We've found it to work out well too. Ships that pack on a bunch of batteries are no longer buzzsaws and the bigger ships having only a bit more points seem to last longer in the attrition battles. All's good.

I would only fear that pirates simply arent a real threat anymore.

Giving them 3 hits for a each of the two Mars Patterns they carry (I know im just playing devils advocate here, but think abotu the successful Iconoclast), youd get one salvo that does nothing, since 2 hits equals 15 damage, if it gets lucky it damages a frigate, but needs alot of luck to get past a cruiser, 3 hits are 23 damage on average. Unlucky shots wont do scratch and lcuky shots will do around 10+ damage. I do not know if the BFK supplement would allow Iconoclast squadrons to do any meaningful damage.

PCs will rarely run Mars patterns, being RT dynasties and all that.

But I will agree, it is the simplest fix to Lances being too weak! OTOH when i sit in a cruiser i will try to fit dual broadsides anyway . No need to combine them into a salvo, up to now in mock battles i never used that rule, and the PCs would still own alot of opposition.

Disruption Macrocannons make pirates terrifying.

Errant said:

True, but its a SP2 macrocannon (like a Ryza) and Iconoclasts (supposed to be THE pirate vessel along with the wolfpack probably) do not carry them.

Would make alot of sense though.

Who said 40k fluff was written with intelligence and logic in mind though ?

Etheric said:

Why would you want them to? Lances need more ressources (mainly power) and are more restricted in use (at least on Frigates and smaller, they can only fire in the front arch, opposing to the 270 degree arc of a dorsal battery), so in my opinion the lance should be better or at least equal.

I've done this. It works very well. Packs of raider are still a danger but one or two on their own against a PC ship is not as big a treat. Star ship battles should be wars of attrition until you get to the big guys like Cruisers and such.

I'm also trying out upping all lance damage by an additional d10. But I can't say if that's a good idea yet as I've only run a single battle doing it. It seemed to go well and make it very... let's say, interesting, but I'll need some more data and testing to be sure if I keep it up.

2 things I don't like: The OP's houserule of removing the ability to combine salvos, and macrobatteries RAW.

This is some really quick math and examples, so bear with me. In the following examples, everything will be based on 6 successes. Our ship is going to be going up against a cruiser with 2 void shields and 20 armor, scoring minimum, average and then maximum damage examples. The successes will be at max strength, to display the extremes. The first example of each weapon combination will be with RAW, the 2nd with the OP's proposed houserule. Damage will not include a munitorium for macrobattery damage bonus.

Max damage of the broadside is 12 per hit, so 6 on average, with 6 strength. Lance is 15 max so 7.5 on average, with 2 strength.

Dual Mars Pattern Macro Broadsides (6 Strength)
Min: 10 damage, or 0 damage (nothing passed armor)
Avg: 40 damage, or 8 damage (4 damage passed armor from each)
Max: 100 damage, or 56 damage (28 damage passed armor from each)

As you can see, with an Emperor Blessed total of 12 successes and hits, 2 are blocked by the enemy's void shields. 10 are sent to armor. Even with mild rolls you get over half the hull integrity of a cruiser. But you just rolled 12+ successes, isnt that your right? On the other hand, with the OP's houerule, despite obviously having His unwavering support, on an average damage roll you do a whopping EIGHT damage! (if you're lucky enough to roll two separate broadsides with 6+ success each, fighting a chaos cruiser, you're looking at over 8 turns to bring down a single ship. Imagine if you only rolled 6 successes even 50% of the time, that's still SIXTEEN turns)

Now here's the easy part to wrap your mind around if you missed it in my incoherent argument: With the OP's rule it would REQUIRE a mars pattern macro broadside firer to obtain 6 success with each broadside in order to do a whopping 8 damage a turn on average. I zone out every time I think about it because it is so ridiculous.

