I'm unclear about dorsal weapons as they are described and any special rules pertaining to them.

As weapons they're described as being fewer in number, but have a better firing arc then weapons that might be macrobatteries on the port / starboard sides of a ship. So, a ship with dorsal weapons seems better, though it seems like this shouldn't be the case.

Also, as far as lances and macrobatteries go, it seems a lance can be put on any location? Even though it appears in the illustrated ship designs that lances are almost always prow weapons...

On page 202 under Supplemental Components you'll find that Lances have to installed on a prow weapon slot if the ship is of frigate size or smaller (ie transporters and raiders as well).

Dorsal weapons are superior in most circumstances. If you have 2 dorsal weapon mounts you can fire both weapons on any target in a 270 degree arc, I think the reason this is done is to allow frigates to compete a little better with larger ships.

The rule for lances is:

p. 202
"If a lance weapon is installed on a vessel of frigate size or smaller (transports and raiders, for example), it must be installed in a prow weapon slot. Lances are large and cumbersome weapons and in respects to smaller vessels, can only be installed on ships specifically designed to carry them. If a ship of frigate size or smaller does not have a prow weapon slot, it cannot carry a lance."

So you'll see that in RT, all the dorsal weapon mounts are on the smaller ships, while the larger ships have the less mobile mounts that, in my interpretation of the rules, includes the ability to mount side mounted lances.

While it seems powerful to mount a lance in a side mount, you have to realize that you have to knock out the void shields of the opposing ship or else your lance is wasted. Even a Lance battery can't get through the double void shields of a cruiser without the additional punch of macrobatteries.

Thanks. That helps clarify things for me.

Seems to me, the rules gimp the Light Cruiser. The cruiser "could" mount a forward lance, but has no macros to soften the target, so will probably just mount the armored prow. But now it's stuck with just a single weapon mount in either side arc with the same problem. I could mount 2 lance batteries and be entirely useless against most other cruisers and mostly effective against frigates and destroyers provided they can get three degrees of success on their titan batteries. Or, mount some macrobatteries and, what, slowly chew on everyone? I guess their "scout" description is about all they can do successfully. =)

I wish I could just edit my previous post. I was curious about my previous post and discovered that prow weapons on light cruisers and larger vessels can fire forward as well as to either side. I retract my previous statement, a light cruiser with a prow macrobattery and side lances is a feasible warship. =)

p.219 RT description of Prow weapon components.

grffnhwk said:

The standard Dauntless-Class Light Cruiser configuration used by the Imperial Navy is actually prow lances and a macrocannon broadsides; similarly, the standard-configuration Lunar-Class Cruiser has a Macrobattery broadside and a lance battery on each side, with torpedo tubes in an armoured prow to round things off...

Having looked at how those configurations work in game terms, they're pretty damned good, though the Lunar is a little cramped, particularly if you load it with a munitorium to boost its firepower.

The prow lance battery and broadside batteries don't seem like they would work very well, technically, using RT rules. The lance can only fire in the the forward arc limitied to 2 "hits" while the batteries are limited to port/starboard arcs leveling no help to the lance in a lance attack. I can see it helps to spread the "love", but that seems more of a hindrance. Concentrated attacks always seem to win the fight better than whittling multiple targets down at the same time. I haven't seen a light cruiser in a fight, so I may be completely off. Unless, a prow lance mounted on larger craft can fire in multiple directions like the other macrobatteries.

grffnhwk said:

Which is exactly what people here are saying. Prow weapons on light cruisers and larger fire fore, starboard, and port. See page 219 lower left. This does mean that a cruiser is weaker in the forward arc than a frigate, raider, or transport. This means with a cruiser you need to "Cross the T" to get a good broadside.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_T

PS- In general on a cruiser I'd put a lance in the prow as lances cost more SP, space, and power. Unless you are planning on putting a Sunsear or Ryza in the prow. This gives you more space, power, and ship points to buy things like Murder Servitors, and Munitorium.

grffnhwk said:

As noted above, on Cruisers (including Light Cruisers), prow weapons fire in all but the rear arc, allowing them to more effectively combine several weapon systems. A Dauntless can contribute its prow lances to follow-up the attacks of either one of its broadsides, allowing it to sail past a foe delivering a solid amount of firepower as it does so.

It seems really strange that a ship firing its lance weapon with a strength of 1 is completely unable to damage another ship due to its void shields.

Unless a weapon scores a critical hit with the successes rolled before armor / void shields taken into account?

You want to use lances with macrocannons, firing the macrocannons first to counter the shields and perhaps get hits in, then use your lance.

I guess what I meant was, it seems strange that a ship firing its lance in its fore arc (unable to fire any other weapons at the target this turn) would be completely unable to damage another ship. It seems that firing any weapon, especially one as powerful as a lance should have some chance of doing damage, at least.

Actually lances are less powerful than macrocannons overall. It's more focused which lets it punch through armor yes.. It's the sniper rifle compared to an machinegun. The average macrocannon does many times more damage than a lance (if all the shots hit). A void shields work well against a lance as the shield simply absorbs the lance's energy. You can't burn through a shield with focused power you need to overload it.

Goat King said:

By itself, yes, a lance will do little more than crackle against the shields. Void Shields are powerful things. The same can be seen in Battlefleet Gothic - a single point of lance strength (essentially, a single lance) can't do more than the shields of an enemy vessel.

In both RT and BFG, there is a constant in firing solutions - macrobatteries first, then lances. The macrocannons strip the shields and ravage the hull, while the lance beam that follows punches a hole in the armour and deals significant internal damage. Macrocannons are more about raw damage output, brute force, while Lances are a finesse weapon, used for dealing critical damage to components, etc.

In an RT context, remember that shields are resolved per opposing ship within a given turn, not per weapon; if the enemy ship has only 1 void shield, and you've got two guns, it'll absorb the first hit from the first gun, and then be open to be blasted by all the other hits from that gun, and any hits from the second weapon as well.

OK. This helps to resolve this question for me.

But, I'm still unclear about critical hits and how they work with void shields.

On pg. 220 it's stated, "When firing a weapon, if the character rolls a number of successes equal to the weapon's Crit Rating, the shot has caused a Critical Hit. If the shot does not do any damage to Hull Integrity, inflict 1 automatic point of damage. Then roll a 1d5 on the Critical Hit chart and apply the result to the target."

So, I'm wondering, if you've rolled 4 successes, enough to do a critical with a Sunsear Laser Battery, if you've indeed scored a critical hit. Whether or not a void shield is going to absorb one of those hits.

When using macrocannons, of which the sunsear is a type, you get an extra hit per degree of sucess. This means if you crit with them you will have caused enough hits to get past the void shields anyway. You will do one less hits worth of damage per shield, but after that, even if you rolled poorly and did not beat the armour value, you would still do one point of damage and an random critical effect.

What is more confusing is a single strength lance that crits agains a shield. I would say the crit is negated as the shields have negated all hits, meaning it has effectively missed. However, this is not clear.