Lasers with LOS Advantage

[L. Marcus]

Back at thinking about my Semi-Hard SF campaign universe again. While designing a defensive laser gun for a ship, I thought about the Line Of Sight Advantage -- but I'm afraid it might be too powerful to use. 

 

For the gun, it's supposed to be part of a civilian courier ship's missile defense. It's a 4d6 RKA, and other space laser systems I've designed for the setting has used several multiples of Increased Maximum Range and lots of PSLs for targeting computers to get the ranges of the guns up to orbital levels -- thousands of kilometers. That was expensive -- to make a weapon accurate over 8 km it needed 20 Range levels to offset the penalties (~10 doublings from 1 to 1,000). And then to simulate weapons with planetary ranges and more ...

 

The campaign will use Velocity Based DCVs (e.g., something moving at orbital velocities will, when maneuvering, have DCVs in the range of 17-21; half that when coasting).

 

While writing this, I think I've almost talked myself into using LOS for lasers ... Has anyone used it for similar purposes? Other thoughts?

[Tom Cowan]

well, you still have to spot the target, how hard is it to see a ship at planetary ranges?

[L. Marcus]

Sensors with Telescopic +40  -- a PER or SysOps Roll without range penalties to pick up a man-sized target at 8,000 kilometers, and that's on a planet's surface, among all the clutter that comes with it.

[L. Marcus]

Another thought -- the laser should be built as a MP, with a Space and an Atmosphere slot. the Space slot would be LOS, while the Atmosphere slot would be x4 Increased Range, for the same cost.

[L. Marcus]

... Another thought -- sandcasters as Resistant Defense on Charges, yea or nay?

[Cancer]

Actually, any sort of smokescreen, plasma cloud, nanobot swarm, etc., should be able to block LOS, which means more or less total defenses would be pretty cheap.

[L. Marcus]

Yeah, but that would apply to lasers without LOS as well.

[Tom Cowan]

Have you looked at megascale? Costly to buy the first level, but hiting orbital only costs +1 1/2 

 

The 4d6 RKA has a range of 600m and the levels of megascale ups it to 60,000 km

[Old Man]

At planetary ranges lightspeed becomes an issue.  If the distance is 1 AU, then your image of the target is eight minutes old, and it will have another eight minutes in which to maneuver before your photons would reach it.  IOW at that scale I don't think the LOS advantage is necessarily justified.  Even Earth-orbit distances can require a half second for light to traverse.

[Cancer]

Tachyon cannons!  Tachyon cannons!

[Old Man]

But how do you aim them?

[Greywind]

Aim? Just fill all of space with outgoing

[L. Marcus]

At planetary ranges lightspeed becomes an issue.  If the distance is 1 AU, then your image of the target is eight minutes old, and it will have another eight minutes in which to maneuver before your photons would reach it.  IOW at that scale I don't think the LOS advantage is necessarily justified.  Even Earth-orbit distances can require a half second for light to traverse.

Light Speed Lag Disad!  Targets further away than 150,000 km merits a +2 to their DCV -- that's a light second there and back. If coasting, which gives ½DCV, it's still a bit more difficult to hit. Ought to count for a -1/4 ...

[L. Marcus]

Tachyon cannons!  Tachyon cannons!

Whoa, man! That's just science fiction!

[Old Man]

Light Speed Lag Disad!  Targets further away than 150,000 km merits a +2 to their DCV -- that's a light second there and back. If coasting, which gives ½DCV, it's still a bit more difficult to hit. Ought to count for a -1/4 ...

 

...Isn't this just a RMod?

 

 

Whoa, man! That's just science fiction!

 

No, he's a Real Scientist™.  It must be true!

[L. Marcus]

...Isn't this just a RMod?

Not if I don't call it that ...

 

No, but this is why I'm a bit leery about the build.The alternative is to build it with llloooads of Ranged Skill Levels, and that will get expensive -- my thinking is that the players will pay for the ship through an Equipment Pool.

 

Ah, I'll just say it's all covered by the Real Weapon Lim ...

[tkdguy]

Grasers may be another option. But I never really liked that term. I always think of them as greasy lasers.

[L. Marcus]

Xasers sounds like The Professor had himself a clone army.

[L. Marcus]

Seriously though, I'm making UV lasers the cutting edge of military tech, and X lasers exist as nuke-pumped warheads.

