Me and a player are trying to work out how Lances work.

I assume that the Titan Forge Lance Battery, with a strength of 2 means that every hit counts as two strikes. So a hit with 3 degrees of success would be 4 hits.
My player says that iStrength 2 means the Lance can only make 2 successful hits and no more.

Whos right or are we both wrong? =D

Me and a player are trying to work out how Lances work.

I assume that the Titan Forge Lance Battery, with a strength of 2 means that every hit counts as two strikes. So a hit with 3 degrees of success would be 4 hits.

My player says that iStrength 2 means the Lance can only make 2 successful hits and no more.

Whos right or are we both wrong? =D

Well you are absolutely wrong. A weapon cannot score a number of hits in excess of its strength. Your player is right, assuming he also put in the caveat that he has to score three degrees of success before the extra hit comes in.

Attack with < 3 Degrees of success = 1 Hit

Attack with >= 3 Degrees of success = 2 Hits.

Your player is right, if I understand the lance rules the way I think I do. The strength of the weapon is the absolute maximum number of hits that a weapon can get.

I believe that's why some people opt to use the lasburners. IIRC they're the only s2 lance weapon that can be mounted on small ships.

*edit*

Ninja'd

Even tho on page 219 under the description of 'Strength' it says "This is the maximum number of hits a macrobatter can land on an enemy ship."?
And then on page 220 where it ways "Lances operate in a similar fashion,. but with several distinct differences... A successful roll scores one hit, plus one additional hit for every three degrees of success."

Plus there's the point that of the three Lances listed in the core book, the third is for light cruisers and cruisers only, has a higher power and space requirement and has a Strength of 2, but is otherwise identical to the second lance that can be fitted to All Ships, meaning that the cruiser version is a straight down-grade.

but is otherwise identical to the second lance that can be fitted to All Ships, meaning that the cruiser version is a straight down-grade.

This was errata'ed. But yes.

Plus there's the point that of the three Lances listed in the core book, the third is for light cruisers and cruisers only, has a higher power and space requirement and has a Strength of 2, but is otherwise identical to the second lance that can be fitted to All Ships, meaning that the cruiser version is a straight down-grade.

Except that one extra point of Strength is not a downgrade. PCs will regularly score the extra hit, and an average of 9-10 points of unblockable armour damage is quite significant.

Hey you know what I haven't advertised in this thread yet? Mathhammer ! Without it, there's basically no reason to keep a Lance weapon in lieu of a high-Strength macrobattery.

Yea weve just started using it actually, which was what sparked the discussion about the lance weapons.

One issue that my player did mention about the reduction in armour was that by picking up Armour Plating a couple of times their ship would be all but invulnerable to macrobatteries. Was there a general fix for this or is the prospects of a volly resulting in a crit being scary enough to make the lack of hull pen any real issue?

One issue that my player did mention about the reduction in armour was that by picking up Armour Plating a couple of times their ship would be all but invulnerable to macrobatteries. Was there a general fix for this or is the prospects of a volly resulting in a crit being scary enough to make the lack of hull pen any real issue?

You can only take the Armour Plating component once (per ship).

Don't remmeber if it's in the core book or in the errata though.

One of the sourcebooks has "Excess Void Armour", for even more armour plating, but it comes with nasty penalties.

The simplest way was to increase the dmg of all macro-stuff by 12 in Mathhammer right? Torpedoes as well?

And do away with stacking dmg for the same batteries/broadsides...?

Simple = better

The simplest way was to increase the dmg of all macro-stuff by 12 in Mathhammer right? Torpedoes as well?

And do away with stacking dmg for the same batteries/broadsides...?

Simple = better

Effectively yes - Each weapon component has to fire individually, armour is deducted per shot (ignored as normal for lances and some torpedoes) but you either increase damage by 12 or reduce armour by 12 per hit from macros and lances. For torpedoes i believe the adjustment was 3 (except for virus and vortex which already bypasses) and unsure if there was ever a concensus reached on nova cannon and strike craft.