Okay, Orks. Kroozers only have one void shield, so unless you are running the No Salvo rules the extra armor does not make up for the lack of a second void shield.

Against a Kroozer with 23 armour: Dual Sunsears with and without salvoing (S-RAW & S-NS), a mars cannon with a Titanforge lance (L-RAW), with tearing (L-T) or allowing multiple hits (L-MH)

K S-RAW S-NS L-RAW L-T L-MH
30 0.35 0.09 0.86 1.00 0.86
40 1.73 0.83 1.52 1.79 2.47
50 3.63 1.68 2.38 2.79 4.28
60 6.06 2.65 3.42 4.02 6.27
70 8.96 3.72 4.66 5.47 9.41

Compare with a Cruiser with two void shields and 20 armour. I didn't have Lance with Tearing vs Cruiser available.

C S-RAW S-NS L-RAW L-T L-MH
30 0.18 0.11 0.57 0.57
40 1.07 0.71 1.14 1.52
50 2.46 1.51 1.90 2.85
60 4.34 2.50 2.85 4.56
70 6.71 3.70 3.99 7.60

If we give a look to your statistics, Moribund, it looks like the lance+macro combo is terrifying, as it should be, while allowing multiple hits. It looks like we have a winner for the easy fix !

I have combined two of the previous suggestions to come up with an acceptable fix (IMHO).

Lances do 2d10+4 damage in the case of Titanforce lance batteries.

And instead of disallowing salvoes, i will only let half the strength (rounded normally) be applied to the salvo, after the first battery.

Assuming high BS (since low BS isnt really necessary for the players and lances are ok at that lvl):

First macrobattery breaks down the shield and damages armour a little. Assuming everything hits from a Sunsear battery: 3 DoS needed and 3 hits past void shield, 3d10+6-armour. ill let it slide as a 20 armour cruiser sustaining a total 22 damage. piddly damage after armour. Potentially more for high rolls.

The second macrobattery is only allowed as strength 2 due to the "only half strength during salvo past primary battery": 1 DoS needed and 2d10+4 damage.

The lance would not need the damage of the previous macrobattery, since inly the shield needs to be dropped. Bare success needed and 2d10+4 damage.

In conclusion:

- This system does allow Mezoas and Ryzas to vastly outdamage a lance, if high enough BS is achieved.

- Imperial Navy ships only need a bare success to achieve comparable good damage against an enemy cruiser type vessel. A Sword class frigate needs quite a few more DoS on those BS skill tests to achieve comparable damage, but it does have a higher raw damage output, which is important when fighting other nin high armour vessels.

- This system works on the basis of 1 DoS (inlcuding the bare success) hand out 1d10+mod. (Evidently true for macrobatteries) Lances get an early benefit, and can potentially pull ahead with lance batteries. A little phenomenon is the Star-flare archeotech lance, which can cripple an enemy frigate with 4 DoS, since it will receive 4d10+6 damage even when having to drop the shield by itself.

In addition and rather offtopic I will experiment with trilping all hull integrity values, and morale/crew damage will be weapon damage divided by 3. Potentially giving cruiser + vessels a small benefit (think damage/3-(1 up to 5)) so they do not run out of crew so much faster when compared to a simply raider. But that is due to the fact that a Lunar could have close to half a million of crewmen when you do a mathematical scaling up starting with the sword frigate. But FFG wrote this game to played with frigates, the fluff text for them is a dead giveaway. Then again 40k is retconland, so it should be hardly surprising, that RTs really like frigates now, instead of the cruisers i heard so much about during BFG times.

Voronesh said:

Cruisers are still the choice ship, but not everyone has enough profit factor for them - which explains why most people talk about frigates etc.

Kasatka said:

not to mention it is hard to find the sp for even a light cruiser at start not imposible just hard most people begin with a frigate

Mordechai Von Razgriz said:

I just want to be clear that those stats are comparing the multi-hit lances to no-salvo cannons. I think the combination works out very nicely.

From there we get into the issue of what to do about Lance Batteries. Giving them hits equal to their strength on a success and an additional hit per 3 DoS works okay.

I prefer having the Strength reduce the DoS required per hit. 3 DoS for Strength 1, 2 DoS for Strength 2, and 1 DoS for Strength 3. That way a pair of Ryza cannons still eke past a Titanforge Battery/Mars cannon combo against a Raider. However one would have to change the Star-flare's pinpoint accuracy ability, maybe to +10% hit chance. With either rule, Strength 3 lances are brutal kill machines, but if you go the DoS route they are more moderated at the lower BS. Perhaps a problem of either system, but more so the DoS approach, is there is no cap to the damage you can deal with ever increasing BS. PCs that game their BS over 100 can deal massive damage with lances, more than is possible with macrocannons. I'll have to check the numbers.

