By default, there's no "roll" action. Considering the 3D reality of things and how course corrections would have you rotating the ship anyway, we made it a simple challenging test.

I can see why they left it out though. If you critically hit the broadside guns and the **** thing just rolls and presents fresh batteries at you it kinda feels like a cheat.

The Prow mount on a Dictator can't be a hangar bay anyway- RAW, bays have to go into port/stbd mounts- no dorsal, keel or prow.

You could go 4 hangar bays and a prow Bombardment cannon. That's going to hurt anything that gets close.

I actually like going with a non-dictator cruiser with 2 port/stbd mounts and a prow, and putting two hangar bays on one side, prow macrocannon and putting in a bunch of lances on the other side.

I cover the topic in fair detail in this thread. Post #19 in particular goes over specific builds that use two bays with heavy weapons. Four bays in conjunction with prow torpedoes might be nasty though.

Now I'm curious.

Where does it say in the rules that bays have to go into port/stbrd mounts?

I grant that it's traditional that they go there, and that putting them into a dorsal mount doesn't make sense as that is generally viewed as a 'turret' ( and few Imp ships have keel slots ), but I don't ever recall seeing a rule that said that the bays must be placed in the port and starboard mounts.

The Prow mount on a Dictator can't be a hangar bay anyway- RAW, bays have to go into port/stbd mounts- no dorsal, keel or prow.

You could go 4 hangar bays and a prow Bombardment cannon. That's going to hurt anything that gets close.

I actually like going with a non-dictator cruiser with 2 port/stbd mounts and a prow, and putting two hangar bays on one side, prow macrocannon and putting in a bunch of lances on the other side.

I cover the topic in fair detail in this thread. Post #19 in particular goes over specific builds that use two bays with heavy weapons. Four bays in conjunction with prow torpedoes might be nasty though.

Now I'm curious.

Where does it say in the rules that bays have to go into port/stbrd mounts?

I grant that it's traditional that they go there, and that putting them into a dorsal mount doesn't make sense as that is generally viewed as a 'turret' ( and few Imp ships have keel slots ), but I don't ever recall seeing a rule that said that the bays must be placed in the port and starboard mounts.

BFK p.36, right above Lathe-pattern Landing Bay .

Ok, I'll grant that, but I would also point out that it says 'unless specified in the entry' .

I am fairly sure, it's talking about the LC Bay entries rather than ship entries, but it could allow for a custom built landing bay or ship build ( or rebuild ), could it not???

Hold pattern landing bay is (as far as I know) the only one that breaks from the port-stbd limit, and you can only have one of them.

Yes, of course you can make things up. You don't need to ask if you can make things up. This is why there is a "house rules" subforum.

By default, there's no "roll" action. Considering the 3D reality of things and how course corrections would have you rotating the ship anyway, we made it a simple challenging test.

I can see why they left it out though. If you critically hit the broadside guns and the **** thing just rolls and presents fresh batteries at you it kinda feels like a cheat.

Well, if they had an action that allowed a ship to forgo turning in order to roll and bring both sides to bear against a target in one turn, it would be a positive change for the game in my eyes. As it stands, ships that depend on port/starboard mounts (mainly cruisers) rarely get the most out of mounting symmetrical weaponry despite that being the in-universe norm.

I tend to agree vis-a-vis rolling ship. It only makes sense to take advantage of three dimensional space- it could be that the absence of creativity in-universe could explain this behavior, though.

Inverting the ship is allowed in BFG and I see no reason why one couldn't in RT. As a GM I would consider it a an ordinary (+10) Pilot: spacecraft + maneuverability test. (It's not hard!). The action would require one turn to complete during which time no weapons fire would be possible. At the beginning of the next starship turn the ship's port/starboard arcs would be inverted. Doing it this way really means that it is only useful if one sides weapon batteries are damaged and turning would be problematic.

I could see making it a challenging maneuver too- one that allows you to fire both port and starboard arc weapons, but at, say, a -60 penalty, such penalty reduced by ten for each Degree of Success by which you successfully performed the maneuver. I mean, a turn is thirty minutes- I should be surprised that it might take more than ten or so to roll ship.

Agreed. Rolling ship to present undamaged broadsides, fine (although if you fail a pilot check it takes you more than a turn to complete and you forfeit this turn's fire) - but 'spinning' such that you can fire both broadsides is pushing it for the 'battleship feel' of the game.

not really all that useful in an atmosphere.

