecemeal.  They're going to be at least moderately effective and coming in as a squadron - if each fighter is armed with even a single AMS they're going to be able to take down as few as 12 barracudas before a single one potentially gets through, not to mention they are going to get an opportunity to shoot at the missiles with their standard weapons as well.  Next, how many capital missiles does it take to reliably remove a fighter from combat?... it's more than 1.  With this in mind barracudas and other capital missiles quickly start to become inefficient - they aren't bad for softening up the targets, but you aren't going to kill very many of them unless you are firing truly overwhelming firepower towards them.

As for target that ASF carrier... why would it even think about being near the fight?  That's what it's aerospace fighters are for.  After the fight it picks up whoever is bingo on fuel, or lets them rot if your side lost - that's the calculus of war.

wundergoat

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #13 on: 26 April 2019, 21:26:01 »
If you want to kill fighters, use Barracudas.

Subcap cannons are for making DropShips feel important.

The problem with barracudas is that despite being very accurate and long ranged, they are actually pretty heavy due to their 30 ton/shot ammunition.  Their low damage also means to get strong AAA protection, you actually need a bunch of bundled launchers.  You need three barracudas to get the same ASF deleting firepower of a twin SCL/3 mount but the barracudas are almost 2.5 times the weight for only 10 volleys.

The_Caveman

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #14 on: 26 April 2019, 21:27:54 »
if each fighter is armed with even a single AMS they're going to be able to take down as few as 12 barracudas before a single one potentially gets through

Wait, how much have they buffed AMS?! I want to see the math on this. 6 AMS under AT2 shouldn't be able to completely stop 1 Barracuda, let alone a dozen.
Half the fun of BattleTech is the mental gymnastics required to scientifically rationalize design choices made decades ago entirely based on the Rule of Cool.

The other half is a first-turn AC/2 shot TAC to your gyro that causes your Atlas to fall and smash its own cockpit... wait, I said fun didn't I?

The_Caveman

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #15 on: 26 April 2019, 21:39:18 »
The problem with barracudas is that despite being very accurate and long ranged, they are actually pretty heavy due to their 30 ton/shot ammunition.  Their low damage also means to get strong AAA protection, you actually need a bunch of bundled launchers.  You need three barracudas to get the same ASF deleting firepower of a twin SCL/3 mount but the barracudas are almost 2.5 times the weight for only 10 volleys.

Cuda has -2 to-hit and an instant crit roll whether or not it thresholds, which at 20 damage it probably will. That's worth more to me than 30 damage at +1. And weight, on a WarShip, for anything other than capital ballistics/ppcs and core components, is basically a rounding error. A hundred capital missiles are like 1/1000 the mass of a small WarShip.
« Last Edit: 26 April 2019, 21:41:25 by The_Caveman »
Half the fun of BattleTech is the mental gymnastics required to scientifically rationalize design choices made decades ago entirely based on the Rule of Cool.

The other half is a first-turn AC/2 shot TAC to your gyro that causes your Atlas to fall and smash its own cockpit... wait, I said fun didn't I?

monbvol

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #16 on: 26 April 2019, 21:43:34 »
Wait, how much have they buffed AMS?! I want to see the math on this. 6 AMS under AT2 shouldn't be able to completely stop 1 Barracuda, let alone a dozen.

Each individual ASF's AMS can concentrate on how ever many Capital Missiles are aimed at the squadron.

So if each ASF has one AMS it is able to knock down as many Barracudas as they have shots of AMS ammo.  Yeah it is pretty ridiculous in how easy it is to make capital missiles a non-issue.

Vition2

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #17 on: 26 April 2019, 21:45:10 »
Well, it's technically an advanced rule laid out in SO (pg 97).  And is partially due to the (imo) idiocy of rounding values.  Each AMS does 3 points of damage, so a squadron of 6 will do 18, or 1.8 capital damage rounded to 2 capital damage, destroying a barracuda (note that  barracuda does 2 capital scale damage, not 20 standard damage, which is a stupid distinction).  An AMS can fire once at as many capital missiles it has it's AMS pointed at and has ammo and heat capacity for.  So a squadron of 6 ASF, using spheroid AMS with only 1 ton of ammo for it, and 12 sinked heat capacity will be able to take down 12 barracudas.  A typical clan star, similarly defended, would be able to take 24 white sharks in a single turn - assuming they have 24 heat they can sink.

In addition to this, standard-sized weapons can also be fired at incoming missiles, though they only get one shot per weapon.

