Plasma Cannons

[Metaphysician]

Almost finished Terran Empire. Love the setting. However, something in the starship section really annoys me:

 

The plasma cannons are so short range as to be utterly useless. In ship-to-ship combat, there's no way two equally powerful ships will ever get close enough to use them, and against weaker ships they are pointless. As antifighter weapons, their one hex accurate AoE would be nice, but even MAME have about 4 times the range. As antimissile weapons, they *might* be able to get one shot off, maybe, but given an antimatter missile covers the entire range of the plasma cannon in less than a second, I doubt it.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Plasma Cannons

 

I agree completely, the rules for plasma cannons in the TE setting make them next to useless for anything beyond ground defense or stopping a boarding action. they work fine for ground vehicles or even an aerospace fighter.

 

In my Hero universe, I use something closer to the plasma and fusion weapon rules and designs from traveller... which I will post my versions of later today

or tommorow

 

Plasma and fusion weapons in traveller are still short range, but the rapid fire turret weapons work well for PD roles, or for anti fighter work

 

turret weapons have a range of 30,000 km[1 space combat hex]

[Metaphysician]

Re: Plasma Cannons

 

If I had my druthers, I'd probably take out the Extended Range, and make them a two part Multipower like lasers are, with a megascale and a normal slot. Would cost more, but not that much more. Still leave them short range, but "short" meaning a few thousand kilometers.

 

They also need a rewrite for the antimatter missile; they *should* be longer range, faster, more agile, and better electronics than Alien Wars era nukes, especially with reactionless drives.