[Zeropoint]

What about masers?

[Tasha]

Back at thinking about my Semi-Hard SF campaign universe again. While designing a defensive laser gun for a ship, I thought about the Line Of Sight Advantage -- but I'm afraid it might be too powerful to use. 

 

For the gun, it's supposed to be part of a civilian courier ship's missile defense. It's a 4d6 RKA, and other space laser systems I've designed for the setting has used several multiples of Increased Maximum Range and lots of PSLs for targeting computers to get the ranges of the guns up to orbital levels -- thousands of kilometers. That was expensive -- to make a weapon accurate over 8 km it needed 20 Range levels to offset the penalties (~10 doublings from 1 to 1,000). And then to simulate weapons with planetary ranges and more ...

 

The campaign will use Velocity Based DCVs (e.g., something moving at orbital velocities will, when maneuvering, have DCVs in the range of 17-21; half that when coasting).

 

While writing this, I think I've almost talked myself into using LOS for lasers ... Has anyone used it for similar purposes? Other thoughts?

Perhaps I am looking at this wrong, but to keep the game system from totally breaking. How about just assuming that a Hex is 2Km across(or200KM or whatever works best)  and figure everything is scaled from there? Otherwise you are going to have to deal with the fact that attacks have a max range of 5xActive cost. Which is way too short for Starship combat. Won't Lasers have problems at extreme ranges> they do eventually become diffuse or unfocused eventually/

[L. Marcus]

Yeah, but I imagine that light-speed lag would be the greater drawback. And if the players want to hit something on Phobos from the Moon, I'd just go "No, sorry, Real Weapon Lim."

[Christopher]

Have you looked at megascale? Costly to buy the first level, but hiting orbital only costs +1 1/2 

 

The 4d6 RKA has a range of 600m and the levels of megascale ups it to 60,000 km

 

I have to ask this again: Why not simply Megascaled?

It multiplies the range and the Range Modifier Zones.

Under Megascale and "Advantages for Senses" it explicitly says that "Megascale was designed for this" (this being simulating space combat in hero).

 

Perhaps I am looking at this wrong, but to keep the game system from totally breaking. How about just assuming that a Hex is 2Km across(or200KM or whatever works best)  and figure everything is scaled from there? Otherwise you are going to have to deal with the fact that attacks have a max range of 5xActive cost. Which is way too short for Starship combat. Won't Lasers have problems at extreme ranges> they do eventually become diffuse or unfocused eventually/

This a good alterantive to Megascale: Just make it a campaign definition that every hex in Air combat is X scales bigger then hexes in personal combat.

The same way Spacecombat is just done on that much larger scales.

If ships are close (1 hex distance) they effectively behave like Characters in Melee. If they are in the same hex they do the equivalent of a grapple. You just don't calle it melee/grapple, you call it "short range" and "point blank range"/dogfight respecitively. You could still use all the rules for normal Character Combat, you just call them differently.

It is never a good idea to reinvent the wheel, if you have a functioning hovercraft right there.

 

Regarding lasers diffusing:

More of a problem in atmospheres then in vacuum. The one thing dispersing a laser down with us is the atmosphere/paritcles getting in the way. The one thing spaces has is a lack of anything that could get in the way of focussed energy.

 

At planetary ranges lightspeed becomes an issue.  If the distance is 1 AU, then your image of the target is eight minutes old, and it will have another eight minutes in which to maneuver before your photons would reach it.  IOW at that scale I don't think the LOS advantage is necessarily justified.  Even Earth-orbit distances can require a half second for light to traverse.

 

According to wikipedia even a lightsignal to the moon has a lag of 1.26 Seconds (one way).

 

Seriously though, I'm making UV lasers the cutting edge of military tech, and X lasers exist as nuke-pumped warheads.

You should take a look at the "Sword of the Stars 2"-Wiki. This game has quite a bunch of inovative weaponsystems, that would even fit into a low Sci-Fi game.

http://sots2.rorschach.net/Ballistic_Weapons

http://sots2.rorschach.net/Energy_Weapons

http://sots2.rorschach.net/Warhead_Technology

 

Balistic Weapons, energy Weapons, Harpoons (cheap versions of the tractor beam), Missiles with Acid cloud warheads, missiles that fire giant lasers - if it can be used to hurt one another and is not too sci-fi, one of the 7 species in this game has found a way to use it.