Mars Pattern Macro Broadside + Titanforge Lance Battery
Min: 10 damage (0 broadside, 10 lance), 0 damage (0 broadside, 0 lance)
Avg: 19 damage (4 broadside, 15 lance), 4 damage (4 broadside, 0 lance)
Max: 58 damage (28 broadside, 30 lance), 28 damage (28 broadside, 0 lance)

Oh and by the way, if you're wondering why the OP's lance never does any damage: Since you're using "real" logic to determine that a broadside can't salvo with a broadside, why can a broadside salvo with a lance? Goodbye lance damage due to void shields coming back online after the macrobatteries shut them down! Unless you've got some uber capital ship with a strength 3 lance and manage to roll 9 successes on a single test (or 6, if its one of those special 2-success lances).

Ridiculousness of not being able to combine ANY two weapon components into a single salvo aside, all the OP's rule does is force you to use a lance, whether you like it or not, to be able to reliably damage the opponent almost every single turn. As long as you roll 1 success with your macrobattery and a basic success with your lance, you do damage. With 2 batteries, it varies with how lucky your damage rolls are but you're gonna need an average 3-4 successes per broadside to reliably damage the opponent.

Sorry, long post, I kinda ramble, but it all makes sense in my head. I'm a talker, not a typer.

MAX damage is 10+2

Average damage is 5.5+2

Average damage for a Mars pattern broadside with all 6 hits is: 7.5*6=45, doing 25 damage per broadside.

BTW youre example of a single battery doing 24 damage with a full hit is also wrong. 6*6 should be 36 doing 16 damage past armour.

I do not know what you are calculating there.

Voronesh said:

For one, I don't have the number 24 anywhere in my post.

Two, a single broadside with full successes does not hit the target 6 times, it hits 4 times, seeing as how said target is a cruiser with 2 void shields. Do you know what void shields are?

Three, yes I was wrong about the average. I just got off graveyard shift and I'm tired, forgot to average 1d10 and add 2 instead of halving 12.

So you're 1 for 3.

Edit: I see where you see 24 now, though I don't have 24 there, I have 4 after -20 from armor. But still. Void shields. Still 1 for 3.

going to put the quote from the rules that shows why you made your mistake and why you are wrong read the whole paragraph. ( if there a mistake in quote i am sorry this was typed not copied and pasted)

Rogue trader core page 221

However, void shields can be overloaded. Once they have reduced there strength in hits, They overload and shut down. Any remaining hits in that salvo will hit the target, and any further shots fired against the target by the attacking ship will also hit the target unimpeded by shields.

as those reading all of it will see if you stop after seeing only the remaing shots in salvo you will miss the part about all shots from the ship to

also for the choosing what shots hit void shields that is part of salvoing not that it is a big deal but you whould have to make two rules instead of just one one to remove salvoing and another to bring part of the salvo rules back

WhiteLycan said:

Plase stop the ad hominem.

You got the void shields wrong. I simply ignored them, because they never showed up in your calculations. (I assumed the Prow weapon knocks em down, and then gets ignored due to salvo removal, 1 or two hit never does damage against armour 20 (2 hits max damage maybe; how often is that gpoing to happen)).

So do we want to try that discussion again from the start?

Just to re-sound what Xerty said:

When macrobatteries deals damage, that means the void shields is down. So the lance can go in without hindered by shields nor armour.

"However, void shields can be overloaded. Once they have reduced there strength in hits, They overload and shut down. Any remaining hits in that salvo will hit the target, and ANY FURTHER SHOTS fired against the target by the attacking ship will also hit the target unimpeded by shields." Core p221.

Well what I understand from the OP is, if we combine macrobattery salvos, we can (most likely) deals more damage than macrobattery + lance, or lance+lance.

@WhiteLycan: I'm really sorry maybe since I'm not a mathematician, but I still unable to understand why the OP's Lance can never deal damage...

Using the assumption of 6 successes each... and average damage (6 for battery, 7.5 for lance).. I'd just try to examine battery-salvo, battery-battery, and battery-lance, using your theorem (adjusted with the rules above from p221 brought by Xerty)

1 Battery-salvo:

6 successes each, total 12 successes. -2 from Void Shields. Now the shields is down for ANY FURTHER ATTACKS from this attacking ship. Combine remaining 10 successes, equals to 60 damage. -20 Armour, equals 40 damage. (same number)

2. Battery-battery:

6 success each. First: -2 from void shields, only 4 unimpeded. 24 damage, -20 armour = 4 damage. Second: Shield is down. 6 hits unimpended, 36 damage. -20 armour = 16 damage. total damage = 20 damage.

