Yep, that is a great system. I should do the math once and compare it with the chances a macrobattery has in BFG, but darn, that would be complicated. Far too much for a simple historian.

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Page 113 Massed Fire/Squadron Firing

Now little ships can mass lances to take out a big ship. Even lance only capital ships can do this - three cruisers firing together looks really ugly for anyone on the other end. This rule implies that the rule of 1 void shield means 1 void vs all ships firing at it is negated.

No one ever complained about lances being to powerful, rather the opposite, batteries being overpowerd compared to lances. And many (small) ships concentrating their lances, aye, that was and will be a problem to any ship, as it should be. I am still pondering about making them nastier, I just like those incandescent beams of power and doom. Huzzah for lances!

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I added a simple d10 to any lance. (plus gíving salvoes only half strength beyond the first).

But Moribunds system works without such shenanigans and only needs lances to require one less DoS to hit. Basically a macrocannon broadside will hit with everything at 2 DoS, exactly like a lance battery. (beware of the truly deadly arecheotech lance then)

I am most definitely not switching back. I wonder what made FFG create a whole new system for space combat, when a port from personal combat works equally well (ok better actually).

I allow them to score multiple hits and crits and make them tearing. Lances should be terrifying.

I am considering (even with the extra's) a switch, where lances:

- Each point of strength gives one lance shot, so STR 1 is one shot, STR 2 is two shots and STR 3 is three shots. Each is resolved individually.

- Each degree of succes adds one extra point of damage to the lance hit, with up to 6 successes , giving a damage range of 5-20 for a Titanforge for example. This gives a difference between glancing blows and full hits.

Sadly enough, I am no parser genius, so no clue how this would work out. But this would make lance batteries terrifying.

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bobh said:

This would make lance batteries useless, or did you omit a rulechange for them. Tearing is hardly balancing for them. Its basically 1.65 extra damage per hit.

I am considering (even with the extra's) a switch, where lances:

- Each point of strength gives one lance shot, so STR 1 is one shot, STR 2 is two shots and STR 3 is three shots. Each is resolved individually.

- Each degree of succes adds one extra point of damage to the lance hit, with up to 6 successes , giving a damage range of 5-20 for a Titanforge for example. This gives a difference between glancing blows and full hits.

Sadly enough, I am no parser genius, so no clue how this would work out. But this would make lance batteries terrifying.

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Sounds good. Though any extra damage will make capital fights even shorter. And it doesnt help too much that NPC will be largely unaffected by these changes, meaning that PCs will still rip crioser apart with frigates. Just something to keep in mind, since this is the Capital ship thread

Well, one problem of weak capital ships is that they just fail to inspire enough dread at the moment. One of the reasons is that with the average crew stats a capital ship will not deliver those devastating macrobattery hits a PC ship can crunch out with disturbing regularity. On the other hand, a reasonable NPC cruiser has a crew stat of 40 or 50. Add some components and you get pretty fast up to 45% to 60% chance to hit. I am not sure how the maths are, but this gives a lance battery a good chance of scoring multiple hits. The danger of a Lunar that has a good chance of stripping shields and doing a fair bit of damage with its macrobattery, then following up with a lance attack that should deliver one and with reasonable luck two hits, ouch, that will make PC's think. If I am right and take a BS of 50%, two chances of one in two are better then a chance of one in two and a chance of one in five.

On shorter fights with capital ships, well yes, unless you completely chance the system that is unavoidable. Still, it will take quite a few lance hits to disable a cruiser. On the whole, it seems that for capital ships FFG used more or less the conversion, 1 hit in BFG is about 9/10 hull in RT (which makes your average frigate a 4 hit BFG ship). Now stronger frigates are fine with me, as BFG intentionally made escorts very weak, but my 'feeling' goes more towards a hull integrity/mass relationship on the order of 1/3/4 for frigates and raiders/light cruisers/cruisers instead of the 2/3/4 relation we have now. The easiest way to achieve this would be by doubling the hull points of all capital ships, but then there is the whole extra host of problems that appear, like crew and morale rating. Halving the damage here is of course and option.

In each case, a lance hit being able to do 20 damage is a serious threat to any escort. Taking the values of the above, 2 good lance hits could spell the doom of an approaching destroyer ready to unleash its torpedoes, just as they would do with a '2 hit' BFG escort. And just for the record, it is not my wish to recreate BFG here, but I would appreciate more 'Shock and Awe' when facing up to a capital ship. Just as in D&D, a huge firespewing monster should not go down in a few hits and should be able to do terrible havoc on PC's.

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Oops, forgot one thing in the attempt at lance house rules:

- A weapon system can still only score one critical hit in each strategic turn. As such, only the first lance shot of a lance battery can score a crit.

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You are right about that.

One note, currently a broadside is pretty much useless (how often do you get 4 or 5 DoS). If you can do it a Ryza + Munitorium is far more dangerous.

Another problem for NPCs:

With a BS of 50 (due to 40 base + ship masters bridge) you will porbably miss one shot and get a decent shot in. Or two barely hits ...(or miss twice, or hit twice spectacularly). Basically NPCs are simply screwed by the fact, that they miss the Void Master. If you add one for every Navy vessel, since its only logical that on is present, Navy vessels become true terrors. But not before.

Ive had far too many battles become lopsided affairs, because the NPCs failt at close to every roll. Rak'Gol cruiser, down in two turns, simply because RT Space combat is immensely fast-paced as of right now. If PCs with good stats are present. If all you have are pirates with a BS of 30, battles can take forever.....

The main deciding factor is that i have the feeling that RT was written with 50- for BS but players simply push the envelope towards 60+ BS. I could be very wrong about that, but NPCs slug it out forever and a single PC ship will be a hot knife through butter.

I think you are on the mark there. With a BS of 30-50 macrobatteries are far less impressive then they are in the hands of players and the basic lance does reasonably well (if still underperforming for space and power used). But with players that scoff at such stats, the whole picture changes, and it becomes no longer a question of hitting, but doing full damage on a broadside 4 times in 10, which becomes far too much of a good thing. Lance hits at least offer NPC ships a chance to do some real damage. Ooh, and torpedoes might give a fair walloping too.

Obviously, the game is designed to give players the edge, and considering it is heroic RP this is not bad in se. The problem seems to be that it is quite easy to munchkin the system, making real threats far too easy to remove. As a player that is spending more attention on ensuring that his Kapelmeister has the best boys voices of the ship availiable for his choir (as in music, no Astropathic powers of dooom) then on his personnal weapon (for some reason I still use that hellpistol I started with) , I am sometimes flabbergasted seeing discussions about what mutations to take -voluntarily!- to improve an Arch Militant. Now the last thing I wish to do is dictate anyone their style of play, but such talk is a clear whistle of the Munchkin on Deck. As a game designer it would make me ponder if I might have overdone it here or there...On the other hand, as a GM (verrry evil grin) I would enjoy players taking mutations out of their free will. What was it, kill the mutant, burn the heretic, destroy the traitor? Not that important, I guess they are all applicable. The clarity strict adherence to God-Emperor gives is so refreshing.

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van Riebeeck said:

Being a Min/Maxer is not a bad thing. Im a tactician myself so an optimization of my equipment is only logical, within reason. I wouldnt think of adding a mutationf or the benefit thats taling iot way too far.

The main problem is what you said, while the system is supposed to give players the edge, a little bit of min/maxing and even cruisers seem like breakfast for a PC vessel. For some reason personal combat is far different, being influenced by DH and DW. Space combat is the sole prerogative of RT, and here the heroic rpg really shines through, maybe a tad bit too much.