So,

I am writing some rules for turbo lasers for a campaign I am hoping to run. Turbo lasers are highly inaccurate vs fighters, but a hit will make a real mess.

I came up with the following rules.

At range 3 roll 3 attack dice and apply all critical results only. The critical inflicts damage vs shields if the ship has any, but you also suffer the face up effects on the card.

At range 2 roll 2 attack dice and apply all critical results only. The critical inflicts damage vs shields if the ship has any, but you also suffer the face up effects on the card.

At range 1 roll 1 attack die, apply all hit and critical results. The critical inflicts damage vs shields if the ship has any, but you also suffer the face up effects on the card.

The reduction in dice at each range reflects how much harder it gets for a turbo laser to track a fighter at closer range. The range 1 application of all hits reflects the damage that would occur even on a near miss, let's say a shield or hull graze.

If you want to shoot vs capital ships, roll 5 attack dice and apply all hits and crits as hits only.

Turbo Laser towers would have 5 shields and 3 hull, critical hits vs a tower count as normal hits.

Thoughts?

It's, uh, harder to track things at close range?

Someone over at BGG has this:

http://boardgamegeek.com/article/13187232

Turbo Laser being harder to hit at close range could make perfect sense. It doesn't swivel very fast, so the closer a more maneuverable is the harder it is to track.

This, of course, wouldn't be a problem for Capital Ship vrs Capital Ship which is the primary use for Turbo Lasers.

[Edited link]

It might be hard to track something at close range, but how would it be harder than hitting something further away?

Should Turbolasers have a range of greater than 3? It seems that is awfully close for capital ship to capital ship action.

It might be hard to track something at close range, but how would it be harder than hitting something further away?

It's entirely possible for this to be the case because of deflection - I'll try and explain. Let's assume that a turbolaser turret can track a target and rotates at a rate of 30 degrees per second.

Target A is travelling perpendicular to the turret at a rate of 500m/s at a distance of 1000m. In one second it produces a deflection of 27 degrees (you can work this out with a triangle calculator). The turbolaser turret can track it and shoot at it.

Target B is travelling perpendicular to the turret at a rate of 500m/s at a distance of 500m. In one second it produces a deflection of 45 degrees. The turbolaser turret can't track that target and can't shoot at it.

This is obviously one example designed to demonstrate how deflection impacts the ability to hit something - if the fighter were flying straight at the target (0 degrees of deflection) then the turret will have an easier time to hit it when it is closer, but if the fighter breaks across the view of the turret then it will have better chances of dodging fire from turrets that are slow to track.

_{The ideas aren't perfect I agree, but turbolaser's turn slowly so locking a fast moving fighter in close would be harder than at range.}

_{It's also why I had different rules for capital ships.}

_{I think anything over range 3 would break the game somewhat. Keep the feedback coming.}

_Thx

Actually, WAAAAGH, it probably would be. You'd have to get an engineer or someone to explain the math behind it, but it requires much smaller adjustments to track something at long range, versus short range. Just imagine trying to draw a bead on a deer or something if it was running 100 yards out, verus 5 feet in front of you. In the first case you can draw a nice steady bead, get a little lead on it, and you're good. In close, it's going to be in and out of your field of vision before you can ever even look down the barrel. I'm sure there's a sciencey term for that effect, but yeah I think something like a turbolaser absolutely would have an easier time tracking and swiveling to fire at a fighter a ways out, rather than right in close.

Note, that's for a small, fast moving thing - obviously that's less true with other capital ships, hence the whole "we won't last long in close with those Star Destroyers" thing.

I really like this idea.

The only problem I see is any confusion coming from a critical hit taking a shield and then still applying its effect. It might get incorrectly counted as a damage card applied against the hull strength later in the game.

Maybe it would be easier to just count every hit from a turbo laser as a critical after the shields are down.

@ jasonkw. You raise an excellent point. I'll think on how to distinguish the two.

I think Porkins should have an ability to be hit easier by Turbolasers. Just my opinion.

Anytime he rolls blanks on his defense dice he crashes and explodes.

It seems like it would be hard to coordinate big guns firing at small ships, but then again those guns are very unlikely to care about range at this scale. Also, deflection issues decrease with the square of the distance so at this scale it really shouldn't matter even if you are talking about big, big guns. On a pure game balance note, if you are rolling 3 dice at long range AND able to choose targets, it would be very easy to completely dominate your opponent by having every gun pick distant targets and hammering away with dozens of dice every turn.

I think you would be better off having every TurboLaser on the board shoot at the closest target. This would give you incentive to place guns near the targets you are trying to protect as well as make it harder to cherry-pick specific targets using your TurboLasers. If you want a particular ship dead, send out the fighters and take them ship to ship (which would explain why Vader and co. launched, to eliminate the torpedo ships). You don't shoot Turbo Lasers normally. Instead, at the beginning of the turn each Turbo Laser nominates the ship it is shooting at, then when that ship moves you treat that ship as if it had run over an obstacle with its movement template (not landed on it, just moved over it). Roll for damage, apply the hit or crit, and the ship loses its action (because it was busy taking evasive maneuvers so the big guns couldn't track it). Alternately, the target can choose to keep its action but will have to roll twice for damage since he isn't evading. I can imagine Porkins took a hit, and decided to keep his action in order to have R5D6 repair the damage (which is why he thought he could hold it), but got wiped out by a double hit/crit by the TurboLasers before he could fix it.

I thought of requiring TurboLasers to pick the closet target. But then I'd use the cheapest ships as cannon fodder and use torp/missiles at rage three on platforms.

How about... Every TurboLaser must target a different small (fighters) and/or large ship (MF, FS or Lambda).

That would probably work best. Turbo Lasers must target the nearest ship NOT already targeted by another Turbo Laser. You could still screen your torpedo ships (which is the point of sending multiple ships down the trench at once, and makes for some strategy), but you couldn't completely protect them by having one sacrificial goat get slaughtered.

This would also provide incentive for the Imperial player to have ships in the battle. If you relied only on Turbo Lasers, you might not be able to do anything about that well-screened Y-Wing about to rain protons down on you.

Actually, WAAAAGH, it probably would be. You'd have to get an engineer or someone to explain the math behind it, but it requires much smaller adjustments to track something at long range, versus short range. Just imagine trying to draw a bead on a deer or something if it was running 100 yards out, verus 5 feet in front of you. In the first case you can draw a nice steady bead, get a little lead on it, and you're good. In close, it's going to be in and out of your field of vision before you can ever even look down the barrel. I'm sure there's a sciencey term for that effect, but yeah I think something like a turbolaser absolutely would have an easier time tracking and swiveling to fire at a fighter a ways out, rather than right in close.

Note, that's for a small, fast moving thing - obviously that's less true with other capital ships, hence the whole "we won't last long in close with those Star Destroyers" thing.

Here, let me give you an analogy, based on my own experiences: I've spent more time than I'd care to admit in the turret of an up-armored Humvee. The hand crank is slow and unwieldy, this is true, but I guarantee you I would still have an easier time hitting targets at close range with an M249 or M240 than I would leading targets several hundred meters away.

If you still can't empathize, hopefully some of you out there have played MechWarrior Online. Is it difficult to track a light mech at close range with an Atlas? Absolutely. Is it harder than hitting a light mech at distance with a pulse laser? Absolutely not.

Anytime he rolls blanks on his defense dice he crashes and explodes.

You also must state "I've got a problem here." Once you are hit.

Actually, WAAAAGH, it probably would be. You'd have to get an engineer or someone to explain the math behind it, but it requires much smaller adjustments to track something at long range, versus short range. Just imagine trying to draw a bead on a deer or something if it was running 100 yards out, verus 5 feet in front of you. In the first case you can draw a nice steady bead, get a little lead on it, and you're good. In close, it's going to be in and out of your field of vision before you can ever even look down the barrel. I'm sure there's a sciencey term for that effect, but yeah I think something like a turbolaser absolutely would have an easier time tracking and swiveling to fire at a fighter a ways out, rather than right in close.

Note, that's for a small, fast moving thing - obviously that's less true with other capital ships, hence the whole "we won't last long in close with those Star Destroyers" thing.

I get all that, but I still have to disagree. Further targets are going to be A) smaller, and B) require much more lead time.

Here, let me give you an analogy, based on my own experiences: I've spent more time than I'd care to admit in the turret of an up-armored Humvee. The hand crank is slow and unwieldy, this is true, but I guarantee you I would still have an easier time hitting targets at close range with an M249 or M240 than I would leading targets several hundred meters away.

If you still can't empathize, hopefully some of you out there have played MechWarrior Online. Is it difficult to track a light mech at close range with an Atlas? Absolutely. Is it harder than hitting a light mech at distance with a pulse laser? Absolutely not.

WonderWAAAGH, nobody is trying to take away your experience and you are, as always, entitled to your own opinion. Granted, some f your points are quite valid and true, but you must admit that there are many other things that actually do make it much harder/impractical or even impossible to hit with large guns/turrets or similar in VERY close range??

Nobody is saying that calculating lead time/distance is easy, but if I was tanding (or flying) right in front of your slow moving turret (IRL or in the game) it would be very easy/fast for me to move around the barrel, let's just say a few meters and then it would take a looong time to turn it around AND acquire a new Lock", wouldn't it??

That's kinda also why some missiles/torps aren't suited for close combat, they simply can't turn/adjust fast enough on that close of a range.

