I kind of thought it had come up earlier with a dev ruling, but wasn't sure and had to run, so couldn't double check.

Ok seems like lances are not as good as sunsears.. I will grant that.

But why do they need to be? The books are full of weapons, some are just better than others and thus get used by players more often.

As to lances, one of the main reasons to have them will probably come out in the battlefleet book which I hope will have planetary bombardment rules.

Lances are used extensively in this role in the fluff (usually to the exclusion of all else). Though the bombardment cannons of the SM make a few showings, but only for widescale reginal destruction (they launch fusion bombs, at least according to the utramarine books).

The problem isn't that sunsears are better than lances. It's that two sunsears outdamage a lance/macrobattery combination that takes roughly the same ammount of space and power. Against targets with heavy armour. They outdamage targets with heavy armour rather substantially. And that is an issue. Why? Several reasons. Firstly, macrobatteries of any sort shouldn't be outdamaging lances when it comes to hurting heavily armoured targets - that's just fluff wrong. And more distressingly because sunsears are not the damaging macrobatteries. If sunsears out damage lances compared to heavily armoured targets (and note, this math doesn't take range bonuses/penalties into account) then how much greater is the disparity if you use very damaging macrobatteries?

That's the issue. Lightly damaging macrobatteries out-perform lances at their inteded role. This damage gap only widens as you fight more lightly armoured targets or as you upgrade to more powerful batteries.

Also, for bombardment I see no reason why you can't use laser batteries to bombard in the same manner as a lance. And you can still bombard wtih projectile batteries as well - though they would obviously behave every differently.

I think, Lances are (will be) a lot more efficient against targets with (more than) two shields. I didn't do the math on this one, but you always compared two macrobatteries to a macrobattery / lance combo. In my opinion, bigger ships will have more shields than our cruisers and therefore it will take more hits to overload them. You will have a hard time to take out the shields and overcome the (probably even higher) armour rating of a grand cruiser/battleship with your two macrobatteries. In this case, a lance will do it's job and cut right through these capital ships, ignoring their armour and outdamage your macrobatteries.

We have a frigate with a castellan shield and the thing I'm afraid of the most, when fighting against other frigates / raiders is their lance weapons. Everyone can bring up the two hits needed to overload our shield, but with mostly only two hits left they'll hardly do more damage than our armour can take. A lance on the other hand...

A lance is still blocked by shields, hence the cannons to knock down the shield on the lance ship. So the cannons in the cannon/lance combo are mostly there to KO the shields and not expected to do any damage, the lance will be doing all/most of the damage. When compared to a cannon/cannon combo though, the first cannon plays the same role, overloading shields and eating through armor, allowing the second cannon to do its full damage since their are no shields and no more armor left (When fired as a salvo or whatever the rule is). So basically you're comparing a lance which ignores armor to a macrocannon battery which doesn't have any armor to deal with, and the battery will always win that.

The only thing that a lance really has going for it is that extra chance of a critical hit, which is an exceptionally difficult to quantify factor, and even when my program quantifies it, it relies on certain variables. A crit for example is worth less if the opponents are highly skilled as fires are more likely to be put out, damaged components are more likely to be repaired right away, etc. A crit is also worth less if the other ship has things that lower moral/crew losses like a reclemation facility and kin-crew quarters. And a crit is worth far less if the other ship has a tenebro maze as it can direct weapon crippling shots to taking out the arboretum or something similar instead.

Cannonball said:

In Battlefleet Gothic, it is possible for a Firestorm-class Frigate to do more damage with its weapon batteries than with its lance, but that is highly dependent on positioning and range. It is also dependent on the target having lighter not heavier armour.

So it is pretty obvious that the interaction of armour and weapons is a bit different than BFG. I wonder if making batteries an additional hit per two DOS would make it work a bit better?

Cannonball said:

Ok so why does a macrobattery/lance combo need to out damage other combos?

Millage may vary but IMHO all things considered per pound sunsears are the best macrobatteries (barring xeno or archeotech). So the fact that they are a premier choice does not worry me.