Edit: I'll add that if I were to build an actual fighter intended for combat against warships, first it'd be clan (because Raven...meh), it'd probably have 2 AMS, and at least 2, maybe 3 tons of ammo, with the capacity to sink a lot of heat, probably close to 40, maybe a fair bit more, depending on the rest of the weapon loadout.  My "Heavy Bombers" would be 90 tons, while "heavy dogfighters" would be 70, with smaller versions of each at 60 and 50 tons.

Edit 2: If I were to be a gamist, that clan star with 1 AMS each and 1 ton of ammo, could actually take down 48 barracudas in a single turn... an extra ton of ammo each and they might be able to reach 96 depending on heat capacity.  Just to math that out for you, that's 5 fighters' AMS per barracuda doing 1.5 rounded to 2 capital damage killing the missile.  It actually makes me a bit disgusted to point that out, but appears to be legal in the rules.

wundergoat

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #18 on: 26 April 2019, 22:17:46 »
I could have sworn that AMS engaged each missile bay attack as one unit but now that I go back and look at questions, I see that it is per missile. 

I remember something about the AMS bay killing as many missiles in the attack as it could, applying the TH# penalties to the next, and the remainder continuing on their merry way.  Did this change at some point?  I've been away for a while.

Vition2

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #19 on: 26 April 2019, 22:41:38 »
IIRC, there was some supposition around that, but when the clarification was passed down, that fell by the wayside.  I think the assumption before the ruling was made was what you were thinking wundergoat, but ought to have never been the case.

The_Caveman

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #20 on: 26 April 2019, 22:42:03 »
Yet on a 'Mech, an AMS can only engage one missile attack.

Yeah, that's a bad rule...

Quote
Edit 2: If I were to be a gamist, that clan star with 1 AMS each and 1 ton of ammo, could actually take down 48 barracudas in a single turn... an extra ton of ammo each and they might be able to reach 96 depending on heat capacity.  Just to math that out for you, that's 5 fighters' AMS per barracuda doing 1.5 rounded to 2 capital damage killing the missile.  It actually makes me a bit disgusted to point that out, but appears to be legal in the rules.

And were I to be a gamist, I wouldn't agree to using the optional rule that lets AMS engage cap-missiles ;)
« Last Edit: 26 April 2019, 22:47:23 by The_Caveman »
Half the fun of BattleTech is the mental gymnastics required to scientifically rationalize design choices made decades ago entirely based on the Rule of Cool.

The other half is a first-turn AC/2 shot TAC to your gyro that causes your Atlas to fall and smash its own cockpit... wait, I said fun didn't I?

Vition2

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #21 on: 26 April 2019, 22:49:33 »
It's an abstraction based on the full-minute turn rather than the 12-second turn at the battlemech scale.  Not an argument that it's a bad rule, just an explanation.

In my own house rules (which I've never actually played and am constantly revising), capital missiles and their interactions with AMS are one of those areas that I'm always working on.  Unfortunately a lot of it ends up adding even more rolls to the game, and there are already more than there needs to be, imo.

monbvol

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #22 on: 26 April 2019, 22:55:20 »
Yeah Capital Missiles are a tricky beast to solve reasonably well.

On the one hand the low damage they do without modification is pretty trivial but the criticals they can generate will add up pretty quickly.

Put an Asset Management Warhead in a Barracuda though and suddenly it becomes quite welcome for capital missiles to be so trivialized.

The_Caveman

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #23 on: 27 April 2019, 09:07:32 »
It's an abstraction based on the full-minute turn rather than the 12-second turn at the battlemech scale.  Not an argument that it's a bad rule, just an explanation.

But this is a case of some animals being more equal than others. Why does the AMS and only the AMS get to attack multiple times? Why not machine guns, ultra autocannons, pulse lasers, etc. ? An AMS is just a machine gun with fancy targeting hardware, after all. Not to mention it blows the effectiveness of a minor defensive system with trivial weight out of proportion to the extent of making it required equipment as soon as it becomes available.

No, somebody on staff didn't think this through.
Half the fun of BattleTech is the mental gymnastics required to scientifically rationalize design choices made decades ago entirely based on the Rule of Cool.

The other half is a first-turn AC/2 shot TAC to your gyro that causes your Atlas to fall and smash its own cockpit... wait, I said fun didn't I?

Alsadius

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #24 on: 27 April 2019, 10:44:17 »
But this is a case of some animals being more equal than others. Why does the AMS and only the AMS get to attack multiple times? Why not machine guns, ultra autocannons, pulse lasers, etc. ? An AMS is just a machine gun with fancy targeting hardware, after all. Not to mention it blows the effectiveness of a minor defensive system with trivial weight out of proportion to the extent of making it required equipment as soon as it becomes available.

