Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="guildsbounty" data-source="post: 6814539" data-attributes="member: 6810481">I have plans for controlling that...though I haven't fully fleshed out how it will work with 'deck mounted' or other externally-set weapons.Internal weapons are easy, as the tonnage of a ship dictates how much internal space it has, and these internal weapons eat up that space. (1 'ton' of ship is equal to about 1350 cubic feet)External weapons are a bit trickier, as the tonnage of a ship doesn't dictate the shape of the ship, and so a ship could have either a tiny or enormous deck to cover in weapons...(though pre-made ships come with a 'deck plan' that shows how much space you have on the deck) and you could also just build platforms onto the side of the ship's hull to install a weapon. The Warcaptain's Compendium listed a rule that says "If you have weapons (internal and external) that exceed half the tonnage of the ship, they start displacing the air envelope, reducing the amount of air the ship can carry with it." So, if I keep that rule, a 40 ton ship could carry a max of 20 tons of weapons (10 bombards) before it started losing air capacity. That said, I feel like calculating air capacity is complicated enough already, and may do away with that rule.Instead, the most natural restriction on the number of weapons a ship can carry is simply the size of the crew. A 'standard' crew capacity is 1 person per ton of ship. This provides them with breathable air for up to 8 months (though the latter 4 months are going to be deeply unpleasant as the air is starting to go bad). Given travel times in space...you don't want to go too far above this. So, again, assuming a 40 ton ship that gives you a standard crew capacity of 40 people...taking some off for people responsible for other tasks around the ship (maneuvering, helmsman, captain, etc) that leaves about 30 people available to man the guns. Which, given that a Bombard would like an 'ideal' crew of 3 people...still limits you to 10 bombards on the ship. And, naturally, this is assuming that you want a crew of nothing but gunners, and don't want any close-combat specialists for boarding actions.I think this actually produces a pretty interesting ship design philosophy. Planetary defense ships could be more heavily armed because they don't need to travel, while traveling ships would have to trade armament for range.</blockquote>

Verification