I think part of the problem actually stems from BFG where lances where VERY useful due to the way the battle system worked. The way armor worked a 6 armor target was very hard to damage without lances (or ordinance weapons). But RT has a different battle system, a single lance strike will no longer kill any unshielded escort and the big ships are no longer many times tougher to kill than the escorts. Also the way shields now work now also de-emphasizes lances (you used to be able to have other ships knock down the shields of your target). So the roll people are expecting the lance to play does not really fit into the new combat system (IMHO).

As to bombardment since macro-batteries are actually a large number of weapons that fire in mass I would say that weapons like the sunsears have a hard time getting through atmosphere with any punch left. Whereas lances being a single weapon it can make it to the ground just fine. As to the projectile type macro batteries I agree they could bombard but it would probably be somewhat inaccurate, and you would be launching what are essentially tactical nukes, very indiscriminate though useful if you need wide area destruction. The lances would be much more precise. Also to get the projectile macro batteries to do bombardment you probably would need special ammo to handle the atmospheric reentry.

It is better to have sunsear las-brodside or sunsear macrobatery eficiecy wise(space,power,damage)?

Karoline said:

I still think, Lances will be more effective against larger ship hulls. They'll have three or maybe even four shields. A single macrobattery can't take out three shields AND lower the armour of 24+ to zero. That alone would take about six hits. These could be scored with two macrocannons, but almost no damage would be done. A lance would do more damage, because it can ignore the high armour rating and you have the possibility of two crits in one action, a value that, I must admit, is very difficult to calculate into your equation.

Also, in my opinion, Lance weapons are more effective for NPC ships. since they tend to have very crappy stats, they'll very likely score no more than a few hits with macrocannons. But these few hits might be just enough to take down your shields and let's them rake you with their lances (that's why I already said, that I'm still more afraid of an escort with a macrocannon / lance combo)

As to bombardment since macro-batteries are actually a large number of weapons that fire in mass I would say that weapons like the sunsears have a hard time getting through atmosphere with any punch left. Whereas lances being a single weapon it can make it to the ground just fine. As to the projectile type macro batteries I agree they could bombard but it would probably be somewhat inaccurate, and you would be launching what are essentially tactical nukes, very indiscriminate though useful if you need wide area destruction. The lances would be much more precise. Also to get the projectile macro batteries to do bombardment you probably would need special ammo to handle the atmospheric reentry.

Firing a weapon in space over 6 VU (=60000km) at a target of the size of an escort (1,5km x 0.5km =) that is also moving at a speed of 9 VU / 30min takes quite some accuracy. I'd say, even with macrocannons, you could bombard targets on a planetary surface pretty well. Cities tend to be bigger than a raider and military complexes in 40k, too.

As for the reentry into the atmosphere problem, I'd say, a SP macrocannon round can take quite some heat, after all it has to be launched out of a barrel and that causes a lot of friction and heat, too.

You are certainly right on those two accounts.

For NPCs any weapon needs to be able to deliver damage with those crappy stats. An average crew only has a 30 for shooting with boni it might become a 50. That give you the ability to knock the PCs a new hole, once in a blue moon. (It just doesnt compare to PCs starting at 50, and getting past 80, because the keep piling modifiers onto BS).

Regarding bombardements with Macrocannons. They are disgustingly easy, and common. Physics do not prevent them; once a stable orbit has been achieved, which is needed for accurate firing range anyway (if you actually want to hit a warzone). The fluff has them too. The tabletop has them, you can buy Melta orbital bombardement in the Inquisition codex.

The thing that is sad, that lances just dont cut it, when the PCs are at the helm of said ship.

gomme said:

Actually when you look at relative speeds, distances, and muzzle velocities of the fastest propellant driven weapons today you need to be more than accurate. You would need to be pre-cognitive in a big way. The only way to make projectile weapons work over the given ranges is to have them going a good portion of C. So macro-cannons are most likely railguns which use the propellant charges just to get the shell moving (which they do with todays railguns). The inaccuracy would come from the shell interacting with the atmosphere. Without proper aerodynamic features and mid course correction capability the shells are likely to veer off course and could land miles off target.

Heat from reentry would be very different that the heat of being ejected from a barrel, the heat would be applied to a different part of the warhead and would likely be hotter and last much longer.

I am not saying that normal macro batteries cannot bombard just that they would likely need special ammo to do so, and that they will probably not have the same precision capability as directed energy weapons. Indeed if you wanted to level a city I would go with the macro cannon bombardment. If however you wanted to paste the enemy command bunker in the middle of the city without destroying said city (it is worth more that way) I would haul out the lances.

llsoth said:

We don't know the materials the macrocannon projectiles are made of and how they behave at reentry in the atmosphere. But they do have to punch through the very thick adamantium armour of a space vessel, so I guess they can take some punishment. And certainly, they're already formed in an aerodynamical, atmosphere enduring fashion, because planetary bombardment is one of the most important things the imperial navy has to do in order to support a successful invasion on a planet. The rounds are multi-purpose projectiles.

I admit, that lances would be my weapon of choice, if I was attacking the command bunker in the middle of the city, but generally I want every single last one of those xeno-mutant-heretics d e a d. I'll loot what's left.

And, after all, this is sciFI, so sometimes things are cool just the way they are, no questions asked

I agree, lances are better against targets with more armor and in the hands of less skilled pilots. I agree that, as they stand, they are weapons for NPCs only.

However:

1. If they were really intended as NPC-weapons, they would be balanced by a lower SP cost. NPCs don't spend SP, PCs do. As it stands their SP cost is actually higher than most batteries. Also, the accuracy only has to get to 50 for the scales to tip in the battery's favor (which can be accomplished by extended actions).

2. There isn't an officially published ship (outside of some weird Orkish deathstar I haven't bothered to read about) that the lances outdamage the batteries. Will the problem possibly be fixed by Battlefleet? Sure, but any ship released in a supplement is a niche target for a weapon in the core book. Also, you're talking about ships bigger and tougher than a cruiser (a big, mean, scary, rare outside of military forces ship) with better shields than a ship with an archaotech (ultra-rare) component. Ultra-niche market for a commonly mounted weapon.

3. Yes, I know damage isn't everything, but:

a. Planetary bombardment isn't handled by any crunchy means (and lances aren't billed as the "anti-planet" weapon).

b. They may be fluffy-cool, but that doesn't mean they can't be stat-cool as well. I know we aren't playing a dungeon crawler here, but we also aren't playing an indie game where the usefulness of two differen't abilities truly can not be compared (which I actually consider a design strength of many of those games, because they are rich in interesting choices)

c. Yes, crits are difficulty to quantify. Karoline is working on that. In fact we aren't really trying to quantify them so much as getting a feeling for how useful they are. I've got this terrible feeling though that the ability of NPCs to make emergency repairs is going to negate some of the Lance's advantage in this arena.

d. Yes, someone might think Sunsears are the best, of course the best is better than all the rest. However, having an item that is the best in a system is not a good thing, because it means people can make wrong choices. I don't think non-competitive games should have wrong choices hidden by drawn-out math frontloaded into character creation. I think what makes the battery selections so cool, is that the Sunsears aren't the best. They might be the best for some people, but they aren't inherently better than meltas or plasmas, they just support a different playstyle. In fact, due to the differences in resource costs, some would even say mars-patterns are "better". After all, why spend all that money/power/space on big guns when you can buy other cool things. However, unless this crit thing works out, no-one has been able to point out a reason that lances would be better under the current rules.

I'm afraid some people may have taken this thread the wrong way. I titled it Mathhammer as a nod to a tradition in the tabletop game. I'm not trying to character optimize here, or suggest anyone else charop. I'm saying: This is what I see in the system. Prove me (using actual facts/numbers/reasons that are currently in the system) wrong. If you can't do that, help prove me right. If you think that's been done sufficiently, help me find a way to edit the system so the facts match the fluff. Remember, a game system is there to guide the games that use it (and the people that play it). No matter how much you say a game is about petting fluffy kittens, if the only reward you dole out is xp for killing puppies, and the means by which you kill puppies is not by petting fluffy kittens, then the game isn't really about petting fluffy kittens.

Lances don't appear to be about killing big heavily armored ships.

I want lances to be about killing big heavily armored ships.

The solution may be simply that cruisers don't have enough armor.

Will you help me pet fluffy kittens?

Please?

On our 2nd time around with a RT campaign, we've got a Firestorm with a Lance-Macro combination. First game with had 2 x Macro set up on the Tempest frigate and a better crew quality of 40 compared to the current one with crew skill of 30.

So far there's been a few noticiable things about the lance in a game-situation instead of a simulation, is that the criticals of the lance are what turns things around. When NPC's have their ship set on fire, (often in the first or second volley of combat) or have something else of value shot up with a critical hit from the lance, life begins to get really BAD for them. The macrocannon basically does nothing, as starting PC's none of us have over 45 Bal Skill and its pretty hard to get a lot of hits in without a lot of tactical buggering around and most of the damage in a long fight actually comes from hit-run operations... where a lot more stuff gets broken and set on fire

it is somewhat reassuring that in the long term when we're going to be taking on heavier armoured vessels with multiple shield arrays, it will still have some appreciable value to do some damage enough to cripple an enemy vessel a lot of the time and allow us to use alternative tactics to ultimately kill a lot of their crew and perhaps get us a few war-prize vessels instead of blowing them to scrap like the twin-macro setup used to do quite a lot!

As a rogue trader with just one ship, unescorted, it does the job just fine of severely crippling an enemy(ies) and finishing them off later with sharp objects and shotguns. As a warship, not so great, there are times you just have to lay down lots of fire on a target and kill it outright. My initial reasoning when I built the ship in the first place was to actually have a Sunsear in her nose, simply because of stand-off ranged firepower and I'd done the metrics in my head to figure out ages ago, that the Sunsear would do more damage than the lance over time in a long battle (yes, my brain really is that f**ked up). However, the idea was yelled down by the other players and as the RT, I just simply adjust our battle strategy accordingly to our strengths and there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Etheric said:

I see. I always thought, your intention was to simply say, that two macro cannons were the better choice, if you wanted to do some real seal-clubbing (I like puppies). Maybe, this post belongs to the House Rules subforum (after 6+ pages of ranting and beating around the bush ) I heard, there are some fluffy-kitty-lovers over there.

Unfortunately, I'm not as good in balancing a system with homebrewed rules. I'm better in exploiting the systems little "loopholes" and powergame where ever there's the possibility. That's why we have a Tempest-class with a Melta/Mezoa combo, Reinforced Prow and - I know, another heavily discussed topic - Barracks + Murder Servitors + Teleportarium. IMO close combat at it's best. Blame my DnD playing, dungeon crawling and powergaming evil twin < it's him.

I'll give it a try, anyway, without even trying to do any math here, call it "guessing", if you want to.

• Would raising the Lance's damage to a point, where they outdamage the two Macrocannons just slightly be an option? 1d10+5, maybe +6?
• Or maybe give them a better crit effect than the normal rolls on the table, perhaps something similar to the plasma cannons. After all, they "cut" through the ship's interiors and so they could easily damage more than one component at once.
• We could allow "Righteous Fury" with a Lance weapon, if the beam resembles the Light of the Emperor. But seriously, perhaps if you score a crit, you roll an completely unmodified BS check (so simply against your BS) to confirm the crit and deal an additional 1d10 damage.
• You already mentioned increasing the cruiser's armor. Right now, our Tempest, which has a Reinforced Prow and a very good Helmsman, has an armour rating of 19 / 21, which basically means 21. As good as a cruiser. They can choose Armoured Prow, but no sane escort takes a cruiser head-on, even if they don't have the Prow weapon slot anymore (ramming damage will be devastating)
• You could allow to install a Lance Weapon Battery on your Raiders (I'm talking of Strength 2 here) They take up a hole lot of more space and power than stated in the table and would cost even more SP. I think, the possible two Lance hits will match any Macro/Macro combo and will get devastating, once the armour of your opponents is high enough to make Macrocannons nearly useless.

Well, I don't know, if any of these are actually "good" ideas and I'm not sure, if they'd throw over any of the balancing that's been done to this game...