Don't you mean "completely bananas in an atmosphere"? Most of the small craft have the armour of tanks, the weapons of a tank company, VTOL capabilities, hovering capabilities, speed enough to fly around a planet in five minutes, and so on. Honestly, I have a hard time justifying using anything else. Why bother with tanks when sending down gajillions of furies is way more convenient.

Double post

not really all that useful in an atmosphere.

Don't you mean "completely bananas in an atmosphere"? Most of the small craft have the armour of tanks, the weapons of a tank company, VTOL capabilities, hovering capabilities, speed enough to fly around a planet in five minutes, and so on. Honestly, I have a hard time justifying using anything else. Why bother with tanks when sending down gajillions of furies is way more convenient.

Pilot tests.

A tank driver fails one and he kinda slews about. A Fury pilot fails one, in atmo, and there's a good chance they'll be lithobraking.

not really all that useful in an atmosphere.

Don't you mean "completely bananas in an atmosphere"? Most of the small craft have the armour of tanks, the weapons of a tank company, VTOL capabilities, hovering capabilities, speed enough to fly around a planet in five minutes, and so on. Honestly, I have a hard time justifying using anything else. Why bother with tanks when sending down gajillions of furies is way more convenient.

Pilot tests.

A tank driver fails one and he kinda slews about. A Fury pilot fails one, in atmo, and there's a good chance they'll be lithobraking.

Aye that and the fact that while you could just use space craft to shred planetary forces, what happens when they take damage or are lost? You have a reduced quantity of space craft. However if you use aeronautica then you aren't risking your starships void warfare capabilities.

not really all that useful in an atmosphere.

Don't you mean "completely bananas in an atmosphere"? Most of the small craft have the armour of tanks, the weapons of a tank company, VTOL capabilities, hovering capabilities, speed enough to fly around a planet in five minutes, and so on. Honestly, I have a hard t. ime justifying using anything else. Why bother with tanks when sending down gajillions of furies is way more convenient.

This is a bit of a misnomer. The time to transit from atmospheric flight to low orbit or vice versa can safely be assumed to be 1 starship turn (30 minutes) at a minimum. Further, If anyone ever stats out the Atmospheric fighters from TT (Thunderbolt, Hellblade, lightning, etc.) I would assume they would include a maneuverability bonus. If they are fair to the Atmo fighters they should be able to easily be able to outmaneuver a Star fury in the atmosphere. This is tantamount to death in the swirling combat that is a dogfight (Even today!). A good modern day comparison was when the american F-22 raptor (Hardly a slouch for maneuverability btw!) was tested against the Eurofighter. In close combat dogfights, the Eurofighter, being smaller and lighter then the Raptor, held a slight edge. When engagements happened at range though, (As most space engagements would be!) the Eurofighters basically never knew what hit them!

I am currently working on a house rules project on just this subject! I'll let you all know when I'm done!

Lightnings are a Fighter with a craft rating 5 better than the Longsword fighter, but they take a -15 penalty in void combat. Solved?

Well, these are the two styles of aerial warfare (dogfighting versus jousting/strafing, even if at very long range). However, the problem I have is that the vehicle stats don't really mesh up well with abstract values of the small craft rules. I am trying to reconcile that.

Not to mention the wildly differing squadron sizes. This is a problem.

Alex

The problem with Furies fighting in the atmosphere is their maneuverability when travelling at high veocity. Decrease their rating.

The problem with Starhawks bombing ground targets is the difficulty they have hitting a ground target while travelling at their normally high velocity. Reduce their strength. Plus they also have reduced maneuverability if intercepted. Reduce their rating, too.

The problem with Lightnings, Thunderbolts, and Marauders fighting in vacuum is that they aren't designed for it. Sure, they're protected against the vacuum so they can launch from space, but they don't maneuver well. Reduce their rating. They also don't normally come equipped with the missiles needed to engage targets at the range space combat occurs. Reduce their rating even more.

Aeronautica has a built-in advantage with those large squadrons because it's really hard to damage a large squadron to an extent that it affects their combat rating.

Aye that and the fact that while you could just use space craft to shred planetary forces, what happens when they take damage or are lost? You have a reduced quantity of space craft. However if you use aeronautica then you aren't risking your starships void warfare capabilities.

I don't even use small craft in space combat. Also, if you have aeronautica in your launch bays, you're reducing your void warfare capabilities in the first place.

Pilot tests.

A tank driver fails one and he kinda slews about. A Fury pilot fails one, in atmo, and there's a good chance they'll be lithobraking.

This is actually a good point. Despite the 'gajillions' bit, I was actually thinking more small-scale. There's very little out there that can go toe to toe with a fury, and if you've got a whole party of qualified pilots, you basically own the skies.