No, somebody on staff didn't think this through.

In-character, it's probably due to that fancy targeting system you mention.

Out of character, it's because an AMS that could only fire once would be kind of useless in WarShip-scale missile defence, especially given the numbers that had previously been installed on existing canon designs. They wanted to make it good, and overcompensated. And to be fair, on canon units AMS is perfectly balanced. It's only in custom unit construction that it gets obscene.

The_Caveman

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #25 on: 27 April 2019, 12:59:15 »
In-character, it's probably due to that fancy targeting system you mention.

Out of character, it's because an AMS that could only fire once would be kind of useless in WarShip-scale missile defence, especially given the numbers that had previously been installed on existing canon designs. They wanted to make it good, and overcompensated. And to be fair, on canon units AMS is perfectly balanced. It's only in custom unit construction that it gets obscene.

Except the example upthread of fighters walking through a dozen Barracudas at a time only needs one AMS per fighter, which any canon design that mounts it satisfies when used as a squadron. Player designs going overboard just make the problem worse.

Anything can be rationalized with fluff, but this rule is both inconsistent and a balance problem. The whole point of capital missiles is they efficiently kill small craft. That's supposed to be their niche.

If they wanted a capital-grade CIWS they should have just invented one.
Half the fun of BattleTech is the mental gymnastics required to scientifically rationalize design choices made decades ago entirely based on the Rule of Cool.

The other half is a first-turn AC/2 shot TAC to your gyro that causes your Atlas to fall and smash its own cockpit... wait, I said fun didn't I?

Alsadius

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #26 on: 27 April 2019, 13:53:00 »
Except the example upthread of fighters walking through a dozen Barracudas at a time only needs one AMS per fighter, which any canon design that mounts it satisfies when used as a squadron. Player designs going overboard just make the problem worse.

Anything can be rationalized with fluff, but this rule is both inconsistent and a balance problem. The whole point of capital missiles is they efficiently kill small craft. That's supposed to be their niche.

If they wanted a capital-grade CIWS they should have just invented one.

I agree that a capital AMS would have been a much better design decision. My comment about balance was in reference to WarShip design, not fighters (which, as you say, have some obvious issues with the AMS rules).

That said, only the Barracuda is a fighter-killer. The White Shark, Killer Whale, and Kraken are all ship-killers, not AA.

monbvol

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #27 on: 27 April 2019, 14:19:00 »
I agree that a capital AMS would have been a much better design decision. My comment about balance was in reference to WarShip design, not fighters (which, as you say, have some obvious issues with the AMS rules).

That said, only the Barracuda is a fighter-killer. The White Shark, Killer Whale, and Kraken are all ship-killers, not AA.

Sure the Barracuda gets the whole -2 to make it more accurate but the White Shark and Killer Whale still have use as AA thanks to them not taking the +5 against targets under 500 tons either.

So they kind of solve the problem.  Sort of.

Ultimately yes it would have been so much better to have put in a capital AMS.

Alsadius

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #28 on: 27 April 2019, 16:57:55 »
Sure the Barracuda gets the whole -2 to make it more accurate but the White Shark and Killer Whale still have use as AA thanks to them not taking the +5 against targets under 500 tons either.

So they kind of solve the problem.  Sort of.

Ultimately yes it would have been so much better to have put in a capital AMS.

Oh, wow. How on earth did I not know that rule? I thought they got the same +5 vs small targets as capital guns, and Barracudas just had -2 to hit in addition to that for +3 net. Barracudas are pulse Thunderbolt-20s, with improved TAC rolls and capital range? Impressive.

Jellico

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Re: Warships and Sub-Capital Weapons
« Reply #29 on: 27 April 2019, 17:30:52 »
AMS on a small craft only fires once a turn.
AMS on a large craft can fire multiple times a turn.

On a evasion related note don't forget that large craft can Evade too.
Outside 20 hexes the large craft should stay stable and the ASF should evade making it immune to everything bar Barracudas.
Under 20 hexes both should evade because a combination of evasion and ECM makes the large craft immune while it can now get viable to-hits on the ASF.
Under 14 hexes the large craft should evade and the ASF should stay stable so it can actually use its weapons.
It is worth pointing out that a ASF has to get to 14 hexes to be able to use an Alamo.
The above basically holds true with 4/5 crews. With better gunners YMMV.

 

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