3. Battery-Lance:

6 success each. First: same as above, 4 damage. Second: Shield is down. 2 Strength Lance = 15 damage unimpended by armour. total is 19 damage.

Well, dual battery sounds still good in an average situation even if we remove the salvos.... But maybe I made many mistakes along the way, feel free to correct me

I really like this idea. Gives some of the teeth back to larger ships.

With regards to raiders and pirates; they're glass cannons and opportunistic hunters. I would imagine that they wouldn't go up against anything of light cruiser size or larger unless at least one of them was packing a lance, disruption cannons, or torpedoes. If they don't have that kind of armament, they flee. That's the advantage of being a raider, you can outrun anything you can't cripple with the first volley. Against frigates, other raiders, and transports, their macrocannons under these rules still pose enough of a threat to be effective.

Telosse said:

the math of this was discused in another thread so i'll not bore others by reapting it other then to say this makes it so there is very little differnse betwen macros lnace at mid lvl balistic skills (read un bossted pc's lances better at low skill (read npc) and batteries still king though not by the buzz saw perpotions in raw at high bs(read pc's using all the tricks) the thing the math people disliked about it was how crappy the 3 strengh batteris became every thing else balanced Fairly WELL but yes it massivly slowes the ship battles down

Okay so my math stems from a basic misunderstanding of Void Shields. I thought that the reason you salvo'd was so that you get 2 weapon components only affecting void shields once. I thought for each separate attack not salvo'd that void shields came back up. But this just makes me wonder... what is the point of salvoing when it apparently inflicts neither penalty nor bonus.

do not feel like looking it up but i belive you could only salvo battiers and the bouns was only couting armor once and deciding witch hits (before rolloing damage) hit the shields wich is a huge bouns, hence the buzzsaw batterie problem. though imditly the problem is only relevent when bs gets over 40 (this a guess the other thread with the math could be more prcisenumber) at or below that the raw rules work just fine

WhiteLycan said:

Salvoes can only crit once. So even if you combine 3 macrobatteries into a salvo, you only crit once.

But the damage is treated like it is a single weapon component firing. Since a dead enemy is more beneficial, the stock rules promote macrobatteris and high damage output.

Ohhhh I get it. 2 separate components roll individually against armor, whereas 2 salvo'd components roll together against armor. Void shields have no bearing on whether you separate your components or not. I get it now, makes things a lot clearer. Unfortunately, understanding that doesn't fix the broken-ness of salvos. Hm.

Apologies all around, my head got to big for me to hold up and just began banging on the keyboard. Sorry!

Ahh no....

Both components roll separately. But you combine the damage into one huge stack. Otherwise salvoeing for broadsides is impossible (although i dont use it, PCs roll way too good anyway ^^).

But if you crit twice, it doesnt matter, since the salvo allows a maximum of 1 crit, regardless which macrobattery did actually crit.

Voronesh said:

Ahh yes....

You really need to work on figuring out what people quite obviously mean without having to spell it out meticulously... 2nd time in this thread you've completely missed a part of my post that was insinuated or should have just been plain obvious.

"Ohhhh I get it. 2 separate (i.e. not salvo'd) components [would] roll damage individually against armor, whereas 2 salvo'd components [would] roll damage together against armor."

Get it now? I was basically reiterating what Xerty's last post stated.

Nah im just assuming that people who make gross mathematical mistakes and do not know how certain rules work might be just wrong on multiple accounts.

Thats all.

acualy, considering they way the part about all shots from same ship was said, i whould be surpised if many people had caught it first time through. i might even go far as most people. Many people scim more then properly read rule books sense the neritve of rules is not generaly entertaing, but as the oversight has now been pointed out, and corrcted, we can drop it. till the next time it happens anyways