Christopher Lambert
First Post
I was looking at the spaceship weapons, and the damage figures seemed very random to me. Too often I was seeing weapons that were flat-out superior to other weapons in the same Progress Level and I'd rather be able to easily memorize weapon damage. (In DnD I don't have to open up the book when someone pulls out a dire flail or a scythe.)
For my campaign I'm thinking of setting up spaceship weapons to resemble "Martial Weapons" - a typical weapon might do 10d8 damage/19-20, another might do 10d6/18-20, and so forth.
I'm planning on doing something similar with mecha, but I'm not sure how many dice to start off with.
My preliminary figures look like this:
Plasma cannon: 10d10/x2. In Alternity, plasma weapons did a lot of damage compared to other spaceship weapons. These weapons are popular among humans and the medurr.
Particle beam: 10d8/19-20. In Alternity, particle beams were weaker than plasma weapons but landed critical hits nearly half the time. They looked strong compared to a mass cannon, however.
Laser: 10d6/18-20. Lasers are weaker than particle beams but are more accurate (they travel at the speed of light, rather than, say, 10% of the speed of light) and can be more easily aimed at critical parts of the ship. They would probably have a small range advantage too.
The PL 7 version of the blacklaser is treated just like a laser, except it looks different (it's basically a weapon klicks use on their space fighters). The PL 9 version is the super-laser. Lasers are popular among most races.
Rail Cannon: 10d10/x3. Yup, the figures look broken. However, rail cannons will have a short range. (I took this from the Babylon 5 setting, where rail cannons are very powerful but require you to take multiple weapon hits before you're close enough to use them effectively.) I'm hoping that will be enough to balance the rail cannon's damage, but that would require a lot of playtesting to be sure. Rail cannons are popular among humans.
Mass Cannon: 10d8/x3. A mass cannon is a gravitational weapon that fires a small mass at an enemy vessel. The mass becomes "superheavy" as it travels, slamming into the enemy vessel with massive, deadly force.
These are very common weapons in the Star*Drive setting and are especially popular among human pirates, fraal and the kroath.
Render Cannon: 10d8/x3. A render cannon is a gravitational weapon like a mass cannon. However, it doesn't fire a super-heavy piece of matter against an enemy ship. Instead, it directly crumples the other ship's hull with gravity waves. On occasion it will cripple ship systems, literally tearing them apart. (I might increase the damage and reduce the range, but I want this weapon to be different than the render cannon. Maybe it can ignore some hardness instead.) Render cannons are popular among n'sss.
Missiles and fusion blasts (eg a Yamato Cannon) would have special rules. A Yamato Cannon would take up multiple slots, have a high recharge time, and do massive amounts of damage, possibly in a small area of effect.
My second house rules involves damage "upgrading" and "downgrading". IMO it's silly that a large ship often has fewer weapons than a smaller ship (see escort as the small ship vs a corvette). IMC if you attack a ship that is one ship class smaller, you do +50%, and if you attack a larger vessel, you do less damage using the same formula. Most battles will take place between ultralight ships of about scout or attack vessel size, so it will rarely come up. However, I felt it was necessary to give bigger ships their "rightful" advantage. (I'm using the Star Wars ship size system, so 90% of the ships I use won't be Colossal. A superheavy (Colossal) ship is going to have a very hard time hitting a Medium vessel such as a scout.)
I'd rather use the damage upgrade than directly replicate Alternity's system. In Alternity, larger vessels had greater offense because they had more weapons. A dreadnought might have over 100 weapons. Even if you can only fire 33 at an opponent, that's still way too many dice rolls!
Discuss please. Does anyone agree with me? Disagree? Would you do things differently?
For my campaign I'm thinking of setting up spaceship weapons to resemble "Martial Weapons" - a typical weapon might do 10d8 damage/19-20, another might do 10d6/18-20, and so forth.
I'm planning on doing something similar with mecha, but I'm not sure how many dice to start off with.
My preliminary figures look like this:
Plasma cannon: 10d10/x2. In Alternity, plasma weapons did a lot of damage compared to other spaceship weapons. These weapons are popular among humans and the medurr.
Particle beam: 10d8/19-20. In Alternity, particle beams were weaker than plasma weapons but landed critical hits nearly half the time. They looked strong compared to a mass cannon, however.
Laser: 10d6/18-20. Lasers are weaker than particle beams but are more accurate (they travel at the speed of light, rather than, say, 10% of the speed of light) and can be more easily aimed at critical parts of the ship. They would probably have a small range advantage too.
The PL 7 version of the blacklaser is treated just like a laser, except it looks different (it's basically a weapon klicks use on their space fighters). The PL 9 version is the super-laser. Lasers are popular among most races.
Rail Cannon: 10d10/x3. Yup, the figures look broken. However, rail cannons will have a short range. (I took this from the Babylon 5 setting, where rail cannons are very powerful but require you to take multiple weapon hits before you're close enough to use them effectively.) I'm hoping that will be enough to balance the rail cannon's damage, but that would require a lot of playtesting to be sure. Rail cannons are popular among humans.
Mass Cannon: 10d8/x3. A mass cannon is a gravitational weapon that fires a small mass at an enemy vessel. The mass becomes "superheavy" as it travels, slamming into the enemy vessel with massive, deadly force.
These are very common weapons in the Star*Drive setting and are especially popular among human pirates, fraal and the kroath.
Render Cannon: 10d8/x3. A render cannon is a gravitational weapon like a mass cannon. However, it doesn't fire a super-heavy piece of matter against an enemy ship. Instead, it directly crumples the other ship's hull with gravity waves. On occasion it will cripple ship systems, literally tearing them apart. (I might increase the damage and reduce the range, but I want this weapon to be different than the render cannon. Maybe it can ignore some hardness instead.) Render cannons are popular among n'sss.
Missiles and fusion blasts (eg a Yamato Cannon) would have special rules. A Yamato Cannon would take up multiple slots, have a high recharge time, and do massive amounts of damage, possibly in a small area of effect.
My second house rules involves damage "upgrading" and "downgrading". IMO it's silly that a large ship often has fewer weapons than a smaller ship (see escort as the small ship vs a corvette). IMC if you attack a ship that is one ship class smaller, you do +50%, and if you attack a larger vessel, you do less damage using the same formula. Most battles will take place between ultralight ships of about scout or attack vessel size, so it will rarely come up. However, I felt it was necessary to give bigger ships their "rightful" advantage. (I'm using the Star Wars ship size system, so 90% of the ships I use won't be Colossal. A superheavy (Colossal) ship is going to have a very hard time hitting a Medium vessel such as a scout.)
I'd rather use the damage upgrade than directly replicate Alternity's system. In Alternity, larger vessels had greater offense because they had more weapons. A dreadnought might have over 100 weapons. Even if you can only fire 33 at an opponent, that's still way too many dice rolls!
Discuss please. Does anyone agree with me? Disagree? Would you do things differently?