So it seems okay to me, and remember, it's just for fun :-)

I like the idea of targeting the nearest untargeted ship.

I also like this idea for the shooting accuracy of the Turbolasers. I am not sure they had their own shields per se but this could just represent thick armour. Another thought I had was to have a "Control Tower" or a "Director Fire Control Tower" that could allow Turbolasers to get improved attacks. This could be either to extend the range they can shoot or give them a reroll of one die. This Tower could then become a target in its own right.

Also, what happens when a ship runs through or hits a Turbolaser Tower? Is it just like an asteroid? I would think it should be more fatal, if you clip an object that is anchored to a large mass (Death Star) then you are highly likely to be sent crashing into the larger mass with devastating results. The Turbolaser could also be damaged this way.

Actually, WAAAAGH, it probably would be. You'd have to get an engineer or someone to explain the math behind it, but it requires much smaller adjustments to track something at long range, versus short range. Just imagine trying to draw a bead on a deer or something if it was running 100 yards out, verus 5 feet in front of you. In the first case you can draw a nice steady bead, get a little lead on it, and you're good. In close, it's going to be in and out of your field of vision before you can ever even look down the barrel. I'm sure there's a sciencey term for that effect, but yeah I think something like a turbolaser absolutely would have an easier time tracking and swiveling to fire at a fighter a ways out, rather than right in close.

Note, that's for a small, fast moving thing - obviously that's less true with other capital ships, hence the whole "we won't last long in close with those Star Destroyers" thing.

I get all that, but I still have to disagree. Further targets are going to be A) smaller, and B) require much more lead time.

Here, let me give you an analogy, based on my own experiences: I've spent more time than I'd care to admit in the turret of an up-armored Humvee. The hand crank is slow and unwieldy, this is true, but I guarantee you I would still have an easier time hitting targets at close range with an M249 or M240 than I would leading targets several hundred meters away.

If you still can't empathize, hopefully some of you out there have played MechWarrior Online. Is it difficult to track a light mech at close range with an Atlas? Absolutely. Is it harder than hitting a light mech at distance with a pulse laser? Absolutely not.

WonderWAAAGH, nobody is trying to take away your experience and you are, as always, entitled to your own opinion. Granted, some f your points are quite valid and true, but you must admit that there are many other things that actually do make it much harder/impractical or even impossible to hit with large guns/turrets or similar in VERY close range??

Nobody is saying that calculating lead time/distance is easy, but if I was tanding (or flying) right in front of your slow moving turret (IRL or in the game) it would be very easy/fast for me to move around the barrel, let's just say a few meters and then it would take a looong time to turn it around AND acquire a new Lock", wouldn't it??

That's kinda also why some missiles/torps aren't suited for close combat, they simply can't turn/adjust fast enough on that close of a range.

So it seems okay to me, and remember, it's just for fun :-)

I can admit that it would be all but impossible to hit a fast moving ship at very close range, assuming the laser battery has abysmal traverse speed (and we're just assuming here - they could potentially operate like the turrets on the Falcon). But that begs the question, what is very close range? I think range 1 is close, but it doesn't imply that the ships are right next to each other. Look at Anti-Pursuit Laser - you have to make base contact in order for it to trigger, and that still doesn't represent two ships being close enough to make physical contact.

Look, if you really want to emulate poor traverse speed, give the laser battery a smaller firing arc.

Everyone ignored my explanation of deflection then?

Smaller firing arcs are another excellent way of reflecting the 'unwieldy-ness' of turbolasers in the game. Give them 30 degree fire arcs and only allow them to turn 30-45 degrees when rotating and you add another dimension to maneuvering etc.

You could also force them to attack the closest legal target (unlike fighters, turrets can't move to shoot over/above intervening ships), or you could give fighters an extra 'Protect' action which would allow fighters like A/X wings the ability to screen B/Y wings.

I think you're making turbolasers overly complicated.

Make them like any other ship with a movement dial that is just 0-movement turns. Maybe make the 90° turns red, or something, while 45° are white and no movement is green. Here is your 'slow' tracking. It will be pretty easy for ships to dodge the firing arcs.

I think one would have a 3 die attack that has the text "Treat all 'hit results' and 'focus results' as 'crit results'. Whenever Turbolasers hit a target, remove 1 shield token before applying damage."

For actions it would have Target Lock and a new action called 'Power to shields!' Power to Shields!: "You have -1 attack for this round, and gain 1 shield token (to a maximum of your shield rating)."

Way too much effort being made here. We've run Degobah Dave's trench run scenario a few time (turrets were 2 attack dice) and had 12 turrets on the board each time. The turrets are PS 0 and never took down anything, mostly because they never got a chance to fire.

Leave them at PS 0 and forget the extra rules.