Below Multi-hit Titanforge (ML), Titanforge Battery (MB), and Voidsunder (MVS). These use the first rule (Strength 1 lances are the same regardless). The -D use the reduced DoS rule. The Ryza is there are a point of reference.

R ML MB MVS MB-D MVS-D Ryza-No Salvo
30 1.02 3.87 6.72 2.08 3.87 1.46
40 2.80 6.60 10.40 3.75 7.55 4.82
50 4.77 9.52 14.27 7.42 12.37 8.38
60 6.93 12.63 18.33 10.98 18.33 12.12
70 10.23 16.88 23.53 14.93 25.43 16.06
vs Frigate (17)
30 0.94 3.16 4.64 1.99 3.79 1.07
40 2.64 5.75 8.53 3.59 7.39 4.01
50 4.53 8.53 12.60 7.18 12.13 7.14
60 6.61 11.50 16.87 10.66 18.01 10.46
70 9.83 15.61 22.27 14.53 25.03 13.98
vs Cruiser (20)
30 0.57 1.43 4.28 0.95 2.09 0.29
40 1.52 3.61 7.41 1.90 5.13 1.52
50 2.85 6.18 10.93 4.28 9.50 3.08
60 4.56 9.12 14.82 7.03 15.20 4.98
70 7.60 13.40 20.05 11.12 22.23 7.22

Would you guys care to explain?

I dont even mention cruisers unless in cases where they are shot at. Lances shouldnt be needed to kill frigates anyway.

Or rather i give an idea, and the only rebuttal i get, is that cruisers are hard to get?

I am confused?

double post error, see below...

I saw in another thread somewhere that a group has changed the armor to half value, and then they put quater value on every single shot that hits too.

So armor 20 becomes armor 10/5, meaning 5 off each hitting shot, and the sum of damage left still has to go through armor 10.

Will that be a fix?

It certainly slows stuff down. Maybe too much.

A Mars pattern broadside (AKA two macrobatteries using the salvo rule) hitting with everything. Does 1d10+2-5 damage six times. Thats 15 damage total minus the 10. A whopping 5 damage after everything has been calculated. (But it did go through a 40 armour because of all that)

Yes it works. Kinda. If you like small numbers. I hope the scaled hit and run atacks accordingly, otherwise itll be wildly unbalanced in favor of boarding everything.

Alox, the system you mention really throws off the balance between macros IMO. A higher +damage macro (like a Ryza) deals way more damage than other macros. Also, you get weird rounding effects with armor (armor plating either doing absolutely nothing or throwing you into the next per hit reduction category).

R Sun Ryza
30 1.03 1.99
40 2.96 5.28
50 5.10 8.84
60 7.47 12.68
70 9.93 16.53
vs Frigate (17)
30 0.52 1.30
40 1.67 3.73
50 3.00 6.43
60 4.53 9.40
70 6.17 12.46
vs Cruiser (20)
30 0.05 0.20
40 0.28 1.02
50 0.62 2.12
60 1.08 3.52
70 1.64 5.19

Voronesh, with the reduced strength system you suggest, when do decide which macro is primary? Before or after you roll to hit? And does rounding normally mean rounding up?

Rounding would be up. But that is to make Mars patterns actually useful. It does get strange with strength 5 though, which is attainable by using BFK rules for best craftmanship ryzas for example. Although best craftmanship weaponry can get such a boost i think.

Deciding which battery would be primary is an interesting question. I was basing this off high BS explorers; at which point it should arely be a problem.

Personally id go for after rolling to hit, since a whiffed primary isnt really a primary battery at all. So id suggest that the pensalty for salvoes is only to be used with the thought of weight of fire in mind. If no firepower reaches the enemy the salvo isnt really a salvo.

Although having to decide before rolling seems like a fun idea as well; first firing in an armourbreaker pattern and a secondary battery in such a way as to exploit said gaps in the armour, but no such mention has been made to my knowledge. I have always assumed its more of a fire as much as possible, so because of that Id allow more leeway for PCs amnd the GM by choosing after rolling.

I believe with those additions that macrocannons will be still better than lances at high BS when players can achieve lots of DoS, but will be less powerful than lances for those explorers who do not have an Arch militant or a Void master in their group.