Is there either a rules effect or any particular established fluff reason why so many weapons are tagged as 'retractable'?
This is a universe where docking bays are permenantly open to space (shields aside), and it's not like anyone is going to believe a nebulon frigate is unarmed...
In my games "retractable" Means accessible from the internals of the ship. Give the engineers something to work on those long hyperspace jumps. Also Knowing the Frigate is armed and knowing what it is armed with are to different things.
It's really mostly fluff. Sure, you could maybe surprise somebody by showing more weapons than obviously visible ("Hah! You thought my ship only had a measly blaster cannon? Well, look at THIS!") or make a more unusual ship than a Nebulon seem harmless and civilian by giving it retractable weapons only, but those are long shots.
Imho a retractable weapon is not only not announcing it existence to everyone with eyes to see, but are as well non-targetable for called shots UNLESS they are actually deployed. Now what we have forgotten to use in our game so far is that deploying a retractable weapon most definitely should be a maneuver.
Also if gunports are open it is kind of obvious what the intentions are.
13 hours ago, BipolarJuice said:Also if gunports are open it is kind of obvious what the intentions are.
Correct. You want to show your respect by allocating energy into your weapons. Don't mistake this for aggression, you might cause a war between humans and minbari per accident. ;-)
Edited by SEApocalypse10 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:Correct. You want to show your respect by allocating energy into your weapons. Don't mistake this for aggression, you might case a war between humans and minbari per accident. ;-)
Hate it when those accidents happen.
How about atmospheric travel? In Rebels we see Star Destroyers and Hammerheads operating in atmo, briefly. Sure you have gravity to contend with but in theory going fast enough may rip some of those lovely missile tubes off the frame I'd think.
On 12.1.2018 at 5:44 AM, ASCI Blue said:How about atmospheric travel? In Rebels we see Star Destroyers and Hammerheads operating in atmo, briefly. Sure you have gravity to contend with but in theory going fast enough may rip some of those lovely missile tubes off the frame I'd think.
I would assume shielding and superior materials would mostly take care of that problem.
In general, this may somewhat depend on whether there's a civilian market for surplus or outdated military ships. If there is a civilian variant of the Nebulon that's somewhat in use, your rebellion vessel might blend in as that by putting up a few retractable gun mounts.
Retractable mounts are always a good choice for freighters too. Make a Q boat for hunting pirates, imperials, you name it.
On 15/01/2018 at 6:43 PM, Cifer said:If there is a civilian variant of the Nebulon that's somewhat in use, your rebellion vessel might blend in as that by putting up a few retractable gun mounts.
You could fly upside down and pretend to be a Temple-class heavy freighter.
But regardless, It looks like I'm not missing anything - there's no 'default' effect to being tagged as retractable.
On 16/01/2018 at 6:47 AM, Edgookin said:Retractable mounts are always a good choice for freighters too. Make a Q boat for hunting pirates, imperials, you name it.
Thing is, if someone would have spotted the gun mounts, there's a pretty good chance they'd spot the gun ports , too - especially if they're big enough to allow a weapon mounted behind them a decent arc of fire.
Disguised gun-ports could be a thing (although I don't think I've seen it yet in any SWRPG supplement, which is odd when you think about it).
On 15/01/2018 at 6:43 PM, Cifer said:I would assume shielding and superior materials would mostly take care of that problem.
In general, this may somewhat depend on whether there's a civilian market for surplus or outdated military ships. If there is a civilian variant of the Nebulon that's somewhat in use, your rebellion vessel might blend in as that by putting up a few retractable gun mounts.
You don't tend to see starships do a 'flaming re-entry' though, unless they're already so damaged as to have much bigger problem than losing a few gun mounts.
But I agree - certainly in Revenge Of The Sith you see a Venator's gun deck which is basically guns mounted internally firing out of (poking out of? Can't remember if the barrel extended past the field) a force-field sealed 'hole' in the side of the ship.
Whilst force-fields are so ubiquitous and reliable that no-one seems to give a monkey's about working in a bay physically open to space, you'd think a good, paranoic military designer would put in some blast doors you could close over the gun port when you're not using the guns.
On 11/01/2018 at 9:11 AM, SEApocalypse said:Now what we have forgotten to use in our game so far is that deploying a retractable weapon most definitely should be a maneuver.
Agreed. "Open Gun Ports" sounds like the sort of thing on a par with 'power up deflectors' - unless someone is caught totally by surprise it can be assumed they'd have done it - but it's worth remembering for that odd time you do.
On 1/15/2018 at 11:43 AM, Cifer said:I would assume shielding and superior materials would mostly take care of that problem.
In general, this may somewhat depend on whether there's a civilian market for surplus or outdated military ships. If there is a civilian variant of the Nebulon that's somewhat in use, your rebellion vessel might blend in as that by putting up a few retractable gun mounts.
I'm not sure that we ever saw it on capship classes, in Clone Wars we do see that a slow enough moving object (in this case a gently rolled grenade) can pass through a shield on the droideka. I would reasonably assume that a ship has enough power to render this tactic useless unless it's a weakness with shielding tech in general. I don't recall seeing fighters readily pass through a shield while taking off or landing with my (possibly incorrect) assumption being that shields are dropped during takeoff and landing.
You see 'flight ops' occurring on Venator destroyers whilst people are in the hangar decks in the foreground - ships move into or out of the 'central channel' which is open to space, passing through the 'shield wall' docking bay. Of course, that's the ship's own small craft launching and landing.
As you note, there's presumably a maximum speed at which this works (which would explain Anakin needing to take out the Invisible Hand's landing bay shields prior to the Jedi's rather energetic landing approach),
As to whether you can enter a shielded bay on a ship which doesn't want you to do so - I'm trying to remember if there are any cases we see of a ship flying into a docking bay and disgorging a boarding party.
It's implied in Rogue One - a Lambda isn't a breaching craft, so presumably Vader landed in a docking bay, but the Profundity had had seven shades kicked out of it and may have lost bay shielding.
6 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:As to whether you can enter a shielded bay on a ship which doesn't want you to do so - I'm trying to remember if there are any cases we see of a ship flying into a docking bay and disgorging a boarding party.
If we count video game examples, it happens in Battlefront, both the old and the new one. And in Rebels, Hera flies through an enemy hangar in order to get a clear vector to make the jump to hyperspace.
On 1/11/2018 at 12:12 PM, BipolarJuice said:Also if gunports are open it is kind of obvious what the intentions are.
Only if you're not about to make first contact with the Minbari.
On 18.1.2018 at 8:46 PM, Cifer said:If we count video game examples, it happens in Battlefront, both the old and the new one. And in Rebels, Hera flies through an enemy hangar in order to get a clear vector to make the jump to hyperspace.
Which is btw an strong indication how narrow those hyperspace lanes are.