Well, as I cannot resist fluffy kittens

If you want to make the lances more fluffy (though I will not pet them no matter how fluffy) adjust the crit rating from a 3 to a 2.

Critical hits though very hard to quantify are undeniably very useful. You often get to choose which component to effect which means it can often have effects far beyond extra crew and moral damage. As a player I enjoy delivering critical hits to the enemy more than just raw damage, and I fear them more as well.

The extra crits should more than make up for any shortfall in damage.

llsoth said:

I love crits as well. But with a critrating of 3 you'll almost always will do a critical hit. After all, you'll boost your BS for the Lance attack to 80+. We achieve crits with our Meltas on a regular basis (high BS, MIU, point blank, some +BS components, lock on, put your backs into it!, fate points, etc). Combined with a Hit and Run action, that's already two crits / round, the enemy doesn't even have enough actions to extinguish all those fires and repair the damaged components... I think, the Lance's crit itself should have a better effect, like deal more damage or affect more components at once.

If you want to increase the Lance power, perhaps allow them to make a non explosive Righteous Fury, and/or add the tearing quality, and/or extend the critical tables from 1-5 to 1-10 ?

My pc's have two ships to ferry them around directly, plus a fleet that tends to be more involved running trade routes etc. One is a Dauntless light cruiser and the other is an Ignis class cruiser. The ignis is armed solely with macrobatteries, with the extra large armoury supplemental component. the Dauntless is armed with only Lances. Initally the space combat was very dull, as the Ignis could shred any opponent with a single volley in most cases, even as large as a cruiser sized ship. Now, I'm not sure that the munitorium bonus applies to plasma batteries, (we ruled it did initially) which may have made the situation worse, but the sheer number of bonuses you can rack up on a single shot (Navigator + Astropath+ Lock on+ put your backs into it+ Background + Components+ inspire ability from the RT) meant that in one session they hit the maximum number of times (in single volley), on three seperate occasions. this lead to a bit of a rethink on the house rules for ships.

• we boosted the SP for a cruiser by 20 and the SP for a light cruiser by 10.
• we also increased Hull 30 and 15 respectively.
• Space was increased by 10 also.
• The shields of a frigate got boosted to 2, light cruisers to three and cruisers get 4. Castellian arrays boost by 1 or 50% depending on the size of the array.
• Lances got their strength doubled and they inflict additional hits on two success rather then three. This means that lances are a much more viable weapon to on small ships, and a lance armed frigate can pack a punch. we thought about uping ship armour as well, but there are components for that (although we changed the additonal hull points component to add 10% rather then just 3 hull points).

For ships with two or more shields active what will happen if the lance scores a critical hit? It will bypass both shields? Another question between a castelan shield array and a repulsor shield array what is better?

Another question the bridge of antiquity is better than the armoured combat bridge or the exploration bridge?

thor2006 said:

Yep, critical hits aren't stopped by shields, only normal hits.

MILLANDSON said:

Actually they kind of are. If you get a critical hit and there is a shield, then you do a single point of damage to the hull and get to roll for critical effects. The shield also is used up as though it had absorbed a hit normally (So if it could absorb 2 hits, it can still absorb one more). So yes, it does kinda bypass the shield, but you don't get full damage or anything. This means it is possible to do damage with a lance even you don't have a battery to take down the shields first, it is just going to take a while as you'll basically have take out the entire crew population with critical effects (Depressurization is particularly good at this, taking out 1d10 population)

Karoline said:

But if you have more than one shield ? Does the lance penetrate all the void shields on the critical hit?

The critical hit does 1 point of hull damage, you roll on the critical table, one void shield is taken down. It doesn't mater if there is one void shield or 50, that is what happens.

Karoline said:

I don't know, given Void Shields are a component that you'll almost always be aware of, if I managed a critical hit with a Lance weapon and rolled an Internal Damage (2) result for the critical effect, I just might be inclined to choose Shields, and hope that the target can't succeed in repairing the generators next round. Of course, a Tenabrae Maze can squelch that course of action.

-=Brother